saved 4. Necessitate Signi as Evidences of our Right to Salvation both to others and our selves Works or external Acts are more sensible and visible and also liable to the notice of our own Consciences and it is more hard to judg of the internal Grace than the external Fruits 1. As to others God seeth what is in our Hearts but Men see it not till the Effects manifest it When Iohn suspected the Pharisees he said to them Mat. 3. 8. Bring ye forth therefore Fruits meet for Repentance The Fear of God is more known by the external Act than by the internal Habit therefore that Description is given Prov. 8. 13. The Fear of the Lord is to hate Evil Pride and Arrogancy and the evil Way and the froward Mouth do I hate And Iob 28. 28. The Fear of the Lord that is Wisdom and to depart from Evil is Understanding The Current of a Mans Life and Actions doth best expound and interpret his Heart Thus the Psalmist discovered the wicked Psal. 36. 1. The Transgression of the Wicked saith within my Heart that there is no Fear of God before his Eyes 2. To our selves holy Conversation and Godliness is the surest note of our Regeneration We judg others by external Works alone For the Tree is known by its Fruit Mat. 7. 16. Charity forbids us to pry any further but we judg our selves by internal and external Works together If within we have Faith in Christ a love to God and hatred of Evil a delight in Holiness a deep sense of the World to come all which Graces make up the new Nature then these things issue out into an holy Conversation this breedeth Joy and Peace of Conscience 2 Cor. 1. 12. This is our rejoycing the Testimony of our Conscience that in Simplicity and godly Sincerity not with fleshly Wisdom but by the Grace of God we have had our Conversation in the World 1 John 3. 18 19. Let us not love in Word neither in Tongue but in Deed and in Truth and hereby we know that we are of the Truth and shall assure our Hearts before him 3. That good Works must not be opposed to God's Mercy and free Grace or Christ's Satisfaction Merit and Righteousness either in the matter of Justification or Salvation but kept in a due subordination to God's Grace and Christ's Merits This is the business of this Context to reconcile the Grace of God with the necessity of good Works è contrà and very well it may be for they are part of the Grace obtained He is most beholden to God and indebted to Grace who is enabled to do most good for all is from him Phil. 2. 13. He worketh in us both to will and to do of his own good Pleasure So that our very doing is receiving But because there are a sort of Men that may be called Justiciaries who trust and teach others to trust to their own Vertues and Works without a Saviour or ascribe the part of a Saviour to them and on the other side the Libertines who teach Men not to look at any thing in themselves at all not as an Evidence Condition or Means but to trust to Christ's Blood to be instead of Faith Repentance and Obedience which is their Duty to be performed by them therefore it will be necessary to be well acquainted with what is truly the Part and Office of Christ what is truly the Office of Faith and Repentance what of Works that you may be sure to give every thing its due and may wholly trust Christ for his part and not joyn Faith or any of your Works and Duties in the least degree of that Trust and Honour which belongeth to our Saviour but regard them according to that use for which they are commanded in the Gospel 1. Our Works whatever they are either Duties to God or Man are not the first moving cause or inducement to incline God to shew us Favour or to bring about our Salvation No this Honour must be reserved for the Grace of God which moveth and stirreth all in the business of our Salvation It was his Grace to provide us a Saviour John 3. 16. God so loveth the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting Life And the giving of Faith or converting Grace to some before others is the meer Effect of his Mercy and good Pleasure Eph. 2. 4 5. God who is rich in Mercy for his great Love wherewith he hath loved us when we were dead in Trespasses and Sins hath quickned us together with Christ by Grace ye are saved Then the Benefits consequent upon Conversion are from God's Love and Mercy As Justification Rom. 3. 24. Iustified freely by his Grace Not only by his Grace but freely that is not excited by our Works but acting freely of its own accord Then for Eternal Life we have it from the Grace of God and the Mercy of our Redeemer Jude 21. Looking for the Mercy of our Lord Iesus Christ unto Eternal Life So that Grace is the first Mover and Principle in the whole Business of our Salvation it is originally from Grace and all along by Grace 2. Our Works before or after Conversion are not that Righteousness not any part of that meritorious Righteousness by virtue of which Sins are expiated the Wrath of God appeased all Blessings of Heaven purchased and we reconciled to God For this is only to be ascribed to the Merit and Satisfaction of our Lord Jesus Christ. When we were Enemies we were reconciled by his Death and are saved by his Life Rom. 5. 10. He is our Propitiation we live by him 1 John 4. 9 10. In this was manifested the Love of God towards us because that God sent his only begotten Son into the World that we might live through him Herein is Love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the Propitiation for our Sins It is Christ's Office and Honour to be a Sacrifice for Sin and a Propitiation for us and a perfect Saviour and Intercessor to obtain the Spirit to fit us for our present Duty and future Happiness We are his Workmanship in Christ. 3. Our Works or Duties which we perform in Obedience to God are not the first means to apply the Grace of the Redeemer or the Condition of our first entrance into the Evangelical Estate No that is proper to Repentance and Faith Rom. 3. 22. The Righteousness of God is by Faith unto all and upon all them that believe And Repentance is frequently required also to receive Pardon and the Gift of the Holy Ghost Acts 2. 38. Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Iesus Christ for the remission of Sins and ye shall receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost Acts 3. 19. Repent ye therefore and be Converted that your Sins may be blotted out It is the penitent believing Sinner that is
broken Heart cannot make light of Sin What kind of Hearts are those that sin securely and without Remorse and are never troubled Go to wounded Consciences and ask of them what Sin is Gen. 4. 13. Mine Iniquity is greater than I can bear Prov. 18. 14. A wounded Spirit who can bear As long as the Evil lies without us it is tolerable the natural Courage of a Man may bear up under it but when the Spirit it self is wounded with the sense of Sin who can bear it If a Spark of God's Wrath light upon the Conscience how soon do Men become a Burden to themselves and some have chosen Strangling rather than Life Ask Cain ask Iudas what it is to feel the burden of Sin Sinners are all their life time subject to this Bondage it is not always felt but soon awakened it may be done by a pressing Exhortation at a Sermon it may be done by some notable Misery that befalls us in the World it may be done by a scandalous Sin it may be done by a grievous Sickness or worldly Disappointment All these things and many more may easily revive it in us There needs not much ado to put a Sinner in the Stocks of Conscience Therefore do but consider to be eased of this Burden O the Blessedness of it 2. It is Filth to be covered which renders us odious in the sight of God It is said Prov. 13. 5. That a Sinner is loathsom To whom to God certainly he is of purer Eyes than to behold Iniquity To good Men the wicked is an Abomination to the Righteous the new Nature hath an aversation to it Lot's righteous Soul was vexed from day to day with the Conversation of the Wicked A wicked Man hates a godly Man with an hatred of Enmity and Abomination but a godly Man doth not hate a wicked Man with a Hatred of Enmity that is opposite to good Will but with that of Abomination which is opposite to Complacence It is loathsom to an indifferent Man for Holiness darts an Awe and Reverence into the Conscience The Righteous is more excellent than his Neighbour and a wicked Person is a vile Person in the common esteem of the World horrible Profaneness will not easily down nay it is loathsom to other wicked Men. I do not know whether I expound that Scripture rightly but it looks somewhat so hateful and hating one another We hate Sin in another though we will not take notice of it in our selves The Sensuality and Pride and Vanity of one wicked Man is hated by another Nay he is loathsom to himself why because he cannot endure to look into himself We cannot endure our selves when we are serious They will not come to the Light lest their Deeds should be reproved And we are shy of God's Presence we are sensible we have something makes us offensive to him and we hang off from him when we have sinned against him As it was David's experience Psal. 32. 3. That was the Cause of his Silence he kept off from God having sinned against him and had not a Heart to go home and sue out his Pardon O what a Mercy is it then to have this Filth covered that we may be freed from this bashful Inconfidence and not be ashamed to look God in the Face and may come with a holy Boldness into the Presence of the blessed God O the Blessedness of the Man whose Sin is covered 3. It is a Debt that binds the Soul to everlasting Punishment and if it be not pardoned the Judge will give us over to the Jaylor and the Jaylor cast us into Prison till we have paid the uttermost farthing Luk. 12. 59. To have so vast a Debt lying upon us what a Misery is that Augustus bought that Mans Bed who could sleep soundly when he was in debt so many hundred of Sesterties Certainly it is a strange Security that possesseth the Hearts of Men when we are obliged to suffer the Vengeance of the Wrath of the Eternal God by our many Sins and yet can sleep quietly Body and Soul will be taken away in Execution the Day of Payment is set and may come much sooner than you think for you must get a Discharge or else you are undone for ever Our Debt comes to Millions of Millions Well if the Lord will forgive so great a Debt O the Blessedness of that Man c. Put altogether now certainly if you have ever been in Bondage if you have felt the Sting of Death and Curse of the Law or been scorched by the Wrath of God or knew the horrour of those upon whom God hath exacted this Debt in Hell certainly you would be more and more affected with this wonderful Grace O the Blessedness of the Man to whom the Lord imputeth not his Transgressions 3dly The Consequent Benefits I will name three 1. It restores the Creature to God and puts us in Joint again in a capacity to serve and please and glorify God Psal. 130. 4. There is Forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feaared Forgiveness invites us to return to God obliges us to return to God and take it as God dispenseth it it inclines us to return to God and encourages us to live in a state of Amity and holy Friendship with God pleasing and serving him in Righteousness and Holiness all our days Certainly it invites us to return to God Man stands aloof from a condemning God but may be induced to submit to a pardoning God And it obligeth us to return to God to serve and love and please him who will forgive so great a Debt and discharge us from all our Sins for she loved much to whom much was forgiven It inclines us to serve and please God for where God pardons he renews he puts a new Life into us that inclines us to God Col. 2. 13. He hath quickned you together with Christ having forgiven all your Trespasses And it encourages us to serve and please God Heb. 9. 14. How much more shall the Blood of Christ cleanse your Consciences from dead Works that ye may serve the Living God and that in a sutable manner that you may serve God in a lively chearful manner A poor Creature bound to his Law and conscious of his own Disobedience and obnoxious to Wrath and Punishment is mightily clogg'd and drives on heavily but when the Conscience is purged from dead Works we serve the living God in a lively manner and this begets a holy Chearfulness in the Soul and we are freed from that Bondage that otherwise would clogg us in our Duty to God 2. It lays the Foundation for solid Comfort and Peace in our own Souls For till Sin be pardoned you have no true Comfort because the Justice of the Supreme Governour of the World will still be dreadful to us whose Laws we have broken whose Wrath we have justly deserved and whom we still apprehend as offended with us and provoked by us We may lull the Soul asleep
expectation that we shall have an Estate of compleat Felicity and excellent Holiness that we shall behold our Nature united to the Godhead in the glorified Redeemer and our Persons admitted into the nearest intuition and fruition of God we are capable of and live in the exercise of a constant uninterrupted Love and be perfectly capable of receiving his highest Benefits Surely this Joy we have in our Pilgrimage But there is not only our hope but our partial enjoyment of it is matter of Happiness to us his Favour is as Life and his Frown as Death to the Soul that loves him The Saints look on God reconciled as the best Friend God displeased as the most dreadful Adversary therefore if they have any taste of his Love their Souls are filled as with Marrow and Fatness Psal. 63. 3 4 5. Because thy loving-kindness is letter than Life my Lips shall praise thee I will bless thee while I live my Soul shall be satisfied as with Marrow and Fatness and my Mouth shall praise thee with joyful Lips But if God hide his Face if God be altogether a stranger then they are troubled indeed Psal. 30. 7. But yet we are not gone to the bottom of the matter of delighting in God Those whose Souls are possessed with the Love of God are so well pleased with him that every thing is sweet to them by the relation it hath to God It is a delight to them to think of God Psal. 104. 34. I will be glad and rejoyce in him my meditation of him shall be sweet It is a delight to them to speak of God Eph. 5. 4. Not foolish jesting but giving of Thanks The Delight of God's Children or that which serves instead of jesting to Christians is the grateful remembrance of the Lord's Mercies especially of our Redemption by Christ. To draw nigh to him in Ordinances there this delight is exercised again There is Prayer A gracious Soul cannot be a Stranger to it because it cannot have a greater refreshing than to be alone with God and unbosome himself with God The Hypocrite is rejected from being capable of this Character Job 27. 10. Will he delight himself in the Almighty will he always call upon God Sometimes he will call upon God he is frighted into a little Religiousness it may be when Death is at his Back in great Afflictions or time of great Judgments but he hath no constant delight in God The constant delight in God is that that brings the Saints into his presence So for all other Christian duties Psal. 122. 1. I was glad when they said unto me Come let us go into the House of the Lord there they entertained Traffick and Commerce with God about matters of the highest concernment to their precious and immortal Souls nay all their work the whole course of their Obedience is sweetned to them because it is commanded by God and tends to the enjoyment of God as Psal. 112. 1 Blessed is the Man that feareth the Lord that delighteth greatly in his Commandments they not only keep the Commandments but delight and that greatly to keep the Commandments And Psal. 119. 14. I have rejoyced in the way of thy Testimonies as much as in all riches Delight in God is a great act of Love to which we should not be Strangers even in the house of our Pilgrimage though we have no assurance or sensible enjoyment of his Favour For it is a Duty of the first Commandment that results from the owning of God as our God II. For the External Effects of Love they are Doing and Suffering his Will when we are contented to do what God will have us do and be what God will have us be 1. For Doing If we love God we shall be loth to offend him we shall be desirous to please him Faith I do confess is a marvellous Grace it can apprehend things strange to Nature but it can do no worthy thing for God till it be accompanied with Love Gal. 5. 6. When the Apostle tells us of that Faith that carries away the prize of Justification he describes it to be a Faith working by Love Faith itself serves as the Bellows to blow up this Flame in our Hearts as the next and immediate principle of Action In short Love is the overruling bent of our Souls the weight and poize upon us that inclines us to God And look as all noble Qualities when restrained cannot produce their consummate Act so Love suffers a kind of imperfection till it can thus break forth into some Act of Thankfulness to God but then it is perfected 1 Joh. 2. 5. Whoso keepeth his Word in him the Loue of God is perfect that is hath attained its consummate Act that which it aims at No Man certainly can be owned as a perfect sincere lover of God but he that makes conscience of doing what he commands none but they have a deep sence of his Majesty none but they have an esteem of his Favour therefore they dare not hazard it by a breach or neglect of their Duty 2. For Suffering his Will For when the Apostle prays here God would direct their Hearts to love him he means that they should endure any thing rather than deny the Faith and confess Christ whatever it cost them As Obedience is virtually contained in Love so also Courage and Resolution Solomon represents Love as a powerful thing as an Affection that will not be bribed nor quenched Cant. 8. 7. Many Waters cannot quench Love nor can the Flouds drown it if a Man would give the whole substance of his House for it it would be utterly contemned It is true of Love in general much more of Love to God In carnal matters Love is a venemous Poison when it hath invaded the Heart nothing will reclaim us but in Divine matters it is a sovereign Antidote against Temptations both on the right hand and on the left For right-hand Temptations all the Riches Pleasures Honours are contemned they cannot bribe them over from Christ that really love him All the Flouds of Persecution cannot quench this holy Desire This is the Genius and Disposition of Love when once the bent of the Heart is set towards God and Heaven they are vehemently set against any thing that would turn them out of the way and divert them from their purpose III. To speak of the Properties if it be sincere 1. It is not a speculative but Practical Love not consisting in lofty airy strains of devotion too high for the common rate of us poor Mortals no it is put upon a surer and infallible Test our Obedience to God Again it consists not in a bold familiarity but in an humble subjection and compliance with his Will He that hath my Commandments and keeps them he it is that loves me God's love is a love of Bounty but ours a love of Duty therefore we are properly said to love God when we are careful to please him and fearful to offend him
God 1. The consciousness of God's displeasure and the fear of his Wrath should make offers of Pardon acceptable to us When Sin entred into the World Fear entred with Sin The grand scruple which haunteth the guilty Creature is how God shall be appeased and the Controversy taken up between us and his Justice Micah 6. 6 7. Wherewith shall he be appeased and what shall I give for the Sin of my Soul We fear Death and Punishment from a Holy and Just God and this is the bottom cause of all our Troubles Therefore till the forgiveness of Sin be procured for us and represented to us upon commodious Terms we know not how to get rid of this Bondage the Justice of the Supream Governour of the World will be ever dreadful to us These fears may be for a while stifled in Men but they will ever and anon return upon us Now let us admire the Wisdom of God who hath provided such a suitable remedy to our Disease as reconciliation and remission of Sins by Jesus Christ. And that God shewed himself so ready to pardon us who are so obnoxious to his Wrath and vindictive Justice 2. The other great Priviledg offered in the Covenant is Eternal Life which suiteth with those desires of Happiness which are so natural to us Corrupt Nature is not against the offers of Felicity We would have Immunity Peace Comfort Glory none would be against his own Benefit but every one would be willing to be freed from the curse of the Law and the Flames of Hell and enjoy Happiness for evermore Though we be unwilling to deny the Flesh and renounce the Credit Pleasure and Profit of Sin and grow dead to the World and worldly things yet never was there a Creature heard of that would not be happy for there was never a Creature but loved himself Now the Lord in his Covenant hath brought Life and Immortality to light setled our Happiness and the way to it he promises that which we desire to induce us to that which we are against As we sweeten Pills to Children that they may swallow them down the better they love the Sugar though they loath the Aloes God would invite us to our duty by our Interest He hath told us of an Happiness full sure and near that he may draw us off from the false Happiness wherewith we are inchanted and bring us into the way of Holiness that we may look after this blessed Hope 2dly The Terms he hath required of us The Terms are either for Entrance or making Covenant with God or Continuance or keeping Covenant with God For Entrance Faith and Repentance are required 1. Faith in Christ. The World thinks Faith quits Reason and introduceth fond Credulity No there is much of the Wisdom of God to be seen in it For Faith hath a special aptitude and fitness for this Work 1. Partly in respect of God For He having design'd to glorify his Mercy and free Grace and to make our Salvation from first to last a meer Gift and the Fruit of his Love to us hath appointed Faith for the acceptance of this Gift Rom. 4. 16. It is of Faith that it might be by Grace Faith and Grace go always together and it is put in opposition to the Merit of Works or the Strictness of the old Covenant 2. As it is fittest to own Christ the Redeemer the Fountain of Life and Happiness and our Head and Husband whom we receive and to whom we are united and married by Faith 3. With respect to the Promises of the Gospel which offer to us an Happiness and Blessedness spiritual and for the most part future Unseen things are properly Objects of Faith Heb. 11. 1. Faith is the Substance of things hoped for the Evidence of things not seen 4. It is fittest as to our future Obedience that it may be comfortable and willing Now we owning Christ in a way of Subjection and Dependance and consenting to become his Disciples and Subjects other Duties come on the more easily 2 Cor. 8. 5. 2. For Repentance This is the most lively and powerful Means of bringing Men to new Life and Blessedness 1. It is most for the Honour of God that we should not be pardoned without submission without confession of past Sin and Resolution of future Obedience Common Reason will tell us that our Case is not compassionable while we are impenitent and hold it out against God Who will pity those in Misery who are unwilling to come out of it Besides it would infringe the Honour of God's Law and Government that one continuing in his Sins and despising both the Curse of the Law and the Grace of the Gospel should be pardoned and saved Repentance is often called a giving Glory to God Mal. 2. 2. Ye will not lay it to Heart and give Glory to my Name Josh. 7. 19. My Son give Glory to God and make Confession to him Rev. 16. 9. They repented not to give Glory to God Repentance restoreth God's Honour to Him as it acknowledges the Justice of his Laws The self-condemning Sinner acknowledges that God may destroy him and if he save him it is meer Mercy 2. The Duty of the Creature is best secured and the penitent Person more bound to future Obedience partly by the Vow it self or the Bond of the holy Oath into which he is entred and the Circumstances accompanying it which surely induce a Hatred of Sin and a Love of Holiness There will be a hearty Consent to live in the Love Obedience and Service of our Creator with a detestation of our former Ways When we feel the smart of Sin such a Sense of it will ever stick by us and when we are in the deepest and freshest Sense of his pardoning Mercy when we see at how dear rates he is pleased to have us and upon what free terms to pardon all our Wrongs we shall love much Luk. 7. 47. Surely they that are brought back from the Gibbet and the very Gates of Hell by such an Act of pardoning Mercy are most likely to remember the Vows of their Distress and are more ingaged to love God and please Him than others are 3. It is most for the Comfort of the Creature that a stated Course of recovering our selves into the Peace and Hope of the Gospel should be appointed to us which may leave the greatest Sense upon our Consciences Now what is likely to do so much as this apparent Change whereby we renounce and utterly bewail our former Folly and solemnly devote and give up our selves to God by Christ. Those things that are serious and advised leave a Notice and Impression upon the Soul This is the most important Action of our Lives the Setling of our Pardon and Eternal Interest The Heart is hardly brought to this to renounce what we dearly love therefore it is usually rewarded with some notable Tasts of God's Love Isa. 57. 15. God delights to revive the Hearts of his contrite Ones 2.
26. Those applaud it that do not choose it All are of this Mind at last and dying are sensible of the Excellency of it 3. A dextrous effectual Prosecution of the End This Prosecution imports First Diligence He is a Fool that hath a Price in his Hand and hath not a Heart to lay it out on a good Purchase Prov. 17. 16. But he is a wise Man that improveth his Time and Labour to a good Purpose A wise Man's Heart is at his right Hand Eccles. 10. 2. Secondly This Prosecution lies in Caution and Circumspection to keep himself from Sin Eph. 5. 15. See then that ye walk circumspectly not as Fools but as Wise. Lastly It consists in Self-denial The wise Merchant sold all that he had for the Pearl of Price Mat. 13. 46 47. A wise Man doth not dally with Religion but throughly sets himself to it USE 1. Be perswaded That serious Christianity is the true Wisdom and the Wisdom of the World which is only conversant about worldly Things from a worldly Principle to a worldly End is Foolishness with God This is Wisdom which acquainteth us more with God and leadeth us into everlasting Happiness 2. Admire the Wisdom of God in dispensing Salvation by Christ who could bring Light out of Darkness and so great a Demonstration of his Glory out of Man's Sin and vanquish Satan by the Way whereby he seemed most to prevail and still attain his End by Means seemingly contrary There is more of Divine Power and Wisdom shewed in Christ crucified than in any thing Men could think of It was a more glorious Act of Power to raise Christ from the Dead than in not permitting him to die He prevaileth more by laying down his Life than by being prosperous in the World and taking the Lives of his Enemies 3. If God hath abounded to us in all Wisdom Let us not disturb the Order of this Grace by asking Priviledges without Duties or minding Duties without the Help of the Spirit or placing all in Duties so as to exclude the Merit and Satisfaction of the Redeemer or to eye the Ransom so as to exclude the Example of Christ. All things are well ordered in God's Covenant the Confusion arises from our Darkness and Misapprehensions 4. There should be Wisdom and Prudence in us for the Impression must be according to the Seal and Stamp Wisdom is a saving Knowledge of Divine Mysteries and Prudence to regulate and order our Actions and Practices to perform our respective Duties to God and Man The Apostle prays for the Colossians Col. 1. 9. That they might be filled with the Knowledge of his Will in all Wisdom and spiritual Understanding All have not the same Measure of Saving-Knowledge and Prudence yet the least Saint hath what is necessary to Salvation You must every Day grow in those Graces for by degrees they are carried on towards Perfection SERMON IX MAT. 27. 46. And about the ninth Hour Iesus cryed with a loud voice saying Eli Eli lama sabacthani that is to say My God my God why hast thou forsaken me IN the History of the Passion you will find that our Lord Jesus was exercised with all kind of Temptations affronted by Men assaulted by the Powers of Darkness deserted by his own Disciples one of them denied him another betrayed him but all fled And thus he was not only rejected of Men but was stricken and smitten and forsaken of God This was as Gall and Vinegar to his Wounds the Passion of his Passion The World's Cruelty and Satan's Rage had been nothing if the Brightness of the Divine Presence had not been eclipsed When the People were set against him his Blood be upon us and our Children he complained not of that When Friend and Lover were afar off he doth not complain of that Iudas why hast thou betrayed me Peter why hast thou denied me Disciples why have ye forsaken me But when God was withdrawn My God my God why hast Thou forsaken me This is his bitter Complaint now The Words then are Christ's Complaint not of God but to God In them observe 1. The Circumstance of Time when this Complaint was made About the ninth Hour 2. The Matter of it God had forsaken him 3. The Manner of it with Vehemency and yet with Faith There was Faith in it for he saith My God The Vehemency is seen in the extention of his Voice He cried with a loud Voice and by the Ingemination of the Name of God My God my God 1. The Circumstance of Time About the ninth Hour We read in the former Verse That from the sixth Hour there was Darkness over all the Earth until the ninth Hour At the Passion of Christ the Earth trembled the Sun seemed to be struck blind with Astonishment and the Frame of Nature to put it self into a Funeral Garb and Habit as if the Creatures durst not shew their Glory while God was manifesting his Anger for Sin and Christ was suffering After three hours darkness he complaineth not of that but of the sad Eclipse that was upon his own Spirit 2. The Matter complained of Why hast thou forsaken me It is not an Expostulation so much as a Representation of the heavy Burden that was upon him Questions among the Hebrews imply earnest Assertions As Psal. 10. 1. Why standest thou afar off Why hidest thou thy self in the time of Trouble That is Lord thou hidest thy self from me So Psal. 43. 2. Why go I mourning because of the Oppression of the Enemy That is I do go mourning The Case is represented in such Forms of Speech 3. The Vehemency 1. In the Extension of his Voice Great Griefs express themselves by strong Cries for burdened Nature would fain have vent and utterance And the Apostle taketh notice of this Circumstance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 5. 7. He offered Prayers and Tears with strong Crying 2. In the Ingemination of the Name of God My God my God These possessive Particles are words of Faith striving against the Temptation He had great trouble of Spirit but to that he opposeth his Interest My God my God In the bitterest Agonies Christ despaired not but still had a most firm perswasion of God's Love to him and necessary Support from him But all sheweth the Trouble was not light but heavy and grievous Doct. That Christ as suffering for our Sins was really deserted for a time in regard of all sensible Consolation I. What was Christ's Desertion II. Why it befell him III. What use may we make of it I. What was Christ's Desertion I shall for more distinctness handle it negatively and affirmatively First Negatively 1. It was not a Desertion in Appearance or Conceit only but real We often mistake God's Dispensations God may be out of Sight and yet we not out of Mind When the Dam is abroad for Meat the young Brood in the Nest is not forsaken The Children cry as if the Mother were totally gone when she is employed about
Love to Mankind God so loved the World 2. The way which God took to recover our lapsed condition or the Effect and Fruit which flows from this Fountain that he gave his only begotten Son 3. The end of it that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting Life Where take notice of 1. The Qualification or the free and easy condition put upon Men in the Gospel that whosoever believeth in him 2. The benefit that resulteth to us expressed Negatively and Affirmatively should not perish but have everlasting Life First The rise and beginning of all is God's unconceivable Love God so loved the World Where observe 1. The Object the World 2. The Act Loved 3. The Degree So loved 1. The word by which the Object is expressed is the World which noteth Mankind in its corrupt and miserable State 1 Ioh. 5. 19. The whole World lies in Sin The World is an Heap of Men who had broken God's Law forfeited his Love and Favour they neither loved nor feared God but were unthankful and unholy yet this World God loved 2. The Act He loved The Love of God is twofold the Love of Benevolence and the Love of Complacence 1. The Love of Benevolence is the Pity and Compassion of God towards Man lying in Sin and Misery This is understood in this place as also in Tit. 3. 4. The Kindness and Love of God our Saviour towards Man appeared 2. The Love of Complacence 〈◊〉 he loveth us when he hath made us lovely In which Sence it is said Psal. 11. 7. The Righteous God loveth Righteousness Joh. 16. 27. The Father himself loved you because ye loved me This belongeth not to this place 3. The Degree So loved He doth not tell you how much but leaveth it to your most solemn raised Thoughts It is rather to be conceived than spoken of and admired rather than conceived Observe from the Words That the Beginning and first Cause of our Salvation is the meer Love of God The outward Occasion was our Misery the inward moving Cause was God's Love 1. Love is at the Bottom of all We may give a Reason of other Things but we cannot give a Reason of his Love God shewed his Wisdom Power Justice and Holiness in our Redemption by Christ. If you ask why he made so much ado about a worthless Creature raised out of the Dust of the Ground at first and had now disorder'd himself and could be of no use to him We have an Answer at hand Because he loved us If you continue to ask But why did he love us We have no other Answer but because he loved us for beyond the first Rise of things we cannot go And the same Reason is given by Moses Deut. 7. 8. The Lord did not set his Love upon you nor chuse you because you were more in number than any People for ye were the fewest of all People but because the Lord loved you that is in short He loved you because he loved you The same Reason is given by our Lord Jesus Christ Mat. 11. 26. Even so Father for so it seemed good in thy Sight All came from his free and undeserved Mercy higher we cannot go in seeking after the Causes of what is done for our Salvation 2. The most remarkable Thing that is visible in the Progress and Perfection of our Salvation by Christ is Love And it is meet that the Beginning Middle and End should suit Nay if Love be so conspicuous in the whole Design and Carrying on of this blessed Work it is much more in the Rise and Fountain God's great End in our Redemption was the Demonstration of his Love and Mercy to Mankind yea not only the Demonstration but the Commendation of it That is the Apostle's word Rom. 5. 8. God commendeth his Love to us in that while we were yet Sinners Christ died for us A thing may be demonstrated as real that is not commended or set forth as great God's Design was that we should not only believe the Reality but admire the Greatness of his Love Now from first to last Love is so conspicuous that we cannot overlook it Light is not more conspicuous in the Sun than the Love of God in our Redemption by Christ. 3. If there were any other Cause it must be either the Merit of Christ or some Worthiness on our part 1. The Merit of Christ was not the first Cause of God's Love but the Manifestation Fruit and Effect of it The Text telleth he first loved the World and then gave his only begotten Son It is said 1 Ioh. 3. 16. Hereby perceive we the Love of God because he laid down his Life for us Look as we perceive and find out Causes by their proper Effects so we perceive the Love of God by the Death of Christ. Christ is the principal Means whereby God carrieth on the Purposes of his Grace and therefore is represented in Scripture as the Servant of his Decrees 2. No Worthiness in us For when his Love moved him to give Christ for us he had all Mankind in his prospect and view as lying in the polluted Mass or in a State of Sin and Misery and then provided a Redeemer for them God at first made a perfect Law which forbad all Sin upon pain of Death Man did break this Law and still we break it day by day in every Sin Now when Men lived and went on in Sin and Hostility against God he was pleased then to send his Son to assume our Nature and die for our Transgressions Therefore the giving of a Redeemer was the Work of his free Mercy Man loved not God yea was an Enemy to God when Christ came to make the Atonement 1 Ioh. 4. 10. Herein is Love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the Propitiation for our Sins Col. 1. 21. And you that were sometimes alienated and Enemies in your Minds by wicked Works yet now hath he reconciled We were sensless of our Misery careless of our Remedy so far from deserving that we desired no such matter God's Love was at the beginning not ours USE 1. Is to confute all Misapprehensions of God It is the grand Design of Satan to lessen our Opinion of God's Goodness So he assaulted our first Parents as if God notwithstanding all his Goodness in their Creation was envious of Mans Felicity and Happiness And he hath not left off his old wont He seeketh to hide God's Goodness and to represent him as a God that delighteth in our Destruction and Damnation rather than in our Salvation as if he were inexorable and hardly entreated to do us good And why That we may stand aloof from God and apprehend him as unlovely Or if he cannot prevail so far he tempteth us to poor unworthy mean thoughts of his Goodness and Mercy Now we can notobviate the Temptation better than by due reflections on his Love in giving his Son for the World
Acts 5. 31. This is the Grace which the Saints pray for Faith it self Repentance it self Psal. 51. 10. Create in me a clean Heart Heb. 13. 21. The Lord make you perfect to do his Will working in you that which is pleasing in his Sight We pray not only for a Grace that gives the Possibility but the Effect not only for such as doth invite and sollicit us to Good but such as doth incline and determine us to Good And this is the Grace we give thanks for not a Power to repent and believe if we please but for Repentance and Faith wrought in us If God did only give a Power to will if we please to do if we please Man would difference himself 1 Cor. 4. 7. 3. With respect to Christ. We are his Workmanship created in Christ Iesus who is the Head of the new World or renewed Estate All things are new in the Kingdom of Christ there is a Change of every thing from what it was before There is a new Adam which is Jesus Christ a new Covenant which is the Gospel a new Paradise not that where Adam enjoyed God among the Beasts but where the Blessed enjoy God among the Angels a new Ministry not the Posterity of Aaron or Tribe of Levi but a Ministry of Reconciliation put into their Hands whom God hath qualified and fitted to be Dispensers of these holy Mysteries New Ordinances We serve God not in the oldness of the Letter but the newness of the Spirit therefore if we be in Christ we must be new Creatures We are both obliged and fitted by this new Estate to be so Some are in Christ externally by Baptism and Profession they are visibly in Covenant with him and de jure of right are bound to be new Creatures Others are in Christ by real internal Union these not only ought to be but de facto are new Creatures they are made Partakers of his Spirit Rom. 8. 9. and by that Spirit they are renewed and sanctified Well then since there is a new Lord and a new Law all is new there must be a new Creation for as the general State of the Church is renewed by Christ so is every particular Believer 4. With respect to the Use for which this new Creation serveth One is mentioned in the Text Created unto good Works but other things must be taken in 1. In order to our present Communion with God Till we are created anew we are not sit to converse with an holy and invisible God earnestly frequently reverently and delightfully which is our daily Work and Business The Effects of the new Creature are Life and Likeness those that do not live the Life of God are estranged from him Eph. 4. 18. Trees cannot converse with Beasts because they do not live their Life nor Beasts with Men for they have Sense only but no Reason nor Men with God till they have somewhat of the same Nature and Life If one had Power to put the Spirit of Man into a brute Beast that Beast would discourse reasonably God hath Power to put a Divine Spirit into his People to sanctify their Souls that sits them for converse with God Look as in Innocency Adam was alone though compassed about with a Multitude of Creatures Beasts Birds and Plants yet there was none till Eve was made fit to converse with him because they did not live his Life therefore the Lord God said Gen. 2. 18. It is not good that Man should be alone I will make him an 〈◊〉 meet for him The Man was alone because he had none like himself that he might converse withal as a Man in the exercise of Speech and Reason the Beasts of the Field and Fowls of the Air were no fit Companions for him they wanted the means of Converse Reason and Speech So without Grace we are not meet for Communion with God till we have Faith and Love to admire reverence and delight in him So for likeness Conformity is the ground of Communion Amos 3. 3. How can two walk together except they be agreed Our state of Sin is a state of Enmity and our state of Holiness a state of Love Our old Course made the Breach between us and God Isa. 59. 2. but the new Life and Likeness qualifies us for Communion with him 1. Ioh. 1. 6 7. An holy Creature may sweetly come and converse with the Holy God 2. In order to our Service and Obedience to God Man is unfit for God's use till he be new moulded and framed again In the Text we must be created in Christ Iesus to good Works Every Creature hath Faculties suitable to the Operations that belong to that Creature so Man must be new created new formed that he may be prepared and made ready for the Lord. You cannot expect new Operations till there be a New Nature and Life When a Man is turned from Sin he is made meet for the Masters use and prepared unto every good Work 2 Tim. 2. 21. Our first care must be to get the Heart renewed Many are troubled about this or that Duty or particular Branches of the Spiritual Life first get Life it self There must be Principles before there can be Operations In vain do we expect strengthning Grace before we have received renewing Grace This is like little Children who attempt to run before they can go or stand Many complain of this or that Corruption but they do not groan under the burden of a corrupt Nature as suppose wandring Thoughts in Prayer when at the same time the Heart is habitually averse and estranged from God as if a Man should complain of an aking Tooth when a mortal Disease hath seized upon his Vitals or of a cut Finger when at the same time he is wounded at the Heart of deadness in Duty and want of quickning Grace when they want converting Grace This is like blowing to a dead Coal to complain of Infirmities and incident Weakness when our habitual aversion from and Enmity to God is not yet cured and unfitness for Service when we are not come out of the carnal State 3. In order to our future enjoyment of God and that Glory and Blessedness which we expect in his Heavenly Kingdom None but new Creatures can enter into the New Ierusalem It is said John 3. 3. Except a Man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God Seeing is put for enjoying Yet the expression is Emphatical as if he should not be suffered so much as to peep or look within the Vail therefore the meer carnal Man neither knoweth his true Happiness nor careth for it but followeth after his own Lusts till he be new moulded and framed By Nature Men are opposite to the Kingdom of God it being invisible future spiritual mostly for the Soul and by nature Men are for things seen present and bodily The Interest of the Flesh governeth all their choices and inclinations and how unmeet are these for Heaven In short our frail
SERMONS PREACHED BY The Late Reverend and Learned Divine THOMAS MANTON D. D. LONDON Printed for Brabazon Aylmer at the Sign of the three Pigeons over-against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil 1678. The PREFACE IT may seem a just discouragement from publishing more Sermons at this time when there are such numbers abroad in the hands of all for the abundance of things useful is fatal to their value and the rareness exceedingly inhances their price If Men were truly wise Spiritual Treasures should be excepted from this Common Law yet plenty even of them causeth satiety But the following Sermons have that peculiar Excellence that will make them very valuable to all that have discerning Minds and such a tincture of Religion as makes them capable of tasting the goodness of Divine things I shall say nothing particularly here of the intellectual Endowments of the Author in which he appeared Eminent among the first nor of his Graces to adorn his Memory for a Saint that is ascended into Heaven and crown'd with Eternal Glory by the righteous Iudge needs not the weak fading testimony of Praise from Men. Besides that universal esteem he had from those who knew his Ability Diligence and Fidelity in the Work of God makes it unnecessary for them who were his Admirers and Friends And for those who are unacquainted with his Worth if they take a view of his Works formerly printed or the present Sermons that deserve equal approbation they will have the same opinion with others I will give some account of the Sermons themselves The main design of them is to represent the inseparable connexion between Christian Duties and Priviledges wherein the Essence of our Religion consists The Gospel is not a naked unconditionate offer of Pardon and Eternal Life in favour of Sinners but upon most convenient terms for the Glory of God and the good of Men and enforc'd by the strongest obligations upon them to receive humbly and thankfully those Benefits The Promises are attended with Commands to Repent Believe and persevere in the uniform practice of Obedience The Son of God came into the World not to make God less holy but to make us holy that we might please and enjoy him not to vacate our Duty and free us from the Law as the Rule of Obedience for that is both impossible and would be most infamous and reproachful to our Saviour To challenge such an exemption in point of right is to make our selves Gods to usurp it in point of fact is to make our selves Devils But his end was to enable and induce us to return to God as our rightful Lord and proper Felicity from whom we rebelliously and miserably fell by our disobedience in seeking for Happiness out of him Accordingly the Gospel is called the Law of Faith as it commands those Duties upon the Motives of eternal Hopes and Fears and as it will justifie or condemn Men with respect to their Obedience or Disobedience which is the proper Character of a Law These things are managed in the following Sermons in that convincing perswasive manner as makes them very necessary for these times when some that aspired to an extraordinary height in Religion and esteemed themselves the Favourites of Heaven yet wofully neglected the duties of the lower Hemisphere as Righteousness Truth and Honesty and when carnal Christians are so numerous that despise serious Godliness as solemn Hypocrisy and live in an open violation of Christ's Precepts yet presume to be saved by him Though no Age has been more enlightned with the knowledge of holy Truths yet none was ever more averse from obeying them I shall only add further that they commend to our ardent Affections and Endeavours true Holiness as distinguish'd from the most refin'd unregenerate Morality The Doctor saw the absolute necessity of this and speaks with great jealousy of those who seem in their discourses to make it their highest aim to improve and cultivate some moral Vertues as Iustice Temperance Benignity c. by Philosophick helps representing them as becomming the dignity of the Humane Nature as agreeable to Reason as beneficial to Societies and but transiently speak of the Supernatural Operation of the Holy Spirit that is as requisite to free the Soul from the Chains of Sin as to release the Body at the last Day from the Bands of Death that seldom preach of Evangelical Graces Faith in the Redeemer Love to God for his admirable Mercy in our Salvation Zeal for his Glory Humility in ascribing all that we can return in grateful Obedience to the most free and powerful Grace of God in Christ which are the vital principles of good Works and derive the noblest forms to all Vertues Indeed Men may be compos'd and considerate in their Words and Actions may abstain from gross Enormities and do many praise-worthy Actions by the rules of moral Prudence yet without the infusion of divine Grace to cleanse their stained Natures to renew them according to the Image of God shining in the Gospel to act them from Motives superiour to all that Moral Wisdom propounds all their Vertues of what elevation soever though in an heroick degree cannot make them real Saints As the Plant Animal has a faint resemblance of the sensitive Life but remains in the lower rank of Vegitables so these have a shadow an appearance of the Life of God but continue in the corrupt state of Nature And the difference is greater between sanctifying saving Graces wrought by the special Power of the Spirit with the holy Operations flowing from them and the vertuous Habits and Actions that are the effects of Moral Counsel and Constancy then between true Pearls produced by the Celestial Beams of the Sun and counterfeit ones formed by the smoaky heat of the Fire In short the Lord Iesus our Saviour and Iudge who purchas'd the Heavenly Glory and has sole power to give the actual possession of it assures us that unless a Man be born of the Spirit he can never enter into the kingdom of God The Supernatural Birth entitles to the Supernatural Inheritance Without this how fair and specious soever the Conversation of Men appears they must expect no other priviledge at last but a cooler place in Hell and the coolest there is intolerable W. BATES The Contents Sermon 1 and 2d Pag. 1. ON Psal. 32. 1 2. Blessed is he whose Transgression is forgiven whose Sin is covered Blessed is the Man unto whom the Lord imputeth not Iniquity and in whose Spirit there is no Guile Sermon 3. Pag. 44. On Acts 3. 26. Unto you first God having raised up his Son Iesus sent him to bless you in turning away every one of you from his Iniquities Serm. 4th Pag. 66. On 2 Pet. 1. 4. Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious Promises that by these you might be Partakers of the Divine Nature having escaped the Corruption that is in the World through Lust. Serm. 5. pag. 81. On Mark 9. 49. For every one shall
his Justice in reference to Men and to appear to them still as a Righteous God Gen. 18. 25. Shall not the Iudge of all the Earth do right And Rom. 3. 5 6. Is God unrighteous to take Vengeance how then shall he judge the World These Scriptures imply that if there were the least Blemish if you could suppose he should fail in point of Righteousness this were to be denyed that God should be the Judge of the World Therefore God's Righteousness and Justice which gives to every one their due must shine in its proper place he will give Vengeance to whom Vengeance is due and Blessing to whom Blessing belongs In our Case Punishment belongs to us and what can we expect from this God but Wrath and eternal Destruction Therefore if all this be so if a Conscience suppose a Law a Law a Sanction a Sanction a Judge a Judge some time when his Justice must have a Solemn Tryal and this will necessarily infer Condemnation to a fallen Creature What then shall we do 7. From this Condemnation there is no Escape unless God set up another Court and Chancery of the Gospel where condemned Sinners may be taken to Mercy and their Sins forgiven and they justified and accepted unto Grace and Life upon Terms that may salve God's Honour and Government over Mankind There is a great deal of Difference between the forgiving private Wrongs and Injuries and the pardoning of publick Offences between the Pardon of a Magistrate and the Pardon of a private Person When Equals fall out among themselves they may end their Differences in Charity and in such ways as best please themselves by a meer forgiving by acquitting the sense of the Wrong done or a bare Submission of the Party offending But the Case is different here God is not reconciled to us meerly as the Party offended but as the Governour of the World the Case lies between the Judge of the World and sinning Mankind therefore it must not be ended by meer Comprimise and Agreement but by Satisfaction that his Law may be satisfied and the Honour of his Justice secured Therefore to make the Pardon of Man a thing convenient to the Righteous and Holy Judge to bestow without any Impeachment to the Honour of his Justice and Authority of his Law the Lord finds out this great Mystery God manifested in our Flesh Iesus Christ is made under the Law to redeem them that were under the Law Gal. 4. 5. And is become a Propitiation to satisfy God's Iustice Rom. 3. 25 26. And so God shews Mercy to his Creatures and yet the Awe of his Government is kept up and a full Demonstration of his Righteousness is given to the World 8. This being done conveniently to God's Honour we must sue out our Pardon with respect to both the Covenants both that which we have broken the Law of Nature and that which is made in Christ and is to be accepted by us as our Sanctuary and sure Refuge 1. We must have a broken-hearted Sense of Sin and of the Curse due to the first Covenant for it is the Disease brings us to the Physician the Curse drives us to the Promise and the Tribunal of Justice to the Throne of Grace and the Avenger of Blood at our Heels that causeth us to fly to our proper City of Refuge and to take Sanctuary at the Lord's Grace Heb. 6. 18. So that if you mince and extenuate Sin you seem to hold to the first Covenant and had rather plead innocent than guilty no if you would have this favour you must confess your Sins 1 Iohn 1. 9. If we confess our Sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our Sins and vo cleanse us from all Unrighteousness You must confess your Sins and with that remorse that will become Offences done to so great a God And there must not only be a Sense of Sin but of the Curse and Merit of Sin also for we must not only accuse but judge our selves that God may not judge and condemn us 1 Cor. 11. 31. Self-accusing respects Sin and is acted in Confession Self-judging respects the Curse or Punishment that is due to us for Sin and it is a Persons pronouncing upon himself according to the tenor of the Law what is his due acknowledging his Guilt and this with much brokenness of Heart before God when he hath involved himself in God's eternal Wrath and Displeasure I observe that the Law-Covenant is in the Scripture compared to a Prison wherein God hath shut up guilty Souls Rom. 11. 32. He hath concluded or shut them up that he may have Mercy upon them Gal. 3. 22. He hath shut them up under Sin The Law is God's Prison and no Offenders can get out of it till they have God's leave and from him they have none till they are sensible of the Justice and Righteousness of that first Dispensation confess their Sins with brokenness of heart and that it may be just with God to condemn them for ever 2. We must thankfully accept the Lord's Grace that offers Pardon to us For since God is pleased to try us a second time and set us up with a new stock of Grace and that brought about in such a wonderful way that he may recover the lost Creation to himself surely if we shall despise our Remedy after we have rendred our selves uncapable of our Duty no Condemnation is bad enough for us Ioh. 3. 18 19. Therefore we should admire the Mercy of God in Christ and have such a deep sence of it that it may check our sinful self-love which hath been our bane and ruine And since God shewed himself willing to be reconciled we must enter into his Peace not look upon our selves in a hopeless and desperate condition but depend upon the Merit Sacrifice and Intercession of Christ and be encouraged by his gracious Promise and Covenant to come with boldness that we may find Grace and Mercy to help in a time of need Heb. 4. 16. Thus you see the Need we have to look after this Pardon of Sin 2dly I must shew our Misery without this And this will be best done by considering the Notions here in the Text. Here is Filth to be covered a Burden of which we must be eased and here is a Debt that must be cancelled and unless this be what a miserable Condition are we in 1. What a heavy Burden is Sin where it is not pardoned Carnal Men feel it not for the present Elements are not burdensom in their own place but how soon may they feel it Two sorts of Consciences feel the burden of Sin a tender Conscience and a wounded Conscience It is greivous to a tender Heart that values the Love of God to lie under the Guilt of Sin and to be obnoxious to his Wrath and Displeasure Psal. 38. 4. Mine Iniquities are gone over mine Head as a Burden too heavy for me Broken Bones are sensible of the least Weight certainly a
with carnal Delights but the virtue of that Opium will be soon spent All those Joys are but stollen Waters and Bread eaten in secret a poor sorry Peace that dares not come to the Light and endure the Trial a sorry Peace that is soon disturbed by a few serious and sober thoughts of God and the World to come but when once Sin is pardoned then you have true Joy indeed Be of good Cheer thy Sins be forgiven thee Mat. 9. 2. Then Misery is pluckt up by the Roots Comfort ye comfort ye my People Why Her Iniquity is forgiven Isa. 40. 1 2. And we joy in God Rom. 5. 11. as those that have received the Atonement The Lord Jesus hath made the Atonement but when we have received the Atonement then we joy in God then there is matter for abundant Delight when the Love of God is shed abroad in our Hearts by the Holy-Ghost given unto us 3. When we are pardoned then we are capable of Eternal Happiness Pardon of Sin is Gratia removens prohibens that Grace that removes the Impediment that takes the Make-bate out of the way removes that that hinders our Entrance into Heaven Sanctification is the beginning but till we are pardoned there can be no Entrance into Heaven now this removes the Incapacity I observe Remission of Sins is put for all the Priviledge-Part as Repentance for the Duties Acts 5. 31. Him hath God exalted to give Repentance and Remission of Sins There are two Initial Benefits Repentance as the Foundation of the new Life and Remission of Sins as the Foundation of all our future Mercies There are two chief Blessings offered in the New Covenant Pardon and Life Reconciliation with God and the everlasting Fruition of Him in Glory and the one makes way for the other Acts 26. 28. To open their Eyes and to turn them from Satan to God that they may receive Remission of Sins and an Inheritance among the Saints When we are pardoned then we are capable to look for the blessed Inheritance the Impediment is taken out of the way that excludes from it And thus you see the Blessedness of the Man whose Transgression is forgiven whose Filth is covered and unto whom the Lord will not impute his Sin A Word of Application 1. Let us bless God for the Christian Religion Where this Priviledge is discovered to us in all its Glory and that upon very commodious terms fit to gain the Heart of Man and to reduce him to God Mic. 7. 18. Who is a God like unto thee among all the Gods pardoning the Transgressions of thine Heritage The Business of Religion is to provide sufficiently for two things which have much troubled the considering Part of the World a suitable Happiness for Mankind and suitable means for the expiation of Sin Happiness is our great desire and Sin is our great burden and trouble Now these are fully made known and discovered to us by the Christian Faith The last is that we are upon The Way how the grand Scruple of the World may be satisfied and their guilty Fears appeased And that we may see the Excellency of the Christian Religion above all Religions in the World it offers Pardon upon such terms as are most commodious to the Honour of God and most satisfactory to our Souls that is upon the account of Christ's Satisfaction and our own Repentance without which our Case is not compassionable The first I will chiefly insist on The Heathens were mightily perplexed about the way how God could dispense with the Honour of his Justice in the Pardon of Sin That Man is God's Creature and therefore his Subject that he hath exceedingly failed and faulted in his Duty and Subjection to him and is therefore obnoxious to God's just Wrath and Vengeance are Truths evident in the light of Nature and common Experience And therefore the Heathens had some Convictions of this and saw a need that God should be atoned and propitiated by some Sacrifices of Expiation and the nearer they lived to the Original of this Tradition and Institution the more burdened and pressing were their Conceits and Apprehensions thereof But in all their cruel Superstitions there was no rest of Soul they knew not the true God nor the proper Ransom nor had any sure way to convey Pardon to them but were still left to the Puzzle and Distraction of their own Thoughts and could not make God merciful without some diminution of his Holiness and Justice nor make him just without some diminution of his Mercy Somewhat they conceived of the Goodness of God by his continuing forfeited Benefits so long God left them not without a Witness But yet they could not reconcile it to his Justice or Will to punish Sinners And all their Apprehensions of the Pardon of Sin were but Probabilities and what was wrought to procure Merit was ridiculous or else barbarous and unnatural giving their First-born for the Sin of their Soul Mic. 6. 7. And all those Notions they had about this apprehended Expiation were too weak to change the Heart or Life of Man or to reduce him to God Come we now to the Iews The Iews had many Sacrifices of God's own Institution but such as did not make the Comers thereunto perfect as pertaining to the Conscience Heb. 9. 9. And the Ransom that was to be given to provoked Justice was known but to a few They saw much of the Patience and Forbearance of God but little of the Righteousness of God and which was the great Propitiation Till God set forth Iesus Christ to be a Propitiation through Faith in his Blood to declare his Righteousness for the Remission of Sins that are past through the Forbearance of God to declare I say at this time his Righteousness that he might be just and the Iustifier of him that believes in Iesus Rom. 3. 25 26. Their Ordinances and Sacrifices were rather a Bond acknowledging the Debt or presignifying the Ransom that was to be paid and their Sacrifices did rather breed Bondage and their Ordinances were called an Hand-writing of Ordinances that were against them The Redemption of Souls was then-spoken of as a great Mystery but sparingly reveal'd Psal. 49. 3 7. My Mouth shall speak of Wisdom and the Meditation of my Heart shall be of Understanding I will incline mine Ear to a Parable I will open my dark Sayings upon the Harp What was that Wisdom What was that dark Saying The Redemption of Souls is precious it ceaseth for ever As it lies upon meer Man's hand none can give a Ransom for his Brother Eternal Redemption by Christ was a dark Saying in those days only they knew no meer Man could do it And in more early times in Iob's time he was an Interpreter One of a Thousand that could bring this Message to a distressed Sinner that God had found out a Ransom This Atonement then that lies at the bottom of Pardon of Sin was a rare thing in those days Let us bless
these things cannot be Graces but in a Concomitancy Repentance without Faith what would it be When we see our Sins and bewail them Despair would make us sit down and dy If there were not a Saviour to heal our Natures and convert our Souls Neither can Faith be without Repentance for unless there be a Confession of past Sins with a resolution of future Obedience we continue in our Obstinacy and Stubbornness and so we are uncapable of Mercy our Case is not compassionable In short Repentance without Faith would degenerate into the horrour of the Damned and our Sorrow for Sin would be tormenting rather than curing to us And then Faith would be a licentious and presumptuous Confidence without Repentance unless it be accompanied with this hearty Consent of living in the Love Obedience and Service of God with a detestation of our Former ways it would be a turning the Grace of God into wantonness Therefore these two always go together Which is the first I will not enter upon but the one cannot be without the other 2. Let me shew you wherein they differ The one respects God the other Christ. 1. Repentance towards God While we live in Sin we are not only out of our Way but out of our Wits We were sometimes foolish and disobedient serving divers Lusts and Pleasures Tit. 3. 3. We live in Rebellion against him against whom we cannot make our party good and withal contenting our selves with a false transitory Happiness instead of a solid and eternal one we never come to our Wits again till we think of returning to God As the Prodigal when he came to himself he thought of returning to his Father And Psal. 22. 28. They shall remember and turn to the Lord. So long as we lie in our Sins we are like Men in a dream we consider not from whence we are nor whither we are going nor what shall become of us to all Eternity but go on against all Reason and Conscience provoking God and destroying our own Souls Man is never in his true posture again till he returns to God as his Sovereign Lord and chief Happiness as our Sovereign Lord that we may perform our duty to him and our Felicity and chief Good that we may seek all our Happiness in him And none do repent but those that give up themselves to obey God and to do his Will as he is the Sovereign Lord 1 Pet. 4. 2. That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the Flesh to the Lusts of Men but to the Will of God and look upon him as their chief Happiness and prefer his Favour above all the sensual Pleasures of the World that they may be able in truth to say Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none upon Earth I desire besides thee Psal. 73. 25. This is Repentance towards God 2. There is Faith in our Lord Iesus Christ. This Grace is necessary that we may own our Redeemer and be thankful to him as the Author of our Deliverance Rom. 7. 25. O wretched Man that I am But thanks be to God through Iesus Christ our Lord. And also Faith is necessary that we may trust our selves in his hands We are to take Christ as our Prophet Priest and King to hear him as our Prophet Mat. 17. 5. This is my beloved Son hear him We are to receive him as our Lord and King Col. 2. 6. As ye have received Christ Iesus the Lord so walk ye in him We are to consider him as the great High-Priest of our Confession Heb. 3. 1. Let us consider the Lord Iesus the great Apostle and High-Priest of our Confession Hear him we must as a Prophet that we may form our Hopes by his Covenant and frame our Lives by his holy and pure Doctrine Receive him we must as a King that we may obey him in all things Consider him as a Priest that we may depend upon the Merit and Value of his Sacrifice and Intercession and may the more confidently plead his Covenant and Promises to God Now without this there can be no Commerce between us and Christ. Who will learn of him as a Prophet whom he takes to be a Deceiver obey him as a King who doth not believe his Power or depend upon him with any confidence or hopes of Mercy if he doth not believe the value of his Merit and Sacrifice Herein these things differ Repentance towards God and Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ the one respects the End God the other the Means Christ. Repentance more especially respects our Duty Faith our Comfort Repentance newness of Life for the future and returning to the Primitive Duty the Love of God and obeying his Will Faith Pardon of what is past and Hope of Mercy to come In short to God we give up our selves as our Supreme Lord to Christ as Mediatour who alone can bring us to God To God as taking his Will for the Rule of our Lives and Actions and preferring his Love above all that is dear in the World To Christ as our Lord and Saviour who makes our Peace with God and gives the Holy Spirit to change our Hearts that we may for ever live upon him as our Life Hope and Strength Thus I have briefly shewed you how Repentance respects God and Faith our Lord Jesus Christ. 3. That these Graces having their peculiar Reference are required in order to Pardon for distinct Reasons and Ends. First Repentance is required for these Reasons 1. Because otherwise God cannot have his End in Pardon which is to recover the lost Creation that we may again live in his Love and Obedience Surely Christ came to seek and save that which was lost Now to be lost in the first and primitive Sence was to be lost to God Take the lost Sheep or Groat it was lost to the Owner the Son to the Father and so if Christ came to save that which was lost he came to recover us to God therefore said to redeem us to God 2. Neither can the Redeemer do his Work for which God hath appointed him 1 Pet. 3. 18. He dyed the Iust for the Unjust that he might bring us to God We accept him in all his Offices for this end I am the Way Truth and Life no Man comes to the Father but by me Therefore whole Christianity from the beginning to the end a short Description of it is this A Coming to God by Christ. Heb. 7. 25. He is able to save to the uttermost whom all those that come to God by him 3. Without it we should not have our Happiness It is our Happiness to please and enjoy God we are not in a capacity to please and enjoy God till we are returned to him They that are in the Flesh cannot please the Lord. Nor to enjoy him here for here we see his Face in Righteousness Nor hereafter for without Holiness no Man shall see God Secondly But why is Faith in our Lord
the Wound that was in a fair way of healing and willingly relapse into the Sickness he was almost recovered from with so much ado Sure this shews our first Consent was not real and sincere And then Christ will be no Advocate for them that continue in their Sins Our God is a God of Salvation we cannot enough speak of his saving Mercy But he will wound the Head of his Enemies and the hairy Scalp of such an one as goeth on still in his Trespasses Psal. 68. 20 21. 2. Daily Prayer This was spoken unto at the Close of the first Sermon Mat. 6. 12. Our Lord hath taught us to pray for we make but too much work for pardoning Mercy every day Every day forgive us our Trespasses To day in one of the Petitions is common to all that follow as we beg daily Bread we must beg daily Pardon daily Grace against Temptations Under the Law they had a Lamb every Morning and every Evening offered to God for a daily Sacrifice Numb 28. 4 5 6. We are all invited to look to the Lamb of God that taketh away the Sins of the World Surely we have as much need as they more Cause than they because now all is clear and openly made known unto us God came to Adam in the cool of the Day he would not let him sleep in his Sins before Night came he comes and rouseth his Conscience and then gives out the Promise of the Seed of the Woman that should break the Serpent's Head In Reconciliation with God let not the Sun go down upon God's Wrath Eph. 4. 26. A Man should not sleep in his Anger nor out of Charity with Man surely we should make our Peace with God every day If a Man under the Law had contracted any Uncleanness he was to wash his Cloaths before Evening that he might notly a Night in his Uncleanness We should daily earnestly come to God with this Request Lord pardon our Sins But what must those that are already adopted into God's Family and taken into his Grace and Favour daily pray for Pardon of Sin Though upon our first Faith our State be changed and we are indeed made Children of God and Heirs of Eternal Life by Faith in Christ Jesus yet he that is clean need wash his Feet We contract a great deal of sinful defilement and pollution by walking up and down here in a dirty World and we must every day be cleansing our Consciences before God and begging that we may be made Partakers of this Benefit III. The third thing is our Recovery out of greivous Lapses and Falls In them there is required a particular and express Repentance And Repentance and Faith must be carried with respect to those four things are in Sin Culpa the Fault Reatus the Guilt Macula the Stain and Blot and Poena the Punishment You know the Law supposeth a righteous Nature that God gives to Man therefore in Sin there is a Stain or Blot defacing God's Image The Precepts of the Law require Duty so it is Culpa a criminal Act the Sanction of the Law as threatned makes way for Guilt as executed calls for Punishment you see how it ariseth 1. For the Fault in the Transgression of the Law or the criminal Action See that the Fault be not continued Relapses are very dangerous A Bone often broken in the same place is hardly set again God's Children are in danger of this before the Breach be well made up or the Orifice of the Wound be soundly closed as Lot doubled his Incest and Samson goes in again and again to Dalilah But in wicked Men frequently as that King sent Fifty after Fifty and nothing would stop him There is an express forsaking of Sin required of us otherwise it would abolish all the Difference between the Renewed and the Carnal 2. The Guilt continues till serious and solemn Repentance and Humiliation before God and suing out our Pardon in Christ's Name 1 Iohn 1. 9. He speaks of Believers If we confess our Sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our Sins and to cleanse us from all Unrighteousness There must be a solemn humbling for the Sin and then God will forgive us Suppose a Man forbear the Act and never commit it more as Iudah forbore the Act after he had comitted Incest with Tamar but it seems he repented not till she shewed him the Bracelets and the Staff yet with serious remorse we must beg our Peace humbly upon the account of our Mediatour Therefore something must be done to take away the Guilt 3. There is the Blot or evil Inclination to sin again The Blot of Sin in general is the defacing of God's Image but in particular Sins it is some weakning of the Reverence of God A Man cannot venture to act a grievous wilful Sin but there is a violent Obstruction of the Love of God A Brand that hath been in the Fire is more apt to take Fire again the evil Influences of the Sin continue Now the Root of Sin must be mortified it is not enough to forbear or confess a Sin but we must pull out the Core of the Distemper before all will be well As Ionah he repented of his Tergiversation and forsaking his Call The fault was not repeated he goes to Nineveh and does his duty yet the core of the Distemper was not taken away for you read of him Ion. 4. 2. Was not this my saying when I was yet in my Country therefore I fled before unto Tarshish for I knew thou wert a gracious God and repentest thee of the evil ....... On the contrary Peter fell into a grievous Sin denying his Lord and Master with Oaths and Execrations but afterwards Iohn 21. 15. Christ trys him Jesus saith to Simon Peter Lovest thou me more than these pointing to the rest of his Disciples Peter had been bragging Matth. 26. 33. Though all Men forsake thee yet I will not forsake thee Now when he was foiled tho he had wept bitterly for his Fault Christ tries if the Cause be removed Lord saith he thou knowest all things thou knowest that I love thee But he doth not say now more than these The Root of the Distemper was gone Peter is grown more modest now than to make Comparisons 4. There is the Punishment Now we must deprecate Eternal Punishment and bless God for Jesus Christ who hath delivered us from Wrath to come But as to temporal Evils God hath reserved a Liberty in the Covenant to his Wisdom and fatherly Justice to inflict temporal Punishments as he shall see good If they break his Statutes and keep not his Commandments then will he visit their Transgression with the Rod and their Iniquity with Stripes Psal. 89. 32 33. Nevertheless my loving-kindness I will not utterly take from them nor suffer my Faithfulness to fail If Iudgment begin at the House of God what shall become of the Sinner and Ungodly The Righteous are recompensed upon Earth partly to increase
of our Desires And partly through Slavish Fear We hate those whom we fear A condemning God can never be loved by a guilty Creature We look upon him as one that will call us to an account for our Sins Now all these Reasons concur to shew us that till Sin be taken away we cannot love nor delight in God neither can God love us and delight in us God will not have Communion with us while we are in our Sins Christ when he came to bring us to God he came not to make any Change in God to make God less holy but to make us holy and amiable in his sight The reasonable Nature cannot digest this Conceit that the holy God should take Sinners into his Bosom without any change Would it become the Governour of the World to be indifferent to good and bad the holy God to be a Friend to Sinners The new Nature in us sheweth the contrary for that causes an abomination and abhorrence both of Impurity and the Impure As Lot's righteous Soul was vexed with the Sodomites And we are told Prov. 29. 27. An unjust Man is an Abomination to the Iust and he that is upright in the Way is Abomination to the Wicked If a Man be sanctified but in part he cannot delight in the wicked freely to converse with them He hath a Hatred not of Enimity so as to seek their Destruction not a Hatred opposite to good Will that is contrary to the Nature of Grace which is made up of Love but an Hatred of Abomination which is contrary to the Love of Complacency he cannot take any delight in him Now then without a manifest reproach to the Holy God we cannot imagine he should admit Sinners into an intimate Communion with him Thou hatest all the Workers of Iniquity Psal. 5. 5. God said to the Prophet Ier. 15. 19. Let them return unto thee but return not thou to them God will not return to us in our Sins but we must come off from our Sins to him 2. We are freed from the great Blemish of our Natures Sin defaced the Image of God in us Rom. 3. 23. All have sinned and come short of the Glory of God We lost not only the Favour of God but the Image of God the great Excellency of our Nature was eclipsed and defaced Now the Plaister will not be as broad as the Sore nor our Reparation by Christ correspondent to our Loss by Adam if our Nature be not healed and the Image of God restored in us If Adam had only left us guilty the Pardon of Sin had been enough but he conveyed an evil Nature and therefore we must be turned from our Sins as well as pardoned otherwise Christ would not restore all that Adam took away Psal. 69. 4. Is he a good Physician that takes away the Pain and leaves the great Disease uncured But Christ has procured the Favour of God for us and repaired the Image of God in us and therefore certainly put us into a way of Blessedness again Holiness was our Primitive Excellency and Amiableness 3. We are freed from that that is the great Burden of the Creature as well as his Blemish Whatever it be to the common Sinner that is no matter he hath no right thoughts of things and is besotted with his carnal choice for Sin is an Evil whether it be felt or no but the awakened Sinner is sensible not only of the Guilt of Sin but it is his greatest Burden that he should have a Nature inclines him to grieve and dishonour God Pharaoh could say Take away this Plague But a penitent broken-hearted Sinner cries Take away all Iniquity They desire a Change of this State by Regeneration Therefore the Promises of the Gospel considering a penitent Soul under such a Distress are suted to the Case 1 Iohn 1. 9. If we confess our Sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our Sins and cleanse us from all Unrighteousness If you know what Sin is and penitently bemoan your selves to God you will be troubled with the Power and Pollution of it as well as the Guilt Mic. 7. 18 19. Who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth Iniquity and passeth by the Transgression of the Remnant of his Heritage He will turn again he will have compassion hewill subdue our Iniquities A Heart truly affected doth not only desire Pardon and Ease but Power against Sin A Man that hath his Leg broken would not only desire Ease of his pain but to have his Leg set right again A Leprous Condemned Malefactor desires not only to be freed from the Sentence of Condemnation but to be cured or his Pardon will do him no good Now surely it is a great Blessing to be turned from our Sins to be freed from that a penitent Soul finds to be so great a Burden and the Mediatour gives us a notable proof of his Love in it 4. Being turned from our Sins we are freed from the great bane of our Persons and all our happiness Sin is a Cursed Inmate it fires the Lodging where it is entertain'd and harboured unless speedily cast out of doors it involves us in the curse of the Law The wages of Sin is Death therefore Christ that he might free us from Misery doth first free us from Sin If pardon of Sin be a blessing certainly to be turned from Sin is a blessing for the one cannot be had without the other till you are turned from Sin you cannot be pardoned not justified till you are sanctified Psal. 32. 1 2. Blessed is the Man whose Sin is forgiven and whose Iniquity is covered and unto whom the Lord will not impute his Sin in whose spirit there is no guile When God hath given us an holy sincere heart and turned us from our Sins then we have the Blessedness of Pardon There is no Condemnation to them that are in Christ Rom. 8. 1. who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit We are freed from the condemning power of the Law when freed from Sin and all that Woe and Wrath that belongs to every Soul that doth evil By all these Considerations it appears how great a Blessing the turning us from Sin is in the privative notion that is the removal of so great an evil 2. Take Blessedness in the Positive Notion that is to enjoy a great Good and it will appear it is a blessed thing to be turned from our Sins 1. Because this is the matter of our Serenity Comfort and Peace here and the pledg and beginning of our eternal Felicity hereafter The Soul can never be setled in an holy Peace till it be turned from its Sins we can never find rest till we get out of Satan's yoke and get into Christ's blessed Liberty The fruit of Righteousness is Peace Isa. 32. 17. We are freed from those unquiet and troublesom thoughts wherewith others are haunted A wicked Man's Soul is in a mutiny one Affection wars against another and all against
the Heart is an Introduction into our glorious State and the more sanctified the more meet to be Partakers thereof Col. 1. 12. Now that which doth positively make us capable of Glory and Happiness is a greater Priviledge than that which only removes the Impediment 4. That is the greatest Benefit which makes us more amiable in the Sight of God and is the Object of his Delight now he delights in us as sanctified rather than pardoned We love him indeed for pardoning and forgiving so great a Debt she loved much because much was forgiven her But God delighteth in Holiness and the Reflection and Impress of his own Image upon us Prov. 11. 20. The Upright in the Way are his Delight When the Spirit hath renewed us according to the Image and Nature of God that makes us amiable in his Sight and an Object of Divine Complacency Therefore surely this is the great Priviledge and Blessing we have by the Mediator here in this World I come to the fourth Thing IV. In what way doth Christ turn us from our Iniquities 1. He doth purchase this Grace for us And 2. He works it in us 1. He purchaseth this Grace for us that we may be turned 1 Pet. 1. 24. He bore our Sins in his own Body upon the Tree that we being dead unto Sin should live unto Righteousness That was his end not only to lay the Obligation upon us but to procure the Grace whereby we may be enabled to do so This Sacrifice was a truly propitiatory Sacrifice whereby God was appeased and forfeited Blessings restored The Loss of God's Image was a great part of our Punishment and it is a part of our Deliverance that Christ hath purchased this Grace as well as Pardon He hath given himself for us that he might cleanse us and sanctify us and make us a pure and holy People unto God Eph. 5. 25 26. 2. As he hath purchased it for us so he works it in us partly by the power of his Internal Grace and partly by blessing and sanctifying External Means and Helps for such an End and Purpose First I say by the Power of his Internal Grace changing our Hearts and Minds Tit. 3. 9. He saved us by the washing of Regeneration and renewing of the Holy-Ghost which he shed on us abundantly through Iesus Christ our Saviour And he acteth in us as Christ's Spirit and as we are Members of Christ. It is the Spirit enlightens the Mind so that we begin to see the Evil that is in Sin the Necessity to get rid of it After I was instructed I smote upon the Thigh and also to overcome the obstinate Heart of Man and turn it to God and to fix the Inclination of the Soul against Sin In short by his preventing Grace he doth convert us by his exciting Grace sanctify us by his assisting Grace he makes us persevere in turning us more and more from Sin to Holiness Secondly He sanctifies and blesses External Helps and Means I shall instance in two Ordinances and Providences 1. Ordinances such as the Word and Sacraments Ioh. 17. 19. I sanctified my self that they might be sanctified by the Truth that is the preaching of the Word He gave himself for his Church that he might sanctify and cleanse it by the washing of Water through the Word Mark these and other places of Scripture and you will find the Merit of Christ doth reach the Ordinances that by them Grace may be conveyed and Sin might be mortified and subdued in us The Word calls us to excite our Resolutions against Sin and strengthen them to avoid Occasions to cut off the Provisions of the Flesh to make it our daily Task to war and strive against it And none conscienciously wait upon the Word but something by every attendance is given out for the weakning of Sin and setting them afresh against it And then the Sacrament that represents the Death of Christ as the Price of our dying to Sin and it represents him as the Pattern according to which we must be conformed that we may know that our old Man is crucified and that we may renew our Covenant with God and our Resolutions and bind our selves to more serious Endeavours against Sin The Lord Jesus after he had procured the Spirit and this wonderful Grace to turn us from our Sins hath appointed congruous and and fit Ordinances whereby he may dispense this Grace to us more and more And as he sanctifies Ordinances so 2. Providences for we are thresh'd that our Husks may fly off Wherefore doth he chasten us sometimes and very sorely but to make us out of love with Sin The Fruit of all shall be to take away Sin Isa. 27. 9. And he chastens us verily for our Profit that we may be made Partakers of his Holiness Heb. 12. 10. By all these means we are sanctified by Ordinances and Providences and by the all-powerful Grace of his holy Spirit Thus I have opened the fourth Thing how the Lord Jesus doth turn us from our Sins The Uses we may make of this Point are 1. Of Information It informs us 1. Of the vain Hopes of the Carnal and such as yet live in their Sins for at present they have no Interest in him and so living and dying will find him rather a Judge than a Saviour for the greatest part of their Work is undone We must be saved from the Guilt and Power of Sin and the latter is the proper Sign of our Recovery We are justified in the Name of the Lord Iesus and sanctified also in the Spirit of our God Christ did not purchase our Salvation by piece-meal nor can we receive it by piece-meal a whole Saviour we must have or no Saviour She was the true Mother that pleaded against the dividing of the Infant They are true Christians I am sure who would have Christ undivided who would have him Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption for if you take him in one respect and neglect him in another especially the chief thing you should make use of him for you do not take him at all Therefore the Carnal that live in their Sins are at present excluded from all Claim to Christ. 2. It shews us what we should mainly seek in our Prayers Leave not the Redeemer till he hath blessed you with his principal Blessing Our Prayers for temporal Happiness are not so welcom to Christ as our Prayers for sanctifying Grace and Power against Sin Natural Sense will put us upon asking Corn and Wine and Oil but the new Creature saith Lord take away Iniquity Every Man hath a sence of outward Evils and would fain be at ease but every Man hath not a sence of Sin and an hunger and thirst after Righteousness self-Self-love will prompt us to beg exemption from Trouble but Sin is the worst Burden to a tender Heart When your Children ask you for Apples and Plums and such things as are pleasing to their childish Appetite they do
are Strangers to the Promises of the Gospel It is a Thought that possesseth many when they are pressed to Christian Duties they will say We are not Saints or Angels and therefore cannot abstain from such Sins or attain unto an heavenly Life But do you mark what is said here Christians must be Partakers of a Divine Nature And not only they are cut off from any Priviledge by Christ who corrupt themselves as brute Beasts made to be taken and destroyed Jud. 10. that is against the Light of Nature ingulf themselves in all manner of Dissoluteness and Sensuality But also they that walk as Men only according to the Rule of Men who mind nothing beyond the present World 1 Cor. 3. 3. Are not ye Carnal and walk as Men That is they are not raised above the Pitch of meer Men and have nothing of the Spirit of God in them 3. This Divine Nature may be considered three ways Either 1. As begun When we are first renewed in the Spirit of our Minds and regenerated according to the Image of God Ephes. 4. 23 24. There is a wonderful Change wrought in Sinners by reason of the Divine Qualities impressed on them So that the Creature beginneth to look like GOD Himself their Nature is altered their Course of Life is altered and their Designs and Actions have something Divine in them 2. As increased when more like God in a conspicuous degree At first the impression is but weak and this Glory is darkned by remaining Imperfections and we shew forth much of Adam upon all occasions as well as somewhat of Christ. But where any are sincere and diligent the old Nature is more suppressed and curbed and the Divine Nature doth more eminently appear 2 Cor. 3. 18. We are changed from Glory to Glory It is a work capable of Spiritual progress We should grow more like God and come nearer to the Nature of God every day And it is a shame we are not having been so long acquainted with the Word 3. As it is perfected in Heaven for there we have the nearest communion with God and so the highest conformity to him that we are capable of 1 John 3. 2. We shall see God as he is and be like him Perfectly like him for the being of Sin is then utterly abolished there is not the least stain or blemish upon a glorified Soul Besides then we are like him not only in point of Holiness but in point of Happiness and Felicity For God is an holy and happy Being Here we resemble God more in Holiness and Purity for many times the most eminent and exemplary Holiness may be accompanied with remarkable Afflictions at least sanctifying Grace doth not exempt us from them But there as our Holiness is exact our Felicity is compleat also First we are made Holy and then Immortal and in both like God Well then this is the effect Partakers of a Divine Nature So that when you come among the People of God and you be asked What kind of Men do you find them to be as Gideon in another case asked Zeba and Zalmunnah concerning his Brethren who answered Each one resembled the Children of a King Iudg. 8. 18. They were Godly and Majestical Persons So it will be said concerning the Saints who are really and eminently partakers of the Grace of the Gospel they are all Children of the most high God as like God as mortal men can be bear his Image and express Resemblance of the Grace of the Gospel II. Let us now see the Means by which God doth accomplish this effect To us are given great and precious Promises 1. It is an instance of God's Love that he will deal with us in the way of Promises The World is depraved by Sin and sunk into fears and despair of any Good from God whom we have so highly provoked Therefore God invites and allures us to himself by Promises For Promises and Declarations of God's Will in the Gospel whereby he signifies what Good he will freely bestow upon us if we will look after it These Advantages we have by them 1. A Promise is more than a Purpose for the Purpose and intention of a Man is secret and hidden in his own bosom but a Promise is open and manifest Thereby we get the knowledg of the Good intended to us If God had only purposed to bestow all this Grace upon us we could not have known his Intention and Purpose till it were manifested in the effect it would have been as an hidden Treasure or sealed Fountain of no Comfort and encouragement to us till we had found it But now the Word is gone out of his Lips we may know how we shall speed if we will hearken to his Counsel God's Promises are on his part the eruption or overflow of his Love his Heart is so big with thoughts of Good to us that his Love cannot stay till the accomplishment of things but he must tell us aforehand Isa. 42. 9. Before they spring forth I tell you of them He might have done us Good and given us no notice but that would not satisfy him It is an obligation God takes upon himself Promittendo se Debitorem fecit God's Purposes are unchangeable but Promises are a Security put into our hands not only give us notice but Assurance that thus it shall be We have the greater hold-fast upon him and may put his Bond in suit Psal. 119. 49. Remember the Word unto thy Servant upon which thou hast caused me to hope 2. It is more than a Doctrinal Declaration It is one thing to reveal a Doctrine another to promise a Benefit that maketh a thing known this maketh a thing sure and upon certain terms That gives us notice but this gives us interest If Life and Immortality had been only brought to light in the Gospel 2 Tim. 1. 10. which was only obscurely known to the Heathens it were a great mercy that we were not left to blind Guesses and dark Conjectures That Eternal Life is set before us a thing real and excellent is a great matter But God hath put it into a Covenant-form and Promise 1 Ioh. 2. 25. that we may make our Title and Claim Surely that is matter of great Comfort to us Psal. 119. 111. Thy Testimonies have I taken as an Heritage for ever for they are the rejoycing of my heart 3. It is more than a Prophecy or simple Prediction Scripture-Prophecies will be fulfilled because of God's Veracity but Scripture-Promises will be fulfilled not only because of God's Veracity but also his Fidelity and Justice For by God's Promise Man cometh to have a right to the thing promised it was his Mercy and Goodness to make the Promise but his Justice and Fidelity bindeth him to make it good 1 Ioh. 1. 9. If we confess our Sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our Sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness 2 Tim. 4. 8. Divines say Of all Lies a Promissory Lie
Love is our Breast-plate that guards the vitals of Christianity and Hope is our Helmet that covers our Head that we may hold up our Head in the midst of all the troubles and sorrows of the present Life 1 Thess. 5. 8. Both Graces are necessary therefore it will not be unprofitable to insist upon them I begin now with the former The Lord direct your Hearts to the love of God Where note 1. The Grace prayed for the Love of God 2. The Efficiency which is necessary to produce it the Lord direct your Hearts The word direct notes sometimes conduct and guidance and sometimes bending or setting streight the thing that is crooked Conduct and Guidance as we guide Men that they may not go wrong Psal. 119. 5. Oh that my ways were directed to keep thy Statutes Ships that are best rigged need a Pilot and they that love God most need to have their love ordered and directed to the best advantage of his Glory and Service This for the first signification guidance and direction But at other times it signifies the bending inclining or making streight what is crooked and what bends and tends another way in this Sence I take it here Our Hearts are distorted and writhed and averse from God and all good naturally yea and after Grace received are apt to wander and return to their old bent and byas again therefore the Apostle prays that God would form and set their Hearts streight that they may be more indeclinably fixt towards God And this Prayer he makes for the Thessalonions whose work of Faith and labour of Love and patience of Hope he had so much commended before and of whose sincerity he had such great confidence for those he prays that their Love might be directed and their Hearts more fixedly set towards God The Note then will be plain and easy Doct. That we cannot have or keep up any true Love to God unless the Lord set our Hearts streight and keep them bent towards himself I shall inquire here 1. What is Love to God Love is the complacency of the Soul in what is good Love to God is the complacency and well-pleasedness of the Soul in God as our all-sufficient Portion To open it to you I shall describe it I. By its Radical and Internal Acts. II. By its External Effects III. A little touch upon the Properties of it and then you will see what the Love of God is 1. The Radical and Internal Acts are two Desire and Delight Desire after him and Delight in him 1. Desire after him Love affects union with the thing Beloved and so love to God implies an earnest seeking after him in the highest way of enjoyment that we are capable of in this World This appears partly by the kind of Mercies that we affect and partly by the fervency of our endeavours after him 1. By the kind of Mercies that we affect There are some Mercies vouchsafed to the Creature that lie nearer to God than others do and do least detain us from him as his Image and Favour or his renewing and reconciling Grace When we love God these are sought in the first place As you shall see how the temper of the Saints is described and distinguished from the temper of the brutish Multitude Psal. 4. 6 7. The Many say Who will shew us any good but Lord lift thou up the light of thy Countenance upon us and this will put gladness into our Hearts The Many the brutish Multitude seek an uncertain good and they seek it from an uncertain Author Who will shew us They do not acknowledg God in these common Mercies but the Children of God must have his Favour Lord lift thou up the light of thy Countenance upon us As the Beams of the Sun do chear and refresh the Earth this is that that doth revive their Souls So Mat. 5. 6. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after Righteousness Well then they that desire to be like God in Purity and Holiness and to recover his Favour lost by Sin do certainly more love him than those that only seek temporal Mercies from him God's sanctifying Spirit witnessing his love to us is the greatest gift can be bestowed in this Life and will more witness his love than any thing else can be given us This the Saints seek after that they may be like God that they may be accepted and well-pleasing unto God this is all their Ambition 2 Cor. 5. 9. Wherefore we labour that whether present or absent we may be accepted of the Lord. Other things may please the Flesh but that is not their design those things that bring them nearer to God take up their Mind and Heart Now as it appears by the Mercies we affect so it appears 2. By the fervency of our endeavours after these things For if the Image of God and Favour of God be sought superficially or as things that we may be well without and the Wealth Honours and Pleasures of the World be most earnestly sought after surely we do not love God Psal. 63. 8. My Soul followeth hard after thee The whole Spiritual Life is but a pursuit of the Soul towards God and the more constantly and earnestly we seek him to enjoy more of his saving Graces and Benefits the more we have of the love of God in us Therefore David expresseth this desire as exceeding all other desires Psal. 27. 4. One thing have I desired of the Lord that will I seek after that I might dwell in the House of the Lord all the days of my Life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to enquire in his Temple He sought not the glory of the Kingdom Success in battel Victory over his Enemies in the first place or not so much as Converse with God and Attendance on his Worship in the Tabernacle all was nothing to this that he might have Communion with God Therefore this is the radical Act of Love this fervent burning desire that carries the Soul thorow all Duties Ordinances Services they are still making their way to a nearer access to God and larger participation of his Grace till they come eternally to enjoy him in Glory 2. There is another Internal Radical Act of Love that is a Delight in him Our full joy is reserved for the other World but delighting our selves in God is a great Duty now for Love being the complacence of the Soul in God as a apprehended to be good or a delightful adhesion to God as our all-sufficient Portion and Happiness it cannot be imagined Love can be without any delight in God even now Now in this Valley of Tears the hope of enjoying him hereafter is our Comfort and Solace in the midst of our Weaknesses and Afflictions that there is a time coming when we shall more perfectly see kim as he is and be like him 1 Ioh. 3. 2. the Apostle tells us We rejoyce now in the hope of the Glory of God that we have this in
Defects of Love in the best To give some Instances First Love signifies a strong Inclination or an earnest Bent of Heart towards God as our chief Good and last End Well then our End is our Measure by which we judge of all Means of the Aptness and Fitness of what is to be avoided and imbraced The Seasonableness of all Means must be determined by the End that all Means that are inconsistent with and impertinent to our great End may be cut off Now all Sins are inconsistent with making God our great End and all vain and foolish Actions are impertinent thereunto Judge you by this if we have such a perfect Love to God if this be love as questionless it is But now with how many impertinent and extravagant Actions do we fill up our Lives How many Purposes Desires Words and Actions have we that have no respect to our great End at all How much do we live to our selves and how little to God How great a Passion have we for earthly things so that they can occupy and intercept the far greatest part of our Lives and then judg whether we had not need have the bent kept up and the tendency towards God as our End and Happiness Psal. 86. 11. Unite my Heart to the fear of thy Name It is the natural disease of Man's Heart to be loosed from God and to be distracted in variety of worldly Objects which obtrude themselves upon our Sences offer themselves to us daily therefore it is not enough for a Man once to resign over his Heart to God as we do in Conversion when this Love was first wrought in us but we need often to beg that God would reclaim us from this ranging after carnal Vanities that he would direct and keep us streight and true to our end that we may love him more and at a better rate So if you consider the nature of Love the thing is obvious and plain unless the Lord maintain this Love in us and keep it up what will become of us The 2d Evidence is those slavish fears which do oppress us and hinder our delight in God and comfortable Communion with him in the means of Grace Certainly the more we are under slavish fear the less love we have to God and thankfulness for his Grace The Apostle tells you 1 Joh. 4. 18. There is no fear in Love but perfect Love casteth out fear because fear hath Torment he that feareth is not made perfect in Love Surely we should seek after such a Spirit of Love that all we do for God may be done with great delight that we may not serve him by compulsion but by inclination not as injoined only but as inclined not as putting a force upon our selves but as delighting in our work And then 3dly Another Instance is our frequent preferring the Profits and Pleasures of the World before the Service of God and if it doth not go so far as to forfeit our right yet how often do we expose and put our spiritual Comforts to hazard for every trifle As Esau that sold his Birthright for a Morsel of Meat Heb. 12. 15 16. The best of us shew too much lothness to cut off the right Hand and to pluck out the right Eye or to do that which is signified by it This shews a weakness of Love for where Love is strong there is a thorow inclination to God we dare Love nothing above him or against him or without him 4thly Our backwardness to Obedience and the tediousness we find in it shews a great Imperfection in our Love All goes on easily sweetly acceptably where Love is at the bottom Gen. 29. 20. Seven years to Iacob seemed as a few days for the Love that he had to Rachel and so Love sweetens our Obedience His Commandments are not grievous But when we are wedded to worldly things and will not be reclaimed from them then every heavenly business is an interruption to what we would be at what we delight in 5thly The many conflicts we have with Carnal Self-Love or our own foolish and hurtful Lusts shew our Love is not perfect as the weakness of Faith is seen and felt by the remainders of unbelief and our frequent conflicts with doubts and fears Lord I believe help thou mine unbelief Mark 9. 24. So the weakness of our Love is known by the opposition of carnal and inordinate Self-love The Flesh will say sometimes Favour thy self or what a weariness is it Mal. 1. 13. and grudg every thing that is done for God It doth excuse us in our straglings and deviations from our great End and applaud us in our negligent course of living as the sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven Men that can render a reason Prov. 26. 16. Nay sometimes it will urge us to please our selves to the grief of the Spirit and to take our fill of carnal delights All this belongs to the first Reason 2. There needs much to be done about our Love after it is planted in the Soul we need to get it rooted to get it increased to get it continually excited and kept in act and exercise 1. We need to get it rooted Our first Affection to God and Heavenly things may hastily put forth it self as the early Blossoms of the Spring do but they are soon nipt and those high Tides of Affections which we find in our first acquaintance with Religion afterwards sink low enough Love is more passionately exprest at first partly by reason of the novelty of the things represented to us and partly because of our great necessity as Men that are in a violent thirst take large draughts with pleasure and because our Love is not as yet dispersed into the several Channels of Obedience but wholly taken up with admirations of Grace but yet this may vanish and decay Our business is to be rooted and grounded in Love as the Apostle saith Eph. 3. 7. to get a more solid durable affection to God 2. After it is Planted it needs to be more Increased Phil. 1. 9. I pray God your Love may abound yet more and more At first Love is but weak there is Fire but it is not blown up into a Flame afterwards God gets a greater interest in our Hearts and then the constitutions of our Souls become more Holy and Heavenly Love being the Heart of the new Creature he that hath most Love hath most Grace and is the best and strongest Christian. 3. After it is planted in the Soul it needs to be excited and kept in Act and Exercise This is mainly intended here For 1. All Religion is in Effect but Love Faith is a thankful acceptance of Christ and thankfulness is an expression of Love Repentance is but Mourning Love as she wept much to whom much was forgiven Luke 7. 47. Diligence in the Holy Life is but seeking Love Obedience is pleasing Love Self-denial is the Mortification of inordinate Self-Love Sobriety is a retrenching of
our carnal Love 2. If Love be not acted and kept at work carnal Love will prevail The Soul of Man cannot lye idle especially our Affections cannot either they are carried out to God or they will leak out to Worldly things When our Love ceaseth yet concupiscence ceaseth not and the Love of the World will soon grow Superiour in the Soul for the neglected Principle languisheth whilst the other Principle gets strength and secures its Interest to God The 3d. Is The Benefit we have by keeping Love in Act. This makes us more sincere and to act purely for God 2 Cor. 5. 14. The love of Christ constrains us for we thus judg that they that live should no more live to themselves but to him that died for them and rose again The constraining Influence of Love is that that keeps us from living to our selves And this makes us more diligent Labour and Love are often coupled in the Scripture Knowing your labour of love the work of Faith and Patience of Hope And God is not unrightoeus to forget your labour of Love The Church of Ephesus lost her first Love she left her first work Rev. 2. 4 5. Use. Oh then let us seek this Benefit from God that our Hearts may be directed into his Love 1. The sanctifying Spirit is given us for this end to stir up love to God Joh. 41. 4. The Water I will give him shall be a Well of Water always springing up unto eternal Life 'T is not in the Heart a dead Pool but a living Spring And the same is intimated Joh. 7. 38. He that believes in me out of his Belly shall flow Rivers of living Water this he spake of the Spirit 2. The Ordinances were appointed for this End The Word to represent God amiable to us both for the goodness in him and the goodness proceeding from him especially in our Redemption by Christ and also for those rich preparations of Grace he hath made for us in another World to blow up this holy Fire And this is the end of the Sacrament All the Dainties that are set before us in the Lord's Supper do all taste and savour of Love Our Meat is seasoned with Love and our Drink flows into our Cup out of the Wine-press of Love Why do we eat of the Crucified Body of Christ but that we may remember Iesus who loved us and gave himself for us Gal. 2. 20. And also the Drink that is provided for us at this Feast is the Blood of Christ. Rev. 1. 5. Who loved us and washed us from our Sins in his own Blood 3. All the Providences of God tend to this End that we may love God All God's Mercies are as new Fewel to keep in this Fire I will love the Lord because he has heard the Voice of my Supplication Psal. 116. 1. And thou shalt love the Lord who is the strength of thy Life and the length of thy Days Deut. 30. 20. All the Mercy we have from God is to refresh and revive our Love that it may not languish and die nay all the sharp corrections God sends are to recover our Love to God Isa. 26. 9. My Soul hath desired thee in the Night saith the Prophet and early have I sought thee and when was that when thy Iudgments were abroad in the World when great and sharp afflictions were upon them SERMON VII 2 THESS 3. 5. And into the patient waiting for Christ. THe Words are a Prayer and the Apostle prays here for those things which are most necessary to Christians Love to God and patient waiting for Christ. I come now to handle the second Branch The Point is this Doct. That when the Heart is bent by love to God we need also the direction of his Grace to keep it intent upon the coming of Christ. Four things I must speak to I. What this patient waiting for Christ is II. The Connection between it and the Love of God III. That it hath a great influence upon the spiritual Life or keeps Religion alive in the Soul IV. The Necessity of God's concurrence hereto the Lord direct your Hearts into the patient waiting for Christ. I. What is this patient waiting for Christ I answer it is the Grace of Hope fortifying our resolutions for God and the World to come that we may continue in our Duty till our work be finished and our warfare ended The Act of Hope is three ways exprest Sometimes by Looking which notes a certain expectation Tit. 2. 13. Looking for the blessed Hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Sometimes by Loving or Longing which notes a desirous and earnest expectation 2 Tim. 4. 8. Not to me only but to all that love his appearing Sometimes by Waiting which notes a patient Expectation 1 Thess. 10. He makes it there the Fruit of our Conversion He saith we are turned to God that we may wait for his Son from Heaven This last Notion is expresly mentioned in the Text the other are implied as looking there can be no waiting for that we do not look for and longing for delay is only troublesome to them that earnestly desire his coming and build their Hopes upon it Faith adds certainty and Love earnestness and both give strength to Patience Let us open all these things As 1. Looking for the coming of Christ. Phil. 3. 20. Our Conversation is in Heaven from whence also we look for the Saviour the Lord Iesus Christ. It is not a matter of conjecture but of Faith Reason saith he may come but Faith saith he will come Nature will teach us it is very likely for a guilty Conscience fears the Judg and the course of things is so disordered in the World that there needs a review But Scripture tells us it is very certain that he that shall come will come and will not tarry Heb. 10. 37. Therefore in the Eye of Faith it is sure and near As Rebecca spied Isaac at a distance so Faith looks upon Christ as if he had begun his Journey and were now upon the way and makes the Believer stand ready to meet him and welcome him Though it come not to pass presently the thing is promised and the time certainly determined in God's external purpose which is enough for Faith 2. There is a Longing or a desirous Expectation 2 Pet. 3. 12. Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God It is good to observe how differently this Coming of Christ is entertain'd in the World It is questioned by the Atheist it is dreaded by the Wicked and Impenitent but it is longingly expected by the Godly 1. For the first sort 2 Pet. 3. 3 4. There shall come in the last days Scoffers walking after their own Lusts and saying Where is the promise of his coming They would eternally enjoy the Pleasures of the present World and therefore labour to dash all thoughts of this great Day out of their Hearts and take up all obvious
prejudices to smother the belief of it they would be glad in their Hearts to hear such news that Christ would never come Now their wishes do easily commence into opinion Christ's coming is the burden and torment they would willingly get rid of And Men readily believe what they earnestly desire 2. The second sort It is dreaded by the Wicked and Impenitent And therefore hated and abhorred by them At the mention of it Felix trembled Acts 24. 2. There is reason for it for Christ comes to them as a terrible Judg. In Scripture his coming is set forth by Light and sometimes by Fire Light is comfortable but Fire dreadful 2 Thess. 1. 8. He shall come in flames of Fire to render vengeance to them that obey not the Gospel But 3. To the Godly it is not matter of Terror but Delight not like the hand-writing on the Wall to Belshazzer but like comfortable tidings to one that expects news from far they long for it and would hasten it if they might have their desire Cant. 8. 14. Make haste my Beloved and be like a young Hart or Row upon the Mountains of Spices Christ is not slack but the Churches Affections are strong therefore she saith Make haste So Rev. 22. 20. Christ saith I come and the Church like a quick eccho takes the words out of his Mouth even so come Lord Iesus come quickly Christ's Voice and the Churches Voice are Unisons You will say this is the desire of the Church in general but doth every particular Believer so desire it I answer the part follows the reason of the whole the same Spirit is in all the Faithful the Spirit in the Bride says come the Holy Ghost in necessary things works uniformly in all the Saints therefore he breeds this desire in them The meanest the weakest even those that tremble at their own unpreparedness have some inclination that way There may be a drowziness and indisposition but no total extinction of the desire of meeting with Christ. 3. There is Waiting and here it is exprest by its adjunct patient waiting for patient waiting is an act of Hope as well as longing expectation 1 Thess. 1. 3. Knowing saith he your work of Faith and labour of Love and patience of Hope Faith or a sound belief of things will break out into practice therefore the work of Faith Love will put us upon Labour and Hope produces Patience There is a threefold Patience spoken of in Scripture all the branches are near a-kin for they are all begotten by Hope 1. The bearing Patience which is a constancy in Adversity or a perseverance in our Duty notwithstanding the difficulties and tryals that we meet with in our passage to Heaven Heb. 6. 12. Be ye Believers of them who through Faith and Patience have inherited the Promises As we cannot inherit the Promises without Faith so not without Patience for our Obedience and Fidelity to Christ requires not only labour and great pains but courage and constancy to suffer as well as to do Heb. 10. 36. Ye have need of Patience that after ye have done the will of God you might inherit the Promise A Child of God cannot be without Patience because he must reckon for troubles and molestations We have indeed our calms as well as our storms many intermissions but at other times God will exercise us and shew us our Fidelity is not sufficiently tried in doing good but before we go to Heaven we must sometimes suffer evil God hath something to do by us and something to do with us We must be prepared for both to endure all things and readily and willingly suffer the greatest evil rather than commit the least Sin that so at length we may be accepted in the Judgment 2. There is a waiting Patience to wait God's leisure The evil is present the good is absent now we long for the good as well as bear the evil Rom. 8. 25. But if we hope for that we see not then do we with patience wait for it This is the work of Patience to wait to refer it to the good pleasure of God when our Warfare shall be accomplished and our Troubles at an end and our final Deliverance come about The time cannot belong for what are a few years to Eternity This waiting Patience is delivered to us under the Similitude of an Husbandman Jam. 5. 7. who waiteth for the precious Fruits of the Earth and hath long Patience for it till he receive the early and the latter rain The Husbandman that hath laid out all his Substance in Seed-Corn cannot hope for a present Harvest or that he should receive the Crop as soon as the Seed is cast into the Ground no it must lie a while there it must endure all Weathers before it can spring up in the Blade and Ear and ripen and be fit to be reaped So though we venture all upon our everlasting hopes yet we must expect our Season till we see the fruit and recompence of it This is the waiting Patience 3. There is the working Patience which is a going on with our self-denying Obedience how tedious soever it be to the Flesh. Thus we are told the good Ground bringeth forth fruit with Patience They were hasty to have present satisfaction or else grew weary of Religion and turned aside to worldly things So the Heirs of the promises are described Rom. 2. 7. To be those that continued with Patience in well-doing And to the Church of Ephesus God saith Rev. 2. 2. I know thy works thy labour and thy Patience Religion is not an idle and sluggish profession the work of it is carried on by diligence and faithfulness Lusts are not easily mortified neither do Graces produce their perfect work with a little perfunctory care Much labour and serious diligence is required of us we have many things to conflict withal there is the burden of a wearisom Body the seducing Flesh unruly Passions disordered Thoughts a dark Mind dead Affections and sometimes the misery of a troubled Conscience that we conflict withal and therefore we need much Patience that we may not faint but be accepted of the Lord at his coming Well then to live in this constant and patient expectation of Christ is the perpetual necessary duty of all those that love him II. The Connection and Affinity between it and the Love of God For if a Man love God he will wait for the coming of Christ. The one is inferred out of the other The Lord direct your Hearts to the love of God and the patient waiting for Christ. 1. They that love God level all their thoughts and desires to this that God may be enjoyed that God may be glorified 1. That he may be enjoyed in the fullest manner and measure they are capable of Now this full enjoyment is the fruit of Christ's coming then we shall be ever with the Lord. 1 Thess. 4. 17. When Christ shall appear we shall see him as he is and be
like him that is like him in Holiness and like him in Happiness Our Vision will make a Transformation The desire of Union which is so intrinsick to Love is never satisfied till then Here we have a little of God in the midst of Sin and Misery Sin straitens our capacity from receiving more and God sees fit to exercise us with Misery only affording us an intermixture of heavenly Comfort But our full Joy is reserved to the Day of Christ's appearing 2. They that love God desire also that God may be glorified that his Truth may be vindicated his Love and Justice demonstrated His Truth is vindicated because his Threatnings and Promises are all accomplished Sin will no more be had in Honour nor Pride and Sensuality bear sway Love to the Saints will be seen in their full reward and his Justice demonstrated on the wicked in their full Punishment All matters of Faith shall then become matters of Sence and what is now propounded to be believed shall be felt and God shall be glorified in all 2. The Saints love Christ as Mediator we love him now though we see him not 1 Pet. 1. 8. Whom having not seen we love and believing in him rejoyce with Ioy unspeakable and full of Glory But desire to see him as our surest and best Friend We have heard much of him felt much of him and tasted much of him but we desire to see him especially when he shall appear in all his Glory Mat. 25. 31. The Son of Man shall come in his Glory and all his Angels with him All Clouds about his Person shall vanish he shall appear to be what he is the Saviour and Judg of the World 3. They have a love for the Church for the Church in general shall at that day be adorned as a Bride for her Husband and fully freed from all Sin and trouble 'T is no more eclipsed by its lamentable Imperfections corruption of Worship division of Sects or the persecutions of the World nor polluted by the Distempers of its diseased Members all is then Holy and Glorious Christ will present it as a Glorious Church without spot or wrinkle Eph. 2. 7. 4. They love themselves in God and their own Happiness is then fully to be perfected All the desires and hopes of Believers are then satisfied They that are now scorned and persecuted shall have the reward of their love to God be perfectly loved by him A gladsom day it will be with God's people 2 Thess. 1. 10. It is said Christ shall be admired in the Saints and glorified in all them that believe Glorified not actively but objectively Poor Creatures that are newly crept out of the Dust and Rottenness shall have so much Glory put upon them that the Angels themselves shall stand wondring what Christ means to do for them And then for all their labour they shall have rest they shall rest from their labours that is all their troublesom work shall be over for their pain and sorrow they shall have delight 1 Pet. 4. 12. For their shame they shall have Glory put upon them both in Body and Soul Our Lord Christ despised the Shame for the Glory set before him Heb. 12. 2. III. It hath a great Influence upon the Spiritual Life and keeps Religion alive in our Souls That will appear if you take either word in the Text Waiting or Patience 1. If you take the first Notion Waiting or Looking as it draws off the Mind from things present to things to come 1. Looking to the end of things giveth Wisdom Deut. 32. 29. Oh that they were wise that they would consider their latter end It is not so much to be stood upon who is happy now but who shall be happy at last If Men would frequently consider this it would much rectify all the mistakes in the World If we would inure our Minds not to look to things as they seem at present or relish to the Flesh or appear now to such short-sighted Creatures as we are but as they will be judged of at the last day at Christ's appearing How soon would this vain shew be over and the Face of things changed and what is Rich and Pleasant and Honourable now appear base and contemptible at the latter end Then shall we see that there is an excellency in oppressed Godliness that exalted Wickedness and Folly is but shame and ruine Do but translate the Scene from the World's Judgment to Christ's Tribunal and you will soon alter your opinions concerning Wisdom and Folly Misery and Happiness Liberty and Bondage Shame and Glory the mistaking of which Notions pervert all mankind and there is no rectifying the mistake but by carrying of our Mind seriously to the last review of all things For then we shall judge things not by what they seem now but by what they will be hereafter Solomon tells us Prov. 19. 20. Hear Counsel and receive Instruction that thou mayst be wise in thy latter end That is true Wisdom to be found wise at last Time will come when we shall wish and say in vain Oh that we had laid up treasure in Heaven that we had laboured for the Meat that perisheth not that we had esteemed despised Holiness that we had set less by all the vanities of the World that we had imitated the strictest and most mortified Believer for those are only esteemed and have honour in that Day More particularly 1. It would much quicken us to Repentance Acts 3. 19. Repent and be converted that your Sins may be blotted out when the day of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. All things shall be reviewed at Christ's coming and some Mens Sins remain and others are blotted out None but those that are converted and turned to God can expect that Benefit Unless we be recovered from the Devil the World and the Flesh and brought back again in Heart and Life to God there will be no escape Now those that wait for this day should prepare for it that they may stand in the Judgment with comfort The wicked shall have Judgment without Mercy but the Believer shall be accepted upon terms of Grace Days of torment shall come to the one from the presence of the Lord and days of refreshing shall come to the other The state in the World of believing Penitents is a time of Conflict Labour and Sorrow but this trouble and toil is then over and they shall enjoy their rest Consider these things Where would you have your refreshment and in what Many seek their refreshing now either in brutish pleasures and sit down under the shadow of some earthly Gourd which soon withers but those that seek their refreshment in the enjoyment of God shall then be satisfied Nothing certainly makes us so sollicitous about a serious Reconciliation with God as the Consideration of this Day 2. It engageth us to Holiness and puts Life into our Obedience We that look for such things what manner of Persons ought
the God of all Comfort 2 Cor. 1. 3. And yet Christ's Soul was troubled and heavy unto Death The Godhead suspending its Virtue and Operation both might well consist for though the Presence of the Divinity be necessary with the Humanity of Christ yet the Effects are voluntary God worketh not out of necessity no not in the Human Nature of Christ all kind of Communications are given out according to his own pleasure The Divinity remained united to the Flesh and yet the Flesh might die so it remained united to the Soul and yet the Soul might want Comfort The Bond by which the two Natures were united in one Person remained firm and indissoluble but the Influx of Sweetness and Comfort was suspended Some Effect there is of the Union but not that which affords Comfort and Felicity and this was suspended but for a time There is a Desertion indeed which agreeth not with the dignity of Christ. There is a total and Eternal Desertion by which God so deserteth a Man both as to Grace and Glory that he is wholly cast out of God's Presence and adjudged to Eternal Torments which is the Case of the Reprobate in the last Judgment this is not compatible to Christ nor agreeing with the dignity of his Person There is a partial temporal Desertion when God for a moment hideth his Face from his People Isa. 54. 7. This is so far from being contrary to the dignity of Christ's Nature that it is necessary to his Office for many Reasons 2. That it is very grievous This was an incomparable Loss to Christ. 1. Partly because it was more natural to him to enjoy that Comfort and Solace than it can be to any Creature To put out a Candle is no great matter but to have the Sun eclipsed which is the Fountain of Light that sets the World a wondering For poor Creatures to lose their Comforts is no great wonder who though they live in God are so many degrees distant from him but for Christ who was God-Man in one Person that is a difficulty to our Thoughts and a wonder indeed for by this means he was so far deprived of some part of Himself 2. Partly because he had more to lose than we have The greater the Enjoyment the greater is the Loss or Want It was more for David to be driven from his Palace than a poor Israelite to be driven from his Cottage We lose Drops he an Ocean A poor Christian that hath some Heaven upon Earth in the fore-enjoyment of God and the first-fruits and earnest of the Spirit hath more to lose than another that hath had only some vanishing Tast in the Offer of Eternal Life and receiving the Word with Ioy. Proportionably judge of Christ who was Comprehensor while he was Viator had the beatifical Vision whiles on Earth 3. Partly because he knew how to value the Comfort of the Union having a pure Understanding and heavenly Affections God's Children count one Day in his Presence better than a thousand Psal. 84. 10. One Glimpse of his Love more than all the World Psal. 4. 7. If they have any thing of the Love of God shed abroad in their Hearts they would not part with it for all the sensual Enjoyments which others prize and value so much and if they lose it they are touched to the quick they lose that which is the Life of their Lives which they account their chief Happiness Now Christ was best able to apprehend the Worth and Value of Communion with God having such a clear Understanding and tender Affections and therefore it must needs be grievous to him to have his wonted Conversations suspended 4. Partly because he had so near an Interest and Relation to God Prov. 8. 30. One bred up with him and daily his Delight Col. 1. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Look among the Children of God if they have any Interest in him how mournfully do they brook his Absence Mary Magdalen Woman why weepest thou They have taken away my Lord and I know not where they have laid him Luk. 24. 14. She sought a Christ and found a Grave Christ's words my God do not only express his Confidence but Affection when his God and Father hideth his Face from him 5. Partly from the Nature of Christ's Desertion It was Penal All Desertions may be reduced to these three Sorts for Trial for Correction or Punishment For Trial so God left Hezekiah to prove what was in his Heart 2 Chron. 32. 31. For fatherly Correction so God leaveth his People for a while to teach them Repentance Humility Hatred of Sin more entire Dependance on Himself Isa. 54. 7. I have left thee for a small moment but with everlasting Mercies will I love thee For Punishment so he left Saul 1 Sam. 28. 6. When he answered him neither by Dreams nor by Urim nor by Prophets So he leaveth the wicked to a reprobate Mind Now Christ's Desertion was not for a Trial. Fallible Creatures may be put upon Trial but the Son of God needs it not It would not agree with the Goodness and Wisdom of God to put his beloved Son on such a Trial. He was neither unknown to his Father nor did he vainly presume of his own Strength as to need to be confuted by Trial. Nor can it properly be called Fatherly Correction for there was no Sin in Christ that needed to be corrected Indeed the Chastisement of our Peace was upon his Shoulders Isa. 53. 5. Therefore it remains that this Desertion was penal and satisfactory such as came from the vindictive and revenging hand of God Our Sins met in him and he was forsaken in our stead There was no Cause in Christ himself wherefore he deserved to be forsaken of God but we had done the wrong and he maketh the amends There was nothing in Christ's Person to occasion a Desertion but much in his Office so he was to give Body for Body and Soul for Soul And this was a part of the Satisfaction He was beloved as a Son forsaken as our Mediator and Surety II. Why was Christ forsaken Answ. With respect to the Office which he had taken upon him to expiate our Sins and to recover us from the deserved Wrath and Punishment into the Love and Favour of God This Desertion of Christ carrieth a suitableness and respect to our Sin our Punishment and our Blessedness 1. Our Sin Christ is forsaken to satisfy and make amends for our wilful desertion of God When Adam sinned we all turned the back upon God who made us Yea all actual Sins are nothing but a forsaking of God for very trifles an Aversion from God and a Conversion to the Creature Ier. 2. 13. They have forsaken me the Fountain of living Waters and have hewen out unto themselves broken Cisterns that will hold no Water Now we that forsook God deserved to be forsaken by God therefore what we had merited by our Sin Christ endured as our Mediator He himself
submitted to Desertion It is strange to consider what small things draw us off from God For handfuls of Barly and pieces of Bread will that Man transgress Ezek. 13. 19. For a pair of Shoes Amos 2. 6. For one morsel of Meat Heb. 12. 16. Isa. 52. 3. This is the great Degeneracy and Disease of Mankind that a Trifle will prompt us to forsake God as a little thing will make a Stone run down-hill it is its natural Motion There is nothing that is so easily exposed and put to hazard as the Favour of God Now this being the great Sin of Man and the Cause of other Sins it was needful that the Odiousness of this Sin should be set forth by the bitterness of Christ's Sorrow under the want of the Love of God Christ's Complaints shew how God's Favour is to be valued and that it is a dangerous thing to part with it for carnal Satisfactions The Consolations of God are cheap and small things in the eyes of most Men in the World What is more slighted than God and Christ and our own Salvation and neglected for very Trifles And then what more perfect Cure and better Way to instruct the World than that these Sins could not be expiated but by the desertion of the Son of God and his bitter Complaints for the Suspension of the Effects of the Love of God to him 2. It carries a full respect to the Punishment appointed for Sin Certain we are that he bore the Curse of the Law Gal. 3. 13. Now the Curse of the Law actively taken is nothing but the Sentence of the Law or rather of God the Judge condemning the Transgressors of it to such Punishment as the Law appointed passively taken it is the Punishment it self And the final and great Curse is that described Mat. 25. 21. To be banished from the presence of the Lord and cast into extreme Torment There is a double Punishment Poena dumni sensus the Loss and the Pain The Loss consisteth in our Separation from God from the comfortable happy Fruition of Him in Glory Depart ye Cursed The Pain in Eternal Torments is set forth by the Worm and by the Fire Mark 9. 44. Now Christ being our Surety Heb. 7. 22. and giving himself a Ransom for all 2 Tim. 2. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word implies a Substitution or Surrogation of one Person in the room of another he was to suffer what we were to suffer if not the Idem every way the same yet the Tantundem that which was sufficient to Christ's ends that which was to carry a full resemblance with our Punishment It is one part of the Punishment of Sin to be forsaken of God and many say the Punishment of Loss is greatest he was therefore to suffer so much of it as his holy Person was capable of something that answereth to the Poena Damni in his Desertion and to the Poena Sensus in his Agonies and Pains Isa. 53. 4. Surely he hath born our Griefs and carried our Sorrows It is true the Accidentals of Punishment Christ suffered not As 1. To the Place he was not in Hell It was not necessary that Christ should descend into the Hell of the damned One that is bound as a Surety for another needs not go into Prison provided that he pay the Debt All that Justice requireth is that he satisfy the Debt Indeed if he doth not nor cannot satisfy the Debt he must to Prison So here the Justice of God must be satisfied the Holiness of God and Hatred to Sin sufficiently demonstrated but Christ need not to go into the place of Torments 2. For the Time of Continuance The Damned must bear the Wrath of God to all Eternity because they can never satisfy the Justice of God therefore they must lie by it World without end As one that pays a thousand Pounds by a penny a Week is a long time in paying a rich Man lays it down in cumulo in an heap of Gold all at once Christ hath made an infinite Satisfaction in a finite Time he bore the Wrath of God in a few Hours which would overwhelm the Creature Christ did not suffer the Eternity of Wrath but only the Extremity of it intensive not extensive The Eternity of the Punishment ariseth from the weakness of the Creature who cannot overcome this Evil and get out of it 3. There is another Thing unavoidably attending the Pains of the second Death in Reprobates and that is Desperation an utter Hopelesness of any Good yea a certain Expectation of continual Torment Heb. 10. 27. The Gates of Hell are made fast on them by an irresistible Decree and the Gulf is fixed between the place of the Damned and the place of the Blessed so that there is no coming from the one to the other Luk. 16. 26. Now this Despair is not an essential Part of the Law 's Curse but only a Consequent occasioned by the Sinner's view of his remediless and woful Condition But this neither did nor could possibly befall the Lord Jesus who was able by his Divine Power both to suffer and satisfy to undergo and overcome and therefore expected a good Issue in his Conflict Psal. 16. 9 10. My Flesh shall rest in Hope for thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell nor suffer thine Holy One to see Corruption was spoken as from Christ Acts 2. 27. A shallow Stream would drown a little Child whereas a grown Man may hope to escape out of a far deeper Place yea a skilful Swimmer out of the Ocean Christ passed through that Sea of Wrath which would have drowned all the World and came safe to Shore 3. With respect to our Blessedness which is to live with God for ever in Heaven Christ was forsaken that there might be no longer any Separation between us and God He was forsaken for a while that we might be received for ever Our Separation from God by Sin was the meritorious Cause but the final Cause was our Eternal Conjunction with God so that this Desertion which was so bitter to Christ is the Cause of sweet Consolation to us as it hath procured for all them that obey the Gospel that they should be happy for ever in the Eternal Vision and Fruition of God I observe this because of the constant use of the Scripture which expresseth our Benefits in a direct opposition to Christ's Sufferings as He was made Sin for us that we might be made the Righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5. 21. He was made a Curse for us that the Blessing of Abraham might come upon us He was made of a Woman that we might receive the Adoption of Sons Gal. 4. 4 5. He was made poor that we through his Poverty might be made rich 2 Cor. 8. 9. And by his Wounds and Stripes we are healed 1 Pet. 2. 24. By his Death we have Life by his Shame we have Glory and so by consequence by his Desertion we obtain Communion with
to stain the Reputation of others 2. It is a wrong to Man because it robbeth him of his good Name which is so deservedly esteemed by all that would do any thing for God in the World Prov. 22. 1. A good Name is rather to be chosen than great Riches and loving Favour rather than Silver and Gold The meaning is in order to Service and as it more nearly respects both Life and Livelyhood So Eccles. 7. 1. A good Name is better than precious Oyntment Their Oyntments were reckoned by those Oriental People amongst their most precious Riches and Treasures yet a good name is preferred before them which inferreth this Conclusion that the Man himself should prize it so for he that is lavish of his Fame is not usually over-tender of his Conscience Therefore as he himself should not prostitute his good Name so others should not blast it and blemish it for it is a greater Sin than to steal the best Goods which he hath and it is such an evil as scarce admits any sound Restitution for the imputation even of unjust Crimes leaveth a Scar though the Wound be healed 3. The causes it proceedeth from They are these 1. Malice and Ill-will which prompteth us to speak falsly of others so to make them odious or do them wrong or hurt Now to hate our Brother in our Heart is no way consistent with that Goodness and Charity which the impression of the Love of Christ should beget in us The Apostle saith 1 Pet. 4. 8. Above all things have fervent Charity among your selves for Charity shall cover a multitude of Sins If nothing but Love and servent Love will restrain us surely where hatred is allowed Men care not what they think or speak or do against others Now as there is a Brotherly Love due to our Fellow Saints so there is a Love due to all Men. 2 Pet. 1. 7. I am to hate no Man but to seek their good There is a twofold Hatred the Hatred of Offence and Abomination and the Hatred of Enmity The Hatred of Offence which is opposite to the Love of Complacency may be justified as to the Wicked Prov. 29. 27. An unjust Man is an Abomination to the Iust and he that is upright in the way is an Abomination to the Wicked But then we should first and most abominate our selves for Sin this very hatred and abhorrence should begin at Home and we should be most odious to our selves for Sin for we know more Sin by our selves than we can do by an other But for the other Hatred the Hatred of Enmity which is opposite to the Love of Benevolences that should be quite banished out of the Heart of a Christian. And it is not enough for God's People to keep themselves free from Hatred and Malice against one another but against all Men. Tit. 3. 2. Put them in mind to speak evil of no Man to be no Brawlers but gentle shewing all Meekness to all Men For we our selves were sometimes disobedient c. If this old Hatred were gone a multitude of Offences would be covered 2. It comes from uncharitable Credulity whereby Men easily believe a false report and so propagate and convey it to others Jer. 26. 10. I have heard the defaming of many report say they and we will report it All my Familiars watched for my halting c. The Prophet complaineth Many and those no mean ones have I heard reproaching and taunting me so that he was a Terrour to himself and to all his-Friends Many had combined by false suggestions and malicious informations against him to work his ruine If any will raise a report tending to the discredit of another some will foster it and it loseth nothing in the carriage till by additions and misconstructions it groweth to a downright and dangerous Infamy 3. It comes through rashness and unruliness of Tongue some Men never learned to bridle their Tongues and the Apostle Iames telleth us that therefore their Religion is vain Jam. 1. 26. Till we make Conscience of these evils as well as others we content our selves with a partial Obedience and therefore cannot be Sincere But many never set themselves to learn this part of their Duty and therefore divulge a Report before they try it or receive any just proof of it Possibly it may not come from downright Malice but their Tongues hang too loose without the coercion and just restraint of Grace and so they either report false things or speak Truth to an evil end Prov. 11. 13. A Tale-bearer revealeth secrets but he that is of a faithful Spirit concealeth the matter Whisperers must be talking and be it true or false out it comes Certainly it is a Sin as long as you knew it not to be true or if you do when you have no warrantable call to mention it To reveal Secrets which you may conceal without wrong to God or your own Consciences or the common Good or the Good of your Neighbour is Loquacity or the Sin of Idle and impertitent Talkativeness the Disease of a Whisperer and Tale-Bearer 4. It comes from carnal Zeal which is nothing else but Passion for our different Interests and Opinions The bitter Envying which the Apostle speaketh off Iam. 3. 14. hath made mad work in the World as to Strifes and Confusions and Quarrels and Bloodsheds and Persecutions But usually it venteth it self in evil speaking for the Apostle maketh Backbitings and Whisperings the fruits of Swellings and Tumults 2 Cor. 12. 20. Oh what false and lying Tales are there carried to and fro that a Man knoweth not what or whom to belive So many Lies walk under the disguise of Religion that not to credit them or countenance the Report seemeth a decay of Affection but surely not to Religion but only the Interest of a Faction But a Question ariseth Is all speaking evil of another unlawful Answ. I cannot say so but yet it is hard to keep it from Sin 1. He that doth it without just cause is plainly a Detractor and so a grievous Sinner before God You may impose and impute false Crimes upon others which is properly called Slander and God thereby convinceth the Professor of the true Religion to be an Hypocrite Psal. 50. 20. Thou fittest and speakest against thy Brother and slanderest thy own Mothers Son God doth not only reject the Liars for Hypocrites but also the Backbiters and Slanderers Those that allow themselves in the frequent practice of this Sin what hopes can they have of acceptance with God since he hath entred his plea against them For the Act to be sure is sinful there can be no other end in it but the wronging of our Brothers Fame and Reputation to his loss and hurt The Nature of the thing sheweth it 2. He that doth but speak what he hath heard from others without any Assertion or Asseveration of his own as not knowing the Truth of the report can hardly be excused from Sin For if without just
cause he speaketh those things that may wound the Reputation of others he is in part accessary for he reporteth those things which may induce the Hearers to think ill of an other or at least beget a suspicion in their Minds concerning him and so is a concurring cause to wrong anothers Name and good Report Now we should be so jealous of Sin that we should not countenance it in others without a just and weighty cause 3. He that doth speak that which is true but tendeth to the Infamy of another may be guilty of Sin if he have not a sufficient Call and Warrant As for Instance 1. If it be a matter we have nothing to do with but only speak of their faults for talk sake This is to be Busie-bodies and Tatlers Tim. 1. 5 18. As we all love to speak of other Mens faults when we look little at Home This is a Sin when it is not matter of cognisance Or 2. If we aggravate things beyond their just Size and Proportion for then we do not exercise Christian Lenity and Meekness towards those that are faln Gal. 6. 1. Or 3. If we urge their Crimes and deny their Graces This is like Flies to pitch on the sore place Is there no good amongst all this evil But it may be done when Crimes are publick and Men themselves have forfeited all good repute and God doth as it were hang them up in Chains for a warning to the rest of the World or when their Reputation may injure the Truth and seduce the Souls of others or be an injury to the Just who are slandered by them In short when the Glory of God or love to the Publick Good or the avoiding some great danger that may be befal others by their esteem then a lesser good is to be neglected to procure a greater and a growing evil prevented when Men by dissembling their Wickedness seek a Fame to the manifest hurt of others Souls 2dly The kinds of it are twoin the Text Whispering and Backbiting First Whispering which is privy defamation of our Brother to bring him into disfavour and disrespect with those that formerly had a better opinion of him Herein Whispering differeth from Backbiting because the Whisperer stingeth secretly but the other doth more openly attack our credit Now this Whispering is a great Sin 1. Because it is here reckoned among the Sins which reigned among the Heathen and God hath expresly forbidden to his People Levit. 19. 16. Thou shalt not go up and down as a Tale-bearer among thy People You see Tale-bearing and Crimination is expresly against God's Word and if your Hearts stand in awe of the Word of God how dare you indulge it and allow it in your selves It is observed that the Hebrew Word Rokel properly signifyeth a Merchant or a Traffiquer up and down with Spices and other things whereupon Rakil the word there used is a Tale-Bearer that Accuser that makes Merchandise of Words and like a Pedlar goeth from place to place to open his Pack and utter his Wares to hear and spread abroad Criminations of other Men. This is made the property of very wicked Men. Jer. 9. 4. Every Neighbour will walk with Slanders 2. It is against natural Equity because they do that to others which they would not have done to themselves Mat. 7. 2. And therefore storm and take great Offence when God by a righteous Providence permitteth others to retaliate with them and pay them home in their own Coin as usually he doth for they who are not tender of the Credit and Reputation of others their Names are cast out of God's Protection and permitted to the Strife of Tongues 3. They are a Cause of much Mischief in the World As 1. Grief to the Party wronged Prov. 18. 8. The Words of a Tale-bearer we read in the Margin of a Whisperer are as Wounds and they go down into the innermost parts of the Belly that is They equally hurt as a sharp Sword that is thrust into us and causes Pain and Anguish By the Chambers of the Belly is understood the Heart Now whether the Heart of the Hearer or the Heart of the Party injured Why not both The Hearer the words pierce into his Heart and breed Hatred or at least Suspition of his Friend The Party injured when he comes to the knowledg of it they breed his Grief and Vexation 2. They are a Cause of much Debate and Strife Prov. 26. 20. Where no Wood is there the Fire goeth out so where there is no Tale-bearer or Whisperer Strife ceaseth Where Strife is compared to Fire and the Whisperer's Informations or Criminations to the Wood or Matter that feedeth the Fire the Extinction or putting out of the Fire to the ceasing of Strife and Contention which is caused by the absence of the Whisperer that is when he is not admitted by either Party Prov. 16. 28. A froward Man soweth Strife and a Whisperer separateth choice Friends Husband and Wife Parents and Children Masters and Servants Princes and Subjects intimate Friends Now He that soweth Discord between Friends or Brethren is an Abomination to the Lord Prov. 6. 19. Therefore how can one that feareth God allow himself in speaking evil privily against his Neighbour 3. There is a greater Mischief than this and that is It many times tendeth to the destruction of anothers Life Ezek. 22. 9. In thee are Men that carry Tales to shed Blood Usually the Vapours of Slander descend in the Showers of Persecution and the Devil was first a Liar and then a Murderer By Whispers Men are stirred up to hate others and then pursue them with all manner of Hostility and Displeasures As Doeg the Edomite first accused and then by the Command of Saul slew Abimelech the High-Priest and all his Family destroying the whole City of the Priests called Nob as you may see 1 Sam. 22. 9. David when he professeth the Uprightness of his Government would allow no such in his Court but would severely punish them Psal. 101. 5. Whoso privily slandereth his Neighbour him will I cut off These Ways of Whispering and Detraction by which Men are wont to gain Confidence Favour and Employment from Princes should not only miss of their Aims with him but be severely punished when he met with them But here ariseth a Question Whether all private Complaints and Informations against others come under the Name of Whispering I answer No with these Cautions 1. If the Party be duly admonished for before we go any further the Rule is Mat. 18. 15. First tell him his Fault between him and thee alone Private Admonition must always precede Crimination to others therefore if you forbear privately to admonish the Offender in Love and seek not to reclaim him from his sinful Course you cannot be excused from Sin 2. If it be made to such as have power to redress the Fault by the most discreet and gentle means before it break out any further So it is said
nor from the failings of a single Person conclude the whole Party 3. By imposing false Crimes Prov. 10. 18. He that uttereth a Slander is a Fool that is a wicked Person As Mephibosheth saith of Ziba 2 Sam. 19. 27. He hath slandered thy Servant unto my Lord the King The most godly and innocent Persons cannot escape the Scourge of the Tongue and unjust Calumnies II. The Hainousness of the Sin 1. In General that is evident from what is said already I shall urge two Arguments more 1. That Men shall be called to an account for these Sins as well as others they are not passed by in the Judgment Jud. 15. God will execute Iudgment upon all ungodly Sinners not only for their ungodly Deeds but for all their hard Speeches Now if injurious and contumelious Language come into the Judgment how should all beware of the least accession to this Guilt So 1 Pet. 4. 4 5. They speak evil of you who shall give an account to him that is ready to judg the Quick and the Dead The Mockers as well as Persecutors were to give a strict and sad Account It is no slight and light Sin to divulge and spread false Calumnies to hurt the Credit of our Brethren God takes notice of a Thought in our Heart against them a Word in our Mouths and will exact a strict Account thereof 2. It is the Property of a Citizen of Zion one that shall be not only accepted with God now but dwell with God for ever not to be given to Backbiting Psal. 15. 3. He that backbiteth not with his Tongue nor doth evil to his Neighbour That is that makes strict Conscience of Backbiting or Calumniating and abstaineth from doing any kind of Wrong or Reproach to his Neighbour 2. More particularly It is the more hainous 1. Partly from the Person against whom it is committed As suppose the Godly and Irreprovable for the main who by their Life and Conversation have the best right to Honour and Esteem to do it against them is most unjust Psal. 64. 3. They whet their Tongues as a Sword they shoot their Arrows even bitter Words that they may shoot in secret at the perfect suddenly do they shoot at him and fear not That is their Slanders and Calumnies are shot like poysoned Darts and Arrows secretly or clancularly without any desert or notice of the Party against whom they are intended Or else against Persons publickly employed and in the special Service of God as Magistrates Numb 12. 8. Were ye not afraid to speak against my Servant against Moses So in the Ministry 1 Tim. 3. 1. He must have a good Report from them without lest he fall into Reproach and the Snare of the Devil Against these it is not only unjust but noxious and hurtful to God's Service 2. From the Persons before whom the Slander is brought as suppose Kings and Princes so that they are deprived not only of private Friendships but the Favour and Countenance of these under whose Protection they have their Life and Service Thus Haman whispered against the Iews Esth. 3. 8. It is not for the King's profit to suffer them to live Doeg against the Priests Psal. 52. 1. Why boastest thou in Mischief O mighty Man The Goodness of God continueth for ever It is a strange matter of Pleasure and Joy to some Persons in Power to be able to mischief those that deserve it least God is eminently great and good This Sort of Pride is diametrically opposite to his Nature Alas To trouble a few Persons how irrational is it But such are our depraved Natures Some are never pleased with those things that alone veeld durable Pleasure but to be able with their Counsel as with one poysonous Vapour to blast a Multitude of innocent Persons 3. From the End of it If it be done with a direct Intention of hurting anothers Fame it is worse than if out of a rash Levity and Loquacity Some Men have no direct Intention of Mischief but are given to Tatling It is a great Sin in them and an unprofitable Mispence of Time but it is a greater in those that make it their Business to disgrace others or sow Discord These are the Bane of Human Society 4. From the Effect or great Hurt that followeth be it it Loss of Estate as in the Case of Mephibosheth or a general Trouble and Persecution on the People of God When their good Names are buried their Persons cannot long subsist afterward with any degree of Service And all this may be the Fruit of a deceitful Tongue The Use is To shew how good-natured Christianity is and befriendeth human Societies it condemneth not only Sins against God but Sins against our Neighbour It bindeth its Professors to the Practice of the Apostle Acts 24. 16. Herein do I exercise my self to have always a Conscience void of Offence towards God and towards Men. Phil. 4. 8. Whatsoever things are honest just good and true if there be any Vertue or any Praise think of these things The World hath taken up this Prejudice that Religion makes us ill-natur'd Of it self there is nothing more benign it only condemneth those that are good-natur'd to others but not to God Use 2d Let us not speak Evil of others behind their Backs but tell them their Faults plainly in Love and Wisdom nor encourage others in this Sin Prov. 25. 23. As the North Wind drives away the Rain so doth an angry Countenance a backbiting Tongue They that receive Tales and delight to hear other Mens faults encourage others in their Sin and are accessary to or Partakers of the Guilt It brings an evil Habit and Custom in our own Souls In short Let us keep up an humble Sense of our own Faults and looking at home it will not only divert us from slandering of others but make us compassionate towards them and breed Comfort in our own Souls SERMON XI GAL. 5. 16. This I say then Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the Lust of the Flesh. IN these Words Observe 1. A Duty enforced 2. The Consequent and Fruit of it 1. The Duty is to walk in the Spirit which is the sum of all Christian Piety 2. The Motive is taken from the consequent and fruit of it and ye shall not fulfil the Lust of the Flesh. Let us fix the Sense 1. For the Duty to walk in the Spirit Walking implyeth the tenour and course of our Actions in all which we should follow the direction and inclination of the Spirit But what is meant by the Spirit That it may be known both the contrary Principles must be explained together 1. Flesh is sometimes taken for the Body as Eph. 4. 29. For no Man yet ever hated his own Flesh it is brought as a reason why Husbands ought to love their Wives as their own Bodies ver 28. and Spirit is taken for the Soul Eccl. 12. 7. But this is not the Sense here for every Man hath Soul
and Body not the regenerate only and a Man is not only to look after the welfare of the Soul But his Body also it being the Instrument which it useth in its operations 2. The Spirit is sometimes put for Reason and the Flesh for sensual Appetite as Eph. 4. 23. And be renewed in the Spirit of your Mind And 1 Joh. 2. 16. The Lusts of the Flesh But this will not take in the whole Sense of this place for other faculties are corrupted besides the sensual Appetite and other Faculties must be renewed as well as the Understanding 3. There is another acceptation of Flesh and Spirit that is that Spirit signifieth the uncreated Spirit who is the Author of Grace As Joh. 3. 5. Except a Man be born again of Water and the Spirit Where Spirit is put for the Holy Ghost who immediately worketh Grace in us called therefore the Spirit of Sanctification as that Saving Grace which is the effect of his work is called the Sanctification of the Spirit And the opposite Principle Flesh signifieth the corrupt Nature of Man as Joh. 3. 6. That which is born of the Flesh is Flesh Corrupt Sinful inclined to earthly things Now though this would bear a good sense to interpret Flesh and Spirit of the Holy Ghost and Concupisence or natural Corruption for no question he concurreth to the mortifying of the old Man till Sin be wholly expelled Rom. 8. 23. and still doth quicken and excite the new Man to Action Gal. 4. 25. yet here the Apostle speaks of two inherent Principles 4. Therefore by Flesh and Spirit is meant the old Man and the new and so by Spirit is meant the renewed part or the new Man of Grace in the Heart Joh. 3. 6. That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit That is there is a work of Saving Grace wrought in our Hearts by the Spirit of God which new Nature hath its Motions and Inclinations which must be obeyed and followed by us And by Flesh is meant inbred Corruption or the old Man which is corrupt with his deceivable Lusts Eph. 4. 22. Now then you see what it is to walk after the Spirit to direct and order our Actions according to the Inclinations of the new Nature 2. For the consequent and fruit of it and ye shall not fulfil the Lust of the Flesh. Here two things must be explained 1. The Lust of the Flesh. 2. Fulfil 1. For the Lust of the Flesh. By it is meant the inordinate Motions of corrupt Nature The Flesh doth not consider what is right and good but what is pleasing to the Senses and craveth their satisfaction with much importunity and earnestness to the wrong of God and our own Souls especially in Youth when the Senses are in Vigour and Lust and Appetite in their Strength and Fury And generally all carnal Men are govern'd by the Lusts of the Flesh called by the Apostle The Wills of the Flesh and the Mind Eph. 2. 3. By which the Heart is drawn from God to things Earthly and Carnal Well then by the Lusts of the Flesh are meant the Motions of inbred Corruptions 2. Ye shall not fulfil that is accomplish and bring into compleat act especially with deliberation and consent Mark he doth not say that the lusting of corrupt Nature shall be totally suppressed but it shall not be fulfilled The best of God's Children feel the Motions of the Flesh but they do not cherish and obey them The Lusts of the Flesh may be said to be fulfilled two ways 1. When the outward act is accomplished or when Lust hath conceiued and brought forth actual Sin Iam. 1. 15. Which may sometimes come to pass in the Children of God when they walk not in the Spirit or obey not the Motions and Directions of the renewed part This again may be done two ways either upon Surprize or Deliberation By way of Surprize Gal. 6. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon deliberation when Men plot and make provision to fulfil their Lusts contrary to the Apostles advice Rom. 13. 14. Make not provision for the Flesh to fulfil the Lusts thereof Thus it was with David in his great Sin and this doth mightily aggravate the offence and provoke the Lord against us 2. When for a continuance we obey the Flesh usually accomplish its Motions without Let and Restraint and with Love Pleasure and full consent of Will this is proper to the Unregenerate The Flesh doth reign over them as its Slaves this is spoken of Rom. 6. 12. Let not Sin reign in your mortal Body that ye should obey it in the Lusts thereof Let is not have a Power over you as Slaves Well then the meaning is you will not abuse your Christian Liberty as an occasion to the Flesh or give up your selves to do that or seek that which the Flesh lusteth after Doct. The more Christians set themselves to obey the new Nature the more is the power of inbred Corruption mortified and kept under To understand this Point let me lay down these Propositions I. That there is a diversity of Principles in a Christian Flesh and Spirit 1. There is a good Principle called Spirit because the Spirit is the Author of it Ezek. 36. 26. A new Heart and a new Spirit will I put into you It is called also the Divine Nature 2. Pet. 1. 4. because it is made up of those gracious Qualities wherein we resemble God The Seed remaining 1 Joh. 3. 9. because it is not a transient operation but a permanent habit disposing and inclining the Soul to God and Heaven The new Man Eph. 4. 24. because we have it not by Nature but by Grace we are new formed to the Image of God Now the use of this Principle may be known partly by the manner how it is wrought in us and partly by the uses and ends for which it serveth 1. For the manner how it is wrought in us by the Spirit that is set forth Heb. 8. 10. I will put my Laws in their Mind and write them in their Hearts The directive and imperial Power of the Soul is sanctified and seasoned by Grace the Mind enlightned the Heart inclined The Mind is enlightned by the Knowledg of God's Will and the Heart inclined that we may delight to do his Will it is suited thereunto Therefore the New Creature doth both serve to direct us and so performeth the Office of a Guide and Leader to the Godly in all their Actions so far in Religion as God's Glory is concerned and also to move and excite us to that which is Good For the Spirit is willing though the Flesh is Weak Mat. 26. 41. 2. By its Uses and Ends. None of God's Gifts are given in vain The new Nature is the choicest Talent that the Sons of Men are intrusted withal Therefore it hath its Use and End which is to fit us for God and Heaven 1. It disposeth the Soul to a sincere Obedience to God as an inherent
Principle Eph. 4. 24. It is created after God in Righteousness and true Holiness as suiting us to these things So the Spirit is promised to enable us to walk in God's ways Ezek. 36. 27. And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my Statutes and ye shall keep my Iudgments and do them It helps us to avoid Sin 1 Joh. 3. 9. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit Sin for his Seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God They that give back cannot yeild to those Sins with which others are surprized and captivated 2. It prepares us for Heaven Thither is the tendency of the new Nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. 1 Joh. 5. 4. Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the World it moveth us to mind love and seek after Heavenly things This Grace came from Heaven and there it is perfected 2. There is an other Principle of corrupted Nature remaining in us which is sometimes called Flesh as before sometimes the old Man Eph. 4. 22. Sin that dwelleth in us Rom. 8. 17. The Body of Sin Rom. 6. 6. The Law of the Members warring against the Law of the Mind Rom. 7. 23. By this Principle they are inclined to that which is evil This Principle also may be known 1. By the manner how it was derived to us 2. By its Tendency and Operations 1. The manner how it was derived to us from Adam in his Apostacy and as faln from his chief Good and last End Ioh. 3. 6. When Man fell from God he fell to himself The Temptation was Ye shall be as Gods Gen. 3. 5. He would set up Self as a God And what was that Self which Man sought to idolize but himself rather considered as a Body than as a Soul And therefore when God sought to reduce Man where lay the difficulty that Text will inform you Gen. 6. 3. My Spirit shall not always strive with Man for that he is also Flesh that is sunk or lost in Flesh altogether wedded to the Interests of the bodily Life 2. By its Tendency and Influence it prompts us to do those things which are most acceptable to Sense or agreeable to our worldly and carnal Ends. The Flesh operateth several ways according to Mens callings occasions or constitutions Isa. 53. 6. 1 Ioh. 2. 16. As every Soil beareth such Weeds as are most suitable to the Nature and Quality of the Ground so some are enslaved by this some by that particular Sin yet all of them alike opposite to God Differences there are as to the choice of their way wherein they please the Flesh some in a more gross some in a more cleanly manner yet they all walk in the Lust of the Flesh following inbred Corruption as their Guide or obey it either in a way of Worldliness Ambition or Sensuality Some ways are more blameless before the World because they less deserve a Worldly Interest some are so prodigiously wicked that they cause a Horror even in Mankind though degenerated Now after Conversion some of our former Sins cripple us and we halt of the old Maim still and it is not enough to stop one gap while corruption runneth out at many more but we must make Conscience of not fulfilling the Lusts of the Flesh in any kind Well now I have shewed you the two Principles which are in a Christian That we may have a Sence of our imbecillity and that we are but regenerated in part II. I will prove to you that there is a Liberty in a Christian of walking according to each Principle either the Spirit or Flesh. 1. That the Christian hath Liberty of walking according to the Spirit is out of question for where the Spirit of the Lord is there is Liberty 2 Cor. 3. 17. Surely the Spirit of Christ can free us and doth free us from the bondage of Corruption Rom. 8. 2. The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ hath freed me from the Law of Sin and Death otherwise there would be no distinction between Nature and Grace If we should be still shackled and manacled by our Lusts and be as unable to pursue our last End as we were before if there were no inclination to God and Heavenly things what have they gotten by Grace and therefore though we are still weak yet we have the gift of the Spirit to free us from Sin The Force and Efficacy of the new Nature appeareth in three things Scire Velle Posse in knowing our Duty and willing and purposing and doing our Duty suitable to the three Faculties of Man his Understanding Will and vital Power So the Spirit received from Christ 2 Tim. 1. 7. is a Spirit of Power Love and a sound Mind 1. For Scire The new Nature partly consists in the internal Light of the Mind by which we understand the things of God revealed in the Scriptures concerning our Duties and Priviledges and so the Unction is said to teach us all things 1 Joh. 2. 20. That is all things which belong to our necessary Duty and Happiness God's Children in necessary things have a good Understanding or as it is said Isa. 11. 3. They are quick of Understanding in the fear of the Lord. By this it doth warn us of our danger mind us of ourduty upon all occasions 2. For Velle To be willing The force of the new Creature lieth in the love of God for we are never converted to God till he hath our Hearts till we love him with all our Soul with all our Might and Strength and hate what is contrary to him Psal. 17. 10. Ye that love the Lord hate evil Now surely they that love God and hate evil are at liberty more than others to serve and please God and avoid Sin Hate Sin once and it hath little Power over you 3. For Posse or the active Power The wonder is rather how he can sin deliberately voluntarily than how he cannot sin 1 Ioh. 3. 9. and for doing good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 2. 13. I can do all things Eph. 2. 10. A Spiritual Man is prepared for every good work 2. The Assistant Power which accompanieth the new Creature in all his Actions doth certainly give him a great advantage of Liberty to know will and do things pleasing unto God As he doth first convert us unto God and quicken us when we are dead in Trespasses and Sins so after Conversion when the Principles of a new Life are put into us he still helpeth us and as all Creatures depend upon God in esse conservari operari Acts 17. 28. So doth the new Creature depend on the Spirit he leadeth and guideth all the Children of God to their Everlasting Estate Rom. 8. 14. He assists the Will and the vital Power Phil. 2. 13. Otherwise we may complain with Paul Rom. 7. 18. For to Will is present with me but how to perform that which is good I find not There may be a Will or an
one is infinite and he hath paid an infinite Price for thee purchased an infinite Happiness to thee His Love to thee was without measure and bounds so must thy Thankfulness be to him without stint and limit Though he died for others as well as thee yet thou art bound to love him no less than for thee alone he shed his whole Blood for thee and every Drop was poured out for thy sake 2. By a fiducial Owning and Appropriation challenging his Right in him So doth Thomas Joh. 20. 28. My Lord and my God Faith appropriates God to our own Use and Comfort The Devils know that there is a God and a Christ for they confessed Thou art Iesus the Son of the Living God But they can never say with Comfort My God and my Christ. This Application is the Ground of our Love to Christ and our Comfort in Christ. Our Love to Christ. Things that concern us affect us This is the quickning Motive to the spiritual Life Who loved me and gave himself for me Gal. 2. 20. And 1 Ioh. 4. 19. We love him because he loved us first A particular Sense and Experience of God's Love to our own Souls doth most quicken and awaken our Love to him again When we see that he hath thought of us and taken Care of our Salvation that our Names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life So for our Comfort in Christ. It is the Propriety a Man hath to any good thing that doth increase the Comfort of it It is a Misery to a Man to see others enjoy a Benefit which he hath as much need of as others and he can enjoy no part of it I may allude to that Prov. 5. 15. Drink Waters out of thine own Cistern and running Waters out of thine own Well The greater we know the Benefit the greater will be our Trouble to want it A poor Man that sees a large Dole given and Multitudes relieved and he can get nothing is the more troubled So here to see Christ ready to save Sinners and we have no Comfort by him is very afflicting Ephes. 1. 13. After ye heard the Word of Truth the Gospel of your Salvation It is not sufficient to know that the Gospel is a Doctrine of Salvation to others but every one should labour by a due Application of the Promises to their own Hearts to find it to be a Doctrine of Salvation to themselves in particular The seeing of Meat though never so wholesom doth not nourish but the eating of it The beholding of Christ revealed in the Word as a Saviour in general is not sufficient to give full Comfort without applying him to be my Christ my Saviour my Redeemer We must make sure of our Share in this universal Good We read of Blood shed and Blood sprinkled Atonement made and Atonement received But no Man hath satisfying Comfort by the Blood of Christ till it be sprinkled upon his Heart and applied to him by the Spirit of God and thereby assured that it was shed for him 3. The next Ground of Comfort is That our Redeemer liveth This is true of Christ whether you consider him as God or as Man 1. As God So he is Co-eternal with the Father the First and the Last the Beginning of all things and the End of them So he saith not he hath or shall live but he liveth In my Flesh shall I see God He speaks of the Redeemer's Life without any distinction of Time past present or to come So that he is altogether with the Father and the Spirit from everlasting to everlasting one living God 2. As Man after his Resurrection Rev. 1. 18. I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive for evermore Amen And have the Keys of Hell and of Death Now in this Sence I take it for his Life in Heaven after his Resurrection from the Dead and that is of great Comfort to us For the Apostle telleth us that If we were reconciled by the Death of Christ much more shall we be saved by his Life The Comfort is great that arises from the Life of the Redeemer 1. It is a visible Demonstration of the Truth of the Gospel in general and in particular of the Article of Eternal Life The Truth of the Gospel in general Acts 17. 31. Hath given Assurance that is a sufficient Evidence to induce a Belief of the Gospel in that he hath raised him from the Dead Christ came from Heaven as a faithful Witness to beget Faith as well as to give us Knowledge sealing his Testimony with unquestionable Proofs to make it the more sure and credible to us for he hath confirmed it by a Life of Miracles and chiefly by raising from the dead Himself and ascending visibly to Heaven His Resurrection from the dead is Proof enough to justify his Doctrine and to evidence the Certainty of his Testimony for God by his Divine Power would not countenance a Deceiver and raise him from the Dead and receive him into Glory with Himself Particularly it proves the State of unseen Glory Life and Immortality are more fully brought to light in the Gospel than by any other Means 2 Tim. 1. 10. By the Resurrection of Jesus Christ there is not only a clear Revelation of it but a full Confirmation because Christ is entred into the Glory that he spake of and promised to his Disciples He is gone before us into the other World that he may receive us unto himself and that we might with a more steady confidence wait for it in the midst of Fears and Uncertainties of the present Life 2. His Living after Death It was the solemn Acquittance of our Surety from the Sins imputed to him and a Token of the Acceptation of his Purchase when Christ rose again from the Dead our Surety was let out of Prison Isa. 53. 8. And it is a Ground of Confidence to us for when the Debtor sees the Surety walk abroad he may be sure the Debt is satisfied Therefore it is said Rom. 4. 25. Who was delivered for our Offences and raised again for our Iustification Christ is sometimes said to rise from the Dead and sometimes to be raised from the Dead His taking up his Life again argued his Divine Power but as Man he was raised So it is said Heb. 13. 20. The God of Peace who brought again from the Dead our Lord Iesus Christ. God the Father brought him again from the Dead as an Evidence of full Satisfaction Our Surety did not break Prison but was solemnly brought forth The Disciples said Acts 16. 37 38 39. Let them come themselves and fetch us An Angel was sent from Heaven to roll away the Stone to shew that Christ had a solemn Release and Discharge 3. His Living implies his Capacity to intercede for us and to relieve us in all our Necessities Heb. 7 24 25. But this Man because he continueth ever hath an unchangeable Priesthood Therefore he is able to save
the Text which is the end of this Love That whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have Life everlasting Where I observe 1. The connection of our Duty and Priviledg Christ dyed to procure a Covenant wherein Pardon and Life is offered to us upon gracious Terms In the Gospel we must observe what God hath promised and what we must do both must be alike acceptable us the Duty as well as the Benefit or else we consent not to the whole Tenour of the Covenant 2. The Universality of the Proposal That whosoever believeth on him no sorts of Men are excluded from the Remedy but those that exclude themselves by their Impenitency and Unbelief 3. The Nature of this Act and Duty which giveth a Right and Title to the Benefits offered and that is believing no more is mentioned here But none truly believe but those that carry themselves accordingly or perform the Duties which that Belief calleth for If it be such a lively operative Faith it will secure our Title to these Benefits 4. The Benefits are Negatively and Positively expressed Negatively they shall not perish Positively but have everlasting Life 1. The Negative Expression is mentioned partly because of our former Deserts we incurred the Sentence of Eternal Death which is taken off from penitent Believers they shall not be condemned with the unbelieving World partly because of our present Fears Guilt presents Destruction before our Eyes but the cause of that is taken away as Sin is remitted and weakned And partly to support us in our troubles they may be Afflicted but not perish for ever Chastned but not destroyed not for Perdition but amendment 2. The Positive part is expressed partly to shew our Heavenly Fathers Love who cannot be satisfi'd til he hath brought us into his immediate Presence And partly to answer the desire of the Faithful who long for everlasting Communion with him we cannot be satisfied till we befor ever with the Lord in a perfect state of Subjection to him and Fruition of him Doct. That Faith is the Way which God hath appointed whereby to receive Benefits by Christ. I. What Faith is II. How this is to be understood III. Why the Gospel Covenant layeth so much weight on it What is Faith surely it concerns us to know it since the Scriptures speak so much of it every-where There are in it three things 1. Assent 2. Consent 3. Trust. 1. A firm and cordial Assent to this Truth that Jesus is the Son of God and Saviour of Mankind who came down from heaven and suffered for our Sins and became the Foundation of that new Covenant which offereth Pardon and Hopes of Bliss to all those who feeling the Burden of their Sins will trust their Souls upon Christ's Redemption and Ransom and forsake the World the Flesh and the Devil and take him for their only Lord and Saviour that by him they may return to God This Assent is a part of Faith but this is not all The reasonable Soul in Man hath Life Sense Appetite and Motion as the Souls of the Beasts have but this is not the difference between us and them besides Sense Life and Appetite we have Reason and Discourse So here Knowledg and Assent are implied in Faith but more is required to make it justifying and saying Assent is good as it is inductive of other things or leadeth on other things to wit Choice and Trust and it is not only good but necessary lest we build without a Foundation It was of great weight heretofore when Christ's Person and Doctrine was more questioned and contradicted Ioh. 8. 24. Unless ye believe that I am he ye shall die in your Sins lose all the Benefit of his Coming 'T is said 1 Ioh. 5. 1. Whosoever believeth that Iesus is the Christ is born of God It was a mighty thing then to believe and profess Christ to be the Messiah and to cleave to that Profession whatever Temptations they had to the contrary But I dare not leave the Decision of Mens Spiritual Estate upon that Trial only The bleak Winds that blew then in their Faces blow now on our backs and it as dangerous now to deny Christ to be the Messiah as it was for them to profess it However Assent is still necessary to put the greater Life and Power into our Faith for if the Fire were well kindled it would of it self break out into a Flame The stronger our Assent is the more powerful to beget Love and Dependance on God's Promises Obedience to his Commands and Perseverance notwithstanding Temptations This Assent to do its Work must be firm and cordial 1. Firm. You must believe unfeignedly that Christ is the Messiah and Redeemer of the World Acts 2. 36. Let the House of Israel know assuredly that God hath made this Iesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ. The word signifies safely they may venture their All upon it Ioh. 17. 8. They have known There is a common customary superficial Belief that Men take up upon the Credit of their Forefathers and the Consent of the Country where they live And there is a sound Perswasion of the Truth of the Gospel wrought in us by the Spirit of God And though Human Credulity doth little yet this last serveth to renew the Soul Mat. 16. 17. Flesh and Blood hath not revealed it to thee but my Father which is in Heaven when Peter had said Thou art the Christ the Son of the Living God This makes us victorious over the Devil the World and the Flesh. 1 Ioh. 5. 5. Who is he that overcometh the World but he that believeth that Iesus is the Son of God If this important supreme Truth were well believed it would doubtless prevail against the Allurements of the World and the Flesh and make Men see that they have something else than this deceitful World to look after Truths go to the quick when soundly believed 2. Cordial Many seem verily to be perswaded that Jesus is the Son of God but are no way affected with this Mystery of Grace nor changed The Devils may give a bare Assent to this great Gospel Truth Compare Mark 5. 7. with Matth. 16. 16. The Confession of the Devil with the Profession of Peter The Devil owned Jesus to be the Son of the most High God as well as Peter the Son of the Living God Austms Observation is very good Hoc dicebat Petrus hoc dicebant Daemones Petrus ut Christum amplecteretur Daemones ut Christus ab iis recederet Peter said the same thing and the Devil the same thing Peter said it that he might embrace Christ the Devils that he might depart from them It is one thing to be of this Opinion that Christ is the Saviour of the World another to accept and receive him into our Hearts 2. The next thing which I shall observe in Faith is a Consent to receive Christ as God offereth him to us in the Gospel Joh. 1. 12. To as
think all their business is to get a Victory over their Consciences and though they do not deny their Lusts yet if they can be strongly perswaded that God will be merciful to them in Christ they shall not perish but obtain everlasting Life No we must obey we must deny our selves or else we do not trust Christ to bring us to Heaven in his own ways and methods but trust to some vain conceits of our own II. How this is to be understood That whosoever believeth since many other things are required of us as Repentance Mortification of Sin Self-denial new Obedience or Holiness Luk. 13. 5. Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish Mortification Rom. 8. 13. If ye live after the Flesh ye shall die but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the Body ye shall live Self-Denial Luke 14. 16. If any Man come to me and hate not his Father and Mother yea and his own Life also he cannot be my Disciple New Obedience or Holiness Heb. 12. 14. Follow Peace with all Men and Holiness without which no Man shall see the Lord. I answer all Truths are not delivered in one place and therefore a solitary Faith will not bring us to Heaven but that which is seconded with other things But more distinctly I. Faith is not required to exclude other things that are connexed with it by the Ordination of God For every one that believeth Christ believeth the whole Gospel to be true Except against one part and you may except against all the rest Now it is evident in the Gospel that without Regeneration Repentance and Holiness no Man can be saved and see God therefore every one that believeth in Christ must trust him to obtain it in the way that he hath appointed and promised to give it 2. Faith is not required to exclude other things that are included in the nature of it or flow as genuine Effects from such a cause A purpose of Obedience is included in the Nature of Faith and actual Obedience is the fruit of it Every one that believeth Christ receiveth him in all his Offices therefore a purpose of Obedience is included in the nature of it and if Faith be sincere universal Obedience in Self-denial Mortification and our duty to God and Men will naturally be derived from it Therefore as he that is to entertain a King makes reckoning of his Train and that he will not come alone so every one of whom Faith in Jesus Christ is required must reckon that his Faith must be evidenced to be sincere by the Fruits of it III. Why is Faith required that we may receive Benefit by Christ For these Reasons 1. In respect of God 2. In respect of Christ. 3. In respect of the Creature 4. In respect of our Comforts 1. In respect of God that our Hearts may be possessed with a full apprehension of his Grace who in the new Covenant appeareth not as a revenging and condemning God but as a pardoning God This reason is rendred by the Apostle Rom. 4. 16. It is of Faith that it might be of Grace The Law brought in the Terror of God by being the Instrument of revealing Sin and the punishment due thereunto ver 15. The Law worketh Wrath for where there is no Law there is no Transgression no such stinging sense of it but the Gospel brought in Grace The Law stated the Breach but the Gospel shewed the way of our Recovery And therefore Faith doth more agree with Grace as it makes God more amiable and lovely to us and beloved by us by the discovery of his Goodness and Grace The saving of Man by Christ that is by his Incarnation Life Sufferings Death Resurrection and Ascension do all tend to possess our Hearts with his abundant Grace To the same tend also his merciful Covenant gracious Promises and all the Benefits given to us his Spirit Pardon and Communion with God in Glory all is to sill our Hearts with a Sense of the Love of God And all this is no more than necessary for a guilty Conscience is not easily setled and brought to look for all kind of Happiness from one whom we have so much wronged Adam when once a Sinner was shy of God Gen. 3. 10. and Sin still makes us hang off from him Guilt is suspicious and if we have not one to lead us by the Hand and bring us to God we cannot abide his Presence For this End serveth Faith That Sinners being possest of the Goodness and Grace of God may be recovered and return to him by a fit Means In the new Covenant Repentance more distinctly respects God and Faith respecteth Christ Acts 20. 21. Repentance towards God and Faith in our Lord Iesus Christ. Repentance respects God because from God we fell and to God we must return We fell from him as we withdrew our Allegiance and sought our Happiness elsewhere to him we return as our rightful and proper Happiness but Faith respects the Mediator who is the only Remedy of our Misery and the Means of our Eternal Blessedness He opened the way to God by his Merit and Satisfaction and actually bringeth us into this way by his renewing and reconciling Grace that we may be in a capacity both to please and enjoy God and that is the reason why Faith in Christ is so much insisted on as our Title and Claim to the Blessedness of the new Covenant It hath a special aptitude and fitness for our recovery from Sin to God because it peculiarly respects the Mediator by whom we come to him 2. With respect to Christ. 1. Because the whole Dispensation of Grace by Christ cannot well be apprehended by any thing but Faith partly because the Way of our Recovery is so supernatural strange and wonderful that unless we believe God's Testimony how can we be perswaded of it That the Carpenter's Son should be the Son of that great Architect and Builder who framed Heaven and Earth that Life should come to us by the Death of another that God should be made Man and the Judge a Party and he that knew no Sin be condemned as a Criminal Person that one crucified should procure the Salvation of the whole World and be Lord of Life and Death and have such Power over all Flesh as to give Eternal Life to whom he will Reason is puzsed at these things Faith can only unravel them Partly because the Comfort of the Promises is so rich and glorious and the Persons upon whom it is bestowed so unworthy that it cannot easily enter into the Heart of a Man that God will be so good and gracious to us 1 Cor. 2. 9. Eye hath not seen Ear hath not heard neither hath it entred into the Heart of Man to conceive the Things God hath prepared for them that love him Therefore Sense and Reason could look for no such thing Faith is necessary and a strong Faith that it may work upon us These are things
Birth they have the happiness to be born there where Christ is the God of the Country that which makes others Turks and Infidels makes them Christians but though they stand upon the higher Ground they are not the taller Men. 3. They are very willing to be forgiven by Christ and to obtain Eternal Life but this is what meer Necessity requires them They will not suffer him to do his whole Work to sanctify them and fit them to live to God nor part with their nearest and dearest Lusts and come into the obedience of the Gospel or at least if Christ will do it for them without their improving this Grace or using his holy Means they are contented But having such precious Promises and such a blessed Redeemer we are to cleanse our selves 2 Cor. 7. 11. The Work is ours though the Grace be from him So Gal. 5. 14. They that are Christ's have crucified the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts. 4. Some have a strong Conceit that they shall be saved and have Benefit by Christ. This which they call their Faith may be the greatest Unbelief in the World that Men living in their Sins shall yet do well enough is to believe the flat contrary of what God hath spoken in his Word 1 Cor. 6. 9. Know ye not that the Unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God Be not deceived neither Fornicators nor Idolaters nor Drunkards nor effeminate Persons c. shall inherit the Kingdom of God It is not Strength of Conceit but the sure Foundation of our Hope that will support us nor are they the most happy who have the least Trouble but who have the least Cause Use 2. Do we believe in the Son of God Here will be the great Case of Conscience for setling our Eternal Interest 1. If we believe Christ will be precious to us 1 Pet. 2. 7. Unto them which believe he is precious Christ cannot be accepted where he is not valued when other Things come in competition with him and God will not be prodigal of his Grace 2. Where there is true Faith the Heart will be purified Acts 15. 9. Purifying their Hearts by Faith 3. If you do believe in Christ the Heart will be weaned from the World 1 Ioh. 5. 4. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the World and this is the Victory that overcometh the World even our Faith 4. If you have the true Faith it works by Love Gal. 5. 6. For in Iesus Christ neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor Uncircumcision but Faith which worketh by Love By these things will the Case be determined Then the Comfort and Sweetness of this Truth falls upon your Hearts that God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting Life SERMON XVII DEUT. 30. 15. See I have set before thee this day Life and Good Death and Evil. MOses the Man of God having acquainted the People with the Tenour of God's Commandments both concerning Worship and civil Conversation doth inforce all by a pregnant Exhortation laying before their Eyes the Blessings of Obedience and the Plagues and Curses that should overtake them in case they should decline from the Ways of the Lord thus recommended to them In all which he sheweth himself not only as an ordinary Preacher speaking by way of Exhortation and Doctrinal Threatning but as a special Prophet speaking by way of Prediction and that with such clearness and certainty that these few Chapters may be looked upon as an exact Kalender and Prognostication wherein the good or bad days of this People are expresly calculated and foretold yea comparing Events with the Prediction you would rather conceive Moses his Speech to be an Authentick Register and Chronicle of what is past than an infallible Prophecy of what was to come nothing good or bad hath befallen this People from the beginning to this Day but what is here foretold What is more largely declared upon in this Exhortation is contracted into a narrow room and summary here in the Text See I have set before thee this day Life and Good Death and Evil. In the Words observe 1. The Matter propounded in two Pairs that have a mutual Connection one with another Life and Good Death and Evil. 2. The Manner of Proposal I have set before thee 3. A Duty inferred or Attention excited See 1. The Matter propounded a double Pair or Conjugation Life and Good Death and Evil. Life as the End Good as the Means leading to Life Or else Life that is the enjoyment of God and Good the Felicity following it The Septuagint changeth the Order 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. The Manner of Proposing I have set before thee The Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is in a lively manner laid forth and offered for choice We have a saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that contraries put together do mutually illustrate each other Here is Good and Evil Life and Death put together that we may embrace the one and eschew the other As the Poets feign of Hercules when he was young Vertue and Vice came to woo and make court to him Vertue like a sober chast Virgin offering him Labours with Praise and Renown Vice like a painted Harlot wooing him with the Blandishment of Pleasures So in the 5th of Proverbs Wisdom and Folly are represented both pleading to draw in the Hearts of Men to them ver 4. compared with the 16th Whoso is simple let him turn in hither as for him that wanteth Understanding she saith Come eat of my Bread and drink of the Wine that I have mingled The one hath her Pleasures and the other hath her Pleasures only the Pleasures of Folly are stolen Waters and Bread eaten in secret Comforts we get by Stealth Jollity and Mirth when Conscience is asleep So here Moses layeth before them the fruit of Obedience and Disobedience Life and Death 3. The Word exciting Attention 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 See I have done this in order to Choice for so it is ver 19. Choose Life that both Thou and thy Seed may live Doct. It is the Duty of the Faithful Servants of the Lord in a lively manner to set before the People Life and Death as the fruit of Good and Evil. Moses was God's Minister to instruct this People and what doth he propose and confirm in his Doctrine but Life and Death Good and Evil and this was a part of his Faithfulness Witness that vehement Obtestation used ver 19. He calls Heaven and Earth to record that he had faithfully discharged his Duty herein This was the course that God himself took with Adam in Innocency he set before him Life and Death a Blessing and a Curse the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledg Gen. 2. 9. That he might live by the one and not perish by the other God had respect to the Mutability of his Nature and therefore restrained him by the threatning of
Death as a curse not to eat of the one as he enjoyned him to eat of the other as a Pledg of Life and Blessing This same course did Christ take in his Sermons by telling them of the wide Gate and the strait Gate the broad and narrow Way much Company and little the one tending to Destruction the other to Life Mat. 7. 13 14. So Wisdom speaks by Solomon Prov. 8. 35 36. Whose findeth me findeth Life and shall obtain Favour of the Lord but he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own Soul all they that hate me love Death So that you see this is an excellent way to gain Men to the Holy Life I. Let us consider our Work II. The Reasons why we must do so I. Our Work the Matter of it and the Manner in which we are to propound it to you 1. The Matter We must set before the People 1. Life and Good 2. Death and Evil. This I shall open in these Propositions First That there is a distinction between Good and Evil Vice and Vertue He that doth not acknowledg it is unworthy the name not only of a Christian but of a Man Certainly he is unworthy the name of a Christian for the whole Word of God doth mete out the Bounds between both these and shew what is forbidden and what is commanded and therefore it is a defiance of Christianity to doubt of it But he is also unworthy the name of a Man Nature apprehendeth that somethings are worthy of Praise and others worthy of Blame and Reproof else why should wicked Men be offended to be taken for such as they are and desire as much as possibly they can to seem better and to cover their dishonest Actions with a plausible Appearance Secondly The matching these two Death and Evil Life and Good And here I shall speak 1. Of the Suitableness of the Connection between them 2. The greatness of both Thirdly The certainty of both these Life and Death as the Fruit of Good and Evil. 1. The Suitableness or Correspondency there is between Holiness and Beatitude Sin and Misery It must needs be so if we consider the Wisdom Justice Holiness of God 1. The Wisdom of God which doth all things according to Weight Measure and Number cannot permit the Disjunction of these two things so closely united together as Sin and Punishment Grace and Happiness but there will be an appearance of Deformity and Irregularity For if there be such a thing as Good and Evil as Bonum and Malum morale as Reason will tell us there is And again if there be such a thing as Pleasure and Pain as Joy and Sorrow or that which we call Bonum and Malum naturale as Sense will tell us there is then it is very agreeable to the Wisdom of God that these things should be rightly placed and sorted that moral Evil which is Sin should be punished with natural Evil which is Pain and Misery that the inordinate Love of Pleasure which is the Root of Sin should be checked by a fore-thought of Pain And that Moral Good which is Vertue and Grace should end in Joy and Pleasure For God is naturally inclined as the Creator of Mankind to make his Creatures good and happy if nothing hinder him from it Well then we see how incongruous it is to the Wisdom of God who permits no dissonancy or disproportion in any of his Administrations to admit a Separation of these natural Relatives If there were no other Testimony of this yet the Dispositions of our own Hearts would know it for they are some obscure Shadows of the Properties which are in God We have Compassion on a miserable Man whom we esteem not deserving his Misery we are also moved with indignation and displeasure against one that is fortunate and successful but unworthy the Happiness that he enjoys Which is an apparent Testimony and Proof that we are sensible of an excellent Harmony and natural Order between these two things Vertue and Felicity Sin and Misery and to see them so suited doth exceedingly please us 2. The Justice of God as he is Judge of the World and so must and will do right doth require Ut 〈…〉 malis malè That it should be well with them that do well and ill with them that do evil God is naturally inclined to provide for the Happiness of Man as he is his Creator and if there were no Sin to stop the Course of God's Bounty there would be nothing but Happiness in the World But since the Entrance of Sin into the World Men are of different sorts some recover out of their estate of Sin and live holily others wallow in their filthiness still Now it is agreeable to God's general Justice as he is the Judge of the World to execute Vengeance on the one and reward the other that Happiness should accompany Vertue by a natural and inseparable Dependance and Misery incessantly attend Vice Rom. 2. 6 7 8. It is true the Bond which joyneth Happiness and Vertue together is not so strong and so every way naturally evident as that which joyneth Vice and Punishment If a Person in Sovereignty and Honour does not will that Moral Evils be punish'd 't is in some sort to consent to them but the Condition of the Creature is such that he ought to be holy and vertuous though God had not positively commanded him and God having so commanded we are bound to obey his Command though he had not proposed the Hope of a Reward in as much as we owe all to God both because of the infinite Eminence of his Majesty as because we hold our Beings and all from him And therefore there is a Distinction Rom. 6. 23. The Wages of Sin is Death but the Gift of God is Eternal Life through Iesus Christ our Lord. The one is Wages the other a Gift The Promise which God maketh of Remuneration and the actual Retribution which he performeth of the same ought to be imputed only to his Goodness and gratuitous Liberality Men cannot pretend any other Right before him from whom we hold all things yea our very Being Now that which proceedeth of Goodness seemeth not to be of so strait an Obligation but that he is at liberty to do or not to do especially when the transaction is between two Persons the Dignity and Authority of one of which is infinitely above the Condition of the other as the Majesty of God is above his Creature Therefore as to such a Reward God is free and therefore might have enjoyn'd Holiness without the Promise of such a Recompence But the general Relation that is between Punishment and Sin Holiness and Happiness as to the consequence of one upon another is agreable to the general Justice of God which is a Perfection necessary to him as he is the Supreme Governor and Ruler of the World 3. The Holiness and Purity of God which inclineth him to hate Evil and love that which is good God
think it will bring a dâ—mp on your Hearts But if you cannot endure to think of Hell how much less will you endure one day to suffer it Is it such a trouble to consider it what is it to feel it Timely Consideration is the way to prevent and escape these Torments it will help to preserve you from comming thither and cause it to work upon you Oh then Deut. 32. 46. Set your Hearts unto all these Words which I testify among you this day Consideration will awaken the Soul that was formerly laid asleep Will Heaven or Hell intice or deter the Man that thinketh not of it Shall we not therefore have a little Patience while we deeply ponder and weigh these things in our Minds See Life and Death is set before you and will you not allow a few serious Thoughts about them nor ask your Souls what shall become of you to all Eternity God's great complaint of Israel is Isa. 1. 3. My People will not consider and the same complaint may be made of us Things are evident and clear to Faith Reason and Conscience but we will not consider and so wander out of the way 3. The next thing we exhort you to do is to make choice for your own Souls That is the use Moses makes of it ver 19. Therefore choose Life that both thou and thy Seed may live Hearing Believing Considering are all in order to choice and without choice and a determined fixed bent of Heart you will never walk evenly in Heavens ways Determine not only that you must but you will walk in the way which God hath set forth for you God's Ways must be chosen Psal. 119. 30. I have chosen the way of Truth And ver 173. I have chosen thy Precepts Jos. 15. 22. If it seem evil to you to serve the Lord choose you this day whom you will serve Not as if it were indifferent but to set an edg upon their Appetite There is much strength in the Bond when a Man bindeth himself freely and makes him the more inexcusible if he doth not observe it All will choose Life before Death but they are out in the Means they do not choose Good before Evil the Good of Holiness before the Evil of Sin Every Man desireth some Good it is as natural for the reasonable Creature to desire to be happy as it is for the Fire to burn but we do not make a right choice of the Means that may bring us to that Happiness that we desire They would be happy but they choose Means quite contrary to Happiness Oh then choose the Ways of God let Life be your Motive and Holiness your Choice this is the way to live for ever to avoid Hell beneath As soon as we come to years of Discretion we should make our choice to go on in the ways of Life To this we are obliged by the most weighty Reasons urged by the enforcements of the Word and by the sad and numerous examples of young People who make an ill choice in the beginning and go on and are hardned therein and perish for ever SERMON XVIII MAT. 7. 12. Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that Men should do to you do ye even so to them for this is the Law and the Prophets IT is a general Complaint of the World that Christians are defective in the Duties of the second Table Some Hypocrites may be so to mask over a dishonest Life with a pretence of Worship and Godliness But we are not to judge of the rest of the People of God by these no more than we would judge of the Glory of a Street by the filthiness of the Sink or Canal or of the sound Grapes in the Cluster by the rotten ones For certainly all that have truly submitted to Christianity do find that Religion doth influence their Relations and run out and issue it self in all the Duties which they owe to Man as well as unto God And it was not a Boast which Austin said to the Heathens Let all the Religions of the World produce such Princes such Subjects such Husbands Wives Parents Children as the Christian Religion produceth This was the Glory of Religion then and it should not fall in our hands Or possibly this may be the Cause of it Unrenewed Men which allow one another in their Excesses and glory in some kind of mutual Civilities may equal or over-pass the Godly therein Look as Dogs excell Men in the acuteness of Smell and the Eagle in sharpness of Sight and many other Beasts in other Senses because it is their Excellency so there are certain lower Respects which the Men of the World mutually pay one towards another and they may excell in these as their peculiar Worth But however be that Complaint true or false it concerns us to take notice of it and to prevent all Suspicion of this kind And therefore we need to press Moralities upon Christians and that from the true Root the Love of God for that is the great Mistake of this Age to set up a sort of false Morality and forget the true one that is built on Faith in Christ and Love to God Now to set down each particular Duty would be tedious The Life of Man is short and the Law in all its necessary Explications long and voluminous and therefore to have a sure Rule and a short one would be a very great Advantage to us in this Matter And this one Direction which I have read to you out of the Word of God will serve instead of all It is a sure Rule for Christ gives it us who is Truth it self and though it be short it is full enough for our purpose for here is the Substance and Quintessence of the Law and Prophets all drawn into one compendious Rule and Abridgment of our Duty the best Epitome that ever was A Sentence this is of such weight that the Emperor Severus as Lactantius reporteth out of Lampridius was so taken with it that having heard it from some Iew or Christian he wrote it in his Palace and caused it to be engraven in Golden Letters in the Courts of Justice and to be proclaimed at the punishment of Offenders And therefore I shall briefly discourse of this Rule and present it to your serious Consideration In the Words there is I. A Rule of Life Whatsoever ye would that Men should do to you do ye even so to them II. The Commendation of it For this is the Law and the Prophets III. The Illative Particle Therefore My Business shall be to open these Circumstances I. Here is the Rule of Life This general Precept may be considered in the Affirmative or in the Negative for Negatives are included in their Affirmatives The Affirmative is in the Text. All those things that you would Men should do unto you the Negative is in that noted Saying Quod tibi fieri non vis alteri ne feceris that which you would not have done to you
turn unto the Lord. Psal. 119. 59. I thought on my ways and turned my Feet unto thy Testimonies Man is very inconsiderate his Soul is asleep till consideration awaken it again We are to search and try our Estate whether it be good or bad Lam. 3. 40. Let us search and try our ways and turn unto the Lord. We are to observe God's Rebukes Prov. 1. 23. Turn ye at my Reproof To set our selves to seek after God in the best Fashion we can Hos. 5. 4. They will not frame their doings to turn unto their God that is think of recovering themselves and bending their course to him chiefly we are to take heed that we do not hinder God's work and obstruct our own Mercies Prov. 1. 25. They set at nought my Counsel and would none of my Reproof Sometimes Conscience is startled either as being excited by the Word Acts 24. 25. or some notable Affliction and Strait Gen. 42. 21. by one means or another the Waters are stirred great helps are vouchsafed to us observe these Seasons However check Despair He that did turn Water into Wine can turn Sinners into Saints Lions into Lambs he hath not excluded you from his Grace therefore do not exclude your selves When did he ever forsake the anxious and waiting Souls that would not give over seeking till they did obtain the sanctifying Spirit SERMON XX. EPH. 2. 10. For we are his Workmanship created in Christ Iesus unto good Works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them WE come now to the End why we are brought into this Estate created unto good Works c. the End is not to live idly or walk loosly but holily according to the Will of God In this latter Clause Created unto good Works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them Observe 1. The Object Good Works that is Works becoming the new Creature in short we should live Christianly 2. God's Act about it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which God hath before ordained The word signifies both prepared and ordained 1. God hath prepared these Works for us 2. God hath prepared us for them He hath prepared them for us either by his Decree or Precept if you understand it in the first sense God that hath ordained the End hath also appointed Means as Acts 27. 31. compared with 24. Or else appointed by his Precept and express Will. Micah 6. 8. And he hath prepared us for them by his Spirit making our Hearts fit for our Work Heb. 8. 20. enlightning the Mind inclining the Will The first sheweth the necessity of them the second the easiness of them God hath accomodated all things to that End enabling us to know our Duty and to do it 3. Our Duty that we should walk in them Walking noteth both a Way and an Action 1. It implieth a Way that good Works are the way to obtain Salvation purchased and granted to us by Jesus Christ. Unless we walk in the Path of good Works we cannot come to Eternal Life 2. An Action Walking notes 1. Spontaneity in the Principle not drawn or driven but walk set our selves a going 2. Progress in the Motion he that walketh sets himself forward and gets ground he doth not stand still or lie down but goeth on still Doct. That new Creatures are both obliged and fitted or prepared for good Works I. What is meant by good Works II. What Obligation lieth on the new Creature to make Conscience of them III. How they are fitted and prepared by that new Nature which is bestowed upon them by and through Christ 1. What is meant by good Works 1. The Kinds 2. The Requisits First The Kinds all acts of Obedience more particularly they are divided and distributed into five sorts or ranks 1. Opera Cultus Acts of God's immediate Worship both internal and external The Internal Acts are Faith and Love Trust Delight Reverence The Children of God are often described by these by believing in his Name Iohn 1. 12. Love to God and Delight in him Psal. 97. 10. Ye that love the Lord hate Evil. Psal. 37. 4. Delight thy self also in the Lord. Trust. Psal. 62. 8. Trust in him at all times ye People Fear or Reverence Psal. 130. 4. There is forgiveness with thee that thou mayst be feared External as to Pray Read Hear to be much in Communion with God in all the parts of his Worship Without Works of Piety we are practical Atheists Psal. 36. 1. and Psal. 14. 1 2 4. God's People do certainly make Conscience of these The Internal Acts are the Life of their Souls the External are their Solace Strength and Support their Songs in the House of their Pilgrimage their refreshing by the way Cornelius Acts 10. 2. feared and prayed to God alway Daniel would not omit Prayer one Day though in danger of Death Dan. 6. 10 11. There is little Zeal in them that are not frequent with God but forget him days without number Ier. 2. 32. 2. Opera Vocationis Every Man must labour in the Work to which he is called God is pleased to appoint and accept the Duties of our Callings as a good Work Are they never so mean yet Servants may Honour God by diligence in their Duties Tit. 2. 9 10. Exhort Servants to be obedient to their Masters c. That they may adorn the Doctrine of God our Saviour in all things To be profitable to Humane Society in your place is good the new Nature helpeth us so to be Phil. 11. Onesimus in time past was to thee unprofitable but now profitable to thee and me All have their work from the Mediator to the poorest Creature in the World John 17. 4. I have glorified thee on Earth I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do So Tit. 3. 14. Let ours also learn to maintain good Works for necessary uses that they be not unfruitful When Iohn's Hearers came to know what they should do he referreth every one to their Callings Luke 3. 10 11 12. Walk conscionably therein glorify God Souldiers Publicans c. Without these good Works we are Drones in the common Hives yea Burdens upon the Earth 3. Opera Iustitiae Works of Righteousness and Justice to hurt none to give every one his Due to use Fidelity in our Relations Acts 24. 16. The Credit of Religion is much concerned in the just dealing of them that profess it God will have the World to know that Religion is a good Friend to Human Society Neh. 5. 9. Ought ye not to walk in the Fear of our God because of the Reproach of the Heathen our Enemies This was the Primitive Glory of Christianity Dent Exercitum talem tales Exactores fisci c. Some carry it so that they deal with God's Commandments as Hanun with David's Messengers as if they had cut off the whole second Table and so prove a Stain and Blot to Religion In short they that do not make Conscience of paying their
Debts and using Justice Equity and Honesty in all their Dealings they are Robbers Thieves and Enemies to Human Society 4. Opera Charitatis Misericordiae as to relieve the Poor to be good to all to help others by our Counsel or Admonition We are often called upon for these thus Acts 9 36. Dorcas is said to be full of good Works and Alms-deeds which she did So 1 Tim. 6. 18. Charge them to be rich in good Works It is not left arbitrary to you but laid upon you as Part of your Charge and Duty a Debt we owe to God Now if you do not mind these kind of good Works you are unfaithful Stewards in the good things committed to your Trust. You must not deny God his own when he or any of his have need of it 5. I think there is another Sort of good Works which concern our selves and that is Sobriety Watchfulness Mortification Self-denial A Man oweth Duty to himself Tit. 2. 12. Teaching us that denying Ungodliness and worldly Lusts. we should live soberly c. These conduce to our Safety 1 Pet. 5. 8. Be sober be vigilant for your Adversary the Devil like a roaring Lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour And belong to our Fidelity to Christ. Gal. 5. 24. They that are Christ's have crucified the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts thereof Therefore take in these also and call them Opera Militiae Christianae the Works of our Spiritual Warfare by which we guard our selves from the Enemies of our Salvation that our Hands be not weakned and enfeebled in God's Work that we may carry it on without unevenness and interruption Secondly The Requisites to a good Work are 1. That the Person be in a good State Mat. 7. 17. A good Tree bringeth forth good Fruit. Married to Christ. Rom. 7. 4. Wherefore ye also are become dead to the Law by the Body of Christ that ye should be married to another even to him who is raised from the Dead that we should bring forth Fruit unto God A Believer Tit. 3. 8. Let them which believe in God be careful to maintain good Works A carnal unregenerate Man may do that which is for the matter good but till he be changed in his Heart and State his Works are not acceptable to God 2. The Principles of Operation must be Faith Love and Obedience Faith owning God's Authority Psal. 119. 66. Teach me good Iudgment and Knowledg for I have believed thy Commandment Love inclining the Heart 2 Cor 5. 14. The Love of Christ constraineth me Obedience swaying the Conscience 1 Thess. 4. 5. This is the Will of God your Sanctification 1 Tim. 1. 5. The End of the Commandment is Charity out of a pure Heart and good Conscience and Faith unfeigned There we have the Pedigree of good Works Faith unfeigned begets a good Conscience and that a pure Heart and that Love to God and then all particular Duties succeed 3. A due Regard of Circumstances that it may be not only good but done well Luk. 8. 15. with that Diligence Reverence Seriousness Alacrity which the Nature of the Work doth require 4. The End that it be for God's Glory Phil. 1. 11. Filled with the Fruits of Righteousness which are by Christ Iesus to the Praise and Glory of God II. How new Creatures are obliged to these good Works 1. With respect to God He hath ordained that we should walk in them If you refer it to his Decree he will have his Elect People distinguished from others by the Good they do in the World that they may be known to be followers of a good God as the Children of the Devil are by their Mischief His Eternal Decree is made evident to us by our making Conscience of good Works and so we make our Calling and Election sure 2 Pet. 1. 10. If you take it for his Precept and Command surely we should make Conscience of what our Father giveth us in charge he hath appointed us to do so sent us into the Vineyard to work and shall we say I will not Mat. 21. 29 30. or loiter and neglect when we have given our Consent or pretend to go and never set about it To a gracious Heart the Signification of God's Will is instead of all Reasons 1 Thess. 5. 18. In every thing give thanks for this is the Will of God concerning you 1 Pet. 2. 15. For this is the Will of God that with well-doing you may put to silence the Ignorance of foolish Men. 2. With respect to Christ who died to restore us to a Capacity and Ability to perform these good Works Tit. 2. 14. Who gave himself for us to redeem us from all Iniquity and purify to himself a peculiar People zealous of good Works not only to do them but do them with Alacrity and Zeal As Christ came to raise the Comfort of the Creature to the highest so also the Duty of the Creature to the highest that his People might be eminent in Holiness Justice Goodness and Truth above all others 3. With respect to the Spirit who reneweth us for this end We are new made that we may look upon doing good as our Calling and only Business All other things are valuable according to the Use for which they serve the Sun was made to give Light and Heat to inferior Creatures and we are enlightned by Grace and inclined by Grace that our Light may shine before Men Mat. 5. 16. 4. With respect to Heaven and Eternal Happiness They are the Way to Heaven We discontinue or break off our Walk when we cease to do Good but the more we mind good Works the more we proceed in our Way Phil. 3. 14. Pressing onward to our final Reward and at length our Entrance is more full and with greater peace 2 Pet. 1. 11. III. How they are fitted and prepared by this new Nature that is put into them for good Works Answ. There is a remote Preparation and a near Preparation 1. The remote Preparation is an Inclination and Propensity to all the Acts of the holy and heavenly Life All Creatures have an Inclination to their proper Operations so the new Creature As the Sparks fly up and the Stones downward by an Inclination of Nature so are their Hearts bent to please and serve God The Inclination is natural the Acts are voluntary because it is an Inclination of a free Agent The Law of God is in their Hearts Psal. 40. 8. Psal. 37. 31. Others force themselves but here there is an Affinity between the Work and the vital Principle which is in us so that we need not much enforcement 1 Thess. 4. 9. As touching Brotherly Love I need not write unto you for you are taught of God to love one another Now God's teaching is not by Expression but by Impression he hath inclined suited our Hearts to it As there need not many Arguments to move the Mother to give suck to her tender Infant Nature hath taught her
left such an Instinct and Inclination upon her which doth sufficiently excite her to do it 2. The near Preparation is called Promptitude and Readiness for every good Work or a ready Obedience to every good Work Tit. 3. 1. So 1 Tim. 6. 18. Ready to distribute Heb. 13. 16. Ready to communicate So Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 21. 13. This is beyond Inclination The Fire hath an Inclination to ascend upwards yet something may violently keep it down so a Christian may have a Will to Good a strong not a remiss Will but yet there are some Impediments Rom. 7. 18. Inclination implieth a remote Power but Readiness the next and immediate Power therefore a Christian ought to keep himself in a readiness or fitness of Disposition for his Duty whether it concerneth God our selves or others This is seen in Zeal that beareth down all Impediments All Graces are operative and Zeal is that earnest Impulsion and Activity of every Grace where it is in strength and vigour Faith worketh Gal. 5. 6. Love constraineth 2 Cor. 5. 14. Hope quickneth 1 Pet. 1. 3. A lively Hope This proceedeth from the new Nature when it is in right Frame and Strength We need not only make Conscience of our Duty or have some mind to it but our Hearts will not let us have any Quiet and Rest without it 2 Pet. 1. 8. They make you that you shall be neither barren nor unfruitful in the Knowledg of our Lord Iesus Christ. Christians must be zealous of good Works Tit. 2. 14. Paul was pressed in Spirit Acts 17. 10. Acts 18. 5. The Benefits that come by it are 1. We do good Works more easily as being inclined thereunto Exod. 35. 29. The Children of Israel brought a willing Offering unto the Lord. Psal. 110. 3. Thy People shall be willing in the Day of thy Power There is a great deal of Difference between doing things by Compulsion and doing things from an Inclination between Israel's making Brick in Egypt and building the Wall in Nehemiah's Time Neh. 4. 6. 2. With more Delight and Alacrity 1 Iohn 5. 3. His Commandments are not grievous Psal. 112. 1. Blessed is the Man that feareth the Lord that delighteth greatly in his Commandments It is a Pleasure to them to do a good Work to others a Toil. 3. With Constancy That which is forced lasts not long Upon the first occasion we break out cast off the Burden which pincheth and galleth us A Man is never constant to his Duty till he be held to it by his Heart and the Byass of the Heart is not Fear but Love You cannot easily perswade him against his Love and Inclination though you may overcome his Fears Cant. 8. 6 7. Set me as a Seal upon thine Arm for Love is strong as Death Iealousy is cruel as the Grave Many Waters cannot quench Love neither can the Floods drown it If a Man would give all the Substance of his House for Love it would utterly be contemned The Uses are 1. For Reproof of many professing Christians who are not more prepared for the Lord and made ready for every good Work Alas some are to every good Work reprobate Tit. 1. 16. unfit for any Christian Practice In others all their Holiness standeth in being less vitious or wicked than others If they avoid the greater Crimes though they freely practise the less they are accounted good Men. Some talk but do nothing like Cypress-Trees tall and beautiful but unfruitful or the Carbuncle afar off seeming all on fire but the Touch discovers it to be key-cold their Zeal is more in their Tongues than their Actions Others are very unready arguing for a Mediocrity disputing every inch with God beating down the price of Religion as low as they can as little Worship and Charity as may be and will do no more than needeth and it is well if they do that True Goodness like live-Honey droppeth of its own accord 2 Cor. 8. 2. and is always desirous to do more for God Psal. 71. 14. I will praise thee more and more Phil. 1. 9. I pray that your Love may abound yet more and more in Knowledg and in all Iudgment 1 Thess. 4. 1. Furthermore we exhort you Brethren That as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God so ye would abound more and more But little of this Temper is to be found 2d Use of Information First Observe the Deduction of good Works from their proper Causes viz. The Will of God requiring our Regeneration fitting the one determineth our Duty the other maketh us ready to perform it While carnal that which we do is but the Image of a good Work not really and spiritually good 2dly The Necessity of good Works 1. Necessitate Consequentis as the Fruit and End of Regeneration All things are valued by their use What doth the new Creature serve for but that we may walk in newness of Life otherwise it is but a Notion It is not given us to lie hid in the Heart as a sluggish idle quality but that we may act by it and improve it for God The Lord made no Creature in vain Inded all that we have from God both in Nature and Grace was that we might be fruitful in Holiness In Nature we have Life Health and Parts for nothing else but that by our present Duty we may prepare our selves for everlasting Joys All God's Mercies bind us to Diligence all his Ordinances are Means to help us all his Graces are Power to enable us and there is over and above the holy Spirit to excite and quicken that Power Ioh. 4. 10. Ezek. 36. 27. 2. Necessitate Praecepti God hath required them at our hands Now we must make Conscience of what God hath required especially when all his Commandments are holy just and good If some greater thing were required ought we not to have done it 2 Kin. 5. 13. But when he hath required such noble Work shall we refuse There is nothing in his Law but what becometh his Nature preserveth and makes happy ours 3. Necessitate Medii as the Way to Heaven Good Works are indispensibly required of grown Persons if they mean to be saved Heb. 12. 14. Follow Peace with all Men and Holiness without which no Man shall see God A Christian shall be judged at the last day by what he hath done Rev. 20. 12. I saw the Dead small and great stand before God and the Books were opened and another Book was opened which was the Book of Life and the Dead were judged out of those things that were written in the Books according to their Works 1 Pet. 1. 17. If ye call on the Father who without respect of Persons judgeth every Man according to his Work Profession will not carry it but our Works come into the Judgment So Rev. 14. 13. Their Works follow them that is They have the Fruit and Comfort of them in another World and without them we cannot be
qualified for these Priviledges or he that thankfully and humbly accepts of the offered Saviour and consents to the Covenant made with God the Father Son and Holy Spirit he is washed from his Sins in the Blood of Christ reconciled adopted into God's Family and made an Heir according to the hope of Eternal Life Tit. 3. 7. This first Faith by which we believe and consent to the Covenant implieth both a dependance on God's Mercy and Christ's Merits and also a consent of Obedience or hearty Subjection to God 4. When we have consented to accept Christ and his Benefits and do give our selves to him then Works or new Obedience follow as necessary to continue our right to Pardon and Life For none have benefit by God's Covenant but those that keep his Covenant as well as make it and without this we cannot have Communion with God 1 John 1. 7. If we walk in the Light as he is in the Light we have fellowship one with another Nor evidence the reality of our Faith and Repentance St. Paul was sent to Preach to the Gentiles That they should repent and turn to God and do works meet for Repentance Acts 26. 20. Besides we cannot preserve our claim and right if we do not still go on to do good 1 Tim. 6. 18. Ezek. 18. 24. When the Righteous turneth away from his Righteousness and committeth Iniquity shall he live all his Righteousness shall not be mentioned in his Trespasses that he hath trespassed and in his Sin that he hath sinned in them shall he die It is true of the Hypocrite without Scruple and of the real righteous Man if you suppose the one you may suppose the other Well these things must not be confounded nor opposed not confounded but we must distinctly consider what is proper to the Grace of God proper to the Merit of Christ proper to Faith proper to Works not opposed so as to make the one exclude the other As the Grace of God to exclude the Merit of Christ or serve instead of it nor the Merit of Christ his Blood and Righteousness to exclude Faith and Repentance nor be instead of them nor Faith to exclude good Works 5. All the applying Grace is from first to last wrought in us by the Spirit He doth renew and heal our Natures as coming to us from the Grace of God and Merits of Christ. Tit. 3. 5 6. According to his Mercy he saveth us by the washing of Regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost which he shed on us abundantly through Iesus Christ our Saviour By the Holy Spirit working in us habitual Grace and exciting it we believe repent obey do whatever is necessary to be done to obtain Eternal Life Therefore this must not be omitted but acknowledged as a great part of this Grace III. Use. To exhort us if we would shew our selves to be new Creatures indeed to be full of good Works The Arguments to move us are 1. It is a necessary fruit of inward Grace and so doth plainly shew that you are partakers of Heavenly Wisdom Iames 3. 17. The Wisdom which is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle and easy to be intreated full of Mercy and good fruits The carnal Worldling all his Wisdom is to grow rich to himself which indeed is but Folly Luke 12. 21. His business is to live to the Flesh Gal. 6. 8. He layeth out all his Strength Time and Care and Wealth for the feeding his own carnal Desires but the other soweth to the Spirit layeth out himself in works of Piety and Charity 2. External Acts which flow from an Internal Principle increase the Habit the more you do good the more you are inabled to do good as bodily Strength is increased by Exercise Why is the right Hand more agil stronger and bigger than the left it is oftner exercised and so fuller of Blood and Spirits So in Grace the more you act Faith the more is Faith increased Love groweth more fervent being kept in a constant Exercise and Hope more lively and affective Always Actions increase the Principles which did produce them partly of their own Nature 1 Iohn 2. 5. Whoso keepeth his Word in him verily is the Love of God perfected The more acts of Love he puts forth towards God the more doth his Love increase in him partly by Divine Reward Heb. 6. 10. He is not unrighteous to forget your labour of Love which ye have shewed towards his Name in that ye have ministred to the Saints and do minister God rewards them temporally 2 Cor. 9. 12. God is able to make all Grace abound towards you that you always having all sufficiency in all things may aboud to every good Work That is to give you to be liberal at all times And when he saith God is able it not only implieth that God is the Fountain of all Plenty and Sovereign Disposer of it and so hath power to make you the richer rather than the poorer by your Liberality to make every Alms you give like the Oil in the Cruse to multiply as you pour it out that there shall be enough for every Object and every Occasion but also he is sure to make it good for he quotes it again in the next Verse as it is written He hath dispersed abroad he hath given to the Poor his Righteousness remaineth for ever It is taken out of Psalm 112. where there are signal Promises of Wealth and Riches in the House of the liberal Alms-giver God rewards them eternally 2 Cor. 9. 6. He which soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly and he which soweth bountifully shall reap bountifully Now is the Seed-time hereafter is our Harvest and Crop we shall have a liberal reward from God in the general Resurrection God also rewards his obedient Servants Spiritually Internally and that not only with more Comfort and Peace but by increasing the Grace it self for God that punishes Sin with Sin doth reward Grace with Grace Wells are sweeter for draining on the other side a Key that is seldom turned rusts in the Lock An intermission of good Works makes us more unable and unready for them 3. It is a greater Honour to God John 15. 8. Herein is my Father glorified that you bear much Fruit. Phil. 1. 11. Being filled with the Fruits of Righteousness which are by Iesus Christ unto the Glory and praise of God 2 Thess. 1. 11 12. Wherefore we pray for you that our God would count you worthy of this Calling and fulfil all the good Pleasure of his Goodness and the work of Faith with Power that the Name of our Lord Iesus Christ may be glorified in you and you in him Christ's Religion is not a barren Religion but full of good Works It is a mighty credit to Religion in you that profess it when Goodness is the Constitution of your Hearts to do good the business of your Lives 4. It edifieth others and provoketh an holy Emulation Heb. 10. 24. Let us consider one another to provoke unto Love and to good Works We provoke them most by our Example when they are cold negligent and backward to Works of Piety and Mercy In all things we should be an Instance of Divine Vertues 5. This is the fruit which God expecteth from us that the Trees of Righteousness should bear the Fruits of Righteousness If we frustrate his expectation he will hew us down and cast us into the Fire Mat. 3. 10. Therefore good Works are not needless things The means to enable us are 1. Be sure that you are renewed The Dead cannot do the works of the Living Neither do Men gather Grapes of Thorns nor Figgs of Thistles Mat. 7. 16. Our first business is to look to our Conversion to God All outward Duties begin in the Heart they are valued no further than they come from it sanctified 2. Keep your Hearts under a Sence of God's Authority that you may feel something in your own Bosoms that may tell you you are bound to obey him and may plead God's right with you This is done by a frequent Meditation upon your Creation and Redemption Your Creation giveth God a full right to you and Redemption maketh it comfortable by both you see you are his Acts 27. 23. There stood by me this Night the Angel of God whose I am and whom I serve 3. You are intrusted with his Talents and of their improvement you must give an account Mat. 25. 14. A Lord called his Servants and delivered to them his Goods in order to Improvement 4. What encouragement we have from a gracious God and Covenant which takes not advantage of involuntary Weaknesses but accepteth their endeavours who sincerely do their best Mal. 3. 17. I will spare him as a Man spareth his Son that serveth him 5. Remember often your great obligation to God you can never do so much for him as he deserveth of you Psal. 116. 12. What shall I render to the Lord for all his Benefits towards me 6. Do all as in God's Eye and with a constant dependance upon him Psal. 16. 8. I have set the Lord always before me Make him your Pay-master Governour and Judg and it will not only keep you sincere but diligent in good Works The work is not sincerely done when you look to Man nor throughly done Such have their reward only here Mat. 6. 7. Love your Work A little thing will stop him that doth it unwillingly Psal. 119. 47 48. I will delight my self in thy Commandments which I have loved And I will lift up my Hands to thy Commandments which I have loved 8. Account your selves much beholden to God that he will employ you in any Service for his Glory FINIS ERRATA PAge 5. line 3. for Condemned read Contemned P. 41. l. 18. f. Love r. Fear P. 79. l. 31. f. it r. the Promises P. 92. l. 24. f. that r. if P. 104. l. 8. f. Hearty r. Heart P. 125. l. 3. f. External r. Eternal P. 128. l. 26. after they were r. not P. 150. l. 17. after Obedience dele partly P. 168. l. 17. f. Conversations r. Consolations P. 181. l. 23. f. of Cognisance r. of our Cognisance P. 212. l. 33. after ever-blessed add Life P. 113. l. 17. f. overaweth r. outlaweth P. 252. l. 20. f. them r. him P. 167. l. 11. dele partly P. 289. l. 9. f. to evince r. towards its ruine Gal. 5. 24. Gen. 3. 7 10.
Children cry for Bread and you have none to give them would you not complain of the hardness of their Hearts which have this Worlds Goods and shut up their Bowels against them and not dispense any thing to their Necessities Why if you know the Heart of an indigent Person it cannot but move you to observe this Rule And the rather because usually with what measure we meet to others it is recompensed into our Bosoms by God's Providence for what ever need others have of us we have infinitely more of God and there will a time come when we shall be as destitute before God as they are before you For Instance In a time of Sickness when all outward helps fail Psal. 41. 1. Blessed is he that considereth the Poor the Lord will consider him in time of Trouble Why he that is affected with an others Condition as his own when it is a time of trouble and distress with him and it may be his Brother cannot help him then the Lord will help him either in Sickness or Trouble of Conscience when all outward Comforts are as the white of an Egg when the poor perplexed Sinner cries Mercy Mercy the Lord will shew him Mercy as he did to others Mat. 5. 7. Blessed are the Merciful for they shall obtain Mercy Those that only seek to enrich themselves and solace themselves with Mirth and Pleasure in the good things they have must not expect the like Promises But those which have been Merciful Bountiful and ready to help others God delights to shew them Mercy and when they are most destitute they shall find that God takes notice of this that they were ready to relieve others Secondly In Forgiving the same Rule holds A necessary Duty For while we are here in the World there will be Weaknesses and Offences and we need mutually to forgive and to take Pardon It is said Col. 3. 13. Forbearing one another and forgiving one another if any Man have a quarrel against any Even as Christ forgave you so also do ye See the same Eph. 4. 32. Forgiving one another as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you Mark he proceeds upon this Principle that Christ layeth down Whatsoever ye would c. We are in the World and in the Flesh and therefore should not rigidly exact upon the failings of others lest they or others deal so with us when our turn comes We need Pardon in this kind for we give Offence Eccl. 7. 21 22. Take no heed unto all Words that are spoken lest thou hear thy Servant curse thee for oftentimes also thine Heart knoweth that thou thy self likewise hast cursed others The meaning is we should not be over-affected with others speaking ill of us because we know we have spoken ill of others and should pass it by with meekness and neglect therefore the consideration of our Passions and of our Infirmities should move us to Pardon We have been or may be as bad as they We have been once Tit. 3. 3. Foolish and Disobedient led by our unruly Appetites and Desires therefore we should shew Meekness to them I and we may be surprised again James 3. 1. My Brethren be not many Masters for in many things we offend all Be not many Masters that is severe masterly or supercilious if another be fallen and hath offended us for we shall receive the greater Condemnation The Apostle argueth from another Argument Col. 3. 13. And Eph. 4. 32. Forgive others as God hath for Christ's sake forgiven us There is no Man can wrong us as much as we trespass against God and though we are but as the Drop of the Bucket and the small Dust of the Ballance yet our great and many Sins are freely forgiven to us therefore it should prevail with us freely and easily to Pardon one another The Scripture urgeth this O when we consider Christ's Example how Christ hath forgiven us when we consider the greatness of the Wrongs which he pardons Sins that are of a Scarlet and Crimson die Isa. 1. 18. when we consider our own baseness in comparison of him Isa. 40. 22. Who sitteth upon the Circle of the Earth and the Inhabitants thereof are as Grass-hoppers and when we consider his Omnipotency to right himself of the wrongs done to him How he can cast Body and Soul into Hell Fire Surely this should move us to forgive others Yea and it is not only a Motive but a Rule Forgive others as God forgives us what 's that Sincerely not hypocritically freely not unwillingly fully not by halfs irrevocably not for a time only but as God forgives and casts all our Sins into the depth of the Sea so should we forgive and pass by the Sins of others Christians shall I urge another Argument in this Case what need there is of Forgiveness Hereby a Man overcometh himself hereby he shames the Party that did him wrong and hereby he takes God's course to get the Victory over the Person which hath done him the wrong Hereby he overcometh himself his own Nature which thirsteth after Revenge Prov. 16. 32. He that is slow to Anger is better than the Mighty and he that ruleth his Spirit than he that taketh a City He is able to rule himself so 't is his Glory he doth overcome that revengeful and froward Disposition which is in his own Nature And hereby he overcomes and shames the Party that did him wrong there is no such way to do this as by Forgiveness Thus David did overcome Saul 1 Sam. 24. 17. When David had him at an advantage and spared him Saul said to David Thou art more Righteous than I. O what a Victory was this to overcome that fierce Man's Heart and reconcile him And you keep God's way in overcoming him it is God's prescribed course that you should thus overcome him by Kindness and Meekness Rom. 12. 21. Be not overcome of Evil but overcome Evil with Good But wherein must we express this Forgiveness towards others as to the wrong to be forgiven we must consider it either as an offence against God or sometimes against publick Laws or as it is an offence against us So far as it is an offence against God or the publick Laws here we have not power to Forgive and Punishment is due to the common Good Poena debitur The Lord himself that forgives us and forgives for Christ's sake hath secured the Honour of his governing Justice by Satisfaction and if the Law requires it we cannot intermedle there only we must pray to God earnestly for them that 's our Duty Iam. 4. 15. and in some Cases we may interceed with the Magistrate to take off the Penalty and are so bound This Forgiveness implieth two things a removal of an inward Grudg and a readiness to do all Duties of Love and Kindness to them 1. A removal of an inward Grudg and endeavours after private Revenge Lev. 19. 17 18. Thou shalt not hate thy Brother in thine Heart thou shalt in any
wise rebuke thy Neighbour and not suffer Sin upon him thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudg against the Children of thy People but thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self Thou shalt not bear a Grudg against him for then you hate him in your Heart 2. There must be a readiness to do all Duties of Love and Kindness to him who hath done the wrong as God ministreth Occasion and Ability There are many Laws for this Exod. 23. 4 5. If thou meet thine Enemies Ox or Ass going astray thou shalt surely bring it back to him again If thou see the Ass of him that hateth thee lye under his Burthen and wouldst forbear to help him thou shalt surely help with him Luk. 6. 27. Love your Enemies do good to them that hate you Bless them that Curse you Now so far are we bound to remit the private grudg because of the offence done to us and also to take all occasions to do them good Object But whether may not we have recourse to the Magistrate for the recovery of our Right and reparation of our Wrongs Answ. Certainly we may provided we go not to Law for Trifles for when we go to Law for small Matters and that before Infidels the Apostle reproves it 1 Cor. 6. 2. And when after all lawful Means and Courses are used before for taking away the occasion as ver 5. Is there not a wise Man among you to take up the difference And when it is not with a Spirit of Revenge and Rigour for a Christian should shew his Moderation in all things Phil. 4. 5. and his Lenity Gentleness and Readiness to Forgive But if it be out of a Spirit of Revenge not the Conscience of Justice we abuse God's Ordinance to our private Passions Rom. 13. 3. Having thus explained the Law let me vindicate this Rule 1. It seems not to be so perfect a Rule because many desire and wish much evil to themselves should they desire evil to others As he that would be Drunk should he make another Drunk And he that commits Filthiness should he intice others Answ. The meaning is not what we do in a Passion which works not the Righteousness of God but it is meant of a regular Will not that we do with evil Desires as that we do in right Reason that which you do well informed well advised free from discomposed Passion what is according to the Law of Nature engraven upon your Hearts which is most legible in our own Case what the Law of Nature would judge to be the Duty of other Men to do It is not meant of inordinate sinful Desires 2. But doth not this Rule make all Men equal and destroy all Order and Superiority if every Man must do as he would be done unto What shall a Master require of a Servant no more than he will do to him Would a poor Man have a rich Man give him Relief Should he give him no more than he expects back again from this poor Man No The meaning is that for that time we should suppose our selves in the Condition of Servants and of that poor Man you should put your selves in their stead and suppose if I were a Servant if I were Poor we should put our selves in the same equality with them and by the Law of Proportion the same things that would seem reasonable to you if you were in their Condition you should chearfully do to them For Instance If I were a Servant and did obey would not I judg such exaction Burthensome and Unreasonable If I were Poor and driven to seek Relief would not I judg a denial harsh If I were a Master should not I judg such an Offence injurious to my Authority 3. Doth not this establish Revenge and Retaliation of Injuries to do to him as he hath done to me Answ. No rather much the contrary for it is not what they have done to us Christ doth not say so but what we would have to be done to us that do to them See Prov. 24. 29. Say not I will do so to him as he hath done to me I will render to the Man according to his Work That 's an ill reasoning within our selves and takes God's work out of his Hands whose Prerogative it is to give to every Man according to his Work The Rule is not look backward but forward It doth not look to what they have done to us but what we should do to them To think to do the same would certainly break this Rule of Christ and make us be burthensom to others by such Actions and burthensom to our selves and so sin not only against our own Conscience but against Sense and Feeling of the thing committed Injury and Revenge differ only in Order He that returns Injury for Injury doth but imitate the Adversary and he that imitates that which is evil in another sins twice both against the Law and his own Conscience 4. If all the World were contented to observe this Rule then we should have a quiet World but others are very oppressive unjust and very hard to me this is to live by the Loss and to bring a restraint upon my self from which others are free Answ. Do your Duty to them though they do not theirs to you Others Sins will not exempt you from the Law of God which is your Rule and not their Actions Whatever they do to you yet carry it Christianly and Meekly towards them You are accountable to God for your own Actions not for the Actions of another Man Therefore if you be able to guide your own Spirit to them how perverse soever they be to you you will have the Comfort that you have endeavoured to do your Duty Having vindicated the Rule let me shew you the Grounds and the Equity of it What are the intrinsick Grounds and Reasons why Christ hath given such a Rule to us No Question it is founded not in his bare Authority but in great Equity There are two Grounds 1. The Actual Equality of all Men by Nature 2. The Possible Equality of all Men as to their Condition and State of Life 1. The Actual Equality of all Men by Nature Mal. 2. 10. Have we not all one Father Hath not one God created us Were we not all created by the same God I and mark the Equality goes further We were all made of one Blood Acts 17. 26. all descended from Adam Unequal diversity of Rank doth not take away Identity of Nature There is a diversity of Rank indeed Some are High some Low some Rich some Poor some Governors some Governed some Teachers and some obey But we are all made of one Blood So Neh. 5. 5. Our Flesh is as the Flesh of our Brethren our Children as their Children Some are highly advanced above others yet the poorest Creature and you is one Flesh and by Nature hath an equal right with you Therefore it is said Isa. 58. 9. Thou shalt not hide thy self from thine owe