it shines upon the Soul the Rays and Beams which this Gods Blessed Face diffuses and transmits are supplies of Grace for all the Duties of a dark and stormy Season 2 Cor. 12.7 9. Supports of Spirit under troubles 2 Cor. 1.5 Col. 1.11 12. deliverance from them when most of God may be discovered and most Good brought to pass thereby Psal 34 19. and great Advantages to Souls by such Exercises whilst they abide upon them James 1.2 12. Rom. 5.3 5. 2 Cor. 4.16 18. Rom. 8.18 and so a consequent Emboldning of the Heart and Face towards God others and themselves Psal 86.16 17. 119.41 42. 109.25 27. Proposi VII Good Men can never settle and compose their own disturbed Spirits till they proceed to actual solid Hope in God Psal 146.5 8. Rom. 4.18 21. Here is the Souls only Anchor and Repose from the great God alone there it must expect great things for nothing can be too great for him to give or do if once he be resolved upon it from their God they may look for special and peculiar Favours and Reliefs in just and full agreements with all his Covenant-Relations to them and Engagements for them Zeph. 3.17 Jer. 3.23 Psal 68.20 and Deut. 33.26 29. Isa 25.9 And what have good Men to keep their Spirits up but hope in such a God 't is only his Omnipotence can weigh against the difficulties his Faithfulness against the Improbabilities and his Grace and Promises against the Jealousies and Disheartnings that arise from the delays of their defined and expected Mercies all other expectations and encouragements are but vain these hopes in God have their sure Footing Heb. 6.17 20. Psal 9.10 119.38 41. 23.4 Their hope as he is God is All-sufficient as he is their God he tenderly and compassionately careth for them and he thinks himself concerned both to fulfil and justifie their Hopes And as he is thus theirs by Covenant he will both seasonably and effectually make their chearful Looks to testifie the absolute Satisfactions of their Hearts in their Experienced Accomplishments of all his gracious Promises to them And as he is the health of their Countenance so they account the Sanctuary and Spiritual Unveylings and Returns of his Face to be the Glory and Salvation which they are most concerned and carried out to look for and to Glory in Psal 106.2 4 5. Here therefore they may safely trust and rest themselves who otherwise cannot but be as restless as Noah's Dove whilst from the Ark and as discontented and distracted as wandring Cain under the Execution of Gods dismal Doom and Curse upon him He only that is confident that God is trusty and that so commits himself and all to God as such and this under great expectations that God will keep and answer all his hopes and trust and that here stays and rests his Thoughts and Soul in this that God is certainly his Friend and God and will accordingly befriend him in the best Season and to the highest purpose and advantage He I say only can thus still the Tumults of his own Spirit Proposi VIII Good Mens Hope in God should never be discouraged by any difficulties or unlikelihoods in the way Rom. 4.18 22. Seeing the Patron of their Expectations is so great as God so near as their God and so much in their Eye of 1. Expectation as the Health of their Countenance And 2. Of their Resolution and Design as to make him the Object of their Praises and the Avouched and Adored Author and Giver of their Mercies And 3. Of their Affection and Delight as no ways thinking of such joyful work as Praise till he appear nothing can justifie Dejections where God concerns himself to help Psal 55.22 It is no great matter how things appear within before us or about us whilst God stands well affected towards us and can be truly called our Praise and God Heb. 10.35 37. Isa 8.13 51.12 13. Nothing can change or hinder him and why should any thing discourage His whom Grace hath brought to trust in him Rom. 8.31 39. Proposi IX What ever Gracious Souls expects from God they still determine and refer all to his Praise and Service Luke 1.72 75. Psal 119.7 17. 116.7 9. they neither desire expect nor use any Salvation or Supports ultimately for themselves Ezra 9.13 14. Psal 56.12 13. Gods Excellence is observed in all and his Glory is designed and pursued by all and indeed God is the End and Sweetness of all Mercies Rom. 11.36 And this was resolved upon by Holy David as both his Sanctuary-Honour his House-Enrichment and his Hearts delight The Health of his Countenance must be the Inhabitant of his Praises Thirdly Let us now consider this Text as a Directory to guide us to and in the Resolution of this Case before us The Case is this How may a Gracious Person from whom God hides his Face trust in the Lord as his God Now if you compare the Case and Text together you will find them Paralel in these particulars 1. In the Persons David that Holy Person was concerned in the Text and a Gracious Person is here concerned in the Case That David was a Gracious Person none can doubt that read and mind his Holy Breathings in the Psalms nay they must conclude him to be greatly such for what Raptures Fervours and Appeals what Holy Agonies and Flights of Spirit What Glorious Accounts of God and Providence And what Instances of Holy Confidence in God may you discern 2. In their Cases The One is cast down and disquieted and Gods Face is hidden from the other Now Gods hiding of his Face insinuates mostly some distast taken and thus it hints the Cause to be something neglected or committed or not well managed and performed which therefore God cannot approve of in any of his Favourites for God dislikes all Nonconformity to his Will either in the matter manner principle means or end of any Instance of Deportment towards God our selves or others though sometimes this hideing of Gods Face may be for other purposes not now to be Insisted on The Soul is cast down and disquieted saith the Text And thus we have the terrible Impressions and Effects of this Ecclipsed Face of God upon the Spirit of a Gracious Person the Case is doleful though Gods Design therein be Wise and Merciful for the sensible Tokens of Gods Gracious Face or Presence may be and are often times removed or with-held to try the Soul to awaken dormant Principles and Graces to their most seasonable and advantageous Exercises To prevent some greater Mischiefs which would arise from Divine Consolations unseasonably or unfitly placed To make and to expose to publick View some Monuments of Signal Deliverances Salvations and Supports and to form some Glorious Mirrours and Examples of Signal Patience and Submissions to the Will of God And all this may be done to serve more Glorious Purposes than any Man in Flesh can be aware of and
as by abiding in Christ they are spiritually fruitful r Jo. 15.4 so they may well hope that in bringing forth their natural fruit they shall be evermore kept under Gods benign influence and blessing The promise in my Text is ensur'd upon Gods fidelity to all those good women who are interessed in it But all those who have evidence of their sincerity may be well satisfied as to their interest therein and the continuance in the exercises of the Graces of Faith Charity Holiness and Sobriety doth clearly demonstrate they are persons qualified with sincerity who in and through Christ in whom the promise is yea and amen shall certainly inherit it ſ 2 Cor. 1.20 Heb. 6.12 I may not enlarge having staid over-long already yet would crave a little further leave to make some use of what hath been said Applicat The Application of this last and chief Observation viz. That perseverance in Christian and Conjugal Graces and Duties is the best support to child-bearing women against in and under their Travail may briefly serve to teach care and administer comfort 1. This teacheth an holy care and that to Men as well as to Women We shall find they of either Sex may hence learn instruction 1. It may teach a lesson to Men whether they be in a single or a married state 1. They who are not yet married but are waiting to meet with good Wives of Gods giving they are concern'd to be careful as nigh as they can to choose such as are so qualified as to be interessed in the promise here of preservation and salvation in their child-bearing Plato * Cratyl p. 284. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. derives the Greek word for a Woman from that which signifies fruitful and a beinger forth And he that seeketh such an one to marry with only in the Lord t 1 Cor. 7.39 that things may go well with her in her child-bearing condition should consult well how she is endowed and stored with the Graces I have been discoursing of both for the good of her self and the seed she may have by him 'T is certainly of great importance to make choice of such a Yoke-fellow as may be assuredly entitled to this good and comfortable word that we have here before us for the support of child-bearing Wives in whose sorrows and joys good-natur'd and conscientious Husbands cannot but have their shares 2. They who have Wives already should take special care upon this account to discharge the duties of good Husbands towards their child-bearing Wives with all good fidelity viz. 1. To dwell with them according to knowledg giving honour unto them as the weaker vessels and as being heirs together of the grace of Life that their prayers be not hindred u 1 Pet. 3.7 yea and to labour daily with them both by their Christian Advice and Holy Conversation to engage their fruitful Wives more and more to the constant exercise of these Graces and Duties that their sorrows may be sanctified to them and they may see the salvation of God in their breeding and bearing of children And if the great and holy God should in his wise Government think it best to take them hence from a child-bed they may learn to submit to his disposing will and rest the better satisfied as having good evidence of their Souls eternal welfare 2. To endeavour as much as may be to discharge the parts of good Christian and tender Husbands towards their dearest Yoke-fellows in such a travailing condition laying much to heart those antecedent concomitant and consequent pains a state of pregnancy involves them in which these Husbands themselves in such a kind cannot have experience of That as it becomes them for the sake of their good and godly Wives they may as is sometimes said of some Sympathizing ones in a sort breed with them and for them by putting on as the elect of God bowels of mercies kindness humbleness of mind meekness long-suffering c. w Col. 3.12 and fulfil all the Duties of the Relation they are in readily and timely providing for them not only necessaries but conveniencies as they can for their longing appetites and for the heartning of their dear and suffering Wives apt to be cast down under apprehensions of their approaching sorrows and call in aid of faithful praying Ministers and pious Friends to make requests known unto God for them And if God hears prayers 3. To be heartily thankful to God upon his giving safe deliverance to their gracious Wives from the pains and perils of child-bearing When the kind Husband hath been really apprehensive of the sicknesses pains throws and groans of his dear Wife in her breeding and bearing a child to him by aids from above nothing can be more necessarily incumbent on him than to adore and be thankful to God who hath made a comfortable separation betwixt her and the Fruit of her Womb and that as a return to prayer and hearkning unto her groanings If he who was a Samaritan found himself healed of his Leprosie upon crying unto Christ for mercy tho the other nine likely Jews remained unthankful for the same benefit came and fell down on his face at Jesus his feet giving him thanks and returning to glorifie God with a loud voice x Luke 17.15 16 17 18. as expressive of his heartiest sense of the Divine Favour in the mercy received then certainly the Christian Husband having seen his loving Wife in the exercise of the Graces I have been discoursing of to pass through the peril of child-bearing and admirably preserved therein by Gods power and goodness is greatly oblig'd to return his hearty thanks to God who hath made good his word wherein he caused them to hope in granting so signal a mercy This giving thanks is acceptable unto God and a Duty indispensably incumbent on us * Nullum officium magis quam referenda gratia necessarium Seneca who are charged y Eph. 5.4 20. to give thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ Much more for a singular Favour earnestly sought for and granted through difficulty and peril Thus briefly I have touch'd upon the care of married men with reference to their child-bearing Wives in the fore-mentioned Particulars Again this Doctrine teacheth 2. A Lesson of care to Women Consider them as the Men either in a single or a married state 1. If yet in a single or unmarried state and by the fair Providence of God called to the change of their condition They are concern'd to take care they may be furnished with the above-mentioned qualifications to covet earnestly not only the best Gifts but to be found in the more excellent way z 1 Cor. 12.31 This sacred ambition or holy covetousness is lawful to Virgins and may commend them to good Husbands i. e. to covet earnestly those excellent Graces of Faith Holiness Charity and Sobriety that
by Impatience and he in his Wisdom and Love is resolved to bring us to his Foot Well! If we Comply before hand when we see the Storm approaching God's end is Attained and he either lay's down his Rod or Mitigateth the Chastizement yea he will e're long Embrace and Comfort broken and humble Ephraim Indeed this Frame superseed's Affliction for Judgment upon Saints are not to Destroy but Subdue them to their Fathers Will. And if we meet our angry Father in this Spirit he may Correct a little but he will certainly Comfort much 5. Lastly a resigned Soul meeteth God in the way of Judgments or Mercies to great advantage They are so far from doing him harm that they do good therefore it must needs be a blessed Preparation for either Physick never works so well as when the Body is antecedently prepared nor is any Person so certainly profited by Judgments or Mercies as he that is ready to entertain them I know God can do an unprepared Soul good by any Providence but I am sure none can come amiss to such as be prepared What then will prepare us to receive Chastizments Profitably The Apostle tells us Be Subject to the Father of Spirits and Live Heb. 12.9 Comply with his Will resign your selves to his Pleasure and what ever he doth will be a quickning in proving Providence Qu. What is the Nature of this Resignation to the Will of God for his Glory Or wherein doth it consist Ans I shall reply to this Quere by laying down something implyed in it and then speak to the Proper Nature thereof It implies many things I shall Instance only in a few for Brevity's sake 1. It supposeth a Lively exercise of Faith For as no Unbeliever ever did resign himself freely to the Will of God so no believer if Faith be not in Exercise can do it Yea it must be an active Faith will enable us to put our selves into the Hands of God especially in a Day of Affliction to deal with us according to his Pleasure I say that Soul must have a good Acquaintance with and a blessed Confidence in him whom he trusteth with his Life and All. Paul therefore tells us in case of Suffering he knew whom he had Trusted 2 Tim. 1.12 Therefore our Saviour here when he Referreth himself to God expresseth his Faith in that very Resignation Father Glorify c. He believed God to be his Father and that his Father loved him and now he is Satisfied that his Father dispose of him Psal 31.14 15. But I trusted in thee Lord I said thou art my God What then my times are in thy Hands q. d. 't is not only thy Perogative to dispose of me and my Days but I refer them Voluntarily to thee He put them into the hands of his God and trusted them with him There be many Perticulers that the Faith of a resigned Soul is Exercised in As That God is his God Faith must have Interest in him whom it Trusteth Isaac will Suffer his Father to Bind and Sacrifice him Why Abraham was his Father and God who had given the command for it was his God Gen. 22. And it believes that all the will of God is Good Good in it self and good for the resigned Soul A believer may know that there may be Pain and Affliction in Suffering according to the Fathers Pleasure but 't is withal assured 't is his good pleasure Heb. 12.10 And such a Soul believes that it 's God and Father is kind loving and tender that he will not oppress that he will not overwhelm He believes that God Glorifies not himself to the damage of his People but that his Glory and their Benifit are inseparably Linkt together Yea it is in Christ the Redeemer of the Soul putteth it self into the Fathers Hands and it expects Power and Strength from its God to bear the Sufferings and carry through them When Moses forsook Egypt and his Interest there and chose to Suffer Affliction with the People of God He did this in Faith Eying him who is Invisible Heb. 12.24 c. And David in the like case was well Satisfied in the good will of God to him 2 Sam. 15 25 26. Chap. 25. 5. 2. Consequently 't is an high act of Love He that loves his Heavenly Father will be disposed of by him but it must be above becoming the glorious Objection which it is fiâ—t Matt. 22.37 A Love that prefers his Will and Glory before all things else A Love in Comparison of which all other Love is hatred Luke 14.26 A Constraining love 2 Cor. 5.13 14. Abraham loved Isaac well why then did he offer him up at the Command of God O 't was because he loved God better This is the Love of God that we keep his Commandments and nine of his Commandments are greivous 1 Jo. 5.3 What no Command greivous Not Self-denial not bearing the Cross No! Those Commands are not greivous because the Soul loves God better then it self We have a great word Rev. 12.11 They loved not their Lives unto Death why because their love of Christ was stronger then Self-love Rev. 14.4 We Read of some that followed the Lamb where ever he went Into Tribulation of all sorts they followed the Lamb Why Love constrained them Christ therefore resigned himself into the Fathers hands for he loved his Father Love will lay the Soul at Gods Feet Love will follow and Obey the Fathers call in all things Love will keep stedfastly in the way of the Will of our beloved It argues little Love to Christ when we seek to evade Suffering for his Name by finding out Carnal Shifts He that loves the Father and Son is as to the main resolved into their Will 3. To come nearer to my Intendment This resignation of our Wills to the Pleasure of God for his Glory respect's Sufferings and Dutys Principally For there is no difficulty Ordinarily to comply with the good Will of God in Distributing Mercy and Favour But to have our Wills Resolved into his in case of difficult Duty and hard Sufferings which Cross our corrupt Nature and press upon our Pamper'd Flesh is a great Work far above the Sphear of an unregenerate Person and a special Effect of the Spirit of God in and upon the Hearts of Saints But because our Subject leads to consider the matter in case of Afflictions only I shall confine my Discourse thereto Only adding this by the way that where a Soul disputeth no Sufferings it Submits to all Dutys If it be resigned to the Will of the Lord in the one 't is Subjected to him in the other also 4. Therefore the Resignation I spake of consists in several things 1. In referring our selves to the Will of God in a Day of Tryal in the very things we fear Our Lord Jesus dreaded nothing like this Hour that was coming upon him It troubled and amazed his very Soul v. 27. gladly would he be saved from it had it been
in reforming Religion and destroying Idolatry wherewith the Land was so universally polluted had a great influence on the keeping off Gods judgments from it while he lived 6. Lastly God may sometimes spare a People for the sake of his Children among them that they may be useful and helpful to them in his work This end God had in sparing the Gibeonites he intended they should be hewers of Wood and drawers of Water for his Sanctuary and so assistant to the Priests and Levites in their Service So Isa 61.5 6. Strangers shall stand and feed your Flocks and the Sons of Aliens shall be your Plowmen and Vine-dressers but ye shall be named the Priests of the Lord Men shall call you the Ministers of our God Not that Saints are to be all Officers or all Rulers and carnal Men their Slaves and Drudges for as to their worldly State worldly Men may be above them and they may owe subjection to them but that they shall be in their worldly Employments and Callings useful and serviceable to the Saints in the things of God and either of their own accord or as overruled by Divine disposal be assistant to them in maintaining and promoting the interest of true Religion God can make even Moab hide his out-casts Isa 16.3 4. the Earth helps the Woman Rev. 12.16 Ahab favours a good Obadiah that may hide the Lords Prophets 1 Kings 18.3 4. an Heathen Cyrus let go his Captives and build his City Isa 45.13 a Darius an Artaxerxes an Ahasuerus countenance and prefer a Daniel a Nehemiah a Mordecai publick instruments of good to his People sometimes God may raise up such on purpose as he did Cyrus sometimes preserve and maintain them in their power and places for his Servants sake and that they may be helpful to them Nay sometimes he may so twist and combine the interest of worldly Men with the interest of his Children that they cannot promote their own without helping on the others Sometimes religious and civil Liberties may be both together struck at so that if the former go down the latter will be ruin'd too and then it is the Wisdom of those that are not truly religious yet to favour those that are it being as it were in their own defence and for their own securities and in such a case God may help them out of respect to his own and keep some from civil slavery that he may keep others from spiritual Use 1. By way of information If the religious of a Nation are the Strength and Defence of it then the same may be said of the religious of the World they are the substance of it the support the strength of it The World it self is preserved chiefly for the sake of the godly in it the Holy Seed The World is a great Field in which the good Grain bears but a small proportion to the abundance of Tares and that God doth not pluck up the Tares and burn them it is lest the good Corn should be plucked up with them What is Gods end in preserving the World and holding it up in its being but the glorifying himself in his several attributes Wisdom Power Goodness but especially his Holiness in the Service he enables his Saints to do him and his Grace is the Salvation he affords them that therefore he may have that Glory it is needful there should be a continuance of some to serve him and that may be the subjects of his Mercy and Grace and they are this Elect those Vessels of Mercy whom he hath before prepared unto Glory Rom. 9.23 The World therefore shall stand so long as there be any of Gods Elect in it to be brought in by actual conversion or their Graces to be completed in further degrees of Sanctification but when the number of those whose Names are written in Heaven is filled up and they themselves fitted for Heaven then shall the end of all things come It cannot be thought that God would ever endure so much wickedness as he sees in the World every day committed or so long bear its manners with so much patience had he not a further design in it viz. the gathering together the whole Body of those he hath given to Christ He never made this great Fabrick for the lusts and pleasures of wicked Men that they might enjoy their ease and gratifie their sences and devour their neighbours but for his own Glory and he will have some still in it to glorifie him by serving him and living according to his Laws as well as he glorifies himself in saving them and were there none in it to serve him he would not suffer others continually to dishonour him were it not for the Holy Seed he hath scattered abroad in it he would soon set the Field on a Flame 2. The Religious of a Nation are not its Enemies not the troublers of a Nation not the Pests of a State the disturbers of a Peace as some count them Ahab indeed reviled Elijah as one that troubled Israel 1. Kings 18.17 but David would not have said so he was a godly King and had other thougts of his godly Subjects he calls them the excellent of the Earth and his delight was in them Psal 16.3 the Jews said of the Apostles Acts 17.6 that they had turned the world upside down but they were unbeleiving Jews that saw it The same Apostles were counted the Off-scouring of all things and the Filth of the Earth 1 Cor. 4.13 but it was by those that rather were such themselves The Idolatrous Heathens were wont to condemn the Christians as the cause of all their publick calamities that befel them but they were Heathens that did so Yet sometimes we shall find wicked Men themselves under a conviction of the contrary and clearing them of this imputation so Joash King of Israel calls Elijah the Chariot of Israel and the Horsemen thereof Sometimes as before they beg their Prayers sometimes wish themselves in their condition and whatever they esteem them while they live they would be like them when they die wicked Baalam would die the death of the righteous Numb 23.10 Thus Conscience absolves whom Malice had condemned and when Men come to be cool and sober they purge the godly from those crimes with which while they were heated with passion or intoxicated with a concern for some contrary interest they had groundlesly aspersed them True indeed the Religious of a People almost every where are the occasion of Divisions and Distractions and so was Christ himself Luke 12. he came to send Fire on the Earth verse 49. and not to give Peace but rather Division verse 51. nay a Sword Matth. 10.34 to set a Man at variance against his Father c. verse 35. And yet nor Christ nor his Saints are really the troublers of the World nor the direct and proper causes of those broyls and confusions which many times have been made on their accounts which indeed proceed from the lusts of
as to their being no delusions and then let Scoffers scoff on they shall never be able to laugh you out of those Comforts whereof you find such real effects in reviving your Hearts enlivening your Graces breaking the Snares of worldly Temptations abating the force of your Lusts and adorning even your outward Conversations I dare say they may as soon perswade you that Honey is not sweet when yet you tast it Snow not white when yet you see it is or not cold when you feel it so as perswade you either that these Comforts are not real or that holy Principle in you which is attended by them is but Fantastical To these Directions I shall add two general Rules by which you may best judge if you would pass a right Verdict on your selves as to your spiritual State 1. When you would judge of the reality of Grace in your Hearts Judge of your selves by what you are alone in the most secret Duties of Religion Closet-Prayer Meditation Self-Examination c. What men are when alone that usually they are for the main the Heart which may be awed or some way swayed when in Company with others is most apt to discover it self then if ever Grace be working at all it will be at such a time and if none appear then it is odds but there is none in the Heart As some Corruptions may be most apt to shew themselves such is the secret Atheism of mens Hearts and little sence of Gods Presence in secret when men are free from the restraint of Fear and Shame and such like motives which many times give check to and keep them under in the Company of others so likewise Grace may more readily act in secret where men may use such means and take such liberty for the awakening and exciting it as might not in the presence of others be so convenient and be rid withall of some Temptations which at least in some tempers may prove a hinderance to the more free actings of it If you would therefore take the just measure of your spiritual Stature and know what in you is real do it when alone when retired when your Hearts are most like to discover themselves fairly and have least Temptations to deceive you or impose upon you 2. Be curious and diligent in observing not only the inward workings of your Souls but the ordinary settled inclination and main bent of your Hearts observe them therefore as to what they are in the main and not only what they are by fits at some certain times or when it may be under Temptations The Heart of a carnal man may seem to be very good under a pang of Conscience or fit of Conviction or in relation to some more gross and scandalous sin which yet in the general is stark naught Ahab may humble himself and put on Sackcloth when under the apprehensions of threatned Judgments q 1 King 21.27 Pharaoh may cry God mercy when under his hand r Exod. 10.16 17. and Herod may do many things when convinced by John Baptists Ministry Å¿ Mark 6.20 and yet still they may continue the same they were And on the other side the Heart of a Saint may appear very wicked under a Temptation as David's did in the business of Vriah and of Numbring the People in both which Grace was for the present run down by a Lust and so many times Passion or carnal Fears or Distrust may lye uppermost in the Saints when yet there is Grace within and that which at present appears is not the ordinary settled frame of their Hearts and though whatever corruption at any time breaks out you may be sure it is within yet that may not make a discovery of the habitual temper and disposition of your Spirits nor argue that there is no Grace in you Judge therefore of your selves by your course and ordinary carriage and by that you may see what is most prevalent in you and if you find your Souls mainly looking to God and respecting his wayes and best pleased when ye keep closest to him you may be sure there is something more in you than a Fancy or humour you may in some particular go astray like lost Sheep and yet not forget Gods Commandments Psal 119. last 2. The Second part of the Case is How may we Evidence to others that serious Godliness in us is more than a Fancy In this there seems to be more difficulty than in the former we may more easily satisfie our selves concerning our inward workings and the temper of our own Minds than we can others we Judge of our selves by our inward actings and Principles of which by inspecting our own Hearts we have a more immediate knowledge and therefore are less liable to be deceived in our Judgment but when others have to do with us they can judge of what is in our Hearts only by our outward Carriage which is patent to them and so are liable to more Errors in their thoughts about us Here therefore if we cannot give so clear proofs and evident indications of a real Principle in us as may work a full Conviction of it in Gainsayers and Cavillers so as to force them to an acknowledgment of it it may be sufficient if we can go so far as to stop their mouths and put them to silence t 1 Pet. 2.15 that they may not be able reasonably to oppose what yet they are unwilling to grant and if it amount not to a demonstration which may over-power their Reason and compell it to yield us to be real in our Profession yet may as before was intimated lay an obligation upon their Charity to believe us to be so and in this we must especially have respect to that outward carriage of Professors which may make the best discovery of their inward frame and is most obvious to the sence and observation of those that are to be satisfied 1. In general Let men see that you live up to the Faith you profess that your Practice is agreable to your Principles and then they cannot deny the reality of your Faith when it is so powerful nor the reasonableness of your Practice when it is so answerable to it You profess before men to believe there is a God let them see that you walk as before him desire to approve your selves to him dare not sin against him you believe a Christ let your Conversations be an imitation of him Walk as he walked u 1 Joh. 2.6 You believe a future Judgment live as becomes those that would be able to stand in it and give an account of your selves to the Judge Let your carriage be such as not only your own Consciences but your Adversaries when they quarrel with you tell you it ought to be that is such as best suits your Faith and Hope even in their judgment as well as your own What is it makes the profane World question the reality of Godliness in Gods people but
mans Conscience in the sight of God Paul's Preaching this is the principal thing to be aimed at and it is the proper source of all profitable Preaching To conclude You that are Ministers suffer a Word of Exhortation Men Brethren and Fathers you are called to an high and holy Calling your Work is full of Danger full of Duty and full of Mercy You are called to the winning of Souls an Employment near a-kin unto our Lords work the saving of Souls and the nearer your spirits be in conformity to his holy temper and frame the fitter you are for and the more fruitfull you shall be in your work None of you are ignorant of the begun departure of our Glory and the daily advance of its departure and the sad appearances of the Lords being about to leave us utterly Should not these Signs of the times rowse up Ministers unto greater seriousness What can be the reason of this sad Observation that when formerly a few Lights raised up in the Nation did shine so as to scatter and dispell the darkness of Popery in a little time yet now when there are more and more Learned men amongst us yet the Darkness comes on apace Is it not because they were men filled with the Holy Ghost and with Power and many of us are only filled with Light and Knowledge and inefficacious Notions of Gods Truth Doth not always the Spirit of the Ministers propagate it self amongst the People A lively Ministry and lively Christians Therefore be serious at heart believe and so speak feel and so speak and as you teach so doe and then People will feel what you say and obey the Word of God And lastly for People It is not unfit that you should hear of Ministers Work and Duty and Difficulties you see that all is of your Concernment All things are for your sakes as the Apostle in another case Then only I intreat you 1. Pity us We are not Angels but men of like Passions with your selves Be fuller of Charity than of Censure We have all that you have to do about the saving of our own Souls and a great Work besides about the saving of yours We have all your difficulties as Christians and some that you are not acquainted with that are only Ministers Temptations and Tryals 2. Help us in our Work If you can do any thing help us in the work of Winning Souls What can we do say you O! a great deal Be but won to Christ and we are made Make haste to Heaven that you and we may meet joyfully before the Throne of God and the Lamb. 3. Pray for us How often and how earnestly doth Paul begg the Prayers of the Churches and if he did so much more should we begg them and you grant them for our Necessities and Weaknesses are greater than his 2 Thess 3.1 2. Finally Brethren pray for us that the Word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified even as it is with you and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men for all men have not Faith THE CHAMBER of IMAGERY IN THE Church of ROME laid open OR AN Antidote against Popery Quest How is the Practical Love of Truth the best Preservative against Popery SERMON X. 1 PET. II.III. If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious WHen false Worship had prevailed in the Church of old unto its Ruine God shewed and represented it unto his Prophet under the name and appearance of a Chamber of Imagery Ezek. 8.11 12. For therein were pourtraied all the Abomination wherewith the Worship of God was defiled and Religion corrupted Things relating unto Divine Truth and Worship have had again the same event in the world especially in the Church of Rome And my present Design is to take a view of the Chambers of their Imagery and to shew what was the occasion and what were the Means of their Erection and in them we shall see all the Abomination wherewith the Divine Worship of the Gospel hath been corrupted and Christian Religion ruined Unto this end it will be necessary to lay down some such Principles of Sacred Truth as will demonstrate and evince the Grounds and Causes of that Transformation of the Substance and Power of Religion into a Lifeless Image which shall be proved to have fallen out amongst them And because I intend their benefit principally who resolve all their Perswasion in Religion into the Word of God I shall deduce these Principles from that Passage of it in the first Epistle of the Apostle Peter Chap. 2. and the three first Verses The first Verse contains an Exhortation unto or an Injunction of universal Holiness by the laying aside or casting out whatever is contrary thereunto wherefore lay aside all Malice and all guile and hypocrisie and envy and all evil speaking the Rule whereof extends unto all other vicious habits of Mind whatever And in the Second there is a Profession of the Means whereby this End may be attained namely how any one may be so strengthened in Grace as to cast out all such sinful Inclinations and Practises as are contrary unto the Holiness required of us which is the Divine Word compared therefore unto Food which is the Means of preserving Natural Life and of increasing its strength As new born Babes desire the sincere Milk of the Word that ye may grow thereby Hereon the Apostle proceeds to declare the Condition whereon our profiting growing and thriving by the Word doth depend and this is an experience of its Power as it is the Instrument of God whereby he conveys his Grace unto us if so be that ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious See 1 Thes 1.5 Therein lies the first and chief Principle of our ensuing Demonstration and it is this All the Benefit and Advantage which any men do or may receive by the Word or the Truths of the Gospel depend on an experience of its Power and Efficacy in communicating the Grace of God unto their Souls This Principle is evident in it self and not to be questioned by any but such as never had the least real sence of Religion on their own Minds Besides it is evidently contained in the Testimony of the Apostle before laid down Hereunto three other Principles of equal Evidence with it self are supposed and virtually contained in it 1. There is a Power and Efficacy in the Word and the Preaching of it Rom. 1.16 I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it 〈…〉 Pâ—â—â—r of God unto salvation It hath a divine Power the Power of God accompanying it and put forth in it unto its proper Ends for the Word of Gâ—d is quick and powerful Heb. 4.12 2. The Power that is in the Word of God consists in its efficacy to communicate Grace of God unto the Souls of man in and by it they taste that 〈◊〉 Lord is gracious that is is efficacy unto its proper Ends. These are Salvation with all things requisite
Exchequer and stick at no pains no expence Isa 43 4. Since thou wast precious in my sight thou hast been honourable and I have loved thee therefore will I give men for that and people for thy life God loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob and the dwellings of Jacob more than all the Tents and Palaces of wickedness and more than all the Thrones of iniquity that frame mischief by a Law for these shall have no fellowship with him He loves one Saint more than he doth ten thousand ungodly wretches with whom he is angry every day and his poor Church more than all the world Christ preferres his little flock before the hugeherds and droves which the Devil will have fall to his share And since this God who is so much your Friend gouerns the world sit down and think how much you may expect from him nay what good is there which you may not expect 4. God hath especially charged himself with his Church and People as a good King looks upon it as his duty to study and promote the weal and comfort of all his Dominions and all his Subjects but in a more particular manner the happiness of his Consort and Children and favourites There is as I have shewn you a general Providence of God which extends it self to the whole world and for which all things fare the better but besides that there is a special Providence exercised about the Saints of whom he is as tender as the apple of his eye Next to his own interest that of his People lyes closest to his heart and doth most engage his thoughts Others are under his eye which runs to and fro through the Earth but these are under his wing Doth God take care of Oxen yes that he doth and of Asses too and of young Lyons and Wolves and Bears and Tygers and all the Beasts of prey but he takes another manner of care for his Lambs and his Dove in the clefts of the Rock and in the secret places of the stairs You read and rejoyce when you read 1 Tim. 4 10. That he is the Saviour of all men but especially of those that believe They are his peculiar people and so the objects of his peculiar care whatsoever God doth he minds them and whoever are neglected and left to shift for themselves to be sure they shall not What! Noah drowned in the waters of deluge or Lot burnt with Sodom and Gomorrha and the Cities of the plain No no it could not possibly be Noah must be secured in the Ark before the windows of Heaven were opened and the Fountains of the great deep were broken up And Lot must be arrived at Zoar the City of his refuge before the storm of Fire and Brimstone could fall Zion is engraven upon the palmes of Gods hand and her Walls are continually before him 5. God hath already done great and marvellous things for his Church and People not only being at charge upon them in the ordinary way of his common Providence but likewise putting forth extraordinary and magnificent acts whensoever their case did call for them Miracles have been nothing to him at such a time he hath not only wrought one or two but multiplied them there hath been a series of them as if he counted them cheap His arm hath awakened and put on strength and also put forth strength No less than ten wonderful plagues did he send upon that proud King Pharaoh Israels cruel oppressor and rather than he should not have let them go I question not but he would have sent a thousand more And if after they were gone Pharaoh would pursue them God would make for Israel a way through the Sea and for Pharaoh and his host a grave in it The course of nature was for a while stopt and the Sun made to stand still upon Gibeon and the Moon in the Valley of Ajalon that his People might avenge themselves upon their enemies Clouds have showred down Manna upon them and flinty Rocks as hard and dry as they are have powred out water And though such kind of works have not been performed in the latter days yet God in them hath not left himself without witness neither is his arm shortned nor hath he lost his old wont Miracles are as easie to him now as they were formerly and if need were he would do them But besides them consider these three things which God hath done all along 1. He hath in all times preserved and kept up a Church in the world though Christ hath but a little flock and that is encompassed with ravenous Wolves yet he hath always had a flock When all flesh had corrupted their way there was a Church in Noahs Family When Israel had generally perverted their way and turned aside to abominable idolatry there were still reserved seven thousand faithful worshippers that had not bowed the knee to Baal In the thickest darkness and most furious rage of Popery there were those that owned and pleaded and suffered for the truths of the Gospel The four mighty Monarchies of the world have been shaken down and broken into shivers but the Kingdom of the Lord is an everlasting Kingdom and his Dominion is from generation to generation The Church indeed hath not been always alike conspicuous nor hath it always been in the same state of purity peace and prosperity but it hath always had a being Christ was never without some militant Subjects nor his truth without some faithful witnesses two at least 2. God hath employed Angels for his Churches comfort and advantage who knowing it to be the will and pleasure of their great Creator do most readily comply and cheerfully obey As the gates of Hell set themselves against it so doth the Host of Heaven engage for it Heb. 1 14. They are all ministring Spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be Heirs of Salvation When the Prophet Elisha was in some danger from environing enemies the Mountain was immediately garrisoned with Horses and fiery Chariots that came in to be his guard They have it given them in express charge to bear the Saints up in their hands and to encamp round about them and may not this be a singular comfort to believers what though they be the objects of Hells envy and Earths malice yet they are Gods darlings and Angels charge And whatsoever work Angels have to do for them they not only dispatch it faithfully but delight to do so 3. God hath turned all things to the Churches advantage so that it hath not been a loser in the upshot from what corner soever the wind hath blown it hath done Christs garden a real and sensible kindness both the North and the South wind have made spices to flow forth You know what Paul saith Rom. 8 28. All things work together for good to them who love God that are called according to his purpose Comforts and crosses too mercies and judgments too Sunshine
your own evill ways and your doings that were not good and shall loath your selves in your own sight for your iniquities and your own abominations How much of his wickedness doth the profane sinner forget Lies Oaths rotten Language Slander Iniquities all forgotten till God in mercy or in wrath awaken their Consciences and then all is set in order before them either to their conversion or confusion Hence that emphatical charge Deut. 9.7 Remember and forget not how thou provokest the Lord thy God to wrath in the Wilderness c. 6. Our Vows and Obligations to God The corruption of our memories appears plainly in this There is first our great vow in Baptism that we would sincerely renounce the World the Flesh and the Devil and pay unto our Lord and Redeemer unfeigned obedience to all his Commandments This is seldom actually remembred by any of us too seldom virtually especially by such as do directly run counter to it in the usual scene of their Lives And then our Sickness vows when our Lives or the comforts of our Lives have been in hazard What serious and fair Promises did we make what was our Frame then and what is it now either then thou wast a great Hypocrite or else now thou art a great Apostate But be not deceived God is not mocked He hath divers ways to wet up such Memories And our Obligations to others which should stick in our Memories assoon worne off whether they are formal by promises or virtual by kindnesses received neither whereof signifie any thing with a false or unthankful man of whom we usually say that they have ill Memories But against these will rise in Judgment not only God his Word their own Consciences and the Heathens but even the brute Creatures themselves One of whom even a Lyon is credibly reported to have spared and cherished one Androdus Aul. Gel. lib. 5. cap. 14. that was thrown to be devoured having remembred that that very man had formerly pull'd a thorn out of his foot in his Den. 7. The Church of God the whole Catholick Church doth every day implicitely beg of us O remember me in your Prayers And holy David said Psal 137.56 If I forget thee O Jerusalem let my right hand forget her cunning If I do not remember thee let my Tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth And there is not a more genuine Token of our Adoption than a feeling and constant remembrance of Gods Jerusalem and especially in this Juncture of time wherein the Christian Church is almost every where so sorely distressed that were it not for the Scripture and former Experience we might fear to hear her last groans And yet if the secret and Family Prayers of very many were well search't it s to be doubted that their Memories were very bad here also 8. Our Latter End This should be much and this is little remembred by most men As the Prophet said to the people of his time Isa 47.7 Thou didst not lay these things to thy heart neither didst remember the latter End of it And the Other laments it Lament 1.9 She remembred not her last end therefore she came down wonderfully And so they are like to do that remember not their end It s true in propriety of Speech remembrance is only of things past or at least of a thing which now is not first known yet in the Phrase of Scripture we are required to remember death resurrection judgment hell and heaven partly because these are foretold and chiefly because it behoofs us to meditate and consider of them which cannot be done without the Memory But there are no deaths-heads so effectual to mind us of this as a firm perswasion that we are but strangers here and that our true Country is in the World to come an heart mortified to the World sick of sin and an heavenly frame of Soul which being restless here will of its own accord groan to have mortality swallowed up of Life And so much may be sufficient to explain and demonstrate the corruption of the Memory which is the third Point IV. The Sanctification of the Memory which is the Restoring this Faculty to its former Integrity and to its proper Objects For when a mans corrupt Nature is chang'd all the Faculties are renew'd there 's a new Creation of him This is done 1. By Purging the Faculty and so conversion is said to begin here Psal 22.27 All the Ends of the World shall remember and turn unto the Lord for he that remembers what mans Estate was by Creation must needs find that there 's a sad change and consequently that there 's need of restauration The same method is prescribed after second falls Revel 2.6 Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen and repent And without doubt as the Holy Spirit of God burns up the dross of the powers of the Soul so of this with the rest and razeth out of it many sinful impressions which were there 2. By strengthening it for as sin weakens so Grace strengthens the faculty This effect it hath upon the understanding and will and so it hath upon the memory it 's apparent that many who before their Conversion to God would forget whole Chapters and Sermons yet after their new birth would carry away a great deal of them Gods spirit then helps them and according to our Saviours promise John 14.26 Brings all things to our Remembrance Grace stops the lakes in that vessel which sin hath made 3. By reconciling it to good things and setting it against evil Before regeneration as the Heart so the memory nauseates good things as a foul stomack doth wholesom meat and delights in trash it can hold nothing that 's good so is it with our vitiated memories they cannot hold Savory and pious things these things are like a spark of fire in green wood it soon goes out but when Grace comes and changes the whole frame of the heart this faculty begins to relish and make room for spiritual things when the heart begins to delight in them the mind retains them Psal 119.16 I will delight my self in thy Statutes I will never forget thy word So on the other side those sins which the memory delighted to keep in mind to review them and in a sort to repeat them over and over when God hath been at his new Creation within then the remembrance of those sins is bitter Then the poor Creature can say as the Church did in another case Lament 3.20 My soul hath them still in remembrance and is humbled in me 4. By filling it with good things For when the new creature is once born again no new born Child doth more desire and long for milk than the Soul doth for knowledge and wisdom and then the memory consequently is stored with Scripture-Truths Promises Rules and Helps Then the substance of all that is apprehended by the sanctified understanding is conceived to the memory and lodged there And then as 't is
the more we are in the dark the more at a loss yea the more perplexed and confused are our Apprehensions This the Transcendency of the Doctrines and Providences of God does evince which is enough to shew how humble we ought to be when we discourse of God and how modest in our Enquiries into his Doctrines and Providences Content thy self therefore with what is clearly revealed and leave what is hid and above thee unto God Be not thou so bold as to measure the boundless Mysteries of God by thy narrow confined Understanding neither do thou presume to reject what thou canst not comprehend What is of God is above thee for God is God he is cloathâ—â— with Honour and Majesty and with that Light which is inaccessible We ought therefore to be modest when we speak of the unsearchable Doctrines and Providences of God for in them we see enough to admire but can never comprehend and when we have spent all our time to find out God and the Infinity of his Being the Mystery of the Trinity the Mode of his Workings or Operations the depth of his Contrivances about the accomplishing fallen mans Salvation and all the great Counsels of God and the Intricacy of his Providences we must come to this Close with the Apostle O! the depth of the Riches both of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his Judgments and his Ways past finding out Quest How ought we to do our duty towards others tho they do not theirs towards us SERMON XIX ROM XII 21. Be not overcome of evil but overcome evil with good WHEN God first made the Heavens and the Earth Gen. 31.1 and all the Host of them looking back upon his Work as taking delight in it He saw every thing that he had made and behold it was very good There was an excellent order and sweet harmony every where all the Creatures above and below making then but one Host Gen. 2.1 did conspire to glorifie their Creator and be beneficial one to another So that if man had stood in his integrity the Earth would have been a kind of Heaven to him but when he put forth his hand to take and eat of the tree of knowledg of good and evil which alone of all the great Variety was forbidden him an inundation of sin and misery broke in upon him and all his Posterity For from that one sin of his there sprung in a little time a far greater number of sins than persons out of his loins one sin still begetting another and that another till in a while the earth was filled with violence Gen. 6.11 God not willing to leave things in this woful state designed a Renovation by a Second Adam a Reconciler one that should be our peace both with God and one another that there might be peace above and peace below restored again There were two Songs sung to this purpose the one at Christs coming into the World the other as he was about to depart out of it the former by a multitude of the Heavenly Host saying Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace the latter by the whole multitude of the Disciples saying Peace in heaven and glory in the highest Luke 2.14 and 29.38 The subordinate means of Reconciliation is the Gospel called the word of reconciliation 2 Cor. 5.19 Eph. 6.15 and the Gospel of peace This is the great Engine in the hand of God to bring men powerfully yet sweetly to God and one another There are no Arguments so powerful to perswade to holiness towards God and righteousness towards men as those drawn from Gospel-Grace The Grace of God which bringeth salvation will teach a man those lessons Tit. 2.11 12. which can never be truly learned otherwise To live soberly righteously and godly Therefore our Apostle like a wise Master-builder in his Epistles usually as may be seen particularly in those to the Ephesians and Colossians lays a good Foundation for Gospel-obedience in the Grace thereof He first sets forth the great mystery of Redemption by Jesus Christ and the Grace of God therein and then concludes with exhortation to all duties both to God and Man from the consideration thereof He doth the like here in this to the Romans For having in the foregoing part of the Epistle convinced both Jew and Gentile and concluded all under sin and shewed the only way to Justification to be by the Grace of God through Jesus Christ he comes in this and the following Chapters to engage them to their duty both to God and Man See how he doth it ver 1. I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service Your bodies that is your selves souls and bodies the body being put by a Synecdoche for the whole man He expresseth both elsewhere as due to God upon the account of redeeming-love 1 Cor. 6.20 Ye are bought with a price therefore glorifie God in your body and in your spirit which are Gods He exhorts them to many excellent duties in this Chapter upon all which the word therefore ver 1. hath a powerful influence Altho the duty here exhorted to in the last Verse be so high that it is not easie to reach unto it viz. not to be overcome of evil but overcome evil with good yet the consideration of the mercies of God mentioned above will make this appear to be but a reasonable service The point of Doctrine from this Text is Doct. That every Christian should not only take heed that he be not overcome of evil but endeavour what in him lieth to overcome evil with good It divides it self into Two Branches 1. Every Christian should take heed that he be not overcome of evil 2. Every Christian ought to endeavour what in him lieth to overcome evil with good We shall speak a little to each of these in order and make the Application of both together which done you will see How we ought to do our duty towards others tho they do not theirs towards us I begin with the first 1. Bran. Every Christiaa should take heed that he be not overcome of evil By evil understand any unkind or injurious dealing from others which may be 1. By detaining or withdrawing from us the love or the fruits thereos which by the will of God are due to us either as men or men standing in such or such a special Relation to them Or 2. By speaking or doing that to us or against us which the Law of Love or the special Relation wherein we stand unto them forbids To be overcome of evil is to be drawn by the evil Temper or Carriage of another towards us to be of the like Temper and Carriage towards him To be so provoked by an injury done unto us as to return the like again As when two contraries are put together suppose Fire and Water that
proposed was to shew the manner how all this good must be done that it may be the more effectual It must be done 1. Cordially What you do must be done as in the presence of him by whom actions are weighed Your prayers must not come out of feigned lips 1 Sam. 2.3 Psal 17.1 2 Cor. 2.17 What you speak must be as in the sight of God It is easie to use a few complemental words in speaking to Men or a few vain words in speaking to God for them as all are that come not from the heart When you are about this work you should endeavour to draw deep even from the bottom of your hearts Paul calls his prayer for the Jews his greatest enemies his hearts desire Rom. 10.1 2. Readily Titus is charged to put Christians in mind of this To be ready to every good work Tit. 3.1 Altho these good works be contrary to corrupt Nature Grace will make a Man ready to them The holiest Men have been alway the most forward in them When God had set that Mark of his displeasure on Miriam for chiding with Moses how ready was he to pray for her Moses cried unto the Lord and said Heal her now O God I beseech thee Numb 12.13 The Jews before the Captivity were grown to a height of wickedness 2 Chron. 36.16 They mocked the messengers of God and despised his word and misused his prophets and among the rest Jeremiah in particular who was sent to tell them of the approaching Captivity yet he was far from desiring that evil to overtake them tho they said Jer. 17.15 Where is the word of the Lord let it come now He appeals to God in the next verse That he had not desired the woful day He was so far from that that he prayed hard for that hard-hearted people How his heart stood this way you may see by Gods telling him again and again that he should not pray for them Pray not thou for this people Jer. 7.16 So again chap. 11.14 and once more chap. 14.11 till he tells him at last tho Moses and Samuel stood before him yet his mind could not be toward that people chap. 15.1 Such an admirable readiness was found in the Man of God against whom Jeroboam stretched out his hand saying lay hold on him for his crying in the Name of the Lord against his idolatrous Altar at Bethel God had dried up that hand which he stretched forth against the Prophet which brought him to intreat the Man of God to pray for him And the man of God besought the Lord and the Kings hand was restored again and became as it was before 1 Kings 13.6 3. Constantly It is not enough to use these means once or twice for a fit or when you are in a better frame than ordinary but it must be your constant course You find that when your bodies are full of evil Humors the use of a good Medicine once or twice doth not remove your Distemper therefore you steer to a course of Physick So must you do to remove or alter the tough Humors that may be in others you must use the Means constantly There must not only be a well-doing but a patient continuance in it Rom. 2.7 Gal. 6.9 If you find no good effect for a while be not weary of well-doing Say not I will recompence evil but wait on the Lord Prov. 20.22 Thus did David for a long time when Saul was his enemy he waited on the Lord and kept his way tho he was put to many a hard shift the while And God put a sweet song into his mouth at last when he had delivered him out of the hands of all his enemies and the hand of Saul Psal 18.20 21. The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness according to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompenced me for I have kept the ways of the Lord. Use 1. If these these things be so have we not cause to take up a lamentation when we see Men professing themselves Christians make so little account of such duties as Christ hath by Precept enjoyned and by Example led them to how unsuitable to Christian-Doctrine is the practise of such as cannot or will not forgive the least injury This is far from endeavouring to overcome evil with good How can such say Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us Some of old are said to leave out these words as we forgive c. fearing it 's like that doom Out of thine own mouth will I judg thee thou wicked servant If any be more hardy in our days they may know one day That God will not be mocked Nor is this all Are there not some that account it necessary to avenge themselves for a small offence it may be only for a word tho to the hazarding nay the loss of their own and others blood And to do thus is by many accounted to be of a brave spirit and he that will not do so is by some not thought worthy of the name of a Gentleman as if the name were allied to Gentilisme rather than Gentleness Indeed a Learned Divine speaking of this matter saith Gentility according to the vulgar Dr. Jackson of Justifying Faith chap. 13. parag 8 9. and most plausible notion retains the substance of Gentilism with a light tincture of Christianity But the Learned and Pious Bishop Davenant speaking of the same says Haec opinio est plusquam Ethnica This opinion is more than Heathenish For several Heathen Philosophers have given better counsel in the case than these Christian Gentlemen think fit to take and if it be more than Heathenish think what it must be There are others Est illa diabolica opinio quae invasit mentes omnium ferè qui se generosis somniant nimirum non posse se salvosue honore nominis sui existimatione ferre vel verbum contumeliosum sed teneri ad ultionem quaerendam etiam duello Davenantius in Col. 3. and too many too who altho they dare not go about to wrest the sword of Vengeance out of the hand of God who says Vengeance is mine to commit so great an evil as is the forementioned yet they will be adventuring to shoot their arrows even bitter words against such as do in the least offend them or stand in their way And O that we could say that such as make a greater profession than others and are in most things of good and exemplary Conversations were altogether free in this matter But this evil is Epidemical and the best I fear are too much infected with it The sad consequences of this we partly see already and may see more in time if God in Mercy prevent them not So that it is for a lamentation and like to be for a lamentation Use 2. Look about you and take heed that you be not overcome of evil 1. Let not imaginary evils overcome you as they will be like to do
in purple and fared deliciously every day It would be answered That he was a riotous Glutton a Swine out of Epicurus his stie and he bespeaks our indignation not our imitation And yet I might rejoin that his sin lay in pampering his Carcase in the Dining-Room when poor Lazarus could not get the scraps and crumbs that fell from his Table The truth is 't is a Parable which always speaks a truth and is founded in a truth though the manner of teaching be artificial and feigned nor do I doubt but our Saviour Modelled his Parable by and Calculated it for the innocent and allowed Customs of his own Countrey Nor shall I make further use of that man that came into the assembly with his gold ring Jam. 2.2 and goodly apparel than to observe that the sin lay neither in the one nor the other but in the partial Idolizing a Grandee meerly on the account of his External Habiliments when the poor good man was thrust down to the footstool if not trampled under foot 3. Proposition No ability of the rich will warrant him in wearing any Apparel inconsistent with the ends of Gods appointment The purse is not the adequate measure of the Lawfulness of Apparel Conscience may be straitned when the purse is enlarged I note this for the sake of those who always defend themselves with a Proverb as wicked as 't is dull If my mind stand to it and my purse pay for it what has any to do with it I will tell them who has Nature whom thou hast enfeebled those Souls that thou hast tempted thy own which thou hast defiled and God himself whose ends in giving Apparel thou hast neglected and transgressed each of these have cause of Action against thee A man then may be civilly able who is not morally able to follow the fashions The purse may bear the charge when Conscience cannot give thee a discharge for thy vanity 4. Proposition No measure of Wealth can justify those Garbs which speak pride vain-glory in the wearer I grant that Argument may indicate no pride in one man who out of his abundance can spare the charge of which it would speak in another whose incompetent Estate cannot reach the expence and yet his ambitious mind affects the Gallantry yet stll pride and vain-glory are abominable to God in the Rich as in the Poor in the King as in the Beggar difference then of Apparel may be allowed but pride and vain-glory have no toleration 5. Proposition It is sinful to aspire after those costly Garbs which are above our Estates to maintain A poor man may be as covetous as the rich and ordinarily are more because covetousness lies not merely in the having but in the immoderate and inordinate desiring to have what he does not want And a mean man may be vain-glorious and proud in his Rags and sometimes of his Rags because this humour lies not so much in the wearing as in the lusting to wear glorious trappings beyond what his Estate is able to support And this I note for the sakes of those aspiring persons who when they cannot for their lives reach the chargeable matter yet shew their good will to bravery in imitating the cheap vanity of the form and shape 6. Proposition Every man in the account of God Cloathes above his ability who withdraws from works of necessity justice and mercy to maintain his pride No man is suppos'd able to do a thing till he be able to do it when God and man have their own The rich mans conveniences must be retrencht by the duties of Justice his superfluities by the acts of Mercy and when these are substracted out of the total sum of thy income the remainder is clearly thy own only in the Lord. There is a certain order of things which we must strictly observe If food and raiment come in competition the belly must carry it food was before sin raiment brought in by it If Justice and Mercy come in competition Justice must carry it we must pay what we owe and then give what we can spare If the necessities of another are competitors with mine mine own must take place because I am bound to Love my Neighbour as but not before my self but if the necessity of a Christian stands in competition with my own superfluities his exigence is to take place of my abundance for no man is really able to be fine till he has paid all he owes to God and Man to Creditors and Petitioners § 2. The age of the Person will allow some diversity of Apparel One thing may become little Children playing in the Market-place with their fellows which would be ridiculous in the grave Senator when he sits in the Gate of his City when we are Children we think we understand we speak as children 1 Cor. 13.15 when we become men 't is hoped we may put away childish things but what was the reproach of the Grecians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may more justly be thrown in our dish the English in the matter of Apparel have always been Children Is it not nauseous to see a Lady of Eighty smug and spruce up as if she was in the flower of Eighteen to trick and trim as if they were new come in when they are just going out of the World to harness out as if for a Wedding when they should be preparing for the Winding-Sheet When the Coffin is making and the Grave a digging and the Worms ready for them but they ready for neither And hence I infer 1. Inference That for aged persons by any habits or dresses to represent themselves as young and youthful is sinful Their Glass tells them they are old but they believe it not Time has snow'd gray hairs on their heads and they acknowledge it not Would they have others believe they are what they would seem Then they would have 'em believe a lye A lye may be told by visible as well as audible signs Or are they asham'd of the hoary head Then are they asham'd of what God has made their glory Or hope they to catch some young Birds with that Chaff Silly Birds are they that will be so caught But in the mean time how abominable is the cheater 2. Infer All youthful Periwigs and Paintings which are sinful in youth are doubly sinful in the aged Time has plow'd deep furrows in the face and they will fill 'em up with Cerass and Vermilion The Clock of time has given warning for their last Hour and they will set it back to Noon The Sun is almost setting in the West and they will outvie Joshuah not content it should stand still there a while but would force it back ten degrees as on the Dyal of Ahaz § 3. The Sex may be allow'd a share in the decision of this point for the Female has a greater Latitude than the Male it was so with Israel of old when the Bride was allow'd her Jewels but the Bridegroom must
Millions of such as perished in the deluge of the old World or to keep the bodies from destruction of those wretches that perished by fire in Sodom and Gomorrah but when Souls were in danger and rather than they should perish he comes nay he delights to do God's Will in suffering for them And what did he suffer what did he not suffer Here we must draw a vail as that Painter did who could not express grief enough to the life Go with Christ a little cannot ye watch an hour with him to contemplate this go into the Garden to the Judgment seat to Golgotha behold him on the Cross hear his strong sighs and groans they will break thy heart if any thing will and broken it must be and why did God suffer his beloved Son in whom he was well pleased to be thus tormented Why God would rather afflict him for a time than lose our Souls for ever And why did Christ who might have chosen otherwise so freely give his cheeks to the smiters Why Only he had set his love upon our Souls which he would not suffer to perish Indeed the Text supposes that there is no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or exchange for a Soul 't is a Phrase borrowed from former times when men did not pay in coin for what they bought but did exchange Commodity for Commodity as yet in some of our Islands c. and it does imply that there is nothing no not the World that bears a parity of value with the Soul Now though this be most certainly true that our Soul out-vyes in worth the whole World 1 Pet. 1.18 19. Yet the Blood of Christ which is the Blood of God by reason of the Hypostatical Union of his Humane Nature with the Divine is a sufficient ransome for all the Souls that shall believe in him nay 't is sufficient were it but applyed for the whole World But how highly does God prize a Soul seeing that when they were to be purchased he ask'd and would receive no less a rate for it from his own Son than his Life-blood and yet men barter it away as Judas and the Priests did our Saviour for thirty pence at what rate how low soever the Devil and the World will give for it 2. I might add unto God's giving of his Son for our Souls his giving of his spirit to the Soul and this too that it might not perish but have Everlasting Life that he who dwelt in the highest Heavens and whom the Heaven of Heavens is not able to contain should dwell in the Soul or Heart of man after a more excellent manner than in the most glorious Temple that ever was made and therefore it must as far exceed it It is true our Bodies are said to be Temples of the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 3.16 1 Cor. 6 19. but they are only Temples of the Holy Ghost as they are the Bodies that are animated by such Souls otherwise they had been no more dignifyed than any other clay or earth That God should come and knock and stay and wait for entrance into our Souls until to speak with Scripture after the manner of men his head is wet with the dew of the morning and be grieved at any repulse unkindness or denyal he meets with Nay that God where he is entertain'd should never leave or depart from a Soul Nay with his good will would not absent himself for one moment from it It must needs declare his great love unto it and esteem of it Nay by thus loving of it he makes it worthy and valuable whatsoever it might otherwise have been 3. God's valuing of our Souls appears in the care and pains which he takes for our Souls dayly 1. In that he hath instituted means whereby he might come to obtain our Souls nay to strengthen and comfort them and have communion with them These are his Ordinances the Word Sacraments and Prayer He is brought in by the Prophet as one rising up early and sending his Messengers and Ministers Jer. 7.13 25. He neglects no time with the very first he is as it were seizing upon us and crying to us return why will ye dye 2. Nay secondly He bears with us and exercises a great deal of patience towards us if so be he might at length gain our Souls and says when shall it once be Every sin we commit presseth God as a Cart is pressed with sheaves All the Patience and meekness in all the best of Creatures if joyn'd together could not endure such an indignity as every sin offers to God but they would ease themselves of such a burden which yet God endures multitudes of only that his Long-suffering might be Salvation to our Souls 2 Pet. 3.15 3. Yet further His bearing with the whole World of wicked men notwithstanding their Blasphemies and open defyances of him is only out of Love to some few Souls who serve and fear him Hence the Psalmist says concerning the World Psal 75.3 I bear up the Pillars of it A gracious Soul is the true Atlas that keeps the World from falling God out of respect unto such withholds that destroying fire that shall when their number is made up consume it 4. And lastly All the Providences of God in which he worketh hitherto are intended by him for the good of our Souls and done by God out of respect unto them 1. By his Mercies God would allure our Souls to love and serve him Hosea 11.4 Plaintus these are the Cords of a man quo magis extendas eo astrugunt arctius by these God would oblige and tye our Souls the closer unto him Mercies are vocal they all have a Language or Speech which we ought to learn to understand whereby they recommend God unto our Souls and as they came from God so for this purpose they came from him that our Souls might by their means go to God who indeed sent them on that very errand to bring our Souls unto him 2. Nay the very Judgments of God in the World prove his value for our Souls who rather than miss of them does this his strange work Isa 28.21 God does not afflict willingly but rather than to be deprived of mens Souls he will do that which he is so loath to come unto Thus he does not only afflict the wicked who obstinately remain so to caution and instruct the Souls of his people as Princes Children are lessoned when their Proxyes are whip'd but he corrects his dearest Children and Servants though it goes to his heart and he himself is afflicted in all their afflictions Isa 63.9 Yet rather than their Souls should perish with the world he is ready to do nay to suffer any thing But when all is said these are but a few shreds of what might be layd before you God's Love to and prizing of our Souls need not so much to be proved I would hope that it is felt 2. But on the other side as God does endeavour 2.
an abomination Oh bury her out of my sight says Abraham of his beloved Sarah Gen. 23.4 What do men take pains and care about What are they at cost and charge upon rising early and going to bed late but only for such things as may serve and please the Body VVhich very Body must be beholden to the Soul for to keep it from becoming worms meat and rottenness VVe might value our Bodies and their concerns as much as we do or as we list to do would it but cause us so much the more to esteem our Souls as they deserve for keeping our Bodies in a capacity for our care and kindness 6. Our Bodies follow their Condition 6. It is in the last place very considerable as to us to enhance our opinion of the Soul that our Bodies follow the condition of our Souls As our Souls are so shall our Bodies be when raised up to all Eternity and therefore St. Stephen when he was a dying commends only his Soul to our Saviour Acts 7.59 and our Saviour himself in his last breath commends his Spirit or Soul to his Father Luke 23.46 neither making any mention of their Bodies as knowing that their Bodies by consequence would be happy that they would be cared for by God and raised up in Gods time to be blessed with their Souls to all Eternity If our Souls be found unbelieving and impenitent without Gods Image and favour all the rich attire and sumptuous fare will not keep our Bodies no more than they did Dives his Body from being tormented in those flames that shall burn and none can quench them on the other side if our Souls be sanctified and accepted notwithstanding any present poverty disease or misery they shall hereafter sit with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven Shall I carry this a little further it may be more home and close unto you The welfare of the Body even in this life depends upon the Soul As the case of thy Soul is so are all those very things that befal thy Body even in this world VVe judge amiss and call good evil and evil good take all things together and stay till the conclusion and you will then see that all the prosperity that befel a man his riches health friends reputation c. were all evil if his Soul be evil that is unpardoned unregenerated oh very evil Isa 3.10 11. Psal 7.11 God is angry with the wicked every day In his healthful prosperous days he hath the wrath of God the least drop whereof will imbitter all his sweets and this is mixt in the Cup and is as death in the Pot But one that hath his Soul pardoned and purged from sin by the Blood and Spirit of the Son of God All his very torments and Miseries if any such befall him are what God in wisdom hath chosen for him Rom. 8.2 8. and in faithfulness hath layd upon him they are the very best providences that God could find out for him thus to the pure all things are pure c. Titus 1.15 And now I hope that the pretiousness of the Soul being manifest although I have all a long enforc'd my Argumenes as practically as I could I may yet have room for the remaining Application which I am now come unto APPLICATION Informaâ—â—â—â— 1. If the Soul be so pretious we have heard enough to make us abhor sin for ever Sin must needs be the most mischievous thing to us It being that only which can ruine our Souls whereby only we can lose our Souls Other Evils can but bereave us of our Estates or at most of our Lives but they have no more mischief which they can do but sin does deservedly cast Body and Soul into Everlasting Fire Isa 59.2 they are only our iniquities which separate betwixt God and us not tribulation and anguish c. no loss or cross these can and do work for good but sin is such a bitter root that it can bring forth nothing but bitter fruits Sin is the Souls sickness nay its death causing a divorce betwixt it and God the fountain of its life Hence it is said to war against the Soul 1 Pet. 2.11 and to pierce the Soul through 1 Tim. 6.10 I appeal to any whether they would not detest and oppose those that should do such things to their Bodies O fools and slow of heart to believe Luk. 24.25 If ye will not believe God who hath said there is no peace nothing truly good no Salvation to be sure to the wicked believe at least your selves who cannot but find that as sin grows stronger your Souls grow weaker and that by it you forsake your own Mercies and get Boiles and Ulcers nay the Plague in your Souls 2. This does recommend and endear our Blessed Saviour to us who is the Saviour of our Souls and the Shepheard of our Souls and therefore only it is that they do not want he washed them in his blood 1 Pet. 2.25 and quickens them by his Spirit and keeps them by his power and crowns them with his glory to them which believe these things he is pretious 1 Pet. 2.7 If ye value your Souls above the World ye will value our Saviour above all the world too for had it not been for his love and care your Souls had been the miserablest things in it 3. This commends Holiness in all its parts to us Holiness is nothing else but the right Temper and Healthful Constitution of the Soul 't is the beauty of the Soul without which 't is most deformed and loathsome in God's sight To be Heavenly and Holy is to be as God is and to have the Spirit of Glory rest upon you Heb. 12.14 nay without Holiness none shall see God For though there was no defect in the price that Christ pay'd he did and suffered till all was fulfill'd yet if we be wanting in our applying of it we may perish and it will be our sore condemnation that light is come into the World and we love darkness Colos 1.27 't is Christ within us that is our hope of Glory I must not take occasion to commend those comprehensive Graces Faith and Repentance unto you but in a word as ye love your Souls value and esteem them they are to you as tabula post naufragium a plank to get safely to shoar withal If you do not make timoâ—s use of it your Souls will be drowned and perish Everlastingly Godliness is the Souls food ye cannot live a day without it or your Souls will be weak and faint nay expire and dye It is indeed the Souls Life as Jacobs Life was bound up in Benjamins life so is the Souls Life bound up in Godliness where Godliness decays there the Soul goes down with sorrow to the Grave nay to Hell Where Godliness thrives the Soul exults and cryes out Lord now lettest thou thy Servant depart in peace Luk. 2.29 nay in this world What a Feast does Godliness
God thy Spirit is good lead me into the land of uprightness Oh what a desirable Mercy is this Leading Mercy And Sirs will you not pray and pray servently for it Yea will you not every day make this your request Blessed God and Spirit let me be led by thee this day First he works as a Spirit of Prayer in the Drawing forth of the Souls Desires after this Mercy and then as a Guiding and Leading Spirit And the Former is a good Plea for the latter Psal 143.8 Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk for I lift up my Soul unto thee Oh that we might all follow these Directions and then we should have not the Thing only but a large Measure thereof It may in the Fourth place be quâ—ery'd What Duties are incumbent upon those who are led by the Spirit 4. Enquiry Answ Such as these 1. They should more and more follow the Leadings of the Spirit I hope I speak to some of you who have These and live dayly under them if so what is your Duty Why in an Higher Degree to obey and fall in with them The Following of them as that is Simply and Absolutely considered is to be suppos'd and granted from your being led by the Spirit for the Former is necessarily included in the Latter And therefore 't is not This as considered in it self that I am so much to press upon you as the Manner Degree and Measure of it And in this respect the Best stand in need of Counsel and Quickning for who do so follow the Spirits Leading as they ought VVe have an excellent Guide one that leads us with infinite Wisdom and Faithfulness that directs us to nothing but what is Good and Good for us Ah but here 's our sin and misery we do not carry our selves as we ought in such an Obeying and Following of his Conduct as that requires As to this therefore I would excite you to follow the Spirits Leading thus 1. More Exactly So as to act just as he would have you act to move just as he would have you move to keep pace with him step by step in all his Holy Motions VVhat Israel did to the Cloud At the Commandment of the Lord they journyed and at the Commandment of the Lord they pitched as long as the Cloud abode upon the Tabernacle they rested in the Tents And when the Cloud was taken up in the Morning then they journyed whether it was by day or night that the Cloud was taken up they journyed Numb 9.18 that we should do to the Holy Spirit in the exact Ordering of all our Motions by and according to his Guidance This should be the Aim and Endeavour of every one of us though through weakness and infirmity we cannot Actually and Vniversally come up to it 2. Follow the Spirit more fully God gives this high Character of Caleb that he followed him fully Numb 14.24 Art thou one that art led by the Spirit Oh follow him fully Whatever Truth he would have you believe let it be believed Whatever Duty he would have you practice let it be practis'd whatsoever Sin he would have you mortifie let it be mortifyed As the Scribe said to Christ Master Matth. 8.19 I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest so do you say to the Spirit I will follow thee whithersoever thou leadest me Excite me to Good I 'le do it restrain me from Evil I 'le shun it Blessed are they who thus follow this Leader 3. Do this more Vniformly and Constantly in being more eaven Fixt and Steddy in holy walking 4. More Readily and Freely Oh there should be no Demurring Disputing Consulting with Flesh and Blood hanging back in the Case but a Willing Ready Chearful Complyance with whatever the Spirit leads us unto How well does this comport as with the Nature and Essence so with the Matter and Manner of his Leading 5. Follow him so as to make further Progress in the way wherein he guides you so as continually to be getting nearer and nearer to the End of your Journey 6. And Lastly Follow him with stronger Resolution and Purpose of Heart whatever Difficulties Discouragements Dangers you meet with yet resolve that nothing shall make you leave your Guid or the Holy Course that he has led you to And thus I would perswade you to rise higher and higher in your Following of the Spirit 2. Let it be your great and constant care and endeavour to get the Spirits Leading continued to you You have it pray keep it Can it be well with a Christian when This is suspended or withdrawn from him How does he Wanderand Bewilder himself when the Spirit does not Guid Him How backward is he to good when the Spirit does not bend and incline him thereunto How unable to go when the Spirit does not uphold him What vile Lusts and Passions rule him when the Spirit does not put forth his holy and gracious Government over him Oh 't is of infinite concern to all that belong to God to preserve and secure to themselves the Spirits Leading Take a good Man without this and he 's like a Ship without a Pilot a Blind Man without a Guid a poor Chlid that has none to sustain it the rude Multitude that have none to keep them in any Order What a sad difference is there in the same Person as to what he is when the Spirit leads him and as to what he is when the Spirit leaves him Oh therefore let us always keep him with us I may allude to that passage of Moses to Hobab Numb 10.31 And he said leave us not I pray thee forasmuch as thou knowest howe we are to encamp in the Wilderness and thou mayst be to us in stead of Eyes So let none of us let the Spirit depart or occasion his Leaving of Vs for in the Wilderness he will be as Eyes to us to direct and shew us our way How dismal would the state of the Israelites in the Wilderness have been if there they had not had the Cloud to guide them So 't is in the thing before us But does the Spirit at any time do this to Gods People Object does he ever suspend and withdraw his Guidance from Persons who once liv'd under it Answ Answ Yes too often 'T is what he usually does when his Leadings are not followed This is a thing that grieves him and when he is Grieved he Departs withholds and recalls his Former Gracious Influences though not Totally and Finally yet for a time and in such a Degree As a Guide that is to conduct the Traveller if this Traveller shall refuse to follow him or shall give unkind usage to him what does the Guide then do why he recedes and leaves him to shift for himself 't is thus in the Case in hand If we comply with the Spirit in his Motions and use him tenderly he will hold on in his Leading of us but if otherwise he 'l concern
sober Wisdom and the Devils cannot deny it and all Damned Souls in Hell and all the Wicked upon Earth as fast as they go down to them and feel what now they do not believe and fear shall not deny it to be Wisdom in them that escaped that and got to a better place in the Eternal World 10. In Eternity there will be no mixture In the other World there is all pure Love or all pure Wrath all Sweet or all Bitter without all Pain or without all Ease without all Misery or without all Happiness not partly at Ease and partly in Pain partly Happy and partly Miserable but all the one or the other This Life is a middle place betwixt Heaven and Hell and here we partake of some good and some Evil No Judgment on this side Hell upon the worst of Men but there is some Mercy mixed with it for it is Mercy they are yet on this side Hell and no Condition on this side Heaven but there is some Evil mixed with it for till we get to Heaven we shall have sin in us In Heaven all are good in Hell all are bad on Earth some good but more bad In Hell Misery without mixture of Mercy or of Hope they have no Mercy and that is bad and they can hope for none and that is worse while they be in time they are pityed God doth pity them and Christ doth pity them and good Men doth pity them their Friends and Relations do pity them pray for them and weep over them but when time is past all pity will be past and they in Misery without pity to all Eternity Rev. 14.10 The same shall drink of the Wine of the Wrath of God which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the Holy Angels and in the presence of the Lamb. 11. and the smoak of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever and they have no rest day nor night No! then for the Lords sake for your Souls sake as upon my knees I beseech you if you have any dread of God any fear of Hell any desire of Heaven any care whither you must go take no rest night nor day in time till you have secured your Everlasting happy state that you might have Everlasting rest night and Day in Eternity or that you might pass into that Eternity where it is alwayes day and no night and not into that where it shall be alwaies night and never day Sirs what say ye What are ye resolved upon to sin still or to repent that ye have already sinned and by the Grace of God to sin so no more To work in time for things of time or in time to prepare for Eternity Will ye obey my message or will ye not Speak in time or I will not say hold your peace for ever but repent in time or ye shall cry and roar for ever The time of this Sermon is out and the time of your Life will be quickly out and I am afraid I shall leave some of you as unfit for Eternity as I found you and my heart doth tremble least Death should find you as I shall leave you and the Justice of God and the Devils of Hell should find you as Death shall leave you and then vengeance shall never leave you and the Burning Flames Tormenting Devils and the Gnawing Worm shall never leave you Will ye then work it upon your Hearts that ye came into Time unfit to go into Eternity that in time ye have made your selves more unfit that the only remedy is the Lord Jesus Christ that in the fulness of time did dye that Sinners might not be damned for ever that this Crucifyed Christ will not save you from Eternal Misery nor take you to Eternal Glory except ye do perform the Conditions of the Gospel without which his Death puts no Man into an actual state of Happiness ye must Repent and be Converted ye must take him for your Saviour and your Lord ye must be Holy sincerely Hate Sin universally love Christ superlatively or else the Saviour will not save you Mercy it self will not save you from Everlasting Misery Ye must persevere in all this to the end of your time and then ye shall be Happy in Eternity to Eternity Otherwise ye shall not give audience Sirs otherwise ye shall not be Happy Happy no ye shall be Miserable If the loss of God and Christ and Heaven will make you Miserable for ever ye shall be Miserable for ever If the pains of Hell the company of Devils the stingings of Conscience the terrors of Darkness total final despair of having any end of your damned condition will make you miserable ye shall be miserable If all that God can lay upon you if all that Devils can torment you with if all that Conscience can for ever accuse you for if all that is in Hell can make you miserable except you repent in time and believe on Christ in time and be sanctifyed in time ye shall be miserable for ever O my God! be thou my Witness of this Doctrine All ye that fear God that hear me this day bear me witness that I have published this in the Ears of all that hear me Thou Conscience that art in that Man that is yet going on in Sin and posting with speed to Eternal Misery bear me witness now and at the day of Judgment that I told him what must be done upon him in him and by him if he would escape Eternal Torments If he will not hearken nor obey while he is in time Conscience I bespeak thy witness against him and that thou bring thy Accusation against him and upbraid him to the Confusion of his face among all the Devils in Hell and all that shall be damned with him that he was told he could not keep his sins and be kept out of that place when he dyed he could not reject Christ and finally refuse him and be saved for ever Sinner carest thou not wilt thou still on Good God! must we end thus Must I come down without hopes of his Repenting and he dye with foolish hopes of being saved and after Death be cast into that Eternity where the Worm dyeth not and the Fire is not quenched But in those Endless Flames shall cry out and roar oh cursed Caitif what did I mean all the while I was in time to neglect preparation for Eternity Oh miserable Wretch this is a doleful dreadful state and still the more because it is Eternal Wo is me that I cannot dye nor cease to be Oh that God would cut me off Oh that Devils could tear me into a Thousand Thousand pieces or that I could use such violence to my self that I might be no longer what I am nor where I am But alas I wish in vain and all these desires are in vain for though the union of my Soul and Body in
When proud unbroken impatient Souls Suffer and Die in Dread and Horrour the resigned Christian shall Expire in Peace and Confidence Quest How may a Gracious Person from whom God hides his Face trust in the Lord as his God SERMON XXIX The Text is Psal 42.11 Why art thou cast down O my Soul And why art thou disquieted within me Hope thou in God for I shall yet Praise him who is the health of my Countenance and my God 1. UPon the Proposal of this Case to me I rather chose this Text than that in Isa 50.10 because I thought God and our selves were both to be considered in the just resolution of the Case before us for we must as well look within as above our selves and accordingly here we see that David's first look was into himself and then his next look was towards his God So that I thought this Text most suited to the Case 2. When and upon what occasion this Psalm was Penned I will not now enquire into but when ever it was David was then under black dispensations of Divine Providence and under dreadful Consternations of Spirit and put very severely to it how to Encourage and Support himself 3. The Text may be considered 1. As an History of 1. Davids troubles and afflictions 2. Davids Sence and temper of Spirit under them and concerning them 3. Of the Course he took to help himself 2. As a Doctrine to teach Gods Saints and Servants 1. To what they are liable 2. And by what and how they are to be relieved and supported 3. As a Directory 4. In the Text then we have observable 1. Davids self Arraignment for immoderate despondencies and dejections under the present hand of God upon him Why cast down And why disquieted within me 2. His self Encouragement and Instruction Hope thou in God 5. So that you see David 1. Cites himself to his own Court to account for his own disquietments and dejection and here his scrutiny is severe and close 2. He offers somethings to himself as a fit Course and expedient for self redress Hope thou in God and 3. The remedying Proposal is closely argued and urged For I shall yet Praise him c. I shall have Cause an Heart and an Opportunity to Praise God Times and things will be better with me than now they are I shall have cause to Praise God for he is the health of my Countenance I shall have an Heart to do it for He is my God and I accordingly now avouch him to be such I value him and confide in him as such And I do hence infer that I shall have Opportunity and a Call for to Praise acknowledge and adore him in the Solemnities of his own House First Let me then consider these words as they relate unto David and give us the History of Davids Excercise and Self-Relief And here 1. The Patient or Afflicted Person was Holy David A Man after Gods own Heart Enamoured on God devoted to him delighted in him constant and chearful in his attendencies on God exceeding sensible and observant of all Divine approaches to him and Withdrawments and Retreats from him Thirsting and Panting greatly after the Solaces and Entertainments of Gods House and Altars and bitterly lamenting the loss and absence of those Solemnities wherein he formerly had so copiously and frequently pleased himself afflicted mightily with those derisions and reproaches which reflected so severely upon God through him though nothing could sour or abate his adoring and delightful thoughts of God yet it struck him to the heart to hear Men always saying where is thy God Add hereunto that David was a King a Prophet a type of Christ a Man of vast experiences and improvements and such a peculiar Favourite to God as that he was encouraged to more than ordinary expectations from him of which he had great Seals and Earnests and yet we see he could not be excused from great Storms and Agonies and Anxieties of Spirit 2. That which this good Man underwent was a great dejection and disquietment in his own Spirit by reason of some great afflictions that befel him Gods Providence toucht him in his dearest and most valuable Mercies for he was an exile from Gods Altars Gods great Enemies toucht him in that which lay nearest to his Heart for they Reproacht him with his God and consequently with and for all his religious Hopes and Duties thus striking at his God through him All this afflicted him the more in that hereby great jealousies and suspicions were arising of Gods deserting him and dismal fears and thoughts of Gods having hid his face from him And he saw no likelihood in the posture and presages of second Causes that ever it would be better with him And hence his Spirit was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vet edit consternêtis chad par conturbaris Syr. coâ—â—ristas me Arab. deijcis te v. 6. bowed down and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 b that is disquieted within me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 70. tumultueris adversum me Targ. conturbas me v. 6. Syr. Ar. stupidus es personas in me ut aliâ— disquieted within him he was as stripe of all Composures Strength and Comforts His Passions they were apt to mutiny his confidences to decay and wither and the serenity of his Spirit to decline Sorrows encompast him like a Cloud prest him down like a great Burthen bound him down like a Chain came in upon him like a Flood and rusht in on him like a dissolute and surprising Host And very difficult he found it to keep up his Religion in its just Reputation with himself whilst thus afflicted in it and upbraided with it 3. The Course he takes to help himself is this 1. He surveys his troubles and takes the exact demensions of them observing what impressions and effects they had upon his own Spirit and 2. He takes his Soul to task about them as being 1. Fittest to resolve the Case 2. Every way responsible and accountable for his resentments and deportment and for the impressions and effects of troubles 3. Most capable of self correction instruction and encouragement and consequently of self redress and most concerned therein And 4. As that which must be active too David was confident of help from God and this his confidence is quickned and kept up by Arguments and Pleas He knew no help could be expected any where but in and from God And he concludes and argues that God could work and give it because he was the God and that he would consider him in mercy because he was his God And these things must be remembred argued and revived upon his own Soul and were so 4. And with his own considerate and religious Soul this matter is debated here What! Davids Soul my Soul A Soul and therefore great in its Original Capacity and End A Gracious Soul and therefore near and dear to God encouraged by his promises and providence to
Saints and Martyrs yea and of Jesus Christ himself are a full proof of this Truth Proposi II. Though Men be Great and Good yet may their Souls be cast down and disquieted within them My Soul refused to be comforted my Spirit was overwhelmed in me Psal 77.2 3. 'T is hard and rare for the best Men to keep their Spirits composed and equal when troubles urge them closely The time would fail me and the limits of this discourse would be transgrest should I but shew you from sacred writ what passionate escapes might be observed from Gods Worthies there Proposi III. Good Men should therefore well discern and weigh what troubles and anxieties are upon them and not increase their loads and sorrows by being strangers to themselves Psal 77.6 1 Cor. 10.13 Eccl. 7.14 2 Cor. 12.7 9. Psal 119.28 and they should well distinguish too betwixt what God inflicts upon them and what they cause unto and lay upon themselves and sift their troubles to the bottom they must observe what it is that troubles them and so survey their sufferings and not subject themselves to strange Confusions and Amusements Lam. 3.20 for t is not what we think of what afflicts us but what God really inflicts upon us that we must mind And they must carefully observe in all their sorrows what Ministers to grief and what to shame and what to their Awakening and Refining and what serves to prevent a greater mischief to them 1 Cor. 11.30.32 and to what use God may put their sufferings as to the Church and World and to the unseen State and then resolve it with themselves for what how far and why they are or ought to be dejected and disquieted Proposi IV. What troubles and resentments by gracious Persons are observed should be discoursed by them with their own Souls Psal 4.4 they are to ask themselves how these evils came upon them Is it the immediate hand of God that layes them on if so what have I done against the Lord my God Have I neglected or negligently managed any parts of publick or private Worship as Prayer Praise Thanks Hearing Sacraments or Sanctification of the Lords Day Have I dishonoured God by misrepresenting him to others or to my self Have I reflected any dishonour upon my Christian Calling Have I neglected the exciting and improving of the Grace of God in me in any of its Principles or Functions Or have I behaved my self unworthily or indecently towards others or my self Or is it by the Tongues or Hands of Men that God afflicts me If so what instances of injuriousness negligence indiscretion or immoderate passion can I or others charge upon my self What undue heats or ferments have they discerned in my Spirit by rash or wrathful words or actions If any failures have been on my part where when and how and why were they committed by me If none of these are have been or can be charged upon me what do I undergo from God or Man that Gods great Favourites have not undergone before me And why may not I repair unto the same Encouragements and Consolations which have Relieved and Supported them when they have been exercised as I am What! can not I pledge the best Men in the most bitter Cups but I must presently entertain dismal and undue thoughts of God and make censoriously the worst Constructions of what he lays upon me For to think or say that God deals unfaithfully or unkindly with me is to conclude and utter what neither the Name nor Love of God nor the experiences of his best and wisest Servants will allow of therefore our calm and close debatings of these matters with our selves put us into a fair way to obtain Composures and Relief Proposi V. Good Men when most disquieted and dejected are then to discourse their gracious Selves Heb. 12.5 and to consider what is within them as well as what is laid upon them Psal 44.17 they should remember whose who and what they are by Grace and so repress the tumults and despondencies of their own Spirits for they that are Sanctified can never be forsaken of their God Proposi VI. A revived Sence of God of their Interest in him and of their expectations from him afford great Succours and Supports to gracious Souls and ought to be pleaded and urged upon them by themselves when all things look dreadfully towards them both within and about them Hab. 3.17 18. impatience and despondency are best rebuked Hereby a Sence of God must be revived for as we think of God so shall we value our relation to him and fix and keep our confidence in him and proportionate our expectations from him and 't is to this end that we have such glorious and great accounts of God in sacred writ as to his attributes of Power Wisdom Patience Grace c. Riches and Honour are with him all Kingdom Glory and Power are ascribed unto him and t is with him how things shall go with us and in all the parts of his Creation It is Peace or War with us serenity or disturbance in us and Good or Evil towards us as God himself determineth concerning us Job 34.29 and he that worketh all things after the Counsels of his own Will is to be concluded and believed to be as Good and Gracious as he is either Wise or Great for as Power is his Majesty and Holiness is his Glory so Mercy is his Riches and to him it is a pleasure to be kind and bountiful and a Name of Praise and Joy to be abundant in Compassions and Remissions Jer. 9.24 33.8 9. Mic. 7.18 And yet this is not all but our relation to and interest in him must be revived in the remembrances thereof upon our own Hearts Deut. 33.29 Isa 41.10 Jer. 3.4 5. Heb. 11.16 Hab. 3.18 Every relation is for relative purposes and designs and so affords us great Encouragements Psal 23.1 6. My God! the God of my Life I will say to God my Rock why hast thou forgotten me Psal 42.8 9. O my Strength to thee will I sing for God is my Defence and the God of my Mercy Psal 59.17 68.20 thus David encouraged himself in the Lord his God 1 Sam. 30.6 and here the Foundation of our liveliest hopes is fixt for as Gods infinite perfection assures us that he can do all things so his relation to us and our interest in him assures us that he will be gratious to us and hereto may we safely trust and in the Sence hereof may we address to God by Prayer and Hope Psal 5.2 12. 109.26 119.114 And then the sence and value of what we are to look for is to be lively too upon our heart Slighty and Contemptible Thoughts and Estimations of what we look for will never considerably stem the Tide nor stop the Fluxes of our Sorrows and Discouragements Gods Favour is a valuable Blessing and as the Root of all the rest his Face is glorious and delightful when indeed
cloaths and keeps us and we trust in him to do so for us but if we be not provident and diligent in the well ordering and improvement of the helps and benefits and instructions which God affords us in and by second Causes and so expect that Manna come not only down from Heaven but that it also fall into our Mouths we may easily turn this trust into presumption and starve our selves in the midst of Manna round about us So he that expects God should miraculously inspire trust into him without the intervenient use of his own faculties in the improvement of those helps which God affords will find such hopes and trust fitter to be rebuked and frustrated than to be gratified and fulfilled He that would trust in the Lord as his God is to consider 1. Whom he is to trust in the Lord. 2. For what he is to trust in him that he may either see his Face again or be supported and preserved under the Eclipses of it 3. Why he is to trust in him because of his own necessities and Gods Power and Fidelity to help him and the encouragements God gives him 1. Think then O gracious Soul what a God thou hast to trust in God All-sufficient Gen. 15.1 17.1 Now Gods All-sufficiency lies as far as we can know it yet in the vast reaches of his infinite Wisdom In the unboundedness of his Power for it is Omnipotent and in the Riches of his Goodness which knows no bounds in the expressions and efforts thereof but the inviolable harmony of his own Blessed Name and Nature who worketh all things after the Counsels of his own Will and the Capacities of his Favourites Eph. 1.11 God hath an heart to do thee good for he is Love and Goodness is his Nature and Delight Jer. 9.24 1 John 4.16 Now Love is Communicative and diffusive of it self in all such instances and expressions as the Case and Circumstances of the beloved object may require Jer. 31.3 Hos 2.19 20. Hence you may see Gods Paraphrase upon this attribute and his most Copious explication of it in Exod. 34.6 7. Love pities Favourites in their miseries and self-bemoanings Jer. 31.18 20. Love helps them in their straits Isa 63.8 9. Love supplies them in their wants Phil. 4.19 Love hears their cries Phil. 4.6 7. 1 Pet. 3.12 Love emboldens delivers and preserves them and commands all within its Reach and Empire to befriend and serve them to all these purposes and in all these ways that are most suitable to it self and them Isa 61.1 3. Canst thou not therefore trust in him who without any violence or repugnancy to himself is so propense to do thee good Let then the Love and Goodness of thy God come into thy fresh remembrances and most lively thoughts that so thy trust in him may be encouraged and spirited hereby How greatly are we reconciled and quickned to place our confidence where Love is most predominate and natural For thy great mercies sake thou didst not utterly consume them nor forsake them for thou art a gracious and merciful God Now therefore our God who keepest Covenant and Mercy let not all our trouble Hebr. weariness seem little before thee that hath come upon us saith Neh. 9.31 32. And as God hath an heart to do thee good so he hath wisdom to contrive and manage the means and methods of his purposed and free Goodness Eph. 1.8 Now to him that is able to keep you to the only wise God Jude 24.25 1 Tim. 1.17 God guided the wandring Israelites under the Wilderness Eclipses of his Face by the Skilfulness of his Hands Psal 78.72 God best knows when to shew his Face to what degrees and how He sees what ails and what will help thee he is no stranger to thy gloominess and droopings he understands wherein how far and upon what accounts thou so lamentest his withdrawments from thee and what these manifestations of himself are which will afford the best relief to thee He cannot overlook the proper Article of time wherein those friendly Aspects and Appearances which thou covetest so much will most befriend and serve thee the best Men have a Complication of Soul Distempers in them and those Divine Discoveries which might relieve them in their droopings may when desired by them were they but then afforded possibly make them proud or careless However possibly God hath not sufficiently served those purposes to which thy doleful present exercise is directed and so the birth might prove too hasty to be perfect were it produced when desired by thee Job little knew and all his confident pressing Friends as little what God was doing by those so rigid usages whereto that Holy patient Person was exposed God hath more Souls and things to mind than one and he will make every part and instance of his Grace and Goodness to harmonize each with other and is it not more desirable to every resigned Soul to God to abide in this darkness for a while than to have the Course and Methods of Gods orderly proceedings disordered and disturbed for the meer pleasing of some precipitant desires Let God alone and turn not a censurer of his dealings till thou canst comprehend his whole Design upon his whole Creation his Family and on thy Self and let it suffice thee that infinite Wisdom is concerned and engaged for thee and trust him more for thou mayest safely do it because he is infinitely wiser than thy self and knows best when to hide and when to shew his Face God hath Ability and Authority as well as an Heart and Wisdom to relieve and Favour thee Jude 24. 2 Cor. 9.8 He shall be holden up for God is able to make him stand Rom. 14.4 He is the God of Power Job 42.2 He can revive or damp thy Spirit at his pleasure Job 34.29 so that there can be no suspicion of impotence or inability with him He that made Heaven and Earth can succour drooping Hearts and he that revives this Sence of God upon him will find his trust in God more sweet and easie 2. Think also what thou art now allowed to trust him with and for 1 Pet. 4.19 even with thy whole self and with all that can concern the Church the World and thee Wisdom for Conduct Power for due Deliverances and Protections and Salvations and Grace and Comforts to bear thee up under Burthens and Temptations and to furnish thee to every good Word and Work and to carry thee safe to everlasting rest and for the wise and happy issue of every Duty Burthen and Temptation mayst thou firmly trust in God But be sure to trust to him for nothing as far as thou canst learn or know it that is unworthy of God to give and unfit for thee to ask or have But this you may trust him for that he hide nothing of that Face from thee without which thou canst not be an holy and an happy Person and that he lay nothing on
will not flee to Sinful Shifts and Refuges neither is any thing Chidden Cited or Arraigned but the disquieted and disturbed Spirit and yet even here it is not so much Clamourous and Impatient as it is Inquisitive after and resolved upon its Regular Self-redress If any thing ail it or afflict it it minds the Grounds the Measures and the Effects thereof upon it self Stupid indeed it is not for it feels Gods Hand upon it Immoderate or Careless in its Griefs it will not be for it will call its Sorrows and it Self unto the Test and Bar and there impartially examine all its Pressures its Sence of them and its Behaviour under them nor will it sullenly be neglectful of it self in Troubles for it will urge it self to all Just Observations and Improvements of its best Helps and Remedies and when it finds that only hope in God must bear it up and succour it Oh then how copiously and closely is the Name of God considered by it I shall yet Praise him the Health of my Countenance and my God If it be forced abroad as Holy David now was to Sorrowful Wandrings Solitudes and Retirements its very Privacies shall be spent in pertinent Soliloquies and so be improved to its own best advantage and consequently be made to turn to very good account at last It is and will be provident for Soul-good where e're it is and what ever it is called to undergo And when upon impartial search it finds as it will quickly do that no Relief can be expected but from and by Hope in God how prevalent are its Gracious Principles and Instincts in carrying it to look much higher than it self for Help Nor will it ever look upon its Case as desperate and lost remedilesly whilst there is room and ground for Hope in God to help it yet is it orderly and calm in its Procedures for it first talks with it self and then looks up to God and though it be difficult to disperse and quell its Griefs and Sorrows when they are gathered to an head yet Duty is Duty Hot or Cold and 't is not difficulty that can divorce the Gracious Soul therefrom It can find work in Storms and Tryals for all its Faculties Principles and Graces and they must vigorously perform their Functions to serve those weighty Turns and Purposes which so much concern the exercised Soul And it well knows and doth consider it as wisely that Storms and Tumults of this Nature are never truly laid nor the afflicted Soul refresh'd either by transient and hasty or by hard Thoughts of God and it is its happiness and support that it hath a God to flee to an Heart to Hope in him and to Praise him and an Interest in God and a Covenant of Promises from God to encourage Hope in God Infer IV. O what Refreshments do a due sence and lovely Thoughts of God afford to Gracious Souls under their Troubles and Disquietments 2 Tim. 4.18 O let those passages be Read considerately in Lam. 3.21 36. It is in Gods Gracious Name so solemnly proclaimed in Exod. 34 6 7. that Gracious Souls may Act themselves when all things shake and fail about them and their Hearts tremble in them Joel 3.16 Here is that Anchor which must stay the Soul and hold its Hope when all the Seas of its Concerns and Thoughts are most sevearly prest and broken by Storms and Tempests in it and about it Good Thoughts of God will make us chearfully to endure Afflictions and to Improve the worst Condition Psal 42.7 8. 43.1 2. David here found Relief when all things else proved Miserable Comforters to him The Sorrows of Death compassed me about the Pains of Hell got hold upon me I found Trouble and Sorrow then called I upon the Name of the Lord O Lord deliver my Soul And what was his Encouragement Gracious is the Lord and Righteous also our God is Merciful Psal 116.3 7. And they that would cherish Hope in God should not so much resort to Sinai as to Zion and rather go to Gerizzim than to Ebal if they would have such Thoughts of God as shall and will Encourage Hope in him God here was represented by David to himself as His God as the Health of his Countenance and as that God whom he should surely Praise whatever other Face and Aspect were at present upon things and by these things did he resolve upon awaken and refresh his Hope in God If God be only set before our Eyes as Clothed with Vengeance as an Inexorable and Severe Judge and as upon the Throne of Judgment our Hopes will quickly turn to Desperation and who can possibly Hope in him that takes him for his Enemy But he that remembers and minds God as Love it self as ready to Commiserate the Cases of his Afflicted Servants and as One waiting to be Gracious and ready to Forgive Hear Heal and Save this Man gets presently upon the Wing and freely throws himself as at the Feet of Mercy and can more easily part with his Life than with his Hope in God Job 13.15 And now to give no Check to your Patience by my Prolixity let me close all and drive the matter home if possibly I may and Exhort you to these things Exhort I. Keep up all Amiable and Attracting Thoughts of God in all your Troubles and Disquietments Mic. 7.18 20. Thus did this Gracious Person in my Text. Have Mercy upon me O God according to thy loving kindness according to the multitude of thy tender Mercies blot out my Transgressions Psal 51.1 119.75 76. Nothing can stint or bound Gods Mercies nor check the Efforts and sensible Explications and Productions of Gods most Gracious Name but the culpable unfitness of your Souls to be receptive of his Royal Favours Psal 85.8 Rejoyce the Soul of thy Servant for unto thee O Lord do I lift up my Soul for thou Lord art Good and ready to Forgive and plenteous in Mercy to all them that call upon thee O God the Proud are risen against me But thou Lord art a God full of Compassion and Gracious Long-suffering and Plenteous in Mercy and Truth O turn to me and have Mercy upon me Psal 86.4 5 14 16. The Gracious Soul can never Justifie its own Despondencies for take it under its severest Pressures from Evil Men and Things let it but Act still like it self and it hath more causes for Consolation than for Dejectedness 2 Cor. 6.10 Think not that God forgets or hates thee because thy bitter Cups are not to be dispensed with We are Troubled on every side yet not Distressed Perplexed but not in Despair Persecuted but not Forsaken Cast down but not Destroyed 2 Cor. 4.8 9. Sing therefore O ye Saints of his unto the Lord give Thanks to the Memorial of his Holiness For his Anger is but for a Moment in his Favour is Life and Weeping may endure for a Night but Joy comes in the Morning Psal 30.4 5. And He that is
the wicked not the Graces of the godly Sinners cannot endure the Light of the Truth nor the power of Holiness in the Lives of Saints and therefore quarrel with them but are those Saints to be blamed for such troubles as only accidentally and by reason of the corruptions of others arise on their doing but their Duty Is a Bridge to be blamed for troubling the Water because keeping its place it stops the Waters passage and is the occasion of its swelling and roaring Are Sheep to be blamed for incensing the Wolves Or Doves for provoking the Hawks Truly just such incendiaries are Gods Children in the places where they live they disquiet their Neighbours only by the good things they enjoy which others love and covet and fain would get from them or by the good they do which wicked Men hate and fain would hinder in them The quarrels of the ungodly World with the Holy Seed among them are but like that of Cain with Abel he slew his Brother because his own works were evil and his Brothers righteous 1 John 3.12 3. The Sinners of a Nation are really the weakness of it It is they of whatsoever Party or Sect or persuasion they are that troubles any People and occasions their dangers and procure their ruin Righteousness exalts a Nation Prov. 14.34 it is Sin that is a reproach to it that humbles it and brings it down Wicked Men are they that betray Nations and Kingdoms expose them to Gods wrath subject them to his judgments Did Noah bring the Flood upon the old World or did the wicked of it by their wickedness Did Lot bring down Fire from Heaven upon Sodom or did the Sodomites do it by their own lewdness Did Jeremiah by his Preaching or Baruch and Ebedmelech and those few other godly in Jerusalem by their Praying and Weeping and Mourning bring on the Captivity of that People or did not they themselves by their Idolatry their Prophaneness their Swearing their Sabbath breaking their polluting Gods Ordinances their shedding Innocent Blood c. were the Apostles and primitive Christians the cause of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans or were not the unbelieving Jews by their rejecting Christ and persecuting those that adhered to him I deny not but the Sins of the best of Saints may sometimes contribute to the bringing down judgments upon others Jonahs Sin raised a Tempest upon the Mariners chap. 1. and David numbring the People brought the Plague upon them 2 Sam. 24. God will not only manifest his own Holiness by punishing them that are dearest to him when they Sin against him but teach them more care watchfulness against Sin when they find how far the direful effects of it are extended unto others And yet what is this to the numerous instances on the other side Which doth ordinarily do most mischief the Sins of the truly godly which are fewer and lesser and mourned over and repented of or the Sins of the prophane the Hypocrites the Impenitent May we not say that if the Sins of the one have slain their Thousands those of the other have slain their Ten-Thousands The greatest danger any can be in is to be liable to the displeasure of God who is Holy and cannot endure to behold iniquity powerful and able to destroy those that offend him can Arm and Commission innumerable Enemies against them raise the Posse of Heaven and Earth upon them let flie Thousands of Arrows at them and command what judgments he please to consume them And who are they that do ordinarily make a People naked and lay them open to the Wrath and Revenge of God Is it they that love God or they that hate him the obedient or the rebellious they that please him or they that provoke him they that intercede with him or they they that defie him they that mourn for the abominations of a Land or they that commit and encourage them they that tremble at his judgments or that dare his vengeance In a Word they that hinder all the Sin they can or that hinder all the good they can they that dare not be wicked or that will not be Holy 4. It is the Interest of any People where God hath a Seed of righteous ones to favour them and make much of them They are their best Friends that are Gods Friends They should favour them most whom God favours of whose good things they partake for whose sakes they are preserved receive many a mercy enjoy many a privilege escape many a judgment It is their interest to be kind to those that have most interest in God most power with him and can get most of him What Society of Men but usually favours them most whom their Prince favour most and they think it their interest to do so They know they may need them and many a good turn they may do them They that are the greatest among Men and sit at the upper end of the World may need the help of the Faith and Prayers of the meanest Saints they may need them to interpose with God for them and ward off his blows or remove his plagues and when he hath no respect to a People for their own sakes yet he may for the sake of his Servants among them 5. It is folly in any People to Persecute them that are truly Religious That is but to fall foul upon their Friends and then they lie open to their Enemies or are indeed their own greatest Enemies to pluck the Stakes out of the Hedge and turn the Vineyard into a Common to pull up the Sluces and then there is nothing to keep out an Inundation of evils to pull down the Pillars and then the House comes tumbling about their Ears It is indeed but to dig their own Graves to make way for their own destruction by destroying those that are their preservers For by this means they lose 1. The benefit of the Saints Prayers When Men go on maliciously to abuse and oppress the godly among them God may refuse to hear even their Prayers for them The Jews persecuted Jeremiah slandered him as a Traytor Jer. 37.13 smote him with their tongues devised devices against him 11 19. put him in the Dungeon and God would not hear his Prayers for them Their posterity persecuted the Lord Jesus Christ and though his Prayers were heard for many of them converted Acts 2. and afterward by the Preaching of the Apostles yet when they still persevered in their persecuting those very Apostles their Prayers could not prevail for them but God gave them up first to hardness of heart and blindness of mind Acts 28.26 and then to their Enemies Sword Or God may stop the mouths of his Saints that they shall not so much as pray for them he may as was before intimated straiten them and withdraw from them When they begin to open their lips for those whom he hath appointed for destruction Nay he may set their Hearts to pray against them
and storms Ordinances and afflictions every thing all things are employed all busie all at work and all at work for good Take a wicked man and all things are against him take a Child of God and all things are for him all are sent upon a gracious excellent design and shall prosper in it More particularly oppositions persecutions and fiery Tryals have issued in these three things which are choice advantages 1. By these things God makes a discrimination and separates between the good and the bad the precious and the vile In those Fields where there is care taken to sow the best and cleanest corn the envious one will come and scatter eares Churches do contract filth and corruption as well as other bodies and though they were very pure in their first erecting and constitution yet afterward they do degenerate and ill humours flow and abound in them Some among them leave their first love and their first works and are drawn aside from the simplicity of the Gospel and live not according to the rules of the Gospel Yea there are not only decaying Professors but also false hypocritical pretenders creep into Churches Afflictions now are the Physick God gives for the purging them out these are the Fan of Christ with which he cleares his Floor they are his Fire for the refining of his Gold and severing it from the dross When storms arise the rotten and unsound fruit falls off When persecution ariseth stony ground hearers are offended then away go formalists hypocrites and all such as were strangers to the power of godliness And it is a good riddance for God and his Church need them not What loss is it when greedy Wolves and filthy Swine in Sheeps cloathing forsake the fold they never did good in it and never will 2. By troubles and persecutions the good are bettered In such times and by such means their corruptions are mortified and their graces are brightned The trees of righteousness which are planted in Gods Courts do root the faster for being shaken with Tempests and flourish the more for their pruning Their fierce Tryals do refine their Souls and heat them into a greater zeal for God and holiness The very rage and malice of their enemies doth strengthen their care and raise their resolution so that they grow stronger and stronger Michal jeer'd and stouted at David for this zeal but he plainly and bravely told her if that was to be vile he would be yet more so Upon these two accounts when times are saddest and persecution hottest whatever may be said of the actings of men there is no cause to complain of male administration on Gods part so long as the Church is made purer and the Saints are made better But I will add this further 3. By these persecutions the Church is enlarged and the number of her Children is encreased The oppressing of the Israelites by hardned Pharaoh issued in their multiplying When the Church at Jerusalem was scattered the Kingdom of Christ was amplified the more by it Those afflictions and bands which happened to Paul tended to and ended in the furtherance of the Gospel The blood of the Martyrs hath all along been the Seed of the Church Persecutors are fools as well as mad men they lose what they do Christ and the Gospel gain So doth God outshoot his enemies in their own bow and makes their very wrath to praise him And let Tryals and Persecutions come to never so great an height I know no reason why the joy of Believers should not be increased when the Nation of Saints is multiplied Do you all you that profess Religion and godliness look to it that the number of Christians be not diminished and lessened through your wretched Apostacy and then it shall be augmented through your firmeness and holy constancy That is the fifth thing by which we may support and comfort our selves viz. The great things which God hath done for his People 6. There are very great and glorious things which God hath further to do If all were accomplished which God hath in his heart and purpose to do for his Church none of us should be here the world would have an end and time would be no more The world doth upon some account owe its continuance to the Church The world is but the stage upon which God is acting for his Name and for his Church and when the Act is finished the stage shall be pull'd down When wicked and ungodly men are plotting against the Church and persecuting of her Children they act indeed like unreasonable men in digging up those very foundations on which themselves stand and pulling down the Pillars that uphold them And as God continues the world for the sake of the Church so he hath great of things yet in his purpose and promise which must by no means fail for their accomplishment Such as these the giving great peace to her Children the bringing down her proud and insulting enemies especially that grand and implacable one Babylon The bringing in both his ancient people the Jews and the fulness of the Gentiles The making the place of his feet glorious and setting up the Mountain of his House in the top of the Mountains and causing the Kings of the Earth to bring their glory and the honour of the Nations into it 7. God hath laid upon himself strong obligations to do these and such like things and therefore we are on the surer hand God hath bound himself by promise and that is as good security as heart can desire Gods Word is better than mans bond It is setled in Heaven It is yea and amen God can as soon cease to be as falsify his Word whatsoever thou hast a promise for O Believer thou mayst be as sure off as if thou hadst the thing in thine own possession And how dark soever and cross soever Providence may seem to be do not you fear them for there always is a sweet harmony and perfect agreement between Providences and promises yea the great work and business of Providence is to give accomplishment to the promises Divine Providence is the Midwife of promise and is to give Birth to those blessed and admirable mercies which it travails with And though sometimes Providence acts somewhat roughly yet it always proceeds very safely so that there never is a miscarriage 8. God is greatly concerned in the good and welfare of his Church and People He is more concerned than we are and all the men in the world It is very true we are nearly concerned in the prosperity of the Church and true Religion in the Churches peace it is that we shall have peace Our all is indeed imbarqued in this Ship if that should be cast away we are ruined you may reckon upon that Let Religion be lost and we are lost farewell prosperity and all that you can call good and therefore none of us should be careless or wanting to Prayer or duty But know God is more