excuse your selves with them in the Gospel I have bought this and that and I cannot come I have so many Custodiums I cannot mind these things I have so much to do in the world and it is to be minded A poor ditch-water that is preferred before this Wine of the Kingdom will dross and dung meat and husks which is Swines meat nourish your souls to eternal life make as much account brethren of these things as you will to slight now the matters of eternity time will come when you would give all the fruit of your labours if it were a thousand times more for one sight of Jesus Christ one taste of his love one hours communion withhim before you go hence and be no more Alas But some will say I am a poor sinner the vilest filthy creature lame and blind and have all my life time been feeding with Swine upon husks and swill and trash these delights of sin and pleasures of the world O my days are consumed in sin and doth he invite such as I and may I come Yea brethren you find the poor lame and blind from the hedges and high-ways side were invited to his feast if you come but to Jesus Christ he will open the eys of the blind he hath eyeâ—alve for you and he will be legs to the lame and cloathing to the naked if you do but come to him put on Christ It is not any other infirmities which will abide upon the best of Gods people in part that can exclude us or cast us out but only the want of the wedding Garment if a man be never so well furnished otherwise as he thinketh O therefore come Brethren the Feast is made for such as you you are invited to it the simple the man void of understanding that is to say the sinner for sin is folly in Scripture-phrase you are invited to turn in this day to the Feast the Marriage-feast which is begun here upon earth but will end in heaven therefore be not discouraged Ah but you will say I have no such appetite to the Feast to hunger and thirst and is there any invited to come to it but such as have an appetite what shall they do there I answer no marvel thou hast no great appetite until thou hast more communion with him if thou hast had any And no marvel if thou hast no appetite if thov hast never been with Jesus for thou hast so long lived upon trash that it takes away the stomack to the sweetest and wholsomest food in the world But withal remember this who ever will is invited to come brethren and take freely It may be thou dost not find poor sinner such a strong desire such a breaking of soul for longing but hast thou a Will wouldst thou have Christ wouldst thou have his body this meat indeed this blood this drink indeed this wine of the Kingdom and begin this Feast this Marriage-feast upon earth why dost thou not take him then come and take it freely O that this might be the day of his power to many of your poor souls that you might become a willing people that you might have a heart to close with him to take him upon his own terms that you might begin your heaven upon earth your communion with Jesus Christ I will but add one word more and that is this It is no indifferent thing whether you close with this invitation or no there is a necessity lies upon you to come to the Marriage-feast except you resolve upon it to perish for ever God he was wroth and sent forth his armies to destroy c. Ah what gnashing of teeth will there be to poor sinners in hell when they shall see their neighbours who heard this Gospel with them sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob at the table of Christ in his kingdom and themselves cast out Ah brethren I beg for you a believing heart you must either feast with Christ or starve for ever with Satan and his Angels and then not a drop will be had to cool your tongues now flagons are tendered you now wine and milk without money and price now rivers of pleasures at Gods right hand and fulness of joy is promised you is held out to you cometh a begging to you Ah then then brethren shall you beg for a drop and shall not have it rivers of burning brimstone will be your bathing when the Saints are swallowed up of those rivers of pleasures at his right hand then will you be chewing upon your gall and wormwood then will you be breaking your teeth upon your gravel when the Saints are drinking this new wine in the kingdom of their Father with Jesus Christ Ah think of it brethren think of it you have now your good things many of your eyes stand out with fatness you spend a world upon your lusts live like Epicures wantonizing in the abundance of your enjoyments how woful will that sentence be Son remember thou in thy life time hadst thy good things and now thou art tormented hadst thy wine and drinking unto drunkenness now the stings of it abide upon thee the Saints have their worst first and the best kept until the last but you have your consolation in this world and the wine of astonishment will be your portion for ever if you will not be perswaded Therefore take your choice brethren I set life and death before you and consider of it How will you escape if you neglect this great salvation you may now be received to the Feast the door stands open it will not alway be so it will be shut against you O how will you answer it another day before the Lord Jesus if you now trample under foot his blood and precious offers of his Grace though by the hand and mouth of a poor worm like your selves Thirdly Then Brethren let as many as have received power to believe in the Lord Jesus and so are admitted to the beginning of this Marriage-supper upon earth to inward fellowship with Jesus Christ in the Graces of his Spirit and merits of his death and resurrection labour brethren to prepare your selves for this Feast in heaven by feeding heartily upon these dainties upon earth the more men eat and drink the more their stomacks are extended usually and the more they will receive surely it is so in spirituals the more a soul feeds upon Christ and the more abundantly he drinketh the more he may it enlargeth the desires Hitherto saith our Saviour you have asked nothing little or nothing Ask and ye shall receive that your joy may be full the more abundantly the soul is satisfied with the goodness of the house of God the more will the mouth be opened to receive now as our capacities do enlarge so much the more fitter are we for this Marriage-feast O therefore let us not come to the table of the Lord brethren this sign and
when they see the very gate of mercy shut against them O say sinners here we shall have peace though we walk after the imaginations of our own hearts to add drunkenness to thirst thoâ—gh God have told such men His anger shall smoke against that man yet they are confident nothing will drive them to seek a Christ to make their peace with him to accept of deliverance and no marvel for when they see the mouth of hell opened for them and the belly of hell moved for them and the gates of heaven shut against them and they have no Christ to appear in yet they have the face and boldness as to cry Lord Lord open to us Secondly It may teach us to have an holy jealousie and an holy pitty over poor creatures that can be and are upon their death-beds so confident so presumptuous they can come to God without a Christ having all their life long trampled his precious blood under their feet rested in their formalities and yet can cry out then to God to open to them as if thy were the only Saints upon earth and were the only men of faith Ah brethren so they may do and yet be but foolish Virgins how have they carried it in their lives they would never be perswaded to call upon God morning and evening to pray in closet in family to make sure of Christ and yet now they will not stick to appear and cry for heaven without him O this presumption will not prosper though believing alway prosper you may have the Gate of heaven shut upon you your souls shut out for ever and yet in your extremity have a Lord Lord in your mouths therefore look to it betimes before hand but enough of this The third Note of Doctrine is this Though men will not come to Christ for Grace yet they will come to him for Glory While Jesus Christ is dispensing the Grace of the Kingdom they neglect him and his Grace they are busied about somewhat else but when he is to dispense the Glory of his Kingdom then every one will come to him Luke 14. 18. They cannot come but now they will come This is clear in the present case These foolish Virgins they would not come to Christ for Grace for you see how many times they were beaten off from the Creature and yet they fastned again when their Lamps failed which were sparks of their own kindling or else some common work at most then they went to the wise Virgins not to Christ when they repulsed them sent them away empty they went to them that sold they would by no means come to Jesus Christ not a word of that and yet now the Glory of the Kingdom is to be dispensed you see n ow they cry Lord Lord open to us if they had taken this course before and cryed Lord Lord when their Lamps were gone out O Lord now we see our own sparks dye before they reach heaven O pardon this our Hypocrisie and O give us of thine oyl thou art the Olive-tree pour out of thy oyl into our vessels as they went to the wise Virgins and this in truth of heart they had had oyl they had been ready and entred with Christ no but they would not and see now when the Gate was shut upon them now they cry Lord Lord open to us they would not come to him for the wedding Garment but they would be beholding to him to let them in to the Feast without one though heaven would have held them but a little while if they had entred in that condition So the Jews They would not come to Christ that they might have life that they might have the life of Grace and then the life of Glory but they would come to him to have the life of Glory Ye shall seek me and ye shall not find me but shall die in your sins This is Esau's case prophane Esau he would not keep his birth-right when he had it nor seek it again when he had lost it but the blessing he would have without the birth-right he could part with the birth-right for a mess of pottage for his lust rather then extreme hunger as some think but the blessing he could seek it with tears The grounds of this are such as these First Because it is a principle indelebly written in nature to will happiness the end in general that is to say happiness is not that which cometh under deliberation and matter of choice at all but only the means that tend to that end no man living can possibly prevail with himself to be willing to be miserable it is as natural as for the fire to fly upward or the stone to decline downward A Balaam would die the death of the rigteous he would go to heaven when all is done notwithstanding his Sorceries and Enchantments against Jacob and Divinations against Israel A man would think such a wretch as he that would have cursed Israel fain if God would have hearkened to him a deadly enemy he was to them that he should scarce have desired to come where they should be As I have heard of some whose spleen hath been so great against the people of God that if they came to heaven they would never come thither such are worse then Balaam yet he would die the death of the righteous Secondly Because of the woful ataxie and disorder that is in all our souls whereby we are in all things preposterous in all things that are supernatural in things purely natural and civil we do not expect the end without the means none but fools and mad men do it A man would live and have his health this he desireth therefore he will eat you cannot perswade him to starve himself with hunger he will take physick though never so loathsom never so bitter to him what ever it cost him skin for skin and all he hath he will give for his life this is the highest end he hath in these things but now in spirituals there is nothing but confusion the end we do confusedly aim at we would have it doubtless there is not the veriest unbeliever that heareth this this day but would have heaven and you cannot with all the arguments you can bring make him willing to perish in an everlasting separation from God if he understand any thing what he saith yet he would have this without the means without this union and fellowship with the Lord Jesus whereby he may be made meet for it 3. Because of mens unbelief and unacquaintance with the mysterie of salvation the mysterie of free Grace in Jesus Christ they do not believe that a man must come to Christ for Grace or else they can have no Glory from him That he is the way the truth and the life they think he will save them upon any terms he came to be a Saviour of sinners and sinners they are and a Saviour he is and therefore let Ministers say what
and ruddy the chief among ten thousand either his divinity and Humanity or his fulness of Grace and his bloody Merits in a sweet exact mixture O how beautiful do they make him he is fairer then the sons of men If that beauty will carry it he is the very Paragon of Heaven 3. For Riches there is none like to him This is a great allurement you know indeed for the most part men do marry the gold and riches of the world rather then the person though this be a madness an Heir to a great estate likely will not need a wife Why the Lord Jesus is heir of all things all things in Heaven and Earth He is the onely Son of God the heir apparent of heaven he is being the Son of God so that what ever we want it will be abundantly supplyed in him Abraham his servant wooing saith his Master was rich and had onely one Son and he heir of all Gen. 24. 35 36. 4. If Honours will do it for that is somewhat which much takes with men he is no less then a King and no mean one he is the King of Glory a glorious King indeed as he is called in that Psalm Yea the King of Kings and Lord of Lords Rev. 17. 14. A most high and eminent Kingdom who hath all other Kings at his command a hundred seven and twenty Provinces were a great Dominion but not onely all the Kingdoms of the earth are the Lords and his Christs but by him Kings rule and Princes decree Justice it is by his permission any of them exercise their power 5. For Power as well as Authority and Majesty he it is that can do what he pleaseth he is indeed the Mighty God and what then can stand in his way He is our Maker and there is much in that thy Maker is thy Husband thy Redeemer the Lord of Hosts is his name thy Maker he that gave thee thy beeing when thou haddest none by a word of his mouth O here is power indeed he that could give us a spiritual being by the same word there is yet more power for in the first there was no repugnancy but here there is he is the Lord of Hosts It was much to Israel to consider who was their Husband even the Lord of Hosts he that could Redeem them out of Egypt sink all their enemies in the Red-Sea go as a Captain before them drive out the Canaanites notwithstanding their Iron Chariots the Anakims that were a terror to them He now was their Husband He is a man of war and a most mighty man of valour for that Goliah himself which defies the Armies of Israel is nothing in his hand the roaring Lyon is nothing in his hand he can tear him in pieces and bruise him under his feet even as a Lyon tears a Kid. It is very much brethren this to commend the Lord Jesus to us he can fight our battels for us so that if we can but stand still we shall see the salvation of the Lord. 6. For a lovely sweet disposition which is none of the least desirable things in a Husband O never was there like to Jesus Christ for disposition he is love it self and tenderness it self bowels and compassion it self there is many a one though they have beauty and riches aâ—d honours and birth and power in an Husband yet if there be an unsuitable disposition there be rigidness and harshness it imbitters all O do but observe how sweet a disposition he was of so far from harshness to his people that he melteth over his very enemies that refused him Ah that thou haâ—st known in this thy day c. O how he is touched with our infirmities afflicted in our afflictions A woman that hath such a husband what a sweetning is it to all her afflictions If love will do he â—â—ll never take any other course never any estrangement of himself from a soul here is a Bridegroom indeed But I will not speak any further Brethren you have heard much and much better of the excellencies of Jesus Christ then I am able to speak to you this onely for the second thing There are yet to be considered the Causes which according to their several influences concur to the making up of this relation between Christ and the Church of a Bridegroom and a Bride whichwhen I have spoken somewhat to I will proceed 1. Then The Father he giveth them to his Son and the Son to them This is above comparison though the Father of the Virgin give her give his consent and so the Parents of the Son they give their consent But here is God the Father who doth all he giveth his son for his people and to his people as you have it in that place he so loved the world that he gave his onely begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him might not perish but might be brought in to the nearest unity with him might have life everlasting in communion with him If thou hadst known the gift of God saith he to the woman of Samaria and who saith to thee give me drink or And he giveth us to his Son that is to say as many as were in his purpose of grace thine they were and thou gavest them to me they were thine not so much by Creation for he speaks of many that yet were not created nor are to this day likely created but in the purpose of grace they were hâ—s and as absolute soveraign over all so they were his to do with them as he pleased to have made them vessels of dishonor if he had pleased as Ananias was it not thine own mightest thou not have done with it what thou wouldest So here we were the Fathers as Soveraign all of us and his Christs not onely so but in his purpose of grace he gave them to his Son to be his Spouse his wife 2. But yet Alas they would be under the hands of sin and Satan inslaved in an Iron Furnace hard bondage he must redeem them if he will have them they are sold under sin and Satan the Prince of this world therefore he must pay the price they were obnoxious indeed to his Justice or would be in time and therefore he must provide a satisfaction or else they could not be set clear It was the manner in some Countries brethen to give Dowries for their wives to buy them before they had them quite contrary to what is among us Ask me never so much dowry saith Sechem and I will give it he was now in love with the Virgin and nothing was too much for her now so here the Lord Jesus as well as his Father he before the world was foresaw what a happiness it would be to poor Creatures and what a glory and joy to himself and them for ever one in another and therefore he delights now in the habitable parts of the earth in the sons of men O now what
again in the Resurrection a pledge and an earnest whereof they have in heaven not onely Christ the head his glorious body but Enoch and Elias Now there may be much desire happily for this coming of Christ that this may be made up but as the Apostle saith in another case God hath provided a better thing for us that they without us should not be made perfect so they without the rest the fulness of Christ should not be made so compleatly perfect Well then the fulness of Christ must come in that day shall not come until there be not one soul more to come in which belongs to his fulness that is the fourth This reason indeed onely concerneth the great day of Christ his coming 5. To give time and space to men to repent and to work out their salvation in I gave her space to repent saith the Lord to that woman and she repented not Whether we understand this of a mans particular day or the great and general day it is true Why is not Sentence speedily executed upon sinners Why is it that they might repent despisest thou saith the Apostle the riches of his goodness and long-suffering to thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not knowing the goodness of God his long-suffering hath his tendency in it to lead to repentance being given for that end Mora sponsi poenitentiae tempus est Hilar can 27. So our Annot. So that this will leave sinners without any excuse If there had not been such a delay they had had no time to repent and they might have said so for themselves but now they have no pretence they shall be all of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 condemned of themselves And for the Saints and people of God it is that they might have time and space to work out their salvation with fear and trembling to work it out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Alas they must be converted and become as little children or else they cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven now there is much industry and pains required to bring the heart to this meetness for heaven and therefore he delays his coming As for instance If a Bride-groom too soon come upon his spouse that he knoweth hath a house full of filthiness and nasty places to trim and make handsom and her self to trim and deck and adorn he will stay a while give her time to make all pure and clean and fit for him and then he cometh and this is another 6. That the measure of sin and sinners may be filled up there is a fulness of Satan as well as of Christ a fulness of sin as well as of holiness you know he would not give Canaan a type of heaven to his people Israel because the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full he could not give them Canaan but he must destroy them and therefore he would first have their measure full their Ephah full and then sink them with a talent of lead So here there is a fulness of Satans kingdom a fulness of sin upon which when he cometh he will come to pour out the fulness of his wrath and to tread them down in his fury for ever therefore he stays a while until they have filled up their measure He did not cast the Jews out of sight until they had filled up their measure by persecuting of the truth and the Saints which is a wonderfully filling sin indeed that quickly fills the bag to the mouth and then it is sealed they persecuted the truth that they might fill up the measure of their sins always and then you see he came against them Now when all the vessels of wrath are formed and they are fitted to destruction then he cometh as to receive his bride so to slay his enemies with a flaming sword and furious indignation that would not close with him This another 7. That the promises may be fulfilled which are many of them yet to come and to be fulfilled as the prophecy of Babylons falling the tenth part of the City even Rome which some judicious compute to be just the tenth part of what formerly it was The ruine of Antichrist the bringing in of the Jews the seed of Abraham his friend from all corners of the world whether they are driven through his displeasure and the fulfilling those many glorious things which are spoken of the City of God the new Jerusalem which cometh down from heaven which many of the Saints do expect yet to be fulfilled when Satan shall be bound for a thousand years surely a tittle of this word shall not fall to the ground not the word of promise heaven and earth may fall but this word of God cannot fall it must be fulfilled The Lord Jesus will be contented to be without his fulness until then and the glory of that fulness until then and therefore for this cause his coming shall be delayed he came once out of heaven with much readiness Lo I come I come though to dye to lose his life his peace his comfort the savour of his father rather then the prophesies should not be fulfilled as we have it often that it might be fulfilled c. He will be without his bride in fulness for a time and they must be without him in fulness for a time until the rest of the prophesies be fulfilled O how he glorifieth his word above all his Name 8. Lastly Happily to edge our desires after the day you know the withholding of a desirable thing for a time doth much draw out the desires as the drawing away the bait from the fish draweth it after it and truly all the ways the Lord takes with us are little enough to put us on to desire that day But so much for the confirmation of the Doctrine before it was said therefore it seemed long because we desired it importunately Now therefore we desire it because it seemeth long and so our desires after his appearing do feed themselves by adding this oyl to the flame even the length of the tarrying which doth partly arise from themselves so some things are mutually causes one of another as the Ice resolveth it self into water and again the water into Ice the vapours ascending into Clowds and the Clowds into vapours again after they are emptyed upon the earth So The Use of the Doctrine shall be first by way of reproof to convince us of sin in abusing this truth which nothing is more ordinary among men they dare not utter it with their mouths but this they speak in their hearts the Lord delays his coming and therefore they begin to eat and drink with the drunken to beat their fellow-servants they will neither work themselves nor let others work that would Mark how the Evangelist brands such a man calling him an evil servant or an hypocrite and indeed brethren It is not as if there were any thing in the nature of a delay to work such
must needs perish God will not be merciful to them Isa 27. He hath a controversie because there is no knowledge of God in the Land Hos 4. and where no vision is the people perish they perish for want of knowledge which cometh by vision and yet it is not knowledge alone will stand them instead the Devils are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that for their knowledge and yet are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for their malice thou mayst have enough then to light thy Lamp and yet have no Oyl in thy vessel remember this Secondly A Hypocrite may have not only knowledge but his affections may be stirred also he may be warmed in the Lamp before it be extinguished there was heat as well as light Some have light without heat such are meer notions others have heat without knowledge and this is not good so far but the Hypocrite he may have light and he may have heat and affection also and yet be a foolish Virgin when all is done Let me speak a little to some affections among many others which they may have As 1. They may have sorrow for sin being convinced of it and what it exposeth them unto How doth Darius when he had signed the Decree against Daniel and his kingdom lay at stake his people would rebel if he executed not the Decree he laboured to deliver him he was sorry for what he had done and he could not rest nor sleep that night and early in the morning cometh with a lamentable tone to him O Daniel servant of the living God art thou yet alive There may be a spirit of bondage to fear or witnessing to a man that he is in a condemned state which is not succeeded with a Spirit of Adoption Sinners you may have your Consciences so galled sometimes with the Law that you cannot rest but cry out of sin O sin sin what a bitter thing is sin yea so far may this sorrow prevail that it may make you vomit up your sweet morsel make you make restitution with Judas God may so fire the Coal you cannot hold it in your bosom any longer the fire of Gods wrath upon Judas even melted his pieces they were too hot for him to hold and yet but a Judas still And I tell you brethren this is much a strong effect of those troubles 2. There may be some desires and seemingly earnest desires after things really good and which bring to salvation as those there in that place of John were they not much affected when they cried out Lord evermore give us of this bread As very a wretch as Balaam was yet he had his wishings and wouldings O that I might die the death of the righteous c. O how beautiful are his Tabernacles c. he seemeth to be taken with them or desires to enjoy that communion and fellowship with them in their Ordinances how beautiful are they And the young man in the Gospel had he not good desires and is it not said our Saviour loved him for that good that was in him though not with that special love of pitty to save him that we read of his desires carried him out far and yet never reach heaven I doubt not brethren but many of us this day have sometimes some good desires and you would have it go well with your souls you may cry out sometimes with the multitude O Lord evermore give us this bread you would be loath to part with the Ordinance of Christ it is good but all this may be in you and yet you may be hypocrites foolish Virgins O that you could lay it to heart 3. There may be also some hope we read often in Job of the hope of the Hypocrite he hath certainly an hope for heaven else he would never be at so much pains as many a Hypocrite is at as you shall hear afterward would the foolish Virgins think you have done so much as they did if they had not had a hope when hope expireth all endeavour giveth up the ghost with it 4. There may be also a joy and delight in holy things as those that kindled a fire of their own in that place of Isaiah saith the Text They walk in the sparks of their own fire that is to say they delight themselves in it And surely brethren the Galathians when they would have pluckt out their eyes for the Apostle they had no ordinary rapture upon them and yet alas how did they apostatize some of them And is is not sad to see in our days many that the Ministers of Jesus Christ whom he hath made instruments of God to their souls they have been as dear to them as their eyes and what is it come to with many of them are they not come to cast off all what shall we think brethren of such in such cases According to the hope so is the joy if the hope be sound so is the joy if the hope be false so is the joy which springs from it the Lord hinders it not haply doth not damp and overcast the soul and O how Satan endeavours to water such a plant as that is for what more available to lay a soul asleep then this he hath joy in holy things this is an high attainment indeed they take delight in approaching to God And we read in Heb. 6. that such as fall away may have a taste of the joy of the world to come such a temporary faith the light of it doth convince and shew us things worth the rejoycing in and then a false hope of a title to them when it is no such matter it will raise the spirit to rejoyce Well this is no ordinary pitch of affections and yet but a Hypocrite the stony ground received the word with joy and they rejoyced in John Baptists light for a season Thou art unto them as one that hath a pleasant voice c. 5. There may not onely be those affections and others but the fervor of them a mans affections may seem to be boyled up to a great height Zeal for God seemeth to be much this is Jehu his case how hot and zealous was he for God and so Judas seemed very zealous of good works when he would have had the box of oyntment spilled Ananias and Saphira seemed to have more heat of love then others to sell their possessions to be with the forwardest and yet you see what became of them and so may we brethren Not but that zeal is exceedingly to be commended and lukewarmness is the most loathsom temper to the Lord he will spue such a man out of his mouth yet there may be this fire which is not of Gods kindling The false Apostles did zealously affect those Christians to whom the Apostle writeth they seemed to be men of more then ordinary love and warm affections to their souls but yet they were but false Apostles they did it enviously to work the Apostle
owned as eminently as any of the rest and more for his Comfort The lost groat was found again and the lost sheep was found again And so the Prodigal Son he ran far and lavisht away his Patrimony and yet he is restored again the winter may deform the face of the earth but the Spirit of God can renew it again in the Spring now he hath promised to give this Spirit and he sendeth forth his Spirit to find out the lost Child the lost sheep and therefore there is encouragement 2. Consider until this be done you are not fit for Heaven nor to enter with him you are not ready the wise Virgins trimmed their Lamps and then they were ready saith the Text and they that were ready went in with him happy creatures that are found ready with their Lamps burning at that day of his appearing which we know not whether it may be at hand A wicked man is not fit for heaven upon any terms it would be a place of no rest unto him no more then the Air is to the fish or the water to a man they are not con-natural and truly no more is a gracious man fit for heaven while his Lamp wants trimming Heaven is the inheritance of the Saints in light and is he fit for it that is even going out in darkness O no the Lamp must be shining and burning bright or else there is no suitableness to heaven 3. Hereby God will have much more glory by you then otherwise he is like to have for minde you it is the shining of our Lamps the glory of our conversations suitable to our profession that giveth occasion to the men of the world to glorifie him so saith our Saviour Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your father which is in heaven This is all the Lord expecteth that he may be acknowledged and have the glory of all his grace of us we have the sweet and comfort and everlasting advantage of it and it cannot but be upon every believers heart to glorifie God it is indeed the end of our coming into the world now we cannot glorifie him so while our Lamps burn so low we are under declinings but when we are fruitful and abound in it as our Saviour saith herein is my father glorified that ye bring forth much fruit this is that which God is glorified by It may be we have some few good works but they are but a few and so few that scarce any can take notice to glorifie God for them methinks this should stick much with us Specially the nearer we come to glory our selves the more should we mind the glory of God the more zealous should we be for it O begin to lay about us to glorifie him here learn the work of heaven for ever if not before yet at least now we are ready to reap the wages of heaven the glory and joy unspeakable and Rivers of pleasures for evermore 4. Consider Is it not a shame for us brethren whose salvation is much nearer now then when we believed began to believe that our light should not be more dim our heat more abated our zeal for God the fervor of our affections surely it is a very great shame as if the nearer we come to the enjoyment of God the less desirable he were time hath been when we have some of us followed hard after God it is well if we have mended or held on our pace the time hath been haply when our Conversations have been bright and a beauty of holiness appeared in them and others have taken notice of it and glorified God it is well if we be not grown Luke-warm O what a shame is this the nearer we come to the Sun to be the colder hath not the Cry passed and awaked us and do we not finde that our Lamps are dim and we are in our profession very low O look to it that our last days be our best days and we go not out like a snuff But you will ask me what should we do to trim up these Lamps of ours First You must remember from whence you are fallen look up to the top of the hill where once you were and now you are undiscernably tumbled to the bottom you know not how O how much ground have you lost search and try brethren Commune with your hearts Consider your ways as David did and turn to the Lord. It will exceedingly shame us and that shame be a spur to us to consider how far short we are of that love that zeal that diligence and closeness of walking Secondly We must repent of it we must be humbled for our former miscarriages our declining to lose our first love the more love we have received the less we return to him again Is not this unworthy Besides how much might we have honoured the Lord if our light had shone before men if there had been a Majesty of holiness alway upon our conversation such as sometime haply there hath been and is not this matter of humbling Thirdly Then we must do our first works It is not a sorrow only for our miscarriage that is enough but we must do our first works If we have been zealous before and now are become Luke-warm be zealous and amend do our first works we have been more diligent and close in our walking with God now we are more remiss we must remember whence we are fallen and do our first works O why should we not labour to exceed the love of our espousals when we followed so hard after him our souls panted as the chased Hart after the water-brooks and this it may be before we had many hints of his love some sight of him likely else we should not follow him some touch upon our hearts as in Elisha his case and Sauls the people whose hearts God touched they followed but did one taste of his love then draw thee out so earnestly and now thou hast had many a smile many a sweet refreshing from his presence many a Ring broken between Jesus Christ and thy soul and wilt thou not now be as diligent and as earnest in following after him it is the nature of true Grace that as it cometh from heaven it will never cease until it reach to heaven again Fourthly We must beg earnestly of the Lord to work this and all our works in us and for us It is he that restored David his soul when it was even lost and so he doth ours he maketh them to return when they are even giving up O give him no rest until he send forth his spirit and give thee to be filled with that spirit with might in the inner man that thou maist burn and shine and the fulness and fruitfulness the burning and brightness of thy conversation may be a witness to all that behold it that of a truth the Spirit of Jesus Christ is in thee He
all as we have heard then no man surely hath any grace to spare For the Application then It is a reproving word to as many as are ready to think they have enough The Papists tell us of works of supererrogation and I believe that piece of Popery may cleave to some of us faster then we are aware but let us take heed of it when we begin to be so full as we think we run over and could spare any of what we have and we may therefore sit down and breath us Believe it this is the way to make the Cruse of oyl give over running as long as they had an empty vessel the Cruse ran but when all were full it gave over God will not in vain pour out this precious oyl of his Spirit to have it lost upon proud Creatures and bury the Glory of his Grace in an unthankful proud heart That Ancient could say and likely by experience Si dixisti sufficit periisti and may not many of us say so did we ever get good by it it is the ready way to go backward to tumble to the bottom again when we think we are got high enough higher then this or that Christian the Apostle saith God resists the proud but he gives Grace to the lowly The Heathen could say even Plato that a proud man is void of God without God God is far from his thoughts and he is far from the favour of God and indeed so it is God knoweth such a man afar off at a distance he shall have no close familiar communion with God Well the Lord reprove us as many as are guilty in this kind 2. It may serve then to press with the Apostle forward toward the mark of the prize c. O how lazy are most Professors who walk as if they never cared whether they reach perfection or the fulness of the measure of the stature of Christ as if we were unwilling to grow too like heaven for fear we should be taken from this earth sooner then we are willing to depart O what earthly heavy drowsie spirits have we how slowly do we drive What is heaven nothing in our eye the enjoyment of Jesus Christ nothing to us that we make no more haste toward him O then as the Martyr said haste after as fast as we can Take heed of such a thought you have been diligent long enough you may now slack your pace you are pretty well for one believe it brethren nothing will sooner quench the spirit then this nothing will sooner damm up the fountain and shut out the light you can never have too much It may be you have through rich mercy what carrieth you in some measure through your present condition you know not what you shall meet with believe it before we die we shall have exercise for every degree of our Grace our Faith our Love we shall have nothing over It may be with thy measure which is less thou maist make a hard shift to get to heaven but why should we not all press after a more abundant entrance into Glory which will be much more for the Glory of his Grace and much more for the comfort of our souls Well then place that behind you brethren which we have attained as Jehu in his furions march caused the Messengers as he reached them to turn behind him still and so went on let not our eying what Grace we have received be any further then to thankfulness take heed of poring on them to pride for that is the way to decline who knoweth how much one thought of pride doth cast us behind hand if the Lord take the advantage for he resisteth the proud above all others cast them behind then stay not rest not until we come to the resurrection of the dead And then In the last place It may be an encouragement to some poor trembling hearts who it may be when they hear this word are ready to lament themselves If this be a truth that they that have most grace have none to spare what a condition then are such as I in who have so little If they have occasion to use all and little enough sometimes What will become of me who have so little like a grain of Mustard-seed If the Cedars of Lebanon have no strength over much but are ready to be blowed up by the roots all they can do is but to stand to the utmost What shall such a bruised reed as I do in the contrary winds of temptation and corruption First then do not judge amiss of thy condition thou thinkest such a one is so so eminent for grace an Oke of Bashan a Cedar God judgeth not as man judgeth thou mayst have more humility and more love to Jesus Christ there may be more sincerity truth in the inward parts in a poor creature that hath little parts or gifts to make a glittering to dazle the eyes of men Herein lies the strength or weakness of the soul indeed Look to this then and gaze not so much upon glorious outward appearances 2. Remember that thou are not accepted for the greatness of thy grace inherent God doth not give his Spirit and such graces in a greater and a smaller measure to some then to others and then accept accordingily he accepteth in Jesus Christ and every poor believing soul doth enjoy whole Christ his righteousness fully imputed to them Therefore this is your acceptance and herein you are alike blessed be the Lord that in this which is the main thing he maketh no difference between the strong and the weak though one man may more strongly and clearly apply him and have more of the comfort yet thou mayst with a trembling hand hold him as surely or rather he will hold thee if thou canst not hold him for the imbraces are mutual between Christ and a poor believing soul 3. If thou have not so much as another thou shalt not likely have so great tryals so great things to do with it thou shalt not be tryed above what he will enable to bear and he will make a way to escape also If his grace be sufficient for thee in all conditions what matter is it only press hard after more and more whatever thou hast reached too and at last thou shalt attain the end of thy hope the salvation of thy soul and in due time thou shalt reap if thou faint not Verse 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 HEre is the third part of the answer of the wise Virgins to the foolish Virgins question Which is not to be understood as a serious advice from the wise to the foolish directing them to the ready course to procure oyl to themselves except we could understand by them that sell Jesus Christ or Father Son and Spirit who selleth and would have us buy of him without money and without price Isa 55. 1. for the Bridegroom Jesus Christ seemeth to be distinguished here from them that sold
to this readiness a making the calling and election sure by adding faith to faith and grace to grace as it is in that place of the Apostle Peter Then when Simeon had gotten Jesus Christ into this arms of his faith as well as of his body and saw his salvation with the eye of faith as well as of the body then he cryeth out Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace Now he was ready to enter into glory And so the Apostle Paul had such a perswasion and therefore he was ready henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of glory c. 2. There goeth many times if not alway to this abundant entrance as a readiness or preparation to it an earnest waiting of the soul for its change a desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ which is far better There is many a poor heart when the body of death weigheth them down and tryeth them groan earnestly and could be contented to dye that sin might dye with them As Sampson said let me even dye with the Philistians if no other way will destroy their lusts But alas when they are to seek in point of assurance they look upon death as a dark passage that leadeth them they cannot tell whither this maketh them fly back this kills those desires nippeth them as soon as they put forth they come to no maturity But now when a man hath the right art of believing notwithstanding his body of death he groans under as the Apostle that yet he is perswaded through Christ it is pardoned and shall be utterly dissolved and not hinder him then he can bless the Lord and desires with Paul to be dissolved So many of the Patriarks it is said of them they dyed full of daies satisfied with daies that is to say they lived as long as they desired they had now a desire to be at home knowing that while they are present in the body they are absent from the Lord from that near and sweet and full Communion with him whereof they have had a little taste and earnest but if they know not that they shall be present with him by departure but for ought they know more separate from them no marvel if they go to death with drawing back Yet I deny not but a child of God may be ready before he desire it And may desire it before he be ready for this entrance I say a child of God may be ready before he desire it as in the case before mentioned and upon other grounds as Hezekiah and David that I may declare thy power to this generation may be ready and not have such an assurance but he is not ready for an abundant entrance until the Lord come with a full sealing of his love to his heart 2. He may desire it before he be ready as in some passionate impatient fit as Elijah 1 King 19. 4. weary of his life the King persecuting him and thinking he should fall by his hand would have God take away his life from him but he had not yet done his work And so Job God had not yet done with him he must pass through more changes and prosper and flourish again and hold forth his name to that generation before he departed he had not done his work But I speak of the serious settled well-grounded frame of a Believers heart upon a sound perswasion of the Love of God in Jesus Christ and a knowledge that he hath finished his course then for such a one to wait for his change when the blessed hour will come is a part of readiness for an entrance an abundant entrance into glory But this is not the portion of every child of God many Suns set in a Cloud c. For the second thing which are the arguments of the point they are such as these First because else Gods work would be in vain he hath prepared an inheritance for the Saints a Kingdom prepared before the world was and his work upon our hearts what is it but to prepare us for this Kingdom as the Apostle speaks he that hath wrought us to this self-same thing is God he hath wrought us to it there is no suitableness between heaven and an ungracious heart a glorious Kingdom and a vile filthy spirit therefore the Lord takes much pains with us to purge us to himself to purifie us to adorn us with the rich graces of his Spirit and all is to work us to heaven to salvation to prepare us for this entrance and therefore when God hath done this shall his work be in vain surely no not a soul that is so wrought up by the Lord to a heavenly frame and temper and nature that shall miss of an entrance when it is thus prepared else Gods work were in vain the greatest work of God 2. Because else the Lord Jesus would fail of his purchase and prayer for his poople who did buy us at so dear a rate as his own most precious blood was it think you to suffer us for ever to be at such distances from him whom he so dearly loved did his love to us draw him out of heaven to us and will it not think you draw us to heaven to him he will not have his Spouse that he hath redeemed with his blood to be absent from him any longer then is needful for his Fathers glory and their good It is a fruit of his death and of his prayer Father I will that where I am there they may be for they are the fulness of Christ and he accounteth himself as I may say imperfect without them and therefore he will have them there Indeed Brethren so dear is the heart of Jesus Christ to his people that he would not suffer so long an absence at so great a distance from them but that there is a necessity in it though at his first pitching his love upon us he looks at nothing but notwithstanding all blackness and deformity and loathsomness his love overcometh all Yet before they come to this Communion and fellowship with him they must be purified with spices and odors as those were for the King of Assyria and for other holy ends 3. Because else the promise of God and hope of the Saints would fail and heaven and earth shall sooner fail then the word of promise Christ hath promised not only to give life but eternal life God hath promised to give not only grace but glory there is a Crown laid up in the purpose and promise of God and if they should miss of this they would be made ashamed of their hope now this cannot be the Psalmist prayeth that he might not be ashamed of his hope which is virtually a promise it shall not be never any yet were disappointed that hoped upon right grounds Indeed if men make Promises to themselves of heaven let them live after the imaginations of their hearts or whether they truly believe or
away their time in the world spending their strength for that which profiteth not labouring for the meat which perisheth which will not endure to eternal life you see the world was that which kept them from coming to the Feast in the Gospel one could not have while another could not have while a man cannot have two treasures except he had two hearts two contrary treasures earth and heaven both and where the treasure is there will the heart be also therefore Brethren while men are so altogether taken up with the world they cannot but neglect the main thing and so are found unready â—et worldlings hear this word and tremble if any others be likely to be found unready you are the men Even the people of God themselves if they be unready in part it is the world likely will put them out of order off the hinges take heed saith our Saviour your hearts be not at any time overcharged with the cares of this world because there is no time but that day may overtake you and then you will be taken unawares therefore much more a man that is drowned and buried in the world he will be sure to be unready Secondly Such as do but dally with God and Religion and the things of eternity they spend themselves and their strength to feed a formality to put forth broad and pleasant leaves and there is all but for faith and repentance and the great works of a Christian they scarse ever meddle with them at all they go to the creature here with the foolish Virgins go to the opinions of others to the graces of others to their flattering parasite Preachers to be seared and daubed up such as these are likely to be found unready none in more danger then a formal professor Thirdly Such as fail in the midst of their Christian course as you see these Virgins did usually such are hardly recovered again for you see how they wandered up and down from mountain to hill from creature to creature and come not to Jesus Christ So in the Gospel when the unclean spirit is gone out of a man c. Such are like to the Laodiceans spised out of the mouth of God which none returneth to again the Dog returneth to the vomit but not a man our time is fruitful in experiences of this kind you see the door is here shut against those Virgins which failed I mean it of a total Apostacy not partial declinings such the Saints themselves had the wise Virgins but the other lost all true saving grace they had none their form their profession it went out and then they were in darkness could not expect the coming of their Lord with their Lamps burning So much for the opening of it The door is shut the meaning of this is no more but that an entrance into heaven is denyed unto them that are not ready there is no mansion made ready for them that are not made ready for these mansions the Lord Jesus he is the door into the Church the Kingdom of grace and into the Kingdom of glory as you have beard they that enter must enter in by Jesus Christ have access by him now he will shut the door that is to say shut up his bowels and tender mercies for ever though they have been opened to poor sinners here upon earth then they shall be shut up he will have no more compassion on them but when they cry and call shut out their prayers they have clapt the door of their hearts and lockt them against him and now will he shut up his heart and lock it against them for ever Time was when the Jews might have found Jesus Christ but now saith he ye shall seek me and shall not find me but shall dye in your sins Indeed Brethren the door may be shut against a man here on earth after Gods waiting upon a people to be gracious to them he sware in his wrath they should never enter into his rest which was a type of heaven And so those that were invited to the feast they shall not taste of my dainties saith the King for they are not worthy If men refuse and reject the Gospel either professedly or in practise no marvel if the Lord turn the key of heaven gates upon them and they be shut out without any more hope for ever For the Arguments to confirm this a little First Because this feast in heaven admitteth no Guests without a wedding garment without holiness no entrance into heaven no man shall see the Lord except the Lord Jesus have known them and they have known him which is life eternal for so the Apostle puts them together we know that we know him or rather are known of him else Brethren there is no entrance he knoweth no man will acknowledge none then but with a wedding-garment here in the administrations of the Kingdom of grace a person may creep into the feast withont the wedding-garment indeed for the word preached it is for all but the distinguishing Ordinances men may be admitted to haply though they have no wedding-garment as you have it in that place of Matthew but he shall not abide there but shall be cast out he will bind him hand and foot and cast him out though he â—eaveth the admittance of them into the visible Church and visible communion in his ordinances to us who can judge but according to appearance and by the rules of charity yet himself cometh and vieweth the guests and who are fit to be owned as the guests of heaven that shall have entrance there he whose eyes are a flame of fire or like it piercing into the inwards of our souls to see what our spirits are cloathed with And if he takes it so ill of them that creep into the Communion of his Saints and Ordinances here below without a wedding-garment Surely then he will never admit any to this feast of new wine to eternity without such a wedding-garment Secondly Another Argument or Consideration to make this out may be this they that are unready shall not enter the door shall be shut upon them because they have neglected despised the Lord Jesus who is the door and hath the key of David and openeth and shutteth therefore now they shall be rejected the door hath stood open all the day long all the day long hath he stretched out his hands to a rebellious and gain-saying people he would have gathered them and they would not therefore now he will not now he will despise them as they have despised him and there is all the reason that can be that they that would have none of Christ by whom alone there is access to the Father and to this glory that he should have none of them neither they have resisted the motions of his Spirit the Holy-Ghost offering to convince them and now he will resist them clap the door against them Thirdly Because
they will they think if they have but time to cry Lord Lord though it be when the Gate is shut as these foolish Virgins it will do Ah brethren if the foolish Virgins had been acquainted with this that they must have their oyl from Christ or else they should never hold out nor enter with him would they not instead of those trifling impertinent endeavours made some application to him all that while but they saw it not it was hid from their eyes The Lord will give Grace and Glory and never will he give Glory sure if he give not Grace O for hearts to believe this it would be a cure of this disorder Fourthly Because of the enmity that is in our hearts against Grace nothing is more contrary wherevever Grace cometh there is a continuall quarrel between it and sin the holy Ghost when he cometh to dwell in a heart he knoweth he must have no peace there but continually lust against the flesh and endure the lustings of the flesh against it self O brethren then where a heart is altogether in sin what an enemy is it to Grace and to Christ as the Author of Grace so saith the Apostle you while you were enemies in your minds through wicked works hath he reconciled now a man will hardly come to an enemy to help him except he be in very great straits indeed as when men are sinking into hell then they will come to Christ for entrance into heaven for then their misery is present and imminent they see there is no avoiding of it hell is at their backs the avengers of blood are now upon them ready to hurry them away to destruction therefore now it is high time for them to cry Lord Lord open to us but while they can but keep these things at a distance put off the thoughts of heaven and hell they care not for coming to Christ at all yet as great as their enmity is it may be overlaid by the present apprehensions of their necessity and danger they are in if they come not to him and this is that brings in any soul to Christ for Grace here while he is dispensing Grace until the Lord let the Sinner see his sins in order before him see the hand-writing upon the wall against him Mene Mene until God write his condemnation upon his Conscience in bloody Characters and visible that he that runs may read it he careth not for coming to Christ for Grace and so for heaven if a man neglect all this yet when God sheweth him the rivers of burning brimstone sheweth the teeth of the worm which is ready to fasten upon him opens a mans ears to hear Satan come jingling with his chain to fetch his soul to tear it away whether he will or no O then though he hath no mind to go to Christ now he will go and cry Lord Lord open to me Why But you will say If he be such an enemy to Grace and to Christ as dispensing Grace is he not much more an enemy to Christ as glorious and receiving sinners to Glory Yea brethren I believe for my part that they are such enemies to an heavenly work a glorious state that if they were admitted with such hearts as they have it would be a weary place to them they cannot endure the reflection of the sun upon a burnish'd soul how will they endure the face of the Son of righteousness himself but the sence of their danger and looking upon heaven as a place of freedom from the torments of the condemned not as upon an holy place wherein Grace is made glorious therefore they desire to enter alas what would these foolish Virgins have done there if they had entred in this unready condition heaven would have been too hot to hold them but freed they would be from misery happy they would be poor creatures though they mind not that the happiness of heaven is such as if they had not had Grace first to make them meet for it it would have been no happiness to them What is more tedious to them then the Glory of Holiness upon the Saints then spiritual communion with God they cannot bear this All delight ariseth from suittableness between the object and faculty and all grief and trouble from the unsuitableness of the object and faculty and truly Grace glorified is so much the more unsuitable but yet I say they apprehending that misery is approaching would go any wihther for shelter Fifthly and lastly Because now they can keep their lusts no longer therefore now they would have heaven as long as the sinner can keep his lust he will be for no other Master nor Lord he cares for no other pleasure the pleasures of sin are the fools paradise to the wanton and so is sport and pastime to the young gallant they care not for any thing serious If men could keep the world for ever they would never desire to come to heaven they could be contented to have their heaven upon earth their inward thought is they shall continue for ever they call their houses after their own names and they think as they would have it now when they see they can hold the world no longer now they would have heaven therefore they care not for Grace so long as they can have their fill of these delights if men be Hypocrites close Hypocrites have no open prophaness or lust yet some secret Dalilah they have that they delight themselves with but when the pangs of hell begin to catch hold upon men when their consciences do catch of the fire of hell and this to flame they see they are going and there is no other way with them but one and being at the brink as I may say the flame catcheth upon them as it did those Executioners in Daniel then O for heaven Lord Lord deliver us save us For the Application This may serve then in the first place to justifie the Lord Jesus let him be for ever clear when he judgeth and justified when he speaks though he speaks condemnation and everlasting separation from himself to many men at the last day or at his coming to Summon if you call then and he answer you not if you cry Lord Lord open to us and he give you this answer I know you not blame your selves you cannot but justifie him why because you might have had heaven and salvation in his ways If you had sought early you should have found but you never seek him until the Gate be shut against you as long as you can keep the world and your lusts you will not come unto him that you might have Pardon might have grace that you might live for ever now your sins leave you the world leaves you or you must leave the world they are ready to take away your souls from you now you will come and cry Lord Lord open to us is it not just and righteous if he cast you out Secondly It
glory as it were of divine attributes they all shine forth in him each with his peculiar glory The Temple the glory of the Lord filled it so that they could not stand before him to minister sometimes So Brethren now the Lord hath placed his name in Jesus Christ he hath filled him with his glory therefore saith the Prophet the glory of the Lord is risen on thee that is Jesus Christ is manifested to thee was not his glory so great as to confound John though a vessel fitted to be filled with those glorious revelations from-him He fell at his feet as one dead at the sight of him in that vision How glorious is an Angel that the very sight of him was an astonishment to John what is the Lord of the Angels If the Moon be so glorious what is the Sun Thirdly the Sun is full of light in it self and filsall things capable of its light and yet hath never the less the twinkling Tapers of heaven they have each of them their light some more some less and the Moon hath much light and giveth much but what 's borrowed light First she hath it not in her self nor in such abundance as the Sun hath So it s here the Saints they are lights of the Sun as our Saviour saith but alas like poor candles that burn dim and sometimes through the thickness of the damps of corruption in our hearts burn blew and are ready to go out for the most part 〈…〉 but as the light in the socket sometimes up and sometimes down and every moment a man would think it would go out the Angels and spirits of just men made perfect are like stars shining more gloriously and constantly But alas nothing to the Sun he sheds the light abroad throughout the whole hemisphere at once Set up many lights at once in a dark night they will give light but a little way and how poor and weak a 〈…〉 light so that when the Sun shineth they appear not at all and that the Sun should so long fill the world with his light and have never the less this is admirable But this is but a shadow Brethren to the light of Jesus Christ he is the true light that is such a light as that nothing else deserveth to be called a light in comparison of him as far as the subject is recipient a glorious spirit is before a vile body so far is the light of Christ in its own nature above the Suns light And then for fulness there is no comparison though there be hardly any thing obvious to ouâ— senses which are to â—et in light to the understand 〈…〉 that is more glorious and so is more â—it to set forth the Lord Jesus his fulness of Light by Light maketh manifest all things and that that maketh things manifest is the Light now the light of the Sun its true discovers much that before it arose appeared not but its possible to hide from its light Brethren in the depths of the earth in the bowels of man it discovereth not any of those much less the secrets of hearts there 's no suitableness between such a cause and such an effect But the Lord Jesus he searcheth all the deep things of men the very Marrow of their bones which is the deepest and hath the most coverings upon coverings he searcheth them So doth Christ the ends of men which are the most hidden usually in all their designs they are deep as the Marrow in the bones cloathed over with flesh and skin and bones pretence upon pretence but Christ this Light is so piercing that there is no hiding any thing from it Fourthly The Sun his Tabernacle is in heaven there he made a Tabernacle for the Sun there is the seat of the eye of the world from whence he views all that is under his Government there is his Palace and from thence he dispenceth light and influence So Brethren it s with Jesus Christ he hath his Tabernacle in heaven that is in his Church for so oftentimes the Church is called there the Lord placeth his Tabernacle as he saith of Israel of old I will place my Tabernacle among them and dwell in the midst of them He walks in the midst of the golden Candlesticks to behold them to be nigh them to dispence of his light to them and of his influence So doth the Sun communicate of his light to the Moon and to the Stars in heaven and to the inhabitants upon earth We are not to understand all this of Christ his person meerly but Christ as held out in his Ordinances in his Church therefore he is said by the Church to make manifest the mercy and wisdom of God his Ordinances are the raies and beams as afterward we shall speak when we come to open that part of the Text. But his Tabernacle is the Church thence he shines forth on many others as the earth is lightned by the raies from heaven Fifthly From the warming of the Sun how cold and frozen are those Northern parts of the world because remote from the Sun how cold is the hemisphere when the Sun is set for a time â—ow warm when it shines So the Lord Jesus it is that 's the Author of heat the Winter is past the Summer is come the rain is over the flowers appear on the earth and the voice of singing of birds heard that is Christ is revealed in the power of his love to poor sinners this is that which warmeth the coldest heart when we are frozen in our affections and as waters frozen up cannot run this way nor that way so we can do nothing nor move towards God Then Brethren it s a sight of the Sun of righteousness the Lord Jesus a hot gleamfrom him that thaws all and melts all warmeth all again and therefore in this respect also he may be compared to the Sun Sixthly because of influence which may be they say where there is no heat nor light at least and therefore Philosophers tell us that by the influence of the Sun the gold is concocted in the bowels of the earth whither its light cannot come And this is that Brethren that calls forth the fruits of the earth that in the winter for fear of cold were retired the sap recoiling to the root there to be preserved until a season for it Now the Sun the heat and warmth and influence thereof calls it forth again so that the grass and fruits plants and herbs put forth bud and blossom as we see it in the spring so the face of the earth is renewed And so it s in this case the Lord Jesus from heaven shineth forth and conveighing secretly the powerful influences of his Spirit and of the Word to poor sinners though they were as dead and dry sticks before as trees that are starven with the frost and seem dead then they put forth again then they grow green and flourishing then
alas they are but bottles themselves if Christ be not in them and there found to a soul and sought by a soul they are dry and sapless when many a rich man in hearing a Sermon hath a qualm cometh over his heart and he beginneth to be a little sick of sin which the Word hath lanced and it strikes to the heart what doth he do alas he chears himself with this Surely if I were such a sinner God would not regard me God would never have blessed me as he hath done therefore this is but a foolish melancholly fit The drunkard and the wanton can eat and drink and sing and dance down twenty such pills as these though they troubled them a little at the first they make a shift to claw it off The civil good-natured man though he see and know himself to be a sinner yet he is none of the worst he doth much good in the place where he is yea he prayeth and heareth and keepeth Sabbaths and thinks this shall make amends for all and so walks in the sparks of his own kindling but alas the end of these things will not be rest for they shall lie down in sorrow and shall have it from the hand of God too then who can resist it when lifted up or heal his blow when it is given I tell you Brethren I doubt this is the grand imposture of most of our hearts for it can hardly be but we must sometime or another be convinced our condition by nature is very sad and forlorn and men are not men if they be not carried forth to seek some course-for their escaping and how few alas reach the Lord Jesus therefore we mnst needs stick somewhere short of him Ah the Lord grant that none of us who think upon more probable grounds then others and others think so of us too that we are such as come to Jesus Christ that we sit not down in any thing on this side him for if we do we perish Therefore I say the soul that cometh to Jesus Christ goeth out of all alas if he have never so much of the world profits pleasures at will he is as rich as another and hath as much content in relations suitable to his hearts as another and it may be as much in praying fasting hearing using of the Ordinances as another and yet all this is nothing to him satisfieth him not he cannot take up with it they are but husks they will not satisfie however they may fill Thirdly There is a coming unto Jesus Christ it is not a going towards him but a coming to him this is builded much what upon the willingness of Jesus Christ to receive them this desire after him haply more fitly may be annexed to the power of Christ to save to the utmost O when the soul knoweth this O then that I had him that I were in him but now when the soul cometh to understand is perswaded he is willing to receive all that come Well then the Spirit quickning perswading the soul resolves I will venter upon him I will go and cast my self upon him and bear my self upon him hang all my weight upon him and this also he is taught of God this is imprest upon his Spirit by the Spirit of the Lord Jesus this is the drawing nigh yea not nigh to him but coming unto him this is the touch of faith if it be never so secret a touch of faith that others take no notice of yea that a poor soul through the fears and troubles that are upon him and earnestness of Spirit to have all quieted and cleansed and done away forthwith thinketh he doth not he hath not touched the Lord Jesus yet he may have touched him and be come unto him if he be carried out in his affections indeed and in truth beyond all count all as nothing as dung and dross as an hungry man would prefer a piece of bread before much riches he cannot eat nor drink gold nor silver and so it is here he is resolved upon it that he will lie at the pool of Bethesda his eyes shall be up and are up to him he will hang on him not let him go except he shake him offâ— into hell O this is a soul indeed that cometh to Jesus Christ Fourthly He cometh to him with words too at least heart-words if not words of confession I will wrap up these things as fast as I can I doubt I stay too long in the first part words of confession and words of petition of confession so the poor Prodigal I have sinned against heaven and before thee and am no more worthy to be called thy Son O I have sinned from the womb conceived in sin born in iniquity I have sinned before thee not regarding thy all-seeing eye desperately against light against knowledge against mercy against the blood of the Lord Jesus against all that grace whereby thou hast waited upon me to be gracious O I am no more worthby to be called thy sun O I am not worthy to lift up mine eye toward heaven saith the poor Publican I am not worthy to come near to the Temple to come among the company of the people of God but stands afar off and there acknowledgeth his vileness Ah so it is with many a poor soul he deserveth not to be owned by the Lord nor by any of his if he fall upon me as a mill-stone to grind me to power he doth me no wrong Secondly With words of petition to him that he would have mercy upon us that he would pardon and heal and give himself to us indeed that he would be our God a soul that is throughly sensible of his want of Christ cryeth our after him not with a still listless desire but the heart maketh a noise unto the Lord O give me Christ or else I dye Lord Jesus save my poor soul else I perish O sin is ready to swallow me up O the grave and hell are ready to shut their mouths upon me save me or else I perish as they to Christ the waves and billows of thy displeasure are the shaking and breaking of many poor souls O what mone many times will a poor soul that wants the Lord Jesus make to him lead me to the rock that is higher then I O how he sucks the promises and every argument he can fetch out of them he cometh with it and laies it before the Lord yea every letter of his name the Lord the Lord God gracious and merciful c. he pleadeth to the Lord O thy name is great to the ends of the earth therefore pardon me O mine iniquity is great therefore pardon thy faithfulness thy mercy thy promise thy dear Son the highest pledge of thy love that came to save sinners the price is paid the greatest part is done already all that a poor soul can find he will then make use of before the Lord and
love in drawing thee bringing thee to come to him and will he now change his mind It is true if he were as man he might repent but the Lord is not as man O what comfort is here what encouragement is this Secondly He will not cast them out of his Church that is his Kingdom his Family his School his Vineyard he will not cast them out for if there be this coming to Jesus Christ there is faith and by that faith as we are made one with Jesus Christ so also with all his members so saith the Apostle we are members one of another ye are come saith the Apostle to Mount-Sion and to the assembly of the first-born that is to say you are gathered into the flock of Christ and out of this ye shall not be cast it may come to pass that through the ignorance of men they may be cast out of the visible Church or Churches of Christ and have little fellowship and communion with them and it cannot but be a burthen to a gracious spirit and oh that the Lord would so clear up his mind that we might not thus by mis-apprehension be a burden each to other but here is the comfort if we thus come to Jesus we are of the invisible Church and he that knoweth the heart knoweth his own image there his own hand-writing there every spark of his own kindling there and cannot be deceived and therefore there is no fear he will not cast away out of this Church the assembly of the first-born not out of this his family will a Parent cast out his child that he hath begotten in his own image because of some deformity it may be and imperfection that it doth not resemble the father in or because of its weakness in those parts which it hath even grace for grace we have from the Lord Jesus though weak and imperfect and will he cast out surely no. Thirdly He will not cast out that is to say he will not send away empty cast them out of his presence when they come to him neither at our first coming no nor our after-coming unto him Not at our first coming where is the soul that can say that he did thus come to Jesus Christ and was refused was sent away it may be thou camest full full of thy self not with such an empty hand to take him it may be thou camest with a false heart and then well might he cast thee cut for he knoweth how the heart stands towards him it may be thou wast troubled only with the smart of sin and not the filthiness the putrifaction of the wound and loathsom nature of it and wouldst have Christ only to have served thy turn and then wouldst have turned thy back upon him alas he knoweth this and therefore he resisteth the proud a man of a Pharisaical spirit a man of a Laodicean temper that is rich and needeth nothing cometh to Christ for a complement thou comest to him whole not sick nor wounded if thou didst and with such a heart as we have said I cannot believe that the Lord Jesus would have cast thee out no more then I can believe that be can lie who is truth it self O who would not venture upon this Jesus Christ be his condition never so sad he will not refuse if we come to him we perish for our not coming Secondly Even in our after-comings to him he will not cast out tell me when didst thou ever come before the Lord with a heart sensible of thy want of him with a renewing of the acts of self-denyal being nothing in thy self that thou weâ—test away empty did ever any hungering soul come to this Ordinance where we have the most royal dainties that ever it self affords in some degree even the flesh and blood of the Lord Jesus the strong wines of consolation and didst thou go away empty surely no he that cometh full goeth away empty but he that cometh empty goeth away filled with some refreshing Haply thou mayst be put to it to wait a little while for it but have it thou shalt If either the Lord Jesus wanted a fulness of mercy there were not room enough in his heart for us all it were something or if he wanted propensity and bowels it were something if he were not a merciful pittiful high-Priest or if he did not know our meanings by our very looks or if he did not know our hearts where they are upright it were something indeed there were some ground to be discouraged but who can suppose any of these O that we could more strongly close with these with what confidence should we then come to him and how full a recompence of reward should we find even in the first fruits here â—f there were no more Fourthly He will not cast them out of heaven for every child of God as I may say hath one foot in heaven already as an unbeliever hath one foot in hell already where our hope is there our hearts are O that I could â—ay they are there they should be there there is our Anchor in heaven there the Lord Jesus is our head is who hath taken possession for us and went to prepare a place for us and therefore the works of grace in the soul are called things that have salvation he will not cast them out no by no means two negatives do deny more veâ—emently some shall be cast out at the last day yea the Kingdoms children Members of the Church and such as have lived under the Ordinances as the Jews did strangers others any that hear and believe and obey the Lord Jesus shall be received in Now Brethren our hearts are so vain we can scarce settle upon it to think of the woful condition that will be to be cast out from the Lord Jesus but no man that cometh to Christ shall be cast out O then it is not greatness shall enter in nor riches nor beauty nor learning nor gifts nor any of all these but meerly the coming unto Jesus Christ he will never cast out such a soul You have seen already what it is to come to Jesus Christ in many particulars and what is necessarily presupposed and such he will not cast out no in no wise or sort whatsoever but alas the difficulty is to perswade poor creatures of this that are upon the turning pin many can say Lord if thou wilt thou canst make me clean but the willingness of Christ to accept of poor sinners is that we many times doubt very much of and it is not the tongue of men nor Angels that can perswade a man to this and well it is for us that it is so for then the Faith of poor creatures would consist in the wisdom of men and not in the power of God only let me lay before your hearts and my own a few considerations from Scripture which if the Lord be pleased to breath in them may be a support
wish it may be thou hast relations estate name as good as others yet thou canst not be satisfied all is nothing without interest in him thou runnest from Ordinance to Ordinance from one Congregation to another from reading to prayer yet findest no satisfaction in all I will say to that soul Thou hast an evidence and a clear one too he hath indeed received thee or thou wert never able thus to breath after him and though he may hold thee off for a while yet he will not shut thee out Thirdly Hath the Lord made thee willing indeed to have him to receive him as King and Saviour to be purified by him subdued to him as well as saved by him Alas I know not whether I am or no if not what then meaneth all thy stuffing thy bed with groans What mean those Rivers of tears shed over him what meaneth thy following so hard after him What is it possible that any man should make such heavy moan as some poor souls do for Jesus Christ and yet not be willing to have him If thou wouldest not have him me thinks thou wouldest rather run away from him then run after him what ascending is there up into this tree and that tree as the Lord Jesus passeth by in an Ordinance to get a sight of him and yet the poor soul will not be perswaded that he would have fain have the Lord Jesus when one sight of him would be so refreshing to them O go away rejoycing and triumphing in the Lord Jesus that ever he hath looked upon thee to make thee willing in the day of his power for surely thou art a willing soul who art so affected towards him and this willing Brethren surely is the very receiving of Jesus Christ it is the closing with him thus taking with one hand Christ for pardon and giving up a mans self to him with the other hand which is the thing thy soul groans for now if Christ Jesus be so willing to receive poor sinners and thou be so willing to receive him what can interpose to hinder or break the match surely nothing Fourthly Thou must be content to wait a while haply before thou have the comfort of thy coming to Christ before I say thou shalt suck the sweetness that floweth from him to thy soul for thou hast broken thy bones with sin which brought wrath upon thy soul as David complains O there was no rest in his bones and they must have a time to knit again A man will rather lie upon his bed a Prisoner a few daies then be a Cripple all the daies of his life therefore they say a Horse leg is incurable if broke he will not endure to be bound to lie quiet Submit to the Chyrurgians hand and skill the Lord Jesus will do it it is doing but alas such broken bones heal but slowly through many humors by reason of the abundance of sin in the soul may be it will be the longer but wait Remember the pains that Elijahs servant took to go up and down that steep hill Carmel with wearyness seven times and brought news of nothing at all until at last he sees a little cloud which filled the heavens So it may be with thee and it will recompence all at last there will be abundance of rain to refresh thy weary parched soul Fifthly Be frequent in acting of faith putting forth the acts of thy willingness to receive the Lord Jesus if he be willing to receive thee for hereby the habit of faith will grow stronger the little grain of Mustard-seed thou shalt see take strong rooting and spread it self and then the acts will be stronger and those will yet again strengthen the habit and by this means the grace will appear more visible So that at the last thou shalt even feel in thy very soul that thou dost believe if thou often put forth this act of recumbency upon him casting thy self upon the Lord Jesus into his arms at his feet and see if thou find it not that at last thou have not this witness in thy self that thou dost believe in the Lord Jesus And then happy soul thou mayest take the comfort of that condition Thou shalt never be cast out FINIS The first Table contains the General and Particular Heads as they follow in their order in the preceding Subject Circumspect Walking A Christians Wisdom THe Text opened Page 55. out of which this first doctrine is raised That it is a duty Christians are strictly charged with to walk circumspectly ibid. But first there is enquired what it is to walk circumspectly Here you have first the Matter of a Christians conversation expressed by walking which includes all a mans actions 1. Spiritual 2. Civil 3. Natural 55 56 This Latiude appears 1. In that walking is a motion 1. From other Principles 2. By other Rules then the men of the world walk by ibid. 2. There is a Terminus a quo from whence they walk and that is from sin ibid. 3. A Terminus ad quem and that is to God in Christ 57 4. This Motion is a progressive motion 5. It is a constant Motion 6. It it a pleasant ibid. Secondly Here you have the manner of this walking Circumspectly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now to this exact walking 1. There must go a Rule 57 2. Knowledge to understand and wisdom rightly to apply the rule 58 3. Keeping close to the rule 1. In not following a multitude as most do 59 2. In not following the Examples of the Saints further then they follow Christ 60 4. There must be a mending not only the external part but the inside and the Spirit of the rule 61 5. Carrying an even course towards heaven ibid. 6. Making it a mans work to walk exactly with 1. A watchful eye 2. A trembling heart The second thing in the words of the Text That it is a duty so strictly charged upon the Saints proved 63 The Reasons of the third thing in the words of the Text. Why this duty is charged upon the Saints viz. to walk circumspectly 1. Because they are the children of the light ibid. 2. Because their steps are more eyed then other mens 64 1. In regard of God himself 2. In regard of men 1. Many men watch for their Halting 2. Some men are scandalized by their uneven walking Either good or evil Men. 65 3. Because all have erring hearts and naturally love to wander ibid. 4. Because there are many by-paths whereinto they may step awry 66. The first Use shews that among the much profession of Christ there is little power ibid. The second use reproves 1. The People of God that come short of this exact Walking 2. Those that instead of following God fully have their hearts divided 67 1. Some that content themselves only with the shews of religion 2. Some that are all for morality and honesty of conversation 68 3. Some that neither fear God nor reverence Man ibid. Thirdly Those are reproved
and to secure a carnal interest by corrupt compliances His mouth was not gagg'd with a wedge of gold or his lips sown up with the silken thread of preferment Being poslessed of the pearl of price he thought himself rich enough and having food and raiment he was therewithall content If any thing considerable were providentially cast in it was not greedily gaped after and extorted by much pressing importunity and incroaching crouching attendances The things which he possessed he was ignorant of as not willing to intermiddle at all in the matters of the world that so he might in a more serene way and maner have his conversation in heaven from whence he expected the Saviour Christ was so fair and full in his eye that in comparison of him all other enjoyments though swelling to a mountanous bulk were but motes and molehills He admired not the beauty of any Rose save that of Sharon The flower-planted without hand was lovely in his sight and sweet unto his smell He tasted such surpassing and heart-ravishing sweetness in communion with Christ that the edge of his appetite to the things of the world was exceedingly blunted and rebated The love of God being shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost he valued not the favor or the frowns of the children of men Whilst others had their beilies cleaving unto the dust he almost loathed to touch it with his feet so far was he from panting after the dust of the earth He preferred grave contentments and solid delights before the fleeting and transcient titillations of the exterior senses How much better are the wholsome severities of Religion then the fulsome satisfactions of the flesh His heart and hands were mightily inlarged in a way of charitable contribution even to considerable summs when the necessitous condition of others called for speedy succours and supplies What he gave was not grudgingly but of a ready mind He did not say Come again and to morrow I will give thee when he had â—t by him He gave liberally and sowed bountifully He cast hâ—s bread upon the waters knowing that after many dayes he should find it His meekness was remarkable as knowing it was his glory to pass by an offence the reproaches of rayling Rabshakâ—hs he thought not worth the taking notice of He was not easily stirred up to anger but had a sweet calm in his spirit though sometimes blown upon by the surly winds of unhandsome provocations Passionate expressions fell not from him though naturally of an harsh and hasty temper He would not say I will do unto the man as he hath done to me but chose rather to do good for evil and melt rather then exasperate his adversaries by heaping up coals of kindness upon their heads Humility is not without cause stiled the grace of graces as being that which adds a lustre to them and makes them the more orient and resplendent He who is low in his own esteem is high in the esteem of God and good men Pride the prevailing sin of the Professors of this age is that which doth darken sulley cloud our otherways laudable endowments it is that worm which makes the greenest gourd to wither and the fairest flower to lose its native beauty Self-depressions provided they be sincere are always attended with exaltations and plentifull supplies from the fountain of all grace and goodness Humility was Master Murcot shâ—ning grace which though low in its self it was taller then the rest by the head and shoulders Soâ—e exâ—ressions of it are these that follow 1. His mean thoughts of himself though his gifts graces performances rendred him considerable yet the esteem which he had of himself was very small His face did shine as that of Moses to the dazling of others eys yet he saw it not himself nor could endure to be told by others that it did so but would cry out of a snare 2. His high thoughts of others gifts and graces though possibly coming short of his The proud man looks upon others enjoyments and attainments with a cloudy and discontented eye which in Master Murcot drew forth commendations and serious thanksgivings unto God 3. His condescending to men of low degree whose company and converse he â—i 〈…〉 dained not especially if godly He delighted not to be busily buzzing about the Chambers and Tables of great men but could sweetly solace himself with the society of the meanest Christian 4. His temptations to pride and puffings up were not a few having the high and bosome respects of great and small the applauses commendations gratulations of the generality of the people and great success of his labours When others would be lifting him up he still croucht and lay low He was none of those whom a freer access and a more open bosome a kinder glance and a more favourable nod from great men swell with self-conceit and pâ—ff up into a lofty disdain of their poor brethren so that they must not be approacht without much complementall observance and cringing incurvations 5. His garb had nothing of vanity and gaudry in it The vile raiment was more pleasing to him then silks sattins and plushcoats He was none of those Court-preachers whose extraordinary spruceness gay apparrel and bridling deportment are shrewdly suspected to be nought else but the frothy ebullitions of a proud and vain spirit He was no Borderer upon Religion dwelling only in the out-fields and confines of godliness but was admitted into its interiour and secret recesses Religion indeed was his business which he prosecuted with all his might The world had but a small portion of his time and a very slender interest in his affections He was grown as dexterous in the exercise of grace and in the successful promoting and carrying on of the holy life as others are in growing rich greatning themselves and providing for Posterity He was afraid of digging in the earth lest a cold damp should arise to dimm his light and suffocate his celestial comforts His constant commerce was with heaven and surely that trade which he drove was for rich commodities He adventured his all and was blessed with daily returns to his unspeakable advantage Though he were a stranger in this earth yet he was not so to his Saviour or himself which will plainly appear if you consider what his daily practise was for some years before his death He kept an exact Diary of his own life in which he was very curious and methodical in one Column or side of the page he would set down the Good in the other opposite against it the Evil. His intention doubtless was never to make either the whole or any part of it publick yet judicious Christians apprehending that several Passages in it may tend very much to the edification of others some choice flowers growing here and there in this spacious and odoriferous garden I have pickt up made into a Posie and do here expose them to publick view
endeavours His late journey to London heated his blood and disposed his already-wasting body to a dangerous distemper which discovered it self on the Lords day in his forenoons Sermon which after his return from the Congregation he laboured to conceal from his wife by endeavouring to eat though it were much against his stomach she perceiving some alteration in his countenance and carriage said You are not well pray preach not again to whom he replyed away away hinder me not Whereupon he retired to his study and adventured to preach again in the afternoon though with some difficulty and apparent symptoms of sickness in his very visage It was upon the spirits of some that this was the last time they should ever hear him One seeing and observing him in his return said Thou art almost in heaven I shall never see thee more The Text which he preached on that day is considerable Psal 4. 6. There be many that say Who will shew us any good Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us The former part viz. the enquiry Who will shew us any good he finished in the fore-noon and urged several arguments why men ought to sit loose from all things that are here below His expressions argued in him affections disingaged from matters dreggy and terrene One foot is off the earth already the other will be so too shortly He takes his flight from earth to heaven and in the afternoon made entrance on the latter part of the verse Lord lift thou up c. a suitable subject for him to speak to who was now about to enter into the gloomy horrours of the grave Those bright refulgent beams of heavenly light are never more seasonable then when we are upon the borders of the Land of darkness Ten glorious fruits and effects of the lifting up of the light of Gods countenance he held forth the heads of which because of the spirituality of the matter and being the words of a dying man and experienced Christian you will find in the Margin Judicious Christâ—ans plainly perceived him at that time to be wonderfully raised and his spreading sailes to be sweetly swelled with the powerful breathings of the Spirit for he spake more like one neer the Throne and in the company of Angels then one in a Pulpit and surrounded with mortalls At even the people according to their accustomed manner came crouding and thronging to Repetition His wife in vain perswaded him to dismiss the Assembly in repeating his Sermons Singing and Prayer he spent about two hours time At Supper he did eat a little with his wife and that chearfully yet complained of an unusual heaviness in his head and soreness in his eys when endeavouâ—ing to lift them up and took little rest the ensuing night The next morning seeing that he must be sick indeed he blessed the Lord that he found him in his work The Physitian being sent for and consulted with said he had got cold and was feavorish the second night is passed over with as little rest as the first A day of Thanksgiving in private for his own return from London and his wives late safe delivery was designed to be celebrated about this time the consideration of which occasioned some sadness whereupon to his wife he said This is sad love this looks as if the Lord would not accept of an Offering of praise from our hands And then he called for the Notes of a Thanksgiving Sermon preached long before by Doctor Jones on that passage of Hezekiah Who rendred not unto the Lord according to the benefit The third day as a choice Christian friend who came to visit him was discoursing with his wife he fell afleep and two or three hours after awaking he called for his wife who coming to him and kneeling down upon the beds side he fixed his eys on her and said dost thou know that place I will give them the Valley of Achor for a door of hope Who said yes He further asked her if she kâ—ew the meaning of it who expressing her apprehensions he said yea there it is and then a little nodding his head and pointing with his finger at her said Remâ—mber this Our valley of trouble shall be our door of hope About the fifth day in letting blood he fainted and with a low voyce said What means this it was not thus with me at Sir Roberts Kings To his wife looking upon him he said Now Love it is a weaning time He was more careful of Gods Service then of his own attendance causing the servants to leave him that so their duty to God in ways of worship might not be neglected The seventh day being the Sabbath he inquired who carried on the work and seemed to affect retirement and secret converse with God upon his own day Most part of the second week was passed over in a silent submission and quiet waiting on the Lord. The thirteenth day in the morning being Saturday his pains were very violent for an hour and half and extorted from him that doleful complaint Lord how long Ah my bowels my bowels I have grieved bowels this speaks much I have wanted bowels I have not been so pittiful towards others The Doctor being sent for and staying longer then was expected he said Lord give us help from trouble for vain is the help of man At night he was much refreshed chearful all night and prone to discourse and praised without any complaining and withall said I would have given the whole world for so much ease in the morning The Lords day in the morning the Doctor coming to him and looking on him wept to whom Master Murcot said How is it with me Doctor You may do well Brother I hope if you can get any sleep Master Murcot Tell me true how is my Pulse Doctor I confess it is but bad but you may do well if you can sleep which he indeavoured a while though in vain by closing his eys To his wife looking sadly on him he said Love canst thou pray for â—leep for me what saist thou to which her swelling grief permitted her not to return answer The rumouâ— of his weak condition being spread abroad a Doctor was sent from my Lord Deputy to see if there were any hope of life who speaking to him he said Doctor I am spent with sweating To his Sister he said and that without any amazement and peâ—turbation of spirit Sister I must now tell you I am not for this world and then lifting up himself he said Lord remember me how I have walked before thee in sincerity with all my might He wished the Sabbath were over that so he might do something about his Will though little were to be done His wife seeing hearing these passages said to him Now I see that you know that you must leave us He answered yes Love whereat she weeping he exhorted her to a Resignation to which she answered The Lord hath
enabled me to surrender you up heartily at the â—earâ—ng of which he lifting up his hands blessed the Lord. To hâ—s wâ—fe he said haste haste Love for my time is very short and withall told his Sister I shall not reach midnight Then lifting up himfelf he said these raptures tell me I must be gone quickly The consideration of his approaching rest did wonderfully revive The Messenger of the Lord whispered him in the ear and told him his Father had sent for him home which happy tidings made his heart to â—eap for joy within him The glimmerings of the white Throne of the Lamb sitting on that Throne and of the glorious troops of Saints and Angels all in white about the I â—rone with the apprehensions and confident assurance of his bearing a part in the Musick of their Hallelujahs caused in him sublime elevations and springing exultings of spirit in a body depressed and bowed down with pinching pains and the agonies of an approaching death He is now in the Cutfields of Emanuels Land and is gotten almost to the top of the Mount and his soul impatient of delaies is ready to leap out of the crazy and declining Cottage of mouldring Flesh Paper being brought he began thus I resign my spirit into the hands of the Father of Spirits and into the bosome of my dear Lord c. To this there were but three or four lines more added for he was in haste and longed to be at home To his wife having in a very short space dispatched his Will he said Bury me in silence without Funeral Sermon I will have no manner of pomp but was perswaded to yeild to the intreaties of his wife as to a Sermon As his children were called for Doctor Winter came in to visit him who unexpectedly seeing death in his face said with a loud and lamenting voice Brother Murcot are you leaving us who with unaltered countenance said Yes and desired him to pray quickly His children being brought he said to his eldest Will Hester be a good child and serve the Lord His son being presented he expressed himself thus The Lord break thy stubborn heart When the little one hanging on the mothers brest was exposed to his sight he lift up his hands and said The Lord bless thee Being put in mind of his servants he affectionately and even smilingly looked up upon one whom he had been instrumental to convert and said Bess hath a better Master the Lord be with thee Bess The children being taken away and his wife coming to take her last leave and final farewel of him he alone lift up himself and kissed her Dr. Winter desiring an interest in his prayers he said The Lord strengthen you for the double work that now lies on you and withal desired him to pray with him which he did in a most pathetical and doleful manner groaning out his requests unto God The people though desired are loath to leave the chamber and hang so thick on the curtains bed-posts hangings doors having not the power to leave their dear and departing friend so that he is in danger of being smothered and dying before his time Drawing near his end his sister said to him Are you in charity with all the Lords people though differing from you Who lifting up his eyes affectionately said Yes She desiring him to manifest it by his last request he lifted up his hands and requested that all the Lords people might be one as his way was one Then stretching out his arms and lifting himself up he said with a loud and shrill voice Lord Jesus draw me up to thee which sweet expressions by a frequent and fervent repetition wasted his spirits so that afterwards he lay in somewhat a silent posture waiting for his change which was now neer at hand About nine of the clock he breathed out his soul into the bosom of Christ and quietly slept in the Lord. The Wednesday following being the appointed time of his interment great was the confluence of people who attended the corps unto the grave The Lord Deputy Fleetwood followed the Body after him the Council then the Maior Aldermen and Citizens in such numerous troops that the like hath not been usually seen in Dublin Dr. Winter preached his funeral Sermon on Heb. 13. 7. Remember them which have the rule over you who have spoken unto you the word of God whose Faith follow considering the end of their conversation Upon the face of the whole Congregation sate a black cloud of sorrow and disconsolation being not able to vent it on that doleful and uncomfortable occasion into showers The Body being brought unto the place of burial the sadned spectators and standers-by sighed him into his grave and mingling his dust with their moist tears departed and left him in his bed of rest Relation I would willing back with Exhortation A few words of spiritual advice in the close of the whole may be of use though from an inferiour hand And first to you my Brethren in the Ministry I address my self and earnestly intreate you in the bowels of Christ Jesus our Lord to remember That you are not only Church-Officers but Christians Spend not your whole time in reading books and studying other men you will do well to study your selves and to be acquainted with the frame of your own hearts The way which you point out unto others walk in your selves and conscientiously practise the duties which you pangatively press Beware of beams in your own eyes whilest you are diligently plucking motes out of your brothers eyes Let not your own cloathes be full of dust when you are brushing other mens backs It s not handsom for us to be alwaies sweeping before the doors of others and picking up the least offensive straw whilest huge heaps of dunghil filth lie before our own doors unremoved It opens the mouths of opposites when we are taken notice of to bind heavy burdens on other mens shoulders we in the mean time refusing to touch them with the least of our fingers Know we not the pleadings of many at the last day Have we not preached in thy name and in thy name cast out Devils whom yet Christ will spurn from his presence and cast forth as an everlasting abhorring What though Judas had the grace of Apostleship so long as he had not grace with his Apostleship It was a wise course that Paul took and deserving imitation who did beat down his own body lest having preached unto others he himself should become a cast-away What though Satan fall down from heaven like â—ightning before us if he be not cast out of our hearts We have more reason to rejoyce in having our names written in the Lambs book of Life then in having the Devils subject to us O whilest we passionately endeavour the salvation of others souls let us have an eye of tender regard unto our own One hint more at parting We cannot be too often put in
fore-runner or harbinger of death that cry from the Rod hath a voice and that voice is Gods voice he speaks in it and it is not an ordinary voice but a crying voice the word it whispers the loud crying of the word is but a whispering in comparison of the voice of God in the Rod it cryeth hear the Rod and who hath appointed it Mind it if a Judgement be upon a City is there any evil in a City and he hath not wrought it it cryeth to the whole City louder then Jonah did repent repent for you may perish and come to the tribunal within less then 40. daies or hours So every disease in a family cryeth to the family cryeth to the person prepare make ready that we need not such a message as the Prophet Isaiah brought to Hezek the voice of God in the Rod cryeth prepare make ready for he is coming here is a blow that the Tabernacle of Clay is ready to tumble and then soul where wilt thou appear if thou be not ready Or else Thirdly by cry it may be meant as Chrysost Theophyl Jer. Hilary Aret. and others understand it of the last trump of the arch-Angel Arise ye dead and come to Judgement this will be such a cry Brethren as will make all the world ring of it indeed that will pierce to the bottom of the deep to make it give up its dead to the bowels of the earth to make it give up its dead Then shall all arise the dead in Christ shall rise first Well this cry goeth before or accompanyeth this coming of the Bride-groom Fourthly Then he cometh For the heavens now must contain him until the Consummation of all things and then he will come to judge quick and dead he that shall come will come though he seem long to the people of God he that shall come will come then mockers shall know where the promise of his coming is they shall know their Judgement lingers not nor damnation slumbereth not He will come soon enough for all too soon for many poor creatures the Lord grant none of us be found in our sinful condition Fifthly The time is at midnight The Jews have a tradition that the coming of Christ to Judgement will be at midnight and hereupon the Primitive Christians it should seem did use to watch all night the Eve of the Pass-over expecting his coming as Jerom reports saith Beza but to be wise above what is reason you see whether it leads men in the dark for what is more directly against our Saviour his own words Of that day and hour knoweth no man no not the Angels in heaven but my father only At midnight with respect to the solemnity of the marriage that is to say later then usually and therefore unexpected when all was silent nocte intempestâ when deep sleep useth to seize upon men The man of the house at midnight his eyes are sealed up with sleep and when he least dreameth of the thief then he cometh and surprizeth him So the Lord Jesus like a thief in the night when men usually are least aware most uncomposed and unfit for his coming for the most part The rest of his actions in this Parable will come in under the other part which is the Church for you have in the general First the subject of this comparison the Kingdom of heaven and what that is I shall not need here to speak much of it hath various expressions in Scripture It is not I conceive here taken for the Kingdom of glory for there are no foolish Virgins members of that Kingdom No nor the Kingdom of grace which is within the Saints for the same reason Nor yet for the Administrations of the Kingdom as sometimes it is taken But it is taken here for the visible Church of Jesus Christ wherein some are wise some are foolish Some hold out some fall short of heaven and the glory of God and some are crowned enduring to the end and thus much for the opening of that expression Second thing in general to be noted is the time Then shall the Kingdom of heaven be likened compared or shall be like then when even when the Son of man shall come Brethren to solemnize the marriage with such as he hath here espoused to himself then when we come to appear before him all together it shall most evidently appear to be so But in a sort it is so in every mans particular Judgement at his death or dissolution there is a Specimen given to the truth of this parable and this appears from the connexion of this Chapter with the former the last ver of the former Chapter he speaks of cutting in sunder that evil servant that presuming upon the Masters delay should beat his fellow-servants and eat and drink with the drunken he shall cut him in sunder and give him his portion with hypocrites where is weeping and gnashing of teeth for ever Then shall the Kingdom of heaven be likened to ten Virgins And though then the spirits of many just men be already made perfect and many hypocrites already in the everlasting chains of darkness yet because they have been members of the visible Church in a sort all such may come under such a consideration at the great and terrible day of his appearing when the sheep shall be set upon his right hand and the goates on his left hand as you have it in the latter end of this 25. Chapter Now for the Church visible compared to ten Virgins There are two sorts brethren in a visible Church such as are Saints indeed and do enjoy the Lord Jesus and have that Kingdom of God even righteousness peace and joy in the Holy-Ghost within them and such as are only so nomine tenus they go for such with men who cannot search the heart ought not to judge the heart immediately but tenderly and alway with the greatest favour to judge of men Now such is this Kingdom of heaven here mentioned And therefore we will consider what is said of them two waies cast it two waies haply it may appear the more clearly and distinctly to our understanding First We will consider what in the parable is common to them both to Hypocrites and Formal Professors with real Saints who possess and enjoy Jesus Christ Secondly We will consider what is peculiar to either of them and set contraria juxta se they wil give light each to other and this briefly First then for the things wherein they agree or which are common to Saints indeed with Saints in appearance only or seeming and real Saints They are all of them called Virgins not in commendation of virginity as Jerom did childishly conceive as Calvin noteth But to Virgins they are compared either only because in the marriage solemnity the Virgins used to go forth to meet the Bridegroom and bring him to his Chamber So here they must go forth to meet the Lord Jesus Or else
I go Sir but he went not now this is the Learning indeed a man hath never learned a lesson in Musick or learned a Copie until he hath practised it and can do it Ah dear friend do not our hearts blush sometimes when we consider how often we have had this watchfulness pressed upon us and yet how little have we done to bring our hearts to it And so for weanedness from the world for self-denyal for any other duty almost and therefore it is requisite Brethren that the same things should be repeated and inculcated but so much for the Arguments For the Application of the Doctrine It is a plea then for a standing Ministry in the Church of Christ according to that of the Apostle he hath set some Pastors some Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints and also while there are so many necessities upon them as you have heard how are they perfect So saith Peter I will not be negligent to put you alway in remembrance of these things though you know them and be established in the present truth yet I think it meet as long as I live in this Tabernacle to stir you up by putting you in remembrance Alas Brethren suppose you are many of you so well acquainted with the mysteries of faith as that you need not to be further instructed in these things yet it is a Peters duty you see I think it meet or just to put you in remembrance yea and as long as I live to do it though I have nothing now to present you with and though you be established in the present truth yet I must put you in remembrance They that despise prophesyings under that pretence that they have an unction themselves within them which teacheth them all things I doubt they will find by woful experience they quench the spirit of God in themselves and what in them lies also in others by weakning their hands but who is like to pay for that First Remember but that of the Apostle John in that same place you have an unction whereby you are taught all things what need John then to have written this Epistle to them you will say or some may say he might have spared the pains that unction of theirs is a supersedeas to him and all other Ministers whatsoever they have no need of them what saith he I write not these things to you because you know them not but because you know them It is for confirmation for quickning there is need enough of it else sure the spirit of God in him would not have wasted such precious pains upon them The Thessalonians have no need that he write to them touching Brotherly love they were nearer perfection then for ought I see the Churches of Christ now are love is the fulfilling of the Law and therefore had less need of the Apostles pains in writing to them but yet you see he bestoweth it and surely not in vain he exhorts them to abound more and more to continue in well-doing to encourage them and strengthen their hands this is none of the least works of a Messenger of Christ Secondly Here is a pattern for the Teachers of Gods people Let it not be grievous to you brethren sometimes to beat the same things upon the people if that mans wisdom might be heard to speak and carnal reason it would say it becometh not an exquisite Orator for men to insist too much nor too often upon the same things That is implyed in that of the Apostle to me it is not grievous to others haply it might It is not more tedious to a curious ear then it is to a quaint tongue to speak the same things again and again but let us not consult with flesh and blood in these things but tread in the steps of our Saviour Surely there was never such a treasurie of wisdom and knowledge as was in Christ in him were hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge and it had been easie for him still to have brought out of his treasurie things new and not any old But you see what manner of Preaching is his to his own Disciples We are called upon in Timothy to exhort with all long suffering and Doctrine and be instant in season out of season Aug. would rather speak broken La◠then the people should not understand and he would have Preachers press a point upon their hearers until they might even read the print of it in their faces think not a light touch will do it And yet let me not be mistaken here neither for I mean not hereby to make a Cloak for any Ministers idleness or sloathfulness who therefore may dwell longer then is meet upon a thing or often go over with a thing because they will not be at more pains to bring forth new as well as old no far be it from me the Apostle giveth us another rule give attendance to reading to exhortation to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be thou in them that thy profiting may appear to all A Scribe instructed to the Kingdom of heaven brings forth both new and old but if there be need to press things harder or more then ordinary upon people let it not be grievous to us it must not then be a carnal self-love love of our own ends but the love of our poor souls and their profiting that must lead us to it else it is nothing for you saith the Apostle it is safe that I write the same things and what was that even the warning them of false Teachers it was safe for them to hear it again and it was no such pleasing string for the Apostle to harp upon but yet because it was safe for them he denyed himself in that If the Ministers of Christ do sometimes more then ordinary strike upon that vain instruct tenderly it is necessary surely or they think it so else it is no such pleasing thing Again there is much wisdom to be used also by us in pressing the same things making a difference between persons and persons upon whom least we grieve or dull some instead of quickening them therefore the Apostle he doth with a kind of modesty use this freedom with them he acknowledgeth indeed that they did know the things he writ he would not have them think he took them to be so ignorant or to be so fickle and wavering but they were established in the present truth and yet saith he I hold it my duty sometimes to put you in remembrance and to stir you up So John not because you know not but because you know these things therefore I write to you 1 John 2. And so the Apostle you need not that I write to you concerning brotherly love you do love one another but continue in it abound in it more and more See how sweetly doth he insinuate into them if he had to deal with other people he knoweth how to speak after another
if you could as easily put by the coming of Christ as you can make a shift to smother the thoughts of it your hearts indeed might chear you and your condition were something like But he will come and though you be asleep in the Arms of your lusts know that your judgement sleepeth not and your condemnation slumbereth not And make what haste you can to be rich or to be honourable and such persons are not innocent make what hast you can in your career of sinning it travels as fast you and will be sure to meet you at the gates of death and hell if not sooner But it may be we think we have done this great work we are through grace acquainted with the Lord Jesus and his spirit which hath effectually wrought in us to believe in his name to love him the main is done with us and therefore sure we may have more liberty then others now Is it so but is this all that must go to watch for his appearing do we not find our hearts thrusting away from us that day and our hands fail and security setzeth upon us the Disciples were in danger to be surprized as well as others Is there any of us so liveth as that we could readily and cheerfully meet the Lord Jesus at an hours warning a daies 〈…〉 and who knoweth he shall have so much to set his house in order O there is need to press this duty upon us all brethren be our condition what it will we have yet somewhat to learn of it and shall have let us hear it as often as we can But I will leave what further may be said unto its proper place in the handling the Parable A word or two to the present occasion we are many of us now called to this sealing Ordinance And though we have been often stirrd up and taught our duty concerning it is there not need to chafe the oyl in upon our hearts our affections still Alas how often have we heard that what it findeth it sealeeth And yet do we not dare to come some of us with hard hearts with covetous hearts uncircumcised hearts I would not speak brethren to grieve the heart of any the Lord would not have grieved as they that have least cause will be most sadly assayling themselves with condemning thoughts but the Lord grant there be none found among us guilty kind As often as ever we come we hear how dangerous a thing it is to come unworthily prepared to it and yet the Lord knoweth how often we have thrust in here some of us without a wedding garment And that you have not been bound hand and fooe bound up in our grave-cloaths and cast out of his sight for ever it is unspeakable mercy O that this might melt us and humble us and though blessed be his holy name I believe there are many poor trembling souls who go about these things with trembling hearts least they should miscarry and grieve him and bring his blood upon their heads I doubt there may be some of us found whose hearts are far from such a frame had we not need then to be put in mind and remembrance again and again of these things It may be we have faith and love to Jesus Christ it may be we have humility and self-loathing it may be we have a mourning spirit over our sins that have grieved the Lord Jesus put him to all that grief for us it may be we have a thankful heart but are these graces now in action are they upon the wing how often have we been minded thereof that we must be actually prepared Alas alas haply some of us have not taken the pains with our hearts which we might and which others would have done if they had had the hearts which we have haply some of us have been striving but in our own strength and have done little haply others may have been helped in the preparing our hearts to seek him herein but by our pride or carnal confidence have lost our frame again It may be some of us brethren have not been very negligent but yet not so diligent as we ought O brethren how needful are these things bear with me if I do press you to them it is not tedious to me because I hope it is safe for you O! that I could do it with such a spirit and such bowels as the Apostle did the Lord set it upon all our hearts we are exceeding dull to believe and more dull to practise and do his will revealed to us Though the good be our own the glory onely his But I will not insist any further here the Lord give us understanding and believing hearts Now for the words of the Text. The Kingdom of Heaven is like to ten Virgins which went forth to meet the Bridegroom I shall begin according to the former method And first speak concerning Jesus Christ with respect to his Church And touching him there are many things in this Parable First he is the Bridegroom 2. His delay of his coming 3. The cry before his coming 4. The coming 5. The time of his coming at Midnight To begin with the first The Bridegroom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 However it be that the scope of the parable be to stir up all men that profess the Lord Jesus to a perseverance in watchfulness to stand ready for his coming which being apprehended there is no necessity of pressing each particular in the parable yet I conceive according to our Saviour His opening of other parables we may insist upon the chief things therein as where HE would let us see what need we had to take heed What or How or Whom we Hear by the parable of the several sorts of Ground receiving the seed of the Word he not onely tells us the difference of the Grounds but what the seed is and who the Sower is or else in that parable of the good seed and the Tares he tells us particularly what is meant by each And therefore I must not here pass over this of the Bride-groom The Virgins went forth to meet the Bridegroom The note will be The relation between the Lord Jesus and his people He is the Bridegroom and stands in that relation to his people that this is so we need go no further then this parable for who else is it that cometh and with whom they that are ready do enter into the Mâ—rriage then Jesus Christ who is our life who appearing we shall appear with him in glory Again the foolish virgins cry to him Lord Lord open to us Who is the Lord but Jesus Christ as will appear by comparing this with that speech of our Saviour Not every one that saith to me Lord Lord shall enter but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven Many will say to me Lord Lord have we not prophesied in thy Name in whose name but in the name of Jesus Christ and in
to set his love upon his soul he believeth no such things nor the Papists neither Nor many a poor hypocrite Alas they think they have somewhat that deserveth him I some beauty is in us that the Lord saw and so it was meet for him to lay out his love upon us proud wretches that we are it is well we have an infinitely condescending love yea and powerful that can overcome our pride and swallow it up and love not onely poor creatures nothing-creatures but such as falsly suppose themselves somewhat when they are nothing else what would become of many of us Well sure it is because we know not our selves or know not what this love means else we should all of us easily subscribe to this 2. That he would be at such a price for such for alas brethren 〈◊〉 who would lay down his life almost for the cho cest of persons though some in an Agony of Passion and discontent have made themselves away for them they have doated upon yet here was some proportion between the persons loving and loved yea happily the person loved might be the more eminent person and therefore might stand off and a man when he doth this alas he is beloved himself he is wrapt by the violence of his passion out of his choice his understanding and judgement dethroned and then the Affections like wild horses O whither will they not hurry a man but in such a case a man is not a man but now in sobriety of minde consider it and who would lay down their lives and dye for the obtaining the rarest creature in the world for a spouse surely none O no Skin for skin saith the Devil and though a man imagine more to be in what he hath never injoyed then he findeth by experience in what he hath had the flower and cream of yet notwithstanding if a man be himself he will prize his life above all but if he would dye would he dye a most shameful death to have his life taken away by the most violent destructions and convulsions of minde so strongly working upon the body as to moulder it away by degrees surely hardly any man would ever venture in such a case as this Alas What is this to what the Lord Jesus hath willingly undertaken for worms what man would dye for a worm that it might live and he might have it put in his bosom or rather would be contented to â—ay down his body take up the form of a worm and therein dye the most miserable death that he might have worms saved from death and be his nearest relations for ever O doth not this transcend the love of Angels brethren Alas what is this to what Jesus Christ hath paid for poor worms at the best sinful dust and ashes and that we might live and live in union and fellowship with himselfe for ever Ah Brethren if God would but make us sensible what we are at the worst and what the Lord Jesus underwent in some measure for apprehend it fully we cannot but such as have ever tasted what it is to sip of the cup may apprehend more then others what dregs were at the bottom a drop how doth it put the soul into an Agony upon the rack that thou wouldst choose death rather then life O what then was the whole cup brethren that he should undergo this and should with his most precious blood be willing to purchase such poor abjects forlorn Creatures to be a spouse to him yea with his blood drawn from him through the very pores of the body by the very distractions of his soul and wresâ—ling with wrath O was there ever grief like this that the father put him to and was there ever love like this brethren O that we had hearts indeed to admire it 3. That after all this is done he should be at such pains to bring us to himself to wooe us to come himself to send us his messengers to strive with us by his Spirit as you know he strivd long with the old world and strived long with the Israelites in the wilderness and many of our souls can say it by experience he hath striven long with us by his spirit when we have been convinced our ways have been folly and misery and yet we would not yield how hath he followed us up and down with motions of his spirit and waited to be gracious and all but to have our consent to take him for ours Dear friends who are we that the Lord Jesus should thus ambire make so much ado with us to have our consent to take him to accept of him for a Husband O what desperate enmity is in our hearts against him that there must be so much ado to overcome it You would think that poor begger either a very crooked cross piece full of bitter hatred against a Prince or Noble-man that sues to her with all the intreaties that can be sends messenger after messenger cometh himself and beseecheth her to accept of him and yet she will not no is she well where she is desireth not either you will say she believeth not what he saith that it is in reality it will not enter into her heart to think he is real he is so far above her though he tell her he knew that is sensible of it yet maketh love to her meerly because he will and his heart is towards her not for any thing in her self she believeth not or else that she is a desperate enemy and hater of such a Noble-man and would rather perish there or languish in such a condition as an abject then accept of him O this is the condition of many of us brethren some poor deject dunbelieving souls alas their hearts even fail within them to hear that J. Christ should make love to them O it canot be sure to such a worm such a wretch so poor so filthy so full of rags vermin so full of sores and wounds full deeply indebted so deformed and loathsom every way O they know not how to receive this Others they are even stout and proud and care no more for these things then if Jesus Christ had said nothing at all as for them they are well enough if he will let them alone they desire not to mend their conditions by closing with him Now brethren to both these how doth the Lord Jesus apply himself Never were there more powerful Arguments used and never more powerfully prest then he presseth them and that with more diligence and patient waiting upon us and O what love what manner of love is this that all this floweth from A little to touch upou each of them brethren happily the Lord may be pleased to breath in them to some poor soul and as he doth at other times thus so this day brethren Even to you he is pleading with you for this very end that some poor sinners would be perswaded to close with him First then The Arguments are the most
longing after so on the other hand there are many will say If this be all it is an easie matter we are all willing to have Christ O that you were brethren if you were willing to have him sure you would make more after him then you do many of you he may go whither he will you never miss him never troubled for want of him Believe it you are not willing to have him there goeth more to a willingness in sincerity then you are aware of And then on the other hand those which are willing are ready to think Alas they cannot finde their hearts willing they are afraid they may deceive themselves But what is it man that maketh thee walk so heavily so carefully so droopingly is it not the want of Jesus Christ what is it that thy soul cryeth out for to God early and late so that heaven and earth is full of thy sighs and groans and tears is it noâ— for Jesus Christ What is the reason that thy soul followeth so hard after God if thou be not willing to have him What is the reason else that all comforts wherewith thou aboundest yield thee no satisfaction they are nothing to thee No thou must have Christ or else thou dyest and yet thinkest thou are not willing to have him O surely brethren here is a willingness take him take him then poor soul Behold his arms are open to embrace thee his heart is open to receive thee O embrace him close with him and take the comfort of it that thou maist walk cheerfully before him for ever 2. Again Be sure Brethren that you choose Christ and not somewhat else instead of him Choice is an act of the reason and judgement and so must we proceed upon judgement mature consideration of things else it will never hold we shall mistake the object take somewhat else for Christ Or else if we pitch upon the Object it will be so slightly as not to make a Marriageclosure The Apostle saith the Love of Christ constraineth us because we thus Judge if Christ dyed for all then were all dead there is an object of Judgement going before the constraining of that love of Christ so some understand that I will espouse or betroth thee to my self in Judgement not only on his part but on our part it shall be in Judgement usually the Affections or passions these are violent like a Land-flood yet having not a spring to feed them they are quickly dryed up 1. Then Be sure you choose not the prosperity you expect to accompany Christ instead of him How many followed him for the loaâ—es they were not in love with Christ but the loaves they loved their own bellies and not the Lord Jesus as the Apostle speaks And therefore our Saviour deals plainly with men At the first you dream of outward felicity if you have me you are deceived saith our Saviour the Foxes have holes the birds of the Air nests c. If that men did certainly know they must suffer persecution for the name of God the name of Christ as all that will live godly in this world must do it more or less I doubt this would quench those wishes and velleities that sometimes they have towards Jesus Christ Do not mistake if you have him you must expect trouble with him troubles within and troubles without such as you never likely met with before and if you cannot be willing to take him with his reproaches his poverty his nakedness his imprisonments you are not worthy of him 2. Be sure you choose not his graces or any thing but himself primarily many would have him but what is it they mind or eye that they might have peace and comfort and pardon of sin and this and that priviledge but they do not pitch upon Christ himself primarily as the fountain Well then labour to fall in love with his person to see some excellency in Christ that you apprehend not before O! when the soul hath his beauty loveliness to know him that the fulness of the Godhead is in him that he is the express image or Character of his Fathers Person then to chuse him upon such grounds and deliberates is likely to hold This is the rooting Brethren which the word of grace hath in the heart the depth of earth whereupon a well poysed judgement we choose the Lhrd Jesus that we see so much in him of worth that we are now satisfied come life come death come poverty come persecution come what can come there is enough in him to make up all until we come to this Brethren explicitly or implicitly it will hardly hold O therefore Brethren labour to study Christ and his excellency whereby he is the chief of ten thousand Beg of him to manifest himself to you that you may judiciously choose him Use 6. Shall be for exhortation to the people of God such as the Lord hath given â—ower to believe in the Lord Jesus and close with him he hath made you willing to have him and upon his own terms you should be exhorted in that 1. To labour to make itâ— sure that you have the match made up between Christ and your souls for he loseth much of his honour and your souls the comfort of your condition in a great part because you are not sure it is so Surely he is willing to seal it up to you with the privy seal the seal of his Spirit witnessing to your spirits that you are his Yea and he hath promised too in that place where he betrotheth his people to himself I will say to them you are my people and ye shall say thou art my God Thou canst not say he is thy beloved or thy beloved is thine and thou art his but observe he hath promised that he will speak first to thy soul and say thou art mine and then the soul shall say thou art mine my husband my God for the thing expressed by both is the same There are many othe promises of the like kiâ—d why do not we let them lye dormant and do not put them in suit more earnestly in the Court of heaven were we not much wanting to our selves herein it would be much more comfortable for us then it is 2. Yea though thou hast not thus far assurance that it is so and the match made up between thee and the Lord Jesus yet take heed of a iealous heart of him as if he were unwilling to match with thee or as if he were off and on and did but mock thee because thou findest it not in so full a measure as thou wouldest what will more grieve him then this what could he have done more then he hath done to manifest his willingness to receive all that come to him that are made willing through grace to receive him You have his promise which usually among honest men is as good as their Bond and we build upon it And what do you make of Jesus Christ
compass of this Covenant of Grace and afterward perish the deeper will they sâ—nk those will burn with a witness that are cut off from the Vine the visible Church of the Olive as unprofitable dead and barren branches Yet it is a priviledge and a great act of grace to be of the Olive Is it nothing to be one of Gods houshold or family to be under his provision his protection and guidance in a special manner to be in the state of separation to God of old and sealed up therein to God by Circumcision It was profitable much every way the Apostle said Yea I will say more That the greater force a thing hath to aggravate the condemnation of poor Creatures the greater the mercy is Shall we say the Preaching of the Gospel is not a mercy because this is the condemnation indeed that light is come into the world The second use may be to help the people of God over a stumbling block which may be an offence to them happily in some Churches of Christ either such as themselves walk with or others It may be there are some in such or such a Church whose spirits thou canst not savour thou hast them in suspition and therefore thou canst not be free to have fellowship with them Or if thou be in Fellowship thou art ready to withdraw upon such an account First be sure to take heed of making breaches in thy love It thinketh no evil hopeth all things that are hopeable And dost thou know how much smoke there may be with some fire how much corruption and ashes there may be and yet some fire Therefore take heed of judging the state and Condition of men where they are not in the course of their lives prophane and scandalous 2. Much more take heed of that dividing and separating upon such an occasion as this for did not our Saviour walk with his disciples though he knew Judas a devil and doubtless it was more a grief to him then it can be to us the less holiness the less evil will grieve and a man is more tender there must needs be all tenderness where there is no sin to harden it O then let us arm our selves with the same minde There were great abuses in the Church of Corinth and yet he stirreth not them up to division but love rather Why but you will say when they become scandalous what should we do then Why then the Church ought to deal with them judiciously to enquire into them admonish them censure and cast them out if the other preparative means with waiting upon God in them will not do it That is clear in the incestuous person and again If any that is called a brother be a drunkard or a rayler c. with such a one no not to eat it is clear whether they might so withdraw from him before the Church had censured him under tryal I think not for then he was to be as a heathen in respect of communion and yet not accounted an enemy but esteemed as a brother now truly if the Church be so over-run with this hem 〈…〉 k for want of weeding like the slothful mans vineyard over-grown with thorns and thistles Through the sloth of the Church and officers the ordinance of excommunication so neglected that now they are grown so corrupt as there is no way lefâ— according to the rule of Christ to purge them what other means is left in such a case but withdrawing I do not understand 3. It may teach us notwithstanding the sad condition of such as continuing members of the visible Church yet remain in an unregenerate state happily we all look upon our selves to be members of the Church of Christ but have we this grace in our hearts this oyl in our Lamps we have a name and profession but can we say that Christ is in us the hope of glory If not brethren our condition is sad indeed we are a people that happily the world can lay nothing to our charge we may put the best side outward like painted sepulchers but what is within what is within but rottenness remember that though men cannot judge your hearts but hope the best of you brethren yet there is one which searcheth the heart and judgeth the heart and of you according to your hearts though his Disciples cannot finde out Judas yet our Saviour would finde him out at last hâ—s eys are like a flaming fire Let your hypocrisie be as deep as it may it shall not be hid from the light nor from the scorching heat thereof Yea consider seriously brethren that those things you glory most in and pillar up your selves with they will be your ruine if you remain in this condition and that is the Ordinances you have the Covenant preached and sealed to you from time to time and communion with the Saints you think this is enough you cannot miscarry the Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord you trust in lying words for they will deceive you may you not be children of the Kingdom and yet cast out yet will not this be the thing which will sink you that you have been children of the kingdom and yet fall short of the kingdom You come to the feast for theâ—e is a wedding feast the Gospel and the Ordinances are whereof see pag. 106. which you are to understand all the administrations of the grace in the Kingdom the Gospel-Ordinances this is the feast of fat things the fat things of heaven you may be admitted to this feast to all the Ordinances not a dish upon the table but you may eat of it But alas brethren if you be yet in the gall of bitterâ—â—ss though you go for sweet Christians all turns to gall and poyson to your souls It is impossible for such a man or such a woman ever to come worthily to partake of the Ordinances a child of God hath much ado with his heart to bring it into frame to get the spirit fixed to sing and give praise to prepare his heart and much pains many times and the work done but in a little part yet there is mercy to accept where we do our best there is habitual preparation there are the graces of the spirit and there is Christ put on by faith for righteousness and holiness but the graces are not so lovely so stirred up and much ado to blow away the ashes and they flye about our ears sometimes that we even lose our selves in the work But yet God will be mercifull and cover our shortness if we reach but this the sense of our unpreparation and be â—uâ—bled for it But now thou that art a hypocrite and an unregenerate man thou canst never be prepared to come to hear to receive the Supper and so they prove the savour of death to death thou hast no promise thou canst build upon but that they will be thy bane Alas poor soul how many times hast thou
genera vari he is truth itself as well as being it self and other things are no further true then they have some proportion to him which they also have from him therefore the mind having gotten such an Object as this to dwell upon wherein it may be swallowed up and satisfied with truth it hath its perfection 2. The will that hath for its Object good and it is not content with a partial good here and there a little but it would receive all good now the Lord he is good and there is none good but God he is the supream good the greatest good and the last in genere boni all goodness in the Creature whether honour proportionable or delightful or pleasant good alas what is it but a little reflection of his glory upon the Creature a little spark of his kindling a little drop to the ocean but this is but answerable to the capacity and comprehension of the soul Secondly there is also the everlastingness of the soul it liveth for ever and therefore a short good though never so full is not commensurate unto it there must be certitudo aeternae fruitionis which as well as fruitio incommutabilis boni to make up a blessedness which is the end the soul proposeth to it self So Aug. de Chro. for fuisse selioem miâ—erum It is the depth of our misery we are now cast down so low because we were once seated raised so high in honour so near to God and yet if we might spend but a time in hâ—aven and enjoy God and afterward forsake that habitation this world would be the â—ell of hels unto such a soul but there is an everlastingness in the good itself we enjoy and in our enjoyment of that good We 〈…〉 this then is the great end â—o know and to propound to a mans self to set as his 〈…〉 as his mark is a part of wisdom he that doth great things takes much pains for poor ends is a fool the end speaks a man a wise man or a fool as much as any thiâ—g But 2. Then there are the means to be used for the attaining of that end that is the next thing If a man have never so right an end and yet know not what means to use for that end or use them not aright he is a â—ool not a wise man As now a man would have health and he knoweth not that physick will avail him it is all one to him a cup of poyson or a purging potion is all one to him or if he have the means and use them not or not aright and so in any other thing whatsoever I briefly wrapt up the other two in this place Now to this great end the enjoyment of God the means what are they but more immediately the closing with Jesus Christ by faith in his blood for he is not received but in Jesus Christ nor to be enjoyed but in him and through him Now since we have lost the image and glory of God it would not prove good to us to enjoy him if it were possible for us so to do that is to say it would not be suitable to us as we are corrupted heaven would be hell to a wicked man if he could enter into that holy place a while And therefore there is a necessity that we close with Jesus Christ that in him we may be brought near being reconciled through the blood of his cross and the enmity slain that is in our hearts against God and a new nature put upon us the heart changed and made conformable to God that image and likeness restored which consisted in knowledge righteousness and true holiness that now to enjoy God in the fulness and holiness and joy it is suitable to this new man wrought in us by Jesus Christ suitable to that spiritual Christ which is founded in us and so is good to us therefore this is the great means I say the closing with Jesus Christ for righteousness and reconciliation and holiness that heaven may be suitable unto us that we may also by him be changed and made fit and able to bear the weight of glory which is there to be put upon us More mediately and remotely now the means of grace the Gospel and ordinances thereof wherein God is revealed in Christ therein he is revealed for righteousness for holiness he is preached therein in the Covenant and that sealed up to us in the other ordinances And all the means of grace are helpful for this end Well now before I go any further Let us see the wisdom and folly of a pretender and a real Saint that is a virgin indeed 1. Then for the end though miserable man would be happy yet we miss it in the end and if we miss the end all our endeavours are nothing Now a child of God his end is God as he is a glorious God and as he is a good God and here is wisdom indeed that is to say he aimeth at this to glorine God to exalt him that he may be glorified in him as well knowing that the glory of the Lord is that wherein his own good and salvation is wrapt up for wherein are the riches of his glorious grace manifested but in the pardoning and subduing of iniquity O for thy names sake pardon mine iniquity for it is great for his names sake Who is like unto thee a God pardoning iniquity transgression and sin And then the salvation of his soul he is wise that is wise to salvation that is wise for himself indeed in the main thing You see a man wonderful industrious takes great pains runs and rides is very earnest and what is his end in this to have a flea to catch a butterfly You would judge this man a sool the end will recompence the laborious use of the means Now a formal professer he will keep as much a do as another happily be at as much pains in duty spend as many hours in private happily some may be of Jâ—hu his stamp and strain as long as it will hold but what is it for Alas they seek a poor empty self they would have a name they would have their zeal for God seen they would have their ends satisfied it is the way to flourish What pains did they take to follow Jesus Christ up and down and all was for the loaves a poor end Suppose the end be a little stopping the mouth of a clamarous conscience for the present a poor end Is not this folly to shoot so high and aim so low But happily it will not be so easie to convince hypocrites that they miss it in the end though for my part I think it is that which we ordinarily miss it in did you at all feast to me saith the Lord or fast to me did you not bring forth fruit to your selves which are infinitely too low to be our own end for when we enjoy the most we can in our selves
up any of them instead of Christ But enough of this The Second thing or point of wisdom is in keeping that which we have the good we have that is a chief point of wisdom indeed Nonminor est virtus do you not count him a fool that takes great pains to get an estate to get much and is as lavish of it takes no care to keep it when he hath done lets one run away with one pâ—râ— another with another part why now here is the case an hypocrite a formal professor a foolish virgin hath something he hath common grace happily he hath many duties and services but all these will be taken away from him he cannot keep his garments nor doth he take the course to keep them for he that would keep these things must look after somewl at more the power of Christ within to inable to improve these to his glory else he that hath not from him shall be taken even that which he hath you have leaves of profession these shall be taken away But the Third thing is more considerable and that indeed I think will prove comprehensive of the two points and of wisdom and that is to avoid carefully the evil which they fear the greater the evil the greater should be the fear of it if he be a wise man Now the evil which we will speak of shall be the Soul-Evil which must needs be the worst corruptio optimi est pessima and evil by how much the more destructive it is by so much the more wisdom is requisite to avoid it and by how much the more eminent it is hanging our head this evil brethren is not the loss of outward things which are perishable not the suffering of temporal troubles these may run into the soul of a Joseph and a Job and they triumph over them their blessedness will be above all these they have oyl at top but what is it then 1. The Malum damni the great evil of loss is the loss of a precious soul that nothing is able to purchase but the blood of Jesus Christ if the blood of Jesus do not deliver thy soul there remaineth no more Sacrifice for sin if thou fall short of this which is already offered O what shall a man give in exchange for his soul when it is once lost shal he give ten thousand Rivers of oyl or golden Mountains or the fruit of his body Alas all this is nothing to the loss of the soul and what is the loss of the soul but the loss of the face and favour of God in Jesus Christ for ever that is the death of the soul which is the souls loss to be separated from him the loss of the beauty of the soul and the end of it to serve him and be glorifyed with him 2. The inflicting of the heaviest suffering is the poena sensus that is to say when God poureth out the burning coals of his wrath upon the naked Conscience whipping the naked and galled Conscience with Scorpions to eternity O this dwelling with devouring fire and everlasting burning without a shadow will make the sinners in Sion afraid and fearfulness surprizeth the hypocrites O it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God Heb. 10. 31. According to his power so is his wrath as is the man so is his might said he of Gideon as is the ability so is the arm to lay heavy stroaks not to dispatch us as he said but to sink for ever he is able to destroy both soul and body in hell Now the means to avoid this evil are the same that before no other way in the world but to get into the City of refuge if they rest and stay by the way this evil will seize upon them and their blood wil be upon their own heads But wherein doth a formal professors folly and a Saints wisdom appear in reference to this 1. He that foreseeth not an evil coming upon him is not so wise as he should be the prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself this providence is a great part of prudence for a man to see a mist no further then under his feet like the beast is a great folly a wise man hath his eye in his head do you think that man that buildeth his house upon the sand did foresee the showers c. a house they must have somewhat to shade them from the weather but here is the folly to build upon such a foundation not foreseeing what is like to befall it O that my people were wise that they would consider their latter end they sit not down and consider c. 2. If they have now and then a hint of it yet they make no provision against it as it is likely Hypocrites have some grudgings sometimes and some discoveries of their hypocrisy rottenness of their houses they have builded and yet they heed it not this is worse is not this great folly yea how often are you warned and awakened and yet you will not stir if a man should see a storm coming that will destroy his house except he fortifie it and should not care were not he a fool they will not hide themselves from the storm 3. It is folly rather to run a hazard of a greater evil that is future though certain then to undergo a much less evil though present as for instance a man would rather venture his life unavoidably then he would take such a bitter potion the young man in the Gospel that went far he would notwithstanding venture his soul rather then his estate and is not this the Condition of many formal Professors Alas brethren if a little reproach or persecution for Christs sake come and the way of Christ be a disgraced way they count the riches of Egypt greater treasure then their souls and heaven and therefore venture all upon it O this is folly 4. Yea a man that would lose a far greater good to gain a less is a fool and what shall a man gain if he get the world and lose his soul and what shall an Hypocrite get by his close ways of unrighteous gaining if he lose his soul will it countervail it if laid in the balance together What will you gain if you have never so much reputation for wise and holy men which is the thing you seek likely many of you seek honour one of another and lose the soul in the mean time gape at the shadow and lose the substance O this is a folly with a witness that will part with Gold for Counters with Pearls for Pebbles and yet such is the Condition of a formal Professor of Christ If this be so then a man that contents himself with a profession of Christ without the enjoyment of him is a fool and the contrary is a wise man then First We see that God and the world are of two minds O that men would be but perswaded
takes encouragement to lay the reins upon the neck to run to all maner of excess the very same you repeated by Luke therefore it shall suffice to name that I will add but one Scripture-more which happily may be of more use then any of these to some perceiving judgements for happily you will say this is but a bribed judgement of some wicked persons bribed and blinded by their Lusts indeed there is not such a delay which indeed is a great part true for the delay is for the most part to be measured by our weakness and shortness as afterward will appear yet somewhat there is of a delay and that you shall find in the Apostle to the Thessalonians Let no man deceive you by any means be not quickly removed or shaken in mind or troubled whether by Spirit or by Word or by Letter as from us as the day of Christ is at hand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but there must first come a falling away c. which is fulfilled in the great Antichrist the Pope who sits in the Temple of God as God c. Yet the other Apostle saith the Judge standeth at the door 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Grudge not one at another complain not one of another for the Judge is near at hand ready to judge you all for it So sin lyeth at the door that is to say to be near at hand It is no contradiction to that that the day of the Lord is not at hand for that is the day wherein he hath appointed wherein he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance to all men in that he raised him up from the dead If this judging which is near is a temporal Chastisement he would lay upon them as if when children are envying one another quarrelling and grudging one at another accusing one another and falling out one should move them to forbear and by this Argument take heed your Father is at door with a rod in his hand and he will judge you all So he judgth the people that they might not be condemned with the world I thought good to speak thus far lest that seeming contradiction might trouble any so much for the proof The second thing will be to open the terms and First What is meant by coming the coming of Christ This will open the particle of time in the first verse then shall the Kingdom of Heaven be likened c. the same Key will open both To omit then any other opinion of it I understand it either of the coming of Christ to a particular soul which is no sooner separated from the body but cometh to judgement Now Christ may be said to come he cometh to put the sickle to such as are ripe for it he cometh to gather into his barn if they be wheat or else to burn them up with unquenchable fire Or else 2. And rather of the day of Judgement that great day and appearing of our Jesus Christ who is our life when his people shall appear with him in glory which day will find many alive who shall then be changed before they enter in with him and which day will find doubtless many in deep security and formality to have their work to do And for those that are then dead and shall be raised up it will find them in that state wherein they lay down in the dust either of faith or unbelief and accordingly either they shall be shut out or admitted to the Marriage And methinks this doom of our Saviour I know you not which is parallel to that Mat. 7. 23. Depart from me you workers of iniquity I know you not which surely doth agree to none except it be at the day of death or the day of judgement for any other time I will not trouble you with any thing about And so much for this first 2. Now for the delaying What is Jesus Christ more backward then the Church to this union that they go forth to meet him and seem forward and he delays his coming for what will make more hast then love will it not bring him upon Eagles wings yea riding upon the clouds and wings of the wind and how are we to understand this of his delay of his coming or what is he an idol-Christ that is taken up in a journey or any other business as to forget his spouse and neglect her to come speedily to make up the match to bring her into his Fathers house this were indeed agreeable to a poor finite forgetful Creature but not to Jesus Christ Yea more then this Is he not said to come quickly in divers places and how stands that with the delay of his coming See that place in Luke in the Parable of the unjust judge overcome with the widows importunity though he neither cared for God nor regarded man yet because of her importunity he would avenge her of her adversary how much more God who is love it self and tender of his people as the apple of his eye who is most just and most faithful and who doth indeed fear the wrath of his adversary after the manner of men being tender of his people and of his own name lest he should reproach his name and that reproach with ruin fall upon his people and besides all this being importuned by them as the souls under the Altar crying continually how long Lord holy and true wilt thou not avenge our blood upon the inhabitants of the Earth why saith the Text shall not God avenge his own Children which cry day and night to him though he bear long with them that is to say with their enemie I tell you he will avenge them speedily 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 speedily in a trice a moment by and by according to that of the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quantulumcunque how little soever as little as may be and he will not tarry How hang these things together For the clearing of this it is necessary to say something And first I will shew you in what respect he is not said to delay or it is denied that he doth delay his coming but it is short and quickly and then 2. In what respect he is said to delay his coming and then come to the argumentss 2. Then he is not said to delay his coming in respect of his own eternity wherein all the differences of time are swallowed up and appear not at all there is no time long or short in eternity there is not prius or posterius there and therefore the Apostle in this argument speaks in this wise know saith he to them that were ready to mock because it was so long before the promise of his coming was fulfilled for the glorious liberty of the Sons of God from under their iron yokes put upon them by their persecutors why saith he God is not slack as some count slackness or
Sometimes the Lord sendeth a long and a loud cry a grievous and heavy visitation upon many of us yea upon his own dear children as I have known some the Cry hath been he is coming go forth to meet him make ready Or if it be a stroke that he removeth again before we go hence and we recover strength again yet the Cry of it is Behold he cometh go forth to meet him for we know not whether death be not in the cup of affliction we drink at any time Thirdly Then for the relative consideration of the Cry with respect to his coming whereof it is a warning It is to be considered whether it be so immediate yea or no as there can be no time of preparation after it which seemeth not to suit with the parable here It seemeth by the parable if I may insist so much upon these particulars 1. That there was some time between the cry and his coming as there is some time between the Harbinger and the coming of his Lord whose way he prepareth because the Virgins here seem to have some time to trim their Lamps even the wise virgins and for the foolish it should seem by the parable they had some time to trifle away in buying or going to assay it but this I will not press or urge too much onely sure it is that the wise virgins being found asleep after the warning had time and a heart given them to prepare to trim them And therefore If we understand it of them which shall be found alive at the last day remember this Some it may be will not be so asleep and yet need some preparation too Some may be asleep and therefore will need some preparation Now it is said that at the voice of Christ then coming with his Trumpet those that are alive shall not prevent them that are asleep go to heaven before them But the dead in Christ shall rise first and what time there will be for it or whether in a moment I am not able to determine Or whether they shall in a moment be changed soul and body that are alive and so made ready to enter with him into glory Or whether there shall be time for the working of it I cannot say but if their Lamps want trimming their graces want furbishing they shall have it But if by the cry then you understand the Gospel preached then they may have time enough 2. If there be time between the cry and his coming to take his own to himself it seemeth not to be much but how much or how little we cannot say If the cry be the sickness or messenger of death which is sent to them there is usually some time and not very much given sometimes more sometimes less And so were the word importunately prest an awakening word to rouze the poor secure people of God there may be more or less time between this cry and Christ his taking them to himself but some time it seems there is for their trimming of their Lamps But so much for Explication The Arguments now wherefore there is such a cry before the coming of Jesus Christ The great reason is clear here in the Text It is because men are asleep many of them both real Saints and formalists they are asleep and deep asleep and therefore there cometh a cry to awake them it is not an ordinary voyce will do it but a Cry Some Boanerges a son of thunder to raise poor sleepy sinners that he may not take them in a sleep Let not men think though now they have a stil voyce of the word and they can make a shift to sleep notwithstanding they are Sermon-proof If this will not awaken he vvill have another cry that shall avvaken them he will roar upon them out of heaven thunder upon them but he vvill vvaken them While men are asleep they are not fit to meet the Lord Jesus in his coming to judgement whether it be to acquit them or to condemn them If it be in mercy to take them to himself while they are in a sleep they are not fit to meet him their Ornaments are laid aside their Lamps want trimming as the Text hath it there and therefore they must be awaked Besides they are not fit to take notice of the infinite and unsearchable riches of his grace manifested therein to them in gathering them to himself if we should be called for in some fâ—ame that we are in sometimes truly we should not be able to take comfort in our meeting with him nor would he have any glory in our departure and therefore usually he doth awake his people stir up their graces that they may shine and be active when he cometh to gather them and then if he come in judgement as against these foolish virgins to blow out their Lamps in obscure darkness except they be awake in some measure and their Consciences opened they will not be sensible of it but when the Conscience of an hypocrite is a little rouzed O what fearful pre-apprehensions there will be of the displeasure of Christ they are not fit to receive the sentence of condemnation except their Consciences were rouzed and therefore the Lord doth oftentimes if not alway awaken the Conscience the heart was never awake but alway asleep but the Conscience hath been asleep and now it must be awaked ut sentiat se mori It never troubled the foolish virgins though their Lamps were gone out all the while they slept and if they had dyed in that sleep they had as certainly perished but not so sensibly nor so severely as knowing the terrors of God which belong to them before and the Lord will have them to lie down in the confusion of their souls for their folly in resting themselves contented with a profession without the possession of Jesus Christ without this oyl in their vessels Another ground may be for the Majesty of the coming of Christ that there may be the more reverence and awe of his Majesty therefore he hath a Messenger going before his face as Princes use to do and happily in their Marriages of great persons there might be some such thing surely this is one reason wherefore he cometh at the last day one piece of the glory of his appearing the voice of the Arch-Angel the Trumpet of God so the cry that goeth before it is much for his honour and Majesty that all the Messengers he sends Either Afflictions or Ministers all their Message almost to his people is to prepare for his coming to fit them for that appearing To render hypocrites inexcusable since they have a cry going before them to awaken them out of their sleep to set them awork to get their grace this oyl in their vessels they might have said if they had been taken asleep why if they had had any warning they would have done as others did but now they are awaked rouzed by this cry and yet alas they cannot
get this oyl in their vessels they slept away their opportunity the Gospel must be preached for a witness to all Nations and now they can have no cloak for their sin for their unreadiness for his appearing the â—ord will manage his affairs so as that every mouth may be stoped and confess before him That none of his own may be â—left therefore he sendeth a Cry before him for none that are unfit for entrance with him into the Marriage shall enter into it no soul shall go to heaven in a sleep they are not fit for it as you heard before nor when he cometh will he wait upon any now is the time of waiting to be gracious to poor souls then is the time of recompence either love or displeasure â—e will not tarry then and therefore it is said here in the Text those that were ready went with him in to the supper of the Lamb into the marriage those that had their Lamps trimmed and the door was shut if the Saints themselves should not be found ready in some measure he would not then stay love is impatient of delay then now he would not lose any and therefore he is long-suffering and patient long before he cometh for that very end because he would have none of his perish so also for the same reason doth he thus warn them by a Voyce a Cry to rouze them awake them lest if they should be found unready they might miss of entring with him For the Application Then brethren let us take notice of the goodness and tenderness of the Lord to his own people in awakening them though it may be it may disease them a little at first to have such a cry in their ears as not to suffer them to sleep when they would nestle themselves upon their pillow he is loath to leave them behind he will not lose any of them and therefore he rouzeth them If Jesus Christ had left his Church in Cant. 5. Or his Disciples sleeping and gone his ways their condition had been sad If death had come upon poor David while under that guilt in the matter of Vriah and in so deep a sleep how sad had his condition been and so for Jonas if the belly of hell had been his grave the belly of the Whale and he had not been awaked out of that sleep what had become of him he had miscarryed for ever or at least he had suffered great loss and therefore it is much tenderness in the Lord to his poor people that he will not let them sleep but he rouzeth them up 2. How easie should this make and how should it sweeten the severest of Gods dealings with us to awake us Suppose we have a dreadful sound in our ears when nothing else will do it the terrors of God displayed and set in battle array against our souls God writeth bitter things against us and all little enough to awaken us we are so secure it may be It must be the lowder voyce of the rod that must do it if other means will not and this seemeth not joyons but grievous at present but it brings forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness O! the end will be sweet when the soul thereby shall be awaked and kept awake and ready for the appearing of the Lord Jesus I know the people of God would not for a world that day should come upon them and finde them in such a frame so heavy so listless so untoward as they are sometimes and know not how to shake it off I but give the Lord leave to shake it off bear then the Cry though it be loud sometimes and seem offensive if this be the end to awaken thee O why shouldst not thou bear it thankfully and chearfully 3. If there be a Cry going before his coming Then brethren see whether or no you have not had this Cry in part sounding in your cars and what use you have made of it hath it awaked you or not The Gospel it is here the voyce of the watchmen that continually stir you up and tell you the day of Christ is coming is at hand If not the general yet your particular day the day of his coming to our souls particularly cannot be far off this is the daily cry in our ears and O that we could cry lowder and lift up our voyce with more affection to your souls but as such poor worms are able we cry to you we are messengers sent before his face the Cry is behold he cometh go forth to meet him Now brethren where are you Are you upon your beds still How many have been awaked by this awakening word the terrors of the Lord against them that sleep Have you done any thing to your further sitting for heaven Can you with comfort go forth to meet Jesus Christ open to him when he knocks Surely you have not made use of this Cry that hath been made Ah how many are sleeping as deeply as ever and do not yet dream of his coming though they know not but that he is at the door and this night their souls shall be taken from them 4. Then how should this stir us up every one to attend to the cry that is made and obey it now you have the cry made in the word this is our preaching to awaken you Look not upon Sermons only as the affectionate discourse of a poor creature that wisheth well to your souls but look upon it as the warning word of Jesus Christ as the Cry that goeth before his presence afterwards himself wâ—ll come and that speedily and how soon you know not and as he findeth you then so it will go with you O that the Lord would speak by his Spirit and rattle you up a little poor sleepy souls both wise and foolish virgins not that I desire the grief of yours or mine own soul for if I make you sorry who is it that must make me glad but you that are made sorry by me as the Apostle saith Yet dear friends as I hope I could be contented rather to be shaken out of a sleep my self then be found sleeping at the coming of Christ so had I rather it should be with you how shall I bespeak your poor souls this day I would fain prevail with one poor soul to shake off this drowsiness and sloath and sleepiness that is upon us O arise arise for your souls sake for your peace sake as you tender your comfort now you hear the Cry going before him think with your selves sometimes Can you look Jesus Christ in the face with such a frame of heart as you have every day O arise arise will such sleepy souls be fit to sing Allelujahs to eternity to God O arise arise Deborah to sing praises to the Lord awake then that sleepest you cannot else be fit for heaven this the first Consider secondly If this Cry will not awaken you you shall have a more dreadful sound in your
reserve to sinners against the fear of the other though God be not at our beck yet he hath promised if we return and repent he will accept be it when it will I but what comfort is this except men believe thatthey can return when they please they can receive Christ and close with him at any time Can you so Surely brethren if this were so no man would hardly go to hell that is convinced there is a Christ to be had and salvation through him and him alone O be not mistaken you know not your selves how many resolutions of reformation have many of you broken you see you cannot command your hearts Epâ—r im was sensible of it O turn thou me and I shal be turned can you think a good thought of your selves what solly is it then for men presuming upon their own strength which is none to neglect the season when the Lord offers his Spirit and grace yea and striveth with us by his Spirit many times and yet we will not but put it off Then it may serve to stir us up every one to cut off all delaies whatsoever and now brethren while it is called to day to get this oyl in your Vessels that you may not have it to do when you should in the greatest extremity use it Alas brethren I am a child and cannot speak and O that the Lord would perswade by his Spirit this day now since he hath given you another Sabbath and another opportunity to be called upon what doth the Lord yet say unto thee Seek his face will you not be clean will you not close with Iesus Christ O when shall it once be O answer the Lord and say to day Lord Jesus to day will we close with thee we will put it off no longer blessed be the Lord that hath not taken the advantage against us and put an end to our day of grace long since O admire that mercy and now improve it lay hold upon the opportunity Shall I a little stir you up to this 1. Consider I pray you and believe that it is the greatest design of Satan to fool us out of our salvation to draw away from us day after day untill we have not one day more to live when God cries to day to day to day If you will hear his voyce harden not your hearts who is it think you that crieth to morrow to morrow that Corvina vox as Augustine calls it Cras cras Surely it is Satan that Lier that will not stick to contradict the Lord and what is the devills intent in this think you doth he mean you shall repent to morrow as he saith no I warrant you but when to morrow is come it will be to morrow still and the next day it will be to morrow still and O how this pleaseth him to steal away our precious time and rob us of our lives our day of grace and our souls at once If you be ignorant of this device of Satan know it this day for a truth The devil careth not if all the world were such Christians in the future tense Semper vic 〈…〉 as Seneca saith but never live indeed they will and they will but never do it the Lord make you wise to discern this cunning craftiness of the wicked one 2. Do but consider How long a day of grace you have had many of you already you have even grown old under the means of grace and yet are to begin to get grace me thinketh this should shame us and warn young ones for it is likely many that are older thought they would repent and believe and close with Christ long enough before this but that to Morrow never came if we had any shame in us it might wound us and shame us that Jesus Christ should waite so long upon us and we never had a heart to give him any entertainment yet to this day If many a poor soul had had but half the patient waiting upon them what would they have been long before this 3. Though you delay the getting your grace remember that your Judgement lingers not nor Condemnation slumbreth not it cometh on apace whether you go towards heaven or no there is a set time to every poor soul wherein he shall get grace or else not for ever and how doth this hasten upon you do you know how near it is and there is a set time for â—udgement to seize upon you if you be found without grace O therefore be exhorted now while it is called to day there will be no Manna found upon the seventh day if you get it not before you are undone they found it so by experience 4. Do not expect brethren to have a second day of grace if you trifle away one if once the Apostles shaked the dust off their feet against a people sad was their condition when the Apostles turned away to the Gentiles and the Sun set among the Jews did it ever rise again surely no. Though we have a day yet remember it is but a day and one day and no more if we let it slip we are und one because we shall never have a second day Foelix put off Paul when he was so far wrought upon as to tremble he put him off untill a fitter opportunity but it never came for ought we read well if the Spirit do move and stir and strive with thee take the opportunity strike while the Iron is hot thou dost not know but this may be the last hour of the day with thee and that thou shalt never feel any such breathings more but thy heart shall ever be like a dead Sea and seared and past feeling any more 5. Untill then all our services are abomination to God let our professions be what they will and let us think as well of our conditions as we can believe it breth en our Prayers our Hearings our Receivings are abomination what do we do here to receive the Supper if we have no grace no faith no love no repentance can we be prepared do we not imbrew our hands in the blood of Jesus Christ and is not this an abomination were not the Sacrifices of the Jews abomination as if they slew a man as if they cut off a dogs neck was or could this be acceptable did not his soul hate these things and what are our sacrifices but the slaying and crucifying Jesus Christ Ah while we come with ungratious hearts to those Ordinances O how often hath many an hypocrite had his hand in the blood of Jesus Christ every such service and duty he performeth to God and is not this sad is it not high time to look about us 6. Lastly If at last you do come to get Christ and God will waite upon you so to the last as to overcome you at the last and you shall not mifcarry Suppose it be so though this is not ordinary that men should so desperately presume upon it yet it cannot
bottle a broken cistern wherein no water is you shall have a denial from the Creature but Christ never denied any that came in the sense of his wants and waited upon him for supply and so much for this Lest there be not enough for you and us they might well doubt indeed whether there would be enough for themselves and them for even now their own Lamps had need of a supply though the form of words seem to carry a doubtfulness in them there might be enough and there might not yet I cannot believe but the wise Virgins knew full well and so they do know at this day that there is not enough for them and others This is most sutable to the Analogy of Faith in other Scriptures The Doctrinal Note from thence will be this There are none have any surplâ—sage of Grace or more then will serve their own turn They have none to spare lest there be not enough for you and us and that this is so other Scriptures plainly speak If the righteous scarcely be saved saith the Apostle the righteous be he as eminent as he may in righteousness and holiness yet he is scarcely saved so as through many difficulties many a hard pull he hath when all is ready to fail him but that God never fails him else all were gone His flesh and his heart fails him many times Strive to enter in at the strait gate saith our Saviour for many shall seek to enter and shall not be able Suppose that some men strive more then others yet all will be little enough they shall hard and sharp be saved they have none to spare he that gathered much had nothing over saith the Text concerning the Manna though some are more industrious painful Christians then others yet they have nothing over the very Angels in Heaven that have such a fulness as no Creature on earth yet hath yet they cannot spare a jot of their fulness though they be so full not a jot of their holiness how much more we then First Let a man begin never so yong to look towards heaven as young Timothy and young Sam. and yet they shall not have any more then what is necessary for themselves to have a man would think he that beginneth so yong should in time grow to be exceeding rich in faith and good works that if there were any works of supererrogation these should be the men but yet we find not in Scripture any of them in so high a strain 2. If a man be never so earnest diligent and forward zealous for God though he serve the Lord instantly night and day yet shall he have no grace to spare David was a man of strong affections as most Christians and as warm they were toward God as strong were his desires after him and love to him as will appear by his spiritual breathings and was as much in following after God and after grace in so much that when he was debarred from the Tabernacle and Ordinances where he used to behold the goings of God the way of God his glorious power and grace when shut out from these how sadly doth he take on you may see then by the stir and disquietness of his heart in the interruption that he was strongly bent to follow after Christ and yet at the close of all had he any to spare Yea 3. Let a man continue so to the end if it were possible without any interruption in his growth and yet he shall have no grace to spare had the Apostle any to spare who was a man labored as abundantly as any other yea more then they all and yet he was nothing and when all was done he would be found in Christ not having his own righteousness upon him he had not yet attained the resurrection from the dead But then 2. For the opening of the Point let us note this also That though a Christian may have more gifts of Grace then may be sufficient for Salvation yet he never hath more especially saving grace then is needful I mean he hath none to spare a man indeed haply might spare some of his gifts but none of his Grace though it is true whatever Talents the Lord bestoweth to fit a man for his Condition his place he should be answerable to the Lord and so they are necessary to the fruitful carrying on of his Calling or Condition yet to heaven they are not so necessary but all the Grace a man hath is necessary for him so necessary as he can spare none especially that Grace which is more particularly a mans own if I may so call it and that is sincerity and uprightness of heart others do partake with us in the sweet effects of the other Graces of faith and love c. but the sincerity of all without the rest are nothing this is more especially our own and who is there that could ever say that he had so much uprightness of heart that he could spare any of it can a man spare any of his life this is the life of Religion and Grace 3. Another thing to make this out will be this The greatest Grace where it is given usually hath the greatest corruption to wrestle with a spring-tyde of Grace a spring-tyde of Corruption strong workings of the spirit strong lustings of the flesh and strong temptations such as many of us never knew what they meant so that a Child of God indeed that is proved knoweth that he hath little enough for himself though it may be God hath given him more then to many others where sin abounds Grace abounds may there not be temptations to exercise the strongest Faith Some Goliah-lust or another which requireth all their faith and humility and patience to encounter with it we never turned Gods treasuries of temptation to know what he hath in store for poor souls 4. Let a Child of God have never so much Grace here yet he fals short of the resurrection of the dead short of that pitch which he ought to aim at Indeed if men could reach this fulness of the measure of the stature of Christ and go beyond it then there might be some thoughts of having somewhat to spare but until then we are alway on the wanting hand sure alway under emptiness Now though some be so bold as to plead for a perfection in our days we see by a divine hand upon them they are let loose to all manner of wickedness and except that were the perfection I understand not what perfection they are capable of 5. When they have attained to the top and pitch brethren yet alas if God should enter into judgement with us we should never be able to stand as you have it therefore the Apostle would be found in him when he had done all surely then brethren if when all is done there is such an imperfection incompleatness as to justification and eternal life that we must go out of all deny
your refuge now go and shelter your selves under them now go and see whether your gourds will shade you from the scorching of the everlasting burnings O how this will grate and gall a guilty conscience every such word will speak confusion and hell to the very heart of a sinner and this is that you must expect You that now cannot down with a searching powerful Ministry can abide the shining but not the burning of a John Baptist that will deal faithfully with you but you must be daubed and bolstered up you must have such as will speak peace peace to you right or wrong the time will come when God shall shew you that this hath been the ruine and undoing of your souls and then in contempt and scorn you shall be sent to them Go now to your Parasite-Preachers when the consoience is all on a flame and you see your Lamps are gone out and the Bridegroom is ready to come and there is but a step between you and hell Ah the woful condition of such a soul then may the Lord and his people say Now go to your daubers now see if they can heal your breaches see if they can bind you up if they can cool you and quench you you shall have it of Gods hand to lye down in sorrow and then see whether your daubers with untempered morter shall lull you asleep O how grievous will this be from the Lord when they shall have nothing but derision from him and from his people Now the people of God will pitty you and pray for you but the time may come if you know not the things which belong to your peace in this your day that they shall laugh at you they shall in a mock a holy scorn send you to your false refuges for help Go to them that buy go to your flatterers see if they can comfort you 2. This then is a comfort to the people of God that are now guided by the holy Spirit to go to Jesus Christ to the Fountain indeed to hang their souls upon him replenish themselves still from his fulness as it is in that first of John because Brethren there will come a day of distinguishing between such as have made the Lord their hope their strength and such as have dallyed and trifled and as the one shall have a mock from God and from his people the Believer that hath been used to make the name of the Lord his refuge he shall then find acceptance find a free access What time I am afraid saith the Psalmist I will trust in thee dost thou not love to be flattered wouldst thou have thy soul dealt faithfully with and not gently as is said concerning Absolom happy art thou when others shall be sent to their broken Cisterns thou shalt be admitted to the Fountain to the fulness of Jesus Christ to which thou usually hadst recourse as the wise Virgins here they trimmed their Lamps they got a new supply of oyl but the foolish are sent to them that sell to their flatterers their Mountebanks their money-changers to see what they can afford them In such a time as this thou shalt come to the true Physitian to the high-treasurer of heaven c. Verse 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 HEre it seemeth they had no more wit then to go to buy of them that sell How difficult is it to beat a man off his creature-confidence and refuges which he hath for his soul For these foolish Virgins here they had kindled sparks of their own and walked in the light of their own sparks a great while and all that while it was an exceeding hard matter to perswade them to the contrary but their penny was as good silver as other mens to perswade a painted hypocrite while his paint lasts that he is but a Sepulchre and full of rottenness and no resting in that conditlon is as hard as to perswade a man that looks upon his money baggs he is a beggar But now a man would have thought when this Lamp had gone out and they saw their sparks of their own kindling would not endure to eternal life that then they should have bethought themselves of a higher born flame a higher principle that would endure to get that oyl and that fire from heaven that would aspire and never rest until it reached heaven my meaning is that when they saw the profession and form which they could by their industrie and parts work out of themselves went out and failed them they should have thought of going to a higher principle but what do they do they go to the creature you see to the wise Virgins for oyl there they have another repulse they had none to spare for them By this a man would have thought they might have taken a hint that sure it is not to be had then from the creature we must look higher if any creature could furnish us tht wise Virgins the Saints indeed could furnish us but we have knockt at their doors and it is not to be had there And do they now bethink themselves of going to Christ no not at all Let it be considered yet further that they had a very sharp blow to rap their fingers off the creature which a man would have thought should have made them afraid of ever laying hold upon an arm of flesh again for this Irony or holy mock of them go to them that sell if they understood it so was a reproof as full of Vinegar as can be As that of our Saviour sleep on now saith he take your rest now they are at hand let us go hence they had little list to sleep after such a reproof as that and yet we see these foolish Virgins are so stupid that this mock of them it beateth them not off at all but to the Creature they go still to try whether there be any oyl to be had among them that sell the flatterers and merit-mongers they think not of going to Jesus Christ And whence doth this appear brethren but first From our corrupt nature which hath departed from the Lord and is now ful of enmity to him and is loth to return to him so proud we are that as long as we can find any thing in our selves we will go no further but when we see our own gourd is withered our torrent is dried up such is the enmity of our wretched hearts to God in the way of his Grace that we would go any whither for succour rather then to God to Christ the Jews would not come to Christ that they might have life they might have it for coming for but they would not they would take any pains in their own works men will rather put themselves to any pennance mortifyings and maceratings of the flesh as the Papists some of them do will be at any charge for their indulgences from men rather then they will go to Jesus Christ Thus the Lord complains of his
this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Here we have had the sad surprisal of these poor Creatures that have their Grace to get at the last they are taken before they are ready for Christ for alas their Lamps ware out Let men put off the coming of Christ as long as they will and trifle away their day of Grace though he tarry a while yet he that shall come will come and will not tarry Well now he cometh But that is not all neither he cometh upon them not only while they are getting their Grace but while they are seeking up and down to the creature for it and never look at him at all and this maketh it so much the sadder indeed when Jesus Christ shall come to judgement particular or general to find men with their backs upon himself and their faces upon their formalities and profession upon their flattering false Teachers that at a venture cry peace peace though there be no ground will it not be sad brethren The Lord help us every one to look to it for I intend not to stay upon this either we are such as seek our oyl of Jesus Christ we live by faith in him or else we seek to the Creature we hang our hopes upon somewhat else if so whatever it be that relieveth us in the time of our trouble on this side Jesus Christ this is the object of our whoredom Now shall the Bridegroom find us in the very act of whoredom playing the whore in departing from him and will this be peace or comfort to our souls How will you lift up your faces before him brethren how can a Woman that pretends faithfulness to an Husband if he take her in the very act how can she hold up her head to him O the confusion and amazement will be upon us if Jesus Christ find us in the like Coudition can you think how poor creatures will hang the head and be filled with their shame whether shall they cause their shame to pass from them O then brethren If you have neglected the day of Grace and while oyl hath been offered you and that upon easie terms without money and without price and now you be convinced of your want of it because you know not how soon it may come upon you Let me beg of you that whenever he cometh he may not find you going up and down to buy of the Creature but coming to him waiting upon him as the Apostle did that you may be found in him hence the poor thief upon the Cross found mercy though it were at the last O take heed of deceit here for every one will say that they have no other hope but in Jesus Christ and him they wait upon all the day O that it were so brethren but I doubt he will find many of us going to buy when he cometh and not of him but of them that sell then they are running to their flattering parasitical Preachers then they must have an absolution a comfortable word though they have lived never so wretchedly as if a few comfortable words of a daubing Mountebank would transform them from Devils incarnate into Saints in a Moment which is not much better if any thing then the Priests mumbling over the bread and wine to change it into the body and blood of Christ Then when Christ is coming the Bride-groom cometh doth he not find many running then to a prayer then to a Sacrament if they can but have that they think they are secure enough poor ignorant creatures what is this but to go and buy of them that sell instead of going to Jesus Christ Well surely as this will much concern him to find men so undervaluing him who is a Saviour to the utmost to go any whether rather then to him so will it be confusion to your souls if you be found in the very act there will be no denying no excusing of it you will have nothing to say for your selves therefore let us be warned to take heed of this But so much for this Verse 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 IN this Verse you have a twofold observation of the coming of the Bridegroom His coming is to make a full distinction and separation between the precious and the vile the end is the differencing thing Mark the perfect c. the end of that man is peace hypocrites and real believers promiscuously go in and out in this Church Militant this heaven upon earth but now there shall be a difference put to some the door of heaven is opened and they enter to others it is shut it is clapt against them We will in the first place a little consider the first they that were ready went in with him unto the Marriage There are divers things Note-worthy in this little clause I shall but briefly run over them 1. Some then it seemeth are ready for entrance into glory 2. Such as are ready do enter 3. That they enter with Christ with the Bridegroom And 4. That this glory is set forth by a Marriage or a Marriage-Feast as the word elsewhere imports of which afterwards I will wind up the two first into one Note or Doctrine That such as are ready when Christ cometh do enter into glory This is sufficiently clear from the Text the Parable setting forth the state of all the Saints as they shall be differenced from hypocrites at the day of their appearance before Christ for it is the Kingdom of heaven is here compared to the Virgins the Church visible to the wise and foolish the Church invisible to the wise Virgins so I understand it Now these wise Virgins they were ready prepared for the entrance in to the Marriage though the foolish were not they that were ready that is to say all the wise Virgins they entred in so that this reacheth the condition of Gods people in all times and ages who are a part of this Kingdom The Israelites when God had proved and prepared them by enuring them to the wilderness to so many hardships then they entred into Canaan 〈◊〉 not before fourty years they wandered before they must enter but when once prepared they enter So the Apostle when he had finished his course and fought the good fight then he was ready to enter and he entred into glory therefore it is that it is said of the righteous he is gathered like a Shock of corn in his due season that is to say when it is fully ripe and ready to the sickle a wise husband-man will not reap the field while it is green and unready no more will the Lord gather his Saints to him until they be prepared they must hang in the Sun so long and endure the nipping of cold and injuries of weather so long until they be ready and then they are gathered Two things I shall do before I come to the Application First a little inquire what is meant by this readiness and herein indeed only put you in mind
no their own promises may fail but Gods promises never fail nor a lively hope founded upon them 4. That the poor weary tossed afflicted people of God may have rest in the bosom of the Father and the Son and holy Spirit there remaineth a rest to the people of God they have not their rest here expect it not but either from within or without or both we have our troubles the world casteth them out as the off-scouring of all things they are the despised hated mocked people the song of the drunkard the laughing-stock of the world and therefore because they cast them out the Lord will receive them If we have not persecution without we shall have our exercises what between corruption and temptation and sometimes the terrors of God and sense of his wrath sometimes breaking bones hiding his face from us there is no rest until we come to enter with him now we lie among the pots but then we shall indeed be made glorious like the wings of a Dove in sulness Now this is agreeable not only to the truth but the goodness tenderness bowels of the Lord to his people that his poor afflicted People should rest with himself when he hath by these filings and scourings and siftings and turnings up and down made them meet for the inheritance of the Saints in light So much for the Arguments For the Application of this that they that are ready do enter into Glory First it serveth to shew the blessed condition that the diligent lively prepared soul is in heaven Gate is ready to receive such a soul the bosom of Abraham of Christ opened ready to receive him he shall enter they have this priviledge that many that profess Jesus Christ have not many shall seek to enter but shall not be able that strive not as he doth Blessed is that servant saith our Saviour that his master shall find watching shall find ready for his coming why he will not leave any such soul behind they shall all enter into glory how blessed a condition this is may appear by many considerations more 2. Such a soul as this cannot be surprized so far as he is ready he is never surprized surprizals are terrible if Jesus Christ had come without any warning upon the wiâ—e Virgins while sleeping it had been terrible to them though they might have entred with him also but if we be ready that day will not take us at unawares indeed if a child of God be once ready he cannot be altogether surprized more though in part he may if he carry it not the better he will be still habitually ready if not actually so the foolish Virgins were not They still have the root of the matter though it may be under ground and hid from their eys and is not this a blessed thing as often as you think of the coming of Christ to think now let my Saviour come when he pleaseth I am through rich grace ready for him A servant when his work is done a Spouse when her ornaments are put on and the house trimmed and all ready for her Bridegroom now come when he will I am ready for him before the thoughts of his coming are troublesom and painful now they are pleasant and delightful 3. When death comes how shall they lift up their heads with comfort because their Redemption draweth near O how will they be able to welcome death welcome Jesus Christ welcome the kingdom of heaven it is their entrance into a kingdom though it be bitter indeed and terrible to the wicked and though there be some reluctancy in nature against death and a Paul would rather be cloathed upon then dissolved and since it is the birth of sin that brought it into the world no marvel if Grace it self have no delight in it yet considering that it is an entrance though narrow and pinching into Heaven into Glory the Saints that are ready for it they can bid it welcom As a poor weary tossed Marriner can bid his Port welcome though there may be some fear of Rocks or the like in his landing 4. Are they not blessed souls that shall enter that now all their distances between them and Jesus Christ shall be done away now he whom your souls loved and longed for yea your souls have many times broken within you for the longing for him now he cometh to take you to himself that you may be with him near him alway in his bosom Is not this a blessed Condition what tends all your striving and running and fighting your wrestling praying and weeping to but this now the end of your hope the salvation of your souls cometh upon you blessed yea for ever blessed is such a soul if Christ and heaven the Father Son and Spirit enjoyed in an unspeakable bosom-communion will not speak a man blessed nothing will but thus much for this first 2. Then methinks brethren now we should be putting the question to our own hearts now whether we be ready or no O here is blessedness indeed you cannot but judge that man or woman though a man of sorrow while in the world haply through temptations and a heavy body of death yet that shall enter in Glory when all is done sure you cannot but judge this man a blessed man that is ready for it for he and he only shall enter And can it be but you should reflect now and enquire of the Lord and of your own hearts Lord am I ready for this coming of Jesus Christ or am I not for one of the two I am Dear friends I shall not use any more arguments to you but these two or three considerations 1. How uncertain this coming of Christ to you to call for you is do you know when he will appear do you know brethren whether you shall be warned again called upon again to prepare for his coming this may be the Cry it may be the Cry is past with many of you already is it not high time to awake to look about you to consider whether you be ready or no 2. To consider That there will be then no time given to prepare If you be ready well and good you enter if not you are shut out as afterward we shall speak O then how can we satisfie our selves and quiet our Consciences with an ignorance how it is with us It is high time surely brethren to enquire 3. Except we do enquire we are not likely to take a course to make ready he that thinketh he is ready or careth not whether he be ready or no if he be unready now he is like to be unready for such a man will not set about the work O that the Lord would therefore perswade you this day to consider with your selves are you ready or are you not 4. There is very great need of this enquiry because alas many are ready and think they are unready and then cannot have the comfort of their Condition except
that had no wedding garment upon him yet came to the Feast Sure he went no further then the externals you see he is cast out into utter darkness Now this may be called the Marriage or the Feast because here below they are necessary for us as signs of that spiritual communion the Lord seeth it good we have these royal dainties thus represented to us by visible sensible things because of our weakness and to magnifie his own condescending Grace to us to make that mysterie of salvation by a crucified Christ which all the reason in the world cannot fathom and that which neither eye hath seen nor ear heard yet in a sort visible to the eye and to be perceived by the ear that we might even in this sacramental sense even touch and taste and handle as I may say the word of life 2. As they are seals and pledges of this spiritual communion being seals of the Covenant of Grace whereof Jesus Christ is the sum and substance it sealeth it up to a believers Faith and so stands us in great stead And 3. It is a means of our spiritual communion the Conduit-pipe that runs wine the dishes that hold the dainties though but gold as Kings and Princes use to be served up in such State yet it is not them we feed upon they are but the means the vehicula and therefore because they have such a respect to our spiritual communion with Jesus Christ they may be so called But secondly the internal communion with Jesus Christ is that indeed which is the Feast the Marriage-feast even here below to eat and drink the flesh and blood of the Son of God which giveth life and maintains life this is the Feast Eat and drink yea drink abundantly saith the Lord I shall be satisfied abundantly with the goodness of thy house abundantly satisfied watered inebriated with the fatness of thy house what is that not meerly with the Ordinances no but with Christin them beholding his might and glory in the Ordinances the mighty prevailing of the Spirit of Christ against our unbelief to quiet all our doubtings O it is this to see the good of the chosen of the Lord those choice inward refreshings which the poor believers have from the presence and powerful workings of Christ in them to the joy of faith and to strengthen against corruption to strengthen for action for suffering his will this is that they cry out after even after the living God to enjoy him And all this is but the Kingdom of God below this is but the first course as I may say of this feast For secondly The Kingdom of glory as well as the Kingdom of grace which is that now I am to speak to this is a feast a Marriage here called that is to say a Marriage-feast for what is the Kingdom of grace here below but a foretaste of heaven as Grotius upon Matth. 22. saith As in the Marriage-feast at Cana of Galilee contrary to the usual manner our Saviour kept his best wine last so it is here as by and by we shall see here the wine the spirits indeed But a little to prove this by a Scripture or two that it may appear plain ye that have continued with me in my temptation I appoint to you a Kingdom as my Father hath appointed unto me that ye may eat and drink at my table in my Kingdom So many shall come from the East and from the West and shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of heaven sit down 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their table jesture Joh. 12. 2. they that sit at the Table are Guests But now eating and drinking in Scripture many times do signifie a feasting and so it is here to be taken and let it be noted by way of further proof that the Jews did not ordinarily drink wine except at their feasts and then they did drink abundantly if the observation of some be true as Piscator in his Schol. upon Math. 26. 29. cited by Mr. Brinsly but whether so or no sure we are they did use to drink more liberally then eat the fat and drink the sweet when it was a good day or a merry day to them for his heart was merry his heart was good and the sadness of the heart was called the evil of the heart in the Hebrew often insomuch that the ordinary word in the Hebrew for a feast is a drinking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So in Ahashuerus his feast is called and Labans feast is called a drinking and it appears by the abundance of wine our Saviour made at the Marriage-feast at Cana of Galilee Therefore you shall find that the feast which Christ maketh is a feast of wines on the Lees well refined come and buy wine and milk without money and without price And so for this Kingdom of heaven this Marriage-feast at the height is called a drinking of new wine with them in the Kindgom of the Father that is to say the Kingdom of glory called his Fathers Kingdom because at that day that is to say at the day of the resurrection he will give up his dispensatory Kingdom to his Father that God may be all in all And for other reasons but I must not stay upon that Well here he will drink new wine with them which is nothing else but a periphrasis of this feast this Marriage-feast in heaven The cup of blessing the cup of consolation the cup of health or salvation is the feast of Christ here below but this now must be drunk new in the Kingdom of his Father there will be a new feast of wine a feast of new wine And so much for the proof of this Now we must understand Brethren that this feast in heaven is not any corporal thing I hope it is needless to tell any of you this the heathens dream of an Elysian-field and the Mahometans of their carnal delights after death those are poor husks that will not satisfie a soul of a child of God here they are sordid and infinitely below a heaven-born spirit no it must be somewhat of as high a nature as the spring from whence they come Why you may judge what it is in the General Brethren though particularly we know not what we shall be What is the Kingdom of heaven here below but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy-Ghost the sweet and spiritual communion with Jesus Christ the fellowship of his death and sufferings life and resurrection whereby we are in part changed into his Image that a man liveth upon will change him ordinarily therefore the King you know would have the children in Dan. fed with a portion of his meat generous-spirited wine will beget more and better spirits then course and cold c. So here by this communion we are changed in part though alas in how little a part But now in heaven Brethren the same communion
Table as his Spouse for ever as the poor man in the Parable his wife is compared to an Ewe Lamb which did lie in his bosome and eat and drink with him so shall the Saints surely because of this relation of theirs to the Lord Jesus Ah blessed are ye Believers ye that are ready for the appearing of the Lord Jesus Again Now the Saints are made ready for this glory now we are not able to bear it old Bottels will not hold this new Wine that he will drink with them in his Fathers Kingdom strong Duties were too strong for the Disciples then in their minority as I may say how much more the Duties of heaven everlasting Hallelujahs and admiring of God in Christ therefore they must be changed before they can be fit for that feast a little joy now would swallow us up so as to unfit us for any thing Alas the Apostle like a wise Nursing Father would not give strong meat to babes they could not bear it and so our Saviour when upon the earth they could not bear many things therefore he fed them with milk if you should give strong meats to children and wine what would sooner ruine them therefore saith the Apostle I speak the Wisdom of God in a Mâ—sterie among them that are perfect yet he had some things which he saw in his Vision that he could not or might not utter to them likely they could not bear them You see Israel could not indure to behold Moses face when it had but a beam of the divine glory within the cloud reflected upon him and the glory of the Angel astonished Iohn so eminent a man in saith and love and holiness therefore I say we shall then be fitted for this Communion the old Bottles be made new the capacities of soul inlarged the mouth opened wider then we can conceive and the body raised in power It must be an extraordinary stomack brethren that can continually sit at a Feast and dâ—gest it and never be satiated therefore it is that the Marriage feast the fulness of it is reserved for heaven and heaven is so compared in Scripture For the Uses of the Doctrine First then Behold what maner of love the Father hath loved us with that we should be made the Favorites a people so near to him that he will take any of us with him into the Marriage The Apostle admireth the condition of the Saints for what they have in hand already What manner of love is this that we should be called the Sons of God that is to say made such his Word is operative he cals things that were not as if they were but saith he this is not all it doth not yet appear what we shall be until Christ who is our life appear then shall we appear with him in glory the Saints in heaven though their apprehensions as well as the rest of their capacities shall be inlarged heightened perfected yet shall not be able to comprehend the depth of the river of pleasures at the right hand of God no more then a Vessel that is put into the Sea can comprehend the Ocean and therefore they shall admire it then the Lord Jesus shall come to be admired in all the Saints their fulness will be unspeakable greater then that of the Saints here though sometimes they are filled with Joy unspeakable and full of Glory yet alas in both conditions far short of comprehending it therefore we should admire it Such things as eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor can enter into the heart of man God hath prepared Do you not see how Haman glorieth in it though he had little cause if he knew all that he among all the Courtiers was invited to the feast of Wine to the Queen he accounted it an high favour a significative testimony of his especial love to him above others Ah brethren you that are Saints indeed let me speak to you all in the words of the Angel to Mary you are highly favoured of God you shall all be admitted to this Marriage Feast be thou as poor in outward condition as may be and as poor in Spirit as may be never so low in thine own thoughts thou shalt enter into this Marriage Feast thou thinkest with the poor Publican Thou art not worthy to come near the place where his honour dwels nor lift up thy eys towards heaven nor be reckoned among his people nor come to his Table here below Well be thou as vile as thou canst in thine own eys thou shalt enter with the Lord Jesus into the Marriage Feast if thou be ready for his coming O admire this Love the Lord help poor weak creatures unbelief in this point that they may admire it what will he admit such a one as I such a vile creature such a grieving creature to his holy Spirit yea such as he hath once pitched his heart upon to love them they shall enter with him into this feast Saith Mephihosheth What is thy servant thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as I c. 2. If this be so that the state of Glory or Kingdom of glory into which the Saints enter with Christ is such a Marriage-feast it shall be an invitation then to poor sinners to this Feast this Marriage Wisdom hath builded her house hewn out seven Pillars killed her beast mingled her wine made it ready a cup of mixture that is to say a cup made ready and now sends forth her Maidens to cry turn in ye simple ones c. O that the uncircumsicion of our hearts that are the Messngers may not hinder but the Lord Jesus by us brethren doth invite you sinners to this feast he would fain have his Table full of guests how welcome would he make man woman and child if they would but come he would cast out none that cometh to him no no in any wise whatsoever as I have told you sometime from the Text. But for the better understanding of this Exhortation I will note two things and then a little further press it upon us First then That we do not invite you to this Feast this Marriage in heaven to enter in with Christ continuing such as you are in your blood and uncleanness but we do first invite you to come to Jesus Christ here on earth that so you may enter in with him into the Marriage your union with Christ and your communion with him must begin upon earth though it end in heaven and this communion here is two-fold though both spiritual it is internal and external internal a fellowship with the Father in the Son a fellowship with Christ in his death the power of it that we may dye to sin and be free from the condemnation God will not have this Marriage-Feast for his Son in heaven filled with Goal Birds condemned creatures such as have their bolts and fetters upon them the nastiness of the prison upon them
pledge of that Marriage-feast in heaven but with mouths opened souls enlarged that we may eat and drink abundantly he that cometh hungry will hardly go away without his fill we come with narrow hearts mouths half-opened and therefore go away with little or nothing Fourthly This should much edge our desires after Heaven and the glory that is to be revealed it is a feast who is not willing to go to a Feast if he be hungry and pinching and yet alas how backward are we for heaven how do we hang back it is a sign we have little desire after that fulness of communion with Jesus Christ all is not right with us we are not ready when we can be contented to sit down by the pipe and may go to the fountain to the rivers the ocean of unspeakable delights in the Lord. O therefore brethren eye heaven more and the Glory of it this Marriage-feast the eye affecteth the heart though it is true it doth not appear distinctly what we shall be yet some hints are given whereby we may conceive how transcendent the delights of heaven will be above all we enjoy below What Solomon dehorts men from as an occasion of lusting after wine look not upon the wine when it is red when it giveh his colour in the cup moves it self aright when it sparkles and hath a pure colour if you look you will be enticed by it But here is a feast of wine of new wine more excellent transcendent full of spirits and vigour look upon it brethren with the eye of faith and serious contemplation sometimes behold how it sparkles what a spirit there is in this wine that to all eternity maketh the Spirits of the Saints to exult and triumph in his glorious praise a duty so far above our cold and heavy frames here below O methinks this should somewhat quicken us and raise our desires to heaven to be with Christ drinking this wine new with him in his kingdom that here we drink only sacramentally and these are not deceitful meats your expectations cannot be so high of heaven but you shall find abundantly more to admire Fifth Use shall be a word of comfort and encouragement to the people of God according to the necessities of their various conditions if so be that the Saints shall enter in with Christ unto the Marriage unto this Feast First then Here is matter of encouragement against the troubles and afflictions the Saints meet with in the world and from the world It is true this is a time wherein at present the world smiles upon Religion but they are but like the Crocodiles smiles ready to devour them notwithstanding yea indeed her very embraces are killing But if times should but turn a little the world would be the world still it hates the Saints and it would discover it self what it is more plainly then now it doth the times will not bear hostility against the people of God but suppose such an hour of temptation may come upon us this may encourage us against it brethren What though the world may give you gall and vinegar to drink as they did to Jesus Christ before you are now going ready to enter in with the Bridegroom to the Marriage-feast of new wine and drink with him at his Table in the Fathers kingdom to eternity Indeed brethren there is so much refreshing to a poor creature in this Feast of wine on the lees upon earth in the Church in this poor and dark communion with him that it is enough to allay the bitterest cup which God puts into his peoples hands to drink witness this comfortable Prophesie Though you have the bread of afflictions and water of adversities yet will I not remove your Teachers any more into a corner give wine to him that c. Prov. 31. 6. This will sweeten all one taste of honey and sweetness at the end of the Rod and all wicked men are but Gods rod to chasten his people I say this taste enlightneth the eyes reviveth the poor drooping fainting soul Ah what are the joys of Heaven then Again suppose it be not a persecution for righteousness sake but it is from the hand of God for thy sins that thou smartest yet this brethren methinks if our hearts were more upon it would allay the smart there will be a time when there will be no room for one sigh nor one groan more no interruption will be in your joy Yea suppose it be sin that most troubles thee now and temptation and this is a bitter thing indeed to a gracious heart O remember brethren that in the Marriage-feast there will be a swallowing up of all these things Secondly It may be encouragement to a poor soul that longs and presseth hard after a fuller communion and fellowship with Christ and cannot reach it but still let them attain to what they can their desires are higher and reaching after more and that desire speaks emptiness in part and hunger and that hath pain the soul must needs be restless in such a condition O remember brethren there will be an entrance into the Marriage-feast where you shall ever be with the Lord you shall be ever drinking with him this new wine in his Fathers Kingdom at his Kingdom suppose there be not that to satisfie and fill thee in the pipe though the Conduits run wine and the Ordinances be a feast of fat things still thou wouldst have more there brethren your desires will be swallowed up your enjoyments will be above your desires I know it is a sight of Christ crucified sitting with us at the Table which is the reviving of the poor soul but alas he quickly loseth that poor imperfect glimpse he had of him but there shall thy eye be satisfied with seeing him in his glory and thine ear with hearing his blessed voice there shall thy soul be filled indeed and alway filled because alway swallowed up in this fellowship and communion with the Lord Jesus 3. It is matter of encouragement to such as it may be are not admitted to every dish or every course in this Feast of fat things this Marriage-feast upon earth it may be the people of God may not be satisfied in some to admit them though the Lord have received them it appears not to them it may be their own spirits are not free to enjoy them in such a way as they are to be had in the places where they live some stumbling block or other is in the way which they cannot get over and so they mourn after them but cannot enjoy them O that God would remove all stumbling blocks and help his people so to prize them as not upon every slight matter to be kept from them but suppose thou canst not come poor soul and yet thy soul longs for them and haply more then many that do enjoy them if thou couldst without sin Be of good comfort though it is true thou maist lose
now the time of our working and Gods waiting is at an end God hath long waited to be gracious to us but now there is an end of waiting he seeth it would do no good as long as sinners could for sorrow or pain or death hold their vanities keep their sins their sweet morsels they would never spit them out therefore now he will wait no more though men were unready when Christ cometh yet if he would stay a while longer wait a year longer O if it might be but a Sabbath but a day what new creatures would men become they will promise fair No no the time of waiting is done he will not stay a jot they have had warning enough the cry hath past before him often enough Behold the Bridegroom cometh go ye forth to meet him but you have not taken the warning now when he cometh and receiveth his own which were ready for him no more waiting the door is shut Though here in the Kingdom of grace God may be intreated to spare a barren tree or Vineyard a year or two longer yet when the time of waiting is at an end and he seeth nothing will do he will down with them by the roots into the fire with them so it is no time for us to work then to think of puting on Christ then if we would gather Manna it must be upon the six daies there was none to be found upon the seventh If we understand this of the day of the resurrection from the dead then it is clear as the tree falleth so it lyoth either hell-ward or heaven-ward But if of the time of death truly Brethren how ever this may sometimes through the exceeding riches of his grace be a time of repentance and faith to some yet ordinarily it is not so Alas they have enough to do to bear the weakness upon them they can mind little else or if they do return it is but feignedly for the most part with Judas and usually when a sinner hath so long trampled under foot the blood of Jesus Christ the Lord giveth them up to hardness of heart that they shall never repent or believe seeing they shall see and not perceive c. least they should be converted and he should heal them as it is there in the Revelations Let him that is filthy be filthy still let him that is an hypocrite be an hypocrite still this is fearful indeed So much for the Arguments For the Application Then Brethren What have we all of us to bless the Lord for that yet the door is not shut against us as we may hope indeed if God have sealed up any heart under hardness because of its long resisting the Holy-Ghost woful is his condition but doth he not breath now and then and stir and strive that is a good sign he hath not done with thee yet his waiting and striving time is not over he hath not given thee over yet c. What have we to bless the Lord for what are our lives Brethren good to us for in any respect besides but that we might work out our salvation make sure of God and Christ and heaven get our wedding-garment on put on the Lord Jesus for righteousness and holiness that our nakedness may not appear for heaven will not bear the nakedness of a sinner now though sinners have neglected this opportunity alas how many of us have we are exceeding busie making provision for our lusts our pride our luxury our backs our bellies provision for our wives our children but none for our poor souls and yet notwithstanding this he waiteth the door standeth open If you had many of you been cut off a year or a moneth ago and the grave had shut her mouth upon you would you not have found heaven shut against you and hell opening her mouth wide for to swallow you up Yea Brethren if this day he should come Ah I fear I fear Brethren as secure as many of us are now and sure of our conditions we should find the gate clapt against our souls O therefore Brethren bless the Lord admire his patience and long-suffering that yet draweth out our day of grace that yet holdeth his bowels open his arms open to receive us This is the first Secondly Then it may serve to lay before us the doleful condition of poor trifling creatures trifling professors that notwithstanding all the ado they make with their Lamps trimming of them and going up and down to buy they are found unready the door is clapt against them the Lord grant that none of your poor souls may ever see that woful day Brethren you will then know to your bitterness and sorrow what it is to sin away a day of grace an opportunity while the door stood open to receive you Ah surely there will nothing wound poor sinners more then this the time was I might have been happy I might have had heaven the bowels of the Lord Jesus stood open to me as well as to others but now alas it is past did it make the Lord Jesus weep for Jerusalem and was not her condition sad then and will it not make your hearts bleed O sure it cannot be but every such thought to Esau prophane Esau poor Esau when the blessing was gone he sought it with tears every thought sure of this time was I might have had the blessing but wretch that I was I sinned it away I despised it preferred a mess of pottage before it and therefore now there is no recovery of it Every thought sure in hell that heaven gate did stand open to you sinners you had as fair offers of grace and as long a season and opportunity to close with Christ as others but now they are gone will fetch blood from your very hearts and souls O the condition is sad and doleful Thirdly It shall be a word of Exhortation to us all that we would lay these things to heart It may be we have not so much minded them If this be true Brethren What need had we to look to it that we be found ready to enter which is an Exhortation I have already prest upon you there is a promise left of entering a threatning also that some shall not enter even as many as are not ready you see it here by the wise Virgins who enter and the foolish against whom the door is shut and the Apostle to the Hebrews Take heed lest any of you fall short through unbelief as those fell short the Apostle maketh that use of it to warn the Hebrews though Disciples in profession and many of them doubtless in reality such so here from this example I desire Brethren both mine own and your hearts may be quickned to look about us lest when all comes to all we have the gate of heaven clapt upon us 1. Then you that are yet in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity have yet your filthy garments upon you your rotten
sinners to come Your ears they hear the joyful sound now you are called upon and intreated to be reconciled to believe Well you cannot say sinners another day but that the Lord gave you space to repent space to make sure of heaven but you neglected it 3. This opportunity and season it is headlong it staies notâ— maketh haste and to keep pace with your season of grace you must make haste and if it be once lost it is never recovered again O therefore Brethren with the greatest haste I beg of you to set about this work lest at last you cry out all too late all too late as it is said of a Lady that likely spent her time vainly but when she came to her death-bed O then she lamentably cryeth out O time time a world of wealth for a moment of time an inch of time Opportunity is bald behind there is no hold to be taken of it only by redeeming it double your diligence if you have lost a great part of your season have you been idling and loytering a great part of the harvest Now therefore lay about you so much the more earnestly for the opportunity cannot be recalled when once it is past that is the third O what would the damned that have been damned from under such means and mercies as you enjoy give for one of their Sabbaths for one of their Sermons for one of the many daies you enjoy but it is past help 4. Consider Brethren If the door be shut by Jesus Christ none else can open it and he will not himself open it any more and what will become of you then It may be sinners think this is not so sad a word that the door shall be shut they think they can bring a golden key of their own that shall open it No no believe it Brethren it is the key of David only that can open and shut this door and this Jesus Christ alone hath the Wards of your keys are not fitted for this lock he shutteth therefore and no man openeth none else whatsoever openeth Nor will he open it himself any more to them he knoweth full well upon whom it is that he shutteth the gate he knoweth who are and who are not his who are ready and who are not O therefore Brethren I beseech you consider it now while you have time before it be too late while there is hope concerning this thing O let not the world Brethren nor your sinful pleasures eat out all your time consume your season of grace except they could open the gate of heaven for you if they could it were somewhat indeed for men to baffle so with Christ and trifle away their souls as they do but if you will not believe nor be perswaded by any thing which in so much weakness can be said nor by what is delivered in a better manner by others you shall see it to your sorrow when you come to heaven gate and find it shut against you O then you shall know Brethren what it was to have such a warning to flee from the wrath to come and not have a heart to embrace it Thus much for this Application and this Doctrine Verses 11 12. Afterwards came also the other Virgins saying Lord Lord open to us but he answered and said to them verily I say unto you I know you not I Would take up two or three brief Notes from these words That men may come very near to heaven and yet be shut out never enter into heaven Which though it be much what the same with a former observation I will speak a few words to it here if it were nothing else but to refresh your memories and but a word or two of it It is plainly taken up from the Parable here the foolish Virgins they kept their Lamps burning long until the very point of the Bride-grooms coming yea not only so but when the door was shut and others received which whether it be at the day of judgement or at each particular souls particular day we will not now enquire but yet they come mind you after all this and they bounce against heaven gate as I may â—ay they cry Lord Lord open to us they would have heaven and come to the very gate as I may say and they seek it of Jesus Christ too and they are very earnest in it the doubling of the expression imports it is not a cold frozen prayer such as many an hypocrite yea sometimes many a child of God puts up but an earnest cry Lord Lord O Lord save us shut us not out save us we perish we sink hell opens her mouth to swallow us up O quickly open to us or we are gone Did not Israel come out of Egypt and march through the wilderness and through many difficulties and enemies and temptations there and come to the very borders of Canaan and yet fell back again were turned into the wilderness again the Lord sware they should never enter into his rest Many run saith the Apostle but all obtain not yea some do run to the very last until they be even within sight of the Goal and yet there sink and perish So Joash did he ran far and yet fell short when all was done And when many fell back from Christ Judas continued with him the Bag its likely kept him more then Christ but he continued until the very last and then perished There was but one step as I may say between the young man in the Gospel and heaven he went very far did much he had kept all those things from his youth yet there was one thing wanting which he could not reach too our Saviour convinced him thereby how short he was and had need of a Saviour but we find not that he came to him any more How near was Ananias to the Kingdom of God he professed Christ in those persecuting times owned him but it seems his love of the world and distrust was not killed he went far as well as others to sell all he had and to lay it at the Apostles feet a very great piece of self-denyal only a little reservation in hypocrisie you see carried him aside and he perished To make this a little better appear consider First That the light and principles of nature will carry a man very far how far did many of the Heathens go how Saint-like would they speak and how heroically and self-denyingly would they act many times Yea and some of them in their whole course to the shame of most Christians the sparks of our own kindling will rise and flie upward but yet they fall short Because alas 1. It leads us not to Jesus Christ and by his own strength no man shall prevail for heaven but he must lay hold upon the strength of God in Christ The Doctrine of Jesus Christ is a mysterie hid from ages from all people but where the Lord is pleased by the preaching of the
greater measure and therefore we may understand this of a general state of the Saints before the coming of Christ the arising of this Sun of righteousness indeed hath shone into the very chambers of death themselves to let us see thaâ— there is not that real terrour in it that otherwise except himself had gone through it and broken the bars of it and pluckt out the sting and sanctified it as a passage to our Glory as well as to his own we should still have been in as great bondage as they were in this respect and therefore Simeon saith Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word now he had embraced the Lord Christ not only in his bodily arms but had a clearer discovery also of him to his soul doubtless and the sence may help faith also But then secondly According to the measure of the faith of his people is the degree of their liberty from this bondage alas it is terrible to many of us yea such as do believe but their faith is weak and the perswasions of sense are strong and hold down the soul many times but the Lord Jesus came to deliver his people also from this bondage and according to the degrees of his manifesting himselfto the soul will the soul go forth from these fears and though Aristotle died doubtful whither he should go and yet cried out Ens entium causa causarum miserere mei Yet the Apostle and those that attained that pitch to know that when our tabernacles are dissolved we have an house eternal in the heavens to know the sting of death and victory of the grave is swallowed up by Jesus Christ it left its sting in his side to know that when we are dissolved we shall be with Christ and know how much better that will be to the soul that is well studied in these things and grown strong in the faith that is in Jesus he will desire to be dissolved and to be with Jesus O here is a going forth now a liberty and freedom indeed by the arising of the Sun of Righteousness upon us Ninthly A freedom or liberty from the Govenant of works What saith the Law Do this and live continue in every thing that is written now when the soul cometh to see how spirittual the Law is and how earnal he is and sold under sin that it binds not only the thoughts but the desires of the heart that there must not be so much as a vain thought pass through his soul but if there do this Covenant knoweth no mercy alas this keepeth the poor creature under much bondage and trouble and doubting concerning his condition now we must know that this is not a bondage of Gods putting upon us though he gave us the Law but of our own making the Lord gave the Law with Evangelical purposes it was added because of transgression it was added that the Covenant of Grace that it might convince poor creatures of their condition by sâ—n and not to be their Saviour or a Covenant of life to them When the Commandment came sin revived and I died saith the Apostle that is the work of it indeed but now we would needs make it to be a Covenant of works and look upon it so and therefore do what we did in obedience to this Law as for life expecting to be saved by our own works and so the Hebrews the Jews to whom that Law was first given we see how they would not submit they would not stoop to have this yoke taken off from them they would not submit to the righteousness of Ged but would have a righteousness of their own they had two strings to their bow and as long as either of them would hold they would not yield to be righteous by the righteousness of God in Christ the one was their freedom by Birth They were the seed of Abraham and not the seed of the Bond-woman and therefore what need they care for this liberty the other was their own works they made account their own penny was good silver enough though the Lord knoweth it was but reprobate silver they went about to establish their own righteousness they would be justified by a Covenant of works And so there were some that came and endeavoured to turn aside the Galathians to another Gospel by teaching them they should again put their necks under this yoke not only of Ceremonies though that be one thing to the Jews if not to the Gentiles that never were under it but it is the Law the Moral Law as a Covenant of Works else to what end doth he mention the curse therein And if ye be justified by the Law Christ shall not profit you you are fallen from the Doctrine of Grace Well now the Lord Jesus when he is revealed to a soul delivereth him from this though I must tell you it is an harder matter to get clearly off it then many do imagine and even the people of God themselves shall find that too often they are turned aside to the bondwoman from the free from the Covenant of Grace to a Covenant of Works Again from the Law as provoking for that is the Bondage chiefly the Apostle speaks of Rom. 7. But the more clearly and fully the Grace which is in Christ is revealed to us with the greater power he ariseth upon us the more fully are we set free from it Here we might discuss the question how far we are delivered from the Law and how far by Jesus Christ I will rather reserve that to another place and proceed to conclude this part Tenthly There is a kind of bondage the people of God are under even that weakness and straitness and deadness of heart towards God you know that sickness doth weaken a man exceedingly in so much that he can scarce go upon his legs he is a prisoner a great while under that weakness from all action to purpose let but a poor prisoner be under hardship a while in the prison and how feeble will he be and scarce worth the ground he goeth upon a while longer he is a prisoner under that weakness so it is here therefore saith the Psalmist Then will I run the ways of thy commandments when thou shalt enlarge my heart Now the Lord Jesus when he cometh in with pardon speaking peace smiling upon the soul filling the heart with joy unspeakable this joy of the Lord is the strength of the soul he goeth forth even as a man to his labour in the morning when the Sun ariseth that drousiness heaviness deadness under which he was a prisoner before being now removed Eleventhly There is a liberty and freedom also from outward afflictions for these are also an appendix of the Law a part of the execution of it and therefore the Lord doth set his people free from the fear of these before they come which is a kind of bondage upon them Secondly From the presence of
worse as the Apostle saith evil men and seducers grow worse and indeed we must know this Brethren we do grow either better or worse as haply afterward we shall have occasion to speak to at large either the house of David groweth stronger or the house of Saul either the flesh or the spirit prevails in the hearts of the people of God there are two sorts of persons whose condition is under this consideration First Such as have profest the name of Jesus Christ and yet alas though they were green for a while now their leaf is fallen their light is gone out they are fallen from their place of standing among the Saints in appearance never was there an age more fruitful in such barrenness then this is alas like a Fir-tree shaken with the wind they lose their fruit yea are turned up by the roots and now are become as a dry stick fit for nothing but to burn the latter end of such men is worse then their beginning they are trees twice dead not only dead by nature but have lost their profession which was a visible life whereby they did appear to men to be alive and is there any hope of such a tree living again truly Brethren very little I have oberved it and I wish I could look upon it with a more trembling heart that such men as these grow worse fall off and decline they are the saddest hard-hearted desperate prophane wretches afterward or the most besotted worldlings and seldom are they recovered I know not whether I may speak to any such at this time I hope the best things of you if there be any such let me tell thee thou art in a more dangerous condition then those that never knew God to this day Secondly Such as never yet had appearance of being planted into Jesus Christ and so no growth in them but are yet in their naturals know this day you are growing worse and worse the Gospel doth not return in vain you are worse every day then other every Sermon then other the Gospel is a savour of death to death to you as there is nothing doth condemn sinners like to the Gospel rejected so nothing doth harden sinners more then the Gospel and those precious promises which men give the hearing to day by day but alas that is all Isaiah the most Evangelical Prophet he cometh with a make you the ears of this people heavy that hearing they might hear and not perceive If the Son be not kissed when he is offered to sinners but they turn their backs upon him he will be angry if the more worthy person be suitor and be denyed and slighted and the heel lift up against him will not this provoke him think you surely it will therefore God doth usually give up such to a reprobate mind yea even for despising the light of nature much more the Gospel and giveth them up to hardness of heart you shall ordinarily see where the Gospel cometh at the first among a people it works more mightily then afterward at first though men are prophane yet they have not had the Sun-shine to harden the Clay into a Brick the Word of God this Gospel and means of growth it is as fire the coals of love and either they do melt or else burn sinners into stones and bricks and sear their consciences that they are even past feeling hence it is we have so many desperately wicked persons among us O how sad a condition is this Brethren to be growing worse and worse under the greatest mercy and love that the Lord manifesteth to any Sinners in good earnest do you think it is the way to heaven to grow worse and worse or the way to the Chambers of death Thou knowest thy self to be a more desperate prophane wretch then formerly making no conscience of that which heretofore thy soul it may be hath trembled at now it goeth down without regret or else if not in open prophaneness if thou meltest away in secret wickedness that no eye takes notice of and art worse and worse what will the end of these things be the Saints that grow they grow up into the likeness and image and glory of Christ they grow up into him and thou growest up into the likeness of the Devil up in t 〈…〉 im What will become of you O that sinners would but lay these things to heart if heretofore thou wast overtaken with a sin it may be it was some trouble to thee now thou wilt work the works of the Devil thy will is ingaged and so much the more haynous the sin is what can you expect Brethren O that God would open sinners eyes that they might but see whether they are going what they are doing and they could but consider what bitterness this will be in the latter end to grow worse and worse The next Vse shall be then Brethren to take an account of our selves whether we grow or go backward yea or no this is not the work of every day Brethren for it will hardly be discernable if we daily should put our selves to the tryal we should do nothing else it would eat up that time and those endeavours to grow which ought to be laid out upon it that so it may afterward appear a man that should spend every day in casting up his whole Books to see how he groweth in his estate would hâ—nder himself of those endeavours to thrive that must be used else he cannot thrive besides this growth is not the work of a day usually though sometimes it may be so but of moneths or a year or so if a man should sit by his tree or set his eye upon his child to behold his motion or growth he would lose his labour it is better seen afterward as in another place afterward shall be spoken besides if we should daily judge of our growth and try it alas what inconstant judgements should we make of our condition for some daies we are up and some daies down it may be some daies under the power of a temptation and other daies set at liberty from them sometimes the Merchant maketh a losing bargain sometimes a winning sometimes his cash cometh in and sometimes he is all in disbursments therefore he must not he cannot judge of his estate whether he prosper or thrive by this or that day but after a while he should look to it cast up his Books see how it standeth Brethren it is impossible to perswade a Merchant except he be Bankrupt and knoweth it is so and therefore hath no mind to look upon his misery else I say you cannot perswade a Merchant but he will take his set times for perusing his Books casting up his accounts and not let it run too long neither for fear of the worst and if any should advise him to the contrary he would take him to be his enemy suspect him for one that would undo him and yet alas how easie
grow in this Grace may he not say to us O ye of little Faith why do ye doubt why do you walk so pensively and hang the head to the dishonour of my Grace may he not say O ye of little Faith why do you perplex your selves and rack your selves with cares of the World what ye shall eat and drink and how ye shall be prvoided for doth not your heavenly Father take care of you O ye of little Faith why do ye in every perplexity and trouble as men at a loss run to this creature and that creature and not to the Lord wherein your help doth lie O ye of little Faith why do you when means fail then cast away your hope as if there were no help in God as if because the streams were dried up therefore the fountain must needs be dry also therefore Brethren labour to grow in this Grace if ever you would do any eminent service for Christ or honour him set the crown on him in any condition labour to be strong in Faith Thirdly In that Grace of Love labour to grow therein First to the Lord himself to Jesus Christ It may be thou dost love him and according to the measure of Faith and Knowledge of him the soul will love him usually but we must labour to love him much more love we take it kindly if it be from the meanest person and so doth the Lord Jesus O love the Lord ye his Saints you cannot love him too much do you alway err in his love the more you love him the more you may for there is no end of his perfections his love his mercy his bowels towards you there is no searching of them you may go yet deeper and deeper and find a ground for the increase of your love still you love Relations Husband Wife Children and more for relation then for any excellency in them many times fond we are O that we could be so fond of Jesus Christ how sick of love was Rachel yea sick to the death for children and so is many a fond mother O we cannot live without them Ah how few are thus sick of love to Jesus Christ well lobour to love him and to this end First Labour to present the Lord and Jesus Christas most lovely to thee while thou entertainest hard thoughts of Jesus Christ thou canst not love him if thou thinkest thus with thy self I would fain have him but he is not willing to have me if thou look upon him as rigorous and cruel and one that delights in your blood it is impossible that you should love him O no labour to present him to your selves as one whose bowels are continually yearning over poor souls poor sinners one full of compassions full of mercy and tenderness he desires not the death of a sinner the Lord Jesus Brethren is altogether lovely it is true for his holiness his purity as well as his grace and mercy but this is that which most moveth to love at least while we are under weakness it is an high pitch to love him for the beauty of Holiness that is in him Think often then seriously upon it what dear thoughts the Lord Jesus had to poor sinners that rather then they should perish he would interpose between them and the everlasting burnings though be were sorely scorched for it O will not this draw love look upon him with his precious blood trickling down and one drop overtaking another O what haste did love make O how lavish was his love he would not spare any pains any travel of soul that sinners might live and can you but love him then O what an heart must that creature have that can look upon the Lord Jesus wrestling with strongest wrath of his Father so that he needed the Ministry of Angels at that time and yet not love him try see whether such considerations as these will not heighten your love to him we complain of want of love Brethren we cannot love a thing we know not or that we consider not see then if you do not find still some new beauty in him for which you should love him yet the more Secondly Let it be much upon your hearts how much he hath forgiven thee Alas saith the poor soul if I knew that that my sins were forgiven I should love him indeed abundantly It may be thou hast not a full perswasion of it but hast thou not a good hope through Grace and such a lively hope as setteth a working out the scum the pollution of thy heart more and more Is not this cause of great love to him why he hath not left thee to sink in despair and perish O how much did that sinner love him because he had forgiven her much therefore she loved much Dear friends could this be think you without her heart dwelt upon this consideration it was fresh upon her spirit O the more she considered it the more apparent were the riches of Grace towards her O so many Devils cast out of me would the Lord Jesus have such precious thoughts toward such a wretch as I what an Harlot a filthy unclean wretch and would he think upon me and pitch his love upon me and pass by many others that had it may be but one devil and make love to me that had seven O she could not hold her bowels within her were ready to break she must love him she must hang upon him even upon his feet she must wash him with her tears and wipe them with the hairs of her head though before as harlots use to do she had been much in tricking and trimming her head yet now they shall be dishrifled and now they shall be a Towel to wipe the feet of Jesus Christ O here is love kiss his feet if she may not kiss his lips and blessed soul that had such an heart given her Now Brethren consider this have not some of us had seven devils have there not been seven abominations in our hearts O it may be we have been fornicators adulterers filthy unclean wretches as vile wretches as ever breathed now consider this often is it so indeed hath the Lord looked upon such as we have been pitched his love upon the vilest of us and to make us so nigh to himself and shall we not love him O where are such workings of love towards the Lord Jesus as that poor woman manifested our hearts are dead and dry So the Apostle Paul His love of Christ constrained him O he was the chief of Sinners and the Lord did so eminently save him and call him out of darkness when he was in the very height of his wickedness that then mercy should â—eet with him that then a pardon should descend from heaven when he was fighting and rebelling against heaven and he should be conquered by the love of Christ whose heart was full of blood against him O this lying upon his spirit did indear his soul to
plant a Tree or Plant in such a dark place where the Sun never cometh but is kept off by this or that hinderance it will not grow and so under trees that shade the Sun and keep the rain from the seed most herbs will not grow and so it is in this case therefore look to this Brethren in the name of Jesus Christ as ever you hope to recover your selves and to grow indeed Sixthly Labour to make special use of the promises of God that particularly concern this matter I know this is reducible to that former head of exercising-grace and particularly the grace of faith because this is a special object whereupon the act is to be exercised but for orders sake we shall put it distinctly by it self in this place is this the grievance of thy soul indeed that thou growest not Why here is a rich Treasury in the promises which if it were drawn out cannot but much further our growth First then search out these promises they are many I cannot give you them all a taste I will to help the weak What a sweet promise is that in the first Psalm look upon it as such they shall be like the tree planted by the rivers of water Brethren nothing ordinarily kills trees more then drought I think and thus to have moisture with heat they must needs grow and flourish therefore in that place of Job a tree though cut down yet through the scent of water it will sprout again Now there is a sweet promise to that end and so they that are planted in the house of the Lord they shall flourish this in the Text they shall go forth it is a promise they shall grow up as Calves of the stall And that in Hos 14. 5. God will be as the dew unto Israel and he shall grow up as the Lilly and spread his roots as Lebanon grow in rootedness and grow quickly and grow in beauty and sweetness the smell shall be as Lebanon here the growth is set forth under that metaphor of a tree or plant the dew you know upon the mown grass maketh it spring again else it would wither and the corn for a time as dead under the clod yet the dew maketh it grow up or as the corn that seemed to wither away the dew refresheth it and maketh it revive indeed I will not burthen your memories take but one more and that is in the Prophet Isaiah to them that have no might he increaseth strength and he giveth power to them that faint to them that have no mights the original is very emphatical the plural with the Hebrews as some note when it is affirmative setteth forth the abundancy the eminency or excellency of any quaility or vertue as wisdoms for wisdom in many places in the Proverbs that is to say the most excellent wisdom or abundance So in the negative it often signifieth the great want in an eminent degree of such or such a qualification as here such as have no strength that is to say very little none at all such as faint and languish then you know strength is very little So again they are a people of no understandings in the plural number and again there is no safety or salvation or deliverance wrought in the earth there is no deliverance at all the meaning is not there are not many deliverances but there is not any at all and so here such as have no mights it is in the Original and we read such as have no might Alas they have no strength to those he will increase might Now I say gather together such promises as these Secondly Not only so but dwell upon them in your thoughts it may be at the first or second sight of them there will be little arising to the soul from them but you must dwell upon them as the Bee doth that will not off the flower until she hath gotten some sweetness from it So do you make these promises the object of your meditation can you have any thing sweeter to meditate upon then a promise in such a condition as this is Sure David when he meditated upon the Word of God and his meditations were sweet to him were not only the commands but the promises these indeed are the honey-suckles to dwell upon these you shall find much refreshing in break the bones if you would have the marrow in them You will not be able at first to find the depth of these promises to apprehend the fulness of them except you dwell upon them and then you can never further improve them to your comfort Thirdly More then this you must â—ay your mouths to them these are the breasts of consolations if the child will have any thing he must draw and draw hard sometimes and the mother is fain to help in some cases to press it down too all little enough the child is pleased and taken to see the breast but this will not feed nor nourish no more will our beholding the promises except we suck and suck strongly and the Spirit of Jesus Christ is ready Brethren to press those breasts to make them give down their milk their sweetness and fatness to us specially in prayer before the Lord take the promises that concern this condition of yours tell him he hath been pleased to make such gracious promises he was free and might have been so still if he had pleased but now he hath ingaged himself to give strength to them that have no might and Lord here is a poor soul that hath no might no strength I am in a poor lean faint languishing condition wilt thou not make good thy Word to thy poor creature thou hast caused me to hope upon this Word thou hast put the breast into my mouth or at least thou hast shewed it thy poor creature and wilt thou not make it give down its sweetness to me O make good thy Word to thy poor creature Lord I am in a declining condition I am even withering and lose of my greenness growing yellow or that which thou hast done for me lies under the clods thou hast promised to be as the dew unto Israel wilt thou not make good thy Word unto me and so thou hast planted me in thy house and promised I shall grow and flourish c. Press the Lord thus with his Word O he loveth to have his bond sued in the Court of heaven I dare undertake that such a soul that is thus stirred up to act faith upon the promises of God that soul is in a growing condition Brethren these are the wells in the valley of Baacha the wells of salvation you must draw from them and then you grow from strength to strength Seventhly another I shall name but this The greatness of the object whereupon your hearts are to dwell much and that is God himself for there is nothing doth greaten the mind more then the greatness of the Object whereupon it is conversant you
thy name cast out devils whose name but the name of Jesus Christ Again who is it that passeth the doom and Sentence upon poor souls but Jesus Christ who shall judge both quick and dead he saith I know you not in this place depart from me for I know you not I never knew you in that place of Matthew Again in the winding up of all in the Application we have an explication of this part of the parable Watch therefore for ye know not the day nâ—r hour wherein Son of man cometh and who is this Son of man that cometh so uncertainly but the Bridegroom for whom the Virgins watched a while but he not coming the time they thou ht they fell asleep and were found unready therefore watch and who is the son of man but the Lord Jesus You know he often calls himself so in the Gospel I suppose this is the most solid and near proof of the Doctrine Which is fetched out of the parable yet a parallel place or two more I will add to it in that place of John where he answereth his Disciples who seemed to envy at it that all the people followed Christ and not their Master O saith he he that hath the Bride is the Bridegroom but the friend of the Bridegroom standeth and heareth his voice and rejoyceth I am not the Bridegroom saith he but onely his friend for I have not the Bride she is not mine but his I have onely prepared a people for Christ being a voice crying prepare ye the Lord his way make his paths straight but he is the Bride-groom who hath the Bride that is to say Jesus Christ for the comparison is between him and the Lord Jesus onely so he giveth the honor to Jesus Christ and is willing to be Out-shone by him as the morning-star by the Son when it ariseth appeareth not any more But one more and that is of Matthew when again the Disciples of John being in a mourning condition as it should seem for their Master now in the Paw of that Lyon that crafty Fox Herod they had cause to mourn and fast if by any means they might prevail for his deliverance as the Church afterward made continua supplication for Peter Now they saw not the Disciples of Christ to fast and mourn and therefore they had a little emulation at them and were quarrellous and complaining to our Saviour Why do we and the Parisees fast often but thy Desciples fast not Our Saviour again answers How can the children of the Bride Chamber mourn while the Bridegroom is with them but the days are coming when he shall be taken from them and then shall they mourn Is it sit or convenient for them to mourn while he is with them for that is meant by they cannot the impossibility set forth interrogatively for the Affirmative interrogation hath the force of a strong Negation Can they that is in no wise they cannot mourn the meaning is it is not suitable it is not convenient so Nazianzen It is reasonable that they should now mourn You all know who are meant by the children of the Bride-Chamber even the Disciples and the Bridegroom is Jesus Christ who yet a little while was with them and ere long should be taken away from them and then should be a time of mourning to them But I will not here stay you longer the rest of the Scriptures we shall consider in the opening of the Point to you The Bridegroom being a relative must have a Correlate and that is the Bride And therefore first we will speak a little to that who this Bride is for it seemeth not to be intimated in the Text but the Bridegroom to stand alone And then a word or two to the person and quality of the Bridegroom For the Bride the Text seemeth not to shew her to our view for here only the kingdom of God the Church visible is compared to ten virgins some wise some foolish and this may seem hardly to be the Bride for the foolish you see they are disowned and Jesus Christ certainly espouseth none to be his Bride but he communicateth of himself to them who is the wisdom of the Father and hath all treasures of wisdom and knowledge in him and therefore his spouse can not be the foolish virgins they have no fellowship with him in his wisdom And for the wise though it be said they entered with him in to the marriage yet they are here spoken of but as virgins which are companions to the Queen as it is in the 45. Psal v. 14. which in weddings it seemeth did accompany the Bâ—ide to bring her to the Bridgr but these were not the spouse and therefore it may seem there is nothing here intimated of the Bride which is the correlate of the Bridegroom We answer In propriety of speech indeed the Bride is the Queen and the Virgins her companions they are not one and the same but in these tropical speeches they may be one and the same and are so doubtless for herein we must know that the Church and people of God admits of notions of divers relations unto divers conditions As in another Parable where the Communications of Christ to his people are set forth by a Marriage Feast as afterward we shall shew you here you know the King prepareth a feast for his Son that is to say for Jesus Christ a marriage feast it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a marriage it self though by that be meant a marriage feast now many guests were invited and they make this and that excuse at last he retcheth them in from the high-way sides and heals the poor scattered contemned Gentiles brought in when the Jews refused here is the communication of himself to them as a Church visible for so it must be understood because there was one there without a wedding garment It seemeth there was a custom to put on their best apparel somewhat suitable to the occasion Well the rest they had such a garment But if this be but a marriage feast for Christ and the Bride What are those Guests then that are invited to it It should seem they are not the Bride her self Why truly here the Answer is the same in this Tropical speech they are one and the same though here they be not considered as such And so in our Text the real believers aand Saints in truth are set forth by the wise virgins and all such have Christ and Christ hath them as the Bride onely here they are considered indeed according to the comparison as the virgins her companions which go forth to meet the Bridegroom Yet indeed and in truth they are the Bride her self And he said in that place of the Revelations Blessed are they who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb and so called as to come to it but if they were not the spouse had not an interest in the Bridegroom as such truly there would be no
would have if it be in truth let the other accomplishments be less or greater so the soul O thy self thy self give me Christ or else I dye What wilt thou give me if I go Christ less wilt thou give me a name riches a portion in this world a fellowship with thy people in the Ordinances yea grace it self if it may be given without Christ O none but him none but him Well thus now thy Lord works a poor soul to close with him so that choosing Christ for himself while we have him we are well enough If a man follow him for Loaves when they cease farewell Christ or for riches or prosperity when that ceaseth all is gon They will not go to prison with him they will not suffer with him no they never intended it but to have such a Christ as to be kept from those things Well this is not sincere nor upwright which is wrought in every heart whom the Lord doth thus espouse to himself which may serve for a word of tryal to us all I have onely a word to speak to the solemnity of the Marriage-Feast you see Marriages used to be made with feasting it being a time of rejoycing so Sampson he made a Feast seven days that was the manner it seemeth and so Laban saith to Jacob fulfil her week the solemnity of the Marriage And our Saviour himself was at a marriage-feast at the first miracle that he wrought And though this feast it seems was rather at the compleat marriage then the espousal yet this Feast is at his espousal and continueth until the consummation and yet a greater feast to be expected The Kingdom of Heaven saith our Saviour is like a King that made a Marriage-Feast for his son and bid the Guests Here he speaks I take it of the administrations of grace in the visible Church of Christ for one was there that had not a wedding-garment O Brethren A Feast of Fat things of Wines on the Lees well refined a Feast the Lord maketh saith the Prophet Their Feasts were rather in drinking then eating and therefore they had their name in Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A drinking a Feast so Ahasuerus feast a drinking And so the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a drinking together so here brethen such dainties are provided as eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor can enter into the heart of man as a man that never tasted hony though he may hear speaking of it cannot conceive what it is Eat my friends and drink ye yea drink abundantly saith he in the song It is observed by some that Matthew calls it a dinner and Luke calls it a supper both indeed for we dine and sup with him and he with us in the Administrations of his grace and those sweet communions that we have with him while he sitteth with us at the Table as not long since you heard Yea we have continually brethren such as are believers indeed have continual meat at his Table as Mephibosheth at David his Table a dayly portion the things of the day in its day so we our daily refreshings from his presence so Jeconiah had his portioâ—n from the Kings Table dayly Some say the dinner is here but the supper in Heaven and this not comparable to that now we have flagons but there will be springs and Rivers or rather an Ocean of wine to all eternity here we drink and take in the comfort there the comfort takes in us we enter into the joy because it cannot enter into us O blessed is he that shall be brought brethren to the supper of the Lamb forever and forever Lastly The consummation of this marriage when the Bridegroom cometh to take his Bride to himself to take her now from among the pots wherein she hath lien to take her now nearer to himself to his bosom indeed now she hath had some smiles from him to keep the heart alive now and then a Kiss but then continual embraces Now and then he hath met with her here and there and then withdraw again but then we shall be alway in the glorious light of his countenance O Brethren If a smile from Jesus Christ will sweeten the bitterest cup of Affliction here below yea very gall and wormwood it will sweeten the mouth and fill us with comfort what will it be then when nothing but pouring out of love upon the soul to eternity and when there shall be no bitterness at all to abate it and no mixture no interruption no fear of losing that sweet and ravishing communion with him Oh heaven will be Heaven indeed But so much for the Doctrinal part Now for the Application First then I pray you let us be more serious in taking notice of the great transcendent love of Jesus Christ to such as we are that we should be made a spouse to him O brethren what condescention is this he being so high and we so low such poor abject creatures Alas conception fails us brethren comparison fails us for there is no proportion between an infinitely glorious God and vile dust and ashes Who regardeth a drop of a Bucket or thedust of the ballance they are poor contemptible things who desireth a poor worm or an Ant every one trampleth them underfoot and thinketh he doth them no wrong though he never gave them no being alas brethren we that are less then nothing in comparison of him that he should set his love upon us and become espoused to himself how shall we conceive of it much less speak of it You would think it much for one of you brethren one of us to have our hearts drawn out thus to a poor abject forlorn maid lying in the street that we must take her to a nearer relation to a bosom-communion and fellowship this were strange but for a â—rince to do so is yet more strange but all is nothing to this of the Lord Jesus to our souls It was Condescention for the Cedar to marry the Thistle as it was ambition for the Thistle to seek to the Cedar O such thoughts if they rise they are even stifled in the very birth A begger will not fall in love with a King she thinketh it is impossible to compass it there is no hope and therefore no desire and truly I think it is as rare for a King to fall in love with a begger he is so far above her and hath objects more suitable to himself to set his love upon so that it would be one of the wonders of the world if such a thing should be why brethren much more then this is acted dayly while the Lord Jesus the King of Kings the Lord of Lords maketh love to such poor worms as we are and yet it is not wondered at It is true we think our selves something and therefore we are the less taken with it Tell a Pharisee how great Condescention it is for the God of Heaven