Providence calleth to us for and sheweth us the reasonableness of is Prayer We have reason in our distresses to seek unto God by Prayer because the Lord reigneth and it is an encouragement to us to seek him because he reigneth Whither should we go but unto him who hath power to help save and deliver Prayer therefore hath in all times of distress been the Refuge of Gods people It was a sad time with David Psalm 109.4 The mouth of the wicked and of the deceitful saith he v. 2 3. are opened against me they have spoken against me with a lying tongue They compass me about also with words of hatred and fought against me without a cause for my love they are my adversaries but I give my self unto Prayer v. 4. Luther when he was in any strait was wont to say I will go and tell my God of it Prayer hath been the constant mean which the people of God have used for rescue out of any troubles You see it is upon a good foundation viz. The Dominion which God hath over all and his daily exercise of it 3. It calleth to you for praise and thanksgiving Prayer solliciteth for a mercy when we want it Praise acknowledgeth the gift when received and giveth unto God the glory of it Nor can it without robbery be paid at any other than Gods Altar Is there any good done by thee Let God have the glory of that thou hast done it by vertue of a power or gift which is given to thee from above yea and it is from his Governing-Power of Providence ruling directing and influencing thy heart to it His Kingdom is over our hearts our hands our tongues inclining them to every good thought word action without him we can do nothing Doth any good come unto thee Let God also have the glory of that The earthly Prince looketh that you should acknowledg your peace your trade to his Government but he is but the instrument of God in bringing these things It is the Kingdom of the Lord that ruleth over all he gives thee power to get riches saith Moses I am sure the people of God have more special reason to acknowledg God in all their peace and prosperity They are men of peace their hands are against none but the world hates them they are as sheep amongst wolves if they have any months or years of peace they are beholden to the power and ruling of God for it Is any evil kept from you It is God that doth it he that ruleth the raging of the Sea he stilleth the tumults of the people he hath the hearts of Kings in his hand and turneth them as the Waters of the South It is because the Mountain of the Lord is full of Chariots and Horses that they are not swallowed up by their Enemies every moment O see and praise the Lord for the Governance of his Providence 4. This Doctrine calleth to you for patience in adversity The people of God are subjected to trials of adversity yea â—o fiery trials as well as other men yea in greater degrees than others hence the Apostle calleth to them to let patience have its perfect work Patience is nothing else but a quiet submission to the will of God under any adverse dispensation of his Providence in obedience to his command and because it is his will and he layeth it upon us we have need of patience and the exercise of it is our duty and this Doctrine will shew you that it is but a reasonable duty Let me shew it you in two or three particulars 1. As it showeth you that all your afflictions be they of what sort and kind they will are from the Lord Job 5.6 Afflictions cometh not out of the dust nor doth trouble spring out of the ground Is there saith God by the Prophet any evil in the City and I have not done it Affliction comes not by chance or fate it comes from God and is the wise issue of his Providence in the Government of the World we have therefore no reason to fret and vex our selves against instruments They are but instruments Perhaps said David of Shimei God hath bidden him curse They possibly do ill and at last will know it but God is righteous in their unrighteousness I held my peace saith David I knew it was thy doing It is the Lord saith that good man let him do what seemeth him good 2. As it assureth us that all things shall work together for good to them that love God If God ruleth and governeth the world he certainly doth it for himself and for his own glory which glory of his being the highest design of his people all things must necessarily tend to their good to that which they above all things desire and seek after This God who ruleth the World is his peoples father and doth what-ever he doth as a father for the good and advantage of his children 3. Lastly It is a good Argument of patience As it letteth them know that their afflictions are ordered and governed by God The Afflictions Oppressions Persecutions of the people of God are not things excepted out of the Dominion of God It was you know the Centurions faith That diseases were to Christ as his servants were to him He said to one go and he went to another come and he came and to another do this and he did it So God speaketh to diseases and not to diseases only but to all sorts of afflictions Isa 27.8 In measure when it shooteth forth thou wilt debate with it God first causeth then ruleth and governeth all our troubles afflictions and trials Fifthly This Doctrine calleth to all the people of God for love to him This is the Psalmists Exhortation and upon this very Argument Psal 31.23 O Love you the Lord all you his Saints for he preserveth his Saints and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer All the earth is bound to love the Lord for the exercise of his Governing-power If the Lord did not reign the worst of men would quickly find the ill effects of it they need no worse enemies than their own brethren and companions in wickedness did the Lord lay the reins upon the necks of their lusts and suffer them as they would to devour one another For as we see the ravenous Birds Fishes and Beasts do not only prey upon other but their own species so were it not for the Restraining-Providence of God in governing the world the wicked of it would see their brethren in iniquity not only preying upon the Saints and people of God but also upon those like unto themselves if lesser than themselves But I say above all the people of God as being the least flock are more especially bound to love the Lord for the Government of his Providence but this will more eminently appear when I come to discourse concerning the Specialties of his Providence with reference to them 6. Lastly This Doctrine calleth unto all for a willing
upon you to honour God more than others God hath done infinitely more for you than for Heathens Now what a shame it is that an Heathen should out-doe you in any thing yet give me leave to tell you that while you only do some actions that are materially good not formally and truly many Heathens have done as much as you An Heathen may do and many of them have done and that with some good intention actions materially good that is such things as God commanded Many of them have been eminent instances of moral vertue Justice charity temperance liberality c. many of them have professed to love vertue for the sake of vertue Wherein can you excel them but by doing actions which are formally good designing Gods glory acting in obedience to Gods will regulating your selves as to the manner by Gods word you have the word the Gospel of God oh how reasonable it is that our conversation should be as becomes the Gospel of Christ The Heathen else that lives up to his light of nature out-does us and it will as our Saviour tells us be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of Judgment than for us 3. But Lastly Let the Saints of God see what an obligation to all manner of duty and holiness lies upon their souls they are the most special objects of special Providence God takes more care for all men than for Oxen or for the grass of the field he exerciseth a more special Providence for that body of people which make up his visible Church than for all the earth besides but yet what is that special Providence which God exerciseth for meer formal professors or for any other men in the world in comparison of what they have experienced Any thing of more special distinguishing Grace is a great Specialty of Providence and that in the best and highest sort of good things viz. those which concern the salvation of the Soul Oh what doth God expect what doth God require from you what should you do more than others More particularly This Doctrine of special Providence calls to you 1. For more extraordinary degrees of Love 2. For more special acts of Faith 1. For more eminent degrees of Love Psal 31.23 O Love you the Lord all you his Saints for the Lord preserveth the faithful and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer Reason argueth thus with us that the reciprocations of our love ought to bear proportion to love received If saith our Saviour you love them that love you what reward have you the law of nature commandeth us to love and by actions of kindness and duty to express our love to them who have expressed their kindness to us and the same reason requires the reciprocations of love to be proportionable God therefore declaring especial love to you you are bounden in a special duty to him Let our Saviours question be often in your thoughts What do you do more than others If you for whom God hath sent his Son to dye and into whose hearts he hath sent his Spirit the Spirit of Adoption Supplication Consolation and whom the Lord hath from the womb watched over and preserved by a more special peculiar Providence bearing you as upon Eagles Wings and gathering you as an Hen gathereth her Chickens under her Wings I say If you do no more for God than others do not under such influences nor such Providences you must certainly act beneath and short of your duty This dependeth upon what I told you before of the reasonableness of the reciprocations of love in some commensurate proportions 2. It calleth to them who fear God for special exercises of faith you have reason more to trust and depend upon God than others because God hath declared a more special care and Providence for you The ground of all faith is the word and promise of God Now special promises call for a more special and peculiar faith What though another man cannot trust God contrary to a sensible or reasonable appearance yet you have reason to do it because God hath declared more his care for you and the workings of his Providence for your preservation and deliverance than for others God hath promised to save defend and deliver you not after the workings of his ordinary Providence You may therefore say with David The Lord is my light and my salvation whom shall I fear He is the strength of my life of whom shall I be afraid Psalm 27.1.3 Though an Host should encamp against me my heart should not fear though war should rise against me in this I will be confident But thus much shall serve to have discoursed concerning the Specialties of Divine Providence SERMONS XII XIII Rom XI 33. O the depth both of the wisdom and knowledg of God! how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out I Have finished my Discourse concerning the principal Acts of Divine Providence both generally and specially I have discoursed concerning Gods general Acts in preserving and governing all his creatures and concerning God's more special preserving and governing of some creatures I am now come to discourse concerning the Methods of it concerning which we must cry out with this great Apostle O the depth both of the wisdom and knowledg of God! how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out My Text is the conclusion of an exceeding deep discourse which the Apostle had made concerning the Rejection of the Jews which he proves to be neither Total nor final In the ten first verses he proveth that it is not Total V. 2 God did not cast off his people whom he did foreknow V. 5 There is a remnant according to Election As it was in Elias's time he thought and complain'd that he was left alone and they sought his life also but he was mistaken God at that time had seven thousand in Israel that had not bowed the knee to Baal V. 7 He saith The Election had obtained though some though the most of them were rejected yet the Elect amongst them were not rejected and this he proveth to have been but according to what was prophesied V. 11 He proveth that this Rejection should not be final There should be a fulness of them V. 12. Receiving of them V. 15. They should be again grafted in V. 23 24. It is but V. 25. till the fulness of the Gentiles should come and then all â—srael should be saved This Discourse is mixed with several arguments to prove the assertion and with several reflections upon the Gentiles whose present state was better than theirs shewing them their duty negatively and positively not to be high-minded but humble To fear c. Now look as a man wading in deep waters when he finds the water go over his head and trip up his heels he cries out O I shall be drowned and endeavours to get back again So doth the blessed Apostle he had been wading into the great deeps of Gods counsels and ways
fruit of the womb as a blessing and blesseth him that hath his quiver full of these shafts but now the poor man knoweth not how to understand this and it is hard for him not to repine at the multiplying of it a great error doubtless but such as for ought I know good people may fall into we cannot trust God to provide for those which he giveth us if this hath been thy error God but pays thee in thy own kind by shortning thy number and maketh thy own secret sinful wish now to be thy Plague and Torment but this ordinarily is the sin of the poorer and meaner sort of Christians 2. Didst thou not let thy heart run out too much upon thy Children God is jealous and it is the nature of jealousy not to suffer a rival in the object beloved be it a person or a thing God is the object and he will be the prime object of his peoples love desire and delight It is his Law Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy Soul and with all thy strength it may be thy Child had more of thy heart more of thy love and and delight than God had no wonder if he hath taken it from thee this is now usually the sin of those whose circumstances in the world are better they have a fair estate in the world and Children few enough to leave it to and in such cases it is a very hard thing to keep our hearts within due bounds but our affections are ready to overflow especially if there be nothing in the temper or behaviour of the Child that takes off the edge of our affections to it 3. Doth not thy heart smite thee for the neglect of thy duty to thy Child especially if it were of any years Thy duty in instructing it or thy duty in reproving and admonishing it Elie's Sons were indeed men grown but God cut off his Children though their personal guilt justified God in his severity against them yet Eli smarted in their punishments for honouring his Sons more than God for dealing too gently with them for their most enormous wickednesses Thou mayest also neglect thy duty towards them in instructing them in making them acquainted with the holy Scriptures in admonishing them to keep the Lords Sabbaths and seeing to their external Sanctification of them This is undoubtedly a second piece of thy duty upon such a dispensation and to be humbled before God for those sins which thy conscience smiteth thee for and suggesteth to thee as probable causes of this rod of God upon thee 3. It is doubtless thy duty whatsoever thou findest to be satisfied with Gods good pleasure Rachel mourned sinfully while she so mourned as that she refused to be comforted If thou findest that probably God hath punished thy sin in the sickness pain and death of thy Child it is indeed matter of humiliation to thee it offers thee a just opportunity to resolve for the time to come to amend thy errors as to any survivors which God shall lend thee but yesterday cannot be called back again God hath done what pleased him It may be in mercy to thy Child though it be in judgment unto thee thou hast no reason to quarrel or murmure at God for any of his dispensations If it be for thy Child 's Original sin still thou hast no reason to blame God he is just and righteous in what he hath done But if God hath done it to give thy Child a quicker passage to Heaven to bring it sooner to a state of perfection to deliver it from an evil to come here thou hast reason to admire and adore the Divine goodness rather than to quarrel at Divine Justice There are a great many things that may conduce to the relief of a godly man or woman disturbed at this dispensation of Divine Providence It is a very ordinary dispensation of God though therefore it may look like a digression from the principal argument of my discourse yet it may possibly be not so judged by some of you whose case it either at present is or may be to instance in some heads of arguments which occasionally you may make use of for the quieting of your Spirits 1. Consider what-ever was the moving cause on Gods part yet the will of God is revealed The will of God is such a thing to satisfy a Christian with as nothing can be more nothing greater We have our Heaven by the will of God fear not little flock it is your Fathers will to give you a Kingdom We have all our grace all our glory from the will of God and shall we not thankfully accept a cross when it is the will of our Father to lay it upon our necks We pray thy will be done and shall we murmure against it when we see it done This silenced Aaron David Heli Hezekiah it leaves no room for a good Christians reply to it it is our Fathers will that is enough It is our Fathers will revealed by an Act of his Providence The Lord hath given saith Job and the Lord hath taken blessed be the name of the Lord. 2. Consider how many sadder cases than thine there have been Thou hast lost a Child an infant Job lost all his Children when they were grown up feasting at their elder Brothers house Aarons was a sad cause he lost his two Sons grown up in an act of sinning yet he held his peace Helies case was sad to lose two such wicked Sons in a Battel Davids case was sad God had expresly told him the Child should dye because of his sin and that by it he had made the enemies of God to blaspheme What doth David do He fasteth he prayeth he humbleth himself before God so long as the Child lived and while he had any hope but when the will of God was revealed when the Child was dead he ariseth and eateth bread as he was wont to do he saith that he should go to it it should not return to him 3. Consider Let the case be as sad as it will yet if thou lookest round about it there is mercy in it either mercy to thy Child or mercy to thee or mercy to both if thy Child be gone to Heaven there is mercy in that if it be delivered from evil to come upon the World or that part of the world where it should have had its portion there is mercy in that David's case was as sad as one can well think of any of this nature yet there was this mercy in it the living monument and remembrance of David's sin and shame was taken away 4. Suppose that God hath for thy sin taken it away and thou canst not satisfie thy self but it is so yet consider God eternally punisheth none for the sins of their correlates God may punish persons with bodily and temporal punishments for the sins of their Parents but not eternally as to those punishments every soul shall bear no
hypocrite and hast a temptation to think God is not just to thee in suffering it knowest or remembrest thou not what contradiction of sinners Christ endured how they said of him that he did cast out Devils by Beelzebub the Prince of Devils When thy spirit riseth against thy adversaries oh think of Christ who was the Captain of all our Salvation But further yet 2. Before thou in thy thoughts passest sentence against God and his righteousness consider with thy self by whom wouldest thou have God to chastise his people It is written That all who will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution Now supposing persecution one of those species or kinds of affliction which God hath a liberty to Scourge and chasten his people by Who should be the persecutors couldest thou expect that the seed of the woman should break the womans head That such who have tasted of the love of God should bite and devour one another Indeed sometimes through the prevalence of lusts and passions it proves so through mistakes and such misapprehensions as the best are subject to and this but in particular rare cases 1. But it suteth not the ingenuous nature of Gods people to do injury to others Indeed it suteth not any persons though of little acquaintance with God if they be persons of any goodness and ingenuity of nature you see amongst us none but one saved from the Gallows for that purpose will be a common hangman we see how ordinary persons they must be that will be perswaded to be Bayliffs but now to fall upon the Lords Priests is a work only fit for an accursed Edomite The Child of God is yet under a further Law than that of a good nature he is here taught of God to do good to all to love his enemies to do good to them that hate him to love and pray for those who hate him and despightfully use him he is so far from requiting evil for evil that he taketh himself obliged to return good for evil Now it is not reasonable to think that God should make use of his own people who are by himself taught the clean contrary and are obliged by a contrary law which they have so far imbibed that it is written on their hearts and ingraven in their souls to punish and chasten his own children Who ever set a Sheep to worry a Sheep The work of informing against accusing chastening scourging the people of God is a work fit for none but profane wretches drunkards swearers the debauchees of the world who have in them such a radicated hatred of God and such an antipathy to that holiness which is fountain'd in him that like as the Basilisk they say will fly upon the picture of a man out of its antipathy to humane nature they will fly upon every person that hath the image and superscription of God upon his soul and is called by the holy name of God it is a work that only fitteth those whose hearts are possessed with the poyson of unrighteousness and all superfluity of wickedness To do injury to others suteth not an ingenious nature in any person but it much less suteth the Sanctified nature of a Child of God few creatures will prey upon their own kind If a Child of God be to be rent and torn in pieces to be chastened and scourged by men that he may not be condemned in the world there are none so fit to do it as the Dogs and Swine in the world I would ask of thee saith an excellent Author who art under such a temptation as this Wouldst thou have the Saints of God persecute imprison plunder destroy one another Surely they would then lose their Majesty of vertue their title of Saints Supposing then the work must be done it is as reasonable to conclude that it must be done by those who are less righteous then they are and not that God should first possess his people with principles and habits of grace diametrically opposite to such courses and then set them on work to practice such things 2. Give the Lord I beseech you leave to make some use of the very worst of men It is the saying of an acute Author Cur non ex perditis hominibus hoc lucraretur Deus c. Why should not God make this profit of the vilest men It is true it is not all the service which God makes wicked men do but give me leave to tell you it is one of the greatest pieces of service God hath from them they are left in the Land as the Canaanites were left in Canaan Judg. 2.3 to be Thorns in the sides of Gods Israelites to keep the Lords Gaols and Bridewell his houses of correction for his people Take a profane vile wretch he hath his being from God and his well-being he hath from God he eateth Gods bread and is clothed with Gods wool and flax What hath God for all this He swears profanely he blasphemeth God prodigiously he breaks the Lords Sabbaths God is dishonoured by him every day This service he hath from them when he hath a Child to be whipped he turns him over to him God makes the same use of wicked men he doth of the Devils they are his peoples tempters and tormentors Wicked men are to God as the Dog to the Shepherd as the Hawk or Bird of prey to the Faulkener God useth them to let them fly at his own people sometimes and to pick out the eyes of them who are as dear to him as the Apples of his eye The Assyrian in the world signifieth little to the service of God but as as he serveth well enough to make a Rod for his anger and a staff for his indignation to be sent against an hypocritical Nation which God can no longer bear with but is at last resolved to make the people of his wrath 3. The worst of men must be suffered to fill up the measures of their iniquities you know God told Abraham that the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full God will have sinners fill up their measures Now there is no such way for wicked men to fill up the measures of their sins and make themselves ripe full ripe for Divine vengeance as for them to fall upon this work of devouring the Servants of God who are more righteous than themselves are I have a good authority for it Matt. 23.34 Wherefore behold I send unto you Prophets and wise men and scribes and some of them you shall kill and crucifie and some you shall scourge in your synagogues and persecute them from city to city that upon you may come all the righteous blood that hath been shed upon the Earth from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah c. Mark what went before vers 32. Fill you up then the measure of your Fathers you Serpents you generation of Vipers how can you escape the damnation of Hell As the Child of God must finish his work which God hath
day of believing Souls if we can make any Judgment of Believers do sufficiently evince this to our Souls my business is to inquire the Justice and the reasonableness of the motions of Divine Providence in the inequality of this distribution This will easily appear to you upon three hypotheses which I take to be all very true 1. That God doth ordinarily dispense out these influences of grace to souls which by his Providence he hath prepared for them This which I call Gods Providential preparation of souls for the reception of these influences I conceive lies chiefly in Two things 1. The freedom of it from those bodily incumbrances which in a natural working make the soul sad heavy and dejected such distempers we know there are as in a natural working sadden the spirit and fill it full of fear sorrow dejection and despondency which are all contrary to the comforts and serenity of a soul and as I have once and again told you it must be a miraculous operation contrary to the bias tendency and natural operations of a man for a soul to be filled with consolations while it is influenced with a body lying under these disadvantages God therefore when he intendeth any of these consolatory influences doth ordinarily prepare the soul for it by delivering it from those influences of an ill affected body which dispose it quite another way 2. A second way by which God prepareth the soul for it is by filling it with knowledg proportionable to it for the comforts of a gracious soul are not irrational and unaccountable things but the results of Scriptural conclusions which the soul is by the Comforter inabled to make God hath in his Word sown the seed of light and joy for them the Ministers of the Gospel who are the Interpreters of Scripture have an Office and Ministery in the Interpretation of this Word and working the souls of Gods people to understand the sense of them The soul it self hath an action in it using its reason and natural powers to conclude from the Scripture The Holy Spirit giveth unto the soul to see the things which are freely given it of God 1 Cor. 2. and further possibly setteth to its Seal and giveth it a further and more undoubted confirmation so as in an ordinary working the comforted soul must be a knowing and understanding soul It is true we sometimes find some honest souls full of joy and peace whose knowledg doth not appear proportionable God so relieving some particular souls after their lying under the discouragements of the spirit of bondage But commonly such comforts are not of long continuance rather present reliefs to the soul from an extraordinary working of the blessed Comforter than any settled consolation and the abidings of the Comforter with them Seldom any but knowing and judicious Christians have a settled and continued joy and peace upon their believing 2. Secondly That God doth ordinarily give out these dispensations more or less or nothing of them though not according to the merits of those souls that have them yet according to their behaviour and misbehaviour towards him That famous promise John 14.21 We will manifest our selves unto him is made to those that love Christ and who keep his Commandments And when Judas asks him Lord How is it that thou wilt manifest thy self to us and not unto the world Christ answereth him saying ver 23. If any man love me and keepeth my sayings my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings as much as to say The reason why I manifest my self more to you is because you love me and demonstrate that love to me by keeping my Commandments For the world they love me not and proclaim that they love me not by their disobedience to my Commandments and therefore it is that I do not manifest my self to the world as I do unto you In the receiving of the first grace man is meerly passive and the subject of preventing and operating grace but as to the receptions of further grace the child of God is active and the subject of cooperative adjuvant and assisting grace and God gives out his assistances according to their motions 3. Lastly The reasonableness of this different dispensation may appear in this That in the dispensations of this grace God acteth often by Prerogative shewing mercy where he will shew mercy Indeed he doth so as to the first grace as I have before at large shewed you But now he doth not so as to these influences of grace which are necessary to the upholding of the mystical union between Christ and the Soul and the upholding of a Christians spiritual life if he did it were possible that a child of God might fall away from his state of grace and there might be an intercision of the state of Justification But Christ hath told us That if any man drink of the water which he shall give him he shall never thirst but it shall be in him a well-spring of living water springing up in his soul to eternal life c. so that in the dispensation of that God acteth upon a Covenant and as a debtor to his promise If any one saith God hath also promised to manifest himself unto his people I answer those promises are made to those that love him and keep his Commandments but for the upholding of the spiritual life he hath made a Covenant with his people as that he will never depart from them to do them good so that he will put his fear into their hearts that they shall never depart from him which promise although it be not to be extended to a being kept from all sin yet it is to be extended to the preservation of souls from such degrees of sinning as shall extend to the alteration of the state of the soul and the extinguishing the spiritual life and killing the seed of God in the soul But for those manifestations of grace which are not necessary to a souls Salvation and the upholding of spiritual life in it God acteth more freely according to the counsel of his own Will derected by his own infinite Wisdom Now upon these Hypotheses supposing that all Christians are not of equal degrees of knowledg nor are equal as to their bodily circumstances that every soul that belongeth to God doth not walk up to an equal degree of duty but some may be and are guilty of more and more eminent failings than others Or that God may be by his infinite Wisdom directed to try one soul more than another to prove their patience or their faith which is most tryed when his people have least sensible consolations the motions of Divine Providence in distributing to several Christians nay to the same Christians several degrees of consolatory influences of grace cannot seem either unjust or unreasonable to any sober and intelligent Christians This is all I shall speak to this
I have made several observations upon the motions of Providence Some of which lie plain enough to every eye all I think are justified enough from Scriptural and other instances only perhaps the reasonableness and justice and wisdom of God in them is not or hath not been so obvious Others possibly have not been so remarked and are little more than recommended as probationers for a good mans observation There is Madam a great variety in the methods of an infinitely wise God by which he ordereth the Universe and particularly that people in the world which he hath set apart for himself In the same work Gods Providence moveth not at all times in the same method or by the same means yet in many things the motions of Providence have much uniformity if we wistly observe them And as from the reading and observation of the Syntax and construction used by Authors in several languages Grammarians have made their observations from whence they have formed Rules few of which are yet without their exceptions so from the observation of the motions of Divine Providence in the world the reading of the Sacred History and considering what the great God hath been doing and is doing in the world considerate Christians may gain a great knowledg of God in his ways and give a very probable conjecture if not form a certain judgment both what God is about to do and what Israel ought to do For saith the Wiseman Eccles 1.9 10. the thing which hath been it is that which shall be done and there is no new thing under the Sun Is there any thing of which it may be said see this is new it hath been already of old time which was before us The Sinners of the world are but acting over those lusts of hatred to God malice revenge cruelty luxury which their forefathers perished in acting many years ago And the Saints in the world are but making the same defence fighting the same good fight finishing the same course which Abel began in the Old Testament and was carried on by Elijah Zachariah and all the Prophets by John Baptist and the Captain of our Salvation and Gods motions of Providence will appear much the same as to circumstances of time and place c. they may alter but substantially they must be so because of the certainty of the word both of promise and threatning The study of Actual Providence for which the Historical part of the Scripture which we count most useless is of great use is a noble study and the observation of the daily motions of it is highly conducive to make us spiritually wise and to help us to understand the loving-kindness of the Lord both towards his Church and individual souls which love and fear him I have Madam been something large in these observations but yet how little a portion of Gods ways have I here displayed I shall yet think I have done a great work if I have but set an example to some other Divines of greater parts knowledg judgment and observation to carry it on for doubtless many more observations might be made which would both much increase our knowledg and direct our practice In the third and last part of my Discourses Madam I have endeavoured to expound some difficult Chapters in the book of Providence and to deliver the name of that glorious God whom we serve from those prejudices which nothing but the lusts of men have raised in the world against him and his righteous ways To reconcile the ways of Divine Providence both to those Propositions of truth which lye plain in the word and to those Promises and Threatnings which are the Indications of his will in that word both with reference to Saints and Sinners I think Madam I discern two great Errors in the world 1. The Judgment of Truth 2. Of the love and hatred of God from motions and issues of Providence Hence because God in his Providence hath ordered the Production of Men and Women giving them life and being and his Gospel to be preached in their hearing so as they are externally called to repent and to believe men conclude There is no election of persons That Christ hath died for all and every man That every man hath a power to repent believe love God hate sin c. And I wish a modest denial of Divine Truths were the worst but we are fallen into a rude and ill mannered age when every puny hath boldness enough to say If this be so then God is an impostor and mocks and deludes he is unjust cruel I tremble to recite it when-as the truth is it is neither so nor so Let what will be concluded concerning these Propositions no such thing will follow I have Madam endeavoured to reconcile these Providences of God to the truth of these Propositions which some invidiously charge with such consequences and to let these bold men understand that God is equal his ways equal and admirably corresponding with those notions of truth so much distast them only they are ignorant and do not rightly judg concerning a righteous God The second Error is more common The judging of the love and hatred of God from his Providential dispensations to us Hence are our temptations to call the proud happy to bless them whom the Lord hath cursed and because they are rich and prosper and as to our selves to charge God foolishly as if either he did not deal justly or kindly with us because we are tempted or afflicted more than others or because we are devoured by wicked men I have Madam attempted to remove these stumbling blocks out of the ways of Gods people and to reconcile both these motions of Providence and all its motions in the dispensations both of first and further grace to his Wisdom Goodness and Holiness and to our reason as also to reconcile Gods Providential permissions of sin and sinners his punishment of one sin with another to the purity and holiness of God and to deliver Gods Providential dispensations of this nature from the usual and ignorant imputation that this is to make God the author of sin what I have done of this nature I leave to your Ladiship and every sober Reader to judg The whole Madam was composed for popular discourses Those that dwell in Kings houses may be allowed perhaps to cloth their Discourses in the soft raiment of fine and delicate words It was not so fit for me who was to speak of great things to a plain people and whose design was that of S. Paul not to have the faith of those to whom I spake stand tottering upon the wisdom of men which varieth much in individuals but in the power of God I am far from thinking these Discourses perfect in any part of them I have laid the foundation God raise up wise and master-builders to superstruct If I mistake not the foundation I have laid is not upon the sand and uncertain bottom of humane reason but upon the
not assured of it and as to duty the case is the same of things which are not and which appear not to us 2. Because that God who hath willed us any good or the preventing or removing of any evil hath willed both the one and the other to be obtained in the use of such means as either in a natural way of working or upon the evidence of reason or direction of Scripture appear proper for the obtaining it And 3. It is the Command of God we should use means But supposing no means neglected the Predetermination of God ought to satisfie us though we miss of some good which we passionately desired or suffer under the pressure of some evil which we passionately desired a deliverance from and used all means in our power to be freed of it should also quiet us as to any fears that are immoderate and distracting our minds concerning any evil likely to befal us or any who relate to us when we have it in prospect and see it hanging over our heads It may also be of great use to still our spirits concerning means less successfully and ineffectually used to prevent such evils yet as I said before and for the reasons I before mentioned we must take heed of thinking that this certainty of the event from the Divine Prescience and Will giveth us any thing of a supersedeas as to the use of any proper means which we are equally obliged to use as if the event had been incertain and casual and might as well not have been as been 2. But there is more yet in this notion to satisfie every good Christian for if all events how ingrateful soever to us are according to the eternal purpose of God and the Counsel of the Divine Will 1. They necessarily must be good 2. The products of infinite wisdom 3. And of infinite love and goodness to such as love and fear God 1. I say they necessarily must be good I mean this of such as God hath willed to effect not such events as God hath only willed to permit But of the first sort are all evils of punishment It is not beneath God to be the Author of his own Judgments Evils of affliction are only nominally and nuncupatively evil and called so according to the language and apprehension of our sense 2. They must needs be the products of infinite wisdom The Psalmist speaking of the works of God saith In wisdom hath he made them all It is true of Gods Counsels in infinite wisdom God hath established them all so as all events are fixed in the best order imaginable for the glorifying of God which is the highest end any action can be levelled and directed to It is the highest end which God could act for because he could work for no higher he hath wrought and still worketh for himself it is the highest end that we can act for and that to which as we ought to direct all our actions so we also ought to submit all our passions The sum of all our Prayers is or should be Let the Lord be glorified If God be glorified every good man hath his highest wish his utmost design and desire Now if all events were from eternity set in order and predetermined by a Counsel of the Divine Will they must be ordered to the Glory of God because they are ordered by and in infinite wisdom which always directeth the best means in order to the best end God could not be deceived in his contrivement and proportioning of means in order to his own ends Although therefore we may and ought to mourn and be afflicted for many things which we see done under the Sun because they are brought to pass by the lusts malice and wickedness of men by their sinful corruptions and passions by which God is highly dishonoured and it may be we cannot understand what honour God can have from the event it self yet we ought at last to recollect our selves and get victory over our passions and to say Was not the hand of God in this thing Was this a slip of the eternal Counsel or was it a product of it Surely nothing slipt the Divine notice whatever happens was ordered by him who was infinitely wise in Counsel who could order nothing but in infinite wisdom and in subserviency to the great end of his actions the Glory of his Name Every good Christian therefore ought at last to satisfie himself as to what he seeth before him in the world and to say Let come what will of me and mine or of a thousand others little concerns I am frustrated of my expectations and desires I thought God might have been more glorified my way I see I was mistaken God cannot be frustrated of his ends nor be deceived as to means proper for the compassing of them This thing came not to pass without the eternal Counsel of the Divine Will God is true to his own end he would never have decreed to have permitted it nor have permitted it actually if he had not known how to have compassed his Glory by and from it when done Surely the wrath of man shall praise him I cannot see the Wisdom of God in it but there is an infinite wisdom in it and when the Lords work is finished I shall then see it and be able to understand what I now do not I cannot look to see the bottom of Divine Wisdom 3. But this is not all supposing this All events and accidents must to those who love and fear God be not only the products of infinite wisdom with respect to Gods glory which is the highest end but with respect also to their good and this not only in regard of the Promise That all things shall work together for the good of them that love God but also of his fatherly relation unto them All things are theirs because they are Christs and Christ is Gods God hath said concerning them that with an everlasting love he hath loved them and having done so all his eternal counsels all the motions of his Providence must be ordered to the Demonstration of it and this every Child of God shall first or last see It falleth out with us as with an ignorant person which goeth into a Limners Shop he seeth there a rude and imperfect draught of a picture and thinketh that it looks ugly but he seeth not the Idea of the intended draught in the Limners fancy and hath not patience to wait until he hath finished his work which if he had he would then see it a very beautiful piece Thus many of us looking upon Gods Works before they be finished we pass an ill judgment upon them But could we but see the Platform or Idea of them in the eternal Counsel of the Divine Will or stay with patience till the Providence of God had finished his work we should then apprehend it beautiful and very agreeable to the Glory Wisdom Mercy Truth and Goodness of that God which it is
apparent tendency to the ruin of the whole interest of God in the World if possibly not to leave Christ a Name in the Earth nor Religion pure and undefiled Religion a footing in any place he that runs may read this day that the malice of some is against no form in Religion but the life and power and practice of Holiness The Devil their Master hath given them a command like that of Benhadads Fight neither against small nor great Neither against Conformists nor Non-conformists but against the life and practice of Religion only Who seeth not that although a man hath a further latitude than others of his brethren as to matters of Conformity yet if he liveth an holy life if he presseth Holiness in his Pulpit and practiseth it in his Conversation he maketh himself a prey to the common Enemies both of Gospel Faith and conversation But trouble not your selves Christians The Lord reigneth the Frogs out of the bottomless pit may through Gods permission get out and croak a while but to the pit they must return again A sad time it was when the Enemy said to the Soul of the man according to Gods own heart Flee as a bird to the mountains when the wicked bent their bows and made their arrows ready upon the string that they might privily shoot at the upright in heart Psalm 11.2 When the foundations were destroyed and the godly knew not what to do what comfort at such a time Observe the same Psalmist v. 4 The Lord is in his holy temple the Lords throne is in heaven his eyes behold his ey-lids try the children of men I shall conclude this branch of Application with that Psalm 99. v. 1 The Lord reigneth let the people tremble he sitteth between the Cherubims let the Earth be moved the Lord is great in Zion and he is high above all people Let them praise the Lords great and terrible Name for it is holy Lastly Vse 3 This Doctrine is a foundation for a great deal of Exhortation Every good Christian upon hearing this Doctrine concerning Gods providential Kingdom should be saying What now is my Duty what ought I to do if the Lord reigneth I will tell you in five or six particulars and so shut up this Discourse concerning the main and principal acts of Divine Providence 1. An exercise of Faith seems a very reasonable piece of duty to be concluded from these premises By Faith here I understand not an assent to the Proposition of the word nor yet a resting upon the person of the Mediator which is the justifying-act of faith but committing of our selves unto God and casting our care upon him in all estates and conditions a thing often called for in Scripture Cast thy burthen on the Lord Psal 55.22 Casting all your care upon him for he careth for you 1 Pet. 5.7 Commit thy way unto the Lord Psal 37.5 So Job 5.8 Prov. 16.3 Sometimes it is called a Trusting in God Psalm 4.5 and 7.1 Pro. 28.25 and 29.5 Isa 57.13 c. Power and Love are the things that support and justifie one in trusting and putting confidence in another This Doctrine concerning the general Providence of God in governing all justifies him as to his Power to be the true and sole Object of our confidence We can trust in none else but may be controuled The greatest Princes of the Earth are but men under the authority of one who is higher than they and a mans trust in them oft-times is but like the Jews trusting in Egypt which the Prophet compareth to a leaning to a bruised reed and upon a broken staff which are not able to bear the weight of a mans body but if he leaneth upon them they will run into his hand If God be against us man cannot protect from him nor deliver out of his hand therefore saith the Psalmist Psalm 118.8 9. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in Princes but he whose Kingdom is over all must needs be a proper Object of our confidence and as our confidence in God is warranted from general Providence as to the power of God so as to his love it is secured from special Providence but of that I hope to speak distinctly only a word here lest any should say But although the Kingdom of God be over all so that upon the account of his Power I may trust in him yet how doth it appear his Power shall be put forth for me I shall but offer four Meditations to you 1. That the glory of God is the great end that he aimeth at in all his actions He made all things for himself he preserveth he governeth the World for himself 2. That whereas God hath a twofold glory from his Creation Passive and Active One wherein the creature doth nothing from an inward principle thus the Heavens declare the glory of God and every creature speaks of his glory The other wherein the creature is Active acting out of intention and design and from the principle of its own will This latter is that which is most pleasing to God and acceptable 3. That God is capable of receiving no further glory from his creatures than what floweth from the predication of his praise and the doing of his Will 4. Lastly That from hence it must needs follow That God is more glorified by his Church and by his Saints than by all the Creation besides God is mutely and passively glorified by other creatures but in his Temple men speak of his glory The children of men and amongst them only those who are born of God do voluntarily and out of choice bring glory to God God if I may so speak wrests his glory from others as from Pharaoh c. God indeed in some sense may be said to be actively and voluntarily glorified by all Professors but only by that little flock whom he hath chosen to himself with a full intention voluntarily and sincerely They are the favourites of him whose Kingdom is over all Supposing then God to have a Dominion and Government over all and to be continually in the exercise of it surely if Haman could say Whom should the King delight to honour but me They may with much better right and advantage say For whom should the great King of kings and Lord of lords exercise a Rule and a Dominion For whose advantage should the Lord govern the World if not for those who most freely chearfully voluntarily serve the greatest end and design which he hath in the World viz. his own glory and can sincerely sum up all the desires of their Souls in that one Petition Let the Lord be glorified surely therefore the children of God have all obligations imaginable upon them under all vicissitudes of Providence to trust in God and to commit their ways unto the Lord. But this is but the first Duty 2. A Second Duty which this Doctrine of
not seen It is certain that by the special Providence of God they are more eminently upheld confirmed in their state of integrity governed in their motions and actions by God and that in a more eminent manner than other inferiour creatures but I intend no discourse of that 2. The second object of special Providence is Man 1. Mankind considered in the general All men and women are under more special acts of Providence as to Preservation and Government than the grass or the beasts the inanimate creatures or the brute creatures but neither shall I make this the subject of my discourse The Psalmist speaks of man in the general Psal 8.5 Thou hast made him a little lower than the Angels and hast crowned him with glory and honour Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands thou hast put all things under his foot All sheep and oxen yea and the beasts of the field 2. But Secondly The Church of God and more especially those that are the invisible part of it that glory not in appearance only but in reality and have not only a name to live but live indeed are the more eminent objects of special Providence I say first 1. The whole visible Church by which I mean the whole body of people whom God by the Preaching of the Gospel hath called out to an external profession and visible owning of the Lord Jesus Christ The Church of the Jews of old Amos 3.2 the whole body of that Nation circumcised and visibly owning and serving the true God were under more special Providence than all the world besides The Christian Church is so Canaan of old was the land which God cared for and he hath a Canaan now his whole Church which he doth care for and for whom he exerciseth a more special Providence both in the preservation and Government of them 2. But yet the invisible part of the visible Church that is that number of Professors whose Profession is not only visible to men Psal 33.18 but their faith their sincerity their true holiness is seen by God who love and fear the great God in truth and holiness these are the most special objects of special Providence Only one thing let me more add in an answer to this Question that neither all mankind not members of the Church nor all Churches nor all Saints are under the same or equal influences of Providence and therefore Divines have distinguished special Providences into those which are more extraordinary or ordinary the former are more miraculous or little differing from miracles the latter are more equal and ordinary and so will be the more the subject of our discourse All men are not restrained as Abimelech was All Churches are not preserved in a red Sea a wilderness have not Manna rained from heaven to feed them nor Waters brought out of a rock to satisfie their thirst as the Jewish Church had All Saints are not taken up to Heaven in a fiery Chariot as Elijah nor preserved in the Lions Den as Daniel or in the fire as the three children But there is 1. A special Providence attends every visible Church of Christ 2. And every one who is a true believer and puts his trust in the Lord. I come more particularly to shew you by what more particular acts the Providence of God discovereth Gods special care for his Church and for particular Souls Quest 3. By what more particular acts doth the Providence of God discover Gods special care for the visible Church and for particular believing souls 1. As to the Church of God 1. He preserveth it so as it shall never perish You know the promise The gates of hell shall not prevail against it Matt. 16.18 God preserveth the individual Being of every particular man He holdeth our souls in life but yet his being shall fail there will come a time when he shall not be Our Prophets are gone our fathers where are they God preserveth the Beings of Polities the Kingdoms and Empires of the World but these also have their periods where are the great Empires of the Medes and Persians the Grecians the Romans c He so preserveth his Church that it shall never fail this is a Specialty of Providence Men shall dye Kingdomes shall dye Empires shall come to nothing the Church shall not dye This woman may flee into the Wilderness from the red dragon as in Rev. 12. Where she hath a place prepared of God but there she shall be fed 1260 days the earth shall help the woman Rev. 12.16 Christ will be with them to the end of the world God so preservetth no creatures no Polities no Societies of men whatsoever 2. A second specialty of Providence relating to the Church seems to be a special Ministry of Angels Heb. 2.14 Are they not all ministring spirits sent forth to minister for them who are heirs of salvation Who are those that are heirs of salvation but the Church of God Acts 2.47 And the Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved 1 Cor. 11.10 The woman ought to have power over her head or a covering over head because of the Angels There have been many Divines who have thought that in the Government of Providence some particular Angels have the charge of particular Kingdoms and Provinces and Churches You read Dan. 10.12 The Prince of the Kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty one days but lo Michael one of the chief Princes came to help me and ver 21 There is none that holdeth with me in these things but Michael your Prince There are some also that interpret thus The Angels of the Asian Churches mentioned in the Revelation but most interpret them of the Pastors over them but certain it is the Angels whether one more specially or no have a special Ministry towards the Church of Christ Psalm 91.11 He shall give his Angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways I shall not enlarge upon this for though this seemeth to be plainly enough in Scripture revealed yet the particulars of their Ministration are not so clearly revealed as we can assert much distincty concerning them Dan. 12.1 At that time saith the Prophet shall Michael stand up the great Prince which standeth for the children of thy people The Angels stand up for the Church that is a Specialty of Providence 3. Thirdly All Gods extraordinary acts in the Government of his Creatures have been for his Church It was in revenge of their oppressions that God sends ten plagues one after another upon Pharaoh it is for them he suspendeth the Laws of Nature for them the waters of the Red-sea then the waters of Jordan divide for them it was that the Sun stood still in Gibeon and the Moon in the Valley of Ajalon in the time of Joshuah That the earth opened Numb 16 and swallowed up Corah Dathan and Abiram It is for his Church that natural Beings have acted beyond their ordinary capacities Hail-stones are
of men Surely saith the Psalmist the wrath of man shall praise thee and the remainder of wrath thou shalt restrain Hamans malice shall issue in the exaltation of Mordecai and the further establishment of the Jews Josephs brethren shall sell him into Egypt intending him nothing but evil the issue of it shall be the exaltation of Joseph and the keeping much people alive But as I said before concerning these matters which relate to this life though the people of God can only claim a right in these Promises and be those to whom they generally are fulfilled not to others yet you must not be mistaken to think that all the people of God shall have them made good to them God as to these Dispensations dealing out as in other things of outward Providence according to his own good pleasure regulated by his infinite Wisdom working for the glory of his holy Name and for the good of his people 7thly There is a special Providence of God extended towards all those that truly fear and love God In the giving to them the things that accompany salvation and preserving and upholding in them those habits of grace by the operations of which they are made fit for the inheritance of the Saints in light Grace is the only creature of God which God preserveth that it shall not die but yet it is preserved alive by the power of God Natural habits may perish Moral habits may be extinguished Gracious habits are the seed of God which do not die he shall be holden up for God is able to make him to stand Rom. 14.4 Now this is a piece of Providence common to all the Saints and special and peculiar to them 8thly The special Providence of God to his people is eminently seen in this That all things work together for their good You know the Text Rom. 8.28 And we know that all things work together for the good of them that love God who are called according to his purpose There is another Text much of the same import possibly of a larger extent 1 Cor. 3.21 All-things are yours whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the World or life or death or things present or things to come all are yours and you are Christs and Christ is Gods The former Text chiefly respects sufferings the sufferings and afflictions of Gods people are for their good The latter respecteth Ordinances but both of them have the universal particle All All things are yours All things work together for good and whether either of those Texts respect sins or no which indeed are hardly to be counted into the number of things I will not say yet most certain it is that by the over-rulings of Divine Providence even the sins of Gods people work together for their good What fear saith the Apostle What sorrow what jealousie what revenge do they work How low do they make the child of God in his own Eyes How do they contribute to a poor broken and contrite spirit in him What care and watchfulness do they produce in him for the time to come It is the misery of a wicked man all things work together for his hurt if he hath Riches Honour worldly enjoyments or crosses trials afflictions all things are against him God gives the Israelites rebelling and murmuring Quales in his wrath and a King in his wrath and God gives others Riches honours wives children all in his wrath all things are against them but now if a man be a child of God all things are his all things are for him for his good and advantage Ninthly which indeed should have been mentioned first God giveth his good Angels charge concerning them The good Angels have not only a Ministry to the Church which I touched before but they have a Ministry as to every individual Believer It is a Promise made Psalm 91.11 to every one who ver 1. dwelleth in the secret of the most High He shall give his Angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways they shall bear thee up in their hands lest thou dash thy foot against a stone ver 12. Heb. 1.14 Are they not all ministring spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation and therefore they are called Their Angels Matth. 18.10 Take heed that you despise not one of these little ones for I say unto you that in Heaven their Angels always behold the face of my father which is in Heaven It hath been the opinion of some and those very eminent Divines That every child of God hath his particular Angel usually called his Tutelar Angel or Angel-guardian They have builded this Notion upon those probable Texts Acts 12.23 where the Christians met told the Maid concerning Peter It is his Angel Gen. 48.16 where Jacob prays That the Angel who had redeemed him from all evil would bless the lads Josephs children and Matth. 18.10 I shall not meddle with that nice Question those who desire to read what is to be read for it or what may be said may find it in Mr. Dingles judicious Discourse of the Deputation of Angels certain it is that the Angels have a special Ministry with reference to the heirs of salvation certain it is that they shall bear them up in their hands as the Psalmist saith that they shall not dash their feet against a stone that they shall keep them in all their ways What power they have to make impressions upon their minds I cannot determine but probable it is that as evil angels have a power to tempt and sollicit to evil so the good Angels do often move and sollicit by way of secret impressions the souls of the Saints to that which is good Certain it is this is a Specialty of Divine Providence with reference to the Saints therefore our Saviour calleth them their Angels The Angels pull'd Lot out of Sodom Gen. 19.16 they appeared to Jacob in his journey to Padan aram Gen. 28.12 they met him again at Mahanaim Gen. 32.1 2. The Psalmist telleth us Psalm 34.7 They encamp about him that feareth the Lord. An Angel attends Elias moveth him to eat 1 Kings 19.7 appeared for Elisha 2 Kings 6.17 In short much is spoken in Scripture concerning the Ministry of Angels for the good of the people of God though much also of their Ministration be doubtless unknown to us Scriptura piis tantum Angelorum custodiam ministerium tribuit impiis non item saith a grave Author But I shall add no more to the Explicatory part of this Discourse having touched most of the Specialties of Divine Providence with reference both to the Church and to particular believing Souls If any thing be further needful for the proof of this what need we do any more than take a view of the Church of God in the several periods of it and of the number of sincere and pious Souls in any age of the World The Church of God from the beginning hath been either Jewish
up amongst them so they have had an ambition still to arrogate this Name to themselves The Arians would be the only Church since that the Papists the Protestants think they have the best claim and great disputes there are for this Honourable Title I will not say this will determine the cause but it will go a great way That body of people professing Christ against whom the gates of Hell cannot prevail Matth. 16.18 In the midst of which God appears to be by a more special powerful Protection keeping it that it shall not fall Psalm 46.5 That people which the Lord keepeth and watereth every moment lest any should hurt it keeping it night and day Isa 27.3 That people round about whom the Lord is as the mountains are round about Jerusalem Psalm 125 v. 2 Who can say as Psalm 124 If it had not been the Lord who was on our side If it had not been the Lord who was on our side when men rose up against us then they had swallowed us up quick when their wrath was kindled against us Then the waters had over-whelmed us the proud waters had gone over our souls I say that people amongst those that lay claim to the honourable Title of the Church of God seem to have the best claim for it is the Church for which God exerciseth a special Providence I will not say This alone will prove any party the true Christian Church but where-ever we see a people professing faith in Jesus Christ holding the Doctrine of the Gospel crying To the Law and to the Testimony for the trial of her Doctrine Worship and Discipline and God watching over this people strangely preserving multiplying and encreasing them using the ministry of his Word amongst them to convert and build up Souls delivering them in a constant series and succession of Providence from their Enemies far more and more mighty than they are we may join our selves to them The anointed of the Lord the Church of the true and living God is doubtless before us Though these special Providences will not make an argument alone yet they are a far better argument than the Popish pedegree they pretend to in a succession from St. Peter or Antiquity or their pretended Vnity or Miracles indeed rather to be called lying wonders I know no promises of these things to the Church to the end of the World but I know many promises for special Providence attending them And certainly that Body of Christian people called Protestants I mean that people in all the parts of the World that are now called by that name for the name beareth date but from the German Reformation but I say that Body of people united in their Doctrine and Worship can lay the fairest claim to this of any others No people hath been more strangely preserved than they witness those in the valleys of Piedmont and Lucerne and Bohemia none more strangely preserved nor whose number hath been more strangely encreased nor their Doctrines more strangely prevailed A Christian by observing which way special Providence hath most moved may get much wisdom and much help himself in making a judgment which is the true Church 2. Yea and he may also much help himself in judging of those in the World who are the true Saints and people of God who they are that dwell in the secret of the most High as the Psalmist speaketh for they generally abide under the more particular shadow of the Almighty It is true there are some rare instances of persons that walk close with God whom yet God followeth with a series of severe Providences such an instance was Job and such particular instances we see in our time to let us know that outward prosperity is not the Saints portion God hath provided some better things for his people But take now any considerable number of people in any City or Place that so far as we can judg walk more close with God and in a more strict observation of his law than others do and oppose these to a like number of persons in that place that give a liberty to their lusts and walk by no such rule and observe number for number who are most under the special Providence of God preserving them from dangers and in dangers who are most blessed with special Providences as to length of life health c. you will remember that I told you we must abate for particular instances of Gods own people whom he picks out to make examples of saith and patience and to be his witnesses unto the world in a time of trial Who observeth not how strangely God preserveth and blesseth some people that fear him and walk closely with him and I do believe the observation will justifie it self concerning any considerable number of such persons compared with a like number of others So that although none can conclude himself or herself a child of God from some particular special Providence no not from a series and course of them yet where men and women walk close with God Gods special Providences attending them will much evidence even to others that they are not hypocritical in their professions 2. But secondly The observation of Gods special Providences towards our persons our families our Church will much make us to understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. The love of our friend to us is not seen so much in some acts of his goodness which others experience as much as we as in some special things which he doth for us and doth not or will not do for others The observation therefore of special Providence helps much to affect our hearts with the love of God God in trying our love to him saith to us What do you do more than others and as our love to God is so tried so Gods love to us is so evidenced this is that which hath always set the hearts of the people of God admiring God This was that which set the Psalmist upon admiring Gods goodness to mankind Psal 8.4 What is man that thou art mindful of him or the Son of man that thou shouldest remember him If you read on you will see that which affected the Psalmist was Gods special Providences to man making him little lower than the Angels cloathing him with glory and honour putting all things under his feet c. This made David understand the loving kindness of the Lord 1 Sam. 7.18 Who am I O Lord and what is my house that thou hast brought me hitherto and this was yet a small thing in thy sight O Lord. God aggravates our sins from the special Providences he hath blessed us with as in the case of David 2 Sam. 12. and Saul Moses argueth the Israelites to duty from Gods special Providences to them in the four first Chapters of Deuteronomy nothing makes us so much as them to understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. Oh therefore observe consider what God hath done and what he daily doth for you more than
unsearchable are the ways of God in them How strangely are we every day mistaken in what we judged the design and tendency of many motions of Providence proving in the issue quite contrary to what we expected 3. A third unsearchable thing in Divine Providence is the track of it Necessary causes and such Natural causes are have a certain track you may follow the prints of their feet Moral and voluntary causes have not such a certain track moving not like Machines but as influenced from the will of man but yet there is something of ordinary certainty in them Reason in all men and in men of several ages is much a kin whence that certainty doth arise as well as from the finiteness of mens wisdom and understanding But here God is unsearchable he doth not always do the same things the same ways sometimes by humane means sometimes without means sometimes by improbable means sometimes adding by a preternatural power to natural causes sometimes by suspending their acts sometimes by over-ruling their motions and workings all in infinite variety so as his ways are like the ways of a Ship in the sea an Eagle in the air a Serpent upon a Rock you can track them in none of their ways By Faith we know that God will deliver his people but how and by what means or when we know not Sometimes prosperity shall slay the fool sometimes he shall perish by adversity sometimes the Sinner shall be cut off in the middle of his days sometimes he shall live to an extream old age men keep a path and a track in their motions but God keepeth none Naaman did ill when he came to the God of Israel to be healed of his Leprosie to be prescribing to him so much as in his thoughts thinking that the Prophet must needs come down and stroke the sore c. Gods way or method of Providence in bringing about the effects of his counsels and purposes is unsearchable 4. A fourth thing which in the motions of Divine Providence is unsearchable is the indications of it Solomon telleth us that the righteous and the wise and their works are in the hand of the Lord Eccles 9.1 2. Unto all men there is one event both to the righteous and to the wicked No man can know either love or hatred by all that is before him in this life Esau is rejected yet he hath the mountains of Edom given him for his portion and the seed of Jacob must not dispossess him Jacob is beloved yet must he fly to Padan Aram endure the extremities of weather to feed his Uncles flocks c. and when he cometh away he must once and again run the hazard of his life No man can expound the Providences of God unto any to make them indications of Gods love or hatred Israel is the people beloved of the Lord yet they must serve an hard servitude in Egypt then forty years together by travelling through a desolate and howling Wilderness Dives is rich cloathed with purple and fareth deliciously every day yet when he dyeth goeth to Hell Lazarus is a poor beggar at his gates cloathed with rags abounding with sores yet when he dies is by Angels carried to Abraham's bosom Abraham and Lot and David and Joseph of Arimathea all rich men yet very good and heirs of the Kingdom of God Others very poor yet every-whit as poor spiritually and miserable as to their spiritual estate as they are in respect to their outward condition Grateful Providences speak the appearing love of God to us and oblige us to thankfulness but they do not speak special distinguishing love Adverse Providences appear as the frowns of God upon us yet may be but the chastenings of an indulgent father who chasteneth whom he loveth and scourgeth every child whom he receiveth Hell begins with some in this life their life is but a life of misery and leadeth into that misery which shall never have an end sometimes men in the enjoyments of this life are lifted up to Heaven but it is ut lapsu graviore ruant that their fall may be the greater into the pit prepared for them The Indications of Divine Providence are altogether unsearchable No man can know love or hatred by any thing which is before him in this life 5. A fifth unsearchable thing in Divine Providence is the causes of them There is infinite wisdom and reason in all the dispensations of Providence In wisdom hath the Lord done and made whatsoever he hath done but this wisdom of God as to all his works of Providence is not always evident to us It is one of those things which Divines say we shall more perfectly understand at the day of Judgment and in another life than we yet do how wisely the infinite wise God hath managed the Government of the World We are oft-times startled and troubled and amazed to see the works of God in the World and at loss to compound them with the declarations of his love to his people and the great number of promises made to them What Christ said to Peter We may apply here what God is doing we do not know here but we shall know hereafter We cannot tell the reason of a thousand dispensations of God to his Church and people here but we shall know them hereafter Sometimes we know much of them in this life but what we do not know in this life we shall know in the day when all hidden things shall be made manifest and all the works as well as all the Saints of God shall praise him 6. Lastly The windings of Providence are unsearchable It is with the Providence of God as it is with a man of business that is riding to London that is his utmost journey but he doth not like a Post keep his road but rides out this way and that way to speak with this and that man as his business leadeth him The Providence of God drives at the securing of his Church the destruction of his Enemies the promoving of Gods glory c. But it carrieth on many designs together possibly the chastising of his people for their sins the suffering of the Amorites to make up their measure so it winds in its motions and the reason of the variety of its windings and turnings we do not understand But this is much co incident with what I told you before concerning the tracks of Divine Providence that they are past finding out I come therefore now to the Application I shall there only shew you the usefulness of this point 1. To check curiosity 2. To direct you in spiritual duty In the first place Vse 1 Let this check that curiosity which so much infecteth humane nature and to which the wiser part of men are mostly too subject It was the complaint long since of an acute Author Iste labor vexat homines ut plus Deum laborent intelligere quam diligere malumus vestigando laborare quam amando reperire malumus inquirere
which then hindered his being revealed and would let until he should be taken away The Roman Empire hindered nor is that hinderance yet taken away 'T is true there is but a stump of that Empire remaining in Germany Spain France England many other great boughs are lop'd off it but most of them kept their Antichristian favour though they changed their temporal Lords and set up for and by themselves as to temporal subjection and dominion You see and hear how fierce the French the Spaniards the Portugals c. the house of Austria are for the Romish Religion 'T is true England hath broke that yoke off its neck so hath Holland the Gospel hath got a great foot in Germany France Denmark Poland Sweden Hungary but yet the Devil hath a large Chappel in most of those places It is the National Religion of France Spain Portugal Italy the Imperial Proper-territories God is fitting the circumstances of the World much to his promised Work of destroying this Antichrist with the spirit of his mouth with the brightness of his coming England is fallen off Holland is fallen off a great part of Switzerland many Cities and Territories in Germany Sweden and Denmark great numbers in France God is by degrees doing his work and a great deal is done within the space of a hundred and fifty years last past for it is no longer since Luther began to shake his Throne but yet the circumstances of the World do not look as if it were like to be a work we should see in our age nor it may be our childrens children Methinks the Scripture looks as if that man of sin should die a natural death not a violent one I mean that that Religion should be loathed out of the World not fought out of it God will consume it with the Spirit of his mouth and with the brightness of his coming Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit saith the Lord I tell you but my judgment that before the fall of Antichrist you must yet see a greater falling off from Popery by the Princes of other Nations and their people The Worlds circumstances do not yet seem fitted to that great Work God may work Miracles in the case but I know no ground we have to expect them I am very confident that Antichrist is in his wane much past his full declining every day and therefore the fears of some that that ridiculous Religion should again over-spread England or Holland or any other reformed Church do not much afflict me I take that for granted that Babylon is falling but when we shall hear that joyful sound Babylon is fallen Babylon is fallen that I cannot tell you but in the general I think we must first see the World otherwise circumstanced than it is 2. By this observation of the motions of Providence you shall also understand much of Gods set time as to shewing mercy to your own particular soul viz. when your bodily or spiritual circumstances are fitted for the desired mercy 1. I say first when your bodily circumstances are fitted to it There is nothing more evident than the dependance of our minds upon our bodies and the influence that some bodily distempers especially have upon our souls and minds now although it be true that God can work miraculously and by light can break through a darkness be it never so thick and ravish a Soul with unspeakable joy and peace though at that time it be yoked to a dark cloudy melancholick disturbed body yet God useth not to work Miracles ordinarily but to move in a more ordinary course of Providence by the use and application of means that are proper so that as it is seldom but God useth the disorders and disturbances of the body to influence and afflict the mind and to be at least an adjuvant cause when he will trouble a Soul so he usually restoreth health and a better constitution of body when he intends to restore peace and quiet and a composure of spirit I say ordinarily he doth so And hence again in the next place 3. We by giving attendance to this Observation may learn our duty in reference to the use of Means so as to use what is proper to its season for there is great wisdom to be used in apportioning means For Example as to the bringing down of Antichrist if Gods time be not come the means are not girding our swords upon our thighs c. I question whether that will ever be a Mean proper to be used in that case but endeavouring by all means possible to loath the World of Popish superstitions and ceremonies and all the idolatry of that Synagogue and of all the cheats they put upon the World and alienate the hearts of people from them So for calling the Jews the means to be used is not inciting them to get into a body and heading them c. but to convince them of their errours to endeavour the sweetning of their spirits the enlightning their minds with the knowledg of the truth of the Gospel and reconciling them to the Christian Religion and shewing them the Examples of an holy life and conversation So in case of particular Souls where the discomposure of the mind is originated in or further advantaged by bodily distempers which is a thing very frequently happening I do not take it to be the duty of a Christian meerly to pray and hear but also to use natural means proper for the abating of these distempers yet not this without Prayer and use of Ordinances both for the blessing of God upon such means and for the further influences of his supernatural grace for God fitteth the circumstances of the person that is to receive the mercy to the desired mercy when he intendeth the bestowing of it as well as the circumstances of the World to the mercy which in his set-time he intendeth for his Church so as I say this observing of this method of Providence duly attended to addeth spiritual Wisdom to a Christian as in discerning of Gods time for mercy so also in directing him to his duty as to proper means to be used by him in the way of his duty in order to the obtaining of the mercy teaching him to know what Israel ought to do what a good Christian ought to do under the circumstances under which God hath brought him 2. By an attendance to this working of Providence you shall understand much of the loving-kindness of the Lord very much of the goodness and love of God to Nations and Churches is seen in this his fitting of the worlds circumstances to his designs before he produceth them as his designs are effected without tumult and bloodshed which otherwise through mens opposition to it would not be avoided With how much bloodshed in all humane probability must the Children of Israel have first came out of Egypt then out of Babylon had not God fitted the circumstances of the world to those designs of his Providence
he that sheweth no mercy when he comes to need it shall have judgment without mercy for his portion Take heed of persecuting good people for their conscience-sake towards God it may be you may take the advantage of a furious time and plunder them a little or get them imprisoned or oppressed directly contrary to what is law and justice or directly contrary to the highest law which is the Law of God but if you do it is ten to one but as your hands sent many to bed without bread for themselves and their children to eat to sleep without a bed to lye upon to work without a tool to work with so God will find hands shall requite it into your bosom Or if you should contribute to make the wives of your brethren widows and their children fatherless and vagabonds in a good sense to seek bread out of desolate places God ere long will stand over your houses and say Let these mens children be fatherless and their wives widows let their children be continual vagabonds in the earth and beg and let them seek their bread out of their desolate places Let the extortioners catch all they have and let the strangers spoil their labour let there be none to extend mercy unto them neither let there be any to favour their fatherless children Let the iniquity of their fathers be remembred with the Lord. It was the curse Psal 109.9 And for what cause they were adversaries without a cause to David while he gave himself unto prayer ver 4. They rewarded him evil for good and hatred for his love Oh! my heart akes to think what judgments many in these days have laid up for themselves and their wives and children they have shewed no mercy they or some of theirs will find judgment without mercy God hateth cruelty and the sons of violence his foul abhorreth Vse 2. This observation calleth aloud to you for the exercises of charity and mercy They are virtues or graces the exercises of which God will not only certainly reward but he maketh haste to their reward he ordinarily lets not their reward sleep As it is said of some sinners Their damnation sleepeth not so as to some exercise of grace and vertue it is such a sweet savour in the nostrils of God that their recompence shall not sleep till the resurrection Let me not hear a mouth opened amongst my brethren nor see a purse-string tyed against an act of charity and mercy it grateth upon my ears Sirs give me leave to tell you that God never came more on borrowing than he doth in this age Troops of Robbers have robbed God they have robbed his Servants and God accounteth what is done to them as done to himself Anon it may be before these are gone another comes and tells you that such a Town is burnt down to the ground many hundred Families undone God sends to you for some help for them Anon another comes to tell you God hath sent to borrow a little of you for such a poor servant of his who hath not spent his estate in Luxury but God hath blasted him Possibly God sends another to you to lend him a little for another that is under the Physitians hand or under the Surgeons hand and hath spent all his or her estate O lend it He that gives to the poor lends to the Lord and he will repay Say not as many of you do when such come to borrow of you as you have no mind to lend any too Truly I have no money I can spare from my necessary occasions When the truth is thou hast no money thou art willing to lend such a person God sends on borrowing to thee He that hath given thee all that thou hast hath sent to thee to lend him a few shillings a few pence he hath sent us his Ministers upon his errand or some poor servant of his but he hath sent us with a ticket under his hand which thou knowest thou ownest his written word his holy Scriptures Say not thou hast no money if it be true indeed it is a good excuse or none that thou canst spare from thy necessary occasions if that be true too it is a good excuse but take heed it be true remember the case of Ananias and Saphira What mean the bleating of the sheep and the lowing of the oxen What mean thy garments of silk thy costly laces thy feasting thy faring deliciously every day I do not blame these things where there are estates to bear them out soft rayment may be worn in Princes houses but then say not thou hast no money no money for to buy a cap to keep thy brother from the cold and yet money to buy a costly periwig no money to help thy brother to buy so much bread as to keep him from starving and yet hast thou money to furnish thy table with varieties and dainties hast thou no money to help a poor Christian to buy cloathes to cover his nakedness and yet hast thou money to lavish out to cloath thy self and family with silks and fine linnen hast thou no money to lend to thy Lord to relieve one of his prisoners to buy them a bed to lye on to recover them a seat to sit down upon and yet canst thou find enough to buy thy self a cupboard of plate or the most costly houshold-stuff O take heed that God judgeth not that thou hast no heart thou canst not trust that God thou so much talkest of and art no more than a prating Christian But my brethren remember that acts of mercy and charity are such as God ordinarily retaliateth in this life it is seldom that God putteth men to trust him to another world for rewards in these things It is a time to speak and I must speak in this case It is reported of holy Mr. Bradford that in an hard time he sold his Chains Rings and Jewels to relieve those in want It is reported of Basil that in a famine once he sold all the lands and goods he had to relieve the poor I shall add no more but conclude my discourse as that of our Saviour He that hath ears to hear let him hear He that believeth what he hath heard this day and searching the Scripture finds it true let him be up and doing accordingly But if any man believeth not the word of God nor us his servants but hath a mind to make an experiment whether Solomon had any warrant from God to tell the world That he that stoppeth his ear to the cry of the poor he also shall cry and not be heard Let him at his peril try whether Solomon or he was the wiser man I know I have spoke to many obedient ears if there be any other I so far my self am assured of what I have said That in these things Let them do what they please I and my house shall desire both to obey and fear the Lord. SERMON XXIV Psalm CVII 43. Whoso is wise and
turning from the wickedness of thy way breaking off from thy sinful courses Betake thy self unto the Lord Jesus Christ It is he who hath the golden censer to whom is given much incense Rev. 8.3 It is he Rom. 5.11 By whom we must receive the atonement Whatever you may think wrath is gone forth against you the plague in your souls is begun you are in health not sick not in pain as other men not so crossed in your estates and relations as some other men but for all this wrath may be gone forth against you the plague may be begun within you Let me examine you a little do not you find that your mind is more blind your understanding more dark your affections more vile and sensual your consciences are more benummed and stupid Is not the plague then began Can there be more dreadful indications of Divine Wrath against you The ax is laid to the very root of your tree if you do not now bring forth better fruit you will suddenly be cut down and cast into hell-fire Again What an incouragement to repentance is it to hear That he who worketh righteousness shall most certainly be rewarded yea that he is rewarded every day Thou that livest and goest on in a course of bold and presumptuous sinning what peace hast thou when thou lyest down or when thou risest up Art not thou like a bankrupt in the world or one who is much behind-hand that cannot abide to look into his books no more canst thou endure to behold thy conscience or to call thy self to an account it may be thou hast quietem ex somno such a quiet as a man in a dead sleep hath The man that worketh righteousness can call himself often to account and when he hath done lye down and sleep in peace either in a full assurance or a good hope at least through grace that God hath pardoned and accepted him Let therefore my counsel this day be acceptable unto you break up the fallow-grounds of your hearts sow unto your selves in righteousness believe that the work of righteousness shall be peace and the effect thereof quietness and assurance for ever Vse 3. Finally What an encouragement here is to the people of God under all Gods severe dispensations to them to go on doing good Do not desame the God of Heaven with saying or thinking that you cleanse your hands in vain nor that he taketh a long day to reward them that work in his work Behold saith our Lord I come quickly and my reward is with me to give every one according as his work shall be It will not be long before Christ will come with this great reward but as he punisheth the wicked so he rewardeth also the righteous man every day it may be he doth not reward thee with a long life an healthful body a plentiful estate other accomodations of this life his wisdom seeth not these things fit for thee he knoweth thy heart thy temper but hast thou not a quiet conscience a serenity of mind or art thou not strengthened with might in the inward man doth not Christ dwell in thy heart by faith art thou not rooted and grounded in love and able in some measure to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length and depth and heighth and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledg that thou mayest be filled with all the fulness of God Thou art it may be troubled on every side but art thou distressed thou art perplexed but art thou in despair thou art persecuted but art thou forsaken thou art cast down but art thou destroyed Thou bearest about in thy body the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in thy body 2 Cor. 4.9 10. Is this no reward It may be it is not the reward thou lookedst for but it is that reward which God seeth fittest for thee It is not all that thou shalt have when he shall come whose reward is with him and he telleth thee that will be quickly thou mayest expect fuller and greater things in the mean time thou hast a viaticum an enough for thy passage through the wilderness The work of God is a wages to it self but God gives thee wages besides yea and eye hath not seen nor hath ear heard nor can it enter into the heart of man to conceive What great things God hath further prepared for them that love him say not then that thou servest God for nothing and faint not nor be weary of well-doing for you shall reap if you faint not SERMON XXVIII Psal CVII 43. Whoso is wise and will observe these things even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. THe these things mentioned in the Text as I have formerly told you and you may easily assure your selves from the Context of the Psalm are the great and various motions of Actual Providence concerning which I am recommending to you divers things that I conceive as true so very observable Thirteen I have discoursed I proceed to another which will also concern the motions of this Actual Providence in the distribution of rewards and punishments The Observation is this Observ 14. The Providence of God doth sometimes reward the intentions of his people where he doth not allow of and approve the actions which should be the product of those intentions and very often reward some actions from which he hath service where he by no means allows the agents design and intention In the handling of which I shall first justifie the Observation by instances Secondly I shall shew you the reasonableness of this motion of Providence And lastly I shall make some Application of it I say first The Actual Providence of God doth sometimes allow of approve and reward the general good intentions of his people when yet he doth not and will not allow of those actions which should be the product of such designs and intentions This evidently appeareth in that famous instance of David recorded in holy Writ both in the 2 Sam. 7. and in 1 Chron. 17. The story is this David's life until that time had been a life of a great deal of trouble and distraction he had many Enemies both before and after he came to the Throne but at length God saith the Text had given him rest round about from all his enemies The good man presently begins now to think what eminent service he should do for God At length he considers that there was no publick place for the Worship of God nothing but a Tabernacle he had built himself a fine house of Cedar but the ark the symbol of Gods Presence with his People that dwelt in Curtains as he expresseth it ver 2. But this being a thing which concerned the Worship of God as to which above all things the Lord our God is a jealous God David though a great Prince a great Prophet a man according to Gods own heart would do
moneth in which God may take them The Children by adoption are picked out of the Children of wrath Reservat Deus injustos misericordiae per inducias justitiae God by the truce of his justice as Nierembergius phraseth it that is by forbearing the execution of his punitive and vindicative Justice reserveth unrighteous persons for mercy This is one end doubtless of Gods enduring so many sinners in the World that he might bring some of them even so many as he hath chosen unto life to obtain eternal Salvation But yet some will say why doth God permit such as he knows his long suffering and patience will never lead to repentance let me a little answer thy curiosity in this and shew thee that even in this the Lords ways are equal and his wisdom infinite 2. Whether they well repent and turn or no it is but reasonable that that God who hath sworn by his life that be desires not the death of a sinner but had rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live should give them a time to repent and how should this be if God should not bear with them and give them a space of life If they never were suffered to think a thought how should their own thoughts another day accuse them It is an aggravation of judgment against sinners That God gives them a space of repentance and they do not repent How should God condemn them for their filthy speeches their hard speeches their Oathes and Blasphemies if God should not suffer them to vent these things How should they repent if they had no time to repent If they will abuse the patience of God and after the hardness and impenitency of their hearts treasure up wrath against the day of wrath their blood is upon their own heads God is vindicated in his Justice 3. The permission of sinners in the world seemeth reasonable that if they will not be made better others may be made good by Gods patience toward them and forbearance of them If there were none of these Briars and Thorns in the world how could God teach his people by them Indeed this is one of Gods great ends in the permission of sinners But let me open this a little in two or three particulars 1. God by the exemplary punishment of them for their sins oft-times turns others from their sins It is true God doth not make all prodigious sinners examples of his judgment in this life but some he doth and by it makes others to fear and tremble and to avoid those Rocks upon which their Souls split If I remember right it is reported of Waldus the Father of the Waldenses that he was converted by the sudden death of one of his companions I know that examples of judgments are not Gods ordinary means of conversion nay they are rare instances of converts that are made that way especially where the word is ordinarily preached When Dives in the gospel fancied that if one were sent to his brethren from the dead they would believe and avoid those flames he was told by Abraham they had Moses and the Prophets and if upon the reading and hearing of them they would not believe if one should go from the dead they would not believe Those that harden their hearts under the word are ordinarily judicially hardned against judgments or other means that to the eye of reason seem probable means to change their hearts but are not under a Divine institution for that end as the word of God is But yet to some they are so far sanctified God sometimes goeth out of his ordinary road Besides though such examples of judgment seldom prove sole and principal causes or means yet they often prove partial causes and social means and together with the word conduce much to such a blessed end I have known one my self that hath owned the ringing of Bells giving notice of persons that he knew who probably died in their sins as a great means to awaken him to a consideration of his ways and a change of heart and life whiles his Soul reflected upon the sound and he said to himself what should become of me if this Bell now rang for me if my Soul as this poor wretched creatures Soul were now before the Judgment seat of Jesus Christ Princes the time they go to School use to have their Vmbraes some other person I forget it may be the name they use to give them that they may be corrected for them and their Prince by their correction might learn to take heed of errors The elect of God those whom he hath foreordained to eternal life they cannot die in their sins but God suffers some vile and wicked neighbours they have to perish in their reaking lusts and maketh this a means to awaken them to consider what sin will at last bring them to 2. God defameth sin by a plenty of sinners It is one of the idle pretences men in this age have for their filthy stage-plays that sin is there discredited by the representation of it and shewing the Spectators how ill it becomes men to be debaucht the truth is vertue and sobriety is discredited there for in the debauchery of them our age hath exceeded all Heathens But for those that will see the vileness and ugliness of sin they need not see it in a play in effigy they may see it more livelily in the converse of their neighbours and I doubt not but much sin is restrained in the world by the much sin that is committed in the world the reeling of the drunkard from one side of the street to another defameth drunkenness and the indecent immoralities of others both in their words and actions make sin more abominable to many considerate Souls as they say the fire is hotter in winter by the Antiperistasis of the cold so the heat of love to God and zeal for him is advantaged by the excess of hatred to God and his ways which they see in others 3. There is yet a third way by which the sinners of the world do good to the Saints and that is augendo fidem ampliando patientiam increasing their faith and patience every sinner is a grieving thorne and a pricking briar to the house of Israel and by these briars and thorns God teacheth them as it is said that Gideon taught the men of succoth It was the saying of an ancient writer Nullus bonorum habet inimicum nisi malum qui ideo esse permittitur ut vel ipse corrigatur vel per ipsum malus exerceatur that is no good man hath any enemy but a wicked man whom God doth therefore permit that either himself may be amended or the good man may by him be exercised Thou that wondrest why God permits so many sinners in the world wonder why there are so many rods and ferulars for Children why there are so many whipping-posts and racks so many bride wells c. Assyria is the rod of Gods anger Isa 10.
Application recapitulate a little 1. For the sins of others which we see permitted in the World 1. Let us be quickened upon the view of them to adore the patience and long-suffering of God Dost thou hear a wretch curse and blaspheme and profane the great and dreadful name of God and defie the God of Heaven challenging his own damnation and doest thou see God suffering him to live from year to year and to go on in this course Doest thou see another in the heighth of rage against the people of God endeavouring if it were possible to root out all Religion and dayly devouring those that are more righteous than himself Let it help thee to recognize the patience of God do thou upon occasion of others profaneness and blasphemy give God the glory of his patience Let it make thee many a time reflect and say O what a patient God is the God in whom I trust he seeth these vile wretches he could as easily crush them as I with my foot can crush a worm yet he spareth them and with much long suffering endures the vessels of wrath fitted for Hell 2. Let the view of the sins of others which thou seest God permitting for his own wise ends make thee adore the wisdom of God Thou art posed to think what glory God can procure to himself from the profaneness and blasphemy of wicked men but God will certainly do it and would never suffer their profaneness if he did not know how to do it O! the infinite wisdom of God that can make the wrath of man to praise him Let thy heart be affected with that meditation 3. Again Doest thou see the world of sin that abounds doest thou hear of prodigious lusts blasphemies cruelties c. which make thy soul tremble Let God upon this occasion have the glory of his free-mercy and grace towards thy soul Bless God that he hath given thee another spirit Say Lord why was not I as one of these I had the same seed of sin in me my heart was as full of original lust and corruption as theirs Oh! what reason have I to adore the free grace of God that I am not as this beastly drunkard as this unclean wretch as this monstrous blasphemer If it had not been for free and rich grace I had been as bad as they It is that which made me to differ 2. But let God have glory from us upon the occasion of his so long suffering us to walk in our own ways Now that may be many ways let me a little particularly direct here also 1. Let it make thee live in a dayly admiration of free-grace both in pardoning thy former guilt and in renewing and changing thy heart This this is a work not for a rapture not for an hour or a day but for eternity It will doubtless be a great piece of our work when we come to Heaven to cry salvation to our God and to the Lamb. Blessing and glory and honour and wisdom and thanksgiving be to the Lord for ever and ever It should be much of our work upon the earth if we have either obtained the sense of the pardon of our sins or a good hope through grace you shall find St. Paul beginning most of his Epistles with such a blessing of God O you redeemed of the Lord you that are come out of a state of deep guilt you can never think nor speak enough what God hath done for your souls It is a great work of God and he doth his great works that they may be had in remembrance Let God have some glory from thee for pardoning those sins by which he hath been much dishonoured by thee and as for his pardoning so for his sanctifying grace Admire God bless God upon the view of thy former hard heart profane and unclean spirit say Ah Lord that ever such an Ethiopian as I was should through grace change my skin that ever such a rebellious spirit should be made obedient such a profane wretch should ever have an heart toward Heaven that ever one that loved his lusts so well as I have done should be taught of God to love him and fear him and delight in him that a Saul should be amongst the Prophets a Paul a persecutor a blasphemer should be amongst the Apostles a Mary Magdalen should wash her Lords feet and be so humbled as to wipe them with the hairs of her head the offering up of these praises glorifieth God 2. Let thy former sins make thee more abundant in penitential tears and in confessions of thy sin unto God God delighteth to hear a soul acknowledg its iniquities and take shame to it self Let thy reflection upon thy former ways make thee with Peter to weep bitterly make thee go alone and confess thy sins unto him that hath forgiven them the more vile thou makest and ownest thy self the more thou glorifiest God as a God of free grace and infinite mercy 3. Let thy former sins ingage thee to love God more Hath much been forgiven thee O love much Say with thy self O I can never love God enough I can never do enough for him I that have done so much against him I that have been so profane so vile that have spent my youth and strength in the service of my base lusts and pleasures and am yet received to mercy at last What shall I render unto the Lord Let my burning love to God and whatsoever beareth his image and superscription make some amends for my burning lusts which had consumed my poor soul if God had not mercifully quenched them 4. Let thy former sins and thy reflections upon them make thee to walk softly and humbly with God all the days of thy life Doest thou find thy heart at any time begin to swell in an high opinion of thy self Say my soul What hath a sinner to be proud on what hast thou that hast been so filthy so polluted to glory in High thoughts become not one that hath been so dirty so polluted and unclean as thou hast been 5. Let your reflections upon your sins bring forth that brood of graces which the Apostle mentioneth 2 Cor. 7.11 Indignation carefulness fear vehement desires revenge Indignation at your selves for your former errors Anger never hath a truer object than when it is exercised upon our selves for our miscarriages Revenge a revenge upon our selves this doubtless lieth much in acts of mortification and self denial mens denying themselves in the lawful use of the liberty of those things which they had before smfully abused Fear a fear of again salling into such remptations as they had before been overcome with A Care in looking to your ways and vehement desires in all things to please God and to walk more perfectly before him 6. Finally You shall make an improvement of your sins if your reflexions upon your former sins both of omission and commission shall engage you to more frequent acts of homage to him to be
and soul must be for ever and ever when all the Vials of Divine wrath shall be poured out upon them I do not doubt but many a soul in glory is this day blessing God for its life of trials pains and afflictions and could we hear them speak they would tell us they were beholden in a great measure to the thousands of little hells they suffered here for the Heaven to which they have crouded through much tribulation and waded through many waters of Marah which they found it difficult while they were in their delicate flesh to drink of because their tast was bitter 2. By afflictions and troubles the saints are fitted for the Kingdom of God They are such good things as accompany salvation and make the heirs of salvation fit for the Kingdom of God We must be made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light before we come to it Col. 1.12 and we are made so by afflictions in a great measure Do you sometimes see some beautiful stones in a famous structure shining with variety of Colours and adorning the places where they are How came they think you by this beauty were they only beholden to the Painter for an ingenious mixture and laying on of colours This would never have made them so without hewing and smoothing and polishing but both these together complete their beauty The Stone-cutter first hews off their roughness and polisheth them then the Painter layeth his colours upon them Amongst other expressions by which the Scripture expresseth the blessed state of the saints this is one promise Rev. 3.12 I will make him that overcometh a pillar in the house of my God To make a Soul a Pillar a beautiful glorious Pillar in the House of God it is not enough that the holy spirit comes and like a Painter adorneth the soul with its varieties of gracious habits but the Providence of God especially as to some of them who are of courser rougher constitutions must also come and hew and cut and polish them with varieties of trials and afflictions and thus they become at last beautiful Pillars beautiful for faith and patience for self denial and meekness strong to bear the cross and submissive to the burthen of it Thus by many tribulations they enter into the Kingdom of God by many tribulations not only as the road to Heaven the dark entry into that place of light but as means fitting them for Heaven Files filing off that rust with which they could never enter in there Even the man according to Gods own heart confessed that before he was afflicted he went astray and that his afflictions had contributed to his learning of the Lords Statutes We sillily call afflictions evils but consider thy self saith an acute Author how often hast thou been made better by those things those afflictions which thou defamest with the name of evils Augustine lamented that a Fever had corrected that lust in him which the love of God and the meditation of that could not extinguish Certainly the same reason which forbids us to call that good which maketh us worse will likewise restrain us from calling that evil which maketh us better God doth ex dispendio naturae parare compendium gratiae in the phrase of an ingenious Writer he maketh the outward man decrease that the inward man may by it increase so that troubles and afflictions seem but Divine inventions to make the saints both more holy and more happy How should we have lien grovelling on the earth if God had not prepared us there a bed of thorns and lien always sucking at the worlds breasts if God had not rubbed them with this wormwood How often would the pitifully wanton heart of a good Christian have been priding it self at a Looking-glass if God had not spoiled her smooth face with the Small Pox or some other deforming disease How often is the love and delight of a soul canton'd out to a Wife or an Husband to a Child or a Friend and how little a share hath God of it until he cuts off these suckers from the roots of our souls How little time can a man or woman oft times find for Meditation or Prayer for examining his heart and reflecting upon his ways till God shutteth him up in a Prison in a sick Chamber c. that he hath nothing else to do then he cries with the Church Let us search and try our ways and turn again to the Lord. How little how seldom should we with any seriousness or in any solemn manner remember God if God sometimes did not forget us When should we be willing to entertain thoughts of a better life of a more enduring substance if we always had full measures of the contentments of this life The uncertainty we have of earthly riches makes us look for the more enduring substance A banishment from our Country or daily persecution and vexation in it makes us think of and prepare for a better Country By dying daily we become willing to dye and to be with Christ If we did not see the gourds that refresh us and keep the heats of the world from our heads come up in a night and go down by an East wind the next night we should cry it is good for us to be here let us build us Tabernacles We should be married to the world and unwilling ever to think of a divorce or a being married to Christ if God did not sometimes let us experience that we had a lye in our right hand were fond of a picture and embraced a shadow The Gaols and prisons of the earth make the earth more bitter and the liberty of the sons of God more sweet The pains of the earth and the labours of the world make the rest of Heaven and the joys thereof more desirable Besides that faith and patience are no Summer-graces if we should never have any Winters when should they have any exercise Tribulation worketh patience and the hour of trial is the time for its perfect work But this were almost an infinite Theme to discourse in its latitude the variety of good which floweth to the souls of Gods people from afflictions and troubles they are by them tried purged made white they are by them made more holy and humble all which good justly entituleth God to a being the Author of them they do not only flow from his justice as the just punishments of sin but they are the noble effluxes of his goodness and are so far from derogating from the glory of that that they exceedingly tend to the commendation of it and we are mistaken in the notion of them when we call them evils and make up the judgement meerly from sense which indeed so nick-nameth them I know indeed there is another Phaenomenon of difficulty here and that is how it can stand with the justice of God to punish his people for those sins for which he hath accepted a satisfaction from the Lord Jesus Christ and given an
I remember it is a saying of Salvian Repugnanti corporis valetudine quae optamus facere non facimus many a time the want of strength and health in our bodies hindreth us from doing that sin which we have a mind to commit The great enjoyments of the world are not only the things which make men unwilling to die but both they and the great businesses and employments of the world are those things which keep Christians fettered they cannot pray they cannot wait upon God in ordinances they cannot fast they cannot solemnly worship God as others less intangled can amongst other advantages therefore of a poor and afflicted state an ingenious Author reckons this for one he saith it is puritatis condimentum the pickle of purity and holiness They are the very salt of the Earth without which the best of men would putrify in their full enjoyment They are you know sharp and acrimonious things that are the Enemies to putrefaction salt seasoneth things vinegar makes a good pickle preservative of things Sugar quickly corrupteth It is true there are too too many that have little enough of these things and as little of any gracious habits poverty and afflictions will not give grace but that is a rare Christian that abounds with the affluences of this life and yet keepeth his integrity is as pure as holy as full of duty as others who have less of this worlds goods they are no fountains of grace but they are great preservatives of it 2. Nay this is not all in the second place they conduce much to the improvements of grace especially of faith and patience They are two habits of grace that like Solomons brother and friend are made for adversity Tribulatio patientiae Robur operatur patientia fidei probationem parit Tribulation addeth to the strength of patience and patience bringeth forth the tryal of Faith If the people of God never met with affliction how should the trial of their faith appear more pretious than that of Gold which perisheth How should their patience have its perfect work Faith is never seen till we be out of sight of the thing which we pretend to trust God for Hope which is seen is no hope but if we hope for that which we see not then do we with patience wait for it Job's faith in God and love to God was seen in his trusting in him and adhering to him while God seemed to be killing of him Practical habits are improved by exercise The Souls of the Saints ordinarily come out of their trials more strong in faith more confirmed in hope more exercised in patience more flaming in love to God how then shall we call those things evils which instead of depraving the Soul and making it worse do tend to the improvement of the Soul and making of it better 3. Lastly the highest good which the Soul is capable of is the beatifical vision and enjoyment of God to all Eternity To this the low estate of the people of God doth exceedingly conduce 2 Cor. 4.17 Our light Affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory Those who shall sit with God upon thrones are those which continue with him in tribulations The great multitude which St. John saw Rev. 7.9 10 11 12 13. which no man could number of all Nations kindreds people and tongues which stood before the throne and before the Lamb clothed with white robes and palms in their hands upon inquiry were found to be those who came out of great tribulation and had washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb v. 14. Our sufferings in this life do not merit glory alas there is no perfection in our suffering and sufferings are but our duty nor is there any proportion betwixt light and momentany afflictions and a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory but they work for us a far more exceeding weight of glory Thou art mistaken then O Christian in thy Judgment God doth not as thou dreamest distribute good things to his Enemies nor yet evil things to his friends the business is no more than this Deus per ficta mala punit suos per larvata bona impios remunerat Nierem God indeed by things in appearance good rewardeth wicked men and by things in appearance evil he punisheth those that are his own people Nor let any one think to quibble here as if God mocked either the one or the other for although these things which the wicked enjoy are not real and substantial good things yet as they are the things which they desire delight in which they chuse above other things more solidly and substantially good they are to them really good and they have a tendency to make them better and the afflictions of the people of God as they have in them an enmity to their flesh and are ingrateful to their senses so they have something of real evil in them but comparatively with other evils or the greater good things which God hath prepared for his people they have nothing of evil in them In short every observing man discerneth the difference betwixt the love of an indulgent cockering mother and a wise and prudent father The father sheweth his love to the Child by fitting it to live in the world another day learning it to be a man to know the world and to converse with it to this purpose he inureth it to hardship he sends it to school and keepeth it under a severe discipline thus he sheweth his love to his Child and when the Child cometh to years of discretion the Child thanks him for it though under the discipline of its youth possibly the Child thinks the father its worst enemy The mother possibly sheweth her love by cockering the Child dandling it upon her knee providing fine clothes for it giving it sweet-meats c. Which things indeed have nothing of true love in them and do only tend to emasculate the Child and make it of an effeminate temper and more unfit to converse with or live in the world another day Patrium Deus habet in bonos animum saith an ingenious Author God loves good people not like a mother but like a father whom he loveth he chastneth and scourgeth every Child whom he receiveth he keeps them at the school of affliction and educateth them under the discipline of the rods and ferulaes of many trials and afflictions he suffereth not the world which is their natural mother according to the flesh to hug them in her bosom nor to dandle them upon her knees he chasteneth them that they might not be condemned with the wicked he hath said blessed is he whom thou chasteneth and teachest him out of thy Law This is but a fatherly dealing of God with his people God thus fitteth them for Heaven polisheth them for shafts in his own quiver by this darkness makes them fit for the Saints in light Why
sayest thou O Christian that the Lords ways are not equal or that the Lord dealeth hardly with thee God dealeth with thee but as every wise and prudent father dealeth with the Child of his dearest love and thus I have spoken to two of the Questions which fall under this head But there is yet a third would be spoken to and the rather because it may be a temptation that seized the hearts of many of Gods people in former times that is How it consisteth with the justice wisdom and goodness of God in the motions of his Providence to make the vilest and worst of men his Instruments to chasten the best and dearest of his own people it was Habbakuks complaint Hab. 1.13 why holdest thou thy peace when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he and maketh men as fishes of the Sea as the creeping things which have no ruler over them But that will be my next Text where I shall speak something relating to that dispensation of God and afterwards shall more largely apply both what I have spoken and what I shall further speak on this Argument SERMON XLIV Habbakuk I. 13. Thou art of purer Eyes than to behold evil and canst not look on iniquity wherefore lookest thou on them that deal treacherously and holdest thy Tongue when the wicked man devoureth the man that is more righteous than he And makest men as the Fish of the Sea as the creeping things that have no ruler over them I Begin as you see where I left in my last exercise I left with a quotation out of the prophecy of Habbakuk which is now my Text nor could any thing be more proper for you see it containeth in terms the Question I am this day speaking to In the beginning of this Chapter and Prophecy the Prophet had been complaining unto God of the exceeding wickedness and incorrigibleness of the Jews God replying to him had told him what possibly he did not expect desiring not the ruin but reformation of his people that he was about to put an end to their wickedness v. 6. Raising up the Caldeans a bitter and hasty nation which should march through the breadth of the land to possess the dwellings which were not theirs terrible and dreadful c. An enemy every way qualified to execute Gods utmost vengeance upon this people This quite surpriseth and astonisheth the good prophet and sends him in hast unto God again v. 13. saith he Art not thou from everlasting O Lord my God mine holy one we shall not dye O Lord thou hast ordained them for Judgment and O mighty God thou hast established them for correction then follow the words of my Text Thou art of purer Eyes than to behold evil and canst not look on iniquity wherefore lookest thou on them that deal treacherously and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous then he Habbakuk lookt upon this as a very sad dispensation and what stumbled him as to the righteousness of God therefore he puts it in that phrase the man that is more righteous than he and addeth and makest men as the fishes of the Sea as creeping things of the Earth which have no ruler over them Those brute sensitive creatures are not ruled by any rules of justice or righteousness those of them that have most natural strength and power devour those who have less but now men are reasonable creatures and should be acted by principles of reason and justice amongst them might should not overcome right But O Lord in this dispensation of thy Providence thou seemest to govern the reasonable part of the world like the brutish and sensitive part of it The Jews though they be a sinful people yet they are more righteous than the Caldeans they are a brutish people and have no right against the Jews shall thy Providence so order the affaires of the world that those who have most power in their hand though they have no right shall trample down thy people and eat them up like bread Lord this were to make men like the fish of the Sea like the creeping things of the Earth which have none over them to govern them by any rules of justice or righteousness Lord why doth thy Providence thus govern humane affaires This I conceive the sense of the words The question which remains to be spoken to is this Quest How it can consist with the Justice of God in the motions of his Actual Providence to suffer wicked men to devour those who are more righteous than themselves I am the more willing to speak to this because it is a dispensation under which many of those that fear the Lord in this nation have suffered we have seen good men rifled their goods taken from them we cannot say but they have deserved this and far more than this from the hand of Divine Justice but though they have deserved this yet we are ready to think it is hard that they should suffer this from such miscreants as take the Spoil and God will certainly one day fetch the blood of his people and their abominations out of their mouths We are prone to think that God should not suffer his people to be devoured by those who are more unrighteous then they are The Text gives you an account 1. Of a great disorder in the world at least a dispensation of Providence which Habakkuk thought so Men dealt treacherously the wicked devoured the men who were more righteous than themselves 2. It gives you an account of Gods carriage under this disorder God looked upon men that is he seemed to look upon the men that dealt treacherously and to hold his peace while Sinners devoured the more righteous persons God by the motions of his Providence seemed rather to favour than frown upon these disorders Hence might be observed these two propositions 1. Prop. That it is no unusual dispensation of Providence for God to suffer the wicked to devour those that are more righteous than themselves 2. Prop. That this dispensation hath been matter of stumbling and a very sore temptation even to the servants of God For the first as to matter of fact there is nothing more demonstrable look over the whole History of Scripture the History of all times you will find it true the world began with Cains killing Abel it went on with the Egyptians the Amalekites the Philistines the Babilonians devouring of the only people which God had in the world Now I say this hath been heretofore and doubtless is at this time a great temptation to Gods people Habakkuk complains of it in the Text. Job complained Job 30.1 That those who were younger than he had him in derision even those whose Fathers he would have disdained to have set with the dogs of his table Shemei a dead dog as he called him cursed David and Doeg the Informer prevails against all the Lords Priests Judas another Informer devoureth him who is the
Lord of life It is a dispensation that hath often put the servants of God into unseemly passions James and John would have had fire come down from Heaven as in Elijahs time to have destroyed the Samaritans Peter was out of patience to see the Informer come with a company with Swords and Staves to take his Master and in his passion draweth a Sword and with it cuts off the ear of the servant of the high priest David himself when God offered him the choice of three Judgments desired rather to fall into the hands of God than into the hands of men I say it is and hath often been a very sore temptation advantaged partly from Nature partly from some Religious reflections That which in humane nature advantageth this temptation is 1. The disdain every man naturally hath to suffer an injury from one beneath himself when Gideon would have had his Son Jether have fallen upon those two Eastern Princes Zeba and Zalmuna they said rise thou up and fall upon us men have a natural disdain and scorn to suffer from their inferiours we see it in every days experience Now although every child of God is low in his own eyes and in honour preferreth every Saint before himself yet as St. Paul sometimes magnified his office against the false Apostles and counterfeits of his age though he judged himself the least of the Apostles and unworthy of that great Name so they cannot but magnifie themselves in comparison of open profane miscreants that are the scum and off scouring of the place in which they live such as are common drunkards lyars swearers Sabbath-breakers and guilty of other debaucheries the very scabs of the body politick and spots of the Assemblies to which they are united 2. Every man naturally hath a regret at the receiving of injuries from those from whom he hath deserved no such thing Now the People of God are persons of innocence who have done no wrong to their worst Enemies they have loved their Enemies prayed for them been ready to do any offices of love to them and know not how to bear an injury from those to whom they have done no wrong This was that which troubled Davids Spirit Psal 35.12 13. They rewarded me evil for good to the spoiling of my Soul but as for me when they were sick my cloathing was sackcloath I humbled my Soul with fasting and my prayer returned into my own bosom I behaved myself as though he had been my friend or brother I bowed down heavily as one that mourned for my mother But in mine adversity they rejoyced and gathered themselves together yea the abjects gathered themselves together against me and I knew it not yea they did tear me and ceased not with hypocritical mockers at feasts they gnashed upon me with their teeth Lord how long wilt thou look on Rescue my Soul from their destructions 2. This temptation is likewise advantaged from some Religious reflections 1. From a reflection upon the purity and holiness of God O Lord saith our Prophet in my Text thou art of purer Eyes then to behold iniquity How a just and pure and holy God should look on and hold his peace to see a company of vile wretches tearing and devouring his own people this is a knowledg at first view too wonderful for them 2. From a reflexion upon the promises and threatnings of God they look into the holy word of God and find that full of promises of good to Gods People of threatnings of wrath and vengeance to wicked men instead of this they see vile men building up Palaces to themselves upon their ruins and adorning themselves with their Ornaments the houses of the profane furnished and adorned with that which is not theirs instead of the wicked mans preparing garments and the just mans putting them on as Job speaketh they see good and righteous men preparing garments and leud and ungodly men put them on they see the spoil of such as fear the Lord in the tents of leud and ungodly men 3. From a reflexion upon the Decrees of God O Lord saith our Prophet thou hast ordained them for destruction O mighty God thou hast established them for correction they consider leud and wicked men as men whom God by a fixed act of his Will hath ordained to judgment as persons who by the established counsel of God are to be destroyed and they cannot expound the Providence of God into a consistency with his eternal purpose when they see them not only live prosper and grow old but also live by the death of such as fear God and build their nests on high with feathers which they have plucked from their wings From these and other causes ariseth this trouble and coil in the spirits of Gods people Fluctus est Tentatio est as Augustine saith it is a great wave a great temptation and trouble and even Gods own people here are ready to think they see a knot in the thred of providence a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence in the even ways of the Lords dealing Let me indeavour in a few words to unty this knot to remove this stone Four or five things I shall speak one or other of which or all together will make this way of the Lord plain to every sober and understanding Christian 1. How is God to his people more hard or unrighteous in such a dispensation than he was to the son of his dearest love Our blessed Lord hath taught us That the Disciple is not above his Master nor the servant above his Lord it is enough for the Disciple that he be as his Master and the Servant as his Lord Matt. 10.24 25. 'T is true the chief Informer against our Lord was one of his hoshold Judas but he was a son of perdition the only ill member of all the 12. Who were his witnesses but a company of perjured wretches who could not agree in their testimony Who mockt him and scourged him Herod a monster for all manner of wickedness Who were they that spit upon him that cried out crucifie him crucifie him that gave him Gall and Vinegar to drink were they not the abjects of the people Thou art not able to conceive of Gods righteousness in giving thee over and thy estate over to a Renegado an apostate from his former profession to wretches who make no conscience what they say what they swear what they do How was he righteous in giving over the Son of his love to such wretches We are never so like to our Lord and Master as when we are betrayed by a Judas informed against and testified against by false and perjured wretches mockt and abused by the abjects and off scouring of the people If God might be a just and righteous God in suffering these things to be done to the green tree surely he may suffer them to be done unto us who are dry trees Thou art troubled that God should suffer profane scoffers to call thee
is very hard and much a cross to the grain of flesh and blood Let me therefore conclude with a few Motives or Arguments to enforce what I have been speaking unto you For 1. Consider First That not to do this is to be overcome with evil It is the Apostolical Precept Rom. 12.21 Be not overcome with evil but overcome evil with good Consider first how dishonourable it is for one that is a Christian to be overcome with evil whether the evil of Punishment or the evil of Sin that the lust wickedness and sin of another should make him also sin against God I would fain know what it is that should in an evil time make the Christian to be worse than at another time It must either be the prosperous state of the wicked or the sadness of his own condition for when the wicked are exalted God's people usually mourn to be overcome either of these ways is to be overcome of evil For the lusts of another to overcome me to make me sin as much one way by fretting fuming vexing omitting duty doing what is contrary to it as they do another through the pride lust and cruelty of their hearts here now the sinful evil of anothers heart plainly overcometh me Is this this temptation because it fareth so ill with thee this is yet worse for then thou proclaimest that thou didst only serve God for the loaves he gave thee 2. But Secondly Consider how honourable it is for thee to overcome thy neighbours evil with thy good For me to have so confirm'd and healthy a Soul that let a boisterous sinner do what he can he shall not make me worse he shall not make me fret fume vex or be impatient or to do any thing short of or contrary to my duty do what he can he shall not turn me from my course of duty either towards God or Man how honourable a thing this is for one who nameth the name of a Christian to be certain and constant and unmoveable in the work of the Lord so as a wicked mans wretched usage of him shall make him but more holy to walk more close with God and to pray more for him and be ready to shew him more kindness and to do more offices of love for him I have heard it given as the Character of an excellent Person That the way to have a kindness from him was to do him some injury 3. Confider again There is nothing which more than this will distinguish one that is a child of God from one that is not It is a great piece of self-denial for a man or woman to deny himself in his passions especially those of lust and revenge Observe the difference betwixt Job and his Wife Job suffered much from the hand of God yet he would not charge God foolishly he did not speak unadvisedly with his lips his Wife presently would have him to curse God and die 4. Again Think with your self what a base thing it is for a Christian to walk beneath his Principles or to change his Principles with his condition There is nothing more unworthy of a Christian than to walk beneath his professed Principles or to change his Principles and course of life with his condition 5. Lastly consider How great an Argument it will be for thee to use with God to bring thee out of that state of affliction and misery into which his Providence hath cast thee when thou canst plead That God's severe Providences to thee have been to thee no temptation to depart from him or from any part of thy duty you shall find the Church pleading this as an Argument with God Psal 44.9 Thou hast cast off and put us to shame and goest not forth with our armies Vers 10. Thou makest us to turn back from the Enemies and those that hate us spoil for themselves Vers 11. Thou hast given us like sheep appointed for meat and hast scattered us amongst the heathen Vers 12. Thou sellest thy people for nought and doest not increase thy wrath by their price c. Vers 17. All this is come upon us yet have we not forgotten thee neither have we dealt fasly in thy covenant Our heart is not turned back neither have our steps declined from thy way Though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons and covered us with the shadow of death If we have forgotten the name of our God or stretched out our hands to a strange god Shall not God search this out for he knoweth the secrets of the heart Yea for thy sake are we killed all the day long we are counted as sheep for the slaughter Awake why sleepest thou O Lord arise cast us not off for ever Thus I have opened to you a fourth branch of a Christians duty under such a dispensation of Providence as I have been discoursing of I shall add but one thing more 5. Lastly then It is the duty of a Christian to rest in the Lord and to wait patiently for him or in short under such dispensations quietly and silently to wait upon and for God The performance of this duty will I conceive lie much in Four things 1. A quiet submission to Gods present dispensation a submission and a quiet submission this is implied in the command of keeping silence to God There is a manifold silence There is a natural silence which is opposed to speaking thus he is silent that hath nothing to say or saith nothing Thus Lam. 1.10 The Elders of Zion sat upon the ground and kept silence There is a prudent and politick silence which is good or evil as it is circumstanced Amos 5.13 The prudent man shall keep silence in that time for it is an evil time There is a sinful silence which is a with-holding prayer from God or forbearing to stand up and speak for God Isa 62.6 You that make mention of the name of the Lord keep not silence Lastly There is an holy and Religious silence Isa 41.1 Keep silence before me O you Islands Hab. 2.20 The Lord is in his holy Temple let all the earth keep silence before him Zech. 2.13 Be silent O all flesh before the Lord for he is raised up out of his holy habitation Now this is that silence which the people of God ought to keep before the Lord in an evil time But to open it yet a little more fully The Philosopher distinguisheth betwixt an internal and external speech there is the Language of the heart as well as of the lips for the words that we utter with our lips are first formed and conceived in our hearts our hearts speak first It is not a natural silence upon either account that is our duty but an holy and Religious silence not a silence from thoughts but from passion not a silence from speaking but a silence from speaking unadvisedly Such a silence as Job kept of whom it is said That he did not charge God foolishly nor speak unadvisedly with his lips
and in the same Nation where the Gospel is preached some have a sound and little more Preachers in some places in stead of preaching the Gospel Preach human Philosophy or the lusts of their own hearts In other places the Word of God is preached faithfully and powerfully so that the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force Men are compelled to come in This difference in the external ministration which let me tell you hath no small influence upon the eternal concern and interest of men for God doth not ordinarily work by way of miracle and heal the eyes of the blind with Clay and Spittle is fountain'd only in the free-will and Grace of God Vse 2. But I trust I speak to some who have tasted further of the mercy and Grace of God than receiving the general Dispensation of the Gospel with their outward ears God hath by his holy Spirit upon the preaching of the Gospel effectually moved their hearts and conquered their Souls into a subjection to Christ They have embraced the Lord Jesus Christ by a Gospel-faith they are brought by a mighty hand out of darkness into marvelous Light and translated out of this Kingdom of Sin and Satan into the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus I have this day been discovering to you the Fountain of this Grace of which God hath made you partakers you have heard that it is the will of God only which hath distinguished betwixt you and others It is not because you were more nobly born than others nor because you were more rich more honourable or by nature better complexioned than others God saw no more goodness in your natures than in the natures of others you were all the same flesh he infused into all Souls of the same nature and species only he hath willed rather to shew mercy unto your Souls than to the Souls of others because he hath set his love upon you There are three duties that hence lie very obvious 1. The First is Praise Thankfulness and Admiration Certainly every such Soul stands highly obliged with the Psalmist to cry out Bless the Lord O my Soul and all that is within me bless his Holy Name Bless the Lord O my Soul and forget not all his benefits If free Grace will not affect our hearts and fill our mouths with a new Song nothing will It must certainly be an amazing consideration for a Soul to sit down and think I was in the same mass and lump of lost man-kind that others are I was by Nature a Child of wrath as much as any my Childhood and Youth were Vanity as much as any others I was grinding at the same Mill it may be in actual sins I outstripped many others Now that the Lord should look upon me and pluck me as a brand out of the Fire that God should open my eyes and change my heart What did God see in me Possibly my more external circumstances were far less and more unvaluable than those of thousands of others my House was of small account and little esteem there are many more great and noble more wise and prudent than I am many who in all appearance so far as man can judg might have been more serviceable to God than I am or am ever like to be now that the Lord should pass them over and shew mercy to me certainly no Soul can seriously think of these things but must be ravished with the apprehensions of the inaccountable love of God in these things and say What shall I render unto thee O Lard what shall I render unto thee 2. This notion of Gods Soveraignty freedom and inaccountbleness in the dispensations of his Grace should teach every Soul that hath been or shall be made a partaker of it the great lesson of humility The Apostle Rom. 3.27 giveth this as the reason why God hath setled the justification of a Sinner upon a bottom of free Grace and hath excluded works that he might also exclude boasting and teach those who glory to glory in the Lord upon this Argument the Apostle exhorteth the Gentiles not to boast against the Jews Rom. 11.22 Behold the goodness and the severity of God saith he to those who abide in their unbelief severity to thee goodness Pride is a sinful habit disposing the Soul to swell in the opinion of some excellency in it self and a little thing will swell our corrupt hearts The Apostle propoundeth this very consideration as a cure for that tumour in the Souls of Christians 1 Cor. 4.7 For who maketh thee to differ from another And what hast thou which thou didst not receive Now if thou didst receive it why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it It is nothing but the will of God that hath made a difference betwixt thee and the vilest Sinner breathing betwixt thee and the most filthy Drunkard the most furious Persecutor c. It was not for any worth any goodness or holiness which the Lord saw in thee but of his meer free will and Grace God hath shewed mercy to thy Soul what hast thou now of thy own to boast or glory in Thou hast indeed reason to glory and to make thy boast in the Lord and to bless God for what he hath done for thy Soul more than for a thousand others but there is no thanks to thee his will his own will was the fountain of his Grace extended to thee God hath had mercy upon thy Soul only because he would have mercy O therefore be not high-minded but fear and walk humbly before God 3. Lastly this calleth upon all of you who have tasted of this free and unaccountable Grace to live a distinguishing life and conversation There is a Generation that fancyeth that the Doctrine of Free-Grace opens a door to Liberty It is but the old Cavil in Saint Pauls time there were those that thus accused the Doctrine of Free-Grace as if it gave men a liberty to go on in sin as appeareth by the Apostles anticipation of that Cavil Rom. 6.1 What saith he shall we then continue in sin that Grace may abound God forbid and so he goeth on shewing that any such conclusion from his principles was unreasonable How shall we saith the Apostle who are dead unto sin live any longer therein Special distinguishing Free-Grace both deadneth the Soul to Sin and inflameth the Soul with a love to God who hath made the Soul to differ so as that Soul cannot live as other men the love of God constraineth him he must apprehend himself obliged to do more for God than others because God hath shewen more mercy to him than unto others and that meerly because he would shew mercy What can possibly be imagined to have a greater and lay an higher obligation upon the Soul to all manner of holiness in conversation to perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord as the Apostle speaketh SERMON L. Hosea XIII 9. O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self but
Jeroboam that he only of the house of Jeroboam went to his grave in peace because there was some good thing found in him Sometimes and most ordinarily God worketh upon peoples hearts in their riper state of which are the most plentiful instances in Scripture You read of the thief upon the Cross converted in the last day of his life and what we find in Scripture we find God still doing in the dispensations of his Providence The age in which we have lived hath afforded many instances of children whose hearts we may charitably judg from the accounts we have had of them God had in their very childhood Regenerated and Sanctified them Blessed be God we are not without some instances of persons and those not a few whom God hath wrought upon in their more adult estate and some also in their old age though Examples of that still are and ever were very rare This is the first variety obvious to every Eye 2. A second variety observable is in the means which God is pleased to make use of For these God never tied himself to the same means The preaching of the Gospel was always made use of by God as the most ordinary means It was at the preaching of Peter that Three Thousand Souls were in one day converted and the Apostle telleth us that it pleased God by the foolishness of Preaching to save them that believed 1 Cor. 1.21 And the Apostle tells us that faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God But yet God hath made use though more rarely of other means the means which God first used to the Eunuch seems to be his reading in the Prophet Isaiah Sometimes God made use of Providences you read of many converted and induced to believe in Christ upon the account of his Miracles and still God is pleased to use the same variety of means Generally indeed God maketh use of the preaching of the Gospel sometimes he sanctifieth the reading of the word sometimes he maketh use of Providences I think I have sometimes read concerning Waldus the Father of those ancient Protestants called the Waldenses that the seeing of one of his companions suddenly drop down dead was the first means of his conversion we read of a great dread that fell upon People upon the sudden death of Ananias and Saphirah My self have known one that would acknowledg that his hearing of Bells Ring for persons dead was a great means to beget serious thoughts in him First of turning unto God It pleased God to make use of Manasses his Chains to turn his heart and the imprisonment of Paul Acts 16. to convert the Goaler and his whole Family Sometimes God useth the instructions of Parents sometimes one means sometimes another as it pleaseth him 3. A third observable variety respecteth The manner of Gods working upon Souls It is true in some especially two respects God dealeth a-like withal 1. He forceth no Soul he indeed maketh it willing and giveth to will but the Soul in its conversion to God moveth willingly and freely 2. Secondly He putteth forth an Almighty power as to every Soul that is converted The Soul is made willing but it is in the day of the Lords power Psal 110.3 But yet the effects of this power are not always the same all are not drawn in the like manner some are drawn by a Silken Thred others by Iron-Fetters some God works upon in a more rough way some in a more soft and gentle way Some are a little or not at all under the Spirit of bondage others are Months and Years under it they are filled with the Lords terrors and cry unto him out of the belly of Hell before he heareth them some are drawn with the Cords of love only others with the Chains of fears Some are as it were insensibly drawn and the Spirit of God as it were slippeth into their Souls without any noise they become Temples of the Holy Ghost and there is neither the noise of Ax nor Hammer heard about the Spiritual building others are terrified like the Jaylor Acts 16. cast down to the Earth like Paul both in order to conversion and their reception of converting Grace 2. Secondly You shall observe That God sometimes makes his way to the heart by the head sometimes he begins at the heart and by that maketh his way to the head my meaning is sometimes God begins his work upon knowing persons who have been Catechised out of the Law and from Children have had a knowledg of the Holy Scriptures sanctifying their first Principles to them and reflecting upon their Hearts and Consciences the notions of truth which they have been bred up in the Holy Spirit bringing to their remembrance what of God they have formerly heard from Ministers Parents or Goverours As to others God maketh his way from the heart to the head They have great degrees of ignorance as to the truths of God but God blesseth his word so far as that they can apprehend they are in a lost condition and must look for another righteousness besides their own and take up a new course of life they hear of a Saviour come into the World of a fulness in him and a readiness to save unto the utmost those who by faith come unto him this makes them to inquire return and come to seek for Spiritual knowledg as for Silver and to dig for it as for hidden treasure and by following on to know the Lord they came to know him But this is enough to have hinted you as to the varieties to be observed in Gods methods of working in the conversion of Souls Let me in the next place shew the reasonableness of the Divine workings in this great work 1. And first as to the variety observed in point of time 1. Some are converted young Possibly God may do it that he may Crown the indeavours of Parents Governours and thereby engage others to take care of the Souls of their Correlations committed to their charge Some Parents are very solicitous for the Spiritual good of their children whetting upon them their lost condition by Nature often minding them of Eternity and calling upon them to remember their Creator in the days of their youth now where any will do this God takes notice of it and will often Crown those Domestick labours with a desired success for the encouragement of others God gives in to their prayers the Souls of their Children oft-times while yet they are Children It is said of Monica the Mother of Augustine that she was a woman of many tears and prayers for her Son and Ambrose was wont to comfort her telling her that it was impossible that a Child of so many tears should perish It is not impossible indeed that some should perish who have been Children of many tears and prayers for whom godly Mothers have travailed in pain again till Christ should be formed in them there is no merit in our prayers and tears neither hath