and Mercy of a most Gracious Prince All these and what-ever Sins we have committed let us for time to come fear to commit again either the same or the like Sins Let us dread God's Indignation which we have found so intolerable let us hope in his Mercy which we have found so helpfull Let us love God who hath done us good so freely let us be studious to please him who hath remembred us in our low estate And as we have our Lives as it were restored so let us dedicate our Lives to him consecrate our Souls to him present our Bodies a living Sacrifice to him in our reasonable Service and devote our selves wholly to serve him without fear in Holiness and Righteousness before him all the daies of our life Considering seriously that though we have now escaped this Judgment yet without sound Repentance and thorough Amendment of life though we have avoided this first Death hitherto yet shall we not escape the second though with the Sodomites we be delivered from the Sword yet Fire from Heaven will consume us we are reserved to the Vengeance of eternall Fire But if the Mercy of God lead us to Repentance make us more obedient more cleaving to God in Dependence on him this Deliverance will be a Mercy indeed a Pledge of more Mercies yea an eternall Mercy So that we shall have cause to joyn with all the Holy Saints in that Temple-Song O give thanks unto the God of Heaven for his Mercy endureth for ever Amen LAVS DEO DAVID's Thankfull Commemoration Part I. The Fifteenth SERMON PSAL. lvi 13. For thou hast delivered my Soul from Death wilt thou not deliver my Feet from Falling that I may walk before God in the Light of the living THE Title of this Psalm tells us the Occasion to wit David's Apprehension by the Philistines in Gath And that points us to one of the two Times in which he was fain to make his Escape out of the Land of Israel to the King of Gath's Court to avoid Saul's Persecution Most likely it was the former of the two when he was alone for the second time he was accompanied with 600 men 1 Sam. 27.2 and not so liable to be taken as now And therefore it is more likely it was upon his Danger 1 Sam. 21. when being warned by Jonathan of his Father's evil Intendments towards him he got Provision from Ahimelech and Goliah's Sword and fled to Achish King of Gath where hearing what the King's Servants said of him he was afraid and changed his behaviour and now like a frantick person in shew but an inspired person in truth he indites this Psalm expressing therein his Supplication for Deliverance his Confidence in God his Enemies Practices his assurance of their Disappointment his Vows to God his acknowledgment of God's Preservation with his future Hopes and the End of all in the words read to you For thou hast delivered my Soul from death wilt thou not deliver c In which words we have 1. A Commemoration of what God had done for him Thou hast delivered my Soul from death 2. A Postulation expressing his Hope of what God would yet doe farther for him Wilt thou not deliver my Feet from falling 3. The End designed in both That I may walk before God in the light of the living Of these in their order and I. His Commemoration which is of a Deliverance and that from Death and that of Himself and that by God All Deliverances are memorable things As the Evil escaped is grievous so the Evasion is joyous Whence it is that men love to tell of their Preservations from Dangers and to keep Memorials of them and express their Gratitude towards the Means whereby they avoid them Navita securus narrare pericula gaudet The Mariner preserved from Shipwreck loves to tell of his Dangers the Souldier that is safe after Fight to talk of his Encounters And the greater the Danger hath been the more freely do they discourse of it especially if the Deliverance be compleat For then there are likely Festivities to make others partakers of their Joy Monuments or Records to prevent Oblivion and if they have any sense of God's Hand any smack of Religion Vows and Offerings are made and performed to God Thus did the affrighted Mariners when upon Jonah's being thrown over-board the Seaceased from her raging they feared the Lord exceedingly and offered a Sacrifice unto the Lord and made Vows Jonah 1.15 16. And this was David's practice here and elsewhere He had fled from one Enemy but was fallen into the hands of more He was as if a man did fly from a Lion and a Bear met him or went into the house and leaned his hand on the wall and a Serpent bit him Saul hated him out of fear lest he should supplant him the Philistines who had found him a terrible Enemy could not but hate him because he had been the instrument of destroying them In this great Streight his onely Refuge is in his God In God have I put my trust saith he vers 11. I will not be afraid what Man can doe unto me And being assured of his Preservation he adds Thy Vows are upon me O God I will render Praises unto thee vers 12. The reason of which is in my Text For thou hast delivered my Soul from death Whence you may perceive this Conclusion to flow naturally OBSERVATION That God's Deliverance of our Souls or Lives from death should engage us to perform our Vows made to God in our Danger and to render Praises to him for our Deliverance This was David's practice in all his Dangers to make Supplication to God in the time of his Distress to make Vows to God for the enforcing of his Prayers and then to perform his Vows and praise his Deliverer when he was escaped The 116. Psalm is very full to this purpose There he tells us of his Danger vers 3. The Sorrows of Death compassed me and the Pains of Hell gat hold upon me In this Extremity he applies himself to his sacred Anchour Then called I upon the Name of the Lord O Lord I beseech thee deliver my Soul vers 4. The Event is he was brought low and God helped him vers 6. he called upon the Lord and he heard him Therefore he bespeaks his Soul Return unto thy Rest O my Soul for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee vers 7. Therefore he loves the Lord consults what he may render to the Lord for all his Benefits towards him chiefly for delivering his Soul from death and he resolves to take the Cup of Salvation and to call upon the Name of the Lord to pay his Vows in the presence of all his people vers 13 14. to offer the Sacrifice of Thanksgiving vers 17. to tell of all God's works with gladness and to make others to be partakers of his Joy He invites the Godly to hear the Narrative of God's Mercies towards him Psal 66.16 Come and hear
me in mine Integrity and settest me before thy face for ever Faith in God's sustaining Grace is the onely sure Preservative against falling into Sin and thereby into Misery Thou wilt keep him in perfect Peace whose mind is stayed on thee because he trusteth in thee saith the Prophet Isa 26.3 He that trusteth in his own Heart is a fool but whoso walketh wisely shall be delivered saith Solomon Prov. 28.26 He that leaneth on his own Free will his own good Purposes his own Reason his own good Merits shall be sure to fall S. Peter when he was confident of his own Strength that he should die rather then deny his Master and was so venturous thereupon as to go into the High Priest's Palace was so affrighted with the words of a Maid that he not onely denied him but forswore him Israel which followed after the Law of Righteousness attained not to the Law of Righteousness Wherefore Because they sought it not by Faith but as it were by the Works of the Law for they stumbled at the Stumbling-stone saith the Apostle Rom. 9.31 32. We are like little Children we love to be on our Feet not knowing our own Weakness and then we venture without God to guide and stay us and so we fall and wound our selves Our safest way is to distrust our selves to work out our Salvation with fear and trembling as knowing that it is God that worketh in us to will and to doe of his good pleasure Phil. 2.12 13. And accordingly to betake our selves to him as David did here that he may keep our Feet from falling having the same designed End that he had that we may walk before him in the light of the living Which leads me to the Third Part of my Text David's Aim in his Commemoration and Postulation but time will not now permit the handling of it Onely an Application of what hath been already spoken remains to be added APPLICATION What you have heard David did it concerns you to doe You that are here now alive may say God hath delivered your Souls from Death I wish I might say truly that God hath delivered your Souls from the Death of Sin that God hath given you Repentance unto Life that you were none of you such as should die in your Sins but by believing in Christ should see the light of Life I wish that he were to you the Resurrection and the Life so that though you were dead yet you might live that living and believing in him you might never die as our Saviour said to Martha Joh. 11.25 26. I hope the best of you However while you are yet alive especially you that have been in danger by reason of the Contagion of late endeavour to walk in the steps of David Remember what your Prayers were in your Perils what Vows and Promises you made when you expected Death what Perplexity and Anxiety seized on you when the Remembrance of your Sins filled you with Horrour when you looked for Death to attack you and cast your Body into the Grave and perhaps your Soul into Hell when you expected a Summons to the Bar of God's Judgment there to be tried and to have your Doom passed on you Call to mind I beseech you what secret Meditations what Purposes you had what pass'd between God and your Souls in those Streights you were in And then resolve as David did here to address your selves to God as he did saying Thy Vows are upon me O God I will render Praises unto thee for thou hast delivered my Soul from Death O remember what God hath done for you in giving you your Lives in bringing you back from the depth of the Earth again When thousands have fallen on your right hand and on your left hand yet the Evil hath not come nigh you If it have entred into your Houses lighted on your Persons yet it hath not taken away your Breath so that though the Lord hath chastened you sore yet he hath not given you over unto Death Chiefly if God have awakened you that slept that you might stand up from the dead and Christ might give you light O then rejoyce in God's Goodness to you let the Remembrance of it make the Thoughts of God delightfull to you quicken you to run the ways of his Commandments mind you to perform the great Duties of Reformation of your Lives and new Obedience to God that preserved you according to all the Vows Resolutions and Engagements which were upon you when you were in Trouble Yea if you were then insensible of your Condition and thought not on the accursed estate which would have befallen you if you had died in your Sins now at least begin to lay it to heart Sure though you have escaped out of the hands of Death now yet it will overtake you at last All the means you can use all the Advantages all the Privileges you have cannot avoid it or exempt you from going the way of all flesh Oh then that you would now become in your Life-time what you would willingly be found to be at the hour of Death If you would not be found of Death Swearing Lying Deceiving or engaged in any ungodly and unrighteous way then be not so now If you would then be found Praying Meditating on God's Word Praising God inure your selves to such Exercises now It will not be easie to doe it then if you be not accustomed to it now You will then have the Comfort of a happy Death if you be acquainted with the practice of a holy Life now If your Remembrance of God's Goodness towards you puts you on such Resolutions the Remembrance that you have tasted how gracious the Lord is how he hath redeemed your Souls from the nethermost Hell by the Bloud of his Son which you are to remember with the greatest Thankfulness when you come to receive the Holy Communion and preserves you from the second Death you will then be animated to expect of God that he will keep your Feet from falling Take heed that you stumble not at the Prosperity of the wicked so as to approve and chuse their ways Take heed that Christ be not a Stone of Stumbling and a Rock of Offence to you that you stumble not at the Word disbelieving the Gospel being disobedient to the Precepts of the Word lest ye be appointed unto Wrath and not to obtain Salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ Take heed of ordering your Steps by your own Reason by the imagined Light within you which is for the most part an Ignis fatuus a dangerous Meteor that will bring you into Pits and Bogs Take heed of trusting to your own Free will your own good Purposes they will prove but a broken Reed which when you lean on them will run into your hands and pierce them Get your Feet shod with the Shoes of the Preparation or as it may be well read the Pavement of the Gospel of Peace as firm ground upon which you may
stand not your own Good works or your own Merits As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord so walk in him rooted and built up in him and established in the Faith as ye have been taught abounding therein with Thanksgiving as the Apostle exhorteth Colos 2.6 7. Still pray that God would keep your Feet from falling and order your Steps in his Word that no Iniquity get dominion over you And then you may with assurance say I shall not die but live and declare the Works of the Lord and you shall obtain David's desire to walk before God in the light of the living But sure we walk contrary to God in the Darkness of this World else why is it that God hath called to contend against us by Fire It was not long agoe that we rejoyced because we had prevailed upon the Waters and now the Scene is altered and we mourn because the Fire hath prevailed upon our houses at Land Sure we rejoyced not with trembling we were sensible of God's Hand on others but not sensible we deserved his Indignation on our selves God warned us by Signs in the Heavens but we amended not he sent the Pestilence but we reformed not we were embroiled in War but nothing bettered Preachers cried out against our Sins but we cried not to God for Pardon the Lord's voice cried to the City but we were not men of wisedom to see his Name Our Sins cried to Heaven for Vengeance and the Lord's Vengeance hath from Heaven fallen upon us We observed days of Fasting formally but did not really repent in Dust and Ashes and now God hath really reduced our Great City unto Dust and turned it into Ashes Hath not God by his Judgment resembling that of Sodom pointed out the Sins which procured this Judgment Pride Fulness of bread abundance of Idleness not strengthening the hands of the poor and needy Wantonness and Unrighteousness Were not the Souls of many as Lot's in Sodom vexed from day to day in hearing and seeing mens unrighteous deeds and wicked conversation perhaps having a Form of Godliness but denying the Power of it But are we better then they Are we not all under Sin liable to the same Condemnation We may we ought to bemoan the Calamity which is come on others The lifting up of God's Hand should affright us the Blow of his Hand on our Brethren should afflict us We out of Sympathy with them out of Dread of God's Anger should bewail the Burning which the Lord hath kindled Jeremiah's Lamentations are sutable to this Occasion We may take up those Wailings Alas Alas our great Neighbour City is burnt in a short time is her Judgment come But that which most befits us which is most likely to benefit us and them is to be affected with God's Visitation to look upon this as a Forerunner of a greater Fire magnum futuri Judicii Praeindicium an Example of the Vengeance of eternal Fire Let us be awakened by it out of our Security as considering that we have the like Sins and may expect the like Punishment that God's Burning there is our Warning here that however it were in respect of men yet in respect of God it is as a Beacon fired to alarm us that we may prepare to meet our God by Fasting and Prayer and Amendment of life lest if we repent not we likewise perish It becomes us not to be Censurers of others but to judge our selves that we be not judged we must not insult over them but pity them If we have our Houses spared it is that we may receive them that are destitute if our Goods be preserved it is that their Wants may be supplied In a word we should take heed of Edom's Sin who rejoyced in the day of Jerusalem's Calamity take heed of promising to our selves increase of Trade or other worldly Advantages most of all take heed of Flattering our selves as if we were better more safe more in God's Favour then they Let us rather fear God's Judgments tremble at his Word search our own ways turn unto the Lord with our whole Souls pray for them that have suffered help them what we can that their Breach may be repaired our Tranquillity may be lengthened and our Souls delivered from the Wrath to come Which the Lord vouchsafe for his Son's sake Amen LAVS DEO DAVID's PIOUS RESOLUTION Part II. The Sixteenth SERMON PSAL. lvi 13. That I may walk before God in the light of the living AS God is the Alpha the Beginning of all things so he is the Omega or End of all things as he is the Father of Lights from whom every good and perfect Gift cometh so should he be the Scope of our Lives as he was here of David's according to the last Particular observed in this Text of Scripture viz. III. The Aim and End of David in his Commemoration and Postulation That I may walk before thee in the light of the living To this End he both commemorates what God had already done for him in delivering his Soul from Death and petitions with expectation of speeding that he would yet doe more for him in keeping his Feet from falling He doth not desire this Stability of his Feet that he might sit still or sluggishly keep his Bed or lie on his Couch but that he might walk Walking naturally is a progressive motion of the Body from one place to another performed by the Feet with the help and direction of the Eyes for the acquiring or effecting something And it connotes a Way in which a person is to walls and a Terminus ad quem to which it tends By this Metaphor of Walking the Scripture understands the Motions of the Mind and Actings of the Members as they are subject to a Rule which is the Way in which a person walks If it be right it is God's Law if it be wrong it is the Devices of mens own Minds the way of a man 's own Heart or the Course of the World or the Wiles of Satan which are mentioned as the crooked ways men walk in Eph. 2.2 3. All these are ways of Darkness wherein men depart from God and walk after Satan But David's Aim is to walk before God in the light of the living Walking before God here denotes not onely a doing or thinking so as that the Action or Thought would still be in God's presence as if David meant no more then this that God would see him or his Walk would be in his sight whether he would or no But it means also such a Walking before God as to eye his presence what-ever he should doe or think with an aim to please him And therefore walking before God is rendred often pleasing God as when it is said Gen. 5.24 Enoch walked with God in the Greek it is Enoch pleased God which the Authour to the Hebrews follows Heb. 11.5 Enoch before his Translation had this Testimony that he pleased God And so it notes not onely his apprehension of God's
many come hither without Faith or sense of God's Presence as if they came to a Court yea to sport or play With what Drowziness Irreverence Heedlesness do many appear here How many are weary with the Service with the Sermon to whom it is tedious to sit one hour to hear God's Word though they can endure to sit whole Nights and Days at their Pastimes or to be imployed in any mischievous Design How many bring their Bodies hither and their Minds the while are roving over the world How many are filled with unclean Lusts Contentions revengefull Imaginations and Devices even while they are in the Church How many come to carp at the Preacher or justle with their Brethren How many pray with their Mouths and curse with their Hearts Alas how will such bear Crucem Domini the Lord's Cross who are so backward to goe in Domum Domini into the Lord's House How can such expect to appear in the Temple of God in Heaven who defile the House of God on Earth How weary would they be of the Service there to whom his Worship here is so tedious Brethren let me deal plainly with you It is an ominous Presage an ill Sign that such as now are so averse from the House of God and his Service here are never likely to enter into the Temple of God in Heaven it would be a Burthen to them and they to it Oh then bethink your selves of coming hither as David and his People did Prefer the Honour of God before any Interest of your own Excite one another to goe to God's House out of Love to one another out of Love and Gratitude to God Goe not to any Idol-service or ungodly Meetings Come to God's Service with Faith with Concord and Unanimity with Chearfulness and Reverence And know that if you meet with God in his Ordinances he will meet with you in his Mercies Which the Lord grant c. Amen LAVS DEO DELIGHT in GOD THE Christian's Gain The Nineteenth SERMON PSAL. xxxvij 4. Delight thy self in the Lord and he shall give thee thy Heart's desire THIS Psalm is wholly doctrinall somewhat artificially composed after the order of the Hebrew Alphabet it is likely for the more ready learning and easie remembring of it The matter of it is a Receipt to cure that Lipothymie or Faintness of Spirit which is incident to the best men when they see the worst to prosper Which as it is in appearance rationall so it is highly dangerous as tending to undermine our Faith in God's Providence and to divert our Course from the Via Regia the high and right Way of holy Obedience to him to a walking in By-ways of our own chusing To prevent which after some Directions against Impatience and Distrust of God this Dose is here prescribed by one that could say Probatum est even by Holy David the sweet Psalmist of Israel who had by his own Experience found it true and the most sovereign Medicine and Cordiall in this case He had observed That notwithstanding the wicked man prospered a while and like a Comet blazed much yet it was but as a Meteor a Blazing-star that would soon vanish But that he who trusts in God and delights in him should be as a Fixed Star which though it be clouded or benighted for a time yet it hath a permanent Light and shall break out of its Obscurity That it is therefore best for such a one in the greatest Luster of the Wicked and in the most dismall estate that befalls himself yet to delight himself in the Lord and to assure himself that he will give him the Desire of his Heart Which words you may at first View perceive to contain in them 1. A Precept Delight thy self in the Lord. Affect not the Prosperity of Evil men Though they mount up to Heaven in Wealth Honour and Power so as that in their Luciferian Pride they say in their heart We will ascend into Heaven exalt our throne above the Stars of God we will ascend above the heights of the Clouds we will be like the Most high yet do thou humbly quietly patiently contentedly delight thy self in the Lord. 2. A Promise He shall give thee in the conclusion the Desires or Petitions of thine Heart either in that Deliverance thou wouldst have or that Comfort or Preferment which he thinks best for thee So that from hence arise two Conclusions of much importance 1. That it is best to delight our selves in God in the most elevated estate of Evill men and in our own most dejected Condition 2. That such as doe so shall have their Hearts Desire and in fine speed better then if they had been in a like illustrious estate to that of Wicked men I shall address my self to handle both in their order with what brevity and perspicuity I can I. OBSERVATION That it is best to delight our selves in God in the most elevated estate of Evill men and in our own most dejected Condition Delight is an inclining Affection of the Soul upon the apprehension of some pleasing Good that is sutable to the Mind and it is conceived in the womb of the Heart but not resting there it manifests it self by the motions of the Members by the speech of the Tongue glances of the Eyes hearkning of the Ears and by other gestures of the Members which discover the Complacency of the Spirit within Delighting then in the Lord is for a man to have pleasing Thoughts of God and thereby strengthening his Heart and Mind against all Objections concerning God or himself against all Fears and Occurrences which might cast down his Spirit Many sadning Objects do often present themselves even to the most Holy men on earth We find David sometimes complaining that God had cast him off I am cut off from before thine eyes Holy Job that God hid his Face from him and held him for his Enemy Such Complaints are frequent Thou hast cast us off and puttest us to shame Wherefore hidest thou thy Face Why sayest thou O Jacob My way is hid from the Lord and my Judgment is passed over from my God Others cry Wherefore doth the Way of the Wicked prosper Most fully we find this Argument urged against God's Providence even to the staggering of that Holy Psalmist in Psal 73.2 c. where he relates his Temptation and his Recovery out of it For notwithstanding what his Eyes saw his Ears heard his fleshly Reason suggested to him of the Happiness of Evil men and the vanity of Godly courses yet he upholds himself by delighting in the Lord and thus expresseth himself in that Psalm Vers 1. Truly God is good to Israel even to such as are of a clean heart and after vers 23 24 25 26 28. Nevertheless I am continually with thee thou hast holden me by my right hand Thou shalt guide me with thy Counsell and afterwards receive me to Glory Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none upon Earth