is Knowledge of Christ as revealed in the Word which a man may have and utter too and yet not have Faith there is Profession of Faith for the truth against errours and yet the Grace of Faith is another thing A man may have so much faith as to believe that there is a Christ and to confess his excellencies and in some sort to see his own necessities of Christ yea he may begin to article and capitulate as the Young-man and yet break off and be far enough from a Faith which doth indeed espouse and marry his soul unto Christ 4. Lastly The misery and danger Suppose The misery and danger you do deceive your selves and in the event it appears that you are not espoused to Jesus Christ by Faith that you never gave your hearts unto him that there never was any conjugal Union and Bond twixt you if thou indeed shouldst live Christless and die Christless what helpless hopeless happyless person art thou But you will reply We trust that we are truly penitent persons and that God hath given unto us such a Faith whereby we are really married unto Christ Sol. Well if that be so you have great cause to bless the Lord And that you may not be deceived therein I will deliver unto you some proper effects which that Faith produceth in every soul that is indeed married unto Qualities produced by an espousing faith Christ There are four Qualities produced by an espousing Faith 1. Estimation Let the Wife see that she reverence her Husband saith the Apostle Ephes 5. She must both acknowledg Estimation him as a Head and honour him as a Lord juâ—â—e and esteem of him in a relative consideration above all other The like effect doth Faith produce if it espouseth us to Christ it sets up Christ above all accounts of him as most excellent judgeth of all other things but as dross and dung in comparison of him will part with all for to get Christ The beauties of Christ are glorious in the eyes of every believer Christ doth not seem a mean thing an ordinary or common thing but he is the Pearl the Sun of Righteousness My Lord and my God saith Thomas In a word Faith if right exalts the Excellency of Christ and the Authority of Christ the Excellencies of his Person and the Authority of his Will and Laws 2. Election Election We make choice of Christ before all other Though sins though the pleasures and profits of the world proffer themselves yet as the Martyr at the stake None but Christ Or as Paul I desire to know nothing but Christ crucisied So the true believer Give me Christ I have enough I have that which is best of all he is the the Optimum and the Vnicum to Faith 3. Affection Conjugal Affection Faith ever produceth conjugal Love It were a monstrous evil for a woman to marry a man and noâ— love him and it were an adulterous thing for her to love any more then her own Husband Marriage doth by way of Duty infer and draw with it two qualities of Love one is exclusive and it is an unity of Love the other is intensive and it is a redundancy of Love Thus is it with us if Faith hath espoused us unto Christ it doâ—h kindle in us a love unto Christ not a divided love a love to Christ and a love to sin a love to Christ and a love to the world but an united love none is by us esteemed and loved as our Lord but Christ Nor doth it satisfie it self with a remiss and diminutive love which may serve any inferiour object but as Christ is in himself the most excellent object so Faith produceth such a degree of love which bears some proportion with that object viz. a superlative love a love of Christ above all and more then all more set on Christ than on any other object which yet may lawfully be loved more than our father or mother or wife or children Do we find this love in our hearts to Christ against all and above all Nay again True conjugal love infers with it a Love 1. of Complacency to delight in the thing loved 2. of Society to be with the person loved Is it so with us what delght have we in Christ in his person in his excellencies in his works in his ordâ—â—ances Is it our best joy to hear him to see him to speak with him 4. Subjection I confess that marriage doth not make the Subjection woman a slave yet by vertue thereof she is bound to submission or subjection she doth in a sort give away her self unto the disposal of another in the Lord Thy desire saith God Gen. 3. 16. shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee If thou hast a Faith which doth espouse thee unto Christ that Faith brings thy heart into the obedience and subjection of Christ It subjects thy will to Christs will and thy judgment to his truths and thy desire to his rule and thy works to his laws If Christ would have thee be and do one thing and thou wilt be and do another that thy will is still contradicting of Christs will and thy way is still contrary to his way Though a man may be married to such a stubborn and perverse piece yet Christ is not for all that are married unto him by Faith have in some measure wrought in them an obediential spirit desirous to know the mind of the Lord and willing to live godly in Christ Jesus Now this subjection which is the effect of an espousing Faith hath these properties in it viz. 1. Vniversality the wife is subject in all things 2. Diligence we must take care to please him 3. Delightfulneâ—â— it must be no burthen 4. Constancy as long as we live we must be subject to the will of our Lord. The last Use shall be for Exhortatiou That in case you find Vse 2. Exhortation this Ring of Faith by which you are espoused unto Christ given unto you then be very carefull to wear it and to bring it along with you to this next Sacrament We usually put on our Robes and our Rings when we come to any solemn Feasts The Sacrament of the Lords Supper is a Feast of good things there is Christ and mercy and redemption and sanctification and what not for the soul but bring your Ring with you Christ looks that you should come with it and you can do no good at the Sacrament if you have not the Ring on your hand Though you put forth your hand yet if the Ring be not on it the hand may take the bread but the Ring is it which onely can take Christ therefore bring Faith with you to the Sacrament Josephs Brethren must bring Benjamin with them or else they must not see his face nor should get food And let your faith work upon Christ all along on the love of Christ on the sufferings of Christ of the
the Peny as well as the Shilling bears the Superscription 4. That the least degree of true Grace denominates the condition to be converted I would believe is Faith I would love thee is Love I desire to do thy will is Obedience Not Strength but Truth denominates 5. True Grace and many Conflicts go together Let the motions of sin be never so vile but I hate them never so many but I resist them here Grace is the Lord which rules me though sin be the Enemy which molests me Why am I thus Alas there are contraries in thee Light and Darkness Flesh and Spirit 6. True Grace and some Failings may lodge together I may at the same time be a Captive to Sin and yet a Servant to Grace sin may sometimes be too strong even for him who hates sin 7. All services to God are interpreted and accepted by God according to the will of a converted person Although thou canst not pray so freely so fully so uniformly yet if God see a will in thee desirous so to do it shall pass for currant groans and sighs and chatterings and desires and tears c. 8. Thou never doest any Duty but Jesus Christ gives acceptance unto it by his Intercession his sweet Incense takes off the ill savour The greatest work done by thee if it comes in thy own name is rejected the weakest if presented in his Name a sigh or groan is graciously accepted as the Sacrifices by the Priest 9. God never expects thou shouldest buy out thy own pardon or bring from thy self any satisfaction for any of thy sins he hath designed that work onely to Jesus Christ in whom he hath accepted thee and for whose sake alone he doth and will discharge thee You trade in Heaven upon gracious terms when you come for any grace and help thy Reasons and Motives are in God who gives and freely gives 10. As soon as ever converting Grace prevails upon thy heart Salvation is come to thy soul Thou art now a Believet and if a Believer a Son and if a Son an Heir of all the comfortable Promises now and a Co-heir with Christ hereafter 11. The Lord will bless thy buds and increase thy stock of Grace He will water as well as plant it 12. That little Grace shall never fail thee never leave thee till it brings thee to Heaven The greatest Grace is imperfect and the least Grace is invincible the greatest Grace is weak and the weakest Grace is immortal Now if Christians did believe all these Truths and would consider of them would not their condition be more joyfull Here 's a Weakness I but it is Grace that Grace is little I but it comes from Graciousness and makes me gracious O how many conflicts I but 't is 'twixt Grace and Sin yea and many sinnings I but not love of sin no voluntary service But how poor in Duties I but God regards the Will But what will become of me for my former sins Why Christ hath satisfied and God hath pardoned But if I had strength of Grace I might take comfort Why the weakest Convert is a Believer and the weakest Believer hath Christ Ergò Secondly to Persons long since converted What should they To persons long since converted Often examine and review your Speritual condition Be upright do to walk with joyful hearts I answer 1. Often examine and review your Spiritual condition this will keep you and God friends often look upon the evidences of Gods favour to your Souls and maintaine and cleare them if blotted Such experiences are bathes of Comfort Remember the days of old 2. Be upright maintain the Oyl and you maintain the light The work of Righteousness shall be peace and the effect of Righteousness quietness and assurance for ever Isai 32. 17 A stable Spirit will further a stable Joy one â—â—y step puts the bone out of joynt That man loseth his Spiritual pleasure who steps out for sinful pleasure remember Davids swarving and Peters and Jacobs 3. Live by faith We never meet wiâ—h more troubles Live by faith then when we shift for our selves That man who can trust God most him doth God trust with most Grace and peace see Habak 3. 17 18. 4. Hold up close communion with God Hold up close communion with God and his people he who rrades most at heaven gets the greatest stock of Grace and comfort even the neglect of one prayer may lose a man much comfort be satisfied with God alone and let not out your minds to earthly things And that one sermon which thou didst overslip brought in exceeding Joy to thy fellow Christian 5. Walk in the fear of God all the day long Walk in the fear of God all the day long Self-confidence makes the person to lye down in tears but he who feares to sin fortifies his Graces and comforts expose not your selves to Temptations 6. Renew a solemn and speedy Peace Renew peace upon every fall upon every fall Light may quickly be restored to a candle newly blown out and the bone displaced may presently be set again Let not a disease settle 7. Engage not thy mind to vain and new Engage not to new opinions Opinions Mind the maine things of Life and Salvation and not profitable strifes He who hath not more Grace to get hath assuredly much comfort to lose an Unsetled Judgment will quickly raise an uncomfortable heart 8. Preserve an humble and contented Spirit Pride is the father of discontentment Preserve an humble and contentâ—d Spirit and Discontentment is a prison to our Graces and a Sea to our comforts Thy Graces will not be pleasant to thee if thy outward condition please thee not 9. Be active and thriving That Be active and thriving man who doth most for God doth also most for his own comfort Barrenness is no good sign of Life and therefore no good way for comfort the travelling Bee is laden with hony Thriving Grace is a clear evidence of truth and adds to our excellency and our joy FINIS
true not how plausible and of affection or action should be How good and the next how pleasant not first how delightfull but first how lawfull We may not do about our moral acts as we do in our civil ask what fine Stuffs but first what good The Apple the forbidden Apple which if tasted had death in it was yet goodly to Gen. 3. 6. to look on it was pleasant to the eyes And the Wine of which Solomon speaks though it bit like a Serpent and stung like an Adder Pro. 23. 31 32 yet it looked red and gave its colour in the cup. As all sins have after their commission something to back them so they have before their commission something to enter them After our sinning there are corrupt defences and reasonings and before our sinnings there are corrupt pleasures and delights As in the sewing of a Garment there is a Needle to make way and then a Thred to keep fast so it is in the constitution of a sinfull course there is pleasure to make way for the sin and then there is love and defence which keeps fast the sin Therefore we must in this be informed not to entertain any thing because it doth please and delight us for usually that is sinfull which at first is delightfull it is not how it pleaseth me but how it pleaseth God The soul of man naturally is very corrupt and as it is with some stomacks which are foul the worst diet is most delightfull so it is with our souls being evil therefore that which is evil suits bests with them and pleaseth them most Pleasures of any thing must be judged by 1. A Word of truth for if they be not good as well as pleasant they are sins factors and 2. by the respondency they have to a nature not as corrupt but as renewed 2. That sin is not onely bad but politick not onely unlawfull but deceitfull As it is with some faces which have natural wrinkles Sin is not onely unlawfull but deceitfull these are dawbed over with painted glosses or with some bodies which are crooked these are bolstred out with secret stiffnings or as with rotten wares these are glazed over with gaudy dyings So is it with sin in it self a foul thing a loathsome and odious thing therefore in Scripture called an abomination a filthiness a vile thing a disease a rottenness a sore putrifying sore c. yet it draws on the sinner by pleasure and delight Sin doth not move us nakedly as sinfull but cunningly as delightfull it doth not tempt the young man to uncleanness and tell him that whoremongers and adulterers God will judge but come let us take our fill of love I have perfumed my bed c. as the strumpet in the Proverbs It doth not tempt the person to drunkenness and tell him that no drunkard shall inherit the Kingdome of God and that there is a woe belonging unto him but it shews him the redness and colour of the Wine and suggests the sweetness thereof unto him So in sins of murther it doth not shew that revenge which God threatens but that acceptable revenge and way of ease which the sinner delightfully thinks on As Balak sent to Balaam the rewards of Divination and then desired him to curse Israel And that Apocalyptical whore had in her hand a golden cup and within that the wine of fornication So deals our sin with us when it tempts us it doth hide the hook and shews the bait it conceals the obliquity and represents the beauty it covers the misery and shews onely the pleasure to draw and insnare our souls 3. That all sinners are extremely mocked and deluded They may more safely say of their sins what â—sau spake of Jacob Thy All sinners are extremely deluded name is rightly called Jacob for these two times thou hast deceived or supplamed me So may sinfull men say of their sins Not twice or thrice but always ye still mock and deceive me I remember that when Josephs brethren had cast him into the pit Reuben anon returns thither but finds him not he was newly there but he was quickly taken thence and he said The child is not Gen. 37. 29. and I whither shall I go So may a man say of the pleasure of his sin Even now they were but now they are not And instead of that pleasure he may now be wringing of his hands and cry out The pleasure is gone and is not the sin remains and here sticks the draught is gone but the poison is not gone the delight is gone but the guilt is present the delight is fallen off but the grief is present And I now I whether shall I go Conscience galls me fears crush me God abhors me the world doth not help friends cannot ease me what I feel is bitter and what I fear is worse Ah my sins you said I should have pleasures still you said that I should not see misery you said that God would be easily mercifull you said these were nothing you said that to morrow should be as to day and much more abundantly Ah that ever I trusted you believed you yielded unto you you have deceived me by a little pleasure I am now brought into and left in the midst of all misery Ah you sins which were once so pleasant can you not deliver me can you not comfort me do ye forsake me is this your kindness is this your delightfulness where is it I am bereaved of your pleasures and by you you alone am I now sunk into the most soul-cutting and anguishing distresses 4. That though sins be temporally pleasant yet they are certainly dangerous They end miserably though they begin sweetly Sins though temporally pleasant yet are certainly dangerous like a River which begins in a quiet Spring but ends in a tumultuous Sea There are these dangers in the pleasures of Sin 1. They are apt to draw and entice us 2. to bewitch and entangle us 3. to enlarge the spirit of transgression within 4 to hinder all true pleasures 5. to sear up the 〈◊〉 conscience against all holy counsel and remedy But I pass to a second Use which shall be of Caution to take Vse 2. Caution Take heed of being deluded with the pleasures of sin Job 15. 31. Prov. 20. 1. Eccl. 7. 26. heed of being deluded any longer with the pleasures of sin me thinks Eliphaz spake punctually and to the purpose Let not him that is deceived trust any more in vanity for vanity shall be his recompence Though sin be a while pleasant yet hearken not unto it suffer not thy self to be deceived by it Wine is a mocker and strong drink is raging and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise The like he speaks of the unclean woman whose heart is snares and nets still dressing them to catch the bird and her hands are bands The same may be said of any sins whatsoever But now to move and quicken your hearts
And is this excuse to pass for currant hath not God dealt Answered with thee often didst not thou more often harden thine own heart willingly withdraw thy self and all out of a love to sin 2. Though thou couldst not convert thine own heart yet this thou mightest have done in the times of afflictions c. considered what might move the Lord thus to deal with thee all or some of the causes which thy own conscience did freely suggest and the ends which God pointed thee to to reform them And then to have gone to him by vehement prayer to convert thy heart from thy sins to teach it righteousness to submit to his instructions Thou mightst thus have gone to him who can convert and have waited on him in the means of conversion but thou didst nor desire after him nor delightedst to seek him c. 2. But What may we do to prevent this shuffling and assaying of means to support us in sinning when the Lord deals with us and Means to prevent this shuffling calls upon us for the leaving of sin Sol. I would commend these five Directions 1. Strive to be convinced of this That as long as the Course is a sinfull Course it Be convinced of this That a sinfull course cannot be a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 safe course can never be a safe Course We may weary our selves in the multitude of our imaginations and ways but run what course you please and pursue your own devices yet this ye shall reap of the Lord you shall lie down in your shame and sorrow you may run to new experiments but misery will follow your sins the next time as well as this and in every way as well as one way Your sins will find you out and as long as you carry your sins with you you cannot keep off calamities from you 2. Of necessity you must return or perish Your sinfull course is You must return or perish a by-path and leads to death It is sinfull and you know it and being sinfull it must be miserable To what end doth the Patient excuse the taking of the Receipt the wholsome Balm he must die if he doth not receive it So consider To what end do I thus vary my paths and shuffle and seek supports there is nothing strong enough to secure a sinner and let me sadly consider that I must one time or other leave these sinnings or else farewel my Soul and Salvation 3. It cannot but be best the sooner it is I must return or perish too soon I cannot return and the sooner the better A Our Return is best the sooner it is Best For Safety Souldier of a middle age a Counsellor of a grave age and a Penitent of a young age are still the best The work which must be done is best done when soonest Best for Safety for thy life is very uncertain and if thou doest not leave thy sins to day thou mayest be in Hell for ought thou knowest for thy sins to morrow For Acceptance the Lord likes it best when For Acceptance one word of Mercy can cause us to trust and one shaking of the Rod can cause us to tremble and when one command sufficeth to turn us when upon the first Arrest we give up our Weapons it pleaseth Soveraignty best For Quietness for we do hereby deliver not onely our Souls but Bodies also from many troubles For Quietness the sooner we do repent and plainly yield why Conscience speaks peace the sooner and God commands mercies the faster strong Sins breed long afflictions but give up the Sins and God gives up the Quarrel throw over Bichri's head to Joab and he will presently remove the siege If a man had health he might take sleep the better but as long as the body is diseased it is unquiet 4. Strive against those diverting Principles which do draw thee from the right and onely way and put thee on by-thoughts and Strive against diverting Principles as Presumption of Mercy Or of thy own Power by-paths and a vain assayment of means to support us As 1. Presumption either of Mercy though thou doest add drunkenness to thirst and still findest out thine own inventions or thine own Power Thou mayest be hindred of the time which thou doest project and mayest want strength to execute thy purposes For sinfull practises do altogether weaken our power whilest they delude us with a conceit of strength hereafter 2. Stoutness and pride of spirit Do not in a bravery of villany dispute with the Almighty Stoutness and pride of spirir God it may prove a sad Victory to thee that thou art able to reject good counsel and to quench all good motions 3. Delight Delight in sin in sin which drowns the errand of all afflictions c. 5. Beseech the Lord at the very first to circumcise the stubbornness Beseech the Lord to câ—rcumcise the stubbornness of your hearts of your hearts and to give you the understanding ear and the obedient spirit that when in the Word he calls upon you to turn from your sins your hearts may fall down and cry out O Lord turn me and when by afflictions he calls upon you to turn you may presently humble your hearts and cry out O Lord pardon me O Lord heal me O Lord turn and save me Let us all think of this You know that the Lord is displeased with us and we have hitherto hardened our hearts against the Lord God hath dealt with us once twice often in publick in private ways and still we seek our own ways delude the work of Repentance set nothing to heart nor repent of our evil doings I I. Now I proceed to the Second thing which is The final The final disappointment of all the Prodigals designs Doct. 2. Nothing shall avail the shuffling sinner till he return but God will disappoint all his pâ—ojects Some things premised This is meantâ— of a sinner whom God intends to convert disappointment of the Prodigals assays and designs in these words And no man gave unto him Whence I observe That nothing shall avail the shuffling sinner until he doth turn from his sins but God will disappoint all his projects batter down all his confidences frustrate all his expectations drive him out of all his harbours and overthrow all the means and ways which he flies unto Before I confirm this Assertion let me premise a few particulars that so you may rightly conceive the scope of it Thus then 1. I intend the Assertion of a sinner whom God doth intend to convert others he may leave to prosper in their imaginations For you see it raised from the disappointment of a Prodigal one whose conversion at length attended his manifold afflictions and as manifold contrivances to keep up his sinfull conversation though such a person knows not it nor thinks on it yet God is secretly against him and thrusts him off from all the Cities of Refuge
confession he is the man who abounds most with the thankful Lip the watchful Heart the fruitful Hand and tender Conscience Two things make us hardned and careless Forgetfulness of Mercies from God and of Sins against God But no more of this Assertion There is another implicit Observation from the carriage of the Father to this penitential Prodigal upon his Confession It is this As there is nothing in the Sons thoughts and expressions but his Sins so there is nothing in the Fathers Intentions and expressions but Kindness The Son he thinks of his sins intends to leave his sins and to confess them and so he doth The Father he thinks of mercies and compassions intends to accept and pardon him and when he comes he doth not speak a word of his sins but every expression is mercy and peace and kindness Fetch the best Robe put on the Ring c. Whence I conjecture this Proposition is observable That God takes no notice of our sins upon our true Repentance Doct. 2. God takes no notice of our sins upon Repentance but expresseth himself wholly in love and kindness God takes no notice of former sins There is Notitia Intuitiva Notitia Charitativa but wholly expresseth himself in love and kindness There are two Branches of this Assertion 1. One that God takes no notice of former sins upon our true Repentance There is a threefold notice of sin in respect of God 1. Notitia Intuitiva which is his all observing eye of Omniscience from which nothing can be hid but every Creature and operation of the Creature whether open or secret is visible and manifest unto God that distinction of known and unknown secret and open hath no place in God to whose eye all things are naked In this respect the former sins of a penitent fall within Gods notice for the goodness of Divine Mercy doth not blind-fold the eye of Divine Omniscience 2. Notitia Charitativa which is a notice of sins as a kind Creditor takes notice of Debts owing unto him and set down in his book his eye is on them and his Pen also to cross and dash them out And in this respect also God takes notice of former sins namely so as out of rich love and gracious favour to cross and forgive them unless we will fondly imagine that God forgives sins by hap-chance at an adventure never seeing and considering what he doth 3. Notitia Vindictiva which is a Judiciary notice as a Judge takes notice Notitia Vindictiva of the evil facts of a Malefactor to Condemn him or to trouble and vex him In this respect upon true Repentance God takes no notice of former sins .i. either to condemn the penitent person for them or to upbraid him and dishearten him by casting them into his dish or hitting of him in the teeth as we speak Proverbially Hence those phrases in the Scripture upon supposition of Repentance Jer. 31. 34. I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more Not that Repentance makes God forgetful for he is no capable of such a defect as Oblivion but that when men cease to sin God will cease to argue and speak with them after a Judicial manner for their sins So Ezek. 18. 21. If the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed ver 22. All his transgressions which he hath committed they shall not be mentioned unto him he means in any harsh judicial and cutting way More such phrases there are as that he will cover our sins cast them into the depths of the sea and cast them behind his back and though they be sought for yet they shall not be found The second Branch is that he expresseth himself wholly in He expresseth himself wholly in love and kindness love and kindness the which is most evident in Jer. 31. 19. when Ephraim repented and confessed his sin all the expressions now from God are full of tender Love Is Ephraim my dear son is he a pleasant child I do earnestly remember him still Ephraim thinks that I have forgotten him that I regard him not but there is no such matter my bowels are troubled for him I will surely have mercy on him Hos 14. 2 3. Israel is repenting and confessing and praying and how doth God answer him See v. 4. I will heal their back-slidings I will love them freely for mine anger is turned away from him Ver. 5. I will be as the dew unto Israel Yet here we must distinguish 1. Twixt Gods expressions which Distinguish Twixâ— Gods expressions And the Penitents Apprehensions are alwayes very gracious gentle closing up comforting and reviving of the penitent And the penitents apprehensions which by reason of several principles in him are sometimes misplaced and mistaken God is just and he is a sinner he is a penitent sinner and God is merciful Now whiles the penitent apprehends his Sins only and not his Repentance or Gods Justice only and not his Mercy that tender graciousness and loving kindness is not so acquitted by him in his apprehensions Not that God is not really tender to him but that he through mistake and error apprehends it not so 2. Again you must distinguish Gods tender love and kindness as it is considerable in Divine promise and in Humane sense and Distinguish of Gods love as it is considerable 〈◊〉 Divâ—ne Proâ—â—â—es and Humane sense feeling You can no sooner repent but God is wholly in termes of tender love if you will behold his behaviour towards you in his Promises In them indeed you have the Idea as it were of his mind and affection they are the right glasse to behold the face of his mercifulness in through which if you look you shall not find any one harsh word or look or intention towards a penitent but all his thoughts in them are thoughts of peace and all his words in them are lips of peace Though the Samamaritan poured both Oile and Vinegar into the wound yet God through his promises pours out only the Oile of gladness But if you consult with his sense and feeling which is out of the roade of Faith then indeed this gracious tenderness is not so evident but we are apt through incredulous hastiness and ungrounded mis-judgings to exclaime with Zion But my God hath forgotten me or with David He hides away his face from me or with Job it was in the fits of impatience He writes bitter things against me 3. Thirdly You must distinguish of the penitent behaving himself Distinguish of the behaviour as a Penitent or as a Delinquent either ad modum penitentis as a penitent ad modum peccantis as a delinquent Let him repent and keep on in the wayes of repentance he shall meet with nothing from God but sweetness of love and mercy every step of righteousness is a path of peace and joy but if he step aside if he goes to a by-Lane he may quickly lose the sight
of the City if the arm or foot slip out of joynt then indeed there is ache and pain instead of ease and quiet so if a penitent person do what is sinful he must not think that God will appear in that amiableness for as God will frown on no man which is in a good way so will he smile Distinguish of Gods expressions of himself and Satans representations of him on no man if found in an evil path 4. Lastly You must distinguish of Gods expression of himself and either Satans or our own unbelieving hearts representations of God Before we repent our own hearts and Satan represent God all in mercy to us and when we do repent so far as our hearts are sinful they are still guileful and conjoyn with Satan to represent God unto us all in Justice and terror But a natural and proper representation is one thing and a preternatural and corrupt representation is another thing How the dispositions and actions of men may present me in their due and real Entity to a man is one thing and how the cunning lies and artificial devices of an envious enemy may report me this is another thing This then is the sense of the assertion That when any person doth truly repent God will not only not upbraid and object unto him his sins but will graciously pass them over and for his part the penitent behaving himself like a penitent and judging of him aright according to his nature and promises shall find all in love graciousness and kindness to him and for him Reasons whereof are these 1. Vpon true repentance sin is Reasons of it Upon true Repentance sin is pardoned pardoned Repent saith S. Peter that your sins may be blotted out Acts 3. And he that forsakes his sin shall find mercy Prov. 28. And Isa 55. 7. Let the wicked forsake his way and I will abundantly pardon Whence I infer If sin be pardoned then there is no voice from heaven to be heard but that of Love and kindness Indeed while we continue in sin like Adam we hear the voice of God and are afraid for then it is the voice of his wrath and threatnings but sin being pardoned wrath is removed God is reconciled and his voice now is only the sweet voice of the Gospâ—l not the thunders of Sinai but the glad tydings of Sion Therefore 2. God hath said That he will not God will not break the bruised Reed break the bruised reed and takes it ill from any to add afflictions to the afflicted Now there is no expression more observed by a penitent then Gods Gods expressions are bruising or raising all is for comfort or discomfort as it comes from God the least harshness from him would set back the penitent into an overwhelming multitude of terrors fears and distractions and discouragements the which the Lord likes not having made the soul â—it for his mercies 3. Comfort is the proper expression for the penitent As threatnings are the most proper for an impenitent person Comfort is the proper expression for the Penitent so comfort for a penitent It were a dangerous mistake to give a Vomit when a Cordial is proper binding up is proper for the broken in heart and comfort for mourners and reviving for the contrite Gracioâ—s expressions from God are the very thing which the penitent needs his spirit cannot else live and uphold it self There are two things under which the spirit of man cannot well bear up and sustain it self One is near and strong afflictions without Divine strength Another is the quick sense of sin without the gracious sight of mercies As they are needful so are they seasonable for as much as 1. Satan is most ready to fall fâ—ul upon the Soul upon its Repentance with strongest accusations falsest suggestions and oppressions to overwhelm it with despair as on him in the Corinthians 2. The Heart at such a time is most apt to fear the worst to suspect its own soundness and Gods kindness 3. Nothing would settle and quiet the Spirit of the penitent person more then Gods gracious expressions This is light in darkness life in death the only Restorative to a sensible sinner and a languishing soul Therefore The first Use of this Point shall be to imitate God in this Vse Imitate God in this kindness and goodness kindness of expression and goodness of oblivion When we see persons truly penitential for former sins as we must not call Evil Good so neither must we call Good Evil if God will not mention former sins to a penitent how dare we to do it It is an usual way of a sly and malicious person in his detractations Yea he is so and so now indeed but what was he heretofore And thus he digs up those old rotten corruptions with his malicious tongue which the penitent hath long buryed with many tears and God hath covered with much mercy It is an argument that thou art of a beastly nature who art still in the wounds and not on the sound parts Speak against sin and condemn it as well in thy self as in others with all â—it zeal but spare at least the converted and penitent sinner Never open a wound which God hath healed nor shamefully blaze the sin which God hath mercifully pardoned 2. You see the way to have your sins covered and You see the way to have our sins covered and hid hid Men upon sinful commissions devise many shifts and colours and arts to keep their sins close and hid as if the Sun could be muffled or the Fire stiâ—led or the Wound not cured would not break out No truly repent of sins and that is the best way for to get sins concealed as well as pardoned Now the Lord will not mention them but if we continue impenitent the Lord will set our sins in order they shall break out to our shame as they have broken out to his dishonour But the Father said to his servants Bring forth the best Robe and put it on him and put a Ring on his hand and Shoes on his feet These words are a List of the special favours which were conferred The special favours conferred upon the Penitential Prodigal upon the penitential Prodigal where you have 1. The Number of them 1. The Râ—be 2. The Ring 3. The Shoes a suit large enough from top to toe We need a compleate furniture and God here bestows it 2. The Quality of them 1. The Robe is the best and 2. The Ring is precious and 3. The Shoes are proper and fit and the best God gives unto his people what is most excellent and what is most useful 3. The Order of them first the Robe and then the Ring because if the Allusion be to a Marriage the Wedding Garment is ever put on before the Wedding Ring Or else because the Garment which is the Robe is alwayes more necessary then the Ornament which is the Ring Or which is choicest
thus and thus and thus have I dishonoured my God Another while he hears and reads and weeps I am that man O Lord I am he of whom thou speakest I am that sinner Iam he who hath out-faced thy Law out-stood thy offers of grace and resisted Oh how often thy good Spirit 5. He is now for the life of God to be wrought in him This he now prizeth as the most excellent life and for this he praies Lord another heart a new spirit 2. The second contrariety respects the time present And As to the time present there are four things for the time present in a truely changed and converted person which never were in him before 1. A present hatred of sin 2. A present flying unto Christ 3. A present love of God 4. A present course of new obedience 1. When the Lord hath converted and changed the heart of a sinner there is wrought in him a present hatred of sin the man loved his sins before and took pleasure in unrighteousness held it fast and defended it sin is now seen as the greatest evil and the more he sees it the more he hates it As soon as ever the heart is changed immediately it is a sin-hating heart I do not say there is no sin but I say the heart hates sin The evil that I hate said Paul Rom. 7. 15. and in Ezek. 36. where God promiseth to give them a new heart he saith Then shall ye remember your own evil wayes and shall loath your selves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations Quest But here now is a great Scruple how a person may know that he hates sin Many think they do so and are deceived How a man may know that he hates sin it proves only a passion Sol. In true hatred there are six things 1. An extream detestation Every dislike is not hatred but true hatred is an extream loathing Thou shalt cast them away as a menstruous cloath thou shalt say unto it Get thee hence Isai 30. 22. 2. An earnest separation He that hated his wife did sue out a Bill of divorce from her in the Law 3. An irreconcileable alienation Two angry men may be made friends but if two men hate each other friendship is everlastingly broken betwixt them 4. A constant and perpetual colluctation If they cannot be severed one from the other they still oppose and conflict one with the other 5. A deadly intention and destruction for nothing satisfies hatred but death and ruine Saul hated David and sought his life Absalom hated Amnon and killed him 6. An impartial aversation hatred is of the whole kind I hate every false way Wilt thou now know whether God hath changed thy heart then ask thy heart What is it that thou abhorrest as the superlative evil what is that which thou wouldst have separated as far from thee as heaven is from hell what is that thy heart will never renew league or friendship with any more what is that against which thy soul doth rise and with which as Israel with Amalek thou hast war for ever what is that which thou wilt be avenged of and daily dost endeavour the mortifying and crucifying of what is that which thou sets thy heart against in the comprehensive latitude thereof whether great or little open or secret If it be sin if it be thy sins assuredly here is true hatred of sin and assuredly here is a most distinguishing Character of a sound Conversion and change It was not wont to be thus with thee nor is this findeable in any unconverted person whosoever Sin was once to thee as Dalilah to Samson and now is it to thee as Tamar to Amnon It was a sweet morsel once which thou heldst fast but now it is the menstruous cloath which thou dost cast away and say get thee hence what have I to do any more with Idols If it be thus with thee bless thy God who hath shewed grace to thy soul 2. When the Lord hath changed and converted the heart of a sinner the sinner presently flies unto Jesus Christ The first stroke of Grace is on the heart and the first breathing of Grace is for Christ as the new born babe flies unto the brests or as any creature doth to its center and place of rest For when the heart is changed by converting grace 1. It breeds the most exquisite discovery and sense of sin and consequently of the souls need of Christ 2. It is most impatient of distance or difference with God and prizeth his reconciled favour superlatively cannot live without it 3. It seeth nothing more valuable in it self or more sutable to its condition then Christ Christus amor meus pondus meum And therefore if you take notice of it you may experimentally find upon the first impressions of Grace that the soul is mostly taken up with Christ and with Faith Oh that I might be found in him Oh that I could believe on him It sees excellency in Christ and Peace in Christ and Redemption in Christ and Righteousness in Christ and Grace in Christ and Kindness in Christ and Help and Life and Heaven and all in Christ In Conversion Christ secretly draws the Soul to himself and being converted the soul strives to draw Christ to it self It would have Christ it must have Christ it is never well it is never satisfied until it hath Christ 3. When the Lord hath converted and changed the heart of a sinner there is wrought in him a present love of God It is wonderful to see how the Tide turns upon Conversion There was once one found weeping very bitterly and being demanded why O said he all other things are loved but Amorum amatur Love it self is not loved So before Conversion a man could find love for his Parents and love for his Relations and love for his Recreations and love for his Profits and love for his Sins but no love for God But after Conversion the man can scarce find any love for any unless it be for his God and in his God A graciously changed Heart is enabled to see 1. The glories in God those most Pure and Amiable Excellencies in God 2. The Transcendent Love of God to it in the Eternity of it in the Freeness of it in the Sweetness and Goodness of it 3. The Unspeakable Communications and Bounties of God towards it in Jesus Christ for the present and for the future It is Grace which makes us to see what a gracious God he is It is Grace which makes us to see what a Royal gift Jesus Christ is It is Grace which makes us apprehensive of all the Love in God and from God and therefore no marvel that the changed heart fals presently in love with God O Love the Lord all ye his Saints into a Love of Friendship and into a Love of Complacence as they speake that it admires God and prizeth Communion with him and takes its full and highest
in Adversity as in Prosperity Hab. 3. 17. Although the Fig-tree shall not blossome c. yet I will rejoyce in the Lord c. Rom. 5. 3. And not only so but we glory in tribulation c. 1 Sam. 29. 6 the people spake of stoning him but David encouraged himself in the Lord his God Rom. 8. 35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ c. If even in afflictions I can go unto the same armes of Christ and unto the same brests of divine Love and into the same chamber of Presence if I can look upon God as my God and see him to be my Father that I can make known my heart to him and he can make known his favour to me what should hinder me now to be joyful who still do enjoy him who alone makes all my joy Another is the Testimony of Conscience This is the Friend in adversity This is our rejoycing even the testimony of our Conscience 2 Cor. 1. 12. Conscience is a mans night or day his Hell or Heaven his Palace of delight or Jail of bitterness If Conscience be sanctified or pacified it can speak a peace or joy that none can crush none can hinder but under the greatest afflictions and persecutions a converted man may and doth enjoy the testimony of a good Conscience Thou art upright saith Conscience to Hezekiah on his sick-bed Thou fearest God saith Conscience to Job under the loss of all Thou lovest Christ saith Conscience to Paul even in the Prison Object 2. Now to the second Objection That converting But conversion brings us into a narrow path it is an enemy to many delights Grace brings the person into a narrow path and under the strictest rules even such as condemn a multitude of joys and delights how can that condition be so joyfull which denies and abridgeth c Sol. To this I answer 1. It is granted That converting Grace brings the person into Answered There is a strictness required a very narrow path and under very strict rules A converted man must not walk as other men he must not allow himself to think and desire and love and speak and act as formerly He must fear to sin he must love the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might he must order his steps by the Word of God he must deny himself and crucifie his dearest lusts and not shun the hardest duty nor delight in the least iniquity 2. But then This strictness is no adversary to his true joy In This strictness is no adversary to true joy keeping of thy commandments there is great reward saith David Psal 19. 11. Great peace have they who love thy law Psal 119. 165. As many as walk according to this rule peace be on them and mercy upon the Israel of God Gal. 6. 16. I beseech you to consider four things 1. Let thine own Conscience judge whether it be not a more comfortable course to obey God then to disobey God to have grace to serve God acceptably then to have an heart still free and ready to dishonour and provoke God Who hath most true comfort the bones sound and in place or broken to walk on the Land or to be troubled at Sea the Child who runs away from his Father or the Child who waits upon his Father the Child that desires to please or the Child that continues to grieve and vex the wandring and famished Prodigal or the returning and embraced Son Hos 2. 7. I will return to my first Husband for then it was better with me then now 2. Rightly understand what it is strictly to walk with God It is an endeavour in your affections and duties to draw near to God in all well-pleasing and to answer the will of God The Christians course of obedience it is his daily communion with his God in this life When thou prayest what is Praying but a divine conference of the soul with God and when thou hearest what is this but a divine conference of God with the soul and when thou repentest what is that but a recovery and return of the soul to God and when thou believest what is that but the recumbency of the soul on the goodness of God and when thou receivest the Sacrament what is it but a communion a feasting with Jesus Christ If a strict walking be nothing but a divine and heavenly communion with God why doest thou how darest thou to judge of it as the onely Bar to shut out all joy and comfort Was there ever any affectionate Wife that thought it an injury to her Joy to speak with her Husband or to enjoy the society of her Husband Was there ever any faithfull Friend who thought it a misery a burthen to enjoy the society of his Friends to open his heart unto his Friend How then can it be a prejudice to any mans joy to enjoy communion with his God 3. Consult with experience which hath travelled in the strict ways of God either thine own experience if any which day of thy life hath been closed up with heartiest joy whether the day of licentiousness or the day of strictness That day which thou hast let out to thy lusts hath made the night a trembling to thee that day which thou hast redeemed for walking with God hath always given unto thee the sweetest rest and repose at night The experience of godly people have any of them ever found more soul rejoycing then when they have abounded in strictest obedience This is thy burthen but it is their delight the purest walking hath distilled the sweetest joy and their looser walking hath been the cause of their greatest sorrows It is with a strict Christian as with the Sun which still keeps to the Ecliptique Line and is of all the Stars the most glorious and comfortable when it is at the highest and the higher Sun the purer and warmer light And it is with the loose Christian as with the uneven foot the wry stepping is the cause of unjoynting or pinching and paining 4. The strict walking what is it but a path to everlasting life every step of it is a step to heaven Strait is the gate which leads unto life saith Christ There is an easie way for men to walk in but that 's the way to hell and what comfort is it after all to go to hell to go to hell with ease There is a strict way for men to walk in but it is the way to life to eternal life Now even that alone is sufficient to create joy that these steps after a while will bring me to appear before the God of Gods in Sion and truly there is no end whatsoever the which if it be in it self amiable and comfortable but it darts also an amiableness and comfortableness upon all the steps and paths which tend unto it 3. Lastly Converting Grace doth not condemn or deny any lawfull Converting grace denies not any lawfull joy
over-rule the The heart of a sinner may be above his miseries heart or to mend it As it was with Gallio when the Jews did beat Softhenes and kept a stir the Text saith He cared not for any of those things i. they made no prevailing impression on him so as to divert his purpose In like manner may it be with the miseries which personally befal a man his heart notwithstanding may not regard them neither may he lay things to heart they may be thrown off in respect of any beneficial impression as water from a rock as is evident in Pharaoh and in the Jews see Isa 42. 25. He hath powred upon him the fury of his anger and the strength of battel and it hath set him on fire round about yet he knew it not and it burned him yet he laid it not to heart Here was anger and fury of anger and poured out and so as to set him on fire and to burn him yet he laid it not to heart If you should take dross and corrupt stuff and put it into the fire you shall never refine it it is to no purpose the founder in such a case would melt but in vain Jer. 6. 29. so in this case For the proper operation of all miseries is onely moral and rather reâ—resentative then effective i. they can of themselves do nothing perhaps they may point a man to his sins but his heart may effectually resist that evidence of sin by the rod of God as well as by the word of God Look as it is with the Light of the Sun though great and gentle yet it never opened a blind mans eyes nor yet the Lightning which runs swiftly in the time of Thunder For that natural privation exceeds the strength of such Agents So it is with a sinner his heart may so cleave to sin that neither the Light of the Sun I mean the blessed Word of God nor yet the Lightnings and Thunders of afflictions may divorce him so great may the power of sinfull love be that not the kindest mercies nor the sharpest miseries alone shall ever be able to melt him or turn him The love of sin may increase even an incorrigible and desperate perversness in the Will such perversness that the afflicted sinâ—er possibly may be so far from leaving his sins that therefore he will cleave to his sins the more and in a proud despite will forsake God as that prophane person This evil is of the Lord why should he wait for him any longer 2 Kin. 6. 33. 4. Lastly Miseries do not always bring men off from their sins Mâ—n hate holiness more then miseries because Men hate holiness and a godly life more then miseries i. There is a greater contrariety twixt their sinfull natures and holiness then twixt them and miseries it is confessed that misery in some respect is contrary to nature at least to the peace and ease of nature yet misery is not so distastfully contrary to a wicked nature as holiness and godliness Sin can live and rule whiles the sinner is under misery but it never can do so when he is under grace You know that a man never can turn from sin but when he loves holiness now holiness is that which many a sinfull heart like Paul before his conversion persecutes to the death Why if some sinfull hearts will venure the loss of heaven rather then they will be holy will they not rather then endure the loss of friends and estate c. and if they will adventure the pains of hell rather then they will come off unto an holy life will they not rather endure some temporal distresses c. and doth not this shew that some had rather be passive in misery then active in holiness Now I proceed to the usefull Applications of all this to our selves Where 1. for Information Do not straits and miseries always Vse 1. Information bring men off from their sins then 1. An afflicted condition is no infallible testimony of a safe condition Some people are of an opinion that if God doth punish An afflâ—cted condition no infallible testimony of a safe condition them in this life in crosses losses sicknesses penuries c. they have all their portion of misery already and undoubtedly shall besaved To which I reply 1. Though as the Israelites came at length to Canaan through the Red Sea and through the wilderness so a person may after many afflictions and miseries come to heaven Heaven can admit of a poor Lazarus and of a distressed Job and of a pursued David 2. Yet it is not always so A person may be under many miseries and notwithstanding them he may never be happy the meer presence of miseries is of common providence and not a distinguishing priviledge by what is before us whether outward good or outward evil we can know neither love nor hatred but as it is with the Ships at sea whether of the Kings Loyal subjects or of hostile pirats either of them are exposed to winds and storms to leaks and rocks and sands so is it with good men and bad men each of them are exposed to outward calamities as each of them are capable of outward mercies there may be a change in their outward condition when yet there is no change in their inward dispositions Job may hold fast his uprightness under all his miseries and Pharaoh may retain his hardness under all his Judgments And where the sinful affection and practice is still retained he shall not be free because of his present miseries but for ever rejected because of his continued iniquity 2. That the Conjunction twixt Sin and the sinful soul is very The Conjunction betwixt sin and the soul is very strong strong For as much as very great straits and miseries effect nothing many times You see here that though the Prodigal had spent all and a famine yea a great famine arose over the Land in which he was yet he is so far from returning and giving over his sinful course that he does not so much as think of it or mind it assuredly the Covenant of affection is very firm which cannot be untied with the fairest promises nor with the severest indurances When the Lord shall come to a sinner meet him in his course and way and because of his contempts and rebellions distrein his estate and goods and then lay an Attachment of sickness on his body and more then this indite him for his life by the summons of death And yet neither the loss of all the Mercies which once he had nor the presence of all the Evils which now he feels neither the poverty of his Table nor the rags on his Back nor shivering in his Bones nor anguish in his Conscience no nor appearance of Death nor yet the roâ—râ—sentations of Hell do turn him from his sinful affections and courses judge whether the tree be not tough which no Wedge can cleave and the disease be not
thee and will not a worse judgment then attend us for worse sinnings It is with divine punishments as with the messengers of a displeased King who in his name summons us to yield and become loial and if you despise a few messengers they indeed may return but then more and greater are sent perhaps not to parley but to destroy If one punishment brings not off from sin it doth onely go back to fetch a greater and thou canst not tell but that the next messenger may be death itself and then somthing worse then dearh The last use which I will observe from this point is since miseries do not alwaies bring men off from sins therefore to apply Vse 3. Apply our selvs to such waies under our miseries as may bring us off from our sins In general A sanctified heart A sanctified use In particular 〈◊〉 Repentance our selves to such waies and to get those things under our miseries which may bring us off from our sins In the general two things are available hereto 1. A sanctified heart until the heart be sanctified can it possibly break off from sin 2. A sanctified use you must not be sensless nor yet impatient but under every hand of God seek for direction and blessing from God Secondly in particular I conjecture these things mainly conduce 1. Repentance which you know takes into it these branches 1. Serious consideration of the present condition and of the end of present afflictions 2. Solid humiliation 3. Earnest praier 4. Effectual reformation 2. Love of God and more intire communion and delight in him and with him Afflictions will drive you off from Love of God God unless you love him Even a small stroke is enough to mend and bring in a loving child 3. Faith to believe our pardon and acceptance Nothing more avails with the soul to leave the course Faith of sin then when it can be assured if it comes back to God it shall receive the pardon of sin Therefore God generally propounds to his afflicted people an hope of mercy as the great motive to bring them home from sin to himself by true repentance Joel 2 c. All which are wrought by the Spirit of God in the use of the Word and shall be given unto us if under our miseries and straits we do earnestly crie and pray unto the Lord. And he sent him into his fields to feed Swine You have heard of the Prodigals design under his misery to relieve himself he did not return to his father but joined himself to a citizen of a far country Now yee are to hear of the success of this design how much it mended his poor and famished condition viz. nothing at all and that will appear in two particulars One in the basestness of his service That citizen sent him into his fields to feed swine Of all creatures the most nasty and filthy these must he serve and none but these his whole service was to be base and therefore he is sent into the fields to perform it any houshold-service and homeservice though mean had been tolerable Another in the nothingness of his reward or wages he did the basest service and without the least husk of paiment for it follows in vers 16. That he fain would have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat and no man gave unto him If he had had any thing afforded either to have nourished or to have procured nourishment though it had been but mean nay the meanest but to have nothing at all for the fordidest service of all yet this was the fruit of his sinful design that he was set upon a most base work and without any profit or relief at all whence I conjecture we may ohserve this Doct. 2. The further men go on in sin the worâ—e work it will prove Here is premised second conclusion That the further men go on in sin the worse work they shall find it to prove You see it a manifest truth here in the Prodigal his sin drew down his penury notwithstanding this he proceeds to his sins and now he is sent to the Swine c. For the better opening of this Assertion premise with me some few particulars 1. A supposition viz. That wicked men do use to go on in sin They are said in Scripture to proceed from evil to worse and to A Supposition Wicked men use to go on in sin add drunkenness to thirst and to fill up the measure of iniquity and to know no shame and to revolt more and more and to grow Worse and worse 2 Tim. 3. 13. therefore is sin in them compared to a Canker which frets from place to place or eats up from part to part and to a fretting Leprosie which diffuseth it self 1 Tim. 2. 17. Levit. 13. 8. 1 Kin. 8. 38. 1 Cor. 5. 6. from a lesser to a larger compass and to a Plague which by degrees seizeth on all the spirits and to Leaven which spreads over all the lump And this is verified of them every way whether they live in ease or live in misery prosperity and ease do but flesh them the more adversiâ—y and punishments do not turn them at all smiles or frowns word or rod mercy or misery neither of them do alter but after both they yet put forth they will lanch further As he in the Proverbs concerning his Wine When I shall awake I will seek it yet again that may be said of evil men though they have felt many a smart blow from God for Prov. 23. 35. theâ—r sinnings already yet they will look back to this trade again they will still deal unjustly What David spake in another case they will fully act in this of Sin I will be yet more vile 2. A Posiâ—ion which is this Though after punishment they will be progressive in sin yet they shall never be successfull in sin A Position Tâ—ough after puâ—ishment men be progressive in sin yet they shall never be successfull They may renew their work but they shall never amend their wages they may set up again but they shall break again if they after so great a shaking will build upon the same foundation they shall find their future labours to end in the same ruine Nay that 's not all but as Joshuah's curse upon the man who should again build the City Jericho was that He should lay the foundation thereof in his first-born and in his youngest son he set up the gates of it Jos 6. 26. So will it prove to the person whose sins God did strive to demolish and overthrow by former punishments if he again will presume to set up the gates of them recover them to their strength by future love and further progress he shall be so far from being hereby more successfull that his condition doth become more fearfull he doth lay his foundation again in the ruine of his soul and shall build up the gates with
a greater curse from God Therefore you read of such who are entangled again That their latter end is worse then their beginning 2 Pet. 2. 20. Men are entangled again when either by the vigour of conscience or sharpness of affliction c. they have made a pause or stop but like the restrained River which climbs over the Dam so they get over these unto their course of sinning again Now saith the Apostle these men shall never better their estates nay they make them the worse the latter end of them or with them is worse then the beginning Thirdly know That by progress in sin after punishment Progress in sin makes the estaâ—e worse Formally the estate is worse Formally Judicially Eventually 1. Formally worse For if sin be it which makes the estate bad then more sinning must needs be that which makes the estate worse as on the contrary the additionals and incrementals of Grace i. when a man doth add one degree of grace to another and riseth in a better and a stronger and fuller acting of grace hereby the moral perfection of his soul is much more bettered and perfected so when the habits of sin admit of more love of sin more exercise of sin that a man doth go on from one sin to another by way of addition or in the frequent practise of the same sins by way of iteration he cannot but make his sinfull nature much more sinfull more filthy and more vile as when a man doth twine one thread upon another or one cord upon another he adds a greater strength unto it so when a man shall rowl and file one sin upon another c. by further progress in sin the very pollutions are more spread and more established and more enlarged by it a man is always more under the pollution of sin and more under the dominion of sin as the Proselytes were made ten times more the children of the Devil 2. Judicially worse which appears in two particulars viz. Judicially In a Dereliction on Gods part 1. In a Dereliction on Gods part he doth more sadly leave such a soul give it up to its own lusts and its own vile affections and unto Satan to rule mightily and efficaciously in such a child of disobedience who loves to adventure in a known way of curse and misery so that the Lord may withdraw himself and desert that progressively sinning soul and not aid and assist it in case of most horrible lusts or of most hideous temptations 2. In Condemnation In Condemnation on Consciences part on Consciences part For the progress in sinnings as at any time so after the time of punishment for sin will make and raise a louder cry and a fiercer sentence from the conscience A man who will not repent for the lashes on his back shall by his continuance in sin quickly feel the lashes of Scorpions in his soul as more guilt doth arise from sinfull practices so more horrour doth ensue upon more guilt more guilt is but like a great storm at Sea or like a great raging of a disease 3. Eventually worse My meaning is that by his continued sinnings he shall not onely continue but much more enlarge his Eventually outward miseries and straits and punishments I will punish you yet seven times more Levit. 26. Pharaoh still hardned his heart but God still followed him with sorer Judgments destruction of Verba Verberâ— Vulnerâ— his fields and then of his cattel and then of his children and at length of his own life As it is with a Bird in a Net the more she flutters and stirs the more is she hamper'd and involved so it is with the sinner the more he stirs on in a sinfull way the more doth he enwrap and intrap too himself with greater mischief The Israelites did begin to murmur against God and God then as it were did privately correct and chastize them afterwards they did revolt from God and then he did let loose some of the Canaanites and Midianites upon them who did greatly distress them at length they grew common in Idolatry and very audacious in their Rebellions against God and then they were carried away captive by the Babylonian Armies So that if you read the History of them you shall evidently discern that every further sinning of theirs was nothing else but a further engaging of themselves unto greater calamities and as it were an adding to more cords wherewith they were more held and beaten If you now demand the Reasons or causes why that the further men go on in their sinning after punishment the worse work Reasons they shall find it to prove I answer the Reasons thereof may be these 1. Sin is a most barren and unprosperous thing Who hath Sin is a barren and unprosperous thing hardned himself against God and prospered said Job 9. 4. his meaning is this that sinning is no prosperous and thriving way It cannot be that a man should go on in sin and yet meet with prosperity and good success and therefore Solomon saith expresly He that hardneth his heart shall fall into mischief Pro. 28. 14. So that sinning is not onely not prosperous but it is also mischievous it will do a man a mischief somtime or other Can a man gather grapes of thistles said our Saviour It cannot be for thistles produce blossomes according to their kind of a filthy and sharp quality But as for Grapes which are of a sweet and refreshing and delighting nature and virtue they come not from such a root as a Thistle Comfort and blessing and peace and prosperity and good success these cannot grow from a sinfull course the land of sin is always a land of famine and barrenness and watered onely with clouds of wrath and set with thorns of vengeance a land wherein a person must not look to see good So that what the Lord said of Coniah Write that man childless the same may be affirmed of every sinfull way It is a barren an accursed an unprofitable an unsuccessfull way No way to better but the onely way to increase wrath and punishment to the sinner 2. Nay sin is not onely a barren thing unable to produce Sin is a very provoking thing any good or blessing but sin is also a very wicked thing and provoking The sinnings of men are the provocations of God to wrath and punishment and the more sinnings are still the greater provocations How long saith God to Moses of the Israelites Will they provoke me Look as the froward and perverse walking of a child provokes the parent i. stirs up his displeasure and anger So the sinnings of men they do provoke the Lord by them unto jealousie and wrath and stir up his displeasure against them therefore it cannot be but that if men go on further in sinning they should find a worse thing of it for every sinning is but as it were a further kindling of the fire and a new incensing and
as great plagues as he did on Pharaoh and should they come as thick on thee as on him or any that ever thou didst read of yet if the Lord did not give thee a sanctified heart or if the Lord did not co-operate with the afflictions in a sanctifying way thou wilt be so far from desisting that thy heart after a while will grow as wicked as before It is not absolutely the punished soul nor is it absolutely the troubled conscience nor is it absolutely all that we can see or say which will divert our future course of sinning but it is the sanctified heart the new heart which will make us to leave old sins and live new lives Therefore to the Lord must we go under our afflictions and beseech him to open our ear to discipline and to purge away our iniquities and to make us partakers of his holiness and so to cause us to bring forth the more peaceable fruits of righteousness and note this That all this must be done not in a fit for a little time but habitually we must not cease confessing until we can heartilâ— mourn we must not cease confessing mourning praying until we find the Lord reconciled unto us and our hearts changed and renewed Now those sanctified Qualities which more specially a punished sinner should beg to divert him from progress in sin and to turn him Sanctified Qualities to be begged Hearty Contrition for sins past off from sin I conjecture are these 1. Hearty contrition for sins past He who is a merry Penitent proves an easie Delinquent if former sinnings be no Grief future sinnings will be no Fear he will never with stedfastness learn a good Course who can without mournfulness come off from a bad Way Beg of God for ever to make thee sensible and mournful 2. Real Conversion That the very frame of the Mind Will and Affections be Real Conversion changed the Frame more then the Form that thou become a new Creature get a new heart and Spirit 3. A sincere love of A sincere Love to God God If thy heart knows not yet how to love God it never forgat how to go on in Sin there is nothing which heals the Soul of Sin so as the Love of God this sets the heart on him and makes it to cleave unto him and tender to please him 4. Solid fear of God A reverent awe both of his goodness Solid Fear of God and of his greatness this will strike off security and hardness and presumption and set us in Gods presence and keep the conscience tender and increase humbleness c. 5. Watchfulness over our special corruptions which if any will make us to Watchfulness over our speciall Corruptions halt soonest Do not forget how much they did provoke God already and how assuredly bitter they will prove if thou dost resume them And he fain would have filled his belly with the busks that the Swine did eat and no man gave unto him Vers 16. These words comprehend in them two things First The utmost design of the sinful Prodigal He would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the Swine did eat Secondly The utmost disappointment of that utmost design And no man gave unto him According to either of these there are two Propositions observable by us viz. That a sinner will go through and try the utmost extremities and wayes ere he will return from his sins 2. That nothing shall avail the shuffling and trying sinner untill he doth return from his sins When the Lord forsakes a man nothing avails to help a man That a sinner will try all wayes and go through the utmost extremities ere he will return from his sins The Prodigal here Doct. 1. A sinner will try all wayâ—s to the utmâ—st extremities ere he will return from his sins spends all yet he returns not he is pinched with famine yet he returns not he joyns himself with a Citizen and he sends him to feed Swine yet doth he not return if he could have got but the husks which the Swine did eat husks are but poor empty light things miserable nourishment but if he could have made any shift any way to have supported himself he would not have returned unto his Father Thus you read of Pharaoh that though there were a Climax of plagues upon him and wonders of ruine upon his Land and Cattel and Servants rising like a Tide and Flood yet till it came to his first-born and the next stroke was to reach his own life he would not obey the Voice of the Lord in letting of Israel go like obstinate defendants in a City which will lose one Outwork after another and suffer the Undermining of their Walls ere they will come to terms of Capitulation So we read of the Israelites before the Captivity how extremely they did endure a very succession of Judgments and variety of strange punishments before they would return Amos 4. 6. Cleanness of teeth and want of bread yet have they not returned to me saith the Lord. Ver. 7. Rain was withheld and great scarcity was there of water yet Ver. 8. Have ye not returned to me Ver. 9. Smiting with blasting and mildew and the Palmer worm yet c. Ver. 10. Pestilence after the manner of Egypt and the Sword yet have ye not returned Ver. 11. Overthrowing some of them as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrha and pulling some of them as a firebrand out of the burning yet have ye not returned unto me saith the Lord. And thus was it with them after the Captivity all the famine and miseries which they suffered in the Siege where the mothers were forced to eat their children of a span long Lam. 2. And all the merciless devourings of the sword and all the kinds of destroying sicknesses did not turn them to the Lord against whom they had sinned but after all they spend the utmost of their pollicies for safety running into Egypt flying unto Ashur they tryed all sorts of fruitless confidences before they would return unto the Lord therefore doth the Lord threaten to hedge their ways with thorns and to make a wall that they shall not find their paths Hos 2. 6. i. he would cast them upon such a condition that they should not go any further or if they did they should have little ease they should walk as upon thorns upon continual prickings and woundings and all this must be done before they will return to their first husband vers 7. Now for the clearer opening of this Assertion consider of these particulars 1. That it is to be understood of the natural temper of the sinner The sinner may be considered two wayes under extremities As This is to be understood of the natural temper of the sinner effectually assisted by the preventing grace of God which is of surpassing vertue to renew the soul and to conquer its stubbornness and aversness and effectually to perswade and draw in the
heart to yield unto God and to give up its weapons of lusts The which grace if God infuseth at any time whether before or under or after afflictions then the sinner doth not wander in the paths of perversness nor doth he hold out so long but in stead of trying all ways to continue in his sins he will speedily assay all the ways to be freed from them As left unto his own corrupt spirit and the projects contrivances and ways thereof And thus it is with him like a besieged enemy which will retreat from hold to hold and dispute every inch of ground before he will give up the City So is it with the sinner his heart will devise one defence after another and he hath yet another shift though he be many times hardly beset in his name or in his estate or in his body yea or in his conscience And God doth narrowly watch over him and doth spoil him of his many false confidences and deals more smartingly with him to yield and return yet he hath not onely much subtilty of spirit behind to delude all but also he hath exceeding stubbornness of spirit to oppose all the means which are used for his conversion 2. We must distinguish of the ways whereby God doth deal with a sinner which are of two sorts Some are Victorious ways Distinguish of the wayes whereby God doth deal with a sinner wherein the Lord undertakes the conquest of the heart himself by the immediate power of his own grace to pluck down strong holds and to cast down high imaginations upon which as the conversion of a sinner doth infallibly ensue so likewise presently and speedily for this way exceeds the strength of rebellion in sin and in despite of it overcomes the heart It is the stronger man dispossessing and the stronger hand pulling us out of the powers of darkness Others are Moral wayes which consist onely in external means not in the infusing of grace but rather in the proposal of it and invitations thereto by counsel reproof threats rewards and seconding this proposal with some or many miseries the Proposition That a sinner will use all the wayes and methods ere he will return from his sins is to be understood onely when God deals with him in a moral way by the presence of means onely not otherwise for which his corrupt heart may be too strong 3. We must distinguish of turning from sin It is two-fold either Distinguish of turning from sin Hypocritical and feigned and thus many times at the first upon the very denunciation of a Judgement as Ahab or upon the perception of it as Jeroboam when his hand was struck evil men may seem to confess and to grieve and to forsake sin and to seek unto the Lord and pretend to serve him Real and solid when the heart is truly affected with a sound detestation of sin and the occasions thereof and with a sincere affection of love to God and endeavour of new obedience Though the former may be acted by the sinner without the applying of himself to the utmost extremities yet the latter is not 4. There are two sorts of sins in a person Some which are more useless either for the profit or for the pleasure of the sinner There are two sorts of sins in a person they are not the favourites Others are more special which are wrought into singular affection the custome of practise and the much experience of their damnable delights and revenues have exceedingly indeared the soul unto them Though a sinner might more easily be upon parting terms with an unprofitable servant an unserviceable sin yet when the divorce is to be made twixt him and his special lust the sin of his love and affection the sin which lies in his bosome this he will not easily part with A man will endure much pain ere he will part with his right hand or suffer his right eye to be pluckt out he will stir much and rage much and project much and adventure much ere he will be perswaded to let this Benjamin go from him 5. There are two kinds of subsistence One is comfortable wherein There are two kinds of subsistence a person hath many supports even of a chearfull and a plentifull living his cup runs over and his head is anointed with oil Another is ubsolute when there is no more then to keep soul and body together The proposition is true even in this latter sense That a sinner though God doth shave off and suspend all the comforts of his life and doth reduce him so short that there remains no more then upon what he can live if there remains but any one sprig on which he can take hold if he can devise any one method of safety so that he may imagin I shall yet live and be safe though I go on in sin he will not turn in unto God now and leave his sins but will live the basest of lives rather then he will relinquish the worst of lives a sinful life he will walk in rags and beg his bread and leave all his friends and become an out-cast and a comparison of the most ignoble and infamous wretches rather then c. 6. This proposition holds true of all sorts of extremities Inward This true of all sorts of Extremities in those of conscience a sinner oft-times will rather endure the sharp edge of the Word which speaks nothing but wrath and bitterness yea he will live under the galling Items severe frowns bitter accusations intolerable scourgings and terrours and condemnations of his conscience though his conscience many times upbraids him in society amazeth him asleep terrifies him in the dark condemns him for a wretch and claps on him the apprehensions of Hell which makes the foundation of his soul to quake yet it falls out frequently that he will not turn from his sinful course Outward in all the kinds of misery A mans sinful wayes may be like the putrifyings of the hody which beget the worms that eat it out and consume it so the sinnings of a person many times do rot and consume his name yea all his estate yea all his amity yea all his strength and yet through the affectionate combination of his heart with sin he may rather indure infamy scorns poverty desertion of friends famine and nakedness any thing rather then he will leave his sin the wicked know no shame Pharaoh did not set his heart for all this c. 7. Lastly This is true not only in a transcient and passionate This true not only in a transient and passionate sense But in a more permanent and deliberate sens sense when through the rage of some present distemper and fury a person will hear no counsel this is true of Nations as well as Persons nor regard any dealing but is violently on a sudden carried away with the strong tide or storm rather of his foolish mind and passions But it holds true likewise
moved to endure much in his body for the preservation and defence of it for sin is an evil thing and therefore worthless Or 2. Because any sin is less evil then misery and therefore this shall be endured rather Noâ— because any sin is less evil then misery But because The sinner doth exceedingly love his sin then that shall be forsaken But 1. The sinner doth exceedingly love his sin The heart of a sinner is set on his sin he hath made a Covenant with death and an agreement with hell He loves darkness and is held fast with the bonds and cords of his sinful affections A person doth many times suffer pains sharper then death because he doth exceedingly love life Why a sinner loves his sin as he loves his life nay more then his life the which he doth often hazard for ever to preserve his sin 2. The sinner is a Fool Put a fool never so oft in the Stocks it doth The sinner is a Fool. him no good he understands not the cause nor end of it Evil men are chastized and punished by God but they know not nor understand they know not that their sins are the cause thereof and that Conversion from sin is the end thereof 3. There is a marvellous stout Spirit of pride in the sinner who is therefore said to There is a stout spirit of pride in a sinner fight against God and to resist him and though he be smitten yet to refuse to return and wilfully to transgress and that they will not hearken Stifnecked are they called and foreheads have they which cannot be ashamed and faces that cannot blush 4. A vain presumption From a vaine presumption that yet their sinful wayes shall be well at last From the Contrariety betwixt the wayes of God and the Sinners heart that yet their sinful wayes shall be well at last It is but bearing a while and at length their calamities will off He who goes on in a sinful way is never without some sinful project and chimeraes silly fancies of some good and some support and wearing out of his troubles c. 5. There is a bitter contrariety twixt the wayes of God and the sinners heart Light and darkness are not more opposite hence is it that in Job they say unto God Depart from us we desire not the knowledg of the Almighty And in Psal 2. They break the cords in sunder And Heb. 10. They are said to offer despight unto the Spirit of Grace Holiness and holy walking ah it is that which their hearts hate more then hell they will adventure their damnation before they will affect and practice holiness no greater burden and torment to them then it 6. And sometimes Unbelief may be a special cause why a sinner doth thus shift and From unbeliefe try The guilt of his sins under his afflictions may lie heavy upon his conscience and he may be so wholly taken up with the apprehension of wrath and judgment and an implacability in God towards him that God will never shew him mercy who hath been so much and so long provoked that it is in vain to return now there is no hope 7. The Vanity of a corrupt Judgment which deludes From the Vanity of a Corrupt Judgment the sinner as if he could be sinful and safe or that he could subsist well enough without returning to God Now I proceed to the Application of this point the Uses are many 1. For Conviction of Error in Judgment Use 1. Conviction It is no easie work to Repent 1. That it is an easie work to Repent and to leave sin When I am sick or come to dy then I will think of that work No brethren if the heart of man be of so subtil a temper and so perverse a frame can afflictions do it of themselves if the love of sin be so strongly in grain that many waters of afflictions cannot wash it out nor many beams of mercy melt and turn it you must then imagine it not to be an easie work to turn the heart from sin if it will adventure the loss of heaven and the endurance of hell and the actual presence of many sore calamities confess then That the descents into sin are easie but the returns from it are not ordinary or facile Faciles aditus Dificiles oxitus saith St. Austin More is required to Convert then External and Congruous Grace Where all the means tending to the Conversion of a sinner are opposed and as it were wholly defeated and frustrated there the heart is not so easily wrought upon to retâ—rn 2. That no more is required to Convert a sinner but External and Congruous Grace as if the heart were like a Fish upon the hook which might be drawn at pleasure to the shore or like Wax prepared and it were no more but to put on the Seal or as if to Convert a sinne were no more then to report a History or to offer a man a Purchase Nay but there must be likewise Impressions as well as Invitations not only Means but Grace it self not only the Rod and Word but likewise the Spirit of God and his mighty Operation not only a Voice saying This is the way but also the Spirit of God which must cause us to walk in that way there must be healing Medicines put within the Soul by the hand of God himself or else all the means in the world the Word the Sacraments the afflictions and miseries and examples may say and complain with the Prophet Isa 49. 4. I have laboured in vain I have spent my strength for nought 2. For Information 1. Of that excessive stubbornness and madness in the hearts of us sinners Good Lord what an hand hath sin Information Of the excessive stubbornness of the hearts of sinners over us That terrors should arise like an horrible tempest within the conscience for sinning and drive a man to his feet yea to the dust yea almost as low as hell That his sinning should pull down one calamity after another take away the dayes of peace of plenty of safety of health and darken them with war and tumults with scarcity and indigence with danger and trouble with losses and diseases cloath a mans body with rags fill a mans body with rottenness obscure a mans name with infamy and yet yet after all and under all that a person should hold fast his wickedness which is the cause of all and will not let it go he will not be weaned from it nor charmed No Mercy nor Justice nothing can dissolve the Covenant twixt his heart and sin but llke that Athenian Commander if I forget not the story who when he was threatned to let go the Ship held it when one hand was cut off he held it with the other when both were cut off he held it with his teeth The Lord be merciful to us thus is it with us though God threatens yet we sin though he
will not become obedient he can quickly destroy us for our disobedience There is a day wherein God offers himself to be ours in grace and peace how long or how short that day is I cannot justly determine onely of this we may bee sure that God may in justice refuse us for ever if we refuse him once Note these Scriptures and they may perhaps awaken and recall us Ezek. 24. 12. She hath wearied her self with lies and her great sâ—um went not forth out of her her scum shall be in the fire v. 13. In thy filthiness is lewdness because I have purged thee by afflictions and thou wast not purged by repentance thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee Ver. 14. I the Lord have spoken it it shall come to pass and I will do it I will not go back neither will I spare neither will I repent aocording to thy waies and according to thy doings shall they judge thee saith the Lord God Luke 19. ver 42. Oh! if thou hadst known even thou at the least in this thy day the things which belong unto thy peace but now they are hid from thine eies Hebr. 3. ver 10. I was grieved with that generation and said they do alwaies err in their hears and they have not known my waies Vers 11. So I sware in my wrath they shall not enter into my rest Psal 81. ver 11. But my people would not hearken to my voice and Israel would none of me v. 12. So I gave them up to their own hearts lusts and they walked in their own counsels These four places do afford us four sad things which may befal persons refusing to return from their sins and deluding that work 1. That the Lord will not still be usiâ—g of means 2. That he will draw off the means 3. He will leave such sinners and give them up to themselves 4. They shall never enter into his rest and this the Lord binds with an Oath Every one of these is a Judgment sufficiently fearfull for what shall become of the sinner when the Lord shall judicially draw off the means of his Conversion or if the means be continued in common to others yet he will not work any more upon that person through them but he shall despise the counsels of the Word and slight the message of all Afflictions and that a person should run so far and so high in a way of wickedness that the Lord gives him over as a desperate hopeless and forlorn wretch to walk in his own counsels and after the lusts of his own heart and when the Lord seals him up by his Oath that this is a person who shall never see my face though many a sinner shall be pardoned and saved yet this sinfull Transgressor shall never enter into my rest Now what doth the sinner know who seeks new ways to secure his sinning and opposeth thereby all the ways which God useth for his converting I say how doth he know but that the Lord will deal thus with him God hath dealt so with some for dealing thus with him he closed up the day upon Jerusalem and left the Israelites to their own hearts lusts and never answered Saul any more neither by Prophets nor by Dreams and threatens to remove the Candlestick Revel 2. 3. Consider That if the Lord should shew almost the Miracle of his Goodness towards such a shuffling sinner his Conversion The conversion of such a one will be will be 1. the Harder 2. the more Bitter It will be the Harder for as much as all further degrees and steps The Harder in sinning do engage the heart more to the love of sin and naturally infers more hardness of heart and resistance against the motions of Grace When a Skaine of Thread is more and more clotted and entangled it will be the harder to clear it and a Cord may be so knotted that you cannot undo it but by cutting it asunder Though the work of Conversion be not difficult to God yet the far running sinner shall find it for his part a more intricate and hitching thing to wind his heart from those acts and paths of iniquity into which it hath been so long accustomed However it will be the Harsher the child which sticks so often in the birth causeth the birth to be Or the harsher more sharp and dolorous Usually the more sinfull a man hath been and the longer he hath held off God his soul is more cut partly with Fears for now he hath many doors to unlock ere he can fasten on grounds of comfort not onely that he hath held on a course of sin so long but also that he hath so subtilly and frequently withstood the tenders of grace and Gods manifold dealings with him already Though the person may have grace truly wrought in him to make him see all this vileness yet it may be long ere his faith shall be able comfortably to apprehend Gods mercy to forgive it He may have doubts not onely of mercy but of the truth of his conversion as if it seemed rather to be compulsive God may long withhold from him the testimony of his love who hath a long time perversly withheld the consent of his heart from returning unto him Partly with Shame It will be an exceeding reproach and confusion of face unto this person when ever the Lord converts him that he should deal with the Lord thus resist his Spirit so much and withstand that great kindness of God intended to him by the many means which he hath used Surely after that I was turned I repented saith Ephraim and after that I was instructed I smote upon my thigh I was ashamed yea even confounded because I did bear the reproach of my youth Jer. 31. 19. Then shall ye remember your own evil ways and your doings that were not good and shall loath your selves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations Ezek. 36. 31. Ah! how it will rent and press the soul Such a fool such a beast was I to pursue my own ruine to reject my own mercies to slight so great salvation to vex so good a God and to be so infinitely unthankfully base that if I could have found any means of support I would never have submitted unto him and left my sinfull course Ah! how doth the Lord take this at my hands how unacceptable may my returning now be which may seem rather to be forced through extremity than to spring out of any ingenuity So that you see by our sinfull shiftings either God may deny us converting grace or else we shall make our Conversion much less easie and comfortable Object But some may say What can we help it can we turn our own hearts it must be the Lord who must do that and he We cannot convert our selves might do it at the first as well at at the last if he would Sol.
are but stolen waters and at the best but for a season they will end bitterly and on the contrary That Repentance from sin makes way for the most precious fountains of the most living comforts that it enables a man for a nearer conjunction with the truest happiness and fulness of most infinite goodness and lets in to such pleasures and joyes which pass all understanding c. Now the soul is reduced to a right judgment and begins to contemn those false vain deluding temptations by sin and is carried off to another course or way which will afford the real solid superlative advantages in happiness and comfort c. 2. This Comparison will win our love and affection to a Converted and penitent condition It is true that as long as the heart loves This wins our love to a converted condition sin it will never leave it for love is an iron clasp a strengthning quality a strong and tenacious quality but if a mans love be changed then his sinfull wayes will quickly be changed for that way doth the heart and life go that love doâ—h go they are not out who say that Amor is Radix actionum as well as Passionum Now by a right comparison of estates there will appear in a converted and penitent condition the sole and sufficient causes of Love viz. Good and the best good and only good and most proper and sutable good all which is apt to draw love and consequently Repentance for as much as Conversion from sin begins in love to God 3. This comparing of estates in the wofulness of the one and This occasionally stirs up the beat to fly to God by Prayer and in the use of meanes in the happiness of the other that the one is death and the other is life as Moses propounds it to the Israelites occasionally stirs up the heart to fly unto God by prayer and in the use of other means for grace and ability to leave the paths of death and to walk in the wayes of life for naturally men do affect life and happiness and are afraid of death and misery The first Use which I would make of this shall be for Information Use For information Of the cause why many are yet in their sins You here see the Cause why many are yet in their sins that they repent not though we preach though God punisheth though man counsels Surely they never yet did search their hearts and wayes they never did consider of what they have done they are like the Laodiceans who thought themselves to be rich and increased and to stand in need of nothing but they never yet saw their blindness nakedness and extreme poverty and misery There are many duties unto which men will be perswaded as to hear the Word receive the Sacrament give some Almes say some Prayers and now and then to confer of some good but of all the duties which do so nearly concern them they are hardly perswaded to this viz. to consider of their sins 't is true they will confess That all men are sinners and themselves too but as some do with their debts they care not to see and view them so many with their spiritual estates they have no mind to search into them to look them over to meditate of the Vileness of them Consider these things 1. That this inconsideration leaves many a sin already committed upon a sad account God doth consider Considerations to such as doe not Consider their wayes them though we will not they are in his book and before his eye though we will not think and look on them 2. That it ripens sin exceedingly The heart which will not consider of past will break out into sin future it will be high in sinning if negligent in considering he will venture deeply who knows not the nature nor the merit of sinning 3. All the work of Repentance will lye flat and dead Why where can be that brokenness of heart that filial lamentation for sinning that remorse of spirit that indignation that detestation of it that resolution against it that watchfulness and fear until by a sound consideration we come to see the vileness and miserableness of sinning c. He who thinks his way right will not turn aside and that man who knows no better will never leave or change a bad course 4. You advantage Temptations exceedingly You are under the edge and power of them all for you see nothing to hinder you the motions to sin will pass without any contradiction for you know not the evil nor misery of being impenitent Great sins will seem but little little will seem none how easie is he to sin who considers not the great evil in sin 5. All the edge of the Ordinances is blunted and dulled by inconsideration they are but water on the Tiles which passe away For what are Threatnings against sin what operation have they on us to make us tremble and humble our hearts whiles we hear them as Pieces discharged at others not at our selves And so what force have the Precepts for new Obedience or the Promises for much mercy to the Penitent until we see that we are the men as Nathan said to David whom all this concerns 6. You will never prize Christ aright nor the love of God in giving of Christ nor will you ever seek him to purpose with hungrings and thirstings until you do seriously consider of your sinful estates A man if whole will not seek to the Physician and if he hath but a scratch will not send to the Chyrurgion No sense or slight sense of sin hath no influence on ouâ— affections but let a man sadly view and find out that he is bad indeed out with God ready for Hell must perish for sin this man will cry out Is there no Balm in Gilead is there no hope for us sinners He will enquire for a Saviour and when he knows him he will with tears beseech him O the hope of Israel and the Saviour thereof in the time of Trouble Master have mercy on me or else I perish if thou canst do any thing save me 7. You will never come to any true setledness nor grounded assurance of peace with God nor in your own Consciences until you do throughly consider of your sinful conditions and estates For how know you whether you be good or bad in Covenant or out of Covenant with God that he will save you or condemn you what shall become of you when you die Untill you by solid Consideration find out the vileness and miserableness of your sinful condition out of which you must indeed be translated if ever you would be saved or know assuredly that you shall be saved 8. You will not know how to make special requests unto God For you know not the nature nor danger of that pride of that hypocrisie of that uncleanness of that envy and malice c. which are in you When we do not know what our selves
are what our estates are we can never make special requests for the supply of special wants either we make no prayers at all or only general and faint and flat Petitions 9. Lastly If you will not think on your wayes with a Penitential Consideration you must one day think on them with a Judicial Consideration T is better to consider of them now and Repent then to feel them and find them in Hell and be Damned Object But you 'l say We are Ignorant and it belongs to This belongs to such as have learning such as have Learning to consider throughly of their sinful estates Sol. 1. It doth indeed belong to the Learned but not only to them A learned conscience is necessary for every sinner though not a Answered learned head the Subject who should consider is not the learned man but the lamed sinner art not thou one 2. God hath given thee a Reflexive Faculty a conscience a memory inabling thee to review what hath been done thou hast these still in thee and thou canst make use of them for other businesses why not in this 3. But then study the Word more that thou mayest thence be inlightned to conceive of sin aright c. get knowledg get understanding c. Obj. But we are not at Leisure we have so much business to do c. We are not at leisure Sol. 1. This is a most necessary work it deserves thy pains and time What not at leisure to save thy soul at leisure Answered to eate to drink to play to be idle to sin and not at leisure to consider of sin to repent of sin to save thy self from sin Have you leisure to go to Hell and none to goe to Heaven 2. It is a most Beneficial work it will deliver thee from Hell and make way for Heaven 3. It is the mâ—st excellent work that thou canst spend time upon the change of thee from Sin to Grace from a sinful to an holy condition it is a glorious change even into the Image of God in Christ Object But it will make me nothing but mourn and sigh and Object It will make me morne despair and fear Answered despair and fear Sol. 1. So Satan tells thee so doth not God nor his Word tell thee 2. If consideration of Sin breeds godly sorrow for Sin and Godly sorrow Repentance unto Salvation thou hast little cause to grieve to be thus grieved 3. Nay the neglect of timely consideration that is the cause indeed of such fear and despair O say men had we thought of this course known this heretofore we had never run on so we had never come into this extremity of horror c. It is with sin as it is with diseases if taken or not taken in time Another Use which I would make of this Point shall be of Use 2. To Settle and Relieve Troubled Souls Satisfaction to settle and relieve troubled Souls who fear much whether they have ever throughly and rightly considered thus of sin or no and consequently fear the truth of their Repentance For the fuller satisfying of them I will propound some Cases the Resolution of which may afford more clear Some Cases Resolved for Satisfaction Case 1. How a man may know his Consideration is Right If it work in him a Condemnation of Sin light 1. How a Christian may know that his consideration of sin is right and penitential I conjecture thus 1. If it work in him a Condemnation of sin Before a man consider aright of sin he is ready to call the proud happy he knows how to commit sin and to approve it and defend it and plead for it Sin seems his daintiest bit and choicest bait as if nothing else bore delight and contentment but sin but when the heart is brought rightly to ponder and to consider of sin he is enabled not only to condemn sin in the general thus sin is an evil thing but also in particular these my sins are vile and evil things I have done exceeding foolishly said David O that I should ever open my mouth for them that ever I should love them follow them as I have done I now behold them as the only dishonour of God grief of his Spirit Violations of his Righteousness Injuries of his patience abuses of his goodness and mercies the speares in the heart of Christ the spots in my soul the wounds in my conscience c. It is one thing to look upon sin as a meer Object and it is another thing to look upon sin as a vile Object to look on sin as a meer Object this is but the natural act of the understanding which like the eye is ready to see all colours but to look on sin as a vile Object this is the work of a penitential understanding wherein a person sees so much intolerable and excessive foulness in his sinful wayes that he now condemns and judgeth those wickednesses and abominations and himself too for highest folly and madness for love service and obedience to them 2. If it work in him humiliation for sin we read of Peter If it work in him Humiliation for sin that he considered or thought on the words of Jesus and through them of his great sin in the denial of master but how did he consider of them What only by his simple reflection that Christ had forewarned him and that he had done evil in denying him Surely thus he thought but the matter went further then his thoughts he considered it in an affecting or rather in an afflicting way for the Text saith That when he had thought thereon he went out and wept bitterly There is a fourfold consideration of sin One is only a consideration of sin when a man thinks of sin as he hears a Sermon hear it only so think of it only and that 's all this is an empty consideration Another is a sinful consideration only when a man considers of sin in a sinful way either to boast of it or to excite his heart to more delight and propension to sin this is a guilty consideration A third is a Judicial consideration which ariseth from the promptings and suggestions of a conscience awakened now accusing and condemning and pursuing the sinner both with the remembrance of former sins and with the evidence of Gods present and future indignation A fourth is a Penitential consideration wherein upon the evidence of sinning the soul is sensible not to despair which breeds hopeless terror yet to repentance wherein it is exceedingly grieved and troubled and displeased for the sins committed If the consideration of sin be a dry act such an act as sets where it riseth only in the mind and hath no influence upon the affections if it be not a sympathizing act .i. such an act as works grief in the soul as well as discovery of evil in the mind it is but a vain thing and never conduceth to repentance for as it is with mercies
Repentance never to be repented of Hast thou rightly considered of sin why what art thou now doing where mayest thou now be found what course doest thou take to leave sin what helps doest thou apply thy self unto what occasions of sin doest thou decline what furtherances of a new life dost thou regard and use If there be no watchfulness over thy spirit no restraint to thy flesh no stoutness of resolution no separation from the occasions of sin no humble study and respect to the Word no fruitfull converse with holy society how is it that thou sayest thou hast considered thy sins Whether the consideration of sin may be right and available to Repentance when yet there are some sins which a man thinks not II. Case Whether Consideration of sin may be right when there are some sins that a man thinks not of Particular inconsideration if it be voluntary doth prejudice Repentance on To this I conjecture it may be thus answered 1. That actual or particular inconsideration if it be voluntary and affected doth prejudice Repentance For it is to be supposed that he who will not take the pains to think of his sins hath 〈◊〉 yet found an heart or a will to leave his sins Therefore consider that actual inconsideration may arise either From want of light or evidence the eyes of the mind are not yet so fully opened they are not so perfectly acquainted with the Law which discovers sin much sin they see but not all not that they would not but because they cannot so a weak eye hath not such clear and full sight Or From hypocrisie of will when means of evidence are present and commands of consideration are urged but either from a secret love of sin or from a laziness of spirit the person will not take pains to consider throughly of his manifold sins this kind of inconsideration being wilfull and affected will be interpreted for Impenitency because the person will not endeavour faithfully the wayes of Repentance 2. That the latitude of the Object considered doth not so immediately discover and decide as the efficacy and influence flowing from consideration it self Though I am not able to find out every particular wherein I do offend yet if by the consideration of those sins which I do consider of my heart doth melt and mourn and strives to loath and forsake them because they are sinfull If these drive me out of my self unto Christ if these occasion me earnestly to acquaint my self with God to beg for Reconciliation for Grace for Mercy for Strength c. though there be many sins which I have not actually thought on yet this may be a right and penitential consideration III. Case Whether a single Consideration of sin be sufficient to repentance Another Case may be this Whether the Consideration of sin tending to Repentance must be frequent or Whether a single Consideration may be sufficient For the resolution of this Case thus 1. Divines distinguish of Repentance that Distinctions premised Repentance is either Initial or Gradual it is either Initial or Gradual The Initial Repentance is the first turning from sin nay the very first will and desire so to do with a purpose and endeavour to effect it The Gradual Repentance is the ripening and perfecting of Repentance in the degrees of all the parts of it 2. Again There is a two-fold consideration of sin One is solemn wherein the There is a twofold consideration of sin Solemn soul sequesters it self earnestly searcheth into the Law of God and into its own spirit and into the ways of Life perusing and reviewing the sinfull condition all over in the parts and kinds in the hainous circumstances and agravations and hereupon solemnly indites it self before the Lord by confessing judging c. Another is ordinary which is a daily looking Ordinary over the Book and perusing of the sinfull Accounts from time to time 3. You must distinguish twixt the Distinguish twixt the Grace of Repentance and the Act of it Grace or quality of Repentance and twixt the Act or exercise of Repentance the Grace is wrought onely by Gods Spirit the Exercise or operation is wrought and occasioned by consideration These things being premised I conjecture thus much 1. That solemn Consideration is necessary to initial Repentance Solemn consideration necessary to Initial Repentance The Heart is not effectually excited to the actual leaving of sin until it doth first seriously examine and try it self find out and ponder the vileness of its sinning and transgression slight thoughts work no more then slight confessions That we are all sinners and there 's an end but the heart must look on sin in the kinds circumstances hellish vileness of its thoughts if ever it will repent indeed 2. That ordinary consideration is necessary to gradual Repentance If ever you would perfect your Ordinary consideration necessary to Gradual Repentance Repentance you must ever think of your sins those that are past those that are present By ordinary consideration I do not mean a slight and perfunctory view of them but a daily view though not in length of time yet having the same disposition of heart to condemn and abhor them and quickning us more fervently to seek God for strength and to decline the occasions of sin and to grow more watchfull and tender c. If you do not ordinarily consider of the vileness of sin you will be ordinarily insnared by the deceitfulness of sin if you would enjoy constant victory and deliverance you must admit of frequent consideration As for the solemn Consideration that I conjecture is not necessary at all times but upon special occasions Either 1. Before we Solemn consideration not necessary at all times The times when it is necessary enter into some weighty business 2. When we lie under some weighty afflictions 3. When we are to die and make straight our weighty accounts 4. When we are more solemnly to meet the Lord and renew our Covenanâ—s with him as in the day of Humiliation or when we are to come unto the Sacrament Now are we more solemnly and seriously to consider of our sins partly 1. Because now the Lord Reasons of it considers them who come into his special presence how you come 2. Because you are seriously to renew your Repentance which you cannot seriously do without serious consideration 3. Because you are to renew your Covenants with God to keep a more serious watch c. Therefore now let us search our hearts try and consider of our ways renew our Repentance turn with all our strength unto the Lord put away iniquity far from us humble our selves low before the Lord confess our sins judge our selves thus if we do we shall find more strength in our Repentance more peace in our Consciences more sweetness in the Sacrament more confidence towards Christ and may comfortably expect the pardon of our sins and salvation by his bloud The third
necessary Again Sin is most subtile to alure us to entice us to put out our thoughts of Reformation How often doth it untwist the Cord and propound delights and pleasures some sweet baits or other which take us quite away from our private intentions How extremely doth it fill the heart with Unbelief that the Reformation of such a sin can never be and if we set upon it how strangely doth it amaze us that there is no hope of mercy and therefore we were better enjoy some pleasure a while then bitterness and anguish for ever 3. The heart is naturally deceitful and apt to turn or be turned The heart is naturally Dâ—ceiâ—ful A small thing will make the eye to shut and the very imagination of danger is enough to discourage many a man and to make him to recoyl A cunning man must be tyed in firm bonds We think that we will do much and suffer any thing but this we find that if the way be good we do not easily like it if it be long we are quickly weary of it if it be harsh we are ready to forsake it Now occurrents and accidents do ordinarily put on us new Intentions and Byasses 4. If you consider the frame and disposition of that new course of The frame of the new course of Godly walking Godly walking you will confess that a resolution is necessary for 1. It is spiritual and wholly heavenly 2. It is strict and must It is spiritual Strict be ordered by rule no room for any one sinful lust or way strait is the gate 3. It is opposite and contrary to that nature and will which is corrupt in us it is supra contra 4. It is difficult Opposite to corrupt nature Difficult and very high grace and supernatural works are hard to deny our selves our own righteousness c. 5. It is capable of such dangers which will not easily be digested even loss of life it Capable of great dangers Very laborious self 6. It is very laborious it must cost a man much study and search much care and watchfulness much prayers and many tears much self-denial and mortification much going out of himself and adventuring upon pure promises 7. Of necessity the soul must undergoe much if it will lead a godly life many The Soul must undergoe much for iâ— violent temptations from Satan inward conflicts with the love of sin outward persecutions from the world They that will live godly must suffer persecution Now tell me whether a firm resolution be not necessary when a man changeth to a course which is very spiritual and holy whereas before he lived in a course that was sensual and impure again into a course very strict and contrary to him in great part and very difficult and very dangerous and wherein he must be very industrious and go through many a sharp trial and brunt All the use which I shall make of this assertion shall be reduced Vse unto two heads 1. Of Exhortation 2. Direction 1. The Exâ—ortation is that as we do desire a real reformation of our sinful wayes so we strive to bring our hearts to a solid resolution Exhortation to bring our hearts to this Solid Resolutition Motives Six dangers of Irresolution You will not be free from strong temptation against them Two things I will propound as motives to edge this exhortation 1. The folly and inconvenience of an irresolute and tottering and hovering spirit viz. 1. Till you attain to a firm resolution you will never be free from strong temptations Faint denials are interpretative Encouragements as it is with the ill humours of the body they flock and resort to a crazy part So it is with Satans temptations they will ever be frequent where the heart is ready to embrace or not resolved to resist why shouldest thou expect that Satan should fall off when thou art yet irresolved to resist him that he should not be backward to tempt when thou art not resolved not to yield 2. Till you attain to a firm resolution you will never come to a firm peace Conscience cannot be clear in its testimony when we are indifferent in our You will never come to a firm â—eace purpose against sin Paul could say the evil that I would not doe thou canst not say so The decision of that estate will be under a cloud and you will be struck with more suspicions of hypocrisie and wrath while you come to be plain-hearted and resolute I will serve no sin any longer 3. Till you attain to a firm resolution you will be subject to the frequent intanglings of sin weak You will be subject to the enâ—anglings of Sin resolutions are like a weak child or a feather or like weak walls through which any bullet will flye Thou hast no armour on till thou be resolved any sinful occasion or opportunity is too hard for him whose heart is not clad with a peremptory denial How can he be stedfast who is not â—ound a â—ame Legg is apt to â—â—ll or what shock can a weak body sustein it cannot be but thou shouldest be under the guilt of much corruption who art not determinately fixed in thy resolves against all sinful suggestions Thou wondredst at it that perhaps after many Prayers and much hearing yet some sin or other still prevails but can it well be expected that Sin should not be thy Conqueror when as yet thou art not resolved to be its enemy 4. Till you attain to a firm resolution you will but shuffle in a good course off and on sometimes You will but shuffle in a Good Course much sometimes little sometimes nothing A double-minded man is unstable in all his wayes saith St. James 1. 8. every business will withdraw you and any occasion will excuse you from Gods service while you are indifferent unto it every wind drives through thy Boat and every frost will nip thy Bud. 5. Nay Irresolution will prove a bitter root of apostacy if dangers surprize thee on the left hand or temptations on the right It will prove a bitter Root of Apostacy hand it is a thousand to one but thou wilt deny the faith and make Shipwrack of conscience There lies much of our hopeful constancy in Religion as we set forth if we begin with faint and irresolved hearts we shall fall back with wounded and broken Souls he cannot be long good who is not resolvedly good 6. Flat and poor communion with God You will make no prayer or but cold indifferent Prayer Austin was affraid that God There will be flat and poor Communion with God The Benefits of a full Resolution It will be a testimony our hearts are upright would hear him 2. The benefits and comforts oâ— a firm Resolution which are many 1. It will be a great Testimony unto you that your hearts are upright He who will not resolve against a sinful course either his heart hath a flaw
of hypocrisie or a sink of impiety he loves sin or would not yet leâ—ve it the greatest part of our integâ—ity lies in the hearts frame and purpose that man who is resoled to part with all sin hath an heart who loves all good it is only sound grace which breeds sound resolution 2. It will be a It will be an Apology in case of falling great apology in case of falling that yet it is not presumptuous but of Inâ—irmity The evil that I would not do that do I c. Rom. 7. and rather an affect of a strong temptation then of any secret affection of the heart to sin for where the purpose and resolution of the heart is set against a sin and makes its resistence though the sinning may be great yet it is not presumptuous Four effects this firm Resolution worketh about sin either it doth 1. Cease the motions of it or 2. Abates and lessens them or 3. Disappoints and frustrates them as Joseph about his mistress or else 4. It mitigates and corrects them in the degree of guilt either it keeps me sound or else causeth that the wound is less 3. Such a man may confidently go to God for help and Such a one may confidently go to God for help assistance If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear my prayer said David but verily God hath heard me he hath attended to the voice of my Prayer Psal 69. 18 19. Thou shalt not struggle with sin in vain nor cry unto God in vain if once thou couldst be firmly resolved against sin thou shouldst more confidently repair to Christ and shouldst assuredly find more Victory over it as Paul Rom. 7. 24 25. What have I to do any more with idols I have heard him and observed him I am like a green Fir-Tree from me is thy fruit found Hos 14. 8. 4. And more confidently expect the remission of sins past with what face can a mâ—n embolden himself before the And Confidently expect Remission of sins past Lord O Lord I beseech thee to pardon such or such a sin and I trust thou wilt do it but I am not yet resolved to leave it And when a person can come before the Lord and say Search and tell me O Lord if there be any way of wickedness which I know and allow against which I am not resolved and strive Now O Lord thou art a gracious God I beseech thee for thy mercies sake forgive my sins blot them out I hate them with an unfeigned hatred do thou for thine own sake pardon and subdue them 5. You shall much free your selves from the ancient suggestions of Satan about particular Sins It will free us from the Suggestions of Satan about particular sins Resist the Divel and he will flee from you Jam. 4. 7. Where there is no hope of Victory there will be little encouragement to fight firm resolutions are like rocks against which the waves may beat and strike but cannot move nor alter Satan may indeed somewhat molest but the heart is in a sort impregnable which is stedfastly resolved Christiana sum said she I am a Christian who was much assaulted to deny the Faith and Luther in Gen. so silenced all threats and allurements for the abnegation of Christ When they saw Paul's resolution fixed for Jerusalem they gave off their importunity so Temptations will slack when our Resolutions are settled It is in vain I will not hearken thou mayest molest me Satan but I will never yield unto thee 6. You will be less interrupted in your holy services Whilest the heart is any thing indifferent and flexible sinfull motions We shall be less interrupted in our holy services like the Birds will return and flock about the Corn if the Watchman be now there and anon removed When the Minister is speaking to your ear Sin will be speaking to your heart and when your tongues are speaking to God your thoughts will be busied in giving Sin an answer or the World But if the heart were more resolved against sin it would be more united in duty the thoughts and mind and affections would be more collected and center'd upon the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the work in hand it would not scatter so much it would not follow that which it cares not for but peremptorily abhors The next Use shall be for Direction and that in two particulars Vse 2. Direction 1. How to raise a solid Resolution 2. How to keep and maintain it First The Means to raise it There are some things of How to raise a solid Resolution which you must take heed and strive against as being vigorous impediments to the rearing of this frame and twisting of this firm cord Take heed of 1. A secret favouring of sin As long as your hearts cunningly connive at and harbour your lusts those evil Inmates A secret faâ—ouring of sin you will never throughly come to a Resolution to cast them off For love will untwist many arguments and prevail against strong Motives it will let down your mind as fast as reasons do raise it up It is the best Friend and strongest Advocate that sin hath You see a Parent perhaps David against Absalom resolved to exile his Child from his presence but natural affection turned him and wrought so after a while that David longs for Absalom again As a Spring will work out that which is cast in so will a secret affection to sin work off the impression of all Arguments and any such preposterous Resolves against sin 2. A tenderness or delicacy of spirit I mean an inordinate Delicacy of spirit self-self-love Love of sin and so also the love of our selves both of them are adversaries to a penitential Resolution If a man will go to Heaven asleep have his ease and his friends and his liberty and his safeties and his quiet and his pleasures and great matters he will never come to a through Resolution God likes no such bargain no condition as I am willing to serve thee but I am resolved never to suffer for thee I will be good if I may be safe I will go to sea but on condition I shall meet with no storms I will enter into the war but on condition that I will have no blows We must be at a point for all things except what is good if we be resolved to be good indeed no not Life it self must be dearer to us than that which is far better than Life 3. A perversness of spirit on self-wilfulness if you do resolve A perversness of spirit to be your own Master you can never resolve to be Gods Servant if your hearts be not disposable to his will they will never be flexible and fixed on his work You must in many things be contented to deny your own thoughts and to captivate your own judgments and reasonings and to submit both your judgment and will to a Divine Rule and
there take forth directions for your lives how contrary soever to your own conceits and delights 4. A faintness of spirit If you make the work absolutely impossible A faintness of spirit you do but cool and quash resolutions There is a need of bellows not waters for tender sparks for no man will attempt a hopeless work or that which he knows will certainly prove fruitless Do not side with such thoughts as these I shall never be able to get victory over such strong sins and long corruptions Or I shall never be able to do what the Lord requires so much and with such affections nor shall I ever bear such reproaches losses disgraces indignities Never consult with flesh and bloud in a case of holy Resolution nor credit Satan about the leaving of sin but if thou wilt consult with what may fear and dishearten thee consult also with what may encourage and quicken thee Though thy sins be strong yet they are conquerable onely true Grace is invincible It is possible for a sinfull nature to be altered and renewed and therefore it is not impossible for any sin to be subdued Though thy own strength be insufficient yet Christ's is not He who hath commanded thee to combat with Sin hath likewise promised to conquer sin if thy duty be active he is able to work in thee both to will and to do if thy duty be passive he can give thee not onely to do but to suffer for his sake if thou must not be less then a Sufferer he can make thee more than a Conqueror Thy helps are far greater than thy discouragements there are more with thee than against thee Therefore fear not to resolve 't is a vanity to talk of another or fitter season you will be more unwilling to leave sin the more time you take to commit sin II. There are some things which you must in some measure Labour for possess if ever you would be brought to a penitential Resolution 1. Get as distinct a knowledge of sin as clear conviction as Clear Conviction you can It is our blindness which keeps us in service and the Will is usually perverse because the Judgment is greatly dark Did we know sin aright truly fully experimentally you have attained to Reasons enough why you should resolve against it Sin carries its own condemnation with it Sometimes the particular effects of sin do half perswade us to be Christians to leave the service of sin a stroke or two upon the Conscience do thus far prevail as to pause and stop If then we knew sin in the latitude of its bitter effects and in the intensiveness of them beyond all thoughts for bitterness and perpetuity as also that extreme vileness in the formal nature of it which is the vast womb and Ocean out of which these bitter waters do flow if we did know sin as the darkest blot and loathsome blur opposite to the truest Glory of purest Holiness and as the most deformed and highest Rebellion to the most equal Laws and Rules of Divine Soveraignty and as the very Eclipse and utter Inconsistence with all real Happiness and as the infallible and unavoidable Precipice of our intollerable and eternal Damnation At least this would be an occasional excitation if not a strong foundation upon which to raise a Resolution to quit and forsake it Sure I am the defect of this that men know not sin makes them bold and venturous obstinate and tenacious they will not desist from the practice of sin because they know not the evil of sin 2. You must get an hatred of sin else you will never truly and Cordial detestation effectually resolve against it All the actions of our lives are fed by the affections of the will these are in morals principia immediate vincentia and of all the affections as the Anatomists observe in the body two master-Veins Vena cava vena aorta so in the soul there are two which are Soveraign and bear sway one is Love and the other is Hatred that bears sway in matters elegible and practicable this in matters sinfull and declinable Resolutions against sin not rooted in hatred will slack like a deceitfull Bow and Resolutions to a better course not raised from love will be but as the morning dew It is hatred which makes us bent and peremptory againct evil and it is love which makâ—s us resolute and stedfast for good Hatred hath three properties in it against an evil Object Enmity Flight and Irreconcileableness And Love hath two properties in it Union and Adhaesion Ruth clave in love to Naomi and was seâ—ed in it never to leave her And Ephraim was strong in detestation and therefore peremptorily in resolution What have I to do any more with Idols 3. There must be Faith and then there will be Resolution Faith Faith 1. To believe the Word of God discovering and threatning an evil condition and course 2. To believe the excellency of a good Condition and Life and Rewards If thou didst indeed believe that sin would damn thee wouldst not thou resolve against it if thou didst indeed believe that the holy life were the happy life couldst thou by Faith see him that is invisible and the beauties of holiness which are hid from the World and those great consolations and rewards reserved for a pious heart and conversation thou wouldst quickly turn the Scale mâ—ke the choâ—ce and resolve 'T is true I must leave my sins but I shall gain my God their pleasures but I shall gain his delights I may forfeit the love of Friends but I shall find kindness of God I quit Earth but I shall get Heaven I leave but filthiness but guilt but misery but Hell I shall get holiness and peace and Christ and Comfort and Heaven I am insufficient but God is sufficient 4. Vehement Prayer that the Lord would give a heart willing Vehement prayer to forsake sin and willing to choose him and his ways For the purposes of our hearts are from him Resolution should be a Posâ—e of Prayers steept in prayer blown up by the breath of Heaven Psal 119. 5. O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes v. 8. I will keep thy statutes O forsake me not utterly What you undertake without prayer you will forsake without câ—mfort All resolutions are best made which are made upon the knee of prayer Secondly The means to maintain and keep up this Resolution The means to maintain this resolution Let it not be presumpâ—uous but humble If you would attain to a solid and permanent Resolution then 1. Let your Resolution not be presumptuous but humble If you raise your Resolutions upon your own strength you will shortly quit them by your own weakness No spiritual frame or work is safe or strong which is reared upon it self alone it must not be less than a rock higher than our selves upon which we must build The wings bear the body of the
do not so Though the winds drive back the Mariner yet he holds fast his resolution still for such a Cape and if a man falls in his journey yet he will rise and be going again So let us do if we have not answered our Resolutions let us not end them but mend them Above all search the causes of impairing thy Resolutions and then thou mayest see thy reparations Say seriously 1. Didst not thou relie too much upon thy Resolution as if therefore thou wert safe because resolved 2. Didst not thou grow weaker in Prayer when thou grewest strong in Resolution or 3. Hast thou not been more venturous upon occasions hast thou not been tampering with sinfull occasions such acts ways objects as thou knowest have powder to irritate and inflame Lust Consider seriously how thou camest to violate thy purpose and intention and penitently confess it before the Lord and take up thy Resolution again upon right grounds 7. Let your Resolutions be accompanied with the use of all holy means which will strengthen and perfect them Doth not the Let resolutions be accompanied with the use of holy means strong man grow weak by fasting as well as by sickness How is it possible but that thy Bow should slack i. thy Resolution should start aside when thou art a negligent Hearer and an inconstant Petitioner why where lies thy strength to perform why doest thou put off thy helps what art thou alone He who hath not strength to fight how shall he have power to conquer wouldst thou stand wouldst thou resolve wouldst thou resolve so as to reform Be much in Prayer Keep thy servant O Lord uphold me by thy Word preserve me by thy Spirit work in me the will and the deed work thine own works in me finish what thou hast wrought shew thy power in my weakness let thy Grace be sufficient for me leave me not nor forsake me incline my heart to thy testimonies turn away mine eyes from vanity And so for the Ordinances attend them they are the Strength of God for thee they work holy qualities holy motions holy convictions holy excitations holy affections desires a fear lest we depart and fall from our stedfastness and they kindle more and more our purposes to walk with God and to shun iniquity Oh how admirably the heart under them is caused to burn with ardent love of God! with desires and resolutions to keep closer to him how is it stirr'd up with more detestation of sin how often do they melt the heart recover the heart restore the heart and send it away with this resolution Well! by the grace of God I will never go on in such a sinful course c. The last Use shall be for Exhortation unto us though we have taken ill courses formerly yet now to resolve against them to 3. Vse For Exâ—ortation to resolve against sin arise and go home to our Father What shall I say to move and persuade us here to consider 1. Either you must resolve to leave your sins or be damned for them why wilâ— thou lose thy pretious soul for ever 2. Whether is better to come back and find God a Motives Father or to depart still from him and feel him a Judge If mercy be better then wrath if heaven be better then hell resolve to arise and leave thy sinful waies and return unto a God and Father 3. Hast thou not found thy sinful courses to be evil and bitter unto thee already why wilt thou serve an evil master for evil wages the which also will still be more fearful and heavie by how much the longer thou continues sinful and wicked thy terrours will not shorten while thou dost lengthen thy sins nor maiest thou expect that thy latter daies will be peace when all thy daies have been wickedness if thou livest in sin thou must lie down in sorrow 4. Sin is an hateful object and a conquerable enemy therefore resolve against it It onely hath the most absolute reasons of the strongest hatred as being completely evil and vile it is the basest of all objects and is thine highest enemy there is nothing which can undo thee but sin and yet i is a conquerable enemy it is very possible that a sinner may be changed 5. If thou once couldst but get an heart to resolve against sin thou shouldst find the work more easie Saint Austin professeth that though the thoughts of leaving his sins were once a great burthen to him yet at length being peremptorily resolved he found it a most easie and delightful thing to live without them 6. A new course of obedience O this is lise indeed Now arâ— thou alive from the dead if thy heart be truly resolved I may say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Christ to Zacheus This day is salvation come to thine house 〈◊〉 holy life and course is the most excellent is the most easie is the most peaceable is the most gainful it is the best it is the sweetest it is the happiest life it begins in Grace it will end in Glory LUKE 15. v. 18 19. And will say unto him Father I have sinned against Heaven and before thee and am no more worthy to be called thy Son make me as one of thy hired servants You have heard of the Prodigals penitential consideration of his sinful estate and of his penitential resolution to forsake that condition and course I will arise and go to my father now you are to hear his penitential confession And will say unto him Father I have sinned against Heaven c. In which words you have considerable 1. Who doth confess I. 2. What he doth confess I have sinned 3. To whom he doth confess Father I have sinned 4. How he doth confess Against Heaven and before thee In to coramte There is no difficulty in the word and therefore I will proceed to the intent of it which is this That true Repentance for sin against God will bring forth true Confession of Sin unto God This is evident almost in all persons whether single True Repentance for sin will bring forth true confession of sin to God or conjoyned who are set out for penitents in Scripture David his heart bleeds and his tongue acknowledgeth I have sinned 2 Sam. 12. upon Nathans conviction The Publican Lord be merciful to me a sinner he stood afar off smiting his brest and inditing himself for his sins A whole Church in Ezra in Nehemiah in Daniel all at once confessing We have sinned we have done wickedly our sins are gone over our heads For the better explication of the assertion know That there is a threefold confession of sin 1. Auricular or Sacramental which the Church of Rome A threefold confession of sin Auricular doth injoyn but not the Scripture Confiteriâ—ora singula peccata mortalia to confess all and every mortal Sin quorum memoria cum debita diligenti premeditatione habeatur which a diligent and industrious memory can recal etiam
thus have I sinned and whatsoever punishment thou hast inflicted or mayest inflict I must quit thy Justice in all thy proceedings thou canst not but be Righteous for I confess my self to be sinful Nay his Justice only is not glorified but his Wisdom that he knows all our sins and wayes and his Power that he is able to Judge and condemn us yea and his Mercy too that we hope yet he will pardon and forgive the sins which we confess unto him If true Repentance brings forth true Confession then by this it will appear That there are very few true penitents because Use 1. Then there are very few true Penitents very few who do truly and aright confess their sins 1. Some may say of sin what Pilate did of truth What 's Truth So they What 's Sin They are so ignorant that they know not what is evil or when they do evil Now how can any confess or acknowledg that sin to God which is not known at all to himself 2. Others are so far from confessing themselves to be sinful that they like the proud Pharisee justifie themselves to be righteous talk of their good meanings purposes â—ust dealings c. Sana membra ostendebat saith S. Austin of that Pharisee vulnera tegebat I am no Extortioner no Adulterer c. Ask some persons Do you acknowledg One only God who is most Merciful Just Holy Omnipotent Faithful Long-suffering 〈◊〉 of Goodness and Truth c. Yes that do they God forbid else c. Ask them again Are you Idolaters make you no Idols or did you ever worship them Who they nay they defie them and all such trumpery But do you not use to swear and take the Name of God in vain Nay for swearing of all sins they cannot away with that a man gets no good by swearing But do you remember to keep holy the Sabbath Yea all their neighbours can bear witness that they keep to the Church constantly Ask them again Did you never injure your Parents O they were always dutifull Children But did you never play the whore or the adulterer or the thief Nay now they will talk no longer with you if you be so uncharitable as to imagine such guilt Why O thou ignorant sinner why doest thou deceive thy soul if thou art thus righteous thou needest not to repent and if thou art free from all sin how canst thou confess thy sins as a true penitent ought to do to God 3. But some others there are who do both know and acknowledge their sin but how onely in a formal cold indifferent manner True we are all sinners God help us and there is no man but he sins yea the best of them all Never considering That great Justice of God which is provoked by their sins nor that vile and abominable nature in their sins nor that infinite wrath unto which their guilt doth oblige them nor the excellency and necessity of pardoning mercy which we should earnestly sue out when we confess our sins 4. There is another sort who do more distinctly and perhaps somewhat feelingly and freely confess their sins but then they keep Benjamin back And as Rachel hid the images under her so they reserve some one special lust they do not bring all the Prisoners forth unto the Bar There is a sin which they hide close because it is sweet as Zophar speaks Job 20. 12. Now this argues 1. Hypocrisie and guile of heart a secret love to sin it is made in Job 20. 12. the guise of an Hypocrite to hide his sin 2. Extreme folly and vanity of spirit for canst thou conceal any sin from that God who is acquainted with all thy paths and knows thy thoughts afar off and to whose eyes all things are naked will not the Lord discover the sin which thou doest cover before Men and Angels to thy eternal infamy and condemnation assuredly though thou wilt not set thy sins in order before him yet he will set thy sins in order before thee and will reprove thee for them Psal 50. i. he will publish them and he will everlastingly punish thee for them 5. Others do confess all their sins but this onely in times of wrath and judgment and death not like Penitents but as Malefactors as men make their Wills upon a death-bed not out of an hatred of sin but out of meer sense or fear of punishment it is not filial ingenuous free but onely extorted involuntary and servile and therefore not truly penitential They do not go and confess their sins as they to John the Baptist but cry out and confess their sins it is that not which they would do but which they cannot avoid Conscience like an over-charged stomack doth so over-press and pain them that they cannot hold but out it comes what oppression injustice usurious injurious beastly filthy swinish sins they have lived in 6. Others seem to be more ingenuous and voluntary or ready to confess their sins but then this is with such pretences colours shiftings shuffling as if they were like Lawyers to mitigate and colour a bad cause S. Austin complains of some who would impute their sins to Fate to Fortune to the Devil nay to God himself The complaint may well suit with us generally we have some device or other either to deny or to extenuate our sinfull facts rather to plead for our selves than to plead against our iniquities It was company and we are but flesh and bloud and it is not usual or which is contrary it is my nature and the Devil was strong with me others do worse c. 7. But of all men they are most contrary to penitential Confession who â—all evil good and darkness light and that make a a mock and a sport of sin whereas they should with grief of heart and shame of face mournfully penitently humble themselves before the Lord and acknowledge their iniquities instead thereof They boast themselves of their iniquites and make but a jest of that which cost the bloud of Christ It is but a trick of Youth and good Fellowship and Handsomness and Complement and discreet Thrift thus do they phrase their Uncleanness their Drunkenness their Pride their Lying their Covetousness 8. Lastly to mention no more They are defective too about the true penitential confession who are assiduous to confess but desiduous to forsake frequent to acknowledge and declare their sins but negligent in forsaking and leaving of them Discovery sufficeth but Recovery they mind not This is most ordinary with us that we make our confession of sins to God rather an act of our Memory than a work of our Conscience it sufficeth us to deliver in the tale to number our transgressions but then we wrestle not with the Lord in prayer for his Spirit of Grace to heal our hearts and to turn us from the sinfull ways unto which we find our hearts so apt and forward But I will no longer insist upon the Convicting part I proceed
graciously accept of it have we not reason to believe that he doth countenance these beginnings who presently makes all provision for the nursing and supplies of it To make some Application of this 1. It convinceth the common obloquies and aspersions cast upon religion and religious courses to Vse 1. Conviction of that aspersion that if we begin to be penitent farewell all Comfort be meer injuries and falsities viz. that if once you begin to be religions and penitential then farwel all comfort as if the grave of sin were the Resurrection of Griefe or of necessity men must be everlastingly pensive if once truly and seriously penitential But this is false no course so good so comfortable as the penitential mercy to invite you mercy to receive you mercy to pardon you and mercy to save you As soon as ever we begin to be good and to be penitent and are entred into the way of new obedience presently the merciful eye and favour of God is upon us mercy looks after us and though we have been foul Transgressours and have now but the very seeds and implantations of repentance mixt with exceeding imperfections yet the Lord will benignly and graciously accept of us and love us And as it doth convince that errour of the sadness of entring Vse 2. And oâ— that errour of the austerity of God towards Penitents into a good course so also another errour of the austerity and harshness of God towards poor Penitents as if nothing would please the Lord but quantity and great measures of Grace Oh if I had so much sorrow for sin if I had so much hatred if I had so much power over my corruptions Why it were well if thou hadst and thou doest not well if thou strivest not beyond all the measure of grace which thou doest attain But then to think that onely great grace is in grace with God and not little grace Repentance grown and not Repentance begun that God will not look on drops but rivers not on weakness but strength onely that a poor contrite broken troubled soul which prizeth grace above heaven and hates sin above hell but yet is troubled with the presence of much corruption and is apprehensive of manifold wants in all kinds of grace that the Lord will never look upon such a thin new weak Christian unless with austerity and distance Why do we thus belie the Lord and falsifie the graciousness of the Almighty who doth so love holiness and delight in the conversion of a sinner that as soon as ever the sinner begins truly to repent the Lord hath thoughts of mercy and peace for him he is observed and accepted Ananias is presently sent to Paul messengers of peace are presently dispatched Patents of mercy are sealed for him And thirdly It doth justly abase that unworthy proud and censorious harshness and strangeness which many who would take Vse 3. It discovers the proud harshness of men towards such as come short of themselves or others it ill if they be not in your opinion set up in the highest form of Piety do sinfully or foolishly express either in condemning or in contemning such as fall very short in the penitential work of others or of themselves yea and will shun tender society with them till they see some further perfections and ripenesses Alas what do we by what rule do we walk whose example do we look upon We must be wise it 's true and what wisdome is it to leave tender buds to the frost which we might have covered and enlarged with heat and warmth I beseech you let us pause a while 1. Are all in our Family Men Are there not some Children perhaps new-born Babes Are all in the Flock strong Sheep are there not some Lambs perhaps newly yeaned Are all the Stars in the Heaven of the same magnitude some are greater others are less yet all in the Heavens Do you despise Children reject the Lambs or slight the Moon because of her spots and lesser light than that of the Sun Why we read of the like disparity in the heavenly course St. John tells us of Fathers and of Young-men and of Chidren too yea and of Babes and Christ advised Peter's respects as well unto the Lambs as unto the Sheep 2. Were not we Beginners once our selves Was our Sun at the top our Gold so exquisitely pure did not we then need compassions and helps in times of infancy weakness conflicts temptations What is our present strength but some help to former weakness Time was we could hardly go or stand although now we can walk and run What a childishness is it for the Artist in Grammar to slight the Youth who is now spelling his Letters when this was the first Line of his own Learning the first step whereby he went to his height 3. And did God despise us in our beginnings Did not he gently lead those that were with young and carried the Lambs in his arms as the Prophet speaks How often hath he laid our fainting and weak souls to the brests of consolation comforted us in our fears strengthened our feeble hands answered our doubts 4. Nor doth he now slight them whom he tenderly owns upon the very entrances into a new and holy course sees them afar off and hath compassion Why then do we so slight and neglect them and put them from us who have as good a God as our selves and if we be good the same the same Christ and also the same truth and reality of Repentance And is not Minimum Christi amabile But they are indiscreet Surely they are no true penitents that are very fools No man so wise as he who is wise for his soul But they have many failings And not one of them approved all bewailed But they come short in Duties alas they are very short In expressions which the vilest hypocrite may excel in not in affections which the true penitent onely abounds in Therefore repent of your pride and state Seest thou a penitent higher than thy self honour him and imitate seest thou a penitent lower than thy self honour and cherish him God will meet him with much mercy do thou meet him with much love and pity Ten Evidences of True Repentance though Initial And take these Ten Evidences that a mans Repentance is true though weak and real though but initial 1. He is much Much in Grief though little in Strength He hates sin though he cannot be rid of it Conflicts with sin though he cannot conquer it He will not be its servant though its Captive He cries for help though not delivered He must have God reconciled though he questions it He would obey in all things though he falls short He prizeth more grace though he enjoy little He holds up his purposes He mourns for what he wants Vse 4. For Comfort to such as have the Initials of Repentance in Grief though little in Strength He will grieve for sinning though he
the Privy Seal For 1. Upon your humble praying for pardoning mercy you do feel your consciences more quieted and setled and revived with better confidence and expectation of mercy 2. You find your hearts more enflamingly resolved that you will never give over you will now follow on to know the Lord and his mercies It was a sign anciently that God regarded prayers when â—ire came down upon the sacrifice as 1 Kin. 18. 24. 2 Chro. 7. 1. so is it a singular argument that God accepts of your prayers for mercy or grace when upon your prayers he doth enlarge and enliven you more earnestly to seek him in those kinds If God doth himself hold up thy suit he will not long hold off his answer when we will have no Nay then Be it unto thee as thou wilt If he prepare thine heart he will at length incline his â—ar And fell on his neck and kissed him You have seen already the Eyes of Mercy to espie a returning Penitent and the Feet of Mercy its speedy pace to meet a returning Penitent the Father ran and of the Bowels of Mercy He had compassion on him In all which we have discovered that singular readiness which is in God to shew mercy to a true Penitent Now there yet remain 1. The Arms of Mercy Amplexus misericordiarum And he fell on his neck 2. The Sealings of all this mercy though not verbally yet most significantly expressed towards the returning Prodigal and kissed him What they say of Scire that though we do know yet this satisfies us not unless another doth know Nisi tâ— scire hoâ— sciat alter that we do know the same is true of Love and Mercy though we have loving affections and mercifull intentions towards any yet this is not enough to the party unless he be made to know the same Therefore here are singular expressions as well as admirable intentions the Box of Ointment is opened Joseph cannot contain himself but cries out I am Joseph The Father of the Prodigal doth forgive and accept of him and testifies all this by falling on his neck and kissing of him There be divers Kisses Not to speak of the Kiss of Subjection and Reverence which David calls for Psal 2. 12. Nor of the Kiss of Incivility and Filthiness the whorish kiss of which Salomon speaks Prov. 17. 13. Nor of the Kiss of Falshood and Treachery Judas-kiss Matth. 26. 49. Nor of the Kiss of Courtesie common to all friends the Heathens used it as Xenophon and Herodotus relate Nor of the Kiss of Charity used among the primitive Christians especially before the Lords Supper The Kiss in the Text is a Kiss of Merciful Affection and it is given unto the Prodigal by his Father in signum Reconciliationis that He and his Father were now friends and in a state of love and kindneâ—s In signum Pacis to take off all fears and doubts all was exceeding well and in signum Laetitiae to intimate unto him what a welcome child he now was His Father was not more grieved at his sinfull departure but he is now much more gladded at his penitential return Doct. God is not onely reconciled but manifests himself so to be unto the Pâ—nitent The proper Observation from this I conjecture is That God is pleased not onely to be reconciled but also to manifest and declare himself as one reconciled to penitent people Joh. 14. 21. I will love him and manifest my self unto him Rev. 3. 20. If any man hear my voice and open the door I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me Rev. 2. 17. To him that overcometh will I give to â—at of the hidden Manna and I will give him a white Stone and in the Stone a new name written which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it Rom. 5. 5. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the holy Ghost which is given unto us This is a Proposition of deep consequence and also of some difficulty and therefore must be the more warily opened and attended Some things premised Gods Râ—câ—nciled favour is demonstrable to a â—itted soul For the sense and meaning of it premise these particulars 1. That Gods reconciled favour is a thing demonsirable to a fitted soul .i. it is not besides the nature of Divine favour to open it self so that it may be apprehended no more then it is against the nature of Light to reveal it self Nor is it beyond the capacity and proportion of a penitential soul tobe cognoscitive i. to be able to look on and know Divine favour In Universali the Papists and others do grant as That God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself but more then this I affirm in particulars There is not only a Notional knowledge in the general but there may be an Experimental knowledg in particular of Divine favour By this saith David I know thou favourest me And S. Paul of Christ Who loved me God hath actually manifested his love and favour to his people of old Son be of good comfort thy sins are for given thee Mat. 9. And Rom. 8. Paul had it and all the Saints had it And he doth manifest it and will manifest it to all true penitents But then 2. There is a double manifestation of his favour One is Natural A double Manifestation of his favour Naturall and this is when God doth imprint such qualities on the soul which are the sole fruits of a reconciled Love as when he bestowes on it the sanctifying graces of his Spirit Another is Formal wherein he doth evidently make over the goodness of Formall his Love i. make us directly to know that he doth love us and is reconciled unto us which is done two wayes either 1. By the Testimony of the Word apprehended by faith 2. By the Testimony of his Spirit causing in us an express evidence and sense of Gods love as a witness and as a seal Now one of these wayes God is pleased to manifest his reconciled favour or to evidence it unto the penitential soul and sometimes both 3. The time which God taketh to declare or make known in a The time of this manifestation is aâ—bâ—trary more formal way of evidence his reconciled love unto the penitential soul is not necessary and determinate but arbitrary and free It is not restrained to the very birth or hour of our Conversion nor limitted to any one part of time after it more then an other But God is pleased differently to make himself known and his loving favour known Lydia partaked of Joy as soon s the partaked of Grace but with other Christians it may be perhaps as with Simeon that their eyes do not see their Salvation till near their death in the latter end 4. The measure of Gods dispensation in this particular is also The measure of Gods Dispensation of it is very different very different and various â—very
Penitent hath not one and the same degree that another hath and he who hath most of it in evidence hath it but mixt and imperfect A Declaration there is to every penitent soul that God loves it but not equall nor absolute 5. This Declaration of Divine Love though it be very comfortable This Declaration is separable at least in the sence of it yet it is very separable especially in the sense and feeling of it For it is for the duration of it an effect of meer favour which is let out ad Bene placitum only and it is not an essential to the Christian condition therefore it may go off So that this is the sum of the Proposition That Gods reconciled favour is a thing which may be known and God is pleased to make it known to all penitents either Naturally or Formally at some time or other in some measure or other so long as he himself shall judge best The Reasons where of are these 1. His promise is not only to Reasons of it Gods Promise is to make knowne his love to them love his people but likewise to make known his love to them not only the affection but the declaration of it is in promise Ezek. 34. 30. They shall know that I the Lord their God am with them and that they even the house of Israel are my people saith the Lord God 2. It is the thing which the penitential people of It is the thing which Gods people desire God do exceedingly crave and desire Psal 4. 6. Lord lift up the light of thy Countenance upon me Psal 4. 6. Lord lift up the light of thy Countenance upon me Psal 17. 7. Shew thy marvellous loving kindness Psal 106. 4. Remember me O Lord with the favour thou bearest unto thy people O visit me with thy salvation Psal 119. 132. Look upon me and be merciful unto me as thou usest to do unto those that love thy Name Cant. 1. 2. Let him kise me with the kisses of his mouth for thy love is better then Wine Now I pray consider two things that 1. The prayers which God commands his people to make 2. The things which God promises to grant where promises are made and commands are made there if prayers be made God will fulfil them The manifestation of Gods favour is that which the people of God are commanded to seek Seek ye my â—ace Psal 27. 8. and God hath promised to declare his loving favour to them and therefore if they seek it he will 3. It is the thing which they do exceedingly need Though not sim-ply It is the thing which they Need. to their esse yet respectively to their Bene esse The loving kindness of God it is their life and it is the Joy of their salvation and it is their reviving it is the binding up of their wounds the setling of their fears the strength of their soul the peace of their conscience the anchor of their ship the Ark of rest 4. The Lord will grant unto his people even in this life the God will give his people here the first fruits of a Glorious life first fruits of their glorious life though hereafter they shall see him face to face yet here they shall know him as through a Glass here they shall tast how good he is that they may more earnestly look after a full and Beatifical fruition of him 5. And likewise to let them know the difference twixt a sinful To let them know the difference twixâ— a sinful and penitential course To distinguish twixt the pleasures of sin and the joy of the Holy Ghost and penitent course in the one they shall know how just he is in wrath to hate and punish sin in the other how gracious and merciful he is to comfort and revive a penitent 6. Yea yet more he doth declare his reconciled favour to them that they likewise may distinguish twixt these poor false miserable jollities and pleasures which they had by sin and twixt those soul reviving transcendently affecting comforts unspeakeable joies unconceivable peace which arise to them upon the knowledg of God reconciled to them in and through Christ That there is not that juice that support that delight that singularity of contentment in any way as in a good way nor the like life and spirit to be drawn from any sinful or earthly springs as from the goodness and kindness of his loving favour that a God reconciled is the only happiness of the soul Doth the Lord manifest unto penitential persons his reconciled Use Satisfy not your selves without the seales of Gods favour favour Then you who take your selves to be converts and penitents satisfie not your selves be not contented until you find the SEals and tokens of Gods favour You have I know his Word and Bond for your reconciliation and your condition really is the state of reconciliation you do love the Lord and the Lord doth love you But yet advance somwhat farther strive to find the kisses the gracious expressions and evidences from God that he is reconciled unto you The Motives to excite you hereto are many and forcible Motives The differences twixt God and you have been very great 1. The differences twixt God and you have been very great and high such as have much provoked the Lord and they have been of long continuance such as have deserved ten thousand Hells Noâ— why will you not strive to make it out of doubt that God hath pardoned you and is in Christ graciously reconciled unto you If there have been differences betwixt us and a man of place we will use all the means to take up the controversie and get a release of all things how much more having to do with God 2. This Reconciled Love is worth the suing out No love like Reconciled love is worth the suing out it partly because it doth so immediately concern the soul of a Christian It is a love which accepts of a sinner and makes the sinner accepted it is more to him then the Princes pardon to a Traitor Indeed it is his passing from death to eternal Life What should become of a sinner if the Lord were not reconciled to him If the Lord be his enemy and holds distance the soul can never stand before him in Judgment Farewel Peace farewel Heaven without it Partly because it is the choicest chiefest Love that God doth bestow There is no one whom he doth imbrace with the love of friendship and reconciliation but Elect persons and such as he intends for Glory Therefore this Love is called the ancient Love great Love Eph. 2. and the free Love and the Love of his chosen and a Love which is sure and a Love which neither Powers nor principalities nor world nor life nor death nor things present nor things to come can extirpate or abolish You may partake of his common Love and the common effects of that Love yet you may
or Instrument of the Divine spirit for much good unto believing souls Among the rest it hath a singular virtue to breed assurance of Gods love and therefore it is called a Seal in Ro. 4. 11. In it Christ Jesus in whom God is reconciled is most distinctly represented in his Passion as making peace by his blood for our souls In it the same Christ Jesus is particularly offered and applyed unto us with all the benefits and efficacies of his person Take eat this is my body which was given for you 1 Cor. 11. 24. As if God should say As surely as I give thee this bread and wine so I give thee my Son and the purchase of his death even reconciliation and pardon and mercy A believing celebration of the Sacrament is a most admirable means to remove our doubts and to establish our hearts with an Fervent and patient Prayer assurance that God is reconciled unto us 3. Fervent and patient Prayer prizing the favour of God as David did Psal 63. 3. Hungring and thirsting after it as he hid Psal 106. 4 5. And thus continuing to seek with diligence being withall tenderly careful in our hearts and wayes to please the Lord we shall have the desires of our Souls crowned with the testimonies of his love here and with the full glory of his face and favour hereafter Luke 15. 21 22 23. 21. And the Son said unto him Father I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight and am no more worthy to be called thy Son 22. But the Father said to his servants Bring forth the best Robe and put it on him and put a Ring on his hand and Shoes on his feet 23. And bring hither the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and be merry These words contain in them 1. The real acting of a penitential intention The matter whereof in his humble and sad confession I have insisted on already when I touched on v. 18 19. Now I shall observe a little more from the circumstance and manner of it 2. The strange alteration of his condition The heart of man never alters from sin to its prejudice the best courses ever draw after them the best comforts While he was a prodigal he had neither bread to eat nor Rags to cloath him nor house to lodg him much less Jewels to adorn him and feasts to entertain him But now he becomes a penitent here is a Father to admit him into a house to put the best Robe on his back and the Ring on his finger and Shoes on his feet and likewise to provide meat even the choicest for his belly Before I touch on these distinctly and particularly there are some Propositions which I will briefly touch on v. g. Doct. That no not the kindest expressions of mercy do silence a The kindest expressions of mercy do not hinder an humble confession of sin truly penitential heart from an humble confession of sin Kindest mercies draw out humblest confessions The Father pities meets embraces kisseth this penitential Prodigal What doth he rise up and slight all that hath been evil Oh no! mercy melts him down and he confesseth with tears Father I have sinned c. q. d. What is this that thou shouldst so easily so freely so mâ—rcifully behold so sinful so unworthy a wretch as I have been As David when God declared unto him the intentions of his further mercies for him and his posterity He sate before the Lord and said Who am I O Lord God and what is my house that thou hast brought me hitherto So is it with the true penitent upon the Declaration of pardoning and accepting mercy Now O Lord God who am I I who have done so wickedly yet to be remembred so graciously The same you find in Paul who though he received a testimony of his pardon and acceptance by a messenger graciously dispatched from Jesus Christ himself Acts 9. 17. Yet he doth most frequently and humbly acknowledg and confess the kinds and greatness of his former transgressions There is for the time a twofold Confession 1. Antecedent There is a twofold Confession Antecedent Consequent which is that humbling way which God designs for the assecution of mercy See Prov. 28. 13. 1 Jo. 1. 9. To make us indite and condemn our selves that he may acquit and pardon us 2. Consequent which is that judging and self-condemning way after mercy is obtained The sight of mercy breeds four notable effects in a true penitent 1. Much Admiration Oh that God should look on me 2. Much Detestation Oh that God should ever pardon me 3. More contrition Oh that I should sin against such a God 4. More Confession I have sinned and done very foolishly to sin against a God much in mercy 2. This consequent confession which followes the expressions or Consequent confession hath these qualities It is an ac-â— knowledgment of sin with more compunction testimonies of pardoning mercy hath these qualities 1. It is an acknowledging of sin with more compunction of spirit Sight of pardon doth not only open our lips but our eyes and fetcheth forth not only words but tears the heart doth break out when mercy breaks forth The heart never confesseth sin with more filial grief then when it apprehends sin much sin discharged with a paternal love the wind breaks the clouds but the Sun melts them most into showers so c. 2. It is an acknowledging of sin with more indignation The greaâ—er mercy makes a penitent With more indignation to be the sharper Judg the more God is now pleased with him the more is he displeased with himself for sinning against him When God remembred his Covenant Ezek. 16. 60. then did the penitential Israelites remember their wayes with shame v. 61. And when he made it known to them that he was pacifyed towards them then were they confounded and never opened their mouths more v. 63. 3. It is an acknowledging of sin with more With more aggravation aggravation Servile confessions are usually more deceitful and partial as Adam did acknowledg his sin but puts it on Eve no coâ—fessions are so free and full as such which arise from the apprehension of mercies David got his pardon for a great transgression but then hoâ— exact is he in the distinct accusation of himself and humble acknowledgment of his sin in all the articles and circumstances of it Psal 51. 4. It is an acknowledgment of sin with more detestation Evidence of pardon produceth two With more detestation effects One is more ardent affection of love to God Another is which necessarily followes a deeper hatred of sin which opposed so gracious a goodness All that good which God mentions in the Covenant Ezek. 36. 25. to the end of v. 30. produced a better remembrance of former evils and also a deeper loathing of themselves for their iniquities v. 31. As Job upon Gods appearing to him and conferring with him now abhors
himself in dust and ashes So the penitent upon the manifestation of divine favour doth more acknowledg his vileness judg his follies and abhor his iniquities it is ever true that the greatest mercies set the heart at greatest distance with sin But now it is demanded Why should the expressions of mercy elicite confession of sin if it be pardoned why any more confession Reasons though hereof be many 1. Piety in man is Reasons of it Piety in man is not opposite but subordinâ—te to pity in God not opposite but only subordinate to Pity in God Divine love doth not destroy but increase duty Assurance followes the habits and alwayes advances the acts of grace As it is our duty to seek our pardon by confession so also to carry away the same with continued confessions confession of sin is not a transient but a constant duty As the Mathematicians speak of a Line That it is not punctum but fluxus punctorum so I say of any duty It is not one indivisible act only but an act repeated to believe is a duty in which one act only is not enough for I must still keep my eye upon Christ So to confess sin is a duty not done altogether because once done but still to be done because a duty to be done though God be pleased to forget yet it is our duty to remember But secondly By confession of sin after remission and testimony Mercy is now acknowledged to be mercy mercy is now acknowledged to be mercy What a man may speak in straights is one thing what in free circumstances when extra aleam is another Many a man cryes out for mercy who perhaps scarce will give mercy all the glory afterward But when we are pardoned and yet confess sin we do really profess That it was not Worthiness in us but only Goodness in God that pardoned No man can more fully give the glory of his pardon to sole mercy then he who doth confess his sins after mercy What is this confession of sin but as if the person should say O Lord to me indeed nothing did belong but shame and confusion for I for my part have thus and thus sinned against thee and deserved thy wrath but it was meer mercy that saved and pardoned me 3. The more pardoning mercy God shews The more humility is thereby wrought in the heart The more pardoning mercy the more Humility for who can behold much pardon but withal must know it was much sin that hath that much pardon He hath greater cause of shame because all this while a God of such mercy hath been offended So that here is more cause for the heart to abase it self and to confess its own vileness 4. Upon New and more grounds of confession do arise gracious remission more and new grounds of Confession do arise Before I am pardoned I confess my sins because God requires confession and also because he doth upon a right confession promise Remission When I am pardoned more reasons of Confession are upon mercy namely mercy granted and mercy sealed O then have I not more cause to confess my sinful vileness having tasted of most unspeakable goodness in the pardon of it Doth the penitent person humbly confess his sins after the Vse Upon sense of pardon let us do so pardon of them Why let us if any of us think that we are pardoned do so too T is a truth that of all things we are most willing to forget our sins we have much adoe to keep our thoughts on them in a penitential way its death almost to some men to think on their sins thus and in case if by a little duty we have got the least hope of pardon we ordinarily put those sins off from any future solemn Confessions This I conceive ariseth from two causes the one is the sensible influence which sin often to be thought on imprints on the conscience After considerations of sin we have usually most bitterness and trouble which we willingly would not feel Another is an ignorance of the power and use of pardoning mercy which as it brings Rest Peace so most hearty grief and confession I will say to Such as faâ—l in after confession It is suspicious whether ever they had any Pardon at all Or whether they ever truly repanted or no. men presuming on pardon and yet failing in an after confession of their sins 1. It is suspicious whether ever they had any pardon at all or real assurance thereof forasmuch as they fail in this after effect of confession which is alwayes the more increased by the greater evidence of divine mercy 2. It is suspicious whether they ever truly repented or no for as much as true repentance doth incline us to go over and perfect all the acts and branches of Repentance whereof confession in a right manner performed is not the least But for our parts if any of us upon a penitential course have been so far blessed as to see the face of God with peace and have found any testimony of his pardoning mercy let us never cease to bless that mercy and with mournful and self-judging hearts to iterate and continue our confession of the sins for which we have found mercy Motives hereunto are these 1. We shall hereby the better prolong Moâ—ives to it We shall hereby the better increase our assurance of mercy and increase our assurance of divine mercy I conjecture that you shall in your experience find this truth viz. That assurance lives longest in a believing Eye an humble Spirit and in a Soul accustomed to the strict exercise of Repentance the way to get assurance of pardon is ever the best way to preserve and inlarge Our Conscience will hereby acquit us for the sincerity of our Confession it 2. Hereby our Consciences shall most acquit us for the sincerity of our confession Antecedent acts do not alwayes yield unto us that solid ground as subsequent acts As about our outward mercies after prayers do more denominate the celestial frame then former prayers because those may be depending on self-self-love and necessity but the other springs out of spiritual love and piety and respects to divine glory So is it in the business of confession of sin to confess under the beams of mercy is a better temper then to confess under the strokes of Justice it argues a more holy Ingenuity to acknowledg and bewail our vileness being discharged of wrath and punishment then only to exclaim either upon the Rack or upon hopes to be taken off 3. Hereby the frame of the heart is kept more tender against sin The frame of the heart is hereby kept more tender against sin as Ezra 9. 14. Should we again break thy Commandments Continued sense of sin produceth four singular effects and with much addition too Most cordial Thankfulness Most tender Fearfulness Most diligent Fruitfulness Most careful Tenderness The daily judger of his former sins by a penitential
is to be diffusive as the nature of fire is to heat and of the Sun is to give light The love of Christ constraineth me saith Paul Doth he adorn his holy profession with an answerable conversation Why how can it be otherwise but that gracious habits should breed gracious acts and glorious qualities should breed glorious effects It is the nature of a Star to shine as it is the nature of dirt to defile and it is the nature of a Diamond to sparkle as it is of the earth to be bâ—ack c. 2. The peculiar disposition of Repentance Repentance in From the peculiar disposition of Repentance the proper nature produceth two effects 1. One in newness of life It is against the truth of Repentance for a man to live the same life to keep on the same course for this is impenitency not conversion but continuation not a regress but a progress not a change of life but a course of the same life But when Repentance comes change comes for what is repentance but the new purpose for a new life A man must be what he was not and do that which he never did and run an other course quite contrary to what he did put off the old conversation and put on a new Cease to do evil and learn to do well put off the service of unrighteousness and become the servant of holiness this is to be a penitent 2. Another is revenge you know the Apostle makes this one of the fruits of godly sorrow and repentance yea what revenge 2. Cor. 7. Now this revenge as it consists in many other things so in this especially that as we have imployed our soules and bodies in wicked acts to serve against the Lord to his dishonor so now we imploy and improve them in holy services to the proper glory of God now we busy them to know him to love him to obey him to honour him The penitent person is so sensible of the infinite dishonour which God hath had by his sinful life that if he had now a thousand souls and bodies and ten thousand lives all were little enough in all holiness of Conversation to redeem those dishonours and repair them 3. The peculiar intentions which God hath towards penitent persons The peculiar Intentions of God towards Penitent sinners He intends much Glory by them 1 He doth intend much glory to himself by them for these are the people whom he doth form for his glory and raise up to declare his praise as is evident in Paul and all other singular penitents they have been the great instruments of his glory but they cannot bring him glory unless they be enabled to live better lives then before If they be alienated from the life of God they necessarily are alienated from the glory of God Right believing and right living these are our methods to display the glory of God 2. He doth intend much peace and joy And much peaâ—e and joy unto them unto their Consciences a peace which passeth all understanding and a joy which passeth all expression even that which springs from his gracious favour and reconciliation with them in Christ which both pacifies the conscience and also quickens and revives it But this could not be unless he enabled them to new and better lives the life of holiness is the only path of peace that of wickedness is a way which knows not peace there is no peace unto wicked men nor unto wicked wayes And for Joy that only breeds joy in conscience which makes the conscience not to accuse but excuse not to torment but comfort only the new life is the properly joyful and comfortable life there are no spirits in the life which is not spiritual 3. He doth intend much outward mercy to them See how full the field of blessings is to the penitent but it And much outward mercy to them is upon this condition If his life be obedient as it were upon his good behaviour If ye consent and obey ye shall eat the good of the Land 4. He doth intend them Glory before men and Glory And Glory before men and with himself in Heaven with himself in heaven For the penitent he makes to be the excellent on earth his refined pieces of gold a choice people whom Nations shall honour and the people shall call blessed When a man leaves a sordid and ignominious course of sinning he then becomes honourable in the eyes of God and reputable in the eyes of men Now the spots of Leprosie fall off from Naoman and his flesh grows clear and fair but how should this Sun break out if the clouds still remaine Of necessity the life must alter if we would have the opinions of men to alter yea and to what purpose is it to imagine an eternal life hereafter unless we here first live an holy life without which no man shall see God Doth God inable the true penitent to a new and better life or Vse 1 walking then let us reflect on our wayes and lives How do we live What kind of life doâ—st thou live Dâ—ceive not thy self with the goodness of thy heart if thy life be bad What kind of life is that which we do now live Is it the life of a penitent or no Never talk that thy heart is as good to God-ward as any mans though thy life be vile thou deludest thy self if thy life be evil assuredly thy heart is not good The Tree sayes our Saviour is known by his fruits for a person to talk of a penitent heart and what terror he hath had for sin and in some particulars to makâ— a little semblance of godliness when yet all this while he goes on in a course of drunkenness or of uncleanness of riotousness or of lying or of pride or of covetousness or of injustice or of scoffing c. What a monstrous and wilful deceit is this of a mans soul Thou a penitent who art still a servant of Lust Thou a penitent who still walkest in darkness Thou a penitent whose very course of life is nothing but a confutation of repentance a trade in sin Knowest thou not O sinner that where the heart is changed the life will change If thou hast once put off thy corrupt nature thou wilt easily put off thy corrupt conversation Who doth as he did if he be not as he was No real repentance turns us and that is from the love of sin in the heart and from the course of sin in the life as it suffers thee not to be an hypocrite so it abhors that thou shouldst be profane if thy life be bad question it not thy heart is bad that filthy speech comes from thy filthy Nature that haughty look from thy proud Nature that griping hand from thy cruel Nature that fraudulent tongue from thy cousening Nature 2. As much are they deceived who go on gently and gravely in their old Nor with a cold formal negative
a quickning and regenerating Word it carries Christ in it the Author of Life and the Apostle calls it the Ministration of Life And perhaps it hath been so to some poor man and woman and to some of thy children But O how long hast thou heard it how often hast thou come to this Bread of Life to these Waters of Life What! and yet dead in thy sins not yet quickned and made alive Why thou art a reproach to the Gospel and thy sins have not only given death to thy soul but death to the Gospel of Christ the Gospel is made by them a dead Letter it is not so in it self but thou hast made it so And how wilt thou answer God for killing thy soul and killing his Christ and killing his Gospel 2. Many have a name that they live but like the Angel of Many have a name to live and yet are dead the Church of Sardis they are dead Revel 3. 1. Oh Sirs Spiritual life the life of grace is a rare thing and a difficult thing Every man loves his life but few love this life No man hates his own life almost but most men hate this life of grace because it is destructive to this life of sin And many think they have it and others think so too and yet they have it not You know it is one thing to put Flowers upon a dead body and another thing to put life into a dead man It is one thing for the Sun to convey light another thing for the Sun to convey life I might shew you that mâ—n mistake spiritual life exceedingly Education in a person may lead him far and so may an enlightned and generous Conscience and so may restraining Grace and so may Art and so may the common gifts of the Spirit they may enable a man to strange conceptions and strange affections and strange actions and yet the man may be spiritually dead Not any of these flow from a gracious principle of spiritual life Why common Gifts may lead up the soul far and Education may lead to Duties much and Conscience may awe sin exceedingly and Art or Hypocrisie may counterfeit the very life of Grace as a Stage-player doth a King wonderfully O therefore look to it that you have more than a name of life that you live indeed 3. If you should deceive your selves and when you come to It would be very sad to be deceived in this die you find that you have been dead all your lives and never were spiritually made alive Oh! in what a condition will thy poor trembling soul be To die and see nothing but death I thought there was life in my heart and life in my strong faith and life in my troubles of spirit and life in my obedience but alas I never lived I never enjoyed Christ never enjoyed grace c. 4. If the Lord hath made thee alive from the dead I do not To be alive is cause of great joy know any man living on the earth that hath such cause of joy unspeakable and glorious I will mention but three particulars unto thee 1. Hereby thou mayest be assured of thy interest in the richest mercy and greatest love of God to thy poor soul Read but the Apostle in Ephes 2. 4. But God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us v. 5. even when we were dead in sins hath quickned us 2. Thou mayest palpably discover the tokens and vertues of Jesus Christ upon thy soul the very Effigies of the saving works of Christ that which Paul so longed to know even the power of the death and of the resurrection of Christ Philip. 3. 10. In thy death to Sin and in thy life of Grace doth the power of Christs death and of Christs resurrection appear 3. Thou mayest certainly know that Heaven shall be the place of thy rest hereafter Spiritual life comes from Heaven and bends to Heaven and shall bring to Heaven It prepares for Heaven and it is a part of Heaven and it shall be perfected and filled up in Heaven O what things are these who would miss of these For Christs sake search throughly whether you be made alive Now me thinks I hear some soul secretly longing to know how it may be cleared unâ—o it That God hath quickned it from the Signs of spiritual life dead That as it was once dead yet it is now alive Sol. There are many things which may clearly declare it for indeed life is such an active thing especially spiritual life that it may easily appear sometimes or other to him who hath it 1. If sin be alive then thou art still dead and if sin be dead thou art certainly alive I will open both these parâ—s 1. If sin be alive then the man is dead for it is impossible that the If sin be alive the man is dead same man should be alive and dead under the same consideration Spiritual Life and spiritual Death are incompatible at the same time in the same subject And therefore if sin be alive questionless you are spiritually dead Now there are four things which manifest sin to be alive in any mans soul 1. The flaming bents and inâ—atiable desires of the heart after things forbidden in the Word Ephes 4. 19. we read of sin with greediness 2. The universal and easie authority law or command that it hath over the soul and body that it can use them in the service of lusts when and as it pleaseth Ephes 2. 2 3. 3. The joyfull contentation and satisfaction which the heart takes in evil things as we do in meat and drink 4. The customary trade and course of our life in sinfull ways a walking in them a living in them O if these be yet found in thee sin is alive still and thou art dead still 2. But if sin be dead thou art certainly alive If sin be dead thou art alive I confess sin may be restrained and a man not alive and sin may be troublesome in some respects and a man not yet alive But if it be dead the man is spiritually alive for sin in thee can never come to be dead but by spiritual life Now sin is dead in thee if thou canst find two things 1. If it hath lost thy affections If love to sin be gone and hatred of sin be come if delight in sin be quenched and sorrow for sin be implanted Oh Sirs the love of sin is the life of sin and if the hatred of sin doth live then the love of sin is dead 2. If it hath lost its Authority its free and uncontrolled power although it molests still and tempts still yet it rules not thou art not a slave to it and subject to it thou wilt not serve it obey it any longer If thou hast Christ for thy Lord the Law of Christ for thy Rule and Sin for thy Enemy thou art alive 2. A second sign of spiritual life is a spiritual sense
of spiritual wants This is an undoubted truth That where there is A spiritual sense of spiritual wants life there is sense and where there is sense there is life If the life be a spiritual life then the sense is a spiritual sense a feeling of our spiritual wants When the Prodigal began to live he began to feel to feel to feel his nakedness to feel his poverty to feel his wants And when Paul began to live he began to see his wants Rom. 7. 14. The law is spiritual but I am carnal sold under sin I know that in me there dwelleth no good thing how to perform that which is good I find not O when God gives grace unto the heart that grace though never so weak affords two operations 1. It gives you a clearer sight of sin 2. it gives you a fuller sight of your wants It is Learning which makes us to see how much Learning we want it is Health which makes you see how much Health you want it is Grace which makes you see how little Grace you have and how much you still need No man rightly feels the want of more Faith but by some Faith the want of more Softness but by some Softness Object But now the Question may be How a man may How a spiritual sense may be known know that the sense of his wants be a spiritual sense of them for many men say that they want such and such spiritual Graces and yet they have not a spiritual life in them Sol. I answerâ— There are four things which declare the sense of our spiritual wants to be a true spiritual sense 1. Ordinarily it follows after a deep Conviction of sin that man It follows after a deep conviction of sin deceives himself who talks of spiritual wants and yet never saw his spiritual fulness of sin The Lords ordinary way in Conversion is To strip us wholly of our selves and therefore 1. He opens our eyes to see how rich we have been in sin 2. To see how poor and nothing we are in Grace 2. If it be a spiritual sense it is an humbling It is an humbling sense sense He who can see much sin in himself and not be troubled is not rightly sensible of sin and he who can see much want of grace in himself and not be humbled is not spiritually sensible of his spiritual wants What! and yet so little Knowledge yet so little Faith and yet so little Love of Christ yet no more strength to pray to deny my self to overcome my sins And now he mourns and weeps 3. If it be a living spiritual sense it is an humbâ—e sense The It is an humble sense presence of Grace though little breeds an high conflict with all sin and a lowly spirit under all wants This man admires at other Christians Graces and prizes them and goes home and confesseth Lord I am less then the least of all Saints 4. If it be a spiritual sense then it is a careful and an active sense It It is a careful and an active sense would have these wants supplied it is full of inquiry what shall I do and it is full of Prayer I believe Lord help my unbeliefe The sense of want will not cease but in the sense of supply 3. A spiritual appetite is a sign of spiritual life You know There is a spiritual appetite that life seeks its own preservation the living man must have food and will have food As soon as ever a child is born if it be living nature prompts it to crave the brests and verily so it is with every new born Christian As new born babes desire the sincere milk of the word 1 Pet. 2. 2. As soon as the Prodigal began to be spiritually alive he presently thought of food O saith he there is bread enough in my Fathers house and to spare As there is bread for life so there is bread of life and as there are waters for life so there are waters of life there is spiritual bread and spiritual water Corpus Christi est pabulum fidei The Lord Jesus and his Ordinances are the spiritual food of the soul and when a man receives a spiritual life he cannot live without them but depends on them as for the nutrition and preservation of his life Here again it may be demanded How a Christian may know that his appetite is a truly spiritual appetite flowing from life To which Signs of appetite flowing from life It is a strong appetite I answer thus If it be an appetite flowing from spiritual life 1. Then it is a strong appetite the Scriptures call it an hungring and thirsting the strongest and fiercest of all appetites O Sirs There is an appetite dainty and there is an appetite hungry there is a difference twixt a want on empty desire and an hungring or an appetite for life Give me children or else I dye the word is to such a man more then his appointed food 2. It is an Vniversal Appetite Some men have a stomack to the Word but not to the Sacrament and some A Universal appetite have a stomack to the Sacrament O that they must have but not to the Word and some have a stomack to this part of the Word not to that part of the Word and to it as thus dressed and another way dressed New Dishes for dainty stomacks But a Christian in whom the life of Grace is wrought why he is for the Word and he is for Sacrament and he is for all Christs Ordinances and all Christs truths Why saith he I have a proud heart and such a truth will humble it and I have a troubled heart and such a truth will comfort it and I have a doubtful heart and such a truth will direct it and I have a weak heart and such an Ordinance will strengthen it so that he sees food in all of them and he hath an appetite to all of them 3. It is a constant A constant appetite appetite Give a living man food in the morning and Life looks for some at night he can feed to day and he can feed to morrow too Thus it is with a living man though when a man is dying his stomack dies in him and leaves him One Sermon a moneth or a year will satisfie A living Christian he takes in provision every market day every Sabbath for his soul and he longs for the market day again O when will the Sabbath come again O when shall I appear before God again O when shall I sit down and be entertained at Christs Table again O I could hear of Christ of Faith of Mortification of the Love of God of newness of Obedience c. still I need more heavenly nourishment for my Graces c. 4. Spiritual Growth is a sign of Spiritual Life You know There is spiritual growth that living men do grow until they attain unto that proportion and measure which
Nature say the Philosophers God say we allots unto them Therefore living Christians are compared to a sucking and thriving child which sucks and growes by sucking And to living branches that grow into more strength and in Scripture True Grace which is the same with spiritual life it is of an increasing and growing nature Christ compares it to a grain of Mustard-seed which is little at first but in time growes and spreads exceedingly and Solomon compares it to the Sun which riseth more and more to the perfect day Paul commends the Corinthians that they did abound in all Grace and praies for the Philippians that their love might a bound yet more and more in knowledg and in all Judgment And he himself forgat what was behind and pressed forward and counted himself not to have apprehended O you who take your selves to be alive do you grow in grace Many men grow worse and worse under the means of Grace many grow in notions but they do not grow in Grace many grow into new opinions but they do not grow in holy affections But do you grow in Grace and do you grow in all Grace and do you grow according to the means of Growth Alas many men decay apace and many men like pictures retain the same dimensions sin is no more weakned after forty years living then at the first their old sins retain their old strength and their faith receives no augmentation they are no more able to trust on God for their bodies nor to rely on Christ for their souls then heretofore The barrenness and unfruitfulness of Christians is an unspeakable dishonour to the Gospel and an evident testimony that they have but a form of Godliness without the power of it I might now have shewn you that true spiritual Growth is 1. Especially an inward Growth 2. And a general Growth 3. And the Growth comes in by the Growth of Faith 4. And appears best in the Growth of humiliâ—y 5. A spiritual cry or breath is another sign of spiritual life There is a spiritual breath If a man can but groan and breath that man is a living man When Paul was converted Ananias was sent unto him as to a chosen Vessel Behold said God unto him he prayeth in Zach. 12. 10. The Spirit of Grace and of Supplication are joyned for the one never goes without the other But will some reply This cannot be a sure sign of spiritual life for a wicked man may pray and cry to God we read of their Prayers and cries in Scripture often I grant it But 1. There is a difference twixt a spiritual cry and a natural cry their cries arise from natural principles but not from a spiritual principle 2. It is the cry of a distressed man but not of a renewed man 3. It is a cry for natural and outward good but not for spiritual and everlasting good 4. And when they cry for mercy and heaven it is not that mercy may bring them into an holy communion with God but only that mercy may keep them from wrath and Hell 6. Lastly A spiritual manner of working is an infallible evidence There is a spiritual manner of working of a spiritual quickningâ— When the Lord converts a man and makes him spiritually alive he now works spiritual work 1. By Spiritual Rules 2. From Spiritual Principles in the strength of Christ by Faith and from love 3. With Spiritual Affections willingly cheerfully and delightfully 4. For Spiritual ends 1. By Spiritual Rules To as many as walk according By spiritual rules to this Rule peace be on them Gal. 6. 16. A dead and unconverted man lives by the Rules of his sensual Lusts or the customes of the World or the wisdome of carnal policy sin rules him and men rule him and his profits and pleasures rule him But when the man is converted now God rules him he stands in awe of Gods Word and lives as 1 Pet. 4. 2. To the Will of God His actions intentions desires steps are measured by the word t is not An libet but An licet The word lets him out and brings him in Whether the living Creature went thither the Wheeles went so c. 2. From spiritual Principles O Sirs From spiritual principles a man may do much work which we call spiritual from a Carnal and low principle self-self-Love vain-Glory Education a quick Conscience may set out much But the living Christians work arises from union with Christ all is done in the strength of Christ and Faith fetcheth strength from Christ to pray and to preach and to mourn and to repent c. 3. With spiritual affections With spiritual affections There is a connaturalness twixt a spiritual heart and a spiritual work Thy word was the rejoycing of my heart I was glad said David when they said unto me let us go to the House of the Lord. I delight saith Paul in the Law of God after the inward man It is good for â—e to draw near to God There are affections in the works of a living man his works drop out of his heart another mans fall out of his parts 4. For spiritual ends So that Christ may be glorifyed we live For spiritual ends unto the Lord unto him that dyed for us Whatsoever ye do do it to the Glory of God that God in all things may be glorifyed through Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 4. 11. Obj. But will some say if these be signs of the life of Complaints of the want of all these Grace of one being made spiritually alive then I am in a sad condition For 1. I find much sin still living in me 2. And I find very dull if not dead affections and I find 3. Exceeding impotency to what is good 4. And I cannot find that old appetite and those old â—ervent crieâ— of Prayer which here 〈◊〉 I found 5. And as for grow hunder spiritual means O my heart sinks to behold the rich seasons of Grace and my barrenness and unfruitfulness under them Sol. I should Answered be â—â—â—th that any truly living Soul should go away with a sad heart therefore give me leave to answer thy fears 1. Generally 2. Then distinctly 1. Generally thus 1. Such complaints as these ordinarily Generally are the language not of the dead but of the living When shall you hear such inditâ—ments from a base lewd sin-loving and serving person O no these are the complaints of an heart that is spiritually sensible and spiritually tender and spiritually jealous and which would not be deceived in its spiritual condition 2. If such complaints as these be attended with inward humblings and abasings of the heart and with desires and endeavours of help assuredly they are the Testimonies of a living man Who shall deliver me O wretched man was the complaint of living Paul 3. If thou canst not at all times find every one of the forenamed Symptomes of life yet if at any time thou canst find
not to lose the cause of all our discomforts It was a miracle that the three children were in a fiery furnace yet not one hair of their heads was singed It was a miracle that Moses bush was burning and not consumed Oh it is a sad wonder that so many afflictions are upon men and not one sin troubled not one sin consumed mortifyed 2. Many persons though much afflicted and long afflicted yet are not converted God complained of old they return not to him Many persons though much and long afflicted are not converted Eâ—ghâ— so â—s of personâ— Stupid sinners Dâ—pâ—rate sinners that smites them and in another place yet have ye not returned to me saith the Lord. There are eight sorts of men whose afflictions have not been effectual to their Conversion 1. Stupid Sinners who know not from whom afflictions are sent nor for what end Wherefore hath all this evil befallen us said they 2. Desperate Sinners who forsake God in their afflictions They cry not when he bindeth them Job 30. 13. This evil is of the Lord why should I wait upon the Lord any longer said he in 2 Kin. 6. 33. 3. Bold sinners who grow worse and worse under their affliction as Bold sinners the Anvile by blows is more hardened like Ahaz in his distresses who sinned yet more 2 Chr. 28. 22. 4. Proud Sinners who repine and murmur and complain against God fretting against him and Proud sinners perhaps cursing of God as they in Iâ— 8. 21. 5. Careless Sinners who Careless sinners regard not the operations of Gods hands and lay nothing to heart The unjust knows no shame Zep. 3. 5. 6. Politick Sinners who think Politick sinners Despairing sinners to make up their losses by any temporizing compliances 7. Despairing Sinners who sink under the burden of worldly losses and crosses a worldly sorrow doth seize on them even unto death and crush them as Rachel c. 8. Hypocritical Sinners who seem to turn unto God in Prayer and Fasting but it is like Judah friendly Hypocritical sinners not with their whole hearts at the best they doe but stop in sinning but they do not forsake their sins their righteousness is but as the morning dew Hos 6. I will but say three things to all these men 1. It is a sure sign that the afflictions are whips of wrath and not rods of love they come not from a Father but from a Judg. 2. It is a sure sign that greater afflictions are to follow I will chastise you seven times more Lev. 26. 21. or else which is worse eternal destructioâ— Reprobate Silver shall they be called Because I would have purged thee and thou wast not purged thou shalt not be purged till I cause my fury to rest upon thee 3. It is a sign that men are very wicked drowned in the love of sin or the World or that a spirit of Atheism prevails and reigns in them I now proceed to another Proposition which is implyed in these words That there is an Almighty Power required to convert or change a Doct. 5. There is an almighty power required to convert a sinner sinner no less then is requisite to quicken a dead man This my Son was dead and is alive again To awaken a man out of sleep needs no great power a word a call a cry a little stiring may do it but to quicken a dead man here calls and cries and stirrings will not do it all the power of Men and Angels will not do it In Acts 2. 41. you read of three thousand converted at one Sermon And in Acts 4. 4. of five thousand converted at another Sermon so many so quickly converted certainly the Power that wrought this must be Almighty Jesus Christ himself must come and he must cry and he must cry with a loud voice Lazarus come forth Joh. 11. 43. The Apostle speaks of the exceeding greatness of Gods Power towards them that believe and of the working of his mighty Power Ephes 1. 19. Even such a Power as God wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead v. 20. There is a twofold opinion about the power which is put forth The power put forth in conversion Not moral only in a sinners Conversion 1. Some hold it to be Moral only because this is most congruous to the will of man which is a moral subject God they imagine doth offer and propound such Objects with such Arguments which do wooe and allure and prevail with the will of a sinner Sol. It is true that the outward means work only after a moral way The word which is the ministry for Conversion it doth offer to the sinner Arguments of life and death It reveales and commands and promiseth and threatneth But a moral suasion as they call it is not sufficient to convert And there are four Reasons which to me seem very strong and unanswerable against it 1. The Proved very Phrases by which a sinners Conversion is expressed in Scripture do surmount a moral suasion There is no less power to convert a sinner then there was 1. To create man at the first 2. There shall be to raise the dead at the last when a sinner is converted he is said to be created again to be born again to be regenerated his heart is said to be opened and circumcised his strong heart is taken away an heart of flesh is given unto him surely all this is more then a moral power 2. This moral suasion must necessarily presuppose some power and abilities in him with whom it deals as if you counsel a man you suppose something in him to incline him to hearken if you do not suppose such a power then it must be supposed that your counsel is in vain as if you should counsel an Ethiopian to change his skin or a blind man to see this were in vain for there is no power in them to do these 3. The conversion of a sinner in respect of God should be then contingent It might be and it might not be Though God intends to convert a man yet he may fail and miss of the event for as much as a moral work is resistable and may easily be put by How often would I have gathered your children and you would not yee alwayes resist the Holy-Ghost 4. Yea the Conversion of a sinner should in the event depend more upon the will of man then on the will of God The grace offered is common and it is made peculiar and differential by mans will the right use of grace is not of grace but of free will so that discrimen siliorum Dei seculi is a natura not ex gratia The moral suasion is presented unto two sinners the suasion is alike why doth it bring this man and not the other man to Conversion There can be no reason given but this that the one would hearken to it the other would not so that the effect of Conversion
Another is accidental which alters the qualities of man Naaman was the same man when he was a Leper and when he was cured of his Leprosie he was the same for substance of it there was no change but he was not the same for the accidental quality because his leprosie was changed Such a change is there in conversion the sinfull Leprosie is changed and a fair beautiful form of holiness is put into his soul the Glove is now perfumed the bitter water is now seasoned another nature contrary to his former nature is now infused old things are past away all things are become new 2. Cor. 5. 17. Againe observe that the accidental change or alteration of a person is likewise two-fold 1. One is Corruptive which is from good to evil such a change was there in the Angels that fell they fell from heaven to hell from being Children of Light to be the Princes of darkness and such a change was there in Adam that fell O what a change what a sudden loss of great possessions of unspeakable perfections O how good once he was O what a sinner now he is 2. Another is perfective which is from evil to Good Such a change is Conversion Why it is from sin to God It is more then for Joseph to leave the prison and be made a Prince when a man is converted he is now raised and enabled with the nature and life and excellencies of God and Christ true Conversion is a perfecting change One distinction more I cannot omit It is this The perfective change is likewise two-fold 1. Relative and forinsecal as in the Justification of a sinner when a sinner is Justified the state of this sinner is changed before it he was in the state of death and condemnation after it he is in the state of life and absolution 2. Inherent and intrinsecal as here in the conversion of a sinner which is a change within a man a change not so properly of his condition as of his disposition even from one contrary to another and that à Genere ad Genus from one kind of quality to another kind A sinner hath sometimes a contrary motion of good to evil put into him but this is not Conversion for it is not a mutation but a motion A sinners inclination is sometimes withheld that he doth not sin yet this is not conversion for it is a chaining only not a changing of his disposition the Lyon is a Lyon in chains A sinner goes from one sin to another he leaveth his riotousness and turneth to coveteousness he leaveth profaneness and turneth to hypocrisy yet this is not Conversion for his sinful disposition is not altered from kind to kind It is but a shifting from one evil to another evil as the wind from one poynt to another it is not a change from evil to good If a man could leave all the sins in the world and yet he loved and served but one this man is not a converted man because conversion is a change from one kind to a contrary kind which the man comes short of whose heart is still set on any one sin 2. True Conversion is a very great and notable Change It is a very great and not able change there is no change I think in all the world of that height and depth as the conversion of a sinner No not that from Grace to Glory because it is but ab imperfecto and this is à contrario The Scripture doth frequently parallel it even with those changes which are miraculous When Christ made the blind to see and the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak and the dead to live and dispossessed Devils these were very great and notable changes take them single and they were so Now all these miracles are wrought in any one converted person 'T is called a Creation a Resurrection c. because God puts out as much Power in the Conversion of a sinner as he did in creating the World It is the prime work of the Spirit of Christ the top the very highest when any one man is converted the blind is made to see and the deaf is made to hear Isai 29. 18. In that day shall the deaf hear the words of the Book and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness and the dumb is made to speak and the lame is made to leap Isai 35. 5. The eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped v. 6. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart and the tongue of the dumb sing Yea and the dead is made to live This my Son was dead and is alive again and so many sins as there are from which the heart is converted of so many Devils is that heart dispossessed thy filthiness was an unclean Devil and thy persecution was a raging Devil every sin that possessed thee was a strong Devil within thee Oh what a great change is it to behold a stone turned into flesh and yet in Conversion The heart of stone is turned into an heart of flesh Ezek. 36. 26. What a change were it to see a stone changed into a Son of Abraham and yet in Conversion a stony hearted sinner is changed into a Son of God what a change were it to see darkness turned into light yet in Conversion it is so Ye were once darkness but now are ye light in the Lord Eph. 5. 8. What shall I say in Conversion the Bramble becomes a Fig Tree and the Lion becomes a Lamb and the Wilderness is turned into a Paradise and Hell is turned into Heaven the Extortioner turns liberal so did Zacheus the Persecutor becomes a Martyr so did Paul the hideous sinner become a Saint so did Four things seâ— out the greatness of this change Theâ—e is a change of nature in nature the Corinthians the blasphemer now fears an oath There are four things which set out the greatness of the change in a sinners Conversion 1. There is a change of nature in nature there is a man and a man in the same man an old man and a new man in the same man two judgments in one judgment two wills in one will like two Armies in one Field or like the Twins in Rebecca's Womb. 2. There is the strangest unlikeness to a This is in a moment mans self in a moment that ever was in a moment to hate Christ exceedingly and the next moment to love Christ above all to crucifie Christ because he said he was the Son of God and presently confess that he is the Son of God to mock the Apostles as drunkards and presently cry out what shall we do c. this moment to love sin as if it were my only Heaven and the next moment to loath sin as if it were my only Hell Now to count all truth and holiness but as dung to the World and presently to count all the World but as dung
changed into another love into hatred and hatred into love joy into grief boldness into fear Lately the desires were who will shew us any good now the desires are what shall we do to be saved Lately the delights were iâ— sin in sensualities in vain societies now they are in the favour of God in Jesus Christ in pardon of sin in heavenly communion Lately the love was set on that which was most unlovely now it is set on the most lovely object indeed Christ is the center c. Lately the grief was a turbulent Sea for worldly losses but now it is a running River for sinning against God Lately the affections were wings for iniquity but now they are springs for duty I may not inlarge by what you have heard it may plainly appear Dâ—monstrations of a notable change in Conversion From the person converted From the work of Conversion that true Conversion works an universal change in the sinner Demonstrations that there is a notable change in Conversion 1. The person converted he is made pertaker of the Divine Nature 1 Pet. 1. 4. He is a new Creature 2 Cor. 5. 7. He is quickned from the dead Eph. 2. 1. He is born again Jo. 3. 3. 2. The work of Conversion It is the effect of the great and good will of Election and in it God displayes the glory of his great Love and Grace and Mercy And Christ sees of the travel of his soul some special fruit of his wonderful sufferings and purchases And the holy Ghost doth manifest his almighty Poâ—er and the noblest act thereof and converting grace is a new contrary nature a new man 3. The end of Conversion Conversion is the first From the end of Conversion inward work for heavenly glory It is wrought to make us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light Naturally we are opposite to God and to all Communion with him Without holiness no man shall see the Lord no unclean thing can enter there sinning Angels were cast out of Heaven God qualifies those whom he will dignifie he qualifyed Saul for an earthly Kingdome much more the sinner for an heavenly Kingdome Heavenly glory is absolutely inconsistent with a graceless heart the promise of it is so and the nature of it is so and the work of it is so and the reward of it is so 4. Converted persons are to live other lives and to do other works therefore there must be a change of their Converted persons must live oâ—her lives Vse 1. This convinceâ—h many to be yet unconverted Such in whom appears no change at all Forms and Principles and Powers Is true Conversion a change a great change an internal and cordial change an universal change Why then this one truth palpably convinceth multitudes of people to be as yet not converted 1. There are some men in whom there appears no change at all neither inward nor outward the Leopards spots remain and the Blackmores skin is unchanged they were ignorant and so are still they were drunkards swearers railers scoffers mockers of godliness and godly men Sabbath-breakers unclean proud and so are still The Prophet speaks of some whose scum departed not from them Ezek. 24. 12. And the Apostle of some who cannot cease to do evil 2 Pet. 2. 14. And David of some who hate to be reformed Psal 50. 16. And Steven of some who alwayes resist the holy Ghost Acts 7. 51. And Paul of some who wax worse and worse 2 Tim. 3. 13. Although changes go over their age they were young and now are old yet no change goes over their hearts and lives although changes go over their bodies their strength is changed into weakness and their health is changed into sickness although changes go over their estates their wealth is changed into poverty and their abundance is changed into want although changes go over the times peace is changed into war and safety is changed into danger nay although sometimes changes goe over their consciences Stupidity is changed into horrour and pleasure into terrour yet their hearts are not changed they approve love and delight in their sins as much as ever and their Conversations are not changed they drive the same trade run on to the same excess of Riotousness wallow in the same mire of Ungodliness despise converting Ordinances converted Persons converting Graces Now what shall I say to these Persons They are unchanged sinners and so is God an unchangeable God who hath threatned them and swore his Wrath against them Thou wilt not repent of thy sins nor will God repeâ—t of his Wrath thou wilt not turn to him and therefore will he turn away his mercy from thee and will overturn overturn overturn thee as the Prophet phraseth it 2. There are some whose change is only outward but it is Such whose Change is only outward not inward not inward and cordial they stand off from many sins and come on to many duties and yet their hearts are not changed There are six things which may convince a man that his heart is not changed 1. When a man seems to be tender least he should Six things convince a man his Heart is not changed commit a sin but yet his heart was never tender and humbled for all the sins which he hath committed Jer. 31. 19. I was ashamed yea even confounded because I did bear the reproach of my youth If Repentance begins not in tears it will end in tears When I look forward and see sin with a trembling eye O I dare not offend my God and when I look backward and see sin with a mournful eye O I have sinned I have sinned these indeed do shew a converted and changed heart But I fear it is rather a policy then a change and a regard more to my credit then my conscience when I expostulate with a sin in Temptation and never mourn for many sins in Commission 2. When a man leaves many sins but yet he doth not loath any sin Many a man sometimes abstains from meat yet loves it but a good heart abstains from sin as from a serpent which he hates He turnes his face from them but he turnes not his heart from them he doth not act the sin nor doth hate the sin he doth not let 〈◊〉 out of door nor yet crucify it within door he seems not to be a friend and yet is not an enemy to sin this mans heart is not changed 3. When a man acts from an awing Conscience and not from a renewing Spirit flies from sin only when conscience flies upon him for sinning and doth good only when conscience is unquiet when not Grace which works uniformly but terour which works accidentally is his Principle though a while there be some diversity and diversion too in this man yet there is no change of heart in him even Pharaoh under a Judgment yielded who yet upon a respite hardned his heart again and Iron whiles hot
upon the spirit of a man which There may be many changes not inconsistent with the saving change yet are not inconsistent with the saving change of his Spirit Sometimes he may be lively and quick sometimes he may be flat and dull sometimes he may be confident and cheerful and at some other times he may be afraid and mournful sometimes he may be full and enlarged and at some other time he may be aukard and streightned sometimes he may have more sense of Gods Love and sometimes more sense of his own sins None of these things are essential to the converted estate a mans heart may be truly changed by converting grace notwithstanding many crosses and afflictions on his outward estate many eclipses in his comforts many varieties in his spiritual actings many contrarieties twixt his sence and his faith many temptations upon his spirit to many doubts and fears in his heart 4. Sinful corruptions never work with a more sensible strength Sinful corruptions work with more sensible strength when the heart is truely changed then when the heart is truly converted and changed Before Conversion our sins do work more mightily but we do not then perceive the workings because your delight was then in sinning and nothing is burthensome to delight and nothing was in us contrary to our sinnings the strong man kept all the house and every faculty was a friend and servant to sin the river ran all one way But when the heart is converted there is now laid into it 1. The quickest principle of feeling 2. The contrariest principle of resisting 3. The properest principle of destruction to sin and therefore no marvel that we feel our sinful natures more than formerly for all qualities are most active and most felt in cases of resistance and destruction nevertheless none of these must conclude against our Conversion but rather for it because 1. The greatest work of grace is inward 2. The sense of sinful workings joyned with an hatred of them and humbling of the heart under them and with addresses to God for subduing power is certainly a sign of converting grace Therefore hearken unto me thou distressed soul 1. Though the Glory of Grace consists in Victory yet the Truth of Grace appears in Combats the fighting Souldier is as right to the cause as the conquering Souldier there is fire in the smoking flax as well as in the flaming furnace 2. That great corruptions still remaining in temptation are the burdens of a weak Christian but are not the Characters of a false Christian 3. Jesus Christ can by a little grace weaken strongest corruptions The least true grace will help thy soul to Christ through whose strength thou who art now in conflict shalt ere long be made more than a Conqueror 4. True grace begins in weakness goes on with combat but ends in victory There is but little light at the first and more darkness for quantity but the light of the Sun is rising and dissipating and at length remains alone Conquering grace hath comfort conflicting grace hath strength and even mourning grace hath truth Peter's tears shewed truth of Grace as well as Paul's Triumph But how may I descern my change to arise from the power of converting How it may be discerned that this change is from converting grace and â—ot from the power of a troubling coâ—science Answered grace and not from the power only of a troubling conscience Sol. I conceive thus in four particulars 1. When the change is made only from the sting of conscience that change goes off and vanisheth when the trouble of conscience goes off and continues only while that doth continue whiles the trouble of conscience is on the man the man will hear and the man will pray and the man will consult and profess and resolve yea and now too to become a new man yea and he will cry out against his sins and will not come near his sins But when that trouble is off all is off again the Water which was heated grows cold again Saul is pursuing David again and Foelix is covetous again But if the change be from grace though trouble be off yet the heart is against sin and is for good for grace sets us against sin as it makes us unholy and evil and not only or principally as it makes us uncomfortable and miserable 2. When the change ariseth only from a troubling conscience not from a contrariety to God but to us It doth not arise from a hatred of sin and a love of good but only from a hatred of torment a self-self-love and a love of ease the man loves that sin that he dares not now commit and hates the good which now he doth he doth the good only as a means to take off his trouble he doth it not as a work in which he delights nor doth he flie sin as an evil which he hates he flies sin as it is malum sensibile not as it is malum spirituale But in a gracious change trouble doth not cause hatred but hatred causeth trouble of sin 3. When the change is only from a troubling conscience then when the trouble is gone the mans heart is more hardned and he growes more wicked then ever before and in after sinnings less sensible and less troubled as Iron growes more hardned after it hath been in the fire or water that is stopped more violent If they be again intangled and overcome the latter end is worse with them then the beginning 2 Pet. 2. 20. But where the heart is changed by grace the more grace still the more sense of sin and still the more fear to sin and still the more love of God 4. When the change comes only from the trouble of conscience the change extends no further then to that or those particular sins for which the conscience doth trouble the man if the other sins trouble not they are not left But when the change is wrought by grace this change extends to all sins I hate every evil way saith David they do no iniquity Psal 119. Let us â—leanse our selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit 2 Cor. 7. 1. Quest How may a man know that his change is not the fruit of Hypocrisie but of Converting grace Sol. This may be discerned How it appears this change is not the fruit of Hypocrisie thus 1 The change by Hypocrisie 1. Is not Cordial no Hypocrites heart is changed In heart ye work wickedness The Hypocrite dares to give way to heart sins Judah turned Answered not with her heart but feignedly 2. Is not Vniversal The Prophet tells the hypocritical Israelites that they were as a Cake half baked and not turned an hypocrite though he forsake many sins yet he loves some sin Jehu cannot part with the golden Calves though he did destroy Baal 3. Is not lasting but changeable sutable occasions are too strong for an heart felsely changed 4. Is not able to abide three Trials of
the Word of Conscience of Death The third Use shall be to exhort and entreat us to stir up all our hearts to beg of God to work in them this admirable change by Vse 3. Exhortation to beg of God to work this change Conversion I read in Scripture that the blind man cryed out Jesuâ— thou Son of David have mercy on me and again Thou Son of David c. and all this was for a change in his eyes and I read that Naoman took a great journey into the Land of Israel and all was to be cleansed of the Leprosie of his body And why will we not take a little pains to have our hearts and souls changed by grace Consider seriously 1. That a man is not excluded No other want excludes from heaven This want certainly excludes us from heaven for any other want not for want of wisdome or parts or riches or dignities 2. Thou art certainly excluded from heaven the door is shut up against thee if thou be not converted and changed the holy God will never look upon thee and thou shalt never look upon that holy God in his holy place The unclean person was shut out of the Camp and no unclean thing shall ever enter into heaven 3. It is thy duty thou art It is thy duty to be changed bound to be a converted and changed person every man is bound to hate and forsake his sins and to come back and love and serve his God did God make thee to serve thy lusts hath he preserved thee all this while to sin against him Is this the fruit of thy dreadful Covenant which thou hast made with him 4. What wilt thou get by keeping thy sins or any one of them What wilt thou get by keeping thy sins Be perswaded To beseech the Lord to change thy heart Be perswaded therefore at least unto two things 1. To beseech the Lord to change and convert thy heart even thine also remember well 1. None can change a sinner but God The Musician must tune the Instrument 2. It is no sin to beg of God a Conversion from sin No no thou canst not put up a more acceptable request Lord I am weary of my sins I would dishonour thee no more I would be good I would serve thee thou only canst change me and enable me for thy Mercies sake do so and heal and turn me so shall I be healed and turned 3. God hath changed and converted great sinners was not Manasses so M. Magdalen so Paul so the Corinthians so Why venture toward his mercy seat who can tell but he may do so to thee 4. He hath changed sinners who have not sought him and will he refuse it for them who do seek it of him if he many times be found of them that seek him not will he deny to them who seek 5. You have his promise to do this very converting work for you He will give his holy Spirit to them that ask him Luk. 11. 13. I will give a new heart and a new spirit Ezek. 36. 26. Behold he calls thee he tells thee that he is willing to convert thee why then art thou not willing to receive it to have it done do not say thou art a sinner God never did convert any but a sinner nor does he promise to convert any who is not a sinner 6. Did ever any beg this and failed of it Lord said one to Christ If thou wilt thou canst make me clean what saith Christ to him doth he not answer him at all Doth he say I cannot Or doth he say I will not O no his answer is and it is a present answer I will be thou clean 2. To come to the Word and come for this end that God may convert and change many came Come to the word for this end to the Pool of Bethesda to look on it and an impotent man came thither to be cured in it and there he was cured many come to hear the Word to mock at it and many come to get some notions from it and many come to catch the Minister at it but he who comes for this very end to be converted and changed by it I believe he shall first or last attain his end the word shall convert and change him The word is sometimes compared to a Glass which discovers Jam. 1. 29. and sometimes to a Laver which washeth and cleanseth Psal 119. 9. even the young man who of all other is most unruly and wild is converted by it The Power of God goes with the Word of God and the Grace of God comes by the Word of God it is Vehiculum Spiritus canalis Gratiae Thousands have been converted by it and so maist thou Hath God converted and changed thy heart hearken then to Vse 4. Counsels to the converted a few counsels 1. Take heed of sinning after Conversion Do not sin against grace received if thou dost thou wilt weaken and lame thy strength wilt darken thy heaven wilt perplex thy conscience wilt shew thy self more ungrateful then any man no wicked man can have such an aggravation of sin upon him as thou hast 2. Honour God with that Grace which thou hast received Conversion fits and enables a man for Gods Service and Glory And they began to be merry Luke 15. 24. These words are as the Banquet after the Feast they are the close and the reckoning that is brought in upon the lost Son being brought home The case is wonderfully altered with him all is altered when the sinner is altered when he was wandring from his Father he ran up and down the Country and wasted all his estate among Harlots he shifted himself to his very skin and out he is turned amongst the Swine and no man regarded him the poor wretch wanted Father and House and Cloaths and all Comforts and was upon his last Leggs at the very point of starving and famishing But now being found and returned home all mercies come in unto him there 's a Father to embrace him and an House to entertain him and Raiment to cloath him and Friends to welcome him and a feast to rejoyce him And they began to be merry As formerly you have had the nature of Conversion so in these you have the fruit of Conversion When Jesus Christ was born there was great joy and when a sinner is born again hereupon also ariseth great joy The Proposition on which I intend to insist is this That Conversion brings the Soul into a joyful a very joyful condition They began to be merry Mirth is the accent of joy Doct. 7. Conversion brings the soul into a very joiful condition it is an emphatical joy but when did they begin to be merry why as soon as it was said This my Son is alive and this my Son is found now they begin to be merry Conversion may be considered three wayes 1. Antecedenter For the precious qualities and works which
loves him Christ hath satisfyed for him his heart is sanctifyed and his conscience pacified 5. It is a well ending joy A joy which ends A well ending Joy in joy an unconverted man hath his joyes and pleasures but they end in Griefe and horror O my poor Soul said Adrian when he was dying whither art thou now going all thy Mirth and Joy are at an end nec ut soles dabis jocos thou art going away and all thy joyes are going away Luk. 16. 15. But Abraham said to Dives Remember that thou in thy life time receivedst thy good things and Lazarus evill things but now he is comforted and thou art tormented Dives fared sumptuously every day he had pleasure on earth but after them his soul went into hell torments he never had pleasure more Babylon it is said of her Rev. 18. 7. how much she hath glorified her self and lived deliciously so much torment and sorrow give her Job speaking of the Wicked chap. 21. 7. saith That they take the Timbrel and Harp and rejoyce at the sound of the Organ v. 12. they spend their dayes in wealth and in a moment go down to the Grave Solomon speaks ironically to the Voluptuous Youthes Eccles 11. 9. Rejoyce O young man in thy Youth and let thy heart cheer thee in the dayes of thy Youth and walk in the wayes of thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes But know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into Judgment So then the converted man's joy is a short joy and a joy that ends in bitterest sorrow But a converted man's joy is a lasting joy and it ends in perfect joy when he dies yet his grace dies not yet his joy dies not Well done good and faithful Servant enter into thy Master's joy the end of life is the beginning of all joy 6. It is a transcendent joy it exceeds all worldly joyes A transcendent joy Psal 4. 7. Thou hast put gladness in my heart more then in the time that their Corn and their Wine increased Psal 60. 3. Thy loving kindness is better then life Quest 3. Why doth Conversion make the souls condition so Reasons of it joyful Sol. â—t cannot but be so if you consider Conversion either as to God or as to Christ or as to Conscience 1. As to God As to God Conversion is the certain effect of Gods election 1. True Conversion is the certain effect of Gods gracious election Although Conversion be not the cause of election yet it is the fruit of election it is the counterpane of election Act. 13. 48. As many as were ordinaed to eternal life believed 1. Thes 1. 4. Knowing Brethren Beloved the election of God v. 5. For our Gospel came not to you in word only but in power also and in the Holy Ghost 2 Pet. 1. 10. Give diligence to make your calling and election sure When the word comes to the person in the Letter only this is no sign of his election but when it comes in power and in the Holy Ghost it is for to come in power and in the Holy Ghost is mightily and effectually to change and convert a person and this the Apostle makes an evidence of election and questionless a copy of a man's election cannot but be a cause of great joy Rejoyce saith Christ to his Disciples that your names are written in heaven Oh what a comfort is it to know that God from all eternity hath written and recorded it down This is the man whom I will have mercy on and will glorifie to all eternity 2. True Conversion It is the singular fruit of God's great It is a singular fruit of Gods Love Love and of his rich mercy to a mans soul the sure token of great love God hath a common love and mercy and God hath a choice love and mercy there are some to whom he hath a great love and unto whom he shews rich mercy Now Conversion is a drop out of that great Ocean the man is greatly beloved of God who is converted by God 1 Joh. 3. 1. Behold what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed on us that we should be called the Sons of God Eph. 2. 4 5. But God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us v. 5. Even when we were dead in sins hath quickned us 3. True Conversion brings a soul under all the good and kind It brings a soul under all the smiles of God Language of God under the smiles of God All the Ordinances are as Milk and Honey and Wine and Oyle to a converted man The Word is a good Word to him and the Sacrament is a good Sacrament to him Why when an unconverted man hearts of all the mercy and kindness and happiness which God portions out for a converted sinner I say when he hears of all this and gets but a lick or a taste of it upon the top of his Tongue it effects him and makes him glad Herod heard John Baptist gladly and the stony ground received the seed with joy and shall not the converted man whose due portion all this is shall not his heart have joy and gladness shall a stranger who peeps over into the Garden and is a spectator only at the Feast shall he find a relish and shall not he who hath the Posie at his Nose smell the sweetnesse shall not he who câ—tes at the Table be filled with the goodnesse and fat and marrow and rejoyce and blesse God 4. True Conversion It is a Claspe the Golden Claspe of It is the clasp of the Covenant of Grace that everlasting Covenant of Gods Grace Note here two things 1. All the desireable delicacies of the soul are treasured up in the Covenant of Gods Grace in it are contained all the gracious attributes in God all the gracious affections of God all the gracious relations of God all the gracious promises and engagements of God There you find the reconciled God the merciful God the pardoning God the sin-subduing God the strengthning and helping God the guiding and upholding God the blessing and comforting God you cannot think of a mercy for the soul of a mercy for the body of a mercy for this life of an happiness after this life but there it is but there it is for you but there it is assuredly for you 2. Every converted person is in this Covenant Why the new heart and the new spirit is not this Conversion are a very part of it Ezek. 36. 26. I will give them a new heart and a new spirit If this be so then certainly Conversion brings a person into a very joyful condition Mark a little If the mercies which many receive only from Providence do delight and please them shall not the mercies which men receive from Gods Covenant please and rejoyce them Bread is sweet to an hungry man out of whatsoever hand it comes and is it not more sweet when it
joy and comfort It doth onely two things 1. It absolutely condemns and abridgeth the soul of man of all sinfull joys of joys and delights which arise from his sinfull lusts and ways and is it not the great goodness of God to deny us leave to drink cups of poison and glasses of hell Or is it possible that any Christian should to thee that sin should be thy delight which is a departing of the poor soul from God which is an incensing of the wrath of God which was such a dreadfull burthen to Jesus Christ which puts the soul under the wrath and curse of God one act whereof must cost more then all the world is worth to pardon it 2. It doth onely order our outward lawfull joys and delights for the seasons for the measures for other circumstances so that they may be our sauce not our food our helps to Godliness not damps thereto It is but the Bridle on the Horse the Pale for the Garden the Finger on the Dial. Conversion abridgeth us of no delight but of that which to want is a true delight and so orders the rest that you may not lose delight Conversion makes us mournful for sin and how can it be so joyfull Answered True grace makes the heart more mournfâ—ll Object 3. Conversion breeds the quickest sense of sin and the deepest mourning for sin yea a continual mourning for sin makes the clouds to drop never mournfull till converted and can that condition be so joyfull which makes the heart so mournfull To this I answer 1. It is certain that true grace 1. doth make the clearest discovery of sin 2. It yields the tenderest sense of sin for it takes away the heart of stone and gives an heart of flesh and nothing makes the heart more mournfull then true grace 2. But then know that mourning for sin and joy in the heart are no way inconsistent Isai 12. 3. With joy shall ye draw water But this is not inconsistent with joy out of the wells of salvation Three things I would grant 1. That love of sin and true joy are inconsistent 2. Worldly sorrow and spiritual joy are inconsistent 3. That terrour for sin and joy of heart are inconsistent Legal terrour and Evangelical joy are so but Evangelical sorrow and Evangelical joy are not so for as one grace is consistent with another grace so one heavenly affection is consistent with another heavenly affection And there are three things which to me fully convince That Evangelical mourning is consistent with Spiritual joy One is That such a mourning is but a drop out of the eye of faith They shall look upon him whom they have pierced and mourn Zach. 12. 10. and certainly nothing comes from faith but what is comfortable all is Gospel that Faith trades in Another is That the mourning heart is a renewed heart and verily the gracious heart is a joyous heart The third is That the mourning sinner is a pardoned sinner Cum intueor flentem sentis ignoscibilem if the fountain of sorrow be set open in the heart the fountain of mercy is set open in heaven Zach. 12. 10. compared with chap. 13. 1. Yea let me add to this also three experiences 1. One is this That the Christian is never more sad and mournfull then when he feels his heart least mournfull He is then cast down O saith he into what a condition am I brought I was wont to find a tender sensible mourning spirit but me thinks now my heart is grown hard again O Lord why am I now hardened from thy fear And the man never gives over with God and himself until tenderness be renewed in his heart again 2. That the Christian is never more joyfull then when he is most mournfull Blessed are they that sow besides all Waters saith the Prophet Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted saith Christ They that sow in tears shall reap in joy saith David Godly sorrow is the Water that is turned into Wine One drop of a guilty Conscience is able to turn all our Joyes into Bitterness and one drop of godly sorrow is able to turn all our bitterness into joy I rejoyce saith Paul that I made you sorry what cause then had they to rejoyce who were sorry sorry after a godly sort sorry with a sorrow that bred repentance unto salvation never to be repented of 3. That the Christian is never more mournful then when he is most joyful The time of a Christians highest joy is the time of his greatest assurance Sealing and assuring times are the soul-raising and reviving times And the times of greatest assurance are the times of our greatest mournings The more manifestation of Gods Love and the more assurance of Gods Mercy do ever cause in the heart more Humility and more sorrow here is now the greatest joy for mercy and here is now the greatest mourning for sinning against mercy Object 4. We see no persons to walk more sadly and more uncomfortably I but no persons walk more sadly then converted persons Answered It is a False Charge then at least many do who are converted persons Ergo. To this give me favour to answer more fully 1. This is a False Charge and a very unjust Calâ—mny take the divisions of the sons of men according to the diversity of their spiritual conditions compare men with men according unto them and I dare confidently affirm That no condition is more dreadfully sad then the condition of men Unconverted and no condition is more comfortably cheerful then the condition of men truly Converted let 's a while peruse the phrases and instances of such Me thinks the terrible passages in Scripture may abundantly convince us of the dreadfulness of an Unconverted and wicked person Isa 57. 20. The wicked are like the raging sea that cannot rest whose waters cast up mire and dirt ver 21. There is no peace saith my God to the wicked Job 20. 16 17 23 24 25. there Zophar sets him out He shall suck the gall of Asps and the Vipers tongue shall slay him He shall not see the Rivers nor the floods and streams of Honey and Butter When he is about to fill his belly God shall send upon him the fierceness of his wrath and shall cause it to rain upon him The bow of Steel shall strike him through the glistring sword cometh out of his gall terrors are upon him Psal 11. 6. Vpon the wicked he shall rain snares fire and brimstone and an horrible tempest this shalt be the portion of their cup. Again did you ever read of any one godly and converted person who fell into that horrible despair as Cain or Judas did But take the hardest agonies incident to true converts they are 1. rather fears then horrours 2. rather doubts then despairs 3. effects of a mistaking Conscience then a rightly condemning Conscience 4. They can look towards the Promises as Jonah did in the deeps towards God 5.
Faith doth doth act for relief and will hold some communion with God 6. They are abated by the Ordinances 7. They are but for a time 8. They end in fullest setling and glorious comforts and likewise with advantage to their gracious condition And truly it is impossible that wicked and ungodly men should ever enjoy that serenity and peace as the godly do for as much as all the principles and causes of uncomfortableness abide on the wicked 1. Sin is in them in all its strength They have a thousand hells and arrows of guilt sticking in their hearts they have souls full of plague sores the deadly strokes of death the restless motions of evil spirits 2. They carry a roaring Lion in their brests I mean an evil accusing smiting wounding racking condemning Conscience which if it once awake it will tear the caul of their hearts and crush them with the flames of unavoidable unsupportable and continual wrath 3. They have no City of Refuge open to their succour no land or shore no place to cast anchor no portion in Christ and therefore the Law of God stands in full force against their souls and under its curse they lie and at that Bar of Justice must they be tried 4. They end in an éternal and perfect Hell 5. Take them at their best God is their Enemy they never yet made peace with him and all their outward blessings are steeped in gall and drenched in Wormwood as their sorrows so their blessings are distributed in wrath 2. Many converted persons are not really sad and uncomfortable Many converted persons are not really sad they onely seem so but onely seem so to the mean and childish opinions of vain men 2 Cor. 6. 10. As sorrowfull yet always rejoycing The joy of Christians is an hidden joy Hidden Manna Revel 2. 20. it is a spiritual joy to which thou art a stranger meat to eat which thou knowest not of Suppose that thou rejoycest not in a fine Baby and a Toy which is a Childs great delight art thou therefore sad All objects yield not contentment to an high mind nor joy to a good man he cannot take pleasure in an Alehouse and Tavern in swaggering and masking in dicing and carding and swearing and whoring but yet he can take delight in a reconciled God in a Christ in the Word of God in praying to God in gracious returnes from God in expectation of the Glory of God A swine delights in mire but a man doth not The Moon is oft times dark to the world when yet that part which faceth to the Sun is beautiful and lightsome The countenance and carriage of a Christian as to the world seems dull and uncomfortable but if you could look into the heart of him which faceth towards heaven O there is Righteousness there is Peace there is Joy in the Holy Ghost 3. If any converted persons be sad and want actual joy and comfort If they be sad Conversion is not the cause of it yet their Conversion is not the cause thereof Can the Sun be any cause of darkness But amongst others these are the Causes of it Either 1. Thy unconversion It is the unconverted husband child master which makes sadness in the heart of the converted wife father c. It is thy drunkenness thy cursing and swearing thy scorning and scoâ—â—ing thy resisting and shifting the offers of Grace thy lying and slandering thy pride and loosness which makes the hearts of Ministers ready to break and the hearts of thy godly friends ready to sink in them O they tremble at thy condition and they grieve to see God so extremely dishonoured Psal 119. 136. Rivers of tears run down mine eyes because they keep not thy Law ver 158. I beheld the transgressors and was grieved because they kept not thy Word 2 Pet. 2. 7 8. The wicked deeds of the ungodly Sodomites vexed the soul of righteous Lot Luke 19. 41. It was Jerusalems proud obstinacy that would not know in her day the things which concerned her peace that made Jesus Christ to weep 2. Their Captivities to sin Pauls conversion did never trouble him but this did trouble him that he did the evil which he would not his Corruption not Conversion That the Law of his members led him captive against the Law of his mind It was not Peters Conversion but Peters transgression that made him go forth and weep bitterly It was not Davids Conversion but Davids great sinning which made him go so heavily and roâ—r so greatly Psal 32. 3. The Fears and Suspitions that they are not yet truly converted O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death O they feel so many working Corruptions still and so little of the strength of Christ still and so much unbelief still and so many indispositions still and so many failings still and so many doubts about these This â—race is not right the saving Work is not begun and these things make them â—o sigh and weep and go heavily all the day long 4. They are but newly crept out of the shell The Spirit of Bondage is yet hardly worn off some legal Dints stick on them they are either still in travel or but newly delivered Or if they be got out of the state of Bondage yet they are for the present under spiritual conflicts and as spiritual Bondage before Conversion so spiritual conflicts after conversion suspends the taste of a present and actual joy Or if that be not the damp then perhaps it is some ignorance or unexperience they are not yet come to read their Fathers Will and Christs Testament what portion is left and laid out for the Children of God Or if that be not it then perhaps it is a present fit of unbelief they cannot yet be perswaded that God means so much mercy and so much love and so many great things for them Is it so That â—onversion brings the person into a very joyful Vse 1. condition Hence then 1. We may be Informed of four Information things 1. That they are enemies to their joy and comfort who are adversaries They are enemies to their joy who are enemies to Conversion to their Conversion Prov. 1. 22. How long ye simple ones will ye love simplicity and ye Scorners delight in scorning and fools hate knowledg Six things shew one to be in an unconverted condition Unsensibleness Love of sin Path of evil hatred of Reformation despising the Means of Conversion loathing of Converted-Persons There are some persons who hate to be reformed who hold fast their â—â—ns and will not let them go they are like those stiff-necked Jewes who alwayes resisted the Holy Ghost a disobedient people to the Call of God they refuse to put their necks into the yoak of Jesus Christ and will not be bound with his cords They love their sinful wayes and will not return to the Almighty Why Write that man childless said God of Coniah So I
before true Grace but follows it Do you use to gather fruit before you plant or reap before ye sow 4. Then if ever you would have joy and live joyfull If you would have joy get converted hearts lives get converted hearts Every man desires joy and as the Bee hunts for honey so do men naturally hunt for delight 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 aut jucunde aut non omninò Let the thing or condition be what it will if we take no delight in it it is a burthen to us Heaven would not be Heaven to him who cannot find delight in it Now Conversion is the true path to true joy If God would be pleased once to convert thy soul his converting Grace would lick thy sores and pull out the stings in Conscience and sweeten the bitter Springs and clear the Heavens to thee it would make thy bed to be easie and thy bread to be sweet and thy condition to be a Paradise even the Wilderness should drop honey to thee and thy heart should sing for joy It is a witty passage of Bernards de bonis deferendis Be willing to sacrifice thy Isaac and thy Isaac shall live Isaac you know signifies laughter do but sacrifice thy sinfull pleasure and then thy true pleasure shall not die but live Caius gave unto Agrippa a Chain of Gold which was as heavy as the Chain of Iron that he endured in the Prison Sins do â—ut upon us a Chain of Iron which if we would forsake Conversion would put upon as a Chain of Gold thou shalt not lose but better thy pleasures by forsaking of thy sins and the pleasures of them O! that all the joys which you have heard attending a converted condition might allure all our hearts to become converted persons I observe five things about the converted condition in Scripture 1. The invitation unto it and there joy presents it self Turn and live turn and live hearken diligently unto me and eat ye that which is good and let your soul delight it self in fatness Isa 55. 2. 2. The entrance into it and there joy embraceth the person As soon as the Prodigal Son returned his Father saw him a far off O how quick is Mercy to espy a Convert and had compassion O how tender is Mercy to yern over a Convert and ran O how swift is Mercy to receive a Convert and fell on his neck O how how out-stretching is Mercy to embrace a Convert and kissed him O how kind is Mercy to entertain a Convert 3. The motion or course of it and there joy attends the person I have rejoyced saith David Psal 119. 14. in the way of thy testimonies as much as in all riches When a converted man doth Mediate his meditation is stiled sweet Hear he hears With joy When they heard this they were glad Pray this is a sweet incense to David And I will make them joyfull in my house of prayer Isa 56. 7. Believe he doth believe and rejoice Mourn there is appointed the oyâ— of joy for mourning Isa 61. 3. Do the will of God it is his delight to do the will of God Suffer Rejoyce saith the Apostle 1 Pet. 4 13. in as much as ye are partakers of Christs sufferings 4. The conclusion or end of it why there also doth joy accompany him Psal 37. Mark the perfect man and behold the just for the end of that man is peace 5. The reward and recompence of it and there also joy doth clasp the converted person Enter into thy Masters joy saith Christ to the good servant Gaudium supra omne gaudium At thy right hand are pleasures for evermore said David Oâ— that all these things might so affect our hearts this day as to forsake our sins and turn back to God Pleasure is the great â—â—it which is laid forth to catch the soul of man Satan draws us to sin by pleasure and God draws us to grace by pleasure shall pleasure move thee to damn thy soul and shall not true pleasure move thee to save thy soul Our Aversion from God depends much upon pleasure and our Conversion unto God depends much upon pleasure me thinks that Gods promise should be more accounted then the Divels temptation is it not more probable to buy a better penniworth from heaven then from hell and is it not more reasonable to traffick at the gates of life for joy then to trade at the gates of death for comfort Return return O sinner yet yet come back to thy God and do not for lying vanities any longer forsake thine own mercies But God must perswade Japhet Try whether you are in a converted condition or no. There Vse 2. Try whether converted or no. Nine things shew a man is unconverted are two sorts of persons 1. Some plainly unconverted 2. Some deceiving themselves about it Nine things do shew that a man is as yet absolutely in an unconverted condition 1. Vnsensibleness God promiseth to take away the stony heart quanto insensibilior tanto pe jor This is the Stone upon the Grave 2. Love of sin Wicked men are described by this in ScriptuÌ„re 3. Walking in the path of sin It is his work his trade when a man chuseâ—h an evil way and sits in the Chair is a servant of unrighteousness walks in the way fo wicked men 4. Hating to be reformed It is an abomination to him to be good that will rather be damned then reformed breaks the Cords will not have Christ to reign 5. Despising of the means of Conversion The word of the Lord is a reproach to him his heart rageth when the word finds out his sins and would separate him and his lusts 6. Loathing of converted persons cannot endure the sight of grace his special dislikes are of the godly and disgraces and discountenancings of them he is exceedingly displeased and grieved at the estimations of godliness and rejoyceth in the cloudings and setting of it 7. In communion with God It is a note of a wicked man that God is not in all his thoughts and that he call not upon God but is a stranger to him the stil-born child is a dead child 8. Disvaluations of Jesus Christ and of all the precious seasons of grace and opportunities of mercy the Swine tramples upon the Pearl the dayes of the Son of man are of no account with him 9. An earthly rest and satisfaction When he is a man only for this life and for this present world sets up his staff on this side Jordan all his hopes are in this life Secondly Five things which do shew that a man flatters and Five things shew a man deceived about his conversion deceives himself about his condition that it is converted when yet it falls short thereof 1. Meer knowledg though a man knows never so much yet if he be but a knowing man he may be a learned man but he is not a converted man It is one thing to know controversies another thing to know
Conversion If the knowledg be without 1. Experience know what sin is but feel it not know what Christ is but never feel the virtues and powers of his death and resurrection 2. Propriety know Christ as a purchase but not as an inheritance what he is and hath done but not what he is to me or hath done for me 3. Power as a candle that lightens but not as fire to burn as an Ornament on a Tomb not as a Soul to the Body as a Star which shines in the night not as the Sun which makes day new knowledg but still an old heart 4. Affections know sin but hate it not nor mouâ—n for it know Christ but love and desire him not 5. Practise like a Scholler who knows Countries but never travels to them reads the Copy but writes not after it know the way to heaven but never walks the way to heaven 2. Meer trouble of conscience A troubled condition is one thing a converted condition is another Cain and Judas were troubled yet not converted many things may suffice to trouble us which yet are not sufficient to convert us the Law the Wrath of God the quickness of conscience fear of death and hell and shame may suffice to trouble us yet not to convert us The Sea may be troubled and yet remains brinish the Iron may be broken and yet it is hard the Water boils and yet it is Water There is a difference twixt passive trouble and active trouble twixt a trouble that I would get off and godly sorrow which I would get up twixt trouble in ratione pâ—nae and in ratione gratiae twixt being troubled for sin as it is malum sensible and as malum spirituale twixt malum as causa mali and malum as affectus mali The Land-flood is high but it leaves the mud and dirt behind the Wells water is less but it cleanseth 3. Limited Reformation When only external if internal yet partial will stick with Christ for some one thing True Conversion is an invisible work it is seed under ground t is a child formed in the womb it is the hidden man of the heart t is Christ formed and living in us it is a new Creation of the heart the new heart a law written there The Pharâ—sees were good at Outworks all far to the eyes of men Outward abstinence from sin may consist with an inward love of it and a man may do much good who yet is not good Self-grounds and ends of profit of esteem of hopes of compliance with others besides those workings of conscience c. may lead us out to visible conformities when yet c. 4. Accidental resolutions When a person will on a sudden grow good altogether only upon mutable occasions 1. As in an exigence of Conscience 2. In a fit of Sickness 3. Some present conviction of the Word 4. Some imminent judgements 5. present hopes not upon solid Conviction consideration fervent prayer to God to work the change c. 5. Passionate Joyes If taken by the Word upon the discoveries of Grace and Mercy and Love of Christ and of future glory like one who is taken with the Ware yet will not come up to the Price The young man would have heaven but will not sell all take up the Cross and follow Christ But when a man is truly converted he is like the Wise Merchant who found the Pearl and rejoiced and sold all and bought it He will part with all his Lusts and Friends and Pleasures and World to enjoy Christ Doth Conversion bring the soul into a joyful condition Then Vse 3. Let every converted person take his portion of joy let every converted person take his due portion and live as becomes himself joyfully Psal 32. 11. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice ye righteous Phil. 4. 4. Rejoice in the Lord alway and again I say rejoice I wish that converted persons would consider 1. That God doth not reserve all their joyes unto another life God doth not reserve all their joy to another life O no spiritual joy is an allowance also for this life a good bit and bait by the way Nay it is not a meer Toleration or Permission but it is an express Command and Injunction and as a man doth sin who refuseth Grace so some man may sin who refuseth Joy 2. God would have the life of Grace to God would have the life of Grace a shadow of the life of Glory be a primordial shadow at least of the life of Glory and indeed our estate of Grace is an Epitome of that in Glory only that is a fuller and larger Volume We have the same God the same Christ the same Spirit the same Communion in this as in that only here it is more Mediate there more Immediate here Imperfect there Perfect here Mixt and there Pure And doest thou so poorly conceive of God that He who is able to make an heaven full of joy to Eternity hereafter is not able or willing to let fall a few drops of joy upon thy soul on earth Or that there can or should be any Communion with such a God which should not be joyful and delightful The Emperor would have none to go away sad 3. God would God would have the Christians life to be the credit of Grace have the Christians life as to be the fruit so to be the credit of Grace Grace is an ornament to the soul and spiritual joy is an Ornament to grace It testifies to the world that conversion quits all costs What! shal madness be found in the habitations of the wicked and shall not joy be found in the tabernacles of the just Shall the worldly man rejoice in a Creature and shall not the godly man rejoyce in his God Shall the condemned malefactor take delight and shall not the acquitted person take comfort Shall wicked men suck pleasure out of bitter waters and shall not good men draw joy out of the wells of salvation Joy is not comely for a fool saith Solomon but it becomes the upright to rejoice saith David 4. As spiritual joy is an ornament so it is an improvement to grace It is a certain truth that grace Joy is an Improvement to Grace is the Mother of joy and true joy is the Nurse of grace Spiritual comforts are inlargements to spiritual graces look as it is with sinful pleasures they do add to our sinful principles the more delight that any man finds in sinful wayes this adds the more love and the more desire and the more earnestness for to sin so is it in spiritual wayes the more joy and delight any man takes in them this adds a new quickning to his graces a fresher edge unto them nothing makes either a communion or an action more frequent or more fervent then delight didst thou ever find thy heart more apt to pray or more fixed in prayer then when thou foundest most delight and comfort in or upon praying
power to come forth to come back to God Rom. 5. Without strength It knows not by its own light one foot of the way and when it is made known alas it finds no power to stir nay if I might have mercy and heaven upon the freest terms but for coming home I am not able to do it O how a found lost soul complains It complains as much of an impotent heart as of a wandring heart I cannot come I cannot turn this wandring heart into the right way come back to my God I should but come I cannot go to Christ I should but go I cannot if Christ doth not come to me I shall never be able to come to him if he doth not seek me I shall never seek him iâ— he finds not me with strength I shall never find him with comfort and safety 3. If God hath indeed found thee Thou wilt above all He will above all thiâ—gs desire to be found in Christ things desire to be found in Christ The found soul presently finds a need of Christ Paul as soon as mercy found him would by no means be found in himself but by all means be found in Christ That I may be found in him saith Paul Phil. 3. 9. There was a Nobleman one Elyearius who was supposed to be lost and his Lady sent up and down to find him One at length meets with him and tels him how sollicitous his Wife was to find him out O answered he commend me to my Wife and tell her That if she desires to find me she must look for me in the heart of Jesus Christ for there onely am I to be found And verily there is no poor soul whom God is finding and bringing home to himself on whom he hath imprinted a true sense of his lostness but presently the soul cries out What shall I do what shall I do to be saved O that I might have Christ and O that I might be found in Jesus Christ Remember two things 1. That the Lord will bring back to himself no soul but by Jesus Christ Christ is the sinners way to the Father he is the door by which you are admitted If ever the Lord casts an eye on thee or take thee by the hand it is for his Christ's sake 2. A lost soul which is found finds an absolute need of Jesus Christ Nothing out of Christ can make peace can justifie can reconcile can set us straight can make us accepted Had I all other things and had not Christ I were still a lost person Had I the righteousness of Angels yet if I had not Christ I were lost could I mourn could I repent could I pray could I live holily could I walk exactly yet I am lost I am still lost until I get into Christ I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord. God will look on me as my Judge he will look on me as his enemy he will not own me as a Father as a reconciled Father but in Christ 4. If thy lost soul be truly found then Jesus Christ may be Jesus Christ may be found in that lost soul found in that lost soul of thine They report of Ignatius that the Letters of Jesus were found written in his heart This I dare affirm That the Picture of Christ the Graces of Christ the Life of Christ is to be found in every found man Paul Lydia the Jailor Christ was sought by them and found in them It cannot be that a sinner should be found if Christ be not to be found in him Why if thou be a Christless man who doubts it but that thou art a lost man Now do not deceive thy soul thou canst say that Christ once was to be found in the Temple and Christ once was to be found on the Cross and Christ is still to be found at the right hand of his Father but is there not one place more where thou canst find him hast thou not a heart Is Christ to be found there I say there in thy heart I find him in thy Ear when thou hearest and I find him in thy mouth when thou speakest and thou findest him in thy mind when thou thinkest but still I ask Dost thou find him in thy heart which loves which fears which joys which delights which embraceth O is Christ in thy heart what a found man and nothing of Christ to be found in thee I know not perhaps wilt thou reply Why this is strange that Christ should be in thee and thou never know it Christ dwels in the broken heart in the believing heart Christ lives in him who onely lives upon Christ Christ was a crucified Christ doth he cruâ—ifie thy heart He was a holy Christ doth he purifie thy heart He was an humble Christ doth he abase thy heart He was a tender Christ doth he mollifie thy heart He was a satisfying Christ doth he pacifie thy heart He was an obedient Christ doth he command doth he lead doth he rule thy heart He did for thee canst thou do for him He died for thee canst thou suffer for him He loved thee canst thou delight in him 5. If the Lord hath graciously found thy lost soul and indeed Then thou wilt find sufficiency in thy Fathers house brought it home unto himself Then thou wilt â—ind sufficiency an enough at least in thy Fathers house There is enough in God to allure and draw a sinner home to keep a sinner at home that he needs not wander abroad mercy and pleasures for evermore This the Prodigal discover'd afar off even in the birth of his finding There is bread enough and to spare God seems a poor thing a mean thing an insufficient thing to a lost man and therefore he wanders up and down and serves his lusts and begs from the Creatures to make him out some delight some pleasure some profit some subsistence some contentment But God is a rich thing a Fulness He alone is enough One God is enough for my one soul if my soul indeed be found of him O he hath Mercy enough for me to save me Love enough for me to delight me Pleasure enough for me to comfort me Dignity enough for me to advance me Help enough for me to preserve me Happiness enough for me to save me If I want Grace he is the God of Grace if I want Peace he is the God of Peace if I want Mercies he is the Father of Mercies if I want for Earth the Earth is the Lords if I would have Heaven he is the God of my Salvation Now friend what say you hath God found your lost soul and what hath your soul found in your God What canst thou say of this God of his Mercy Love Entertainment Communion With thee the fatherless findeth mercy Thy favour is better than life It is good for me to draw near unto God canst thou say thus is there bread enough for thee in thy Fathers
house If so why doest thou yet run away run abroad to Sin for delight to the Creature for satisfaction 6. If God hath graciously found thee and brought thee out of Thou wilt be afraid to lose thy self again thy lost and wandring condition Thou wilt be afraid to lose thy self again to wander again to go astray again from thy God who hath found thee There are six things which the found and recovered person doth apprehend 1. The great iniquity in his formerly lost and wandring course of life 2. His great vanity all that while to forsake his own mercies to sow the wind and reap the whirlwind What profit had ye in those things whereof ye are now ashamed Rom. 6. 3. The great kindness and love which God hath manifested towards his lost soul in bringing him back to himself and now to own him as a Father doth a Son 4. The great ingratitude to displease that mercy which was pleased to find him 5. The madness of folly to return to an experimental misery and to forfeit sweet mercy which he hath liberally tasted since he was found 6. The great hazard whether mercy will ever look after him any more who hath so presumptuously abused mercy received O no the found sinner hath found such freeness fulness sweetness of entertainment such rich mercy such free love such wonderfull kindness that as Peter in another case it is good for us to be here or as the returning Church it is best being with my first Husband or as Paul about his being with Christ so he about continuing and complying with his God It is best of all And therefore he cries out against all temptations Shall I return to folly when God hath spoken peace shall I sin again since Gad hath given me such a deliverance as this O no O no Canaan is better then Egypt Paradise is better then a wilderness a Fathers House is better then to serve Swine plenty is better then famine Now God smiles on me and shall I raise his frowns Now conscience speaks peace shall I turn this oyle into a Sword O let me never unjoynt the Bones which mercy at length hath set O let me never darken the Sun which shines so comfortably O let me never feed on husks who may still feed on bread O let me never run from a Pallace to a Prison It was Gods mercy and my happiness to be rescued out of a lost condition let it never be my sin and curse to throw my self out of Heaven to cast my self out of Paradise again for a sins sake which formerly lost me to depart from mercy which hath graciously found me 7. If a found person doth stray he cannot be quiet until he be If he do stray he is not quiet till he come back again found and come back again to his God I sal 119. 176. I have gone astray like a lost sheep seek thy servant There is this difference twixt the strayings of the Godly and of the wicked when a wicked man strayes he is then at home sin is his home and sinful paths are the paths in which he loves to wander the mire and dirt are the delightful home of the Swine and therefore he delights to be abroad and cares not to come back again But a Godly man if he strayes if he sins he is now from home he seeth some steps of lostness in every step of sinfulness his heart is apt presently to smite him for it Alas what have I done whether am I going shall I go again from my Fathers House what ayled me thus to step aside I cannot rest thus I will home again what ever comes of it And back he comes with an ashamed heart as Ephraim did and with a mourning heart as Peter did and with a self-judging heart as David did O my God O my Father I even I have sinned sinned again yet for Christs sake accept of me again Me thinks it is with him just as it is with a poor Child whom evil company hath seduced from home his heart akes and he slips from them and under a Bush he sits and there bethinks himself and sighs and weeps as if his heart would break after which he riseth and home he comes and steals to the door and listens and knocks softly and the Servants comes forth and say they where have you been all this while O your Father wonders at you and hath been much troubled that you have dealt thus with him Now the child takes on and is cut to the heart and will not my Father be pacifyed I know that I have oftended him and dealt unkindly with him Never had a Child so good a Father I pray you speak for me and tell him I am without Let him come in saith his Father In he comes and falls down and with floods of tears acknowledges his strayings and humbly intreats his Father to pass by this wandring and to own him again and to look on him as he was wont to do O Sir saith he I cannot live without your favour nor will I live out of your house Even thus is it with a found Child of God if he happens to stray and sin his heart smites him and his heart akes O saith he what have I done to deal thus with my good God and Father I am ashamed and grieved To one Minister he goes and perhaps to another Do you think that the Lord will be merciful to me again Yea to God he goes and confesseth all and beseecheth him to deal with him like a Father Lord saith he it hath been a woful and bitter time to me I cannot stand it out I come in unto thee sin is my burthen and thy displeasure is my burthen I beseech thee to pardon the trespass of thy servant and be reconciled unto me and own me with thy favour and mercy once again 8. He who is truly found by Gods Grace and Mercy doth desire He endeavours so find others and endeavour to find others or that others may also be found Jâ— 1. 43 45. Christ finds Philip and Philip finds Nathaniel There is no good man who would pertake of Grace and Heaven alone and there is no wicked man who would enjoy sin and hell alone Wicked men are like those that are drowning who catch hold on others and every good man is like a Candle which being lighted holds out light to others or like a stick of fire which being kindled would kindle more sticks Good Lord the same Mercy the same Grace the same Christ the same reconciled God and Father for my poor Child too and for my poor Husband too and for my poor Parents too O Lord pity them too they are lost and they know not the misery of a lost condition nay the happiness of a found condition Good Lord open their eyes and bring them home to thy self in Christ And to his friends he goes O continue not in this condition you are lost I was so