you that profess your selves to be Saints that you would make To repair to this refuge towards this refuge or this garison here in all your troubles I am ashamed and troubled and have been truly many yeers to see Saints and godly people when troubles come on them to spend their wits and beat their brains in finding refuge in outward things O if I were here or there in such a Town in such an Iland in such a Country in such a place I should have it Beloved our song should be Salvation God will appoint us for walls and bulwarks Our way is when all the Kingdoms of the world are shaken to seek to get into that Kingdom that shakes not That is let England and all the world shake I care not so I have the Spirit of Christ the comforter to bring peace to my soul that may set up a garison there that nothing may assault and trouble me Then let all the world let heaven and earth shake I am sure I am safe this is the way It is a common saying of many particular persons Let a man not seek himself any where without in the opinion of men So let not Saints seek refuge and shelter and salvation in outward helps but if they should see the Kingdom of England which God forbid involved in more miseries and troubles and desolations c. Lay this down alway by thee there is a Kingdom that cannot be shaken England and Scotland and Ireland are shaken but there is a Kingdom that cannot be shaken Such a garison is besieged such a Town is in danger such a place is stormed but there is a garison that the Lord hath put into the hearts of his Saints that cannot be stormed or assaulted Therefore ply the Lord Jesus Christ by the Spirit of the New Testament by his holy comforter that he would garison thy soul and put peace there And then what shall be the issue I will tell thee that thou with a holy joy and complacency and delight of Spirit when thou seest the very pillars of heaven shaken as it were shalt sollace thy self in thy own garison and walk in the streets of it and be safe thou shalt triumph over all storms and troubles and all that is here Not because that a Saint is able to encounter those things that are here For a Saint is not able to answer if you ask what he conceives will be the end of these things he cannot answer these things but onely he retreats to the middle Region as a bird he flies above sublunary things he can say I cannot tell what shall become of England or Scotland or Ireland but I am sure I know a back door that leads into a Kingdom that cannot be shaken to go into the middle Region where no storms of the Air shall trouble me and there I can rest my spirit I alway for my part with submission to the wise apprehend it as a thing too carnal and too low for Saints to think to finde a resting place in this world any place is heaven in such an Iland in such a Plantation and such a place let it be what it will But a Saint that hath this garison in his heart and minde he is at peace This garison David had when his enemies compassed him and he had no walls when there were 10000 about him he lay and slept For thou Lord sustainedst me saith he The salvation of God was walls and bulwarks about him If this peace of God be above understanding how can it be otherwise then be above expression We can therefore give but a hint of it but such a thing there is The Saints walk in a green meadow by the rivers of waters Psal 23. in the spring all the day and all the night long in beholding the love of God and the Covenant of God made in Iesus Christ the full forgivenesse of all their sins the everlasting union between them and Christ and through Christ between them and God and beholding the Spirit in its working within them and beholding the glory that shall be revealed at the last day the Crown that Christ shall bring with him they walk safely and sweetly and securely though all the Kingdoms of the world and the pillars of heaven be shaken As the heathen said If the world break about his ears he would undergo it without trouble Not because he can answer these things but withdrawing himself to his place from them I cannot tell whether the Kingdom shall stand but I can go to the middle Region to Iesus Christ where there is no storme Learn that and lay aside your great projects like the men of the world of building Castles in the air for Garisons but labour to get into this Garison Salvation will God appoint for walls and Bulwarks Open ye the gates that the righteous Nation which keepeth the truth may enter in This is a speech just alluding to a Garison they use there to open the gates and to shut them and when any body comes they bid them stand and ask them who they are for What are they One saith he is a friend and then they bid open the gates and let him come in if not to shut the gates against him Open ye the gates saith the Lord But none must come in but a friend but who is this friend It is The righteous Nation which keep the truth they shall enter in The word in the Originall it is Truth not Truth not one or two or three or four truths but the righteous Who have a right to Gods protection Nation that keepeth the truths let them enter in That is the word if you will passe this Court of Guard he that shall come into this Garison is he that keepeth truth with a good conscience notwithstanding all the troubles that befall him in this world he shall enter into this Garison Therefore I beseech you look to your selves Truly it is unconceiveable and unutterable what the joy the comfort the worth of that Garison is where it is set up in the soul yet there are no hypocrites no partiall obeyers of Iesus Christ and his laws that shall enter into it Therefore if I speak Hebrew or Greek as it were to you that you understand not what I mean by this Garison look to your selves it may be you have not the word and therefore you cannot get in It may be you walk not uprightly you are not of the upright Nation and people you keep not the truths It may be you pick one truth here and another there that pleaseth you that suits with your reason or your lusts and corruptions or with the stream of the world you honor and respect that and for the rest of the truth let you neighbours take it if they will you will none of it if it bring shame and persecution and reproch That is the reason when troubles come you are at your wits end you know not where to go because
they are never out of his sight Lord make me such Another thing is that a Saint that is grown fond of God he will never be still or satisfied with any creature A childe that is not fond you may give him twenty baubles whiles his mother goes to market or doth other things but if he be grown fond a thousand of those will not satisfie him So a true Saint hath much of God and little of the creature a man may be a true Saint and be much upon the creature but when the soul grows fond of God no creatures or rattles will serve if God put the creature into his hand he is glad but if God be away nothing wil serve him As a childe that is fond of his mother give him a Rattle or a Cake while he is in her hand he is glad but nothing will still him without her A third thing is this there is an exceeding boldness in a fond childe to ask any thing of his father truly such a boldness as were rude in a stranger a childe will sit in the lap of his mother and snatch a thing out of her hand So people may talk of forms how people should pray and stand half an hour confessing of sins and so come on by degrees but one that is fond of God with an holy fondness he knows he may leap into his fathers lap at any time and fall into his arms and ask any thing without courting and complement There are some Saints that cannot at any time get to God and ask any thing but they have much ado to set their hearts and to get off the guilt that is between them and God as a cloud they have much ado to get a little adoption to call God Father and to lay hold on the promises but there is such a temper of holy fondness that there needs not all or any of this God and the soul are so well acquainted and always together that as soon as ever he comes he can ask any thing and in a holy boldness snatch it for the Kingdom of heaven is taken by violence therefore saith God concerning my sons and daughters Command ye me A childe can command his father and say I must have a new coat I must have a new book or I must have a ball to play with so a Saint can say Father there is a covenant thou art my Father and I am thy childe it cannot stand with thy Truth thou wert not just if thou shouldest deny me any thing that is good O this is a holy boldness As a childe can creep into his mothers breast and pull it out with his hand yet because there is an inward love she bears with it and smiles in his face It argues a great deal of neerness to God when one is always in a readiness to ask any thing I have observed that souls that are far from God they must always go upon their knees but a soul that is neer can pray standing or walking or talking as that good man that you read of in the Book of Ezra he can pray with his hat on he can pray in his bed or where you will when he is is communion with God It is a most glorious thing and a grace that I have seen in some Saints and it hath made my soul sick to have it to have a soul alway in such a temper they can speak a spiritual word at any time as it is said of Bradford to have a heart so familiar with God that it can speak in a moment A weak Professor prays and he is put to it to the utmost for his duty in the morning and he gos behind Gods back all the day till night and unless he set aside all his work and go upon his knees he cannot pray as he buys and sells and trades Fourthly there is in a fond childe a holie carelesness of casting himself bodie and soul and familie and busines and affairs and all upon God Be carefull for nothing It is not to make careless Christians but it is true in one sense when in a holie carelesnes a man casts himself upon God It is your weakness much of your dispute concerning grace and salvation and justification a fond Childe of God smiles at it he can come near his father and catch him and hold him and say I know whom I have trusted on whom I have layd my soul As a man that puts his estate in another hands can say I know whom I have trusted A weak saint thinks little of and cares little for the service of God but he cares much for his owne safetie and security and salvation a strong fond saint takes less care for his owne salvation but he cares much for the service of Iesus Christ For thinks he let the Lord Iesus look to that he hath taken on him to die for my soul and he hath promised to receive it and he hath sayd he will not cast away them that come to him I have cast my soul on him sink or swim I will not trouble my head with that but all my thought and care shall be how I may please Iesus Christ and love and glorifie him It is a blessed pitch of grace when a saint can come to that carelessnes that a man is not thoughtfull for his soul when he hath brought it to Christ leave it there and think not of it but think of the work and will of Christ and how to honour him As suppose you meet in the way as you travell an enemy a man that it may be stands there to destroy you though you meet him you know not his purpose if you did you would go another way now when you meet the man there is one of these two things to be done either concerning your safetie or your carriage to Christ Now a saint is apt to take Christs work and lay aside his own another man doth not care in that case how he is pleasing to Christ and carries himself to him but his care is how he may get off from his enemy that he may not kill him and take away his life that is our errour we should leave that to Christ he hath put an enemy before me and he cannot kill me without Christ give him power but my care should be how to be pleasing to God and so to speak and think and do As for outward things and for the body so for the soul my care should not be so much whether I shall be damned or saved I know into whose hands I have put it but my care should be how to walk more holily and pleasing to Christ and for the edification of his Church and kingdome this a childe that is fond of God will do Fiftly a Saint that is fond of God in Iesus Christ he seeth something of God in every thing As they say of love one that is in love sees nothing with her eyes nor hears nothing with her ears but love so a
a good look yet this is our disposition if the Saints do not observe us if one go by and do not observe us in the street and put not off his hat and speak and give us idle visitations when he knows not what to do he loves us not It is a great deal if a Saint do but come over the threshold or look upon me in the street This is that that breeds endless quarrels for they are here put together Strife and Vain glory and the like for thou wilt be alway like the Salamander feeding upon some quarrel for every man naturally hath some one thing that he feeds on principally children feed on one cate more then another and so do men some upon Husbandry some upon Navigation some upon Policy every one upon one thing or other All men have some one thing that carries the stream of their hearts some Professors the very stream of their spirits goes in quarrelling with others they no sooner end a quarrel with one Saint but they begin another they can no more live without jangling and quarrelling and strife then the Salamander can live without fire This is the reason a proud heart therefore can never close with the Saints it cannot be content with a little measure of love from the Saints A Saint if he be as he should be can love though he be not loved and can rejoyce wonderfully if he have the least measure of love from others The Lord make this short word spiritual and powerful to thee and me If this lesson were rightly learned a world of division among the Saints would cease Expositions and Observations on HEBREWES 12. 18 19 20 c. For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched and that burned with fire nor unto blackness and darkness and tempest And the sound of a trumpet and the voyce of words which voyce they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more For they could not endure that which was commanded and if so much as a beast touch the mountaine it shall be stoned or thrust through with a dart And so terrible was the sight that Moses said I exceedingly fear and quake But ye are come unto Mount Sion and unto the City of the living God the heavenly Ierusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels To the general assembly and Church of the first born which are written in heaven and to God the Judge of all and the spirits of just men made perfect And to Jesus the Mediator of the new Covenant and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things then that of Abel See that ye refuse not him that speaketh for if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven THe Apostle in these words doth compare The old and new Testament compared the old Testament the old Covenant with the new or if you will the estate of the Saints under the old Covenant of Sinai with the glorious estate of the Saints under the new Covenant Therefore he tells them Ye are not come to that mountaine that burned with fire that mountain that might be touched you are not set under the old Covenant that was terrible in which there was nothing but that that was terrible that brought horror upon all that feared God in it but ye are Come to mount Sion to the glorious state in the new Testament and there is nothing but what is amiable and what is beautiful for that is it that I mean to pitch on you shall observe in the description of the Saints in the old Testament under the old Covenant I mean not the Books of the old Testament I suppose you know what I mean in that Proposition I say there was nothing in all Gods administration with them but it was full of terror it was terrible it begat horror in them and there is nothing in the state of a Saint that is rightly setled in the Gospel but what is throughly amiable and beautiful and therefore you shall see how the Apostle reckons them First for the old he saith they were come but to a Mount that might be touched that is an earthly mountain a mountain or hill as one of our hills And that burned with fire that was terrible And there was blackness and darkness and storm and tempest covering the heavens and the hill this was terrible And there was the sound of a Trumpet you know that signifies war And there was a terrible voyce of words also and so terrible that they that heard it intreated that they might hear it no more And the Lord was so strict that if but a beast touch but the hill that was black and dark he was to be stoned or thrust through with a dart he was to be killed nay Moses himself that was to be the Mediator of the people in that Testament he did exceedingly fear and quake So that there is nothing in that old Covenant of works that God saith is done away Heb. 8. there was nothing in the old Testament but what was terrible and full of horror To come a little more particular there is nothing in the state of a Professor who is yet on Mount Sinai as many Professors are who are not yet dead but alive to the Law they are not free-men they are not sons and daughters they have not the principles of the Gospel clearly wrought in them I say those people take them in the bulk and frame of their profession there is nothing in their whole life in all the course of their profession but what is ful of horror and terror If they look upon God they see him more or less as an angry Iudg ready to stand at the catch to consume them If they look on grace in them that is so little that they continually conclude that they are hypocrites If they look on sin they look every moment when God will be avenged on them because of it If they look on affliction they say Now God hath found me out I knew it would be so that the wrath of God would be on me If they look on Christ saith he He doth not belong to me and the Promises are not mine A man that is a Professor on Mount Sinai as far as he walks in the Covenant of works or as it were by the Covenant of works so far of necessity his soul within is as Mount Sinai was without that is full of blackness and darkness and storms and tempest inevitably and unavoidably it will be so Therefore clearly this is the reason of all the troubles and horrors and terrors and uncomfortableness of your spirits because you have one foot on Mount Sinai you are not come up to Pauls pitch I through the Law am dead to the Law you are not dead to the Law you are not delivered from it I mean the Law as it is a Covenant of
to them that turn the grace of God into wantonnesse I am not able to tell my thoughts how fine the temptations of Satan are grown by this salvation by every Sermon he increaseth his knowledg and will to the end more and more and those temptations that take us now our children will laugh at them because knowledge shall increase Therefore take heed of pride and arrogancie walk humbly and hearken to advice for thou hast an enemy that learns more at one Sermon then thou dost at three Use 3 Another thing is this see what a glorious Jewel the Gospel is what a glorious pearl when the angels come To make us admire the glorious Pearl and riches of the Gospel down to study it The Angels in heaven see God and for ought I know they have as much happiness as ever they shall have they are sent down to the Saints to wait on them and that they that it concerns not should be so taken with it it must needs be a glorious Iewel Therefore some conceive that the Cherubins in the law there were two Cherubins over the Ark on the mercy seat one looking towards another God ordered it so so as they were prying as it were into the mercy seat and some conceive they were a type of the Angels prying into the glorious mysteries of the New Testament looking one at another and wondring as it were It is a glorious Jewel Therefore let us praise God for it and indeavour to use all means to keep it up Many devises the devil hath to pull it down though he get nothing but make himself more miscrable so there will not be such wanting still To instance in one take heed of Idolizing discipline and government that is so to give our selves up to seek a government that we care not what hindrance we do to the Gospel the while As there are some here among us in hindring the poor Welch Ministers from preaching to the people onely because they suspected them to be Independents this is but the beginning of sorrows if men may have their will for discipline and government we shall loose this Gospel which the Angels pry into discipline and government is good but we must not loose the Gospel for it keep up that And beloved if ever the Lord set peace among you think of those poor countries that have not this Iewel and Pearl If God raise men you may finde out some way or other whereby to maintaine them And it is more then allowing them maintenance for you are to stickle with that generation of wicked men that for every trifle and nicity hinder poor people from enjoying the Gospel and pretend either it may be he is not a Vniversity man he is no master of Arts it may be he hath Greek and Latine and not Hebrew though he be full of the Holy Ghost and yet the people must be starved Let us do what we can to prize and advance the Gospell hold it up before every soul If the Angels come down from heaven to prie into our Gospel how much should we prize it and not suffer people that we shall curse seven yeers hence that we blesse now that would couzen us of the Gospell be not cheated of the Gospel it is a precious Pearl it is all that this poor ruind tottered Kingdom hath left for peace and wealth are gone and there is a foundation of a new war laid only God hath kept up the Gospell in England as much as in any kingdom in the world Beware of men of wolves in sheeps cloathing beware of all the instruments of the devil that would beguile you and your poor children of this Iewel Vse 4 Lastly be forward and ready to every good work though it do not much concern you Truly there is a loveliness in To be ready to every good work good works though they concern not me and my good yet I should have a hand in them I mean though they concern not my calling There is a disposition in men that they wil meddle with nothing but their end is their profit or credit The Angels prie into our Gospel what have they to do with it They love to see the wonderfull wisdome of God in it and to see Christ woing sinners and take them in his Arms it is nothing to them yet they rejoyce that poor sinners should be saved and they rejoyce to see the justice of God and the wisdom and mercy of God how sweetly they be reconciled and glorified in his Gospel So let us when any good work is to be done though I and my family be not concerned in it yet let us go among them and do what we can This is the Plague of this age that many are about doing of good that is certain but there are some wheeles of their own ends in it I cannot say it of every Officer but in any Office or place in the City you shall have some that have wheels of their own ends that move all and if that be away all stands still Let us love good works for good works sake for the beauty of the work Expositions and Observations on IUDE 19. Sensual not having the Spirit I Am not now in an Expounding way further then I must of necessity to shew who these are that are said not to have the Spirit but onely I shall pick out a Lesson for you you may easily see if you reade the Chapter they were a generation of Professors of whom Peter speaks much They despised Magistracy they were spots in their feasts of love clouds carried about with every winde Wells without water Trees whose fruit was withered twice dead and plucked up by the roots for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness You see what their qualities were and you may see what their misery should be compare Jude with 2 Pet. 2. Among the rest of their properties this is one they have not the Spirit This is the last of all that the Apostle names They are sensual not having the Spirit And he usually reserves the greatest things last in his eloquence and way of speaking Now then the Lesson is this That The greatest difference that I know in all the Book of God between Saints and Sinners is that the one hath the Spirit and the other hath not There are a thousand differences even in Scripture but they are none of them so substantial as this that a Saint is a man that hath the Spirit and a Sinner is one that hath not the Spirit one that is without the Spirit Therefore the Apostles when they were Preaching and met with any Disciples and Professors they asked presently Have ye received the Spirit It is not meant onely nor chiefly of the common gifts of the Spirit but certainly it is meant principally of the spirit of holiness Have you received the holy Ghost or no So our Lord Christ speaking of the world and the Church to see what a blessed thing it is to see