easie to prevail with men to practise as 't is obvious to be discovered would alone save us or put a blessing upon what ever else might be innocently propounded to bring us unto safety and no good man need be afraid or ashamed to propound it and he must be a very bad man who will not be ashamed to reproach it or reject it And 't is what Christ gives to the Church of Laodicea Rev. iii. 19. Be zealous and repent 'T is that which St. John Baptist gave when wrath was coming apace and the Axe was laid to the Root of the Tree St. Matth. iii. 8. Bring forth fruits meet for repentance 'T is that which our present Parable suggests If it bear fruit Well this will cause an Arrest of Judgment this will procure the Repeal of the pronounced Sentence In what words shall I propound this Counsel with what Arguments may I so press it as to render it effectual with what Motives shall I inforce it that it may be prevalent I have many things to say when I come to apply the Parable personally to urge you to repent to save your souls And surely 't is a great word to save our Souls but may I not say 't is a greater word to save a Church to save our Religion in which and by which our Souls must be saved and thousands and millions of Souls may be saved if that be saved and may humanely speaking be lost for ever if true Religion be lost and if it be lost by our default where shall the loss of all those souls be charged How warmly how Pathetically doth the great Apostle warn his dear Timothy in this affair in a case of like concernment And how doth he reiterate the charge to make all sure O Timothy keep that which is committed to thy trust 1 Tim. vi 20. And 2 Tim. i. 13 14. Hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me in faith and love And That good thing which was committed to thee keep by the holy Ghost And he must transmit to others what was committed unto him 2 Tim. ii 2. The things which thou hast heard of me among many witnesses the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also We owe to Posterity what we received from our Progenitours He leaves his name as a blot nay as a curse to his descendents who intercepts and robs them of the Care and Providence and noble acquisitions of their common Ancestours And he deserves in the Prophets Phrase to be esteemed the Tayl and not the Head whose Lusts cut off what the Wisdom and Industry of great Grand-Fathers intayled of late and far removed Nephews for support and Honour And how shall we answer it to God our Consciences and the succeeding Ages If we sin away that Holy Truth that excellent Religion which God vouchsafed to Plant in this Nation with his own Right Hand and those from whom we had our lives transmitted to us verdant and flourishing being watered by their Pious Tears and fatned with their dearest Blood A Religion not patcht up of cunningly devised Fables nor devised by cunning men to gratifie their Lusts and serve their base and worldly Interests But the Everlasting Gospel brought by the Eternal Son from the bosom of him who is Truth it self and the Fountain of it and adapted to the promoting of his Glory and the true Interest of Souls the repairing and restoring them to their highest perfection Conformity to the Divine Image participation of the Divine Nature and full and endless injoyment of God A Religion founded upon the Prophets and Apostles having Jesus Christ for the chief Corner-Stone A Religion that dare bear the test of the true Lydian-Stone The Law and Testimony because it is not conscious to it self of any counterfeit metal stampt and imposed on unwary minds by its Authority to pass for good Coyn and currant mony A Religion which takes not away the Key of knowledg nor deprives its Children of the Scriptures the only Records of Divine Truth and Rule that God hath given mankind of Faith and Manners That cryes not up Ignorance for the Mother of Devotion seeing Solomon hath told us that without knowledg the heart cannot be good And a greater than Solomon That life eternal is to know God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent And one of his Apostles hath informed us that The new man is renewed in knowledg and another hath described the Beasts Kingdom by its being full of Darkness And our Lord in the beginning of his Ministry laid down this early Aphorism to direct his Followers to distinguish betwixt Truth and Falsehood the way of Salvation and condemnation John iii. 19 20 21. This is the condemnation that light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil For every one that doeth evil hateth the light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved But he that doth truth cometh to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God A Religion that blots out none of Gods Commandments for fear the very Children should drink in with their Catechism an Antidote against that gross Idolatry which diffuses it self through more than half the Worship they are called to practise all their lives A Religion which directs your Prayers to him whose title is A God hearing Prayer and your Worship to him to whom alone it appertains and whom only we must serve if either Moses or Christ are to be believed in such matters And that teaches you to Pray to him in his name whom Saint Paul calls the One Mediatour betwixt God and Man being both in his own person A Religion that allows you to serve this God with reasonable service as becomes reasonable Creatures Praying with your Spirits and your Vnderstandings not like Pyes or Parrots not with noise and sounds of a Language you understand not A Religion that delivers Christs Institutions as his Apostles received them from him not disguising a Sacrament appointed for the living into an expiatory Sacrifice for the dead nor bidding you Worship what Christ bid you eat Nor giving the lye to all your Sences your Reason and your Faith together For Gods word which is the object of our Faith calls it Bread most frequently after Consecration nor robbing you of one half the Cup with a non obstante that Christ Instituted and the Primitive Church Administred in both Kinds And so avowing their presumption with an impudence as villanous and hateful as their theft A Religion which hath no Mint-house to Coin new Articles of Faith or make that needful to be believed in order to Salvation this year which the year before and ever before that was never thought on A Religion which dares neither add nor detract from our Lords Will. Nor clap seven Seals to that Testament to which he annexed but two Labels A Religion which will
of man cometh in an hour when ye think not 'T is the Motto and brand of a Fool to say non putaram I never thought of this excuss therefore this stupidness shake off this folly and bethink your selves there 's no watch in the night there 's no hour in the day when Christ may not come therefore be ever preparing and prepared to meet him I have thus brought the occasion and the Text together and led you through the Context to the Words as clearly and as briefly as I could So that nothing remains but to make the best improvement of them that I can Be ye ready First 'T is vox Respectiva The very word implies a respect to somewhat He that is ready is ready for some person or some thing And 't is so obvious the naming of it is next to needless 'T is for the coming of our Lord. Secondly 'T is vox Praeceptiva 'T is a word of command from our Great Lord and Master making that our duty which is our greatest interest and happiness Thirdly 't is vox Directiva Directing us to that in which our true our only wisdom which makes wise unto Salvation doth consist Fourthly 'T is vox Comprehensiva a very large and comprehensive word in two regards first including all things which concern our being Good and Happy For to be ready for Christ implies our being compleat in Christ There 's a receiving fulness of Grace from him 2. It implies our going to Heaven with him For they that were ready went with him in to the marriage Matth. xxv 10. there 's our happiness Secondly It comprehends all persons ye that 's all this indefinite is Universal as Thou in the Commandments is every one So here Ye signifies All. These put together fall naturally and without any strayning into this Doctrine 'T is every mans indispensible Duty and highest Interest to be presently Ready for Christs coming A Principle of Duty to Gods Authority requiring it And a Principle of Wisdom for our safety necessitating it are the two unshaken Pillars on which this Truth is so firmly built that it can never be moved No Cavils from men or Devils can overturn it no evasion can ever dispence with mens Obligation to it But as long as man is bound to do what God bids Or believe what God tells him As long as 't is the part of a wise man to escape the utmost misery and to desire and persue after infiâ—ite happiness and glory So long will this truth abide more fixed than the Earth Yea establisht in and as the very Heavens So that I shall say no more for its confirmation in this place but proceed 1. To shew wherein this Readiness consists 2. What is required on our parts to attain to it 3. Press the performance with most cogent Arguments But because a wise Builder will carry off the Rubbish and clear his Ground before he lays his Foundation I shall First Negatively shew you wherein Readiness doth not consist or what is not sufficient to make you so And this is very needful to be done because prepossession of the mind by error hinders the Truth from entring and leaves no room in the Heart to entertain it And too many are prone to rest satisfied with that which will deceive them supposing 't is enough to make their condition safe and happy and would go farther did they not verily think they had gone far enough Many saith Seneca had become wisemen had they not thought themselves already such And Gregory Nazianzen the greatest hindrance of proficiency is an Opinion of sufficient proficiency 'T is no wonder those Marriners strike Sail who think themselves in safe Harbour Nor that he sets by his Staff and takes up his rest who verily believes he is at the end of his journey Now to pass by the excuses many make for neglecting to be ready there seem to be six things which men are prone to trust to as sufficient to make their condition good and safe which really are not so 1. Their being born of Godly Parents 2. Being of very good Natures or sweet Dispositions 3. Being Baptized and using and injoying the means of Grace 4. Outward Conformity to the Letter of the Law in the practice of Moral Vertues and Duties 5. Being of the true Church or of such a Party or persuasion 6. Believing in Christ or presuming rather that they do so without those Fruits which prove their Faith to be Holy and Lively It would require more time than our present streights will allow to speak fully to all these it must suffice to Nonsuit every of these Pleas in a word to undeceive those who are prone to deceive themselves with shaddows and appearances instead of Realities For 't is an error very incident to weak and partial minds as we are all prone to be partial to our selves to judg every thing which is good to be enough and good enough Which is a great mistake as you may be easily convinced by a plain similitude Your mony may be very good both for Mettal and Stamp and as currant as any in the Kingdom Yet twenty Shillings of such mony will not pay a Debt of ten pounds What 's the reason Not because the mony is not good but because there is not enough of it So in our present Case these things I have named will not make us ready for Christ why so Not because they are not good in their place and kind they are good in tanto but not in toto but because they are not good enough In degree and measure Therefore I beseech you think not I condemn or dispraise them or discourage your attainment of them I only warn you not to rest in them as sufficient to make you ready for Christ or fit to go to Heaven For this they cannot do First not the being born of Godly Parents tho it is a great mercy to be so and is attended with many advantages and many have put confidence in it How often do we hear it from the Jews mouths we are Abrahams seed we have Abraham to our Father John viii 43 39 and St. John Baptists warning them against it think not to say within your selves we have Abraham to our Father Matth. iii. 10. intimates their hearts were full of it and placed much confidence in it But our Saviour tells those very men John viii 44. Ye are of your Father the Devil And St. John Baptist call these a generation of vipers 'T is not generation from the best men but regeneration from the good Spirit must do our business non nascimur sed â—enascimur Christiani Men beget children not as good men but as men and therefore beget not good men but meer men As Circumcised Israelites begot children which needed Circumcision And the best drest Wheat grows up again with Chaff So those whose Parents were Circumcised in heart come into this world with a Foreskin on their hearts which must be taken off Whatever
and thou shalt never see merry day in his service That 't will make thee Melancholy Emasculate thy Spirit with Superstitious fears render thee morose unsociable a burden to thy self and others But these cursed slanders smell so rank of the Father of lies 't is needless to confute them amongst sober Christians Yet in a word Religion is a Discipline of living holily in order to dying happily of walking with God here that we may rest with him hereafter And Christ is meek and lowly in heart Matth xi will neither provoke nor despise his servants and his yoak is easie and burden light to those who willingly come under them and will neither gawl their Necks nor break their Backs there is no true Peace but in reconciliation with God nor Joy but to the Righteous for light Is sown for the Righteous and gladness for the upright in heart Psalm xcvii 11. Thou hast put gladness in my heart more than when corn and wine increase Psalm iv 7. When the returning Prodigal was received into his Fathers favour then they began to be mâ—rry The Kingdom of God of his Grace is Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost Yea believing in Christ before we see him intitles us at least to joy unspeakable and full of glory and tho others will not be persuaded of it because they never felt it rather let them be persuaded to be fit to feel it For Soloman hath told them a stranger doth not intermedle with it But in themselves all wisdoms ways are pleasantness and all her paths are peace And not to honour the rest of those paultry slanders with a particular confutation that cannot unman us in a base sence which rather makes us more than men in a noble one what rectifies refines exalts our Reason what moderates directs subdues our passions to its conduct What inlightens purifies and pacifies our Consciences What bows and melts down our wills into subjection to the will of God And in a word renues to the Image of Christ and makes us partakers of the Divine Nature can not be guilty of what 's objected And all this is done by that which makes us ready for Christ and therefore we can never either seek or find it too soon Eleventhly But it may be done too late that is be gone about too late as thousands have found by sad experience And O that their harms may be our warnings that we increase not that unhappy number The Foolish Virgins would have Oyl at last were it to be either begged or bought and afterward they came Mat. xxv 11. With their Lord Lord but then the door was shut 'T is ill leaving these things to an after-game Remember Esau who afterward would have inherited the blessing which he despised before but then he was rejected though he sought it earnestly with tears Heb. xii 17. When once the Master of the House is risen and hath shut the door you may strive to enter but must lose your labour Luke xiii 24 25. I pray Read with consideration and Holy fear Prov. i. from the twenty-fourth to the end and note especially verse 28. Then shall they call upon me but I will not answer they shall seek me early but they shall not find me What they thought all in good time and even early for this work they 'l find to their shame to their sorrow and eternal ruin was much too late in Gods esteem Tho God hath promiss'd to accept us when we come He hath no where promiss'd more time in which to come the present is all we are sure of Now is the accepted time 2 Cor. vi 2. Twelfthly 'T is more than time 't were done already If we wake not if we rise not of our own accord 't is high time to do it when our Master calls us if we go not out to meet him it atleast becomes us to open to him when he comes and knocks If we prevent him not by offering free possession of our hearts there 's no excuse left if we resist him when he strives to take it If our own hunger and even starving at the Hoggs Trough with the prodigal will not drive us to him Yet at least the killing his Fatlings preparing his Wine making a Feast and inviting us so kindly Come for all things are ready should do it and hasten a mutual readiness in us now God hath long called us Turn ye turn ye why will ye dye Come unto me and I will refresh you The Spirit and the Bride say come How long ye simple ones will ye love simplicity He hath long stood at the door and knockt even till his head be wet with the rain and his locks with the dew of the night He hath long striven by his word by his Spirit by his Ordinances by his Providences by his Mercies by his Judgments as we say by fair means and by force He hath long since made fat Provision for us and most lovingly invited us and told us all is ready there 's nothing wanting at the Feast but Guests And is it not more than time that we had answered opened yeilded come long since when he does even long to see us there when shall it once be Thirteenthly The sooner the better admit thy delay should not prove damnable it will certainly be very detrimental thou 'lt lose much by it tho thou lose not all The sooner thou comest the welcomer thou shalt be The youngest Disciple was the beloved Disciple His soul desires the first ripe fruits Gods rod was of Almond wood the Tree which Blossoms first of all the Plants Josiahs great encomium was He sought the Lord God of his Fathers when he was young but twice eight years old 2 Chron. xxxiv 3. 'T is argued amongst Divines from what Age children are accountable to God for themselves some say from five some say from seven years old but all conclude that from the time they can discern betwixt Good and evil they are bound to refuse what 's evil and to chuse what 's good Again the sooner thou art ready the stronger will thy Grace the surer will thy Comforts be and the greater thy Reward in Heaven as thou hast longer glorified God on Earth and all the while thou stayest unready thou art gathering either Woormwood or Hemlock the best is bitter the worst is deadly bitter Repentance if thou be ever ready And thou wilt cry out with Austin Nimis sero te amare coepi too late O Lord did I begin to love thee Rather therefore resolve with the Orator Nolo tantiemere poenitentiam He not purchase Repentance at so dear a rate or deadly damnation if thou be never ready Fourteenthly The longer thou stayest the harder will the work be each day lays on a stone upon the Wall of Separation thy sins are building betwixt God and thee and the higher 't is raised the harder it will be to climb over Thy iniquities increase the Floods like Ezechiels waters and
their Duty and their Wisdom to engage them to improve their Opportunities speedily for the Work of God and their own Souls which I could make good by more than Twenty of the best Expositors both Antient and Modern if 't were needful I shall now proceed to grasp the Strength and Scope of the whole Verse into one full and comprehensive Observation alwayes Useful and to the present Occasion very Seasonable Take it in these plain Words and easie to be understood The Consideration of the Work we have to do and the Time allowed and limited for the Doing of it in indispensably oblige us to the utmost Speed and Diligence in the Doing of it I conceive these Expressions are fairly Commensurate with the Text And as they leave out nothing which is material in it so they add nothing to it but what is evidently Comprehended in it as will be farther manifest by explaining these Three Particulars 1. What is meant by this Work we have to do 2. What is the Time or Season allowed to do it in call'd in the Text a Day or While it is Day 3. What is the Limitation by which this Time is bounded and to which it is restrained which is partly imply'd in calling it a Day which is a definite and measur'd Portion of Time partly express'd in the word Night which puts an End and Period to the Day These as they relate to Christ which I touch because he first applyes them to Himself and shall after wholly wave and supersede were as to his Work To prove Himself to be the Son of God the True the Promised Messiah To reveal the Will and Counsel of his Father to the World To shew to Men the way of Salvation and Eternal Life To declare the Covenant of Grace and Preach the Gospel And to manifest both Himself and his Doctrine to be of God by working many and mighty Miracles and by speaking as never any other Man spake and doing such Works as never any other Man did and Approving Himself mighty both in Word and Deed before God and all the People Luk. 24.19 till he had confirm'd the Faith of them who believed in Him and left the Incredulous and Obstinate without Excuse And such was the Work of Opening the Eyes of him that was born Blind Recorded in this Chapter and the Words he spake upon that Occasion Secondly For His Day It was the Time allotted him of his Father to continue in this World the Season of his Ministry the Space in which a Restraint was laid upon the Powers of Darkness from hindring him to fulfil all that was fore-told concerning him and to accomplish all that was needful to be done for his Father's Glory and his Peoples Salvation before his last Suffering Thirdly The Night was his Death and going out of this World the Hour of the Wicked and the Power of Darkness to which he was to be subject in his Passion St. Luk. 22.53 in which according to his Father's Determinate Counsel he did voluntarily suspend his Power of working Miracles and would not deliver Himself but suffered Himself first to be Apprehended and then Condemned to Dye and then by Wicked Hands to be Crucifyed and Slain Act. 2.23 I have thus briefly glanc'd at the Meaning of the Words as they relate to our Saviour to whom they were primarily apply'd that this may facilitate the Understanding of them as applicable to our our selves to which I shall confine my self in the Handling and Improving of them And therefore the Work to be done as it concerns us is to believe in Jesus Christ This is St. Chrysostome's from Joh. 6.28 29. What shall we do that we may work the Works of God Jesus answered and said unto them This is the Work of God that ye Believe on Him whom He hath sent That is the Work He hath enjoyn'd us according to 1 Joh. 3.23 This is his Commandment That ye Believe on the Name of his Son Jesus Christ Our Work is to Repent sincerely of our Sins and turn to God with our whole Hearts and to bring forth Fruits meet for Repentance Thus Gregory the Great upon the Fourth Penitential Psalm What are these Works of his Father which he sayes Are to be wrought by Day and not by Night Nisi agri intellectualis cultura The Tillage and Cultivating of our Souls which the Prophet Jeremiah's Description of Repentance agrees well with Jer. 4.3 4. Break up your Fallow Ground and sow not among Thorns Circumcise your selves unto the Lord and take away the Fore-skin of your Hearts Kill the Thorns and Weeds of your Lusts and Corruptions by plowing up the Roots of them by the Plough of Godly Sorrow Mortification and Amendment of Life This Work is To work out our own Salvation with Fear and Trembling Phil. 2.12 In a word It is to become good Men good Christians and to live as becomes those who profess to be such to get our Peace made with Heaven to be fit to Dye to Glorify God and to save our own Souls which is the One Thing necessary the Work God hath sent us into this World for Secondly The Time the Season allowed us to do this Work in is the Day of our Natural Life as a Good Expositor upon the Words The space of every Mans Life is his Day Therefore as the Shortness of the Day quickens Work-men to Industry and Sedulity lest the Darkness of the Night should over-take them in the Midst of their Endeavours and before their Work is finished So we knowing the Time of our Life is but short should be asham'd and afraid to loyter and freeze in Sloath and Idleness and must not delay at all lest our Opportunities slip from us past Recovery And farther Our Day is the Day of Grace while we have the Sun of Righteousness shining in the Light of the Gospel and while we have God's Ordinances without and the Motions and Assistance of his Spirit within before the Means of Salvation be taken from us or the Blessing be taken from the Means And God's blessed Spirit for our often quenching grieving and resisting of Him and refusing his proffered Aids and gracious Help with-draw and leave us and Blackness of Darkness over-shade yea over-whelm our Minds as the Dreadful Beginnings of Eternal Night Thirdly By Night which limits our Day is to be understood as may be gathered from the Opposition betwixt these two the contrary to what is meant by Day And therefore it signifies our Natural Death or any notable Degree or Tendency toward it Loss of our Senses Reason or such decayes of them as make us incapable of Acting as Men in our great Concerns Or the setting of the Gospel Sun the removal of God's Kingdom and Candlestick God's departure from us and taking away his Light and Guidance His Grace and Spirit without which we can do nothing but wander and wilder and lose our selves and do no Work but what hath Death for its Wages and find no
to be gracious and stretches out his Hand all the Day long to invite to plead with Sinners and to beseech them to accept His Grace and Favour But if they despise His Goodness and will not be perswaded to come in He will cast off for ever and be favourable no more He will even forget to be Gracious and in Anger shut up His tender Mercies For so I find the Psalmist expressing his Fear of this Doom Psal 77.79 Secondly The Gate of Mercy Mercy is that Attribute of God by which His tender Compassions are stirred up to pitty His Creatures in their Misery and as it were to sympathize with them to be afflicted in all their Afflictions This Gate stands also open all the Day and it even grieves Him to His Heart to see the Misery Men hasten towards by their Sin and Folly And He warns and calls them most pathetically Turn ye turn ye Why will ye Dye Ezek. 33.11 And is in a Merciful Contest with Himself as you may read Hos 11.8 How shall I give thee up Ephraim How shall I deliver thee Israel How shall I make thee as Admah How shall I set thee as Zeboim My Heart is turned within Me My Repentings are kindled together And resolves that as yet He will not execute the Fierceness of His Anger nor as yet Return to Destroy them because He is God and not Man But if all His Weeping over them will not make them Mourn if all His Relenting Compassions will not melt them Their Hardyness will harden Him because His Softness did not soften them and His Mercy will be turn'd into Fury and in the Spring-Tyde of their Misery his Mercy will be in the Lowest Ebb. And instead of weeping any more over them He will Laugh at their Calamity and Mock when their Fear cometh Prov. 1.26 And His Mercy will be clean gone for evermore And though this Gate stood open to them till they Dyed yet He will not shew these Wonders of Mercy to the Dead the Dead shall not arise to have and praise him for them His loving Kindness shall not be declared in the Grave nor His Faithfulness in Destruction His Wonders shall not be known in the Dark nor His Compassions in the Land of Forgetfulness Psal 88.10 11 12. Oh therefore follow not after Lying Vanities to the forsaking of your own Mercies But while this Gate stands open fly into it as the Man-slayer would into the City of Refuge before God shut it up and shut out you as certainly He will when Night is come and you be left to the Cruel Mercies of that Avenger of Blood that Eternal Misery which presses after you so fast so close so hard Thirdly The Gate of Hope This stands open all the Day While Men live and enjoy the Means of Grace there remains Hope that they may obtain God's Favour and escape His Wrath. The Common Proverb is true in this Sence That while there 's Life there 's Hope as Sâ—lomon tells us To him that is joyned to all the Living there is Hope Eccles 9.4 We meet with this Expression in Hos 2.15 I will give her the Valley of Achor for a Door of Hope Which may admit these Interpretations amongst others Either that the Possession of this Valley being part of the Promis'd Land was as an Earnest and an Argument to hope they should possess the Whole Or that Achan being now stoned and the accursed Thing removed there was Hope that God would again be with them and drive out their Enemies before them So the Continuance of Day is a Door of Hope that He who hath given the Means of Grace will also give His Grace yea and Glory at the last and that He who spares our Lives after they have been forfeited may remit the Forfeiture that we may not Dye eternally And indeed it is the right Use of This that upholds God's People in all their Streights and Fears In their Affliction and Misery while they feed on Gall and Wormwood they recall to mind that God's Compassions fail not And because through the Lord's Mercyes they are not Consumed therefore have they Hope Lam. 3.20 21 22. And 't is the Abuse of this which holds up Wicked Men against the Gripes the Nippings and Warnings of their own Hearts those secret unseen Lashes and Wounds of their own Consciences are so frequently inflicting They know God is Merciful and Christ dyed for Sinners and they hope they may yet Repent and be Happy and partake of all this And this keeps their Hearts from breaking with Horror and succumbing under a Load which is truly insupportable But when Night comes this Door shall be shut so close no Beam of Hope will dart in so much as at the Key-hole But all their Hope will vanish and perish and be as the Spider's Webb and giving up the Ghost Their Hope shall be cut off for ever and the dreadful Terrors of Everlasting Despair shall seize upon them and multiply their Sorrows their Condition being as hopeless and helpless in their own Apprehensions and Misery shall come upon them in its Perfection because no Hope remains of ever escaping And this is the most invenom'd Sting of the never-dying Worm and that which makes the Pit of Hell to be what it is so truly called Bottomless Fourthly The Gate of Glory That stands open too till Night That is the Kingdom of Heaven in the highest Sense The Place in which God most fully and openly Communicates Himself to Saints and Angels and bestows the Compleatest Happiness the Reasonable Nature can be capable of into which who ever come shall never sin nor sorrow more but be made perfect in Holiness and Happiness by the clearest Vision and most intimate Fruition of God Blessed for ever But at Night a Door shall be shut to keep all those for ever out who were not ready to go in with the Bridegroom into the Marriage Matth. 25.10 In David's Language They shall never see Light they shall never Inhabit God's Holy Hill In St. Paul's They shall not Inherit the Kingdom of God In St. Peter's They shall have no Entrance administred into the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ nor attain the Salvation of their Souls In St. John's They shall in no wise enter into the New-Jerusalem In our Saviour's They shall never see the Face of God in Heaven nor be with Him to Behold His Glory nor Follow the Lamb upon Mount Zion nor Drink of the Rivers of Pleasure which are at God's Right Hand Nor be fill'd with those Joyes which are at His Right Hand for evermore Hasten therefore while these Gates are open And as Men who are Journeying to a City where at Even the Bridge is drawn and the Gates are shut and the Keys are carryed to the Governour will be sure to come before that Hour lest they be exposed to the Enemy or to the Coldness and Darkness of the Night without either safe Shelter or convenient Lodging
shall I come and appear before God Where-as the Sloathful Man hugs himself and blesses his propitious Stars that furnish him with such Excuses to stop the Mouth of his own Conscience or save his Credit with his Pious Neighbours I was resolved fully to be there to have done so or so but just as I was going in came such and such or this or that fell out which hindred me that I could not do what I was fully minded Lastly Speed will help thy Diligence because it will put thee in a Readyness to act with the first Opportunity and provide it self of all that 's requisite for doing so It takes up its Horse over Night that the Morning may not slip away while he is catching They that furnish Post-Horses on the Road keep them ready Sadled and with Bit in Mouth The Diligent Marriner will get all Aboard that he may hoyst Sail as soon as ever the Winds comes fair The Diligent Servant hath his Loynes girded quite ready all his Cloaths on to his very Girdle which being upper-most he puts on last and his Light burning that he may open to his Lord at the First Knock Luk. 12.35 Thus these Two will mutually influence second and assist each other A Diligent Mind will quicken thee to Speed and Speed will many wayes promote and help thy Diligence in working Fifthly Industry is another great Help to Diligence Industry is the bending of our Minds with all our Might to make any thing our Business and to regard it chiefly Seek ye first the Kingdom of God We say a Man doth a thing de Industria when he doth it for the nonce wiâ—h the settled Resolution and full Purpose of his Heart as Barnabas exhorted them of Antioch To cleave unto the Lord Act. 11.23 Set your Hearts upon all these Words which I testify among you this Day for it is not a vain thing Deut. 32.46 When a Man makes it the Chief Design he drives at and the Scope he aims at and is indiffâ—rent about the Success of other Mâ—tters provided this may succeed well This Industry will avoid Diversions will not be turned out of the way but Seeks the way to Zion with his Face thitherward Jer. 50.5 As 't is said of our Lord who had set His Heart upon the Work of God to be done at Jerusalem Men might read it in His Face Luk. 9.53 His Face was as though He would go to Jerusalem It will Cast away every weight and if it cannot Enatare cum sarcinis escape with its Pack on its Back will quit it readily let it sink or swim rather than endanger Drowning with it or for Saving of it Industry will Redeem the Inconveniences brought upon it by what it could not prevent An Industrious Man if he hath been staid against his Will will Ride the faster and the later to recover his Journeys End An Industrious Student will eke out his Day by Candle-Light to Redeem the Time those Thieves of Time and Learning impertinent Visitants had stollen from him Thus in the Work of God How Diligent will Industry make a Man when he comes to be convinc'd indeed and sees the Greatness and Concernment of his VVork How much he is cast behind by former Negligence How Ignorant at Man's Estate of what he might and should have learned whil'st a Child How far from the Kingdom of Heaven In what danger of being be-nighted How will he bestir himself Yea he 'll serve himself of all Occurrences and hook in Advantages Viam aut inveniet aut faciet and will make what he cannot find to s rve his great Interest will Spiritualize and Extract Heaven out of Earth and press the very World against its will to serve him some way in the VVork of God And the Clog which is fastned to his Foot to keep him down if he cannot shake it off he 'll tread upon it and turn it to a Foot-stool to lift him up and raise him higher Sixthly Courage The Diligent Man must be Valiant or he will not long continue Diligent The Opposition and Discouragements which cross the way of Goodness will spoyl his Pace who is not arm'd with Zeal Resolution and Patience Shall that Man put to Sea who cannot see the VVaves toss or hear the VVind bluster They must be Valiant for the Truth who will be Diligent to seek it or hold it fast Animus Vis Audacia commeatus Virtutis Faelicitatis Courage Hardyness and Resolution are the Guardians and Companion of Virtue and Happiness The Two most Impregnable Forts against all Assaults of unkind Fortune are Bearing and Forbearing Fortitude will inspirit Diligence and blow it into Flames and make it like Coals of Juniper which many Waters cannot Quench 'T will mind him that more fall in Flight than Fight And that 't is both more Honourable and more Safe to stand our Ground than run away This Courage will despise Danger and dares grapple with Difficulties and scorns to use the Coward 's Shield The Back to turn it towards them He is never like to do God's Work to any purpose that must ask the Devil 's Leave to do it or the World 's either But he must study to attain an Holy Greatness of Spirit and True Gallantry of Mind who resolves to be Good in spight of Satan and all his Instruments Resist the Devil saith St. James and he will fly from you 4.7 Whom Resist stedfast in the Faith saith St. Peter 1-5 9 Contend earnestly for the Faith saith St. Jude vers 3. In nothing Terrifyed saith St. Paul Phil. 1.27 And again Watch ye stand fast in the Faith quit you like Men be strong 1 Cor. 16.13 Only take heed you presume not to stand in your own Strength that 's the way to fall But Be strong in the Lord and in the Power of his Might Take to your selves the whole Armour of God that you may be able to stand against the Wiles of the Devil that ye may be able to withstand in the Evil Day and having done all to stand Ephes 6.10 11 13. This Courage will help your Diligence because it will enable you to venture the Expence your Work requires of you and dare lay out in Confident Hope of an Advantageous Return The Diligent Merchant will hazard his Goods to Sea though some have met with Shipwracks in a Storm and others have lost all by Pyrats The Diligent Husband-man will cast his Seed into the Dirty Earth though some hath been Buryed under the Clods or Rotted by Inclemency of Weather So this Courage will make thee venture bo h Cost and Pains and Time too in God's Work and not to Serve Him with that that costs thee nothing will not suffer thee to say 'T is a Vain thing to serve Him and lost Labour and Unprofitable to pray to Him But will boldly conclude In due time we shall Reap if we Faint noâ— Again 'T will fortify thy Patience to wait from Seed-time until Harvest He that believeth
chiefly to this Great Work And this will be yet more evident if we consider it in the several Parts All the Scripture may be reduced to these Seven Heads The Doctrines the Precepts the Exhortations the Promises the Threatnings the Examples and the Prayers therein Recorded And I shall give an Instance or two how every one of these is chiefly designed to be Subservient to this End This is the Total Sum plac't at the Foot of the Account when the Wisest of Men had Cast it up exactly Let us hear the Conclusion of the whole Matter Fear God and keep his Commandments for this is the Whole of Man For God shall bring every Work to Judgment with every Secret Thing whether it be Good or whether it be Evil Eccles 12.13 14. As if he had said When we have said all that can all that may be said this is in one word the Sum and Substance of the Whole All the several Lines from how different Points soever they are drawn terminate and end in this as their Centre Be Diligent in God's Work What doth the Doctrine teach us but To deny Vngodlyness and Worldly Lusts and to live Righteously Soberly and Godly in this present World Looking for that Blessed Hope and the Glorious Appearing of the Great God and our Saâ—iour Jesus Christ That there is a God Infinitely Glorious in all Perfections who hath made all Things for His Glory and Man especially to pay Him that Tribute of Glory which is due to Him from all His Works That Man hath an Immortal Soul more worth than all the World And that there is an Eternal Estate after this Life an Heaven and an Hell And that Man 's great Business is to attain the One and escape the Other That there shall be a Resurrection both of the Just and Vnjust That God will bring every Work to Judgment and render to every Man according to their Works That They who have done Good shall go into Eternal Life and They who have done Evil into Everlasting Punishment That the Good and Faithful Servant who was Diligent in God's Works shall receive his Master's Euge and be Advanced But the Wicked and Sloathful Sâ—rvant shall be bound Hand and Foot and cast into Vtter Darkness for his Neglecting it What do the Precepts enjoyn us but To Love the Lord with all our Heart and Soul with all our Strength and all our Might To Serve Him with a Perfect Heart and with a Willing Mind To Glorify Him in our Spirits and our Bodies To Work out our own Salvation with Fear and Trembling To Seek for Immortality and Eternal Life by patient Continuance in Well-doing To Strive to Enter the Streight-Gate To Give all Diligence to be admitted into Christ's Kingdom In a word The Sum of them is to Command us to Honour God and be Wise to Salvation And Thou hast Commanded us to keep these Precepts diligently Psal 119.3 As to the Hortatory Swasory Argumentative Part of the Scriptures 't is chiefly imploy'd to allure us to this Work To draw us by the Cords of a Man or to fright us out of our Negligence and drive us as with Whip-Cords To Convince us by the Clearest Light To Advise us by the Wisest Reasons To Beseech us by the Sweetest Mercies To Warn us by the Sorest Dangers To Perswade us by most Cogent Arguments To Oblige us by most Indispensible Engagements In a word To Prevail upon us by what-ever the Frame and Constitution of our Nature is capable of being moved by to mind our Work in Earnest or to leave us for ever inexcusable if we slight it or trifle at it As to the Promises 'T is said in general That Godliness hath the Promise of the Life that now is and of that which is to come And these Promises are for Number many Some who have reckoned them up affirm them no fewer than Six Hundred For Naâ—ure Great and Precious For Certainâ—y Immutable being bottom'd on the Truth of Him who cannot Lye He is Faithful that hath Promised And the Sum of them all is to give the strongest Assurance that God will Reward them that Diligently seek Him and that with exceeding great Rewards A Crown of Glory an Eternal Kingdom an Incorruptible Inheritance Fulness of Joy and Everlasting Life And the Threatnings which are as Terrible as the Promises are Comfortable the severest Wrath of God being Reveal'd from Heaven in them are all Levell'd against those who prefer the Devil's Work before God's or are Remiss and Careless in it How shall we Escape Great Damnation if we neglect so Great Salvation Vpon the Wicked He shall rain Snares Fire and Brimstone and an Horrible Tempest this shall be the Portion of their Cup. A Cup of Trembling indeed a Cup of Bitter and Poysonous Mixture and yet the very Dregs of it shall be wrung out to them and they must suck them up What hot and burning Thunder-bolts are such Sentences as these charg'd with Cursed be the Man that doth the Work of God deceitfully He that Believeth not shall be Damned Vnless ye Repent ye shall all Perish The Ax is laid to the Root of the Tree every Tree therefore which bringeth not forth Good Fruit shall be Cut down and cast into the Fire unquenchable If any Man love not our Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha The Lord Jesus shall be Revealed from Heaven with His Mighty Angels in flaming Fire taking Vengeance on those who know not God and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall be destroyed with Everlasting Destruction from the Presence of the Lord and the Glory of His Power And Hundreds more which sound and signify as dreadfully as these Thou canst not hear such Sentences pronounc't without Affrightment unless thy Heart be like Leviathans hard as the Nether-Mill-stone And How wilt thou bear the Execution when thou comest to feel it The Histories and Examples to which I Reduce the Parables which are seigned Histories the Scope of all these is to shew God's Care of good Men and the Pleasure He takes in those who delight and love to do His Work with Diligence Such as Abel Enoch and the Holy Patriarchs Noah Abraham Isaac Jacob Joseph Moses Joshua Caleb and after David Jehosophat Hezechias Josiah c. with the Holy Apostles and Saints Recorded in the New-Testament Or His Wrath against Wicked Men and the Vengeance He inflicts upon Ungodly and Unfaithful Ones such as Cain and Cham and the Ten Spyes who brought up an Evil Report on the Good Land and discouraged their Brethrens Hearts from seeking it such as Nadab an Abihu who offered Strange Fire and were paid in their kind with as Strange a Fire which devoured them Such as Hophni and Phineas those Sons of Belial who polluted their Priesthood and caused Men to Abhor Oh horrible Wickedness the Lord's Service Such as Judas Ananias and Saphira Demas the Foolish Virgins Dives and the Slothful Servant and abundance more all
neither allow you to kill your King nor eat your God nor purchase Heaven for your mony nor flatter you with hopes that you may go to Paradise in the broad way and have that done for you by others when you are dead which should have been done by your self while you were alive In a word a Religion not made up of Tricks and Artifices of Pomp and Pageantry of a Fardle of unaccountable Rites and Ceremonies and unintelligible mystesteries and contradictions to comply with all mens humours tempers constitutions Severities for the Sowr and Melancholy Carnivals and Stews for the Airy brisk and Sanguine Whips and Austere Discipline as sharp as the Lancets of Baals Priests for the sullenly Superstituous And easie Indulgences and Commutations into gentle Penances for the soft and delicate A Religion tho profest and owned by many sinful men yet neither invented nor headed by the man of sin But a Religion holy and undefiled like its Author plain and simple like the Gospel which contains and teaches it Spiritual and Heavenly like the place it leads them to who love and practise it sincerely Such is the Religion we yet injoy through Gods great goodness but he threatens to bereave us of for our sins against it Let me therefore beseech you and adjure you by all that 's dear to you be zealous and repent speedily sincerely that you force not a jealous God to cut down this Tree to remove his Kingdom and take away his Candlestick because you would not bring forth the Fruits of the one nor walk in the Light of the other and deprive your selves and your Posterity of the greatest blessing God ever did or can bestow on this or any other Nation on this side Heaven But I shall rather chuse to inlarge my self in that Application of this Parable which is more sutable to so private an Auditory tho I cannot deny neither can any man deny the former in our circumstances to be very seasonable and therefore very necessary I shall therefore in what remains consider the Fig tree as a Figure and Type of particular persons Under which notion every individual man and woman is sentenced to be cut down and cast out of the Vineyard of the Church by some Temporal or Spiritual Judgment who hath been planted and admitted into it by Baptism and stands and grows in it injoying all the advantages and priviledges which belong to a Member of it under the Gospel and yet continues Fruitless or bears no good Fruit. Gets no saving Knowledg no true Faith no sound Repentance nor sincere Amendment of Life No real sence or favour of the things of God in a prevalency of Religion in Godliness and Holiness against and above Formality Prophaneness or the love of this present world No Justice Righteousness Truth and Honesty against Defrauding Cousenage Oppression Lying and Slandering of his Neighbours No Temperance Sobriety subduing of his sensual Lusts and Appetites against Uncleanness Drunkenness Debauchery and other defiling pleasures and sensualities in a word who are not foundly Converted and turned from placing their happiness and hopes in sin and creatures to fix them on God and Christ as their only blessedness and satisfying portion Or in St. Paul's express Language who will not learn that great Lesson which the Grace of God that is the Gospel was revealed from Heaven as the clearest light to teach the Sons of men that is To deny all ungodliness and worldly Lusts and to live Righteously Soberly and Godly in this present world in hope of a blessed immortality Nor heartily and in good earnest endeavour to become such as they are by their Baptismal Vow and Covenant obliged to be To every such man to every such woman I denounce this day in the name of the great the dreadful God of Heaven and Earth if thou turn not and that speedily and throughly That God the Lord of Hosts the supream the Omnipotent the Irresistible judg of all the Earth Hath prepared for thee the instruments of death He hath whet his Sword he hath bent and made ready his Bow his Arrows are upon the string suddenly will he shoot at thee and not spare or miss his mark The Ax is laid to thy very Root to cut thee down for fire unquenchable God already despiseth reproacheth and upbraideth thee for cumbring of his Ground hath actually pronounced the Sentence against thee to cut thee down the word is gone out of his mouth only in admirable Patience he hath reprieved thee one year more a little longer to try whether thou wilt yet at last sue out a Pardon return repent amend that thou mayst live Yet if thou do it not quickly he will compensate the former disappointments of his expectation whilst year after year he came looking for Fruit and found none together with the aggravated abuse of his long-sufferance which vouchsafes another year with a severer vengeance with a greater Damnation As for our parts who are Gods Ministers it is no pleasure nor delight to us to be Messengers of so heavy tydings to come on so harsh and terrifying an Errand We had rather be sent on Embassies of Peace and speak what might be more welcome and pleasing to you provided it might also be profitable for you But we must not chuse our own Message but the Word God puts into our mouths that must we speak What we have received from the Lord that must we deliver to you according to our Commission and our Instructions written in his Word must we proceed in the discharge and execution of our Office We must not sow Pillows under your Armpits nor dawb with untempered mortar at the Price at the Peril of our own Souls Nor promise Life where God hath threatned Death Nor speak Peace where God saith there is no Peace And there is no peace to the wicked saith my God Isa lvii 21. This were but to betray you and ruin our selves To lead you blindfold into the Ditch and plunge our selves in together with you into the Lake of fire and brimstone and to have the guilt of the blood of your souls added and heapt up upon that of our own to sink us deeper in the bottomless Gulph What we may do and what we can do that by the Grace of God we will do We will Pray to God to let you alone this year also Spare thy people good Lord spare this and that other Fruitless-Tree one year more try them O Lord a little longer it may be they will consider it may be they will bethink themselves it may be they will yet bear Fruit. And then it shall be no grief of Heart to thee O blessed Lord that thou didst not cut them off suddenly in thy sore displeasure Many have made some amends for an unfruitful youth by bringing forth more Fruit in their Age. Great Sinners have become great Saints What had thy Church lost what had thy Glory lost if thou hadst struck Saul dead when thou didst
heavy curses and dreadful threatnings according to what he speaks Deut. xxxii 23. I will heap mischiefs upon them And so Levit. xxvi he threatens them with most severe Judgments and tells them he will punish them seven and seven and seven times more for their sins unless they repent and amend Till he pluckt them up by the very roots out of the good land wherein he had planted them And in the same method do all the Prophets proceed as were easie to give instances in Samuel Davids Psalms most frequently Solomon Isaiah Jeremiah Ezechiel Daniel and the rest and the same instruments do they all use to the same end but I leave a thing so very obvious to your own observation in reading of the Scriptures of the Old Testament And the New Testament in this is like the Old You cannot but take notice how John the Baptist begins his Ministry Matth. iii. Bring forth fruits meet for repentance and how doth he urge them so to do First by digging away that bad Earth from about their Roots their flattering themselves with a false confidence in their outward priviledges Thinks not to say we have Abraham to our Father and then by threatning them with cutting down The Ax is laid to the root of the tree and every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit shall nay is hewen down and cast into the fire He speaks of it as done already to convince them of the certainty of it And again One is coming after him mightier than he and his fan is in his hand and he will throughly purge his floor and burn up the chaff with fire unquenchable And nothing is more frequent in the Sermons and Parables of our Lord himself than such useful and faithful severity to awaken secure sinners by such wholsome comminations of their danger as every attentive reader may observe To touch a few of very many Matth. xi 20. Then began he to upbraid the Cities in which most of his mighty works were done because they repented not Wo to thee Chorazin wo to thee Bethsaida for if the mighty works which have been done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes And I say unto you it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of Judgment than for you And thou Capernaum which art exalted unto heaven by the injoyment of such means shall be brought down to hell for the abuse of them For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom it would have remained to this day But I say unto you it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of Judgment than for thee What stinging words are these how should they awaken us to speedy Repentance This is also the scope of many of the Parables in Matth. xiii of the Sower and the Seed of the Drag Net of the Tares to instance in the last The Tares in the Field seem to run parallel with the barren figtree in the Vineyard verse 40. the Tares are burnt in the fire The son of man shall send forth his Angels and they shall gather out of his Kingdom all things that offend and them that do iniquity and cast them into a furnace of fire there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth His Kingdom that is his Church and you see 't is not enough to be in his Kingdom but to be a Loyal Subject in his Kingdom and to yield him willing and faithful Obedience and such is the case with him who wanted the Wedding Garment Matth. xxii and with the foolish Virgins that provided no Oyl and the slothful servant that traded not with his Talent Matth. xxv So Mark xvi 16. He that believeth and is Baptised shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned tho he were Baptised yea the more because he was Baptised and did not what he was thereby obliged to But no where more fully than in the beginning of this Chapter Vnless you repent you shall all perish and besides my Text verse 24. Strive to enter in at the strait gate and that quickly before the Master of the house be risen for it will afterwards be in vain to plead we have Eat and Drunk in thy presence come to thy Table heard thee Preach If you have been workers of iniquity hee 'l say depart from me And the Holy Apostles the most skilful and most faithful Labourers in Gods Vineyard use the same method warning the unfruitful by the terrors of the Lord. By this Goad St. Peter prickt and by this Sword St. Stephen cut their several hearers to the heart with these Weapons St. Paul managed his warfare To pull down the strong holds of sin and Satan Rom. i. 18. He tells them The wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men Rom. ii tells them that they treasure up wrath against the day of wrath who are not led to repentance by Gods long-suffering and goodness and threatens indignation and wrath tribulation and anger upon every soul of man that doth evil and lets them know their outward Circumcision will avail them nothing unless their hearts be Circumcised And Chap. xi He warns them by the Example of the Jewish Branches being cut off from their Olive-Tree and bids them take heed lest God also spare not them and expresly tells them that if they continue not in Gods goodness answer not his goodness towards them they also shall be cut off 'T is hard to forbear offering more but I confess it rather needs an Apology for saying so much in so manifest a case than an Excuse for saying no more yet they that consider for how plain a people these things were first prepared and now written may pass by the error if I have exceeded And now to dig the deeper about you even to the bottom of your Roots to the very Root of your Hearts let me usher in what I have to offer to you with these considerations First You stand not on an Heath or Forrest on a Wilderness or Common in a Wood or Hedg-row where you might stand long and none look after you neither God nor Man expect fruit from you The times the places of Ignorance when and where men have not the light of the Gospel to shew them their Duty or their Danger in neglecting it God winketh at Acts 17.30 takes less notice of But when and where his Gospel is vouchsafed He calls all men to repent Because by that he lets them know He hath appointed a man by whom he will judge the World in Righteousness and hath given full assurance of it by raising him from the Dead But you are planted in a rich Soil as God's Vineyard of old Isa 5.1 in a very fruitful hill cultivated dressed tilled with no small cost and care it was digged and fenced and the Stones picked out You live in a Church where you
which are apt to kindle and are fit fuel for those corruptions God will leave yon to your own choice Isa 66.3 4. They have chosen their own ways and their soul delighteth in their abominations therefore I also will chuse their delusions and will bring their fears upon them because when I called none did answer when I spake they would not hear but they did evil before mine eyes and chose that in which I delighted not There is scarce one passage in all the Bible repeated so often over in terminis as that dreadful Sentence first denounced from the mouth of God by the Ministry of the Prophet Isaiah chap. 6.10 and to which he was prepared with so great and awful Solemnity By a Vision of the Divine Majesty upon the Throne of his Glory and an Angel touching his Lips with a coal from the Altar and with a special Commission to send him on this Errand Go and tell this people hear ye indeed hat understand not see ye indeed but perceive not make the heart of this people fat and their ears heavy and shut their eyes lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and convert and be healed Which we find repeated as the Margin of your Bibles will shew Matth. 13 14 15. Mark 4.12 Luke 8.10 John 12.40 in all which places our Lord himself applies it and with such variety as would afford us very useful remarks but I leave them to be made by your own Observation then Acts 28.26 S. Paul improves it very fully and having rehearsed the words at large draws a sad inference from them verse 28. Be it known therefore to you that the Salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles and they will hear it Than which nothing could have been spoken more cutting to the Jews who so despised and hated the Gentiles and implies that God's Salvation that is his Word Truth the true Religion should now be taken from them for hitherto Salvation was of the Jews John 4.22 for their obstinate unfruitfulness and given to the Gentiles who would receive it and is but the interpretation and confirmation of our Saviours own words before touch'd The kingdom of heaven shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof And we find it again Rom. 11.8 they were blinded according as it is written God hath given them a spirit of slumber eyes that they should not see c. Nothing can be more terrible and affrighting than this threat to any man who will consider and weigh it and the inforcing it so oft may awaken even them that are asleep in the deepest security if this doom be not already executed against them and it hath actually seized upon them And I might refer you to many more of the like dreadful import in both Testaments but I 'll content my self with one in each Ezek. 24.12 13 14. She hath wearied her self with lyes and her great scum went not forth out of her In thy filthiness is lewdness because I have purged thee and thou wast not purged thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee I the Lord have spoken it it shall come to pass and I will do it I will not go back I will not spare neither will I repent according to thy ways and according unto thy doings shall they judge thee saith the Lord God Words so exaggerated so keen so pungent they will pierce your hearts and move you if they be not harder than the nether Mill-stone yea may penetrate the heart that is so hard if the head if the mind of the man in whom it is will dwell a little upon the meditation the consideration of them The place in the New Testament I would refer you to is that pathetick word of our Saviour recorded in the end of the Chapter where my Text is O Jerusalem Jerusalem which killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee how often would I have gathered thy children together as an hen gathereth her brood under her wings and ye would not Behold your house is left unto yon desolate I have met with as improper Allusions and Paraphrases tho I will not avow such an one as it would be should I gloss upon these words thus O sinners sinners who have killed your Ministers with their study pains and travel to bring you to repentance and yet you would not rerepent who have broken the hearts of them whom I sent to you by the stonyness of your hearts how often how fain would I have gathered you to my self have turn'd you from your sinful courses and ye would not therefore I 'll now trouble my self no more with you I 'll give you up to your own hearts lusts fill up the measure of your iniquities that wrath may come upon you without measure even to the utmost Lastly To add no more God will sharpen the edge and envenom the point of his Sword of vengeance by joyning contempt to his wrath and scornful derision to the soreness of his fiery indignation laughing at your destruction and mocking when your fear comes upon you And a great mind can bear smart better than reproach and pain more easie than derision Reproach will break those hearts with vexing sorrow which all the words of God could not break with Godly Sorrow He that sits in heaven shall laugh the Lord shall have them in derision Psal ii 4. The Lord shall laugh at him for he seeth that his day is coming Psal xxxvii 13. And there is nothing more astonishingly sad than Gods laughing when with a just insulting he cryes Ah ha I will ease me of my adversaries I will avenge me of my enemies Isa i. 24. These are some few of those many Righteous Comminations of those affrighting menaces by which the Spade of the Law is steeled to dig about your Roots and remove the cold and hungry Earth from them which causes your barrenness in Gods Vineyard These are the Share and Coulter of that Plough by which we must breaks up the Fallow-ground of your Hearts to kill the Thorns and Weeds which choak the good Seed of the Word Any one of them might and should suffice to do the work yet that they may profit you jointly which have not done it singly Take them in one view it may bean whole volly may strike down that security which would not fall before a single shot I exhort you I beseech you I adjure you therefore by all these put together and by what ever else God's Holy Spirit may suggest to your own Consciences of greater force and cogency Repent and bring forth fruits meet for Repentance speedily readily faithfully under those abundant helps God affords you by the Gospel and his Patience which you have almost tired out yet continues a little longer to you For I assure you in his name 1. God will do no more