them and makes them grow more afterward and recover their former backwardnesse A true Christian is alway on the mending hand An hypocrite growes worse and worse alway till he be uncased altogether and turned into hell These and such like considerations may stirre us up to labour to have a conversation in simplicity and godly sincerity Now how shall we come to carry our selves in sincerity that we may have comfort in all estates That we may carry our selves in sincerity First we must get a change of heart our nature must be changed for by nature a man aimes at himself in all things and not at God A man makes himself his last end he makes something in the world either profits or pleasures c. the term that he looks unto therefore there must be a change of heart a man must be a good man or else he cannot be a sincere man Such as we are such our actions will be therefore we cannot be sincere till we have our hearts changed No man can aim at Gods glory but he that hath felt Gods love in himself therefore as a particular branch of that labour to get assurance of the love of God in Jesus Christ for how can we endeavour to please him unlesse we love him and how can we love him unlesse we be perswaded that he loves us in Christ Therefore let us stablish our hearts more and more in the Evidences of his love to us and then knowing that he loves us we shall love him and labour to please him in all things These are grounds that must be laid before we can be sincere to get assurance of Gods love to us in the pardon of our sins Our conscience must be purged from dead works to serve the living God as the Apostle saith that is we cannot serve God to our comfort till our consciences are sprinkled with the blood of Christ which assures us of the pardon of our sins Therefore saith Zachary We are redeemed that we might serve him in righteousnesse and holinesse before him all the dayes of our life So that unlesse a man be redeemed he cannot serve him in righteousnesse and holinesse before him all the daies of his life that is he cannot serve God in sincerity For who will labour to please his enemy Therefore the Papists maintain hypocrisie when they say we ought not to be perswaded of the love of God for then we ought to be hypocrites for how shall we seek him with the losse of favour and of credit and of life it self if we know not that his favour will stand us in stead if we lose these things for him Again that we may be sincere let us labour to mortifie all our earthly affections to the world for how can we be sincere when we seek for honours and pleasures and riches and not for better things Therefore we must know that there is more good to be had in truth in a down-right Christian profession then in all worldly good whatsoever And if we be hypocrites in our profession there is more ill in that then in any thing in the world This will make us sincere when we can be perswaded that we shall get better things by being sincere in Religion then the world can give us or take away from us For why are men insincere and false-hearted Because they think not Religion to be the true good they think it is better to have riches then to have a good mind these things therefore must be mortified and a man must know that the life of a Christian is incomparably the best life though it be with losse of liberty yea with the losse of life it self Simon Magus grew to false affections in Religion because he thought to have profit by it So the Pharisees they had naughty hearts and therefore they had no good by Religion No man can profit by Religion so long as his heart is naught so long as there is some Idol in his heart A good Christian had rather have a large heart to serve God and rather grow in the Image of God to be like him then to grow in any thing in the world and that makes him sincere out of a good judgment because Christian excellency is the best excellency incomparably For he knowes well what all else will be ere long what will all do good riches honours friends what good will they do in the hour of death There is nothing but grace and the expression of it in the whole conversation that will comfort us therefore he undervalues all things in the world to sincerity and a good conscience Again that we may have our conversation in sincerity let us labour in every thing we do to approve our selves to the eye of God We see the Scripture every where shewes that this hath made Gods Children consciencious in all their courses even when they might have sinned not only securely but with advantage What kept Joseph from committing folly with his Mistresse Shall I do this and sin against God Gen. 39. And so Job in chap 31. he shewes what awed and kept him from ill doing in vers 3. Doth not he see my wayes and account all my steps this was it that kept him in awe So the Church of God Psal. 44. being in great distresse they kept themselves from Idolatry and from the contagion of the times wherein they lived upon what ground you shall see in vers 21. If we had done thus and thus shall not God search it out for he knowes the very secrets of the heart So a Christian being perswaded of the eye of God upon him it makes him sincere The eye of God being Ten thousand times brighter then the Sun he being light it self he made the heart and he knowes all the turnings of the heart The consideration of this will make us sincere in our closets in our very thoughts for they all lie naked and open to his view What is the reason that men practise secret villainy secret wickednesse and give themselves to speculative filthinesse because they are atheists they forget that they are in the eye of God who sees the plots and projects of their hearts and the nets that they have laid for their brethren Therefore David brings them in saying Tush God sees us not And that is the reason they are unconscionable in their desires in their hearts in their secret thoughts It is from a hidden Atheisme For if we did consider that the eye of God sees us in all our intents and actions and sees us in what manner we do all and to what end that he sees every action with the circumstances the aimes and ends if the heart did well ponder this it would prevent a great deal of evil Conscience is the witnesse of our conversation a witnesse that will keep us from offending If there were a witnesse by and that witnesse were a great person a Judge c. it would keep us in our
be like thy self thou thinkest I hate those that thou hatest that are my dear Children therefore Herod presumed to go on and lay hold on Peter but the Church falls a praying and God smites Herod with a fearful death he was eaten up with lice with worms bred in his body So I say it is no good argument to say I have prospered in wicked courses I do prosper and therefore I shall prosper I have gotten a great deal of goods by ill means and I have kept such ill company and though some mislike my courses yet I hope to morrow shall be as to day c. Take heed blesse not thy self Gods wrath will smoak against such Treasure not up wrath unto thy self against the day of wrath argue not so upon Gods patience It is an argument for Gods Children he hath been my God he is my God and he will be my God it is a Sophisme else for others and as the Prophet Amos saith He that hath escaped the Lyon shall fall into the hands of the Bear so the wicked that escape one danger shall fall into another at length it is no good argument for them to hope for the like of that they have had Nay rather it is the worst outward sign in this world of a man in the state of reprobation of a man hated of God to prosper and have security in ill courses God blesseth him and lets him go on in smooth courses as the streames of Jordan go on smooth and still and then enter into the dead sea so many men live and go on in smooth easy courses and we see at length they either end in despair as Judas or in deadnesse of heart as Nabal So that of all estates it is the most miserable when a man lives in a naughtie course and God interrupts him not in his course with some outward judgment It is a reason onely for the Children of God to support themselves with in a good cause wherein they walk with a good conscience then they may say truly God that hath been my God till now will be my God to the end of my dayes Is God so constant to his Children in his love and in his fatherly care providence that whom he hath delivered he doth deliver and will deliver let us be constant in our service and love back again let us return the echo back again and say I have served God I do serve God and I will serve God because he hath loved me he doth love me and he will love me he hath delivered me he doth deliver me and he will deliver me as he is constant in love to me so will I be constant in respect in reverence and obedience to him Therefore we see the Saints of God as God loves them from everlasting to everlasting being Jehovah as he never alters in his nature so not in his love to them so they never alter in their love to him therefore it is a clause in Scripture expressed by holy men To whom be praise for ever as they knew that he was their God for ever and for ever so they purposed to be his people and to praise him for ever and for ever And because they cannot live here alway themselves they desire that there may be a Generation to praise him for ever and for ever and they lay a plot and ground so much as they can that Gods Name may be known that Religion may be propagated for ever They know God is their God for ever they know he is constant in love to them and they are constant in their love to him and for his glory To whom be glory for ever See here the happinesse of a true Christian that is in Covenant with God he can say I have had my happinesse and my portion I have it and I shall have it for ever Take a worldling can he say so he cannot God will confound his insolence if he should say so I have been rich I have prospered in my course I have attained to this and that means I yet thrive and I shall thrive I is it so No thou buildest upon the sands howsoever God hath done and howsoever he doth thou canst not secure thy self for the time to come Onely the Christian that makes God his rock and his fortress his shield and strong tower of defence he may say he hath had that which is certain he enjoyes that which is immutable and constant God is his portion his eternal portion he hath been good he is good and he will be good to eternity no man else that hath a severed happinesse out of God can say so A sound Christian take him in all references of time he is a happy man if he look back God hath delivered him from Satan from hell and damnation and many dangers If he look to the present he is compassed about with a guard of Angels and with the providence of God God doth deliver him he hath a guard about him that cannot be seen but with the eye of faith The Divel sees it well enough as we see in Job Thou hast hedged him about how can I come to him He looked about to see if he could come into Job to see if the hedg had any breach but there was none Gods providence compassed him about God hath and doth deliver And if he look to the time to come he will deliver he seeth that neither things present nor things to come shall be able to separate him from the love of God And this is not onely true of outward dangers but especially in spiritual God hath been gracious he hath given Christ How shall he not with him give us all things A Christian is in the favour of God now how shall he not be so for ever He hath eternity world without end to comfort himself in that God as long as he is God he hath comfort as long as he hath a soul so long Jehovah the living God will be his God both of his body and soul he is the God of Abraham therefore he will raise his body he is the God that raiseth the dead and he will for ever glorifie both body and soul in heaven Look which way he will a Christian hath cause of much comfort why should he be dismayed with any thing in the world why should he not serve God with all the encouragement that may be when he hath nothing to care for but to serve him As for matter of deliverance and protection it belongs not to us but to him let us do that that belongs to us and he will do that belongs to him if we commit our soules to him as to a faithful Creator in weldoing he hath delivered us he doth deliver us and he will deliver us and preserve us to his heavenly Kingdom VERS 11. You also helping together by prayer for us IN these words the holy Apostle sets down the subordinate means that God hath sanctified to continue
and quickens and enlivens all duties What are all duties but love Christ reduceth all to love It is a sweet affection that stirres up and quickneth to all duties it carries us along to all duties all are love What need I stand on sincere patience sincere temperance sincere sobriety c If a man have sincere love to God it will carry him to all duties remember this order Especially every day enter into your own soules and search impartially what sin there is there unconfessed and unrepented of and make your peace with God by confession And then go to sincere dependance on God by faith in the Promises And then stirre up your hearts to love him and from the love of him to love one another in sincerity not in hypocrific Thus we have the manner of the blessed Apostle's Carriage in the world whereupon his rejoycing was founded Our rejoycing is this the testimony of our conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity We have had our conversation in the world I will speak a little of those words before I come to the negative part Not in fieshly wisdome Our Conversation By Conversation Anastrophe he means the several turnings of his life in what relation soever he stood to God to men as a Minister as a Christian as a friend as a neighbour at home or abroad in all estates in all places and at all times his Conversation was in simplicity and sincerity In the world That is wheresoever he had lived And mark how he joyns them together his conversation in the world amongst men it was with sincerity to God It was that that did rule his conversation in the world And so it should be with us wheresoever we are or whatsoever we do in the world our carriage here must be directed by a higher aspect The Ship while it is tossed in the Sea it is ruled by the Pole-starre that must guide it so in our conversation in the world the stuffe of our conversation may be the businesse we have in the world but the rule the regiment of all must be from heaven with an eye to God I touch that from the knitting of these together Now where he saith That his Conversation was in simplicity and sinceriy you may see here then that all the frame all the passages of his life were good This makes good that which I touched before which hath its proper place here That Sincerity extends it self to all the frame of a mans life He that is sincere is sincere in all places and at all times in all the turnings and windings and passages of his life or else he is not sincere at all His conversation must be sincere wheresoever he lives or whatsoever he doth in prosperity or adversity at home or abroad The veriest hypocrite in the world hath he not pangs sometimes Take an oppressour he thinks that he should not die so he thinks I must be called to an account if I do thus Doth not Ahab lie upon his sick bed sometimes Is not Herod sometimes troubled in conscience hath not a wicked man sometimes twitches of conscience which the world sees not secret checks of conscience Oh yes there is not the vilest man living but he hath his good fits he hath pangs of goodnesse but what is this to a conversation Our conversation must be in sincerity in all the turnings and passages of it God judgeth us by the tenour of our life and not by single particular acts a good man may be ill in a particular act and an evil man may be good in a particular act but I say God doth not judge us by a distinct severed passage but by the tenour of our life Uniformity equability and evennesse of life it is an undoubted evidence of a good man Because he is a new creature and being a new creature he hath a new nature and nature works uniformly Art works differently and enforcedly Teach a creature some what that is against nature it will do something but a Lion will have a Lions trick and a Wolf will have a Wolfes trick teach them never so much a Lion will be a Lion in all places a Wolf will be a Wolf and an Eagle will be an Eagle Every creature will observe its own nature and be like it self A Christian as far as he is good as far as he is a Christian is uniform his conversation is good he is like himself in all places in all times upon all occasions in prosperity in adversity The very Word shewes that the universality of a mans course must be in sincerity wheresoever he is God is every where and sincerity hath an eye to God it makes a man good every where or else it doth nothing to God Doth not God see every where abroad and at home in our closets If we plot villainy there ses he it as well as abroad therefore if I do it any where I regard not the eye of God Again where he saith Our Conversation it implies constancy as well as uniformity he was so in all places and in all times but that I noted before therefore I passe it Our Conversation In the world That is amongst other men wheresoever I was and have lived whence we see That Christianity may stand with conversing abroad in the world Men need not be mued up in a cloyster as the foolish Monks in former times they thought that Religion was a thing confined to solitarinesse Whereas oft-times it requires greater strength of grace to be alone then to be in company we know the proverb Woe to him that is alone A good Christian converses in the world and that in simplicity and sincerity We need not I say cloyster our selves up to be good men to be sincere Christians We may converse in the world in sincerity if we have Saint Paul's spirit But that which I will presse more is this that True Religion where it is in strength doth carry a man in the world and yet he is not tainted with the world Saint Paul conversed in the world in sincerity The world is an hypocrite as he said of old the whole world acts a part it is an hypocrite and a cruel opposer of sincerity and truth Saint Paul lived abroad in the world amongst men that had aimes of their own and abused themselves in the world and yet he walked in simplicity and sincerity he was a good man for all that A man that is not of the world but begotten to be a member of a higher world he may carry himself in the world without the corruptions of the world he may carry himself so in the world that he may not be carried away of the world we see S. Paul did so Noah was a good man in evil times a good man in his Generation Henoch in evil times walked with God In Act. 13. David in his Generation served the purpose of God and his Generation was none of the best for you know
stones and pearles Solomon presseth it have a high estimation of wisdome of the government of Gods Spirit as the best government And be out of love with carnal reason with carnal affections and their guidance account them as base things not worthy to come into the esteem of a Christian heart Those that highly prize wisdome God will lead them by it those that sell all for the pearl shall have it There must be a high price set on the guidance of Gods Spirit and on grace as indeed it is worthy of it and then we shall have it Again if we would lead our lives according to spiritual and heavenly wisdome according to grace and gracious wisdome let us learn as it is Job 22. to be more and more acquainted with God by prayer for grace comes not from within us Grace is in Christ as in the root as in the spring as in the Sun we have it but as the beam as the stream therefore let us learn to be acquainted with God and with Christ by prayer and meditation and search into his Word by reading and by hearing him speak to us and let us often speak to him Let us acquaint our selves with him by prayer and by hearing his Word and then we shall have his grace to guide us For grace is a fruit of his peculiar love he gives grace to his own peculiar people How do you think shall he have a peculiar delight in us if we labour not to be more and more acquainted with him by often speaking to him by often hearing of him by coming into his presence and attending as much as we can upon his holy Ordinances by conversing as much as we can in the holy things of God Those that will be warm they come under the beams of the Sun those that would have the Spirit work effectually they must come where the Spirit is effectual where the Spirit works Now the Spirit is effectual in the Word preached the Spirit fell upon Cornelius and the rest when they were hearing of S. Peter And the Spirit is where there is conversing in good company Where two or three are met together I will be in the middest of them saith Christ. If we walk with the wise we shall be wiser It must be the heavenly wisdome of a Christian if he would lead his life by grace to attend upon all the meanes of grace because the Spirit of God is effectual by his own means he works by his own means therefore use the meanes that the Spirit hath sanctified for the working of grace I do wonder at a company of vain sottish creatures that carry themselves according to their vain conceits according to the whirling of their own brain in toyes and baubles that come into their heads they care not for the hearing of Gods blessed truth either they abstain altogether or else they hear it carelesly as if it were a thing that concerned them not Oh but those that will lead their lives by grace they come to it by the Spirit and the Spirit is onely effectual in holy Ordinances It must be our wisdome therefore to bring our selves under some meanes or other that the Spirit may be effectual The wisest and the best men in the world are no longer gracious then they are wise this way if they neglect good company good acquaintance if they neglect the hearing of the Word if they neglect prayer they will grow dead and dull and carnal-minded they will be possessed with base thoughts How do men differ one from another not so much by any habitual grace that is in them as by avoiding all that might prejudice them in a Christian course and by using all means whereby the Spirit of God may be effectual Again the way ro be under the grace of Gods Spirit is often to meditate of the grace of God the free love of God in Jesus Christ for so it comes first The first grace of all is Gods free love in the forgiving of our sins and accepting us to life everlasting and then he doth alter and change our natures more and more he transforms us more and more when we find therefore any defect of grace in our hearts when we find coldnesse and deadnesse and dulnesse go to the first fire to the first Sun to the free grace of God in Christ pardoning all our sins and accepting us to life everlasting and promising us grace to lead our lives in the mean time If you have fallen into any sin by the temptation of Satan or your own weaknesse beg not first grace to alter your course to sanctifie your life but renew every day your interest in the first grace in the forgivenesse of sins and your acceptation to everlasting life For till God have pardoned your sinnes and have witnessed to your soules that you stand reconciled he will not give the best fruit of reconciliation which is grace Therefore every day examine your lives if you have offended God in what termes you stand with God and if you stand in ill termes that there is any sin against conscience the best way is not presently to amend that for that will not be except the heart be warmed with Gods love and favour in the pardon of your sins first and in the acceptation of you in Christ notwithstanding your sins as he justifieth us every day not onely in the first act of conversion but daily he acquits our consciences daily from our sins and therefore in the Lords Prayer Christ teacheth us every day to say Forgive us our sins And then after forgivenesse of sins to beg the particular graces for our lives that we want I would this were better thought on Challenge likewise the Covenant of grace we have a promise of all grace and the spring of all grace We have a Promise of Love God will teach us to Love one another We have a promise of Fear he hath promised that He will put his fear into our hearts that we shall never depart from him We have a promise of the holy Spirit Let us challenge these Promises every day So much for the Directions how to lead our lives by Grace But by the Grace of God Saint Paul here makes it the ground of his rejoycing that he led not his life by fleshly wisdome but in simplicity and sincerity and by the Grace of God and all that are led by S. Paul's spirit live thus There is a Religion in the world that bears it self very big on high terms of Universality Succession Antiquity c. and they will have it thought to be a spiritual and holy Religion Well if a man be a carnal man that is led with fleshly wisdome and not by the grace of God that Religion must needs be a naughty Religion that hath onely the support and the foundation of it in fleshly wisdome which is an enemy and opposite to the grace of God and to simplicity and sincerity But Popery is this
and serious and weighty and firm in their resolutions that they may build on them and know where to have them as we say it breeds authority and maintains authority For then what they say is regarded and how their affections stand if it be love it is much sought after if displeasure it is much feared for they are men of a fixed disposition it gains wondrous respect Let men be never so great if they be such as S. Paul here declines from himself that they use lightnesse they lose their authority Authority is the special help that Governours have to rule and that Ministers have to prevail now nothing weakens esteem and authority more then when men are tossed between the waves of contrary affections when men are such as we know not where to have them as we say off and on fast and loose one while fitting another standing no man will build on them or much regard their love or hatred Now you know Authority is a beam of Majesty and God hath put it upon Magistrates above others and imprinted likewise the respect of it in the peoples hearts to maintain the World the pillars of the earth will shake else as the Psalmist saith What would become of the Pillars of Government if it were not for Authority in them that are above and respect of that Authority an impression of it in them that are under Now there are many grounds of Authority as successe when God blesseth them with it wonderfully to admiration and good parts c. but one main Ground of Authority is Constancy and firmnesse this raiseth a high respect in the hearts of the people I will not multiply reasons why those that are in place should avoid the imputation of lightnesse Ministers especially should take heed of it because they are Ministers of Gods truth and if they take not heed of it people will be ready to go from their moral civil carriage to their doctrine and think there is an uncertainty in that they speak because they do not regard what they say But let me adde this by the way Mater erroris similitudo Likenesse is the mother of errour so there is somewhat like Constancy in Governours and others when they are nothing lesse but meerly refractory and obstinate to maintain the reputation of constancy they will run into the fault of wilfulnesse Such as are subject that way had need of strong wits to rule their strong wills to guide them or else wo be to those that have to deal with them that I thought good to adde left we mistake We should all labour to avoid inconstancy and lightnesse in our resolutions in our purposes and affections If we ought to avoid it how shall we come to know it what is the ground of lightnesse The grounds are many Sometimes from the temper of the body some are of a moveable temper of a moveable quick spirit that they cannot out of their constitution fix long except they set weights upon nature I am by disposition thus but my resolution shall be otherwise as where Grace and wisdome is it will fix the temper and fix the resolution and the thoughts This I could not do if I should yield to my own disposition but this I will do and I should do there are many resolutions as in the younger sort and some out of their very temper are more fixed and resolved But now consider it as it is in Religion Lightnesse comes out of the disposition of the mind Inconsideration oft-times is the ground when we do not see the circumstances of a thing that we promise or purpose You know there is nothing comes to action but it is beset with circumstances there are advantages of it and there are stops and hinderances of it somewhat may fall out Every thing that comes to action is besieged with circumstances circumstances you know have their name of standing about a businesse about a thing now when the things that are about the impediments and the hindrances and le ts are not weighed a rash man sees not the things he considers not the things that he enters upon he resolves without considering the circumstances that beset the thing he never considers what oppositions he may meet with or what advantages there be which perhaps he neglects but he thinks of the thing it is good and suitable to his purpose he resolves and never considers the circumstances about a thing but runs on in confidence of his own wit and parts and thinks to rule all by the strength of his wit not foreseeing not casting in his mind to prevent before-hand what may fall out It is just with God to shame such men frustration of their purposes it is a just reward of their folly Therefore we should take heed of Inconsideration and have our eyes in our heads to set the soul to foresee what possibility there is of the businesse and what may fall out this is the right way if we would avoid imputation of lightnesse Again another ground of lightnesse and of that decay in authority and respect that comes from it is the passion of men therefore they are light they are carried with the hurry and wind of their passion And Satan joynes with passion A passionate man is subject to Satan more then a man that is led by reason or with grace For that is a beam of God even reason it self judgment it is an excellent thing and it prevents many temptations Give not way to passion for those are unreasonable things As we see Saul in his passion Satan the evill spirit mingled with his passion of anger So let men be in any passion over-joy or be over-angry let them give the rains to unruly passion and they give advantage to Satan that we cannot settle our soules in any good resolution Again in the things themselves there is cause of lightnesse and inconstancy from the nature of the things and then it is not so great a fault to change then it is not properly inconstancy but it is inconstancy when the things are mutable and variable and we do not think of it as we should Now the things of this life are variable and uncertain the event of things in this life is wondrous variable Grace and glory they are certain things and the way that God directs us to heaven they are certain promises and certain grounds but the things of this life are subject to much change God takes a great deal of liberty in altering things in this world they fall out divers wayes But now therefore we must take heed that we take not inconstancy for that which is not Every change of opinion and purpose is not lightnesse It is not inconstancy for a man to change his mind and purpose when it is from the things Men are men and the things that we deal with in the world are subject to variety and inconstancy and for a man to alter according to the
our former exhortation get into Christ by all means for out of him we have nothing savingly good But you will say Doth not God do many good things to them that are out of Christ doth not the rain fall upon the ill as well as the good and doth not he fill the bellies of the wicked with good things Yes he doth he doth but are they blessings no they are not but as God saith to Moses If you do this and this ill I will curse you in your dough I will curse you at home and abroad I will curse you in your Children c. They are cursed in their blessings There is no man that is a carnall brutish man but though he live and have revenues and pleasures he is cursed in his blessings For what is he made for this life onely no he is but fatted on to the day of destruction they are snares to him How do you know they are snares because they make him secure and careless of the worship of God they make him prophane they make him despise the power of Religion a man may see by his conversation they are snares they are not promises in Christ for then they would come to him out of Gods Love Therefore get into Christ rest not in any thing abstracted from Christ Let us not rest in any blessing except we have it in Gods love in Christ. And I may know that I have any thing in this world any deliverance from ill or any positive good thing from Gods love in Christ if I have it with a heart wrought on to the best things to value Christ and to account all dung in comparison of him When I esteem my being in Christ above all beings above being rich or honourable or in favour alas this I know is fading but my being in Christ is Yea and Amen that will stand by me when all these beings will fail This is comfortable if I can do this and have other things I have them with the Love of God and Christ. Let us get into Christ therefore For this purpose attend upon the meanes of salvation that the Word may be effectuall by his Spirit accompanying his own Ordinance to open the excellencies of Christ to us to make us love him and get our affections into him How are we in Christ By knowing him and then knowledge carries our hearts For our wills cleave to that that we know to be excellent and necessary Christ is discovered as excellent and necessary and so the will cleaves to him as a good so discovered and the affections follow the will When the will cleaves to Christ as excellent and necessary then I love him then I rest on him then I have peace in him I may know that I am in Christ upon my knowledge of him and cleaving to him and finding peace in my conscience For he that is in Christ hath rest Faith in Christ hath a resting stablishing power If I be in Christ my soule rests for I know that all is Yea and Amen in him My soule rests in him whatsoever I find in the world to unsettle me things are amisse and otherwise then I would have them but I rest in the Love of God in Christ. Let us get into Christ by knowledge Let the will follow that and our affections follow that and then we shall find the rest and peace that will secure us that indeed we are in Christ. Alas what is a man out of Christ as a man in a storme that hath no cloathes to hide his nakednesse to cover him from the violence of the storme As a man in a tempest that is out of a house to hide him As a stone out of the foundation that is scattered here and there as neglected As a branch out of the Vine out of the root what shape is in such a branch it will be cast into the fire afterwards A man out of Christ that is not cloathed with him that is not built on him and settled on him and planted in him he is a man destitute We pittie such mens cases in the World but if we had spirituall eyes to look on these men on prophane civill wretches that pride themselves in a little moralitie and have scarce that perhaps and neglect grace and the mystery of Christ such a man deserves pittie there is but a step between him and Hell if he be out of Christ and live and die so and at the Day of Christ he will account him so O saith St. Paul Philip. 3. I account all dung and drosse in comparison of Christ not having my own righteousnesse but to be found in him having the righteousnesse of God in Christ. O happie man indeath and at the day of judgement that is found in Christ and not in himself not in his own righteousnesse though that there must be not to give us title to heaven The best thing is to be found in Christ to have his righteousnesse and obedience that is so excellent that Saint Paul accounted all dung and drosse in comparison of that to be found in that Get into Christ by all meanes for in him all the promises are Yea and Amen not out of him If so be all the promises be Yea and Amen in Christ then here again see the stabilitie of a Christians estate that hath promises to uphold him compare it with a man that hath present things onely with an Esau that hath the things of this life The men of this world as the Psalmist calls them they have present things they have performance he gives them their portion here as he saith to Dives Thou hadst thy good that which thou caredst for thou hadst it here and Lazarus had Pain and miserie and povertie here now the case is altered he is advanced and thou art tormented A Christian as a Christian he hath a great many promises some of them are performed for God is delivering him and comforting him and protecting him and speaking peace to his conscience but the greatest part are yet to be performed the perfection of Grace and Glorie to come he is a Child of the promise a son of the promise here is his estate Another man hath present payment and that is all he cares for he hath something and he swells in the conceit of that that he is some bodie What is the difference what hath the one but a great deale of nothing what saith Solomon that had tried all the world All is vanity and vexation of spirit all is uncertain and we are uncertaine in the use of them if we have no better life then the life of nature But the promises they are yea they are certain they contain undoubted certain good things that will stick by us when all else will leave us A Christian take him and strip him in your thoughts from all the good things in the world he is a happier man then the greatest Monarch in the world out
yea and amen to be yea and nay We make truth a lie and do rather believe our own lying hearts then Gods immutable and unchangeable Promises Therefore let us see the fulnesse of our hearts and complain of them to God and desire him to cure it and redresse it and he will do it This is to give glory to God indeed we cannot honour God more then to believe his Promises and build on him This will breed love when we feel the comfort of the Promises Foolish men think to honour God by complements by dead performances filly men consider that the principal honour in the world to God is to seal his truth that thou shouldest not make him a liar Hath he promised all things in the world get faith that will honour him and he will honour thy faith What makes God honour faith so much He that believes he will bring him to heaven Faith honours him it gives him the glory of his truth the glory of his goodnesse of his mercy of his truth c. as it honours him he honours it The Believer shall come to heaven when the idle fashionable Christian shall vanish with his conceits that thinks to serve God with empty vain shadowes Honour God with the obedience of faith man cast thy self upon him trust in him in life and death and then thou givest him the honour that he requireth at thy hands For as the honour of his mercy is the greatest honour he will have in this world more then that in the Creation so thou honourest him more in the Gospel to cast thy self on him for forgivenesse of sins and life everlasting and for the guidance of thy daily course of life thou honourest him more then by looking on the creature or by doing him any service He is honoured more by faith in Christ then by any other way Let faith go to him as faith honours him so he will honour it Let it be according to thy faith Let not all be lost let us bring vessels for the precious Promises the vessel of a believing heart Shall all this be lost for a vain heart that will not lodge up these promises shall we have a rich portion and neglect it shall we have so many promises and not improve them and make use of them Therefore I beseech you let it be our practice continually every day of all portions of Scripture make the Promises most familiar to us for duties follow promises if we believe the Promises with our heart they are quickning Promises we will love God and perform other duties Faith works by love If we believe love will come kindly off Therefore he saith here All the Promises are Yea and Amen insinuating that all is included in the Promises Let us empty our hearts of confidence in any thing and fill them with the Promises in Christ that are Yea and Amen Let us stablish our hearts with the Promises let us warm and season and refresh our hearts every day with these In these times of infection what do we those that are careful of themselves that go abroad in dangerous places they have Preservatives they take something to preserve their spirits and to strengthen them against the contagion abroad and it is wisdome so to do it is folly to neglect it and to tempt God not to be careful in this kind it is very well done But what is this if thou do not fence thy soul and thy spitit and take a draught of the Promises every day afresh Let us take out our pardon of course every day of the forgivenesse of sins We sin every day let us go for our pardon If we sin we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ and he is the propitiation for our sins And the blood of Jesus Christ shall purge us from all sin And he is in justifying us still every day he is acquitting our soules and there is a pardon of course to be taken out every day Let us renew and refresh our hearts with the Promises of pardon and forgivenesse of sins every day Let us strengthen our soules with renewing the Promises of grace for that day to walk comfortably before God that he will keep us by his Spirit from sin that he will be a shield and a Sun to us that he will give us wisdome to carry our selves as we should and he will give us his holy Spirit if we beg it Let us every day take these Promises to be Cordials in these dangerous times and then come life come death all shall be welcome why because we are in Christ and have imbraced the Promises and Christ and all in Christ is Yea and Amen it shall go well with us What a wondrous comfortable life would a Christians life be if he could yield the obedience faith answerable to the promises What a shame is it that having such rich promises we should be so loose so changeable that we should be cast down with crosses and lift up with prosperity It is because we believe not the promises of better things therefore we are proud of present things and cast down with present crosses and are fast and loose Now we have good things for the present afterward the devil comes between us and the promises and makes us let go our hold Religion stands on this which makes me to presse it the more If this were well taken to heart and digested we should know what Religion means if we know Christ and the promises all other things will come off All others are but formalities they will never comfort without the confideration of knowing God in Christ and the rich promises to us in Christ. Likewise if this be so that the promises of God in Christ are Yea and Amen This teacheth us how to make use of all former examples of others and of all former goodnesse to our selves Was God merciful to Abraham and to David Our father 's trusted in thee and were not confounded Psal. 22. Therefore he reasons If I trust in God I shall not be confounded for the Promises are Yea and Amen they are true to one as well as another And whatsoever was written afore was written for our comfort Rom. 15. And this is a singular good use we may make of reading of the stories of the Scripture and of holy men that the same God he lives for ever his arm is not shortened he that was is and is to come and therefore we should read histories with application Did God make sure his Promises to them surely he will make sure his Promises to us Had David forgivenesse of sins upon his confession surely so shall we Abraham believed and it was accâ—…ed to him for righteousnesse and â—…o it shall to us if we believe It is alledged for that end Rom. 4. And S. Paul prefixeth his example to all posterity God was mercifull to me and not so onely but to all that believe in him 2 Tim. 2. This is an Use
had at the first as Gods mending is ever for the better The state of grace and glory is better then ever the state of nature was spiritual is better then natural Therefore it is much for the glory of the wisdome of God that he can in Christ reconcile justice and mercy and shew more mercy then ever he did in making man out of the dust of the earth and all is to the glory of God These attributes especially are glorious in the promises in Christ. His Justice is glorious in punishing sin in Christ there sin is odious in the punishing of Christ God-man if we speak of justice there is justice If of Mercy to put it upon our surety for God to give his Son for us there is transcendent mercy and transcendent justice in the punishing of our sin how could it be punished greater And then the glory of his Wisdom to bring these together infinite mercy and infinite justice in Christ. Infinite Power for God to become man and without sin to be so farre abased a humble omnipotency to descend so low that God could be mortal and then to raise himself again And then the glory of his Truth that whatsoever was promised to Abraham to David to the Prophets all was performed in Christ all the Types here is glory by Christ of Mercy Justice Wisdome Truth for all are Yea and Amen in Christ. Therefore he may well say all this is To the glory of God Therefore consider how the glory of God shines in the face of Jesus Christ as the Apostle saith If you would see God see him shining in the face of Jesus Christ see his Mercy shining in Christ and his Justice in the punishing our sin in Christ see his Truth his Power his Wisdome shineing in Christ and shining more then in the Creation or in any thing in the world besides Can you honour God more then in believing the Gospel Can you dishonour him more then to call his truth into question that is Yea and Amen If you believe the Gospel you set to your seal that God is true 1 Joh. 3. What an honour is this that God will be honoured by you in setting to your seal that he is true you give him the glory of all his attributes In not believing what a dishonour do you do to God you deny his Mercy his Wisdome his Justice his Truth you deny all his attributes you make God a liar what a horrible sin is unbelief Therefore fortifie your faith The Devil layeth siege to our faith above all other things if he can shake that he shakes all for holy life goes when faith goes Who will love God or obey God when he knowes not whether he be his God or no Let faith flourish and it will quicken life in the heart Let the promises grow in the heart and the Word be graffed in the heart and all will flourish in a Christians life all will come off clearly and freely obedience will be chearful and free when we see God reconciled in Christ. Then love will be full of devices when I see Gods love to me what shall I do to shew love again to shew thanks to God where is there any that for Cods sake I may do good unto How shall I maintain the truth and resist all opposers of the truth Can I do too much for him that hath done so much for me Love quickens The Devil knowes if he can shake faith he shakes all Let us fortifie faith and we glorifie God more then by any thing else He is glorious in the Gospel and how shall he be so by us except we set our hearts to believe him Therefore let us seal Gods truth by our faith and set to our seales that God is true God vouchsafes to be honoured by weak sinful men believing of him and that faith that honours him he will be sure to honour By us By us Ministers How When the Gospel is preached God is carried in triumph as it were and his banner is set up and the Promises displayed and sinners called unto him and God is glorified by the discovery of these things and faith is wrought in people to whom they are discovered and they glorifie God when they believe they blesse God that ever they heard these tydings so every way God is glorified The Ministers they open as it were the box of sweet oyntment that the savour of it may be in the Church and spread far They lay open the tapestry the rich treasures of Gods mercies they dig deep and find out the treasure Therefore these Promises in Scripture being so made and performed in Christ they tend to Gods glory but by us by our Ministery God to knit man and man together will convey the good he means to convey by the despised Ministery The enemies therefore of the Ministery of the Gospel what are they here is a double prejudice against them they are enemies of the glory of God and of the comfort of Gods people for they glorifie God in the sense of his mercy when it is unfolded to them God gets glory and they comfort What do we think then of Popish spirits that feed the people only with dead and dull ceremonies but let them go I go on to the next Verse having dwelt somewhat long on this VERSE XXI Now he that stablisheth us with you in Christ is God who hath anointed us c. AS the riches of a Christian consisteth in the promises of God which as we have heard in Christ are all Yea and Amen so unlesse he be stablished and built upon this strength all is nothing What if a man stand on a rock if he be not built on it what if the foundation be never so strong if he be not stablished thereon It is not sufficient that the Promises be stablished but we must be stablished upon them The Promises of God are indeed Yea and Amen might the soul say but what is that to me Therefore the Apostle addeth He that gives the Promises will stablish us upon the promises Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ is God The first thing that I will observe before we come to the particular handling of the words shall be onely this in the general from the connexion and knitting together of this Verse with the former viz. That there must be a double Amen There is an Amen in the Promises they are in themselves true there must be an Amen likewise in us we must say Amen to them that is we must be stablished upon them There must be an Echo in a Christians heart unto God that as God saith These and these things I promise and they are all Amen so the soul by faith must Echo again These things are for me I believe them For as we say in the Schooles to good purpose there is a double certainty a double firmnesse a certainty of the Object and a
care not to encrease their knowledge The more we know of God the more we shall trust him The more we know of a man that we have bonds from that he is an able man and just of his word we shall trust him more and the more our security upon his promise and bond is encreased so the more we know of God as he hath revealed himself in his Word and his voluntary Covenant he hath made with us and performed in the examples of Scripture the more we know him the more we shall trust him And this must be a spiritual knowledge not onely a bare naked reading but it must be spiritual like the truth it self We must see and know spiritual things in their own light to know them by their own light is to know them by the Spirit You know the Spirit dictated the Scripture to the Prophets and Apostles the Spirit did all they wrote as they were acted by the Spirit Now the same Spirit must inform our understanding and take away the vail of ignorance and infidelitie I say the Spirit must do it we must know spiritual things in their own light Therefore a carnal man can never be a good Divine though he have never so much knowledge an illiterate man of another calling may be a better Divine then a great Scholar Why Because the one hath onely notional knowledge discoursive knowledge to gather by strength of parts one thing from another Divinity is a kind of Art and as far as it is an Art to prove one thing by another so a natural man may do wonders in it and yet know nothing in its own spiritual light That is the reason the Divel himself knowes nothing he is a spirit of darknesse because he knowes nothing spiritually and comfortably therefore as there must be humility and faith for our stablishing so there must be spiritual knowledge It is said here that God stablisheth us the same God that stablisheth us must give us faith whereby we are stablished and he must give us knowledge Beg of God that he would vouchsafe us his Spirit when we read the Scriptures beg of God that he would open our understanding by his own Spirit that as there is light in the Scriptures so there may be in us You know an eye must have light before it can see the light light is full of discovery of things in it self I can see nothing except there be light in my eye too there must be a double light so there must be a Spirit in me as there is a Spirit in the Scripture before I can see any thing God must open our eyes and give us spiritual eye-salve to see and then the light of the Scripture and our light together is suficient to found a saving faith as stablishing faith on What is the reason that a Christian stands to his profession though he be weak when the greatest learned men in the world flinch in persecution The knowledge of the one is spiritual and heavenly he hatht ligh in him the other hath no divine spiritual light when light is ioyned with light the light in the soul with the light in the Scripture it makes men wondrous confident To this end labour to be acquainted with Gods Word study the Scriptures and other Treatises of that kind that you may be able to hold fast the truth that it be not wrung from you upon any occasion And in reading it is a good course to observe the main principal undeniable truths such Dogmaticall truths as are clear and evident and to lay them up and oft make queries to our selves Do I understanst this or no Yes I do this I know is true build on it then and bottom the soule upon it And so if it be matter of promises these promises are undeniable true I will stay my soul upon them And so when we meet with plain evidences in the Scriptures that crosse our coruptions that meet with our known sins then consider of those places as Jewels and lay them up that you may have use of them as occasion serves All things have not an equall certainty in Scripture to us some things we may have an implicite faith in but the main we must have a clear apprehension of There are some things that concern Teachers more to know then others by reason of their standing in the Church it is sufficient that in preparation of mind we be ready to imbrace further truths that shall be discovered but in fundamentall truths it is not so we must have our hearts stablished upon them that as they are certain in themselves so they may be certain to us And often let us examine our selves Would I die in this and for this would I stand in the defence of this against any this will make us make much of so much truth as we know and labour to grow in truths in that kind And take no scandal to hear that any shrink from the profession of the truth and the maintaining of it that are of great reputation Was Christ the worse for Judas betraying of him and for Peters denying of him was Paul's truth the worse because he had many enemies Elymas the sorcerer and others Is the truth the worse because there are many that have carnall outward dependance that seeme to shrink when they should stand out The truth is not the worse it is the same truth still truths are eternall in themselves and in the good they bring if they be believed The Word of God endures for ever it is not variable as man is and therefore be not discouraged though men discountenance it remember whose truth it is for whose good it is given the Word of God it is a soul saving truth And retain the truth in love Love is an affection with which we should receive the truth or else God will give us over to uncertainties They in 2 Thess. 2 10. had the truth but because they received not the Love of the truth therefore God sent them strong delusions that they should believe a lie O how lovely is the truth The certainty of our estate in Christ the glorious priviledges that come by him that the gifts of God are without repentance that God looks on us not for foreseen faith or works but such as he had decreed to work himself How comfortable how lovely are these truths being the Word of God notwithstanding some seek to shake them These very truths should be retained in love And indeed the truth is not in its own place till it be fixed in the heart and affections and in a good conscience which S. Paul makes likewise the vessel of the truth and those that care not for that they make shipwrack of the truth And what truths you know labour to practise and then you shall be stablished If any man do the will of my Father saith our Saviour Joh. 7. 17. he shall know of the Doctrine whether it be of God
God alone with that but above all beg of God that he would encrease in us and renew the Earnest and the stamp of the Spirit that we may have somewhat in our soules wherein we may see the Evidences of a Christian estate I might adde many things to this purpose but this is sufficient to any Judicious Christian to encourage us to labour for the Spirit above all things in the world all other are but grasse but fading but grace and glory grace and peace and joy nay the very Earnest of the Spirit is better then all earthly things for the Earnest of it is joy unspeakable and glorious and peace that passeth all understanding If the Promise and the Earnest here be so I beseech you what shall the accomplishment of the promise be if the Promises laid hold on by faith so quicken and cheer the soul and if the giving a teste of heaven lift a Christians spirit above all earthly discouragements what shall it be when the Spirit shall be all in all in us if the Earnest be so comfortable But I go on to the next Verse VERSE XXIII Moreover I call God to record upon my soul that to spare you I came not yet to Corinth IN this Verse the Apostle labours to remove suspition of levity and inconstancy there were jealousies in the minds of the Corinthians which were also fomented by some vain-glorious Teachers amongst them that laboured to undermine S. Paul in the hearts of the Corinthians as if he had not loved the Corinthians so well as they did therefore he is so carefull to clear himself in their thoughts from suspition of inconstancy and want of love to them because suspition grounded upon the lightnesse in his carriage might reflect upon his doctrine He knew well enough the malice of mans nature and therefore he is very curious and industrious to make a clear passage for himself into the hearts of these Corinthians by all means possible as we heard in part out of the 17. Verse Moreover I call God to record c. Saint Paul is here purging himself still to clear himself First he labours to clear himself from the suspition of inconstancy and want of love to them in not coming Secondly he sets down the true cause why he did not come I came not to spare you You were much to blame in many things and among the rest of the abominations among you you cherished the incestuous person and many of you doubted of the resurrection I should have been very severe if I had come therefore I came net to spare you hoping that my letter would work upon your spirits so that I need not be severe to you therefore do not suspect that for any ill mind I came not for it was to spare you that I might not be forced to be severe Then the third thing is the sealing of this speech with a serious oath I call God for record upon my soul that I came not to spare you So here is the wâ—…ping away of suspition And the setting down the true cause why he did not come And the ratifying and confirming it by an oath he makes his purgation here by an oath These three things I will briefly touch First of all you see here he avoids suspition of lightnesse which the Corinthians had of him partly by the false suggestion of proud Teachers among them who fomented their suspitious dispositions because they would weaken S. Paul's esteem among the Corinthians they had a conceit he was an uncertain man he promised to come and did not now here he declines that suspition Where first Observe these two things briefly First that the nature of man is inclined to suspition And secondly that it is the duty of men to avoid it as much as may be and to wipe it away if it cannot be avoided Mans nature is prone to suspition Mans nature is prone to suspect ill of another though never so good Christ could not avoid it because he conversed sociably with other men he was thought to be a Wine-bibber a companion of sinners And God himself was suspected of Adam in innocency the Devil is so cunning that he calls God himself into question as if he had not meant so well to him What will that impudent spirit do that will bring the creature in suspition of him that is goodnesse it self God knowes that when you eat your eyes shall be open and you shall be as Gods knowing good and evil Do you think that he intends you any good in forbidding you to eat c He did not spare Christ innocency it self cloathed with mans flesh and will he spare to bring uncharitable suspitions upon others surely he will not And then mans nature of it self is prone to suspect and think ill of another From many grounds Sometimes out of experience of the common infirmities thnt men meet with in the world out of the experience of the falshood of men they are many times prone to suspition But most commonly it is out of guiltinesse that men think ill of others because others have cause to think ill of them none are so prone to suspition as those that are worst themselves because they judge others by their own hearts The better sort of people think of others as they are and as they deserve themselves but others because they are naught they think others are so because they deserve ill they think others have deserved an ill opinion of them so many times it comes of guilt because we are not as we should be Then again it ariseth from a guilty conscience in another respect we think because men have cause though they have no wrong to themselves yet because our own hearts tell us we are ill we suspect them So from an uncharitable disposition and guiltinesse of conscience it oft-times comes Then again sometimes from the concurrence of probabilities the suiting of circumstances that makes things somewhat probable whereupon suspition may be fastened Sometimes when there is a concurrence of probabilities of the likelihood of things there suspition is prone to rise for suspition is not a determining of a thing it is but a slight kind of conceit it is more then a fear and lesse then judgment of a thing It is more then fear for he that fears suspects not suspition is a degree to judgment it doth not fully judge for then it were not suspition it is more then fear suspects not but fears It conceives slightly that such a thing should be done and yet he dares not say it is done Suspition is nothing else but an inclination of the soul to think and imagine ill of another a looking curiously under a thing or person As we use to say Envy pries into things an envious person searcheth so a suspitious person looks under to see if he can see matter of ill to fasten his ill soul upon So it inclines the soul to think
from us he takes occasion from our sins but he is merciful from his own bowels he is good from himself we provoke him to be severe and just therefore be we never so miserable in regard of sin and the fruits of sin yet he is the Father of mercy of free mercy mercy from himself mercy pleaseth him Micah 7. he is delighted in it Now that which is natural comes easily as water from the fountain comes without violence and heat from the fire comes without any violence because it is natural A Mother pitties her child because it is natural there is a sweet instinct of nature that moves and pricks forward nature to that affection of love that she bears to her child So it is with God it is nature in him to be merciful to his because they are his Mercy is his nature we are his we being his his nature being merciful he will be merciful to all that are his to such as repent of their sins and lay hold of his mercy by a true faith His word shewes likewise his mercy there is not one attribute set down more in Scripture then mercy it is the name whereby he will be known Exod. 34. where he describes it and tells us his name what is the name of God his long suffering and mercy c. there is a long description of of God in that place David in Psal. 3. besides that which is in every Prophet almost hath the fame description of God to comfort Gods people in his time in Psal. 86. 103. 145. there is the same description of God as there is in Moses he is merciful and long suffering c. he describes himself to be so and his promises are promises of mercy At what time soever a sinner repents and without limitation of sins all sins shall be forgiven the blood of Christ purgeth us from all sin If there be no limitation of persons whomsoever of sins whatsoever or of time whensoever here is a ground that we should never despair God is the Father of mercies It is excellent that the Prophet hath in Isai. 55. 7. to prevent the thoughts of a dejected soul Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and return to the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon I but I have abused mercy a long time I have lived in sin and committed great sins well notwithstanding that see how he answers it My thoughts are not your thoughts you are vindictive if a man offend you you are ready to aggravate the fault and to take revenge c. But my thoughts are not as your thoughts nor my wayes as your wayes saith the Lord for as far as the heaven is above the earth so are my thoughts above your thoughts and my wayes above your wayes We have narrow poor thoughts of mercy because we our selves are given to revenge and we are ready when we think of our sins to say can God forgive them can God be merciful to such c. My thoughts are not as your thoughts nor my wayes as your wayes It is good to consider this and it is a sweet meditation for the time undoubtedly will come that unlesse Gods mercy and Gods thoughts should be as him self is infinite unlesse his wayes should be infinitly above our wayes and his thoughts infinitly above ours in mercy certainly the soul would receive no comfort The soul of a Christian acquainted with the word of God knows that Gods mercy is as himself is infinite and his thoughts this way are as himself is infinite Therefore the Scripture sets down the mercies of God by all dimensions There is the depth of Wisedom but when he comes to speak of love and mercy as it is in Ephes. 3. Oh the depth and bredth and height of this Indeed for height it is higher then the heavens for depth it fetcheth the soul from the nether most-deep we have deep miserie out of the deep Icryed to thee yet notwithstanding his mercy is deeper then our misery O the depth of his mercy there is a depth of mercy deeper then any misery or rebellion of ours though we have sunk deep in rebellion And for the extent ofthem as I said before his mercy is over all his workes it extends to the utmost parts of the earth The scripture doth wonderfully enlarge his mercie beyond all dimensions whatsoever These things are to good purpose and it is a mercy to us that he sets forth himself in mercy in his word because the soul sometime or other when it is awakned as every one that God delights in is awakened first or last it needs all this it is all little enough God is merciful to those that are heavy laden that feel the burden of their sins upon their souls such as are touched with the sence of their sins God still meets them half way he is more ready to pardon then they are to ask mercy As we see in the prodigall when he had wasted all when he was as low as a man could be when he was come to huskes and when he had despised his fathers admonition yet upon resolution to return when he was stung with the sence of his sins his father meets him and entertains him he upbraids him not with his sin Take sin with all the aggravations we can yet if we repent and resolve uppon new courses there is comfort though we relapse into sin again and again if we must pardon 10. times 7. times as Christ saith certainly there cannot be more mercy in the Cistern then there is in the fountain there cannot be more mercy in us then there is in the Father of mercies as God is Take sin in the aggravations in the greatnesse of it Manasses sin Peters denying of his Master the thief on the crosse and Pauls persecution take sin as great as you will he is the father of mercies If we consider that God is infinite in mercy and that the scripture reveals him as the Father of mercies there is no question but there is abundance a world of comfort to any distressed soul that is ready to cast it self on Gods mercy For those that are converted that are in the state of Grace Is God the father of mercies Let this stir us up to imbrace mercy every day to live by mercy to plead mercy with God in our daily breaches to love and fear God because there is mercy with him that he might be feared It is a harder matter to make a daily sweet use of this then it is taken for Those that are the fittest subjects for mercy they think themselves furthest off from mercy Come to a broken soul who is catched in the snare whose conscience is on the rack he thinks alas there is no mercy for me I have been such a sinner God hath shewed me mercy before and now I have offended him again and again those that are the
would never have us in a state of despair For other grievances besides sin the comforts that we are to apply are more easie and they are infinite if we could reckon the particular comforts that God comforts his Children withall It is good to have generall comforts readie for all kind of maladies and grievances and this poor wretched life of ours in our absence from God is subject to As for instance that general comfort the Covenant of grace that is a spring of comfort that God is our God and Father in Christ what can come from a gracious and good God in covenant with us but that which is good nothing but what is favourably good I mean For the covenant is everlasting when God takes once upon him to be our Father in Covenant he is so for ever Dum castigas pater c. While he corrects he is a father and when he smiles upon us he is a father God in the covenant of Grace takes upon him a relation that ever holds as he is for ever the Father of Christ so he is for ever the Father of those that are members of Christ and whatsover comes from the Father of mercy whether he correct or smile whatsoever he doth is in mercy Again in the middest of any grievance remember the gracious promise of mitigation 1 Cor. 10. 13. God will not suffer us to be tempted above our strength but he will give an issue to the temptation he will give a mitigation and either he will raise our strength to the temptation or he will bring the temptation and trial to our strength he will fit them and this is a comfort There is comfort likewise in all troubles whatsoever of the presence of God God will be present with us if once we be in Covenant with him he will be present in all trials to assist us to strengthen us to comfort us to raise our spirits And if God be present he will banish all discomforts for God is light and where light is darknesse vanisheth Now God being the Father of light that is of all comfort where he is present he banisheth discomfort in what measure he is pleased to banish it Therefore David often reasoneth from the presence of God to the defiance of all troubles Psal. 3. If God be with me I will not fear ten Thousand that are against me And in Psal. 23. Though I walk in the valley of the shaddow of death I will not fear for thou art with me And if God be with us who can be against us Rom. 8. And when thou passest through the fire I will be with thee c. I will be with thee not to keep thee out but to uphold thee As he did the Mariyrs there was a fire of comfort in them above that fire that consumed their bodies and as we see he was with the Three Children there was a fourth like the Son of God So in all tribulations there is another with us that is the Spirit of God that comforts us in all and is present with us in all The Goldsmith when he puts the wedge into the fire he stands by till the drosse be consumed so God is with his Children in the furnace of affliction he brings them into affliction he continues with them in affliction and he brings them at last out of affliction The presence of God is a main and a Grand comfort in all tribulation Besides in all that befalls us whatsoever consider the end all is for a good end All things work together for the best to them that love God saith St. Paul Why do we endure Physick because we know the Physitian is wise and he is our friend and he doth it to carry away burdensome hurtful humours we shall be better and lighter afterwards do we do this in our common course in the things of this life Grace will much more certainly teach us to do it to reason it is from a father and it is for my good Let us look whence it comes and what it tends to with the promise of mitigation and of Gods presence in our troubles these are main comforts if we could think of them if the Divel did not take them out of our memorie And for the first ground of comfort that God doth comfort us withall in all tribulations it is the promise of finall deliverance and finall comfort for ever if none will raise our souls that will when we shall consider that it will not be long The short afflctions in this world bring an eternal weight of glory there will be a finall deliverance Life it self that is the subject that receives affliction that is short our life is but a moment therefore our afflictions must be short Life is longer then discomforts there is but a peece of our life subject to miseries and if that be but a vapour but a moment and as a point between eternity before and eternity after what are the miseries of this life certainly they are but for a moment Therefore the promise of final deliverance when all teares shall be wiped from our eyes this should comfort us if nothing else would This is the way therefore whereby God usually comforts by suggesting the heads and springs of comfort And indeed there is a daily method of comforting whereby we may comfort our selves in all crosses if we would use that daily method and order of comfort As there is a kind of diet to keep the bodie in temper so there is a kind of spirituall diet to keep the soul in temper in a course of comfort unlesse it be when God takes liberty to cast down for some special end as we see in Job Therefore let us take this course for God as he comforteth us so he comforts us as understanding creatures he useth our understanding to consider how we should comfort our selves and after we are once in a state of comfort if we be not wanting to our selves there is no great difficultie to keep our comfort there are meanes to keep daily comfort God hath provided them and he will be present to make good all his comforts Grant it therefore that we are in the covenant of Grace that God is our Father in Christ and we take him to be our God to be all sufficient then to keep our selves in a daily temper for comfort every day keep our souls tender that we may be capable of comfort keep the wound open that we may receive balme that there grow not a deadnesse upon the heart considering that while we live here there is alway some sin in us that must be wrought out by some course or other let us trie and search our souls what ill is in the wound let us keep it open and tender that there may be a fitnesse for mercy to receive the balme of comfort which will not be if we slubber over Certainly it is an excellent course every day to search our
hearts and wayes and presently to apply the balme of comfort the promise of pardon take the present when we have searched the wound to get pardon and forgivenesse daily as we sin daily Christ bids us ask it daily This will make us fit for comfort by discerning the estate of our souls and the remainders of corruption That which sharpens appetite and makes the balme of God to be sweet indeed is the sence of and the keeping open of our wound a daily search into our wants and weaknesses a daily fresh sight of the body of sin in us and experience how it is fruitful in ill thoughts and desires and actions this will drive us to a necessity of daily comfort And certainly a fresh sight of our corruptions it is never without some fresh comfort We see St. Paul Rom. 7. he sets himself to this work to complain of his indisposition by reason of sin in him and how doth he end that sight and search into his own estate he ends in a triumphing manner Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus After he had complained Oh miserable man that I am who shall deliver me from this bodie of death There can be no danger in a deep search into our waies and hearts if this be laid as a ground before that there is more supplie and heavenly comfort in God and the promises of God then there can be ill in our souls then the more ill we find in our selves the more we are disposed to fetch grounds of comfort from God And together with this searching of our souls and asking daily pardon let us for the time to come renew our covenant with God that we may have the comfort of a good conscience to get pardon for our sins past and renew our resolutions for the time to come And withall that we may use an orderly course of comfort let us every day feed on Christ the food of life let us every day feed upon something in Christ consider the death of Christ the satisfaction he hath made by his death his intercession in Heaven his blood runs afresh that we may every day feed on it We may run every day into new offences against the law to new neglect of duty into new crosses let us feed upon Christ he came into the World to save sinners to make us happie with peace of conscience here and with Glorie afterward Let us feed on Christ daily as the bodie is fed with cordialls so this feeds and comforts and strengthens the soul. This is to live by faith to lead our lives by faith to feed on Christ every day And likewise if we will keep our souls in a perpetual temper of comfort let us every day meditate of some prerogatives of Christians that may raise our souls Let us single out some or other As for example that excellent prerogative to be the Sons of God What love saith the Apostle that we of Rebels and Traitors in Christ should be made the sons of God That of slaves we should be made Servants of servants sons of sons heires and of heires fellow-heires with Christ what prerogative is this that God should give his Son to mak us that were Rebels sons heires and fellow heires with Christ And to consider what follows upon this liberty that we have from the curse of the Law to goe to God boldly to go to the throne of Grace through Christ our elder brother by prayer to think of eternall life as our inheritance to think of God above as our Father Let us think of our prerogatives of Religion adoption and justification c. Upon necessity we are driven to it if we consider the grievances of this world together with our corruptions our corruptions and afflictions and temptations and desertions one thing or other will drive us to go out of our selves for comfort to feed on the benefits by Christ. And consider what he hath done it is for us the execution of his office and all for us what he is what he did what he suffered what procured all is for us The soul delighting it self in these prerogatives it will keep the soul in a perpetuall estate of comfort Therefore the Scripture sets forth Christ by all terms that may be comfortable he is the door to let us in He is the way the truth and the life the water and the bread c. In sinne he is our righteousness in death he is our life in our ignorance he is our way in spirituall hunger and thirst he is the bread and water of life he is all in all And if we cannot think of some prerogative of Christianity then think of some promise as I said before think of the Covenant of Grace there is a spring of comfort in that that God in Christ is our God to death and for ever and that promise I speak of that All things shall work for the best Let us every day think of these things and suggest them to our owne souls that our souls may be affected with them and digest them that our souls and they may be one as it were And every day stirre up our hearts to be thankfull a thankfull heart can never want comfort for it cannot be done without some comfort and chearefulness and when God receives any praise and glory he answers it with comfort a thankfull heart is alway comfortable And let us stirre up our hearts to be fruitfull in the holy actions the reward of a fruitfull life is a comfortable life besides Heaven God alway in this life gives a present reward to any good action it is rewarded with peace of conscience Besides it is a good foundation against the evil day every good action as the Apostle sayth to Timothie it layes up a good foundation The more good we do the more we are assured that our faith is not hypocritical but sound and good and will hold out in the time of tryall It will be a good foundation that we have had evidence before that we have a sound and fruitful faith What do wicked men carelesse sinful creatures that go on in a course of prophanenesse and blasphemie c they lay a ground of despaire a ground of discomfort to be swallowed up in the evil day then conscience will be awaked at the last and Satan will be ready to joyn with conscience and conscience will seal all the accusations that Satan layes against them and where is the poor soul then As it is with them so on the contrary the Christian soul that doth good besides the present comfort of a good conscience it layes a good foundation against the time to come for in the worst times it can reason with it self my faith is not fruitlesse I am not an hypocrite though the fruits of it be weak and mixed with corruptions yet there is truth in them this will comfort us when nothing
to do this daily so when we are to comfort others we ought not onely to comfort them but to search them as much as we can what sin is in them and what miserie is upon them and acquaint them with their own estate that they are in as far as we can discerne we may judge of them partly by our selves For we must not prostitute comforts to persons that are indisposed till we see them fitted God doth comfort but it is the abject Christ heales but is the wounded spirit he came to seek but it is to those that are lost he came to ease but it is those that are heavy laden Therefore that we may comfort them to purpose we ought to shew and discover to them what estate they are in that we may force them to comfort if they be not enemies to comfort and to their own souls He is an unwise Physitian that administers cordials before he gives preparatives to carry away the noysome humours they will do little good we ought therefore to prepare them this way if we intend to do them good And then when we see what need they stand in bring them to Christ and the Covenant of Grace that is the best way to comfort them to bring them to see that God is their father when we discern some signs of grace in them For this is the maine stop in all comfort that there is none but they shall find by experience they are ready to say you teach wondrous comforts that there is an inheritance in heaven that God hath provided and on earth there is an issue of all for good and there is a presence of God in troubles this is true but how shall I know this belongs to me This is the cavil of flesh and blood that turnes the back to the most heavenly comforts that are The main and principal thing therefore in dealing with others and with our own hearts is to let them see that there are some signs and evidencies that they are in the covenant of grace that they belong to God Unlesse we see that all the comfort we can give them is to tell them that they are not yet sunk into hell and that they have space to repent But as long as men live in sinful courses that they are not in the state of Grace we can tell them no comfort except they will devise a new Scripture a new Bible if they do so they may have comfort but this word of God and God herein speaks no comfort to persons that live in sin and will do so we should labour therefore to discern some evidence that they are in the state of Grace And ofttimes those are indeed most intitled to comfort that think it furthest from them therefore we should acquaint them with the conditions of the covenant of grace that God looks to truth therefore if we discern any true broken humble spirit a hungring and a thirsting after righteousnesse and a desire of comfort Blessed are those that hunger and thirst it belongs to them we may comfort them If we see spiritual poverty that they see their wants and would be supplied blessed are the poore in spirit be of good comfort Christ calls such If they see and feel the burden of their sins we may comfort them Christ calls them Come unto me yee that are weary and heavy laden If we descern spiritual and heavenly desires to grow in grace and overcome their corruptions if we discover and descern this in their practise and obedience God will fulfil the desires of them that fear him And he accepts the will for the deed There is a desire of happinesse in nature that comforts not a man it is no sign of grace to desire to be free from hell and to be in heaven it is a naturall desire every creature wishes well to heaven but if there be a desire of the meanes that tend to heaven a desire of Grace these are evidences of grace these are the pulses that we may find grace by when they see their infirmities and groane under them and would be better and complain that they are not better and are out of love with their own hearts there is a combat in their hearts they are not friends with themselves When we see this inward conflict and a desire to better and to get victories against their corruptions though there be many corruptions and weaknesses a man may safely say they are in the state of Grace they are on the mending hand For Christ will not break the brused reed nor quench the smoaking flax And where he hath begun a good work he will perfect it to the day of the Lord. He will cherish these weak beginnings therefore we may comfort them on good ground Then besides that in our dealing with them when we have discovered by some evidence that they belong to the covenant that we see by some love to good things and to Gods Image in his Children and by other evidences then we may comfort them boldly and then to fetch from our own experience what a comfort will it be to such When we can say my estate was as yours is I found those corruptions that you groane under I allowed not my self in them as you do not when a man can say from his own experience that notwithstanding these I have evident signs of Gods spirit that I am his then he can comfort others by his own experience And what a comfort is it to go to the experiments of scripture it is an excellent way As now let a man be deserted of God David will comfort him by his experience Psal. 77. Where he saith he found God as his enemie and as Job saith the terrors of God drank up his spirit be of good comfort David would come and comfort thee if he were alive If the terror of God be against thee for sin that thy conscience is awakned be of good comfort Christ if he were on earth would shew thee by his own example that he indured that desertion on the Cross. My God my God why hast thou forsaken me If thou be molested and vexed with Satan Job will comfort thee by his example his book is most of it combating and comfort and so for all other grievances go to the scriptures whatsoever is written is written for our learning Pray to God and he will heare thee as he did Elias Oh but Elias was an excellent man The scripture prevents the objection Jam. 5. he was a man subject to infirmities if God heard him he will hear thee Believe in Christ as Abraham did the Father of the faithful in the promised Messias and he will forgive thee all thy sins Oh but he had a strong faith What hath the scripture to take away this objection In Rom. 5. This was not written for Abraham onely but for those that believe with the faith of Abraham I but I am a wretched sinner there
flesh is purged and the Spirit strengthened and weaning from the world is wrought and a desire to heaven By the daily crosses we suffer as men not for Religion we are much bettered and those in some sort may be called the sufferings of Christ because by them we are conformed to Christ more in holinesse we grow more out of love with the World and more heavenly minded This distinction is necessary to know which are best the sufferings of Christians as good men It is a point I say of wonderous comfort that we should be conformable in our sufferings with our Head Christ Jesus our Glorified head in heaven is it not a wonderous comfort Nay is it not a glory It is a wondrous glory that God will set us apart to do any thing that God will take any thing of us much more that he will single us out to be Champions in his quarrel and more that he will triumph in us that the comfort shall abound To give an instance if a Monarch should redeem a slave a Traitor from Prison and take him to fight in the Quarrel of his own son to be his Champion were it not an honour so the very sufferings for Christ are an encouragement the disgraces and whatsoever they are that we suffer in a good cause they are ensigns of honour they are badges of honour of Christian knighthood If a Golden Fleece or a Garter or such things be accounted so highly of and glorified in because they are favours c. much more should the sufferings for Christ be glorified in as ensigns of the love God and of our Christian profession when we fight under Christs Banner we are like to Christ we are conformable to him he went before and we follow his steps and if we suffer with him we shall be Glorified with him Therefore be not discouraged that which we think to be matter of discouragement it should be our Crown it is our Crown to suffer reproach in a good cause It is a sign God favours us when he takes our credit our goods or our life to honour himself by Is it not an honour to us doth he take any thing from us but he gives us better he takes our goods but he gives us himself he takes our liberty but he gives us enlargement of conscience he takes our life but he gives us heaven if he take any thing from us for to seal his truth and stand out in his quarrel as Christ saith he gives an hundred fold in this World that is a gracious spirit of contentment and comfort We have God himself hath not he more that hath the spring then he that hath twenty Cisterns Those that have riches and place and friends they have Cisterns but he that suffers for God and for Christ he hath Christ he hath God he hath the spring to go to if all be taken from him he hath God the spring to go to if all particular Beams he hath the Sun It is durable wondrous comfort to suffer for Christs sake Therefore let it encourage us in a good course notwithstanding all the opposition we meet with in the World let us here learn what is our duty let the malicious world judge or say or do what they will if God be on our side who can be against us And if we suffer any thing for Christ he suffers with us and in us and he will triumph in us over all these sufferings at last I will add no more to set an edge upon that I have said then this they are the sufferings of Christ we should be many wayes encouraged to suffer for him For did not he suffer for us that which if all the creatures in heaven and earth had suffered they would have sunk under it the wrath of God And what good have we by his sufferings are we not freed from Hell and Damnation and have we not Title to Heaven hath he suffered in his person so much for us and shall not we be content to suffer for him and his mystical body that in his own body suffered so much for us Again when we suffer in his quarrel we suffer not only for him that suffered for us but we suffer for him that sits at the right hand of God that is glorious in heaven The King of Kings and Lord of Lords Our sufferings are sufferings for him that hath done so much for us and for him that is so able now to over-rule all to crush our enemies for him that is so able now to minister comfort by his Spirit This is a notable encouragement that they are the sufferings of Christ that is so glorious as he is and that will reward every suffering and every disgrace we shall be paid well for every suffering we shall lose nothing And will not this encourage us likewise to suffer for Christs sake because he will be with us in all our sufferings he will not leave us alone it is his cause and he will stand by his own cause he will maintain his own quarrel he will cause comfort to increase Is it not an encouragement to defend a Princes quarrel in his own sight when he stands by to abet us it would encourage a dull mettle When we suffer for Christs cause we have Christ to defend us he is with us in all our sufferings to bear us up he puts his shoulder under by his holy Spirit to support us We cannot live long in this world we owe God a death we owe nature a death the sentence of death is past upon us we cannot enjoy the comfort of this World long and for favour and applause of the World we must leave it and it will leave us we know not how soon and this meditation should inforce us to be willing however it go with us for any thing here for life or goods or friends or credit and reputation or whatsoever to be willing to seal the cause of Christ with that which is dearest to us If we suffer with him we shall be glorified with him The very sufferings of Christ are better then the most glorious day of the greatest Monarch in the world that is not a Christian it is better to suffer with Christ then to joy with the world The very abasement of St. Paul was better then the triumph of Nero. Let Moses be judge he judged it the best end of the ballance the very sufferings and reproach of Christ and of Religion is better then the best thing in the world the worst thing in Christianity is better then the best thing out of Christ. The best thing out of Christ is the honour of a King the honour of a Prince to be a Kings Son c. but the reproach of Christ for a good cause is better then the best thing in the world I say let Moses be judge if we will not believe it our selves till we feel it the worst day of a Christian is better then the best day of
whose company they will not be severed from now If thou see an Adulterer a Blasphemer a wicked licentious Atheisticall person and thou runnest into the same excesse of riot with him thou wilt not be drawn by any perswasions ministeriall or friendly or by thine own light which knows his course to be naught to retire from his society dost thou not think to share with him afterwaâ—…d in his judgment As you are all Tares so you shall be bound in a bundle and cast into Hell together As the wheat shall be gathered into Heaven so the tares a cursed company that will cleave together though they be damned for it as they clave together as burrs and tares here so they shall be cast into Hell together that is the end of dissolute unruly creatures that nothing will sever them from those who in their own consciences they know rheir courses to be naught Our hope of you is steadfast There is a double certainty a certainty of the truth of the thing and a certainty of the estate of the person The certainty of the truth is this Those that suffer with Christ his Church shall be glorified with Christ and his Church the certainty of the truth is more certain then Heaven and Earth Now besides the certainty of the truth or thing there is interposed a certainty of the persons that as they were interessed in the sufferings so they should be in the comforts And this is true as well as the former for Gods promises are not meer Idea's wanting truths that have no performance in the persons but if the thing be true it is true in the person to whom the truth belongs Suffering goes before Glorie therefore if we suffer we shall be glorified But this is the condition if they suffer with Christ then St. Paul takes it for certain that they shall be glorified with Christ. There is not the same certainty of the persons as of the truth it self the truth is certain by a certainty of faith but the certainty of the persons is the certainty of a charitable perswasion I am perswaded that you will suffer with me in sympathie and therefore I am perswaded in the certainty of charity that you shall of a certain have the comfort Our hope of you is steadfast St. Paul you see hath a good conceit of them that he might incourage them to sympathize and take to heart his crosses and to take good by them A good hope of others hath a double efficacy It hath one efficacy in the partie that hath the good hope of another It stirs him up to be diligent to take all courses that may be for the good of another As the speech is Hope stirs up to work it stirs up endeavour so it doth in the husband-man and in every kind of trade hope quickens endeavour A man will never sowe upon the sands he loseth his cost a man will never bestow his pains upon those that he thinks are desperate And what is it that dulls and deads endeavour I despair of ever doing such a man good when those despairing thoughts enter into the soul there is a stop of all endeavour And surely Christians are much to blame that way when they might have ground if charity were in them at least of hope of others upon some hard despairing conceits they cast off hope and so neglect all endeavour of doing good to others The Spirit of God is wittie in the hearts of his Children to observe all advantages of doing good therefore it is willing to entertain all offers of good in others if they be but willing to hear reproof if they be willing to hear comfort and to hear good discourse it will make a good construction of their errours if it may be except it be those that are maliciously obstinate it will impute it to passion or to ill company to one thing or other as far as possible it will admit of a good construction love in Gods Children will admit of it and love stirs up to hope and hope stirs up to deal with them for their good I know that charity is not sottish but yet it is willing to think the best where there is probability of good for the present or where there is a tractablenesse where there is a willingnesse to entertain communion where there is any propension we must be of our blessed Saviours disposition who will not quench the smoaking flax nor break the bruised Reed we must draw all and drive none away This is one speciall fruit and effect that hope hath in the partie that doth hope toward another Now as it is good for the Speaker to be well conceited so it is a good preparative in the Hearer it hath a winning power in the partie hoped of it is a great attractive for we willingly heare those that conceit good of us St. Paul here works upon the naturall disposition in all which is that they love to be well thought of and natural dispositions are strong It is the natural disposition for every man to love where he is well thought of and it is not sinful unless it be in vain-glory to desire to have good place in the esteem of others And there a man will labour to carrie himself answerable to the good conceit had of him There is a conflict in the worst man where he is well conceitd of he labours to maintain it except it be those that are mightily inthralled as some wretches are to blasphemie and to a cursed life that they care not but else if they be well thought of it will stirre them up to maintain it he is a dissolute man he is not a man so farre as he is careless of this he is brutish and sensless St. Paul in saying Our hope is stedfast concerning you He wins himself into their good opinion and so by that meanes he hoped to prevail with them for greater matters So hope it stirs up men to do good and it makes the other willing to receive good for it makes them willing to content them that hope well of them St. Paul was led with this heavenly wisdome and that which made him so industrious was hope of prevailing and that which made him prevaile with others was the good conceit he had of them He would gather upon every one when he saw Agrippa come on a little Agrippa believest thou the Scriptures I know thou believest Almost thou perswadest me to be a Christian saith he and so he comes in a little It is good as much as may be to have hope of others But what is his degree of hope Our hope of you Is stedfast He had a stedfast hope that if they were sufferers they should be partakers of the comfort The Observation may be this that Divine truthes are such as we may build a stedfast hope on the performance of them Divine truthes divine comforts they are of that nature that though we doe not yet injoy them
he not onely greives but with Achitophel he goes to ill courses it is a sign he trusted too much and too basely to them before Again when the enjoying of these things is joyned with contempt and base esteem of others it is a sign that we rest too much in them there is more trust put to them then they should bear we should not in the enjoying of honour or riches or pleasures or any thing think the meaner of others Especially security shewes that we trust too much in them when we bless our selves I shall do well Soul soul thou hast goods laid up for many years saith the foole and he was but a foole for it to promise certainty for uncertainty A man cannot stand in that which cannot stand it self to promise life in a dying condition to promise any thing in this world when the very nature of them is uncertain Thou foole saith the Scripture If his soul had been so full of faith as his Barnes were of Corn he would never have said Soul soul take thy rest for these things but he would have trusted in God It is a sign we trust too much to these things when we secure our selves all will be well and blesse our selves as the Scripture speaks Again it is a sign we trust too much to these things when upon confidence of these things we go to ill and unwarrantable courses and think to be born out by these things As when the younger sort shall pour forth themselves to vanity and are carelesse of swearing and licentiousnesse that they care not what to do they shall live long enough to repent c. This is a diabolicall trust that God will give them no security in So when men that have riches will venture on bad causes and think to carrie it out with their purse they trust in matter of oppression and think to bear out the matter with their friends or with their place or with their wits this is false trust Thy wisdom hath caused thee to rebell as the Prophet saith concerning Babylon they thought they had reaching heads and so ventured upon rebellious courses When any of these outward things draw us to unwarrantable unjustifiable courses it is a sign we plant too much confidence in them and it is a sign if we belong to God that he intends to crosse us in them The very confidence in these things hath drawn many to ill courses to do that that they should not do as good Josias Hezechias David and the rest Thus we see how we should examine our selves whether we trust too much in these things or no. Now since we are thus prone to this false confidence and since we may thus discern it if we discerne it in our selves how shall we cure it That in the next doctrine That we might not trust in our selves From whence observe It is a dangerous state to trust in our selves This ill disposition to trust in our selves or any thing out of our selves but onely in God in whom we should trust it is dangerous For a man may reason thus from the text That which God is forced to take such desparate courses for as to bring such an excellent man as St. Paul to such extremity and all that he should not trust in himself that he was not onely prone to but it was a dangerous estate for him but God brings him to deaths doore that he received the sentence of death that he might not trust in himself that he might see the nothingnesse of all things else therefore it was a dangerous estate for him to trust in himself It is ill in respect of God Our selves In respect of God to trust to our selves or the creature is to Idolize our selves or the creature we make an Idol of the thing we trust in we put God out of his place and set up that we trust in in Gods roome and so provoke God to jealousie VVhen men shall trust their wits in matters of Religion as in Popery they do they serve God after their own inventions what a dishonour is it to God as if he were not wise enough to prescribe how he will be worshipped Go after me Satan saith Christ to Peter he calls him Divell why what hurt was it he came with a good intention That which Popery think they please God most in they are Divells in and these things that they teach are the doctrines of Divells But the wisdom of the flesh is death it is not subject to the law of God nor can be subject saith the Apostle Rom. 8. So it is dangerous because it is offensive to God There is a way that seemeth right in a mans own eyes the issues whereof are the issues of Death It is Idolatry in regard of God And it is spirituall Adultery for what should take up our affections should we not place our joy our delight which follows our trust alway for trust carries the whole soul with it what should take up our joy and delight should not God and Heaven and Heavenly things should not these things have place in our hearts as they have in their own worth when we take these affections from God and place them upon the creature they are Adulterous affections when we love riches or pleasures better then God that gave us all it is an Adulterous whorish Love Oh ye Adulterer s and Adulteresses saith blessed St. James know ye not that the love of this world is enmity with God It is likewise falshood for it makes the creature to be that that it is not and it makes God that which he is not we despise him and set up the creature in his roome There is a false witnesse alway in false confidence indeed there are many sins in it There is Ignorance not knowing the creature to be so vain as it is there is Ignorance of God not knowing him to be All in all as he is And there is rebellion to trust in the Creature when God will not have it trusted in And there is impatience when these supports are taken away then men grow to murmuring There is almost all sins hidden in self-confidence and self-sufficiencie you see the danger of it to God Besides that it is dangerous to our selves it brings us under a curse Cursed is the man that maketh flesh his armes Jer. 17. that trusts in any thing but God It brings us under a curse as I said because it is Idolatry and spiritual Adultery And then again because leaning to a false prop that being taken away that shored us up before down we fall with that we leaned on Now all things but God being vanity we relying upon that which is vain our trust is vain as the thing is vain we can hope for no better condition then the things we trust to they are vain and we are vain so there is a curse upon them Therefore we have great cause to hate
death yet I shall sleep in the Lord as when I goe to sleep I hope to rise again so I trust when the resurrection shall come that my body shall waken and arise I trust in God that raiseth the dead because he raiseth the dead he can recover me if he will if not he will make this body a glorious body afterward so every way it was a strong argument with Saint Paul I trust in God that raiseth the dead The Apostle draws an argument of comfort from Gods power in raising the dead And it is a true reason a good argument he that will raise the dead body out of the grave he can raise out of miserie out of captivity the argument is strong Thus God comforts his people in Ezek. 37. in that parable of the drie bones that he put life in So the blessed Apostle St. Paul he speaks of Abraham Rom. 4. 17. He looked to God who quickneth the dead who calleth things that are not as though they were What made Abraham to trust in God that he would give him Isaac again he considered if God can raise Isaac from the dead if he please he can give me Isaac back again and though Isaac were the sonne of promise yet he trusted Gods Word more then Isaac the sonne of his love Why he knew that God could raise him from the dead though he had sacrificed him he trusted in God who quickneth the dead The resurrection then is an argument to stengthen our faith in all miseries whatsoever It strengthens our faith before death and in death I will not enter into the common place of that point concerning the resurrection it would be tedious and unjust beause it is not intended here but onely it is used as a special argument Therefore I will but touch that point God will raise us from the dead Nature is more offended at this then any other thing But St. Paul makes it cleare that it is not against nature that God should raise the dead 1 Cor. 15. To speake a little of it and then to speake of the use the Apostle made of it and of the use that we may make of it Saith the Apostle in that place speaking to witty Atheists that thought to have cavilled out the resurrection from the dead Thou fool thou speakest against nature if thou think it altogether impossible Look to the seed do we not see that God every spring raiseth things that were dead We see in the silk-worm what an alteration there is from a flie to a worm c We see what men can doe by Art they make glasses of what of Ashes We see what nature can doe which is the ordinary providence of God we see what it can do in the bowels of the earth What is gold and silver and pearle is it not water and earth excellently digested exquisitely concocted and digested That there should be such excellent things of so base a creature We see what Art and nature can do If Art and nature can do so great things why do we call in question the power of God if God have revealed his Will to do so why do we doubt of this great point of Gods raising the dead The Ancients had much adoe with the Pagans about this point they handled it excellently as they were excellent in those points which they were forced to by the adversaries and indeed they were especially sound in those points I say they were excellent and large in the handling of this but I will not stand upon that it is an Article of our Creed I believe the resurrection of the body Indeed he that believeth the first Article of the Creed he will easily believe the last he that believes in God the Father Almighty maker of heaven and earth he will easily believe the resurrection of the body But I will rather come to shew the Use of it God will raise the dead Therefore Gods manner of working is when there is no hope in extremity as I touched before he raiseth us but it is when we are dead he doth his greatest works when there is least hope So it is in the resurrection out of troubles as in the resurrection of the body when there is no hope at all no ground in nature but it must be his power altogether that must do it then he falls to work to raise the dead Therefore our faith must follow his working he raiseth the dead he justifies a sinner but it is when he is furthest from grace a sinner despairing of all mercie then he hath the most need of justification He raiseth the dead but it is then when they are nothing but dust then it is time for him to work to raise the dead He restores but it is that which is lost God never forgets his old work this was his old manner of working at the first still every day he useth it he made all of nothing order out of confusion light out of darkness This was in the creation and the like he doth still he never forgets his old work This St. Paul being acquainted with he fastneth his hope and trust upon such a God as will raise the dead Therefore make that use of it that the Apostle doth when the Church is in any calamity which is as it were a death when it is as in that 37. of Ezekiel drie bones Comfort your selves God comforted the Church there that he would raise the Church out of Babylon as he raised those dead bones the one is as easie as the other So in the government of the Church continually he brings order out of confusion light out of darkness and life out of death that is out of extream troubles when men think themselves dead when they think the Church dead past all hope then he will quicken and raise it so that he will never forget this course till he have raised our dead bodies and then he will finish that manner of dispensation This is Gods manner of working We must answer it with our faith that is in the greatest dejection that can be to trust in God that raiseth the dead Faith if it be true it will answer the ground of it but when it is carried to God it is carried to him that raiseth the dead therefore though it be desperate every way yet notwithstanding I hope above hope I hope in him whose course is to raise the dead who at the last will raise the dead and still delights in a proportion to raise men from death out of all troubles and miseries Well this God doth and therefore carrie it along in all miseries whatsoever in soul in body or estate or in the Church c. God raiseth from the dead therefore we must feel our selves dead before we can be raised by his grace What is the reason that a Papist cannot be a good Christian he opposeth his own conversion what is conversion It is the first resurrection the resurrection of
God The Church of God now abroad you see is in combustion if the Spirit of God in any measure and degree be in our breasts we will sympathize with the state of the Church We wish them wel it may be but wishes are one thing and prayer is another doest thou pray for the Church if we could pray for the Church it would be better we should do more good with our prayers at home then they shall do by fighting abroad as Moses did more good in the mount by prayer then they did in the valley by fighting undoubtedly it would be so We may fear the lesse successe the spirits of men are so flat and so dead this way The time hath been not long since that we have been stirred up more to pray upon the apprehension of some fears to pray with earnestnesse and feeling expressing some desire in wishing their welfare but now a man can hardly converse with any that have so deep an apprehension as they have had in former times Now therefore as we desire to have interest in the good of the Church so let us remember to present the estate of the Church to God And let us present the Church of God to him as his own as his Turtle as his Love You know when they would move Christ they tell him Him whom thou lovest is sick Lazarus whom thou lovest So Lord her whom thou lovest the Church whom thou gavest thy Son to redeem with his blood the Church to whom thou hast given thy Spirit to dwell in the Church wherein thou hast thy habitation amongst men the Church that onely glorifieth thee and in whom thou wilt be eternally glorified in heaven that Church is sick it is weak it is in distresse it is in hazard Let us make conscience of this dutie let us help the Church with our prayers Saint Paul saith I shall be delivered together with the help of your prayers Without doubt the Church should be delivered if we had the grace to help them with our prayers And God will so glorifie the blessed exercise of calling upon him that we I say shall do more good at home then they shall do abroad let us believe this it is Gods manner of dealing In the book of Judges in that story of the Benjamites concerning the wrong done to the Priests concubine the rest of the Tribes of Israel when they set on the Benjamites they asked counsell of God twice and went against them and were discomfited but the third time they come to God Judg. 20. 26. Then all the Children of Israel came to the house of the Lord and wept and sat there before the Lord and fasted that day till the evening They thought because they had a good cause they might without fasting and prayer and without seeking to the Lord prevail and therefore they went against them twice and were shamefully foiled to their great losse but when at the last they came and humbled themselves before God and fasted end enquired of God the cause of that ill after that they had a glorious victory Christ tells his Disciples that there were some kind of Divells that will not be cast out but by fasting and prayer so there are some kind of miseries some kind of calamities some kind of sins that will not be overcome and which God will not deliver the Church from but by fasting and prayer And so for private Christians they have some sins that are master-sins personall sins it is not a slight prayer and a wish that will mortifie them there must be fasting and prayer and humiliation and that way those divells are cast out I would we were perswaded of it that it is such a prevailing thing holy prayer to help our selves in sin and to help us in misery to help the Church of God Well since the prayers even of the meanest Christians are so prevailing let us learn to respect them for as they can pray so their prayers will prevail And take heed we grieve not the Spirit of God in any poor Saint that so they may pray for us with willingnesse and cheerfulnesse do but consider what a blessing it is to have a stock going to have our part in the common stock as there is a common stock of prayer in the Church every Christian can pray and pray prevailingly What a blessing is it to be a good Christian to have a portion in the prevailing prayers of others That when a man is dead and dull and unfit himself this may comfort him that others have the spirit of zeal and will supply his want it is a blessed thing Let us consider the excellency of this duty of prayer from the prevalency of it to whet us on to the exercise of it It is a happinesse to have a part in it it is a blessing whereby we can do good to others we can reach them that are many hundred miles off those that be at the farthest end of the world when we cannot reach them otherwaies we can reach them by prayer we cannot speak to them they are far off but we can speak to God for them and he can convey that good to them that we desire what a blessed condition is this But some man may say How shall I know that I can pray that I am in a state to help the Church of God and to prevail for it by my prayers I answer First of all thou shalt know it if thou be as willing to help otherwise if thou canst as well as by prayer St. James speaks in his time of certain men that would feed the poore people of God with good words Now good words are good cheap but they will do nothing they will buy nothing they will not cloath nor feed So Saint James tells them that that is but a dead faith So there are a company that will onely pray for the Church when they are able to do otherwaies when they have countenance and estate and riches and friends and place and many things that they might improve for the good of others and for the good of the Church Some will be ready to say I pray for the Church and I will pray I but art thou not able to do somewhat else St. Paul when he wishes them to pray for him he means not onely prayer but that duty implies to do all that they pray for to help their prayers or else it is a mocking of God If thou pray aright for the Church thou art willing to relieve them if thou pray for thy friend thou art willing to help him and succour him if thou pray for any thou art willing to countenance them That is one tryal which discovers many to be hypocrites if their prayers were worth any thing and the times stood in need of them it is likely they should not have them because they only give good words and nothing else Again he that is in a state of prayer he must be such
good behaviour Now when a man shall consider I have a witnesse within me my conscience and a witnesse without which is God who is my Judge who can strike me dead in the committing of a sin if he please this would make men if they were not atheists to fear to sin Let us labour therefore to approve our hearts to God as well as our conversations to men set our selves in the presence of God who is a discerner of our thoughts as well as of our actions and that which we should be ashamed to do before men let us be afraid to think before God that is another means to come to sincerity Another Direction to help us to walk sincerely is especially to look to the heart look to the beginning to the spring of all our desires thoughts affections and actions that is the heart the qualification of that is the qualification of the man If the heart be naught the man is naught if that be sincere the man is sincere Therefore look to the heart see what springs out thence if there spring out naughty thoughts and desires suppresse them in the beginning Let us examine every thought if we find that we do but think an evil thought execute it presently crush it for all that is naught comes from a thought and desire at the first therefore let us look to our thoughts and desires see if we have not false desires and intents and thoughts answerable God is a Spirit and he looks to our very spirits and what we are in our spirits in our hearts and affections that we are to him Therefore as a branch of this what ill we shun let us do it from the heart by hating it first A man may avoid an evil action from fear or out of other respects but that is not sincerity Therefore look to thy heart see that thou hate evil and let it come from sincere looking to God Ye that love the Lord hate the thing that is evil saith David not only avoid it but hate it and not onely hate it but hate it out of love to God And that which is good not only to do it but to labour to delight and joy in it For the outward action is not the thing that is regarded but when there is a resolution a desire and delight in it then God accounts it as done And so it is in evil if we delight in evil it is as if it were done already Therefore in doing good look to the heart joy in the good you do and then do it and in evil look to the heart judge it to be evil and then abstain from it This is the reason of all the errours in our lives because we have bad hearts we look not to God in sincerity Judas had a naughty heart he loved not the Lord Jesus Christ and therefore he had a naughty conclusion What the heart doth not is not done in Religion Thus we see how we may come to have our conversation in sincerity that we may rejoyce in the testimony of our conscience Therefore now to make an Use of Exhortation we should labour for sincerity and esteem highly of it because God so esteems of it Truth is all that we can alledge to God we cannot alledge perfection St. Paul himself saith not I have walked exactly or perfectly no but he saith This is our rejoycing that we have walked in sincerity So if a mans conscience can excuse him of hypocrisie and doubling though it cannot free him from imperfections God in the Covenant of Grace looks not so much at perfection as at truth Here I might answer an Objection of some Christians Oh but I cannot pray without distraction I cannot delight so in good things c. Though a Christians heart cannot free him from this yet his heart desires to approve it self to God in all things and his heart is ready to say to the Lord as David said Lord try me if there be any way of wickednesse in me And therefore he will attend upon all means to get this sincerity He will be diligent in the Word of God for therein the mind of God is manifestly seen The Word of God it is a begetting Word it makes us immortal it makes us new creatures it is truth and the instrument of truth Truth will make truth The true sincere Word of God not mingled with devices it will make what it is The Word of God being his Word who is Almighty it hath an Almighty transforming power from him It is accompanied and cloathed with his Almighty Spirit Truth will cause truth such as it is in it self it will work in our hearts In that mungrel false Religion Popery they have traditions and false devices of men and so they make false Christians such as they are they make strain them to the quintessence and they cannot make a true Christian Truth makes true Christians therefore attend upon Gods Ordinance with all reverence and it will make thee a sound heart it is a transforming Word Those that desire to hear the Word of God and to have their consciences to be informed by the hearing of it they are sincere Christians and those that labour to shut up the Word of God that it may not work upon the conscience they are false-hearted A heart that is sincere it prizeth the Word of God that makes us sincere the Word of God hath this effect especially being unfolded in the Ministery of it that a man may say as Jacob did Doubtlesse God is in this place It is all that is ours nothing runs upon our reckoning but sincerity For what I have not done truly Conscience saith I have not done to God and therefore I can expect no comfort for it but what I have done to God I look to have with comfort for I know that God regards not perfection but sincerity he requires not so much a great faith as a true faith not so much perfect love as true love and that I have in truth as S. Peter said Lord thou knowest that I love thee This will make us look God who is the Judge in the face It gives us not title to heaven for that is onely by Christ but it is a qualification required of us in the Gospel nothing is ours but what we do in truth And again consider That it will comfort us against Satan at the hour of death when Satan shall tempt us to despair for our sins as that he will do we may comfort our selves with this that we have been sincere We may send him to Christ for that must be the way who hath fulfilled Gods will and satisfied his Fathers wrath Satan will say This is true it is the Gospel and therefore it cannot be denied but it is for them that have walked according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh for those that have obeyed God in all things Now when our Conscience shall joyn with Satan and
say we did nothing to God we have not obeyed him how can we answer him we must needs yield to the tempter But when we can say with Peter Lord thou knowest that I love thee thou knowest I have laboured to approve my heart to thee and that I have prosecuted this desire with endeavours this will comfort a man in the time of temptation therefore let us labour to have our conversation in sincerity It will afford us much comfort in this life as it did S. Paul S. Paul here was in some grievous sicknesse even to death and he was disgraced as a person that regarded not his promise of coming to them Now what doth he do in all this sicknesse and disgrace what doth he answer to them he comforts himself in this My rejoycing is that my conscience doth testifie my sincerity He runs to God and to his sincerity as his strong hold he approves himself to God Some thing we shall have in this life first or last afflictions or disgraces and troubles will come What is then the strong hold of a Christian Then he runs to his sincerity What would Hezekias have done when he received the sentence of death that he had walked before God in uprightnesse and sincerity Sincerity then is worth more then the world And he that will not labour for that which is worth more then all the world it is a sign he is ignorant of the worth of it A man at the hour of death he would lose all the world if he had it for sincerity Therefore let us not part with our sincerity Let us not offend against sincerity and truth by falshood in our carriage and in our tongues or conversations any manner of way since it will yield us so much comfort in temptations and afflictions and at the Tribunal and Judgment-seat of Christ. Let us not have false aimes and ends and do things in a false manner It is not action onely that God requires but the manner If we regard not the manner God will not regard the matter The matter of the Pharisees performances was very good for stuffe but their hearts being naught God regarded it not Let us look to the manner of doing all that we do that we do them to God that we do them in sincerity in a holy manner The Scripture requires this receive the Sacrament but thus Examine your selves Take heed how you hear Let your conversation be in the world but thus in simplicity and godly sincerity S. Paul doth not say that he rejoyced in miracles or in the great works that he had done in converting of Nations c. which yet were matters of joy but when he comes to joy indeed here is his joy that his Conversation had been in simplicity and godly sincerity And Christians must take heed that they reason not against sincerity another way that is to conclude they have no goodnesse because they see a great deal of corruption and imperfections for imperfections may stand with truth Asa as I said had many infirmities in his life yet notwithstanding it is said that he walked in sincerity So Hezekias it is said he walked before God uprightly yet he had many infirmities and imperfections Nay a man may well retort this upon such poor soules that are witnesses with Satan against themselves in the sight of their sins that their sins being known by them especially with hatred of them it is a sign of sincerity Again others are ready to say I am not sincere because God followes me with afflictions and distresses Reason not so for he therefore followes thee with afflictions because he would have nothing but sincerity in thee he would make thee wholly sincere and purge thee as metal is purged in the fire from the drosse Therefore take heed thus of sinning against sincerity Do nothing in hypocrisie and when we are once sincere let us not sin against it by yielding to the Devil This comforted Job when his friends alledged his corruptions Well saith he you shall not take away my sincerity from me He looked to the eye of God that saw him to whom he approved his heart and that consideration made him sincere and thence he comforted himself So let us comfort our selves in our sincerity against Satan's allegations as a condition of the Covenant of grace which respects not perfection but truth To adde one thing more As there is an order of other graces so there is an order in this sincerity which we should labour for There is this order to be kept We must digg deep we must lay a sincere foundation What is that A deep search into our own hearts and waies by sound humilition We say of digestions if the first be naught all are naught if the first concoction in the body be naught there can never be good assimulation there can never be good blood so if there be not a good a sincere foundation there can never be a sincere fabrick Therefore many mistake and build Castles in the Ayr comb Downes as we say they build a frame of profession that comes to nothing in the end because it is not sincere in this order they were never truly humbled they had a guilefull heart in the cnofession of their sins they never knew what sin was throughly and feelingly Blessed is the man in whose spirit there is no guile Psal. 32. The Psalmist especially means and intends there in regard of down-right dealing with God in the confession of sins For he himself when he did not deal roundly and uprightly with God in the confession of his sinnes with detestation and with resolution never to commit the same again he was in a pitiful plight both of soul and body his moisture was turned into the drought of Summer But when without guile he laid open his soul to God then he came from sincere humiliation and sincere confession to sincere faith Therefore for the order let us first labour to be sincere in the sight of that which is ill in us in the confession of our sins and then we shall be sincere the better to depend upon Gods mercy in Christ by faith And from thence we shall come to sincere Love when we believe that God is reconciled in Christ we shall love him Our love is but a reflexion of his love to us when once we know that he loves us we shall love him again The Spring of all duty is sincere love coming from sincere faith as sincere faith is forced out of the sincere sight of our sins of the ill and miserable estate we are in A man will not go out of himself so long as he sees any hope in himself and therefore sound knowledge of the evil condition we are in it forceth the grace of faith which forceth a man to go out of himself And then when he is perswaded of Gods love in Christ he loves him again Love is that which animates
own particular one way and gain to the State or Religion another he considers not what will it advantage me but what is it for Religion It is the chief prevailing reason how he may gain to Religion and the glory of God he will not redeem his life to impeach the glory of God and Religion This is a man that leads his life by grace Again where grace is there graces are together there is a sweet linking of them therefore S. Paul instead of wisdome names Grace of God all grace A man therefore may know that he is led by grace when there is no solitary grace for where grace is solitary it is not at all it is but a shadow For there is not one grace but it is of special use in the managing of a Christians life and conversation therefore S Panl instead of wisdome puts grace here For instance there is a great necessity of seeing by a light above nature things above nature If a man lead a life above nature there is a necessity of heavenly illumination and conviction that there is a better happinesse then the world affords And then there is a need of love to carry the soul to that happinesse that is discovered But then there are a world of impediments between us and heaven and happinesse that is discovered to us in the Gospel by Christ Jesus there must be heavenly wisdome therefore to discover the impediments and to remove them And there are many advantages how to attain our end we must use this and this meanes these and these helps that God hath ordained here must be heavenly wisdome to use the advantages and to avoid the hindrances But there are a world of troubles between our end and us between heaven that is discovered and us therefore saith the Apostle Ye have need of Patience And patience that is sustained by hope hope casts anchor in heaven and assures us of happinesse there and then patience sustains us in whatsoever befalls us in this world Therefore the Apostle saith not I lead my life by wisdome but by grace by wisdome as it hath a connexion with all other graces Therefore a man that out of hearing of the Word or reading c. hath it discovered that there is a better way then he takes and yet notwithstanding hath not love to carry him to it nor wisdome to remove the impediments he works not towards his end there is no grace at all there is illumination but it is not sanctified illumination but a meer common work of the Spirit because where true wisdome is there is love and patience and hope and all other graces to carry the whole soul to that happinesse that is discovered Therefore by this you may know a gracious wise man he works to his end alwayes another man heares and wishes Oh it were well if I could attain heaven but carnal policy and base affections hold him in a beastly course of life that he works not to that end onely he hears such things and thinks God will be merciful and Christ hath dyed and when he cannot enjoy the world longer he will have good words that way but that will not serve the turn a man must lead a life in grace that will dye and be saved by grace he must work and carry the whole man with it and not onely have knowledge but faith and love and all a man must work with it Who is a wise man in outward matters is he a wise man that only talks of States matters out of Books he hath read No but he that when he comes to a businesse to negotiate in the world can remove hindrances and attain his end and overthrow the plots of his enemies when it comes to particular actions here is a wise man that can attain his end by working that doth work to his end till he have attained it So he proves graciously wise in Religion that works to his end or else he is a foolish man a foolish builder As Christ saith If ye know these things and do them not you are as a man that builds on the sands your profession will come to nothing Again a man may know that he is guided by Grace that he doth every thing by gracious wisdome when he doth provide for himself best in the best things out of a sanctified judgment when he doth judge aright of differences when he considers that there is a difference between the soul and the body between this life and eternal life there is a main difference between the glorious eternal life in the world to come and this fading life which the soul communicates to the body in this world when a man judgeth the difference between true riches and these things that we are so set upon that are but lent us for a little while When he judgeth between the true honour to be the Child of God and the fading honours of this world that shall lye down in the dust with us and shall all depart and be gone it appears then he hath a sanctified judgment he discerns of things that differ And according to this if he lead his life in gracious wisdome he makes his provision he makes his provision as his judgment leads him his judgment leads him to the best things therefore he provides for the best things As Christ saith of the Children of this world they are wise in their courses in their Generation they provide against beggery they make friends before-hand as we see in that unjust steward So a Christian provides for his soul he looks to that he makes him friends of his unrighteous Mammon he makes him friends of his earthly things that is he doth deserve well of men that they pray for him and so help him to heaven He daily makes his account ready he cuts off impediments that he meets with in the way he troubles not himself with impertinencies he spends not more time then needs about worldly things he useth them as they may help his work to be better and better in grace to be fitter and fitter for glory As he discerneth differences so he makes his provision answerable he provides for the best in the first place Or else he were a foolish Merchant a foolish builder a foolish man every way the Scripture saith he is no better that cannot discern the difference and provide well for himself when other things fail The Scripture doth well call wicked men fooles they have no judgement they do not provide for themselves they prefer these things say what they will before better things they are fooles in their provision Achitophel he made provision he set his house in order and what became of him after he hanged himself He made much provision for the world and at last he knew not how to forecast and provide for his soul. The Scripture calls the rich man in the Gospel a fool he was wise enough to contrive for himself yet he was but a rich
that he possibly could fuffer and he laid in the other balance the things that he had in hope and promise and he resolves all that I can suffer that should shake me off from my course it is not worthy of the glory that shall be revealed saith he if you balance both you will conclude this There are many things that may shake us in our Christian course St. Paul thought of all Satans snares I am not ignorant of his enterprizes saith he And then for the world that might cast trumperie in his way saith he I am crucified to the world and the world is crucified to me And for any thing that might happen to him he knew that the issue of all things should work for the best to them that love God he includes himself Rom. 8. saith he We know it before-hand we believe before troubles or evills come come what will the issue of all things is in the regiment and power of God and as he pleaseth all shall work for the best to those that love God and therefore as I am so I will be What should hinder if all things help me nothing can hinder me And then Saint Paul took this course he looked forward still Philip 3. I presse forward to the price of the high calling he forgat that which was behind and he resolved to go forward he had a mind to grow better and better alway and this comforted him that he should hold out to the end For it is the reward of a growing Christian to have a sweet sense of his present state of Grace in Gods favour and to hold out to the end Such a man is like the Sun that growes up still till he come to high noon-day as Solomon saith Saint Paul took this course he strove for perfection he had a crown in his eye a crown of righteousnesse and glory and that will not suffer a man to be idle and cold that hath such a thing in his eye Saint Paul to whet his endeavour not onely looked forward but to glory for as Christ looked to the glorie and despised the shame so Saint Paul looked to the crown and despised all his sufferings Then besides Saint Paul was conscious of his own sincerity for grace carries its own witnesse with it self as he saith here I know my conversation This is the testimony of my conscience that in simplicity and sincerity I have walked before you He knew that sincerity is accompanied with constancie and perseverance It is a rule that alway constancie and perseverance are companions with simplicity and sincerity I have begun in sincerity hitherto now I am sincere and have expressed to you the truth of my heart and of my courses and as I am so I meane to be therefore having begun in sincerity I know I shall end in perseverance and constancy Truth of grace is accompanied with constancy all other things are but grasse they are but shewes they will vanish but sincerity the truth of grace is a Divine thing The Word of the Lord that is grace wrought by the Word of the Lord that endures for ever Where there is truth of grace though it be but as a grain of mustard-seed there is perseverance to the end S. Paul knew this well and therefore he builds his trust on these things on these courses that he took We should all take the like course look to S. Paul's grounds and take his courses those be they that will hold out to the end Judicious consideration of all the difficulties to put into the balance what impediments we shall have from the world and what will be great to us when it is ballanced with the glory to come And withall to aime forward still as S. Paul did And take another course that he took likewise to depend upon grace continually he knew there was a Throne of grace open to him alway for the time to come as well as for the time past and present He knew that Christ in heaven was alway full of grace he knew he should not want in any exigent when he should go to him he knew that God would not destitute or forsake any of his Children them that he hath called to see the necessity of wisdome and of courage and comfort Let us do therefore as S. Paul was answered from heaven say His Grace is sufficient for us if not to keep us from all sin yet to keep us in comfortable courses to keep us in sincerity and simplicity the Grace of God is sufficient to bring us to heaven Let us perswade our selves that if we go on in Christian courses in that confidence God will give us grace to bring us to heaven This was S. Paul's confidence therefore he saith I trust you shall acknowledge to the end because I know that I shall continue in simplicity and sincerity to the end God will keep me I shall have grace to beg and he will give me grace for his gifts in this kind can never be repented of Let us take from S. Paul this course and this comfort This course to trust in God for the time to come to have constant resolutions for the time to come to cleave to God and to good courses Let us every day renew our Covenants in this kind and our resolutions to do nothing against conscience to go on in Christian courses let it be our constant course For as Gods Children know they shall continue to the end so it is wrought from resolution so to do and this resolution stirres them up to depend upon God by prayer that he would knit their hearts to him that they may fear his Name that he would give them Grace sufficient c. that he would establish their hearts as David prayes This resolution it drives them to prayer and to all good courses that God would stablish them in every good work in every good thought and desire and that he would knit their hearts nearer to him Resolve therefore every day in dependance upon God to take good courses that so whensoever any Judgment of God shall come or when the hour of death shall light on us it may not come as a snare that it may take us in good resolutions it is no matter how we dye in outward respects if we dye in good resolutions As we resolve so we are for our resolutions are full of will wishes and resolutions they carry the whole man with them and God esteems a man by his will For if there be impediments that are not impossible to man resolution will break through all God judgeth men by their resolutions Teach me O Lord thy Statutes and I will keep them even to the end I have sworn and I will perform it that I will keep thy righteous Judgments every day take we these promises to our selves and bind our selves with them to God In vowes be chary I do not speak of them now I speak of purposes and resolutions alway take in
rejoycing They were St. Saul's rejoycing as they were gained to God and to Christ by his Ministery when he looked on them he looked on them as people given him by God As God said to him of them in the ship when they suffered shipwrack I have given thee all their lives It was a great honour to Saint Paul that God should give him the lives of all that were in the ship but more honour that God gave him so many souls Thou shalt have the honour of saving so many souls Therefore they were his rejoycing in the day of the Lord especially but now they were his rejoycing because by faith he apprehended that they should be his special rejoycing when he and they should stand together before the Judgement-seat of Christ. For faith makes things to come present Ye are our rejoycing because you shall be our rejoycing then more especially This is the nature of faith to present things absent For Blessed St. Paul now in heaven when at the day of judgement he shall stand before Christ withall the rank about him of Corinthians Ephesians Philippians c. and all the Churches he converted when he shall be environed with them as so many brought in triumph under the Kingdome of Christ and pulled from the bondage of Satan as what a world of people did he bring to God what triumph did he make over Satan and the corruption of men bringing men into captivity to Christ When all these shall be set before him what a glory will this be for holy St. Paul when he shall look on all these blessed people as conquered and brought under Christs government by him And so for all the Apostles St. Peter and the rest And so for every Minister when he shall say Here I am and the soules that thou hast given me thou hast honoured me so much as to be an instrument to gain them to Christ to bring them to Heaven a special glorie The point of Doctrine or truth I observe hence is this That The Peoples proficiencie in Grace is the Ministers joy The peoples good estate in Grace is the Ministers joy and will be especially after at the day of judgment ye are our rejoycing As he saith Philip. 4. Ye are our crown and our glory And so 2 Thess. 2. What is our crown and rejoycing is it not you In every Epistle almost those good and gracious people he makes them his hope and joy and crown and rejoycing In what sense Because they were the objective matter of his joy when he looked on them he looked on such as yielded him comfort he could not present them to his thoughts but he thought of them as matter of joy here be the people that God hath honoured me to do much good unto He could not think of them but as the object of his rejoycing the word is Canchema our rejoycing that God had given them to him to bring to heaven Love descends we know and the workman looks upon his work with a kind of complacencie Saint Paul could not look upon those that he was used as a blessed Instrument to doc good upon without a speciall kind of delight They were the object matter of his joy Then again they were not onely the matter of his joy and rejoycing presenting to his soule comfortable considerations but also they were some meanes to increase his joy in Heaven for Those that convert soules shall shine as the starres in the Firmament Dan. 12. Those that are honoured of God so farre as to bring souls to God they shall shine as the stars in the Firmament especially those that convert souls shall have a degree of honour above others though the substantial glory be by Christ. It is not to be denyed that the accidental increased glory comes by the increase of the fruit of the Ministery and so Christians those that are fruitfull Christians that do much good they shall have much glory Saint Paul shall have more rejoycing then others that did not so much good as he Ye are our rejoycing because you shall be a means of my greater rejoycing they were the object of his joy and the means of his joy Then in the third place they were his rejoycing because they were the seal of his Ministery that he was a sound Minister How was it known whether Saint Paul were a good Minister or no Behold his works see how he wrought on such and such people how many he gained to God When he looked on them he looked on them as a seal of his Ministery that he was a good Minister and in that regard they were his rejoycing And in some regard likewise in the fourth place that their gaining was an evidence to his soul that he was a good man Ordinarily though God convert men by ill men as Judas no question might convert some yet for the most part God honours his servants and he that is heat himself can kindle another Those that are not heat with grace they cannot speak of the efficacy and power of the things they feel not in their own hearts as others do therefore no question but it comforted him in the state of Christianity that God honoured him to be a means to bring others in to Christ. So in many respects the peoples goodnesse is the Ministers joy If this be so Let those that are under the Ministery not deny themselves that comfort or the Ministers that joy to be good There are many poysonful spightful spirits that are in love with damnation that will cherish the corruptions of their naughty nature in spight of God and all Rather then they will acknowledge to be wrought on by such and such to be their children they will be as they are they will be broken in a thousand pieces before they will bend to any Minister upon such weak resolutions to yield to a poor Ordinance of man here is the devillish pride and poyson of mans corrupt nature Can we set light by that but that at the same time we must set light by our own comfort and salvation How were the Corinthians Saint Paul's joy were they not their own joy first they were matter of joy to S. Paul because he saw he had gained them to Christ the good was especially theirs it reflected on him onely by consideration When he looked on them he was comforted but they were more comforted a great deal they had more comfort in his rejoycing then he his was but by reflexion of their goodnesse a comfort that came by consideration they had the main comfort of their goodnesse It is little comfort for any to carry themselves so as that those that are over them in Christ Jesus when they think of them can but sigh when they hear their blasphemies when they cannot so much as gain of them to leave courses that the very light of nature condemnes the filthy discoveries of a rotten heart their vile words and their offensive carriage
therefore he is not constant Or if times do not fall out so crosse he is not constant in his disposition and God looks on him as he is in his disposition and so he will judge him at that day now being led with the flesh his disposition alters and varies How shall I know whether I consult according to the flesh or no In a word examine two things The ground and the aime of our actions whence they rise and what they aym at Spring they from self-self-love aym they at our self-contentment and private interest then a man is led with the flesh To use a familiar instance In Marriage when a man looks more to wealth then to Religion he adviseth according to the flesh And so for a Minister to respect his living more then any thing that might weigh with his conscience otherwise if he were good he is led with respects according to the flesh Those that leave their former good acquaintance and choose such as they only hope to gain by and forsake those acquaintance that they cannot gain by though they be never so good otherwise they are led according to the flesh How shall we know that we do not things and consult not of things according to the flesh Some men may know it easily as when men are of pregnant parts when the strength of their wit leads them one way and Religion leads them another way yet in the awe of God they do not go that way that politick respects would carry them they could be as errant Politicians as the best but they dare not here now is a man that is led by the Spirit when it is not for want of parts but out of conscience he doth not so miscarry by his enemy Many times an honest man could be rich by ill means as well as another he knowes the way it is not for want of wit but because he dares not the awe of conscience and the awe of God lead him to better rules and aymes so it is easily discerned in eminency of parts And likewise in fitnesse of opportunities if there be not parts when a man hath all outward advantages to satisfie the flesh to yield to it to have his aimes and yet he will not If a man have power and yet doth not revenge himself he consults not with flesh and blood for he might be revenged if he would So I say when there is something that might sway us another way and yet notwithstanding out of meer conscience and better rules we will not it is a sign we purpose not we advise not things according to the flesh but according to the Spirit we are led with better rules then the world is In strong suggestions a Joseph can say How shall I do this and offend against God Doth not God see it saith Job so a Christian in the strength of Temptations and solicitations and opportunities to do ill he considers Doth not God see How shall I do this and offend against God Shall I break the peace of my conscience for the gaining of this and this why no then a man is not led with Carnal wisdome Again we may know this that we are not led by the flesh and advised by the flesh when we are humble in all our consultations It is a perpetual concomitant of carnal wisdome to be proud knowledge mingled with corruption puffeth up But how shall we labour to overcome this because we have the flesh ready by us in all our consultations we have this counsellour alway ready at hand as S. Paul complains Rom. 7. That when we would do well evil is present it is present at our elbow nay it is nearer the flesh is mingled in all the powers of our soules and with heavenly wisdome there is a mixture of carnal wisdome how shall we do that we may not be tainted with it I will give a direction or two First of all have a prejudice of it Cave time c. saith the holy man S. Austin Take heed of the evil man thy self take heed of carnal reason be jealous of it it is an enemy and the issues of the wayes it adviseth to are death There is a way that seems good to a man in his own eyes the issues whereof are death not temporal onely but eternal death It is a deadly enemy have a prejudice of it and conceit of it to be as it is have a jealousie of it and of our own selves especially in things that concern our selves What is the reason that a man is an incompetent Judge in his own cause This because there is natural self-love and flesh that drawes all to it self Consult not with it therefore consult with higher rules and principles what may make most for the chief end for the glory of God for the assurance of our comfort while we live here and a better estate hereafter that which may make most for the common good let us labour to live by right rules and principles God will value us by that Put the case a man by passion be led another way what is his rule what is his aym his aym is not carnal he may fall by passion c. God judgeth not by passion but by the tenour of our life God esteems us not by a single particular exorbitant act that by passion or incogitancy a man falls into but by the tenour of our life Therefore let us labour to have our rules and aimes good though we fail in particular yet that our way may be good though we step awry yet our way may be good that when Judgment shall come when death shall come it may not find us in an ill way in an ill course Therefore let us consult with God consult with his Word consult with those that are led by the Spirit of God labour to be under the government of Gods blessed Spirit to be guided by the Spirit of God and by the Word of God This should be our care to labour that God would guide us by his good Spirit in those wayes that may lead to our comfort that of all other enemies in the world he would not give us up to our own flesh to guide us but that he would take the guidance of us to himself that as he hath right to us by his Covenant so he would take us into his government And desire Christ that as he is our Priest to die for us so likewise he would be our Prophet to instruct us to subdue all in us And let Divine truth be our counsellour to bring our inner man into subjection as it is 2 Cor. 10. The weapons of our warfare are mighty to bring all into captivity to subject all high devices and reasonings How shall I do this I shall misse of my ends I shall misse of my projects O but Religion when it comes and brings down all it makes not a man to cast away reason but brings reason under and brings
was the creditor for the payment of that 4000 years after let them go so Christ was yea to them they had benefit by Christs death Hereupon the Prophets spake of him as a thing present To us a son is born to us a Child is given Faith mounts over many years 600 years before Christ in the Prophet it mounted and made the time of Christs coming and his death to be present because they had benefit by him as if he had been present Onely with this difference in the time present when Christ came in the flesh they had some comfortable inlargement of Grace When he came in the flesh I say there was a new world as it were there was grace poured out in abundance So you see that all the promises concerning Christ they were performed They were Yea and Amen and the good things by Christ. Saint Paul saith excellently Heb. 13. Christ yesterday to day and the same for ever Yesterday to the Patriachs to day for the present time he is Yea and for the time to come he is Yea the same alway He is yea to all ages he is yea to us as well as to those that were in Christs time Christ is then crucified to thee when thou believest in Christ crucified If we now by faith look to Christ crucified and sent from his Father to take our nature on him we have as much benefit by Christ as those that beheld him crucified As they before looked forwards by the eye of Faith so we look backward we have benefits by Christ he is yesterday to day and the same for ever All the promises are yea in him that is they are constantly yea for all ages The promises of Christ as the spirits in the body they run through all ages of the Church Without him there is no love nor mercie nor comfort from God as I said before God cannot look on our cursed nature out of Christ therefore whosoever will apprehend any thing mercifull in God must apprehend it in Christ the promised seed All the promises in him are yea He is called Logos the Word why is he so both actively and passively Actively the Word because how should we ever have known the mind in the breast of God hidden and sealed there unlesse Christ had been the Logos the Word For a word is exprest from reason and there is a word that is essentiall that is reason Logos and so the word coming from it speech the issue of reason So Christ is the essentiall Word by nature and by office the Word to discover the inward will and purpose of God to us All the promises of God are discovered by Christ as the Angel of the Covenant And passively he is the Word Logos of whom all the Prophets spake as Peter saith Act 3. who was fore-signified by all the types as I shewed Christ he is truly all in all It is a comfortable way to study Christ this way to see him foretold in the Old Testament and to see the accomplishment in the New to parallel the Old and New Testament it is an excellent way of studying the Gosspel For we know men are delighted to know divers things at once when a mans knowledge is inriched diverse waies at once it delights him as when a man knowes the history of a thing and the truth with it when he knowes a promise and the truth a type and the ttuth how doth it delight When a man sees the type in the Old and the truth in the New the history there the promise and the accomplishment here it is a wondrous delightfull thing For why doth proportion delight the eye but because it is an agreement of different things a sweet harmony of different things Why doth musick so please the ear because it is a harmonie of different things When we see a type different from the truth performed and a promise different from the performance and yet a sweet agreement from agreement a man is delighted A man is not delighted with colours at colours but as they hold proportion with the rest of the body he is not delighted with a limb as a limb but as it holds proportion with the man if there be no proportion and comelinesse it delights not So in this case it is good to consider both together God therefore for this end and purpose would have truths conveyed in the Old Testament by way of types and prophecies and promises that it might delight us now to hear them and to study them the more for as I said when we know many things at once it is delightful That is the reason why comparisons and allusions are so delightful because we know the comparison and the thing to which it is compared And that is the reason why our Saviour Christ besides types and figures and promises and prophecies is set out by whatsoever is excellent in nature in the Scriptures There is nothing in nature that is excellent but there is something taken from it to set forth the excellencie of Christ. He is the Sun of righteousnesse he is the water he is the way he is the bread he is the vine he is the tree of Life Whatsoever is excellent in nature either in heaven or earth it serves to set forth the excellencie of Christ why to delight us that we may be willing and chearful to think of Christ that together with the consideration of the excellencie of the creature some sweet meditation of Christ in whom all those excellencies are knit together might be presented to the soul. When we see the sun oft to think of that blessed Sun that quickens and enlivens all things and scatters the mists of Ignorance When we look on a tree to think of the tree of righteousness on the way to think of him the way of life of him that is the true life When we think of any thing that is excellent think of Gods love in Scripture to set out Christ that he would shadow him in all for he is the true Sun all creatures must vanish ere long and whatsoever is excellent in the creature and what will stand then only he in whom all these excellencies are comprised in one All the promises in him are Yea and Amen If this be true then that the promise of Christ himself who is the chief good promised is in the New Testament Amen all of him is Yea and Amen then comes this as a deducted truth all other promises must needs be Yea and Amen for God he that performed the grand promise in giving Christ in the fulness of time will for Christs sake perform all other promises Therefore the incarnation the life the death and resurrection of Christ our blessed Saviour it is a pawn and pledge to us of the performance of all things to come God promised to the Jewes that they should come out of Babylon he promised that he would deliver them from the enemy and he usually prefixeth
the promises in Jesus Christ This that while there is life there is hope to get into Christ and so to get interest in the promises for the promises are free the word is Epangelia free promise it is not a promise on this or that condition but a free promise out of meere love a mercie Then though thou be yet in the state of corruption in Old Adam yet the promise is free But I have no worthinesse in me thou wilt say I have no faith no grace in me at all But remember the promise is free the condition is onely if thou wilt receive Christ which is not properly a condition of worth in thee it is not propounded by way of condition of any worth but thou must come with an empty hand with a receiving hand as a man must let fall what he hath before he can hold and take any thing A man must let go other things he must let go his hold of the creature he must not be so proud of the creature and so confident in it as he was he must see the emptinesse of the creature and of all things in the world thou must see that if thou be not in Christ thou art a wretched damned creature The hand of thy soul must be empty and then a sight of thy unworthinesse is all that is required before thou come to Christ and the promises a sight of thy unworthinesse and a comming to graspe with Christ and the promises for what is faith but a beggars hand empty of all things comming to receive a benefit They are most unworthy that find themselves most unworthy But you will say the promise is made to the poor in spirit and to those that hunger and thirst It is true but it is by way of preventing an objection of these men that are cast down in the sight of their unworthinesse As if Christ had said You think these men the unworthiest men in the world that are poore and hungry and thirsty you think you are destitute and have nothing but you are blessed you have interest in Christ and in the promises they are for you Let no man therefore be discouraged the promises are free therefore be not rebellious stand not out against Gods command God layes a command upon thee though thou be not in Christ and hast no right to the promises he laies a command on thee to believe Thou wilt ask what ground or title or right hast thou to believe to claim Christ and the promises This right thou hast thou hast the offer of Gods love in Christ. And thou hast not onely Gods offer but his command God commands thee to do it as St. John saith he hath commanded us to believe in his Son Christ as well as not to commit adultery or murther and thou art guilty if thou break this command as if thou break the other of murther or adultery And men that live under the hearing of the Gospell they shall be damned more at the day of judgement for disobeying this command for not receiving of Christ then for the other for the breach of all other commands may be forgiven if this were obeyed Therefore there is an offer of Christ with a command to receive him and a promise if thou receive him all shall be well all thy sins shall be forgiven is not here incouragement enough And then there is an invitation Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy-laden And put case thou hast nothing yet notwithstanding come and buy without silver saith the Prophet If thou say thou hast nothing yet all is free here Come whosoever will and drink of the water of life And he threatens damnation if thou wilt not the wrath of God hangs on thee if thou do not come in I but I am a sinner But where sin hath abounded Grace shall more abound So if a man stand out of Christ and come not in to him there are many incouragements for him to come and terrible denunciations of wrath if he come not the wrath of God hangs over his head for if he be not in Christ he sinks into hell when this short life is ended So there is this to incourage a man there is Gods command and his sweet invitation Come unto me And add to that his beseeching We are Ambassadours in Christs Name to beseech you to be reconciled to God to come to Christ to come out of the state of nature and out of the curse of God that you are under to come out of the uncertain condition that the world affords we beseech you to be reconciled to God to cast away your weapons whereby you are enemies to God he seeks to you for your love And if you have nothing come and buy without money have you a will to come If you be besotted and will continue in your estate then be damned and rot in your estate but if you will come and drink of the waters of life freely Let none be discouraged Christ and the promises are open to all Therefore how will Gods vengeance be justified at the day of judgment when these courses have been taken and yet men will not come in As Christ said to the Jewes You will not believe in me that you might have life Men will not men are in love with the profits and pleasures and fading things they will not imbrace the promises that are Yea and Amen It is nothing but wilfull rebellion that keeps men off that rather then they will leave their sins and come under the government of Christ they will reject the offers of merey if they cannot have Christ with their sins away mercie If they can have him to lead them to hell to swear and cozen c. then welcome Christ if he will come on those tearms he is welcome but rather then they will have him upon his own tearms they reject him So there is great reason for God to justifie the damnation of wretched hard-hearted persons that rather then they will alter their course they will reject mercy and Christ and all If they may have half Christ they will they will have him with mercie to forgive them but they will not have whole Christ as a King to govern them So there is ground for those that are not yet in the state of grace to come to Christ if they will receive him upon his own termes to take him as a King as well as a Priest to take him as a King to rule them as well as a Priest to reconcile them to his Father Nay God as I said in the Ministery intreats them to receive Christ to cast away the weapons of their rebellion to come under his government and all shall be well with them But for them that are in Christ that have imbraced and clasped him in some comfortable measure what comfort is it for them that all the promises in Christ are Yea and Amen I answer
when we are once in Christ believe in Christ all the Scripture speaks comfort to us if we come in and receive him as he is offered upon his terms to be our Governour our King our Priest and Prophet then all the promises are Yea and Amen to us As for instance forgivenesse of sins if we receive Christ God will forgive us our sins and be reconciled to us for Jesus Christs sake We have an advocate with the Father and he is the propitiation for our sins The blood of Christ shall cleanse us from all sins These promises shall be Yea and Amen to thee if thy sins trouble thee they shall be done away How many promises to this purpose have we of the forgivenesse of sins Again if so be thou find want of Grace all the promises in Christ are Yea and Amen he hath promised his holy Spirit to them that ask him Luke 11. There is a promise shall be Yea and Amen if thou beg it He hath promised the fundamentall graces He will put his fear in our hearts that we shall never depart from him He will teach us to love one another you are taught of God to love one another He hath promised private blessings in this kind to circumcise and cut off the fore-skin of our hearts If a naughty and stonie heart vex thee he will take away that and give thee an heart of flesh a tender heart So these promises in Christ shall be Yea and Amen if we apply and believe them to take away our corruption and subdue that and to give and plant Graces he hath promised to do this therefore make use of them not only of the promises of pardon and forgivenesse of sins but of grace necessary Art thou sensible of thy imperfections that thou canst not go about the duties of Religion and of thy particular calling what saith Moses Who gives a mouth is it no tGod that gives a mouth And Be not afraid saith Christ you shall have speech and a spirit given you that all shall not be able to withstand Be not afraid God that calls us he will enable us You have a promise of sufficiencie of gifts If any man lack wisdom let him ask it of God If any man lack wisdom to manage his affaires to beare crosses and afflictions let him ask it of God a rich promise in that kind And so art thou doubtful for the time to come what shall befall thee God in Christ Jesus hath made a Promise That where he hath begun he will make an end Philip. 1. 6. He that hath begun a good work will finish it to the day of the Lord. Christ is Alpha and Omega too and What shall separate us from the Love of God in Christ Neither things present nor things to come nor any thing else why because it is the love of God in Christ. Gods love is founded in Christ and he will love thee eternally There is a ground of perseverance Therefore be sure to take in trust the time to come as well as the present he will be thy God for the time to come as well as for the present he will be thy God to death Jesus Christ is yesterday to day and to morrow and the same for ever He was and is and is to come He was good to thee before he called thee he is good to thee now in the state of Grace and he will be for ever Why shouldest thou stagger for the time to come Take in trust all that shall befall thee for the time to come as well as for the present for he is Yea and Amen himself and all his Promises are Yea and Amen Christ is Amen the true witnesse Thus saith Amen Rev. 1. and all his Promises are like himself Amen Oh but I may fall away my grace is weak I stagger often But are the Promises founded upon thee No the Promises are founded in Christ. Christ receives Grace for thee and he is a King for ever and a Priest for ever to make intercession for thee and he is faithful He is beloved for ever and as long as he is beloved thou shalt be beloved because thou art in him God is in Christ and thou art in Christ how canst thou miscarry God is in Christ for ever and thou art in Christ will he lose a limb will he lose a member No the Promises in him are Yea and Amen and not in thee They are in thee Yea and Amen thou hast the benefit of them because they are in him Amen first I but for the troubles of this world for afflictions and crosses what promises have we to build on for them God in Christ is Yea and Amen to us and the promises are Yea and Amen in that kind In all things necessary for this life Heb. 13. Let yourconversation be without covetousnesse for he hath promised he will not fail thee nor for sake thee It is taken along from Joshuah's time it was a promise made to Joshuah and is enlarged to all Christians He hath promised he will not fail thee nor forsake thee Therefore Let your conversation be without covetousnesse Insinuating the reason why men are covetous because they do not trust that promise I will not fail thee nor for sake thee For if men in their calling as they should do would trust in God without putting forth their hands to ill meanes their conversation would be without shifting and covetousnesse Therefore covetous men are faithlesse men they believe not the Promise that God will not fail them nor forsake them for then they would not live by their wits and by their shifts but by faith in this very promise which is Yea and Amen to all that believe it God is a Sun and shield Psal. 84. and no good thing shall be wanting to those that lead a godly life Would you have more he is a Sun for all good he is a Shield to keep from all ill I am thy buckler and thy exceeding great reward saith God to Abraham I am thy buckler to keep thee from all ill and thy exceeding great reward to bestow all good having these promises why should we stagger they are Yea and Amen in Christ God is Al-sufficient in Christ. For the issue in our labours Oh what will become of it we take pains to no purpose we rise early and go to bed late what will become of all in the issue What saith Saint Paul 1 Cor. 15. Be constant alway abounding in the work of the Lord be ye abundant in the work of the Lord knowing that your labour is not in vain in the Lord therefore abound you in the work of the Lord let the issue go to God you have a rich promise Knowing this that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. Therefore you know when Peter had fished all night and had caught nothing when Christ bids him cast the net into the Sea saith he We have fished all night
things Magistrates and Officers go with their broad Seal and deliver things that they would have carried with authority sealed and the Seal of the Prince is the authority of the Prince so that a Seal is to make things authentical to give validity to things answerable to the value and esteem of him that seales These four principal uses there is of sealing Now God by his Spirit doth all these for God by his Spirit sets the stamp and likenesse of Christ upon us he distinguisheth us from others from the great refuse of the world he appropriates us to himself and like wise he authorizeth us and puts an excellency upon us to secure us against all when we have Gods Seal upon us we stand against all accusations Who shall separate us from the love of God we dare defâ—… all objections and all accusations of conscience whatsoever a man that hath Gods Seal he stands impregnable it so authorizeth him in his conscience for it is given us for our assurance and not for Gods God seales not because he is ignorant He knowes who are his But what is the Spirit it self this seal or the graces of the Spirit or the comforts of the Spirit what is this seal for that is the question now whether the Spirit it self or the work of the Spirit or the comfort and joy of the Spirit I answer indeed the Spirit of God where it is is a sufficient seal to us that God hath set us out for his for whosoever hath the Spirit of Christ is his and whosoever hath not the Spirit of Christ is none of his but the Spirit is the Authour of this sealing and the sealing that is in us is wrought by the Spirit so that except you take the Spirit for that which is wrought by the Spirit you have not the right comprehension of sealing and so the Spirit with that which the Spirit works is the seal for the Spirit is alway with his own seal with his own stamp Other seales are removed from the stamp and the stamp remains though the seal be gone but the Spirit of God dwells and keeps a perpetual residence in the heart of a Christian guiding him moving him enlightning of him governing him comforting him doing all offices of a seal in his heart till he have brought him to heaven for the Holy Ghost never leaves us it is the sweetest inhabitant that ever lodging was given to he doth all that is done in the soul and he is perpetually with his own work in joy and comfort though he seems sometimes to be in a corner of the heart and is not discernable yet he alway dwells in us the Spirit is alwayes with the stamp it sets upon the soul. What is that stamp then to come to the matter more particularly what is that that the Spirit seales us with especially what is that work I answer the Spirit works in this order for the most part and in some of these universally First the Spirit doth together with the Word which is the instrument of the Spirit the Chariot in which it is carried convince us of the evil that is in us and of the ill estate we are in by reason thereof it convinceth us that we are sinners and of the fearful estate that we are in by sin this is the first work of the Spirit on a man in the state of nature it convinceth us of the ill that is in us and of the ill due unto us and thereupon it abaseth us therefore it is called the Spirit of bondage because it makes a man tremble and quake till he see his peace in Christ. When the Spirit hath done that then it convinceth a man by a better by a sweeter light discovering a remedy in Christ who is sealed of God to reconcile God and us And as he enlightneth the soul convinceth it of the all-sufficiency that is in Christ and the authority that he hath being sent and sealed of God for that purpose so he works on the affections he inclines the heart to go to God in Christ and to cast himself on him by faith Now when the soul is thus convinced of the evil that is in us and of the good that is in Christ and with this convincing is enclined and moved by the holy Spirit as indeed the holy Spirit doth all then upon this the Spirit vouchsafeth a superadded work as the Spirit doth still adde to his own work he addes a confirming work which is here called Sealing that seal is not faith for the Apostle saith After you believed ye were sealed so that this sealing is not the work of faith but it is a work of the Spirit upon faith assuring the soul of its estate in grace But what need confirmation when we believe Is not faith confirmation enough when a man may by a reflect act of the soul know that he is in the state of grace by believing It is true as the natural conscience knows what is in a man as the natural judgment can reflect so the spiritual understanding can reflect and when he believes he knowes that he believes without the Spirit by the reflect act of the understanding except he be in case of temptaton what needs sealing then This act of ours in believing and the knowledge of our believing it is oft terribly shaken and God is wondrous desirous as we see by the whole passage of the Scripture that we should be secure of his love he knowes that he can have no glory and we can have no comfort else and rherefore when we by faith have sealed to his truth he knowes that we need still further sealing that our faith be current and good and to strengthen our faith for all is little enough in the time of temptation and therefore the single witnesse of our soul by the reflect act knowing that we do believe when we do believe it is not strong enough in great temptations for in some tryals the soul is so carried and hurried that it cannot reflect upon it self nor know what is in it self without much ado therefore first the Spirit works faith whereby we seal Gods truth Joh. 3. He that believes hath put to his seal that God is true when God by his Spirit moves me to honour him by sealing his truth that Whosoever believes in Christ shall be saved then God seales this my belief with an addition of his holy Spirit so that this sealing is a work upon believing and as faith honours God so God honours faith with a superadded seal and confirmation But yet we not come particularly enough to know what this Seal is When we honour God by sealing his truth then the Spirit seales us certainly then the Spirit doth it by presence by being with us in our soules What then doth the Spirit work when we believe How shall we know that there is such a spiritual sealing I answer the Spirit in this seaâ—…g works these four things First a secret voyce or
witnesse to the soul that we are the sonnes of God Secondly a voyce or speech in us again to God causing us to have accesse to the Throne of grace with boldnesse Thirdly a work of Sanctification Fourthly Peace of Conscience and joy in the Holy Ghost By these four wayes we may know the sealing of the Spirit after we believe and that our faith is a sound belief and that we are in the state of grace indeed First I say the Spirit speaks to us by a secret kind of whispering and intimation that the soul feeles better then I can expresse Be of good comfort thy sins are forgiven thee saith he to the soul I am thy salvation there is I say a sweet joyning a sweet kisse given to the soul I am thine and thou art mine God by his Spirit speaks so much there is a voyce of Gods Spirit speaking peace to his people upon their believing And then secondly the Spirit of adoption stirres up the speech of the soul to God that as he sayes to the soul Because thou believest now thou art honoured to be my child so the Spirit stirres up in the soul a Spirit of prayer to cry Abba Father it can go boldly to God as to a Father for that Abba Father it is a bold and familiar speech There are two things in a prayer of a Christian that are incompatible to any carnal man there is an inward kind of familiar boldnesse in the soul whereby a Christian goes to God as a child when he wants any thing goes to his father a child considers not his own worthinesse or meannesse but goeth to his father familiarly and boldly so I say when the Spirit of God speaks to us from God and tells the soul I am thine I am thy salvation thy sins are forgiven thee be of good comfort and when the soul again speaks to God when it can pour forth it self with a kind of familiar boldnesse and earnestnesse especially in extremity and in time of trouble and can wait in prayer and depend upon God this spiritual speech of God to the soul and of the soul to God it is a seal of the Spirit that indeed we are true believers because we can doe that that none can do but Christians God speaks to our souls he raiseth our souls and by his Spirit he puts a spirit of supplication into us and helps our infirmities for we know not what to ask but he helps our weaknesse and enables us to lay out the wants of our soules to God these are evidences of the presence and of the seal of the Spirit In the third place this sealing of the Spirit after we beleeve is known by the sanctifying work of the Spirit for as I told you before in the unfolding of the Point the Spirit seals our spirits by stamping the likenesse of the Spirit of Christ on us so that when a man finds in his soul some lineaments of that heavenly Image of Christ Jesus when he finds some love he may know by that love that he is translated from death to life when he finds his spirit subdued to be humble to be obedient when he finds his spirit to be heavenly and holy as Christ was when he finds this stamp upon the soul surely he may reason I have not this by nature naturally I am proud now I can abase my self natureally I am full of malice now I can love I can pray heartily for mine enemies as Christ did naturally I am lumpish and heavy now in afflictions I can joy in the Holy Ghost I have somewhat in me contrary to nature surely God hath vouchsafed his Spirit upon my believing in Christ to mark me to seal 〈◊〉 to stamp me for his I carry now the Image of the second Adam I know the Holy Ghost hath been in my heart I see the stamp of Christ there Know you not that Christ is in you except you be cast awayes saith the Apostle so upon search the Christian soul finds somewhat of Christ alwayes in the soul to give a sweet evidence that he is sealed to the day of redemtpion The fourth evidence that the Spirit of God hath been in a mans heart is the joy of the Holy Ghost and peace of conscience sanctification is the ordinary seal that is alwaies in the soul this is an extraordinary seal peace and joy when the soul needs incouragement then God is graciously pleased to superadd this to give such spiritual ravishings which are as the very beginnings of heaven so that a man may say of a Christian at such times that he is in heaven before his time he is in heaven upon earth but especially God doth this when he will have his children to suffer or after suffering after some special conflict after we have combated with some special corruption with some sinfull disposition with some strong temptation and have got the victory To him that overcometh will I give of the hidden Manna and a white stone and a new name that none can read it but he that hath it that is he shall have assurance that he is in the state of grace and the sweet sense of the love of God and that sweet heavenly Manna that none else can have thus God dealt with Job after he had exercised that Champion a long time at the last he discovered himself in a glorious manner to him so it is usually after some great crosse or in the middest of some great crosse when God sees that we must be supported with some spiritual comfort we sink else then there is place and time for spiritual comfort when earth cannot comfort thus St. Paul in the middest of the dungeon when he was in the stocks being sealed with the Spirit he sang at midnight Alas what would have become of blessed Paul his spirit would have sunk if God had not stamped it with Joy in the Holy Ghost and so David and the three young men in the fiery furnace and Daniel in the den God doth then even as parents smile upon their children when they are sick and need comfort so above all other times God reserves this hidden sealing of his children with a spirit of joy when they need it most sometimes in the middest of afflictions sometimes as a reward when they come out of their afflictions sometimes before so our Saviour Christ had James and John with him upon the mountain to strengthen them against the scandal of suffering after so God when he hath a great work for his children to do some suffering for them to go through as an encouragement before-hand he enlargeth their spirits with the joy of the Holy Ghost and some times also after a holy and gracious disposition in the Ordinances of God God doth adde an excellent portion of his Spirit a seal extraordinary for indeed God thinks nothing enough for his children till he have brought them to heaven seal upon seal and comfort upon comfort and the more we depend upon him
in the meanes of salvation and the more we conflict with our corruptions the more he increaseth the sweet comforts and the hidden Manna of the Spirit Thus we see how the Spirit seals I beseech you therefore let us examine our selves by that which hath been spoken after we believe God seales those that do believe we honour him by believeing he honours us by sealing us with his Spirit Hath God spoken to thy soul by the witnesse of the Spirit and said I am thy salvation thy sins are forgiven thee doth God stirre up thy spirit to call upon him especially in extremity and to go with boldnesse and earnestnesse to him surely this boldnesse and earnestnesse is an evidence of the seal of the Spirit for a man that hath no seal of the Spirit he cannot go to God in extremity Saul in extremity he goes to the Witch and Achitophel and Judas in extremity go to desperate conclusions a man that hath not the Spirit of God speaking peace to his conscience to whom God hath not given the Spirit of Adoption to cry Abba Father in all manner of exigents he sinâ—…ks as lead to the bottom of the sea so heavy is the soul that is not raised by the Spirit of God he hath no consistence till he come to the Centre to hell Did you ever feel the sweet joy of the Spirit after conflict with corruptions and getting ground of them and in holy duties c. it is a sign that God hath sealed you But you will say How can that be a seal that is not alwaies a seal cotinues with the thing Gods children find not peace alwaies the joy of the Spirit comes after the work of the Spirit how then can this be a seal I Answer Yes for howsoever it be or not alway sensible yet it is alway a seal though we have not alwaies the joy of the Spirit yet we have the Spirit of joy a Christian hath not the joy of the Spirit at all times for that is moveable but he hath alwaies the Spirit of joy which Spirit though it be not known by joy yet it is known by operation and working there is the work of the Spirit where there is not alwayes the joy of the Spirit and therefore when that fails go to the work of sanctification and see what stamp and resemblance of Christ there is see if thy heart be humble and broken if thou have a loving disposition in thee like to Christ that thou hatest that which Christ hateth that thou seest a division in thy self I say when the joy of the Spirit ceaseth go to the work of the Spirit and to this work of the Spirit viz. the voice of the Spirit canst thou cry to God with prayer and supplication and if thou canst not pray with distinct words canst thou mourne and groan to God this sighing and groaning is the voice of Gods Spirit and God knowes the voice of his own Spirit But for the question propounded the soul of a Christian knowes that when it findes not extraordinary comfort from Gods Spirit that Gods love is constant It can reason thus Though I find not the comfort of the Spirit yet I have the Spirit of Comfort because I had the Spirit in former times and Gods Spirit is unchangeable and therefore though it be not with me now as in those ravishings of the Spirit yet the love of God is the same though my feeling be not the same because though I be off and on and my feeling ebb and flow yet his love is not so and here upon the extraordinary feeling of the Spirit which is superadded as an extraordinary seal it may be a sound seal of Comfort from the constancy of God who gave it and he gave it for this end that we might have recourse and retire back in our thoughts and argue it was thus and thus with me then we remember the times of old as David saith Psal. 77. and help our selves with our former feelings he that alway hath life is not alwaies alike stirred Christ may be begotten and live in us but he stirs not alwaies alike so though the Spirit of sanctification be in us and stir in us yet his stirring is not alike so sweet and the stirring of the Spirit though it be not alway yet the Spirit is alway there so the soul may have recourse to that which is unchangeable and constant even God himself and his love is as himself But to take a Christian in his worst time in the worst and greatest afflictions how shall he know then that he is sealed of the Spirit when corruption temptation and affliction meet together in the soul when temptation is joyned with our corruption and afflictions yield ground to temptations for Satan useth the afflictions we are in as temptations to shake our faith Canst thou be a child of God and be so exercised is this grace so affliction is a weapon to temptation for Satan to help his fiery darts with Now how shall a man know that God hath any part here He may know that he is sealed by the Spirit of God if he have a spirit to thwart these if he row against the stream if he go contrary to all these if he find a spirit resisting Satans temptations and raising himself above afflictions and standing against and combating with his corruptions and checking his carnal soul when it is drawing him down Why art thou discomforted O my soul saith David Psal. 42. 43. He found corruptions and afflictions and Satans temptations working with them depressing his soul downwards hereupon having the Spirit in him saith he Why art thou disquieted within me trust in God He first chides his soul Why art thou so and then he layes a charge upon it trust in God So I say when this is in the soul in the greatest extremity when I can check my soul Why art thou thus yet trust in God whatsoever is in the world yet there is hope in heaven though there be little comfort upon earth this is a sign that I am sealed with the Spirit of God and thus in the worst temptations that can come and so in the worst times a man may know that he is in the state of grace One use of a seal I told you before was to distinguish if a man therefore find in himself a distinguishing from the errours of the times Many walk saith the Apostle of whom I have told you oft their end is damnation their belly is their god they mind earthly things but what did S. Paul in the mean time what did the Spirit work in him But our conversation is in heaven saith he The whole world was overspread with a deluge of sin but what was Noah and his family God by his Spirit distinguished them they went a contrary course to the world and Lot in Sodom so a man may know that he is sealed when the Spirit leads him another way that he is not led with the
errours of the times Thus we have unfolded to you the sealing of the Spirit and you see the Spirit of God not onely anoints but seales Now we should labour to have our hearts thus sealed by the Spirit Can we desire and never be at quiet till our Instruments be sealed till our acquittances till our Charters be sealed and shall we be patient not to have our soules sealed Let us labour by all means to have the Image and likenesse of Christ stamped upon our soules especially that is wondrous comfortable when we can find somewhat in us like to Jesus Christ. To encourage us to this let us consider that death and Judgment will come and God will set none at his right hand but his sheep that have his mark those that he sets his stamp and Image upon those he will set on the right hand in the day of Judgment And how comfortably in the hour of death can the soul commend it self to God when it sees it self stamped and sealed by the Spirit of Christ when he can say to Christ Lord Jesus receive my soul that thou hast redeemed by thy blood that thou hast sealed by thy Spirit and that thou hast set thine own stamp upon acknowledge thine own likenesse though it be not as it should be what a comfort I say hath the sealed soul at the hour of death and so in all other extremities and in times of trouble and danger those in whom God sees his own Image and likenesse he will own and to those he will alwayes shew a distinct and respective love in hard times What a difference is between that soul and others in the time of affliction as in the time of pestilence and war the soul that is sealed knowes that he is marked out for God for happinesse in the world to come whatsoever befalls him in this world and he knowes that God in all confusion of times knowes his own seal those that are sealed God hath a speciall care of I say therefore in Ezek. 9. they are said to be marked in their foreheads not that there was any visible mark on them but it is a phrase to signifie what speciall care God had of his people specially in times of destruction God will as it were set them out in those times and make special provision for them thus Josiah was taken away from the evill to come and Lot was taken out of Sodom when fire and brimstone was to come from heaven and Pella a little Village was delivered when the general destruction came upon Jerusalem So that I say God hath a speciall care of his little ones in this life and if he take them away yet their death is precious in his sight He will not part with them but upon special consideration he sees if they live it will be worse for them he sees it is better for them to be gathered to himself and to the soules of men made perfect in heaven And as he hath a special care of them in regard of outward miseries and calamities so in regard of spiritual contagion and infection as Rev 7. there Gods holy ones were sealed so many of such a tribe c. which is to signifie to us that God hath alwayes some that he will keep and preserve from the universal infection and contagion of Antichrist in the worst times God hath alwayes a Church in the worst times in the obscurest ages of the Church eight or nine hundred years after Christ especially nine hundred years when Egyptian darknesse had overspread the world and there was little learning and goodnesse in the world God had alwayes sealed ones marked ones that he preserved from the danger of dark times and so he will alwayes have a care of his own that they be not led away with that soul-hurting errour Popery another manner of mischief then men take it for The Scripture is more punctual in setting down the danger of those especially in lighter times of the Church that are carried away with that sin then any other sin whatsoever they have a contrary mark those that have the mark of the Beast it is contrary to the mark of Christ it is far from being the mark and seal of the Spirit that implicite bloody faith Theirs is the bloody Church pretend what they will and they stand out to blood in the defence of all their cruel superstitious and bloody decrees Those persons I say that are deeply died in Popery that have the mark of the Beast they are in a clean opposite condition to those that are marked with the Spirit that Christ marks for his Let us not fear therefore I say if we have the Spirit of God stamped upon us though in a little measure if it be true let us not fear death Christ knowes his own mark even in death and out of death And let us not fear afflictions nor evil times Christ will know his seal He hath a book of remembrance for those that are his Mal. 3. for those that mourn for the sins of the times and when he gathers his Jewels those shall be his he will gather his Jewels as a man in his house gathers his jewels he suffers his luggage to burn in the fire so God in common calamities he suffers luggage wicked men to go to wrack but he will free his own Let us labour therefore for this seal to have our soules stamped with the Spirit of God to have further and further evidence of our state in grace that in the time of common calamity we may be free from danger free from errour and destruction But you will say What shall I account of it if there be but a little sign of grace Be not discouraged when the stamp in wax is almost out it is currant in Law put the case the stamp of the Prince be an old coyn as sometimes we see it on a King Harry groat yet it is currant money yea though it be a little crackt So put tbe case the stamp of the Spirit be as it were almost worn out it is our shame and ought to be our grief that it is so yet there are some evidences some pulses some sighes and groans against corruption we mourn in our spirits we do not joyn with corruption we do not allow our selves in sin there is the stamp of the Spirit remaining though it be overgrown with the dust of the world that we cannot see it Sometimes Gods children though they have the graces of the Spirit in them yet they yield so much to their corruptions that they can read nothing but their corruptions when we bid them read their evidences they can see nothing but worldlinesse nothing but pride and envy c. though there be a stamp on them yet God holds the soul from seeing it so that they can see nothing but corruption this is for their negligence God gives them up to mistake their estates because they will not stirre up the graces of the Spirit
and troubled and we hear many comfortable truths let us lift up our prayers to God let there be ejaculations of spirit to God Now Lord by thy holy Spirit set and seal this truth to my soul that as it is true in it self so it may be true to me likewise This is a necessary Observation for us all Oh we desire all of us in the hour of death to find such comforts as may be standing comforts that may uphold us against the gates of Hell and against the temptations of Satan and terrours of Conscience why nothing will do this but spiritual truths spiritually known nothing but holy truths set on by the hoy Spirit of God But what course shall we take when we want comfort when we want joy and peace In the third of John there are three witnesses in heaven and three in earth to secure us of our state in grace and the certainty of our salvation The three witnesses upon earth are the Spirit the water and the blood and these three agree in one and the three that bear witnesse in heaven are the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and the three on earth and these three in heaven agree in one Now the Spirit is the feelings and the sweet motions of the Spirit The water may well be that washing of the Spirit sanctification The blood is the shedding of the blood of Christ and justification by it When therefore we find that part of the seal that extraordinary seal that I spake of before the joy of the Spirit of God that it is not in us what shall we do shall we despair No go to the water when we find not spiritual joy and comfort when the witnesse of the Spirit is silent go to the work of the Spirit in sanctification I but what shall we do if the waters be troubled in the soul as sometimes there is such a confusion in the soul that we cannot see the Image of God upon it in sanctification we cannot see the stamp of Gods Spirit there there is such a Chaos in the soul God can see somewhat of his own Spirit in that confusion but the Spirit it self cannot Then go to the blood of Christ there is alwayes comfort the fountain that is opened for Judah and Jerusalem to wash in is never dry go therefore to the blood of Christ that is if we find sin upon our consciences if we find not peace in our consciences nor sanctification in our hearts go to the blood of Christ which is shed for all those that confesse their sinnes and rely on him for pardon though we find no grace For howsoever as an evidence that we are in Christ we must find the work of the Spirit yet before we go to Christ it is sufficient that we see nothing in our selves no qualification for the graces of the Spirit they are not the condition of coming to Christ but the promise of those that receive Christ after Therefore go to Christ when thou feelest neither joy of the Spirit nor sanctification of the Spirit go to the blood of Christ and that will purge thee and wash thee from all thy sins This I onely touch for a direction what to do when our soules want comfort when perhaps we cannot see the seal of the Spirit in sanctification so clearly To go on now to the next And given us the Earnest of the Spirit Here is the third word borrowed from humane affaires to set out the work of the Spirit in our soules Anointing we had before and Sealing now here is Earnest The variety of the words shewes that there is a great remainder of unbelief in the soul of man that the Spirit of God is fain to use so many words to expresse Gods dealing to the soul to bring it to believe to be assured of salvation And indeed so it is howsoever we in the time of prosperity when all things go well with us we are prone wondrously to presume yet in the hour of death when conscience is awakened we are prone to nothing so much as to call all in question and to believe the doubts and fears of our own hearts more then the undoubted truth and promise of God therefore God takes all courses to stablish us he gives us rich and precious promises he gives us the holy Spirit to stablish us on the Promises he seales us with his Spirit and gives us the earnest of the Spirit and all to settle this wretched and unbelieving heart of ours So desirous is God that we should be well conceited of him he loves us better then we love our selves He so much prizeth our love that he labours by all means to secure us of his love to us because except we know his love to us we cannot love him again and we cannot joy in him c. But that onely in the general Here is earnest and the Earnest of the Spirit that is in plain termes he gives us the Spirit with the graces and comforts of it which doth in our hearts that which an earnest doth amongst men But what is this Spirit an earnest of It is an Earnest of our inheritance in heaven of our blessed estate there We are sons now but we are not heires invested into the blessed estate we have title to God leaves us not off in the mean time while we are in our Pilgrimage he keeps not all for heaven but he gives us somewhat to comfort us in our absence from our Husband from our Lord and King Christ he gives us the Earnest of the Spirit that is he gives the holy Ghost into our hearts which is the Earnest of that blessed everlasting glorious condition which we shall have in heaven hereafter that is the meaning of the words In what regard is the Spirit called an Earnest First of all an Earnest is for security of bargains and contracts so the Holy Ghost assures the soul of salvation being present with his graces and comforts the Holy Ghost is given for security Secondly an Earnest is part of the whole bargain though it be a very little part yet it is a part and so the Spirit of God here and the work of the Spirit and the graces and joy of the Spirit it is a part of that full joy and happinesse that shall be revealed The Spirit dwells not fully in any one he dwelleth no further then he sanctifieth and reviveth but that is an Earnest for the time to come that the Spirit shall be all in all wherein we shall have no reluctancy nor nothing to exalt it self against the sure regiment of the Spirit Thirdly an Earnest is little in comparison of the whole bargain so the work of the Spirit the comforts the joy the peace of the Spirit it is little in comparison of that which shall be in heaven in regard of the fulnesse of the Spirit which we shall have there An Earnest though it be little in quantity yet it
is great in security and assurance a shilling may secure a bargain of a thousand pounds perhaps so the Spirit it is little in quantity it may be but it is great in assurance And as we value an earnest not for the bignesse of the piece for alas it may be it is but little but we value and esteem it for that which it is an earnest of So the work of the Spirit the joy and peace of the Spirit the comforts of the Spirit though they be little yet they are great in security and are to be prized according to that excellent bargain and possession of which they are an Earnest Fourthly an Earnest is given rather for the security of the party that receives it then in regard of him that gives it so God gives the Earnest of the Spirit grace and comfort this not so much in regard of God for God meaneth to give us heaven and happinesse he hath passed his Word and he is Master of his Word be is Jehovah that gives a being to his Word as well as to every other thing but notwithstanding having to deal with doubtful mistrustful persons he doth it for our security he regards not himself so much but us He works answerable to his own greatnesse strongly but he speaks according to our weaknesse and therefore here is the term of Earnest borrowed for this purpose And lastly an Earnest is never taken away but it is made up with the bargain so it is with the Spirit of God the graces and comforts of it are never wholly taken from a Christian but accomplished in heaven I will leave you the Comforter saith our Saviour Christ that shall abide with you for ever So that in these and such like other respects the Spirit of God by it self together with the graces of it and the comforts it bringeth for they go both together are called an Earnest Hence then having thus cleared the words we may observe some particular Doctrines As first I Observe from the first property of an Earnest that it secures the whole bargain this That A Christian ought to be and may be assured of his estate in grace Because as I said before an Earnest is given for security and that not so much for Gods sake as for our sakes this then must needs follow either none have this earnest or those that have it may be assured or else God is fickle and playes fast and loose with his children which is blasphemy to affirm If none have this earnest then the Apostle speakes false when he saith here he stablisheth us and gives us the earnest of his Spirit and us with you both together ordinary Christians as well as grand ones as well as Paul may be assured of their salvation And if this be so then either those that have this earnest this seal of the Spirit they may be assured or no and if not where is the fault doth not God mean in good earnest to them when he gives them this undoubtedly he doth and why is it given but for assurance he is desirous that we should be perswaded of his love in all things and therefore Gods Children they may and they ought to be assured of his love in this world It is a Point that we have often occasion to meet with in other portions of Scripture I speak it therefore here only as a ground out of this place in that the Spirit of God together with the graces and comforts are called an Earnest I say therefore from hence that we may be assured of our salvation I beseech you what is the aim of the Epistles to the 〈◊〉 to the Ephesians of the Epistle of S. John but a stirring of them up to whom they wrote to be perswaded of Gods love to them and to shew what excellent things we have by the love of God in Christ And S. Johns Epistle it is for nothing else in respect of the substance of it but to give evidences how we may know that we are the sons of God Wherefore did God become man Wherefore was Christ himselfe sealed by the Father Son and Holy Ghost to his office when he was baptized and wherefore he did dye and rise againe and wherefore doth he make intercession in heaven that we should doubt of Gods love when he hath given us that which is greater then salvation that which is greater then all the world his own Son Would we have a greater pledge of his love Is not all this that we should not doubt of his love to us if we cast our selves upon him by faith Christians may and ought and have had assurance these here had assurance and the Scripture speaks of such as had it they have had it we may have it because the Spirit is a Seal and an Earnest and we ought to have it because God hath framed both his Word and his Sacraments and all his dealing to man so as to perswade us of his love Yet adde this Caution That Christians have not at all times a like assurance of their salvation neither all Christians at all times have it not nor the best have it not at all times For there is an infancy of grace when we know not our own estate and condition and there is a time of temptation after infancy when likewise we stagger in our assurance there be times likewise of desertion when God to make us look better to our footing leaves us a little as if he would forsake us when indeed he leaves us to draw us after him to cleave more closely to him for this shaking is to settle us deeper So there be times and seasons wherein though we be assured yet we cannot then know our own assurance And this assurance differeth in Christians for some have more some lesse even as the constitution of the body some are of a melancholy constitution that helps Satan in his temptations and they are subject to fearing and misdoubting and so as there is a difference in regard of tempers some are more hardly brought to be perswaded then others so there is a difference likewise in care and diligence for those that use more care and diligence have more assurance there is a difference likewise in growth and continuance in Christianity some are fathers and some are babes Answerable to the difference of constitutions and of care and diligence and of age and growth in Christianity so is the difference of assurance Nay it is possible that for a long time Gods child may want this act of assurance for there is a double act of faith An Act whereby the soul relies upon God as reconciled in Christ and relies upon Christ as given of God and relies upon the promise And then there is a reflect act whereby knowing we do thus we have assurance Now a man may perform the one act not the other we may do that deed that may found our assurance if the waters of the soul
any thing as we may be of Gods love for the time to come We have a common speech amongst us I know what I have but what I shall have I know not It is an ill speech thou knowest not what thou hast for these worldly things a man hath them so to day as they may take to themselves wings and be gone to morrow for they are but vanity A may be as rich as Job in the morning and as poor as Job at night so that a man knowes not what he hath but for the time to come for grace and glory he may say Though I know not what I have or how long I shall have it I know what I shall have I know that neither things present nor things to come shal be able to separate me from the love of God in Jesus Christ. So that you see here a foundation of the sweet and comfortable Doctrine of perseverance Grace is the Earnest of glory and it doth but differ in degrees the beginning of glory is here in grace the consummation of it hereafter We are anointed Kings here we shall be Kings in heaven we are sons here in this world we shall be heires in heaven we shall be adopted there in soul and body here we are adopted in soul for in this life Christs first coming was for the soul his second coming is for body and soul therefore the resurrection is called the day of regeneration because then it shall be perfected here regeneration is onely begun So that in respect that the work of the Spirit the graces of the Spirit are called an Earnest we may know and be assured of perseverance in grace and that that which we have now in the beginning shall be accomplished Oh how should this set us upon desires to have the blessed work of the Spirit upon us to have the Spirit to set his seal upon us to be Christs to have this Earnest and to get more and more Earnest till we have the full bargain accomplished in heaven Thirdly I told you that an Earnest is part of the whole they therefore that have not the Earnest cannot look for the bargain The Observation hence is That Those that look to be happy must first look to be holy This Point I mean to touch very briefly I am loath to passe it by though it be not the principal thing I aim at because it may serve for a kind of tryal whether a man have any right to heaven or no. It is the ordinary presumptuous errour of common Christians to think to go to heaven out of unclean courses with Lord have mercy upon us but miserable wretches are they that have not this Earnest of the Spirit in them an Earnest of heaven beforehand in grace and peace and joy We must all read our happinesse in our holinesse and therefore it is that happinesse in heaven and holinesse here which is happinesse inchoate have both one title to shew that we cannot have the one without the other we must enter into heaven here in this life The stones you know they were hewed before they were brought to the building of the Temple they were all made and fitted before-hand and so all that shall be stones in heaven they must be hewed and prepared and fitted here there must be no knocking and fitting of them there So then you see these three things touched that the holy Spirit together with the graces and comforts of it are called an Earnest and therefore that it is a part of the whole an assurance of the whole and that it shall never be taken away Now for the fourth that an Earnest is little in regard of the whole and indeed the holy Apostle aimes at this partly as well as at any other thing else an Earnest is little perhaps we have but a shilling to secure us of many pounds So then the point is this That Howsoever we may be assured of our estate in grace and likewise that we shall hold out yet the ground of this assurance is not from any great measure of grace but though it be little in quantity it may be great in assurance and security As we value an Earnest not for the worth that is in it self but because it assures us of a great bargain we have an Eye more to the consummation of the bargain then to the quantity of the Earnest so it is here Grace is but an Earnest yet notwithstanding though it be little as an Earnest is yet it is great in assurance and validity answerable to the relation of that it hath to assure us There is nothing lesse then a grain of mustard-seed but there is nothing in the world so little in proportion in a manner that comes at length to be so great as the graces of God and the work of the Spirit is The Crocodile a huge creature comes of an egg and the Oak it riseth to that greatnesse from an Acorn but what are these to the wondrous work of the new creature to be the heir of heaven rising from so little despised beginings from a little light in the understanding from a little heat in the affections from a little strength in the will compared for the littlenesse thereof to a grain of mustard-seed Indeed grace growes a man knowes not how As Christ saith of the seed sowen in the earth it growes up first to a blade and then to a stalk and then to an ear and then to be corn but a man cannot tell how so it is with the work of grace and the comforts of the Spirit when the Spirit together with the Word works upon the soul there is a blade a little and then a stalk and then Corn. First a babe in Christ little at the first and as it is little so it is much opposed As we see the Sun when it is weak in the rising in the morning there gather a great many vapours to besiege the Sun as it were as if they would put out the light of it till it comes to fuller strength and then it spends them all and gloriously shines in heaven so it is with the work of the Spirit of grace when it first ariseth in the soul there gather about it a great many doubts and discomforts the flesh riseth and casteth up all the dirt and mud it can to trouble the blessed waters of grace till it have gotten fuller and fuller strength to spend them all as it is when a man comes to be a strong Christian. But yet as little as it is seeing it is an Earnest and the first-fruits as the Apostle saith which were but little in regard of the whole harvest yet it is of the nature of the whole and thereupon it comes to secure A spark of fire is but little yet it is fire as well as the whole element of fire And a drop of water it is water as well as the whole Ocean When a man is in a dark place put the
which I observe the rather because I would raise your hearts to hate unbelief and distrust exceedingly because God labours to undermine it by all means possible Wherefore doth he use so many terms here of Sealing Anointing and Earnest with words and Sacraments and all whatsoever may confirm you The Holy Ghost applyes it to us all this is that we may not doubt of the favour of God and therefore when we find any goodnesse in us let us accompt that to give false witnesse against our selves is a horrible sin it is to make God a liar God stands upon his credit and therefore take heed what we say specially if we have found the work of grace in former time any Earnest that we have no grace God doth this for our assurance all his dealing of Word and Sacraments of Earnest and Oath and all that may be to assure us and therefore we should not crosse the goodnesse of God so as to cherish such a disposition as is most contrary to him that he labours to undermine by all means And therefore here is the poyson of Popish Religion that it maintaines doubting and leaves men doubting indeed they do well to maintain it in their Doctrine for indeed they false found a man upon satisfaction they false found him upon Purgatory and merits and the foundation they have of a Christian soul is uncertain and therefore they may well teach doubting it suits with the course that they take but I say it is very corrupt for God useth all means that we should not doubt and therefore it is idly objected God for his part will but for our part we have reason to doubt why he in all things stoops to us he labours to secure us and therefore in the Covenant of grace he doth his part and ours too But I hasten to that which followes because I would end with the time To touch that a little distinctly by it self that the Spirit doth all the Earnest of the Spirit for indeed though Spirit be not added to stablishing yet the Spirit stablisheth by Christ and the Spirit it anoints and the Spirit seales to the day of redemption and the Earnest of the Spirit So it is the Holy Ghost doth all here you have the three Persons in the Trinity we have three grand Enemies the world the flesh and Satan Now here are the three persons in the Trinity stronger then all our enemies He which stablisheth us is God the Father by his Spirit upon whom upon Christ â—…n Christ and gives us the Earnest of his Spirit you have I say the three Persons of the Trinity here but why doth the Spirit give us the Earnest why doth the Spirit give us grace and comfort seal us and doth all and stablisheth us I answer First of all because now since the fall we have no principles of supernatural good and therefore it must be a principle above our nature to work both grace and comforts in our barren hearts Again as there is no principle to that which is supernaturally good so there is opposition to that which is supernaturally good and therefore there must be somewhat to overpower the corruption of our nature But why the Spirit rather then the Father and the Son He comes from both and proceeding from both he is fit to witnesse the love of both for the Holy Ghost is in the breast of the Father and the Son and proceeds from both and he knowes the secret love of the Father to us and the love of Christ Jesus Mediatour to us Now the Spirit knowing the secrets of God as a mans spirit saith the Apostle knowes his own secrets he knowes his love and he knowes whom he loves So the Spirit of God knowing the affection of the Father and the affection of Jesus Christ to us is fit to be an Earnest fit to be a Seal Indeed all things are wrought by the Spirit in grace for application the desert is from the Son originally from the Father but in regard of application of what is wrought by the Son all is by the Holy Ghost both graces and comforts the Holy Ghost takes from Christ for if grace be wrought it is with divine reasons from the love of God in Christ if grace he wrought it is from the wondrous love of God reconciled in Christ wherein heaven is opened hell is vanquished it is by reasons fetched from Christ and so he takes of mine as Christ saith He shall take of mine and give to you he takes reasons from Christ the holy Ghost whereby he makes all the application is altogether by the Spirit And it must be by the Spirit again because the Spirit of God and no lesse then the Spirit can quiet our spirits for when the soul is distempered it is like a distempered lock that no key can open So when the Conscience is troubled what creature can settle the troubled Conscience can open the ambages of a troubled Conscience in such perplexity and confusion and therefore to settle the troubled Conscience aright it must be somewhat above Conscience and that which must quiet the Spirit must be such a Spirit as is above our spirits This is excellently set down in this Epistle in the 3. Chap. the work of the holy Ghost in this kind But I cannot stand upon it now at this time I go on Likewise in the first Epistle to the Corinthians the second Chapter and 11. ver that one place shall stand in stead of all What man knowes the things of a man but the spirit of a man that is in him So the things of God no man knowes but the Spirit Now We have received the spirit not of the world but the Spirit of God to know the things that are freely given us of God if our spirits were in the heart and soul of another man in the breast of another man we should know what another man thinks if a man had a spirit in another mans spirit surely he would know all his thoughts and all his affections Now the holy Spirit of God is in the breast of the Father and the Son and he knowes our spirits better then we know our own spirits he searcheth he is a searcher as the word is in the original the Spirit is a searcher he searcheth our own hearts and he searcheth the secret love of God to us that is the Spirit must stablish us Well then if the Spirit doth all how shall we know then that we have this Spirit A note or two and so go on If we have this Spirit of God to seal us and to be an Earnest I will not speak all that may be but a little for indeed all comes from the Spirit Even as in our souls how may a man know that he hath a soul by living and moving by actions vital c. So we may know a man hath the Spirit of God by those actions that come onely from the Spirit which is to
love if he take any course contrary to love it is not his own work as he saith to punish man it is not his own work he is forced to that alway to shew love and mercy that is his work that that comes from his own principle from his mercy he is love he doth not say he is justice or rigour but he is love It agrees with the nature of God to deal mercifully if he deal otherwise it is forced from us It suits with the whole carrirge of our salvation these courses of love and gentlenesse first of all for we are saved by a manner of love we are saved by God giving his Son and by his Son giving himself We are saved by a course of intreaty the Ministers of God are Ambassadours to desire us to be reconciled to God God having saved us by a manner of love he will have us taught by a manner of love in the Gospel especially because Gods aim is to gain our love and which way can that be but by a way of love For the nature of man is such that it will never love till it know it be loved first Therefore God stoops to a way of love because he would have our love which he would never have by other courses because they are contrary to our nature It is the practice of God his custome is answerable for first he deales by gentle means alwayes and then after if those will not prevail he goes to severe means and in severe means he takes degrees first lesse and then more violent and then violent indeed God would never descend to sharper courses if milder would serve the turn You know he bade his own people before they set in hostile manner upon any to give them fair warning to offer them conditions of peace so it is his course to offer conditions of peace so he did to the old World and so he doth to us before he corrects he offers conditions of peace You see how sparing Christ was and how full of love O Jerusalem Jerusalem c. Again they are courses that promise best successe ordinarily for the proud nature of man will raise it self up and will harden it self against severe courses Man naturally as I said will be led and not forced his nature will rise against forced violent courses therefore for the event it self it is the best Again they are courses that are more lasting that that is gained by love is constant that that we prevail with men for by reason it will hold other courses are not so faithful they will not hold What we gain on men by fear there is shame in it that a man should be forced to any thing and nature will break out But it will hold best that is gained by way of love and reason Therefore let us imitate God in this when we are to deal with any not to take violent courses in the first place but to deal with men as men deal with them by love and reason and not stand upon our own stomach and greatnesse and take delight as it were in the commanding of others that we have a destructive power a power that can quash and crush men and shew it to the utmost and pride our selves in it If God should deal so with such where were those proud creatures If God were not a forbearing indulgent sparing God Therefore you may see what disposition those are of that are all for fire for violent courses rigorous courses That is not the way that God useth it is not the way that Christ used it is not the way that ministers do use that have the Spirit of God You have some kind of people that if a man be not alway in matters of damnation his Sermon is nothing So you have some that in their courses are so violent that they know nothing that is moderate and yet perhaps they are good too but they cherish too much a violent disposition Now St. Paul though he were a very zealous holy man yet notwithstanding he would not put himsef upon violent courses but when there was great necessity He is rather a Butcher then a Physician that loves to torment his Patient You see what course is first to be taken I need not be long in so clear a Point therefore I will spend no more time in it but come to the second that is more generally usefull because indeed men are so that gentle means will hardly prevail with them what must be done then not spare them When gentle means will not serve the turn then we must not spare S. Paul came not that he might spare them Now if they had not amended what would S. Paul have done think you would he have suffered them to have cherished the incestuous person among them that wicked person that had committed that which was intolerable amongst the Heathen would he have cherished proud factious men among them that would disgrace S. Pauls Doctrine to win authority to them selves would not he have told them to their face the danger of their sin and have made them ashamed undoubtedly he woud he would have spared So I say if gentle means will not prevail men must not be spared meither Minister nor Magistrate must spare especially in dangerous courses that are prejudicial to the souls of others Why We must spare none that God may spare all We that are Ministers must spare no sin that God may spare all Lift up thy voice like a Trumpet saith God and tell Israel of their sins If gentle means will not reform them lift up thy voice like a Trumpet Cast out Jezabel with her painted face though sin paint and colour it self it must be cast out Jonas must out of the ship the ship will perish else Achan must be stoned We must tell men of their danger not with hatred of their persons but to prevent an eternal punishment You know well that preventing justice is better then executing justice Is not discipline better then execution Is it not better to hear of our faults roundly when other means will not prevail then to cherish that that will be for our eternal destruction Is not searing and cutting better then killing Is it not better that a limb be seared and cut then that all be clear cut off and the whole body perish Is not the pain of Chirurgery or Physick that makes a man sick for a while better to be endured then the painse and terrours of death it self These preventing courses are the best courses therefore we must spare none but tell them of their danger faithfully Only liberty of speech must not be a cover for boistrousnesse or a cover for the venting of evil humors as sometimes it is For flesh will never prevail with flesh flesh and pride in the speaker will never prevail with pride in the hearer but it must be a spiritual kind of severity discovering the danger to them we speak to
part of happinesse in this world and in the world to come Now the end of the Ministery is to set the peoples hearts into a gracious and blessed liberty to bring them into the Kingdome of grace here and to fit them for the Kingdome of glory to help forward their joy This is the end both of the Word and of the dispensation of the Word in the Ordinances of salvation in the Sacraments and all that our joy may be full as our blessed Saviour saith These things have I spoken that your joy may be full It is the end of all our communion with the Father Son and Holy Ghost and with the Ministery and one with another as it is 1 Joh. 1. These things have I written that your joy may be full you have communion with the Father Son and Holy Ghost and with us that your joy may be full all is for spiritual joy We are helpers of your joy The meaning is we are helpers of your faith from whence joy comes more especially for he doth not repeat the word again We have not dominion over your faith but are helpers of your faith but instead of that he names joy as that that doth accompany true faith The Points considerable in this clause are these That joy is the state of Christians that either they are in or should labour to be in because the Apostle names it for all happinesse here All that have given their names to Christ should labour to rejoyce either they do rejoyce or they should labour to come to it that is supposed as a ground I will be the shorter in it The second is That the Ministers are helpers of this blessed condition The third is They are but helpers they are helpers and but helpers they are not authours of joy but helpers We are but helpers of your joy saith the Apostle These three things I will speak of briefly out of these words First Joy is that frame and state of soul that all that have given their names to Christ either are in or should labour to be in For this Doctrine is fetched from the principle of nature We do all with joy all in our callings is done with joy What do men in their Trades but that they may have that that they may joy in when they have it It is an old Observation of S. Chrysostome We do all that we may joy Ask any man why he doth take so much pains and be a drudge in his place it is that he may get somewhat to rejoyce in in his old dayes So out of the principle of nature this ought to be the scope of all to joy Now those that are Christians God requires it at their hand as a duty Rejoyce alway again I say rejoyce And he doth prepare and give them matter enough of joy to those that are Christians For whether we consider the ills they are freed from the greatest ills of all they are freed from sin and the wrath of God they are freed from eternal damnation they are freed from the sting of death from the greatest and most terrible ills Or whether we regard the state that God brings them in by believing being in the favour of God they enjoy the fruits of that favour peace and joy in the Holy Ghost And then for the life to come they are under the hope of glory The state of a Christian is a state of joy every way whether I say we regard the ill he is freed from or the good he is in for the present or the hope of eternal good for the time to come A Christian which way soever he look hath matter of joy God the Father is his Christ is his the Holy Ghost is his Comforter the Angels are his all are his life or death things present or things to come all are his Therefore there is no question of this that every one that hath given his name to Christ is in a state of joy if he answer his calling or he should labour to be in it he wrongs his codition else Why should they labour to be in that state Among many Reasons one is That God that gives them such matter of joy may have glory from them For what should the life of a Christian be that is freed from the greatest ill and advanced to the greatest good his life should be a perpetual thanksgiving to God and how can a man be thankfull that is not joyful Joy is as it were the oyl the anointing it makes a man chearful it makes the countenance of his soul to be chearful it makes him active in good when he is anointed with the oyl of gladnesse Now every man should have a desire to be good to be diligent and expedite in all that is good Therefore we should labour for this spiritual anointing that we may be ready for every good work Vessels of mercy prepared for every good work And then for suffering we have many things to go through in this world how shall a man suffer those things that are between him and Heaven with joy unlesse he labour to bring himself to this temper of joy And then for others every man should labour to encourage others We are all fellow-passengers in the way to Heaven therefore even to bring on others more chearfully we ought to labour to be in a state of joy Those that do not rejoyce they bring an ill report upon the way of God as if it were a desolate disconsolate way As the Spies brought an ill report upon the Land of Canaan whereupon the people were disheartned from entring into it So those that labour not to bring their hearts to spiritual joy they bring an ill report on the wayes of God and dishearten others from entring into those wayes which way soever we look we have reasons to encourage us to joy That God may have more glory and that we may do him more service that we may endure afflictions better and encourage others and take away the reproach of Religion from those that think it a melancholy course of life which indeed do not understand what belongs to the state of a Christian for the state of a Christian is a state of joy And if a Christian do not joy it is not because he is a Christian but because he is not a Christian enough because he favours the worse principle in him he favours himself in some work of the flesh God in the Covenant of grace is all love and mercy he would have us in our pilgrimage to heaven to finish our course with joy and he knowes we can do nothing except we have some joy It is the oyl of the soul as I said to make it nimble and fit for all actions and for all sufferings It gives a lustre and grace to whatsoever we do Not onely God loves a chearfull performer of duties but it wins acceptance of all others and makes the worker himself wondrous
we must swear by him And indeed it is a service of God and to good purpose when Christians swear to stablish and determine truths that otherwise are doubtfull They were doubtfull of S. Paul's doctrine and his person saith he To put you out of doubt of the truth I speak to you I dare call God to witnesse it is true and sound The Apostle doth so once after in this Chapter therefore I reserve the further handling of an oath to verse 23. because the word there is more infallible I call God to record upon my soul c. The next thing I observe hence is this That The believing that Gods Word is Gods Word and is certain it is a matter of great consequence It is of great consequence for Gods people that look to be saved to be stablished in their opinion and judgment of Divine truth that it is certain and not flexible and mutable according to our wills and conceits and dispositions but is yea alway the same as God himself the Authour of it For laying this for a ground that I said before that S. Paul takes God to witnesse he would not enterpose an oath but in a matter of great consequence therefore it is a matter of great consequence to be setled in this that the Scripture is Divine truth unalterable and unchangeable An oath is never good as I said but when it is necessary It must not onely be in truth but there must be a necessity It must not only be taken in righteousnesse but in judgment a man must do it in discretion when the thing is not determinable any other way Therefore it is a matter of great consequence that men take the Word of truth not to be as the Oracles of Apollo and of the Devill true one way and false another The Devil would escape the imputation of a lie though he be a liar but Gods Oracles be Divine they be yea And it is good that we think them to be so to be constant undoubted certain and unmovable Therefore the Apostle seales it with an oath he would not seal a slight truth by an oath but saith he As God is true our word to you was not yea and nay c. And Saint Paul saw a disposition in them to suspect the truth of God as indeed we are proner to believe the lies of our own hearts and the suggestions of Satan and the counsell of Politicians of carnall friends then to believe God himself Therefore partly for the indisposition in us and partly for the great exigence and necessity of the thing to believe that Gods Word is his Word that it is truth he seales it with an oath God is true It is a point of great consequence The reason is God can have no service else and we can have no comfort If we do not believe the Word of God to be undoubtedly true in great temptations and assaults what armour of proof shall we have we can have no comfort nor grace For sometimes subtile and strong temptations to evill come if the Word of God be not more undoubted to me then the present profit or pleasure or whatsoever if the temptation be ready and I be not built on and settled on some grounded truth that I know to be true as God is true when the temptation is strong and our faith weak where are we a man presently yields to base lusts and temptations And so in matter of danger and despair when a man is tempted to despair if he cannot build on this God is true and his Word is as true as himself he will not the death of a sinner c. here a man is swallowed up It is no matter how strong the foundation be if the building on that foundation be weak If a strong man stand in a slippery place down he falls if a man stand slippery and have a weak standing on a strong place on a strong foundation if he have a weak building on a strong foundation he shall soon be cast off So the Word of God is true in it self but if we be not perswaded so that it is infallibly true that it is alway yea we shall be shaken with temptations When we are tempted to sin the temptation is present we are sure of the temptation if we be not more sure of somewhat against the temptation somewhat out of the Word to beat back the darts of Satan when we are tempted to sin and to despair for sin down we go and therefore it is a matter of infinite consequence to be perswaded of Divine truth What makes many as they are in courses that are corrupt in their callings nothing but this they stagger whether it be true or no that there shall be a Judgment they stagger whether it be true or no that the Scripture saith if they were perswaded that it were yea as true as God is in heaven as true as they have soules so their soules must be called to Judgment for that they speak and do would they do as they do Therefore S. Paul stablisheth them by an oath God is true and as God is true our Word to you was not yea and nay Therefore take in good part with thankfulnesse the means that God hath ordained to strengthen our faith and assurance of the Word of God and the Promises of God Therefore he hath appointed the Sacrament for that purpose I say there is nothing in the world so strengthened as the soul of a Christian if he give himself to Gods truth to be ruled by it For if we will believe God we have his promise That Whosoever believes in Christ shall not perish but have everlasting life rich promises precious promises as the Scripture calls them We have not onely promises but they are sealed with an oath Now an oath is an unchangeable thing Heb. 9. 16. we have promises and oath that we might have strong consolation whatsoever might secure man we have Besides his oath we have his seal his Sacrament It was his love to condescend to make any Covenant with sinfull creatures that upon any terms he would give them life everlasting It was a higher degree of love to set Christ to be the foundation of this peace and of this Covenant that now God and we may be at peace with satisfaction to Divine Justice that he is the foundation of the peace between God and us Now God may be mercifull without wrong without impeachment to his Justice that is a higher degree of mercy to enter into Covenant and to give Christ to be the foundation of all And then it is a higher degree then that to secure us of the Covenant that Christ is ours to seal the Word with an oath and with the Sacrament which is the seal of the Covenant what could God do more What a horrible sin therefore is unbelief that we should tremble at to call Gods love and truth in question But yet we are prone to it
or else why did Christ ordain the Sacrament to strengthen and stablish our faith and to confirm us but that he knew our propensenesse to unbelief In the time of ease and prosperity it is easie to think God is merciful and Christ died but in the time of temptation all is little enough to shore and prop up the faith of a drooping Christian. Therefore God out of heavenly wisdome and love to us hath appointed these Ordinances for the strengthening of our faith And all is to no purpose unlesse our faith be strong in the Promises as Saint Paul takes an oath to build them on the Promises he taught them And so all is little enough oath and promises and seal c. Therefore we should with all reverence attend upon Gods Ordinances for the strengthening of our faith But to come to the words themselves As God is true our word to you was not yea and nay Take the words out of the form of an oath and the Proposition is That God is true and faithfull In this link of the sentence God is true First it is true that God is he is truly God his nature is true his properties true Likewise God is true and faithfull not onely in his nature and properties but in his free decrees in the things that freely come from him It was free for him to make promises of salvation or no as it was free for him to make a world or no and whether he would redeem mankind or no but when he had promised except he should deny himself and his truth he must send Christ. So in all the free promises of forgivenesse of sins and life everlasting by Christ if we believe in him we say they are certainly true because God that is true hath promised God is true in his Nature and true in his free Promises and threatnings he is true in his works true in his Word every way true He is true in his nature all is true within him and without him if any thing could change him from within he were not himself he were not God And from without there is nothing can change him for there is nothing stronger then God God is true in all his purposes true in his free and voluntary decrees It was free for him to decree but having decreed there is a necessity of performing it is of the necessity of his nature as he is God He is true in his free decrees they are not free in regard of the event but in regard of the Original as I said he might have made a world at the first or no and have redeemed mankind or no but having made these decrees of necessity as he is God he must be true in his free decrees There is a subordination of truths whereof one is the cause of all the rest Now all depends upon this grand truth God is it is the first truth that ever was of all truths in the world in heaven and earth that there is a God that there is such a thing such an excellency as God the Authour of all things in nature the Authour of all things in grace and glory I shall not need to prove this fundamental truth this Truth of truths that God is It infers all other truths For grant this that God is and a man must needs grant that that followes upon it that God is as a God should be that is unchangeable eternal immutable almighty al-sufficient and all the blessed attributes that he is the authour of all good in the creature that must needs follow God is the first truth and then God is so and so as becomes a God And then this must follow in the next place that he is a God immutable and unchangeable he must be so in all the manifestations that come from him in his free decrees and in the outward manifestations by promises and threatnings and whatsoever and therefore God is true immutably and unchangeably true or else he were not God he cannot be otherwise and be God A man may say of a man he is a liar and yet he may be a man a man may be a man and a good man and yet be unconstant and changeable because he is a creature but to say a God and not to be true is to say a God and not a God of the necessity of his nature he must be true It is not of the necessity of the nature of man to be true he may be a man and be a liar Every man is a liar because it is not of the essence of man to be true but God is true out of the necessity of nature he cannot be God if he be not true because God cannot deny himself Man is changeable because he is a creature as Damascen's speech is All things created are mutable and man as a creature is changeable a man therefore may be alterable and false and be a man but God cannot be so and be God It will be objected that God hath threatned oft and hath not performed as we see in the Ninivetes and Hezekias in his sicknesse and so in many others But the answer is easie God is true in all these for Gods Promises that come from his truth they are either absolute or conditional The absolute are those that have nothing annexed to them but shall certainly be As God would have sent Christ without all conditions Christ should have come without all peradventure as we say But now some promises have conditions annexed to them if a Nation repent of their sins God will repent of the evill he hath threatned as it is in Jeremy Now those threatenings that are on condition of repentance if the condition be performed the sentence is reversed All the Promises are made with exception of the Crosse all must suffer before they come to heaven and be glorified Now all the Promises with the exception of the Crosse are conditional So God is true both in his absolute Promises that are made without condition and he is true in his conditional Promises because where he performs the condition he will perform likewise that that is tied to the condition he changeth his sentence sometimes and his threatening but not his decree for his purpose and decree is to forgive and reverse the sentence if we repent I say it is a clear truth that God is true unchangeably and immutably true And it is the prime truth of all truths that God is and God is true As we say of the heavens unlesse the heavens were moved there would be no motion in the earth For if the Sun had not a motion in the Zodiack up and down where were Summer and Winter If he had not his course where were night and day The vicissitude and entercourse of all earthly things If the heavenly motion were not nisi moverentur c. if those did not move we could not move because we depend upon that So unlesse it were true that God were
were not troubled that is we may believe and yet want assurance because that is another distinct act that followeth upon our casting of our selves upon God And so many of the dear children of God sometimes they can hardly say that they have any assurance but yet notwithstanding they can say if they do not belye themselves and bear false witnesse against themselves that they have cast themselves upon Gods mercy they have performed the first act of faith and this faith is not fruitlesse altogether Now there be many things that may hinder this other act viz. that act of faith whereby I am assured of my state in grace sometimes God together with my believing will present such things to the soul as wholly take it up so that a man cannot have definitive thoughts upon that that God would have him think of As when God will humble a man for his boldnesse in adventuring upon sin he takes not away the Spirit of faith but God to humble him throughly he sets before him his anger sets before him terrour even hellish terrours that will make him in a state little different from a reprobate for the time so that he is farre from saying that he hath any assurance at that time yet notwithstanding he doth not leave off he casts himself upon Gods mercy still though God kill him yet he will trust in him and yet he feels nothing but terrour and this I say God doth to school him and to humble him and to prepare him for the feeling of assurance after These things we must observe that we give not a false evidence of our selves that though we have not such assurance as we have had and as others have yet I say alway there is some ground in us where upon we may be assured that we are Gods if we could search it Such ought to labour for assurance and such will in time come to assurance And therefore we should be farre from alowing that Doctrine which is as if a man should light a candle before the Divel as we use to say to help him against our hearts by a Doctrine of doubting as if our naughty hearts were not ready enough of themselves to doubt It is the prophanenesse of the world they will not use the means that God hath appointed to this end nay they had rather stagger and take contentment assurance in their own waies if God will love me in a loose course so it is but to give diligence to make my calling and election sure I had rather believe the Popish Doctrine that I ought to doubt and only to be of a good hope Whereas we ought constantly to labour to be assured of our state in grace that God may have more honour and that we may have more comfort from him again and walk more chearfully through the troubles and temptations that are in the world A Carnal proud person he swells against this Doctrine because he feels no such thing and he thinks what is above his measure is hypocrisie he makes himself the measure of other Christians and therefore he values and esteems others by his dark state for a carnal mans heart it is like a dungeon a man in a dungeon can see nothing because he hath no light but he that hath the light he can see the dungeon the heart of a Christian hath a light in it there is the Spirit in him and therefore he can see his own estate and he can tell what is in him upon due search now in a carnal man all is dark he sees nothing because his heart is in a dungeon his eye is dark his heart is full of darknesse all is alike to him he sees no difference between flesh and Spirit and therefore he holds on in a doubting hope and confused disposition and temper of soul But a Christian that labours to walk in the comforts of the Holy Ghost he is not content with such a confused state and therefore we ought to abhor that Doctrine by all means and to justifie this Doctrine that we ought and that we may have assurance of salvation in this world The second thing which I observe and which I joyn to the former is the Doctrine of Perseverance An Earnest you know I told you is made up with the Bargain but it is never taken away so that the Point is this That Gods Children as they may be assured of their salvation So They may be assured that they shall hold out to the end I think many of you think these two Points to be so clear that it is unnecessary to divide them for if we be assured of our salvation there must needs be perseverance to the end for what kind of assurance is it to be in the state of grace to day and not to be to morrow But if you ask some degenerated followers of Luther that leave him in his sweet and comfortable Doctrines and take up some errours of his and some others that would divide these hot they are against the Papists for denying the Doctrine of assurance of salvation but when they come to perseverance they hold that a Christian may fall away altogether these things cannot stand together for undoubtedly it is most sure and just and right that these truths follow one the other assurance of salvation and perseverance and therefore if they maintain that we ought to be assured of salvation and not doubt of Gods love surely then they cannot with the same Spirit and the same ground doubt that God that hath begun a work will finish it to the day of the Lord there is no question but that the one followes the other because an earnest as it assures us of salvation so it assures us of perseverance Herein an Earnest differs from a pawn or pledge a pledge it is given but it is taken away again but an Earnest when it is once given is never taken away again but as it is a part of the bargain so it is filled and made up with the bargain so grace is a part of glory and is never taken away but made up with perfect on of glory From this we see then that he that is in the state of grace is undefeasable he perseveres to the end because he hath the earnest of the Spirit if God should take away his Spirit from him he should take away his earnest and if he take away his earnest he takes away that for which he gives it assurance of salvation and so should overthrough all But God never repents of his earnest man oft-times repents of his earnest and wisheth he had not made such a fruitlesse bargain but God never doth but where he gives the first fruits he makes up the harvest where he laies the foundation he makes up the building where he gives Earnest he makes up the bargain where he begins a good work he finisheth it to the day of the Lord once his for ever his We cannot be so sure of