and seditious way but in the way of duty before the Decree bring forth and the day pass as the chaff Zeph. 2.1 2. O prepare to meet your God Amos 4.12 Prepare your faith love courage c. before God call you to the exercise of them And to excite you to this duty besides all the fore-mentioned benefits of a prepared Spirit consider these following particulars hy way of motive The many Calls which God hath given you to this work Mot. 1 The Lord hath uttered his voice and called from Heaven unto you will you be deaf to his Calls He hath called upon you 1 By the Word God would have it cry to you first because he would give the first honour to his Word He hath given all his Prophets one mouth Luke 1.70 and they have warned you faithfully 2. By the Rod This also hath a loud voice Micah 6.9 Psal 2.5 Men of understanding will hear this voice and those that will not hear it shall be lashed by it even till they are sick with smiting vers 13. 3 By prodigious and portentous signs in the Heavens and Earth such as no Age can parallel these have a loud voice to all that regard the works of the Lord or the operations of his hands Eusebius calls them Gods Sermons to the World 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Euseb Hist lib. 3. cap. 8. Oh that we were wise to consider what Gods Ends are in these things One observes That as they are the plainest and most obvious to sense so they are commonly the last Sermons which God intends to preach to Nations before he inflicts his punishments on them if they repent not O let not God speaking in ordinary and extraordinary ways to you still speak in vain Your preparation for sufferings Mot. 2 is the most probable means of preventing your fall and ruine by those sufferings Sufferings prove fatal and destructive to some but it is to secure and careless ones such as are diligent and faithful in the use of Gods means are secured from the danger Christ lays our constancy and perseverance very much upon our fore-casting the worst that may fall out Luke 14.28 Put on the whole Armour of God that ye may be able to stand Ephes 6. He that hath first severed Christ in his thoughts from all worldly advantages and put the case thus to his own Soul O my Soul canst thou imbrace or love a naked Christ Canst be content to be impoverished imprisoned and suffer the loss of all for him He is most likely to cleave faithfully to him when the case is really presented to him indeed And can it seem light thing in your eyes to be inabled to stand â—n such an evil day If you fall away from Christ then all that you have wrought is lost â—zek 33.13 Gideons one Bastard destroyed all is seventy Sons This act renders all former â—ctions and professions vain If you fall you â—â—all thereby be brought into a more perfect â—ondage to the Devil than ever Matth. 12.23 â—ea ordinarily Apostates are judicially given up to be Persecutors Hos 5.12 1 Tim. 1.20 and are seldome or never recovered again by Grace Heb. 6.4 6. They that lick up their vomit seldome cast it up any more It is a fall within a little as low as the unpardonable sin whence never any rise again In some cases the Judge will not allow the Offender his Book And is it not then a choice and desirable mercy to escape and prevent such a fall as this O good Souls ply your preparation-Preparation-work close then prepare or you perish 3. This will best answer the Grace of God in affording you such choice helps and advantages as you have enjoyed How long have you enjoyed the free liberty of the Gospel shining in its lustre among you This Sun which to some other Nations hath not risen and to divers on whom it hath shined yet it is but as a Winters Sun remote and its Beams but feeble But you have lived as it were under the Line It hath been over your heads and shed its richest influences upon you Yea Gods Ministers who are not only appointed to be Watchmen Ezek. 3.17 but Trumpeters to discover danger Numb 10.8 these have faithfully warned you of a day of trouble and given you their best assistance to make you ready for it And is not their joy yea life bound up in your stability in such a day of Tryal Doth not every one of them call upon you in the words of the Apostle Phil. 4.1 Therefore my Brethren dearly Beloved and longed for my joy and Crown so stand fast in the Lord my dearly beloved Will it not cut them to the very heart if after all their spending labours among you they still leave you unready Enemies still to the Cross of Christ impossible to be reconciled and perswaded to suffering-work for Christ I remember I have read of the Athenian Codrus who being informed by the Oracle that the people whose King should be slain in Battel should be Conquerours He thereupon disrobed himself and in a disguize went into the Enemies Quarters that he might steal a death to make his people victorious Oh! how glad would your Ministers be if you might conquer and overcome in the day of temptation whatever become of their lives and liberties Yea and if they be offered up upon the sacrifice and service of your faith they can rejoyce and joy with you all Such is their zeal and longing after your security and welfare But if still you remain an unready people and do become a prey to temptation Oh how inexcusable will you be 4. Remember how ready the Lord Jesus was to suffer the hardest and vilest things for you He had a bitter Cup put into his hands to drink for you into which the wrath both of God and man was squeezed out Dolor Christi fuit major omnibus doloribus Aquin. Never had man such sufferings to undergo as Christs Whether you consider 1 the dignity of his person who was in the form of God and might have stood upon his Peerage and Equality with him he is the sparkling Diamond of Heaven Acts 7.56 The Darling of the Fathers Soul Isa 42.1 glorious as the only begotten of the Father John 1.14 yea glory it self James 2.1 yea the very brightness of glory Heb. 1.3 He is the delicia Christiani orbis fairer than the Sons of men And for him to be so debased below so many thousands of his own Creatures become a Worm and no man this was a wonderful humiliation It was Jeremiah's lamentation that such as were brought up in Scarlet imbraced Dunghills that Princes were hanged up by the hands and the faces of Elders were not reverenced But what was that to the humiliation of the Lord of Glory Or 2 that he suffered in the prime and flower of his years when full of life and sense and more capable of exquisite sense of pain than others For he was optime
the Waters cannot quench nor the Flood drown Cant. 8.6 Probatio amoris est exhibitio operis If you love Christ indeed shew your love by some fruits of it and surely this is a very choice fruit and proof of it There be many that profess a great deal of love to Christ but when it comes to this Touchstone it appears false and counterfeit but a meer flourish when no danger is near But that Soul which buckles on the Shooe of Preparation to follow him through Thorns and Briars and over the Rocks and Mountains of Difficulties and Troubles loves him indeed Jer. 2.2 3. Beloved it 's one of the choicest Discoveries of your love to your Master Christ yea it is such a testification of love to him as Angels are not capable of They shew their love by their readiness to do his Will in the execution of which they fly as with Wings Ezek. 1.24 But you only have the happiness of testifying your love by your readiness to suffer for him and is not this excellent 8. When the Heart is prepared for the worst Sufferings it 's an Argument that your Will is subdued to the Will of God for till this be done in a good measure you cannot stand ready to suffer for him But now to have the Will subdued by Grace to the Will of God is a very choice and excellent frame indeed for in this the main power of Grace lieth Look in what Faculty the chief Residence and strength of sin was in the same the chief Residence and power of Grace after Conversion is also Now it is in the Will that the strength and power of sin before Conversion lay See Joh. 5.40 Psal 81.11 Jer. 44.16 17. And indeed it was the Devils strong Hold which in the Day of Christs Power he storms and reduces to his Obedience Psal 110.3 Oh what a blessed thing is this the Will rules the Man it hath the Empire of the whole man it commands the Faculties of the Soul imperio politico and it commands the Members of the Body imperio despotico Now to have Christ and Grace rule that which rules and commands your inner and outer Man too is no small Mercy And a better Evidence that it is so cannot be given than this that you stand ready or do seriously prepare your selves to suffer the hardest things for Christ If your Will can like that Work it 's an Argument Grace hath conquered and subdued your wills indeed 9. This Preparation of Heart to Sufferings is an excellent thing because God is so abundantly pleased with it that he often excuses them from sufferings in whom he finds it and accepts it as if the service had been actually done So Abraham Gen. 22.12 he was ready to offer up his Isaac's life to God but God seeing his Servants heart really prepared and ready for that difficult service and high point of Self-denial provided himself another Sacrifice instead of Isaac Abraham shall have his Isaac back again and that with advantage for he hath with him not only a choice Experiment of his love to God but Gods high approbation of him and acceptation of his Offering It was all one in respect of Divine acceptance as if he had been slain and so the Scripture represents it Jam. 2.21 And in this sence that Promise is often made good to Gods People who stand ready to give up their Isaacs their lives liberties and dearest enjoyments to the Lord He that will lose his life for my Names sake shall save it Luk. 9.24 Now what a blessed thing is this you may this way have the Crown of Martyrdom and yet not shed one drop of blood for Christ actually Ah how kindly doth God accept it at his poor Creatures hands when he sees how willing they are to serve him with their best enjoyments It is well saith he to David that it was in thy heart 1 King 8.18 10. And then lastly to add no more it is beyond Controversie an excellent and blessed thing because should such a Christian after all his pains and preparations be overborn and fall by Temptation yet this preparation of his heart excuses his fall from those aggravations that are upon the falls of others and will give him both support under such a Condition and encouragement to hope for a speedy recovery out of it Ah! it 's no small comfort when a poor Soul that hath been overborn by temptation can come to God and say Lord thou knowest that this was not a wilful departure from my duty but contrary to the bent and resolution of my heart thou sawest my diligence before-hand to prepare for it thou sawest my fears and tremblings of heart about it O Lord forgive O Lord recover thy Servants wash away this spot it is one of the spots of thy children an infirmity not a Rebellion This may much stay the Soul Surely in this case thou hast many grounds of comfort that another wants For thy sin being but an infirmity 1. It 's that which is common to all Saints Psal 103.11 12 13 14. 2. God hath mercy and pardons for such sins as these else woe to the holiest Soul Psal 130.3 4. Solomon upon this ground pleads for mercy for them that prepared their hearts 2 Chron. 30.18 19. and God hath laid in sweet grounds of encouragement for such Souls Numb 15.27 28. Heb. 5.2 How tenderly doth Christ deal with the Disciples under this kind of sin Mat. 26.41 and though they forsook him for a time yet he received them again though they fled from him yet they all returned again and appeared boldly for Christ afterwards and sealed their Confession of him with their blood and that which recovered them again was this that their fall and departure was contrary to the resolution and standing frame and bent of their hearts for they resolved all to cleave to him to the death Mat. 26.35 whereas those that ingaged in a profession of him inconsiderately and never resolved nor prepared for the worst fell off from him and never returned any more Joh. 6.66 So then upon the whole you cannot but grant that it is a very blessed and excellent thing to prepare thus for the greatest Sufferings that can befall us for Christ We come next to shew wherein it lies CHAP. V. Evincing the necessity of a sound and real work of Grace upon the heart to fit a man for the Sufferings of Christ HAving shewed you that God doth sometimes put his dearest people upon very hard services for him and what an excellent thing it is to prepare our selves to obey the Call of God to them In the next place I come to shew you wherein this Preparation or readiness for Sufferings consists and how many things concur and contribute their assistance to this Work Now there is a two-fold Preparation or readiness for Suffering the one is habitual the other actual That habitual readiness is nothing else but the inclination of a Soul to suffer any
Father but they are all mercies purchased and paid for and therefore fear not the failing of your Graces 5. From the Spirit of Christ which dwelleth and abideth in thee and hath begun his saving work upon thee I say saving for else it would afford no argument His common works on Hypocrites come to nothing but in thee they cannot fail For 1. His Honour is pawned and ingaged to perfect it That reproach of the foolish Builder shall never lye upon him that he began to build but could not finish Besides this would irritate and void all that the Father and the Son have done for thee both their works are compleat and perfect in their kinds and the Spirit is the last efficient in order of working 2. Besides the Grace he hath already wrought in thee may give thee yet further and fuller assurance of its preservation inasmuch as it hath the nature of a Seal Pledge and Earnest of the whole Rom. 8.23 2 Cor. 1.22 So that it cannot fail 6. From those multitudes of Assertory Promissory and Comparative Scriptures the rich veins whereof run through the Book of God as so many streams to refresh thy Soul Of Assertory Scriptures see John 6.39 John 10.28 1 John 2.19 Of Promissory Scriptures see Issa 54.10 Jer. 34.40 1 Cor. 1.8 c. Of Comparative Scriptures see Psal 1.3 Psal 125. 1. John 4.14 c. The principal scope of all which is to shew the indefectible nature of true Grace in the Saints And now how should this refresh thy drooping Soul make thee gird up the loyns of thy mind since thou dost not run as one uncertain neither fightest as one that beats the Air 1 Cor. 9.26 but art so secured from total Apostacy as thou seest thou art by all these things O bless ye the Lord. But the Lord seems to be departed from my Soul Ob. 2 God is afar off from me and troubles are near I seem to be in such a case as Saul was when the Philistines made war upon him and God was departed from him and therefore I shall fall Not so Sol. for there are two sorts of Divine desertions The one is absolute when the Lord utterly forsakes his Creatures so that they shall never behold his face more The other is limited and respective and so he forsook his own Son and often doth his own Elect And of this kind some are only Cautional to prevent sin some are meerly Probational to try Grace and others Castigatory to chastise our negligence and carelesness Now though I have not a word of comfort to speak in the case of total and absolute Desertions yet of the latter which doubtless is thy case much may be said by way of support be it of which of the three sorts it will or in what degree it will For 1. This hath been the case of many precious Souls Psal 22.1 2. Psal 77.2 Psal 88.9 Job 13.24 25 26. This was poor Mr. Glovers case as you will find in his Story and it continued till he came within sight of the Stake therefore no new or strange thing hath happened to you 2. The Lord by this will advantage thee for perseverance not only as they are cautional against sin but as they make thee hold Christ the faster and prize his †Cam. 3.4 Presence at an higher rate when he shall please graciously to manifest himself to thee again 3. This shall not abide for ever it 's but a little Cloud and will blow over It is but for a moment and that moments Darkness ushers in everlasting Light Isa 54.7 Yea lastly The light of Gods Countenance shall not only be restored Certainly but it shall be restored Seasonably when thy Darkness is greatest thy trouble 's at the highest and thy hopes lowest He is a God of Judgment and knows how to time his own mercies Psa 138.3 But I am a weak Woman Ob. 3 or a young Person how shall I be able to confess Christ before Rulers and look great ones in the face Christ delights to make his Power known in such Sol. 2 Cor. 12.9 for he affects not Social glory 2. Thou shalt be holden up for God is able to make thee stand Rom. 14.4 Thou that art sensible of thine own infirmity mayest run to that Promise 3. Such poor weak Creatures shall endure when stronger if Self-confident fall Isa 40.30 31. Even the youths shall faint and be weary and the young men utterly fall but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength They shall mount up with wings as Eagles run and not be weary walk and not faint Youths and young men are bold daring and confident persons that trust to their own strength to whom such as wait upon the Lord stand here opposed They shall faint but these shall renew their strength Art thou one that waitest and dependest upon an All-sufficient God in the sense of thine own weakness This Promise then is for thee 4. You may furnish your selves at pleasure with Examples of the mighty Power of God resting upon such as you are out of our own Martyrology Thomas Drowry the poor blind Boy Fox Vol. 3. p. 703. What a presence of Spirit was with him when examined by the Chancellor Eulalia a Virgin of about twelve years of age see how she was acted above those years yea above the power of Nature Fox Vol. 1. p. 120. Tender Women yea Children act above themselves when assisted by a strong God And thus you have some help offered you by a weak hand in your present and most important work The Lord carry home all with Power upon your hearts that if God call you to suffer for him you may say as Paul did I am now ready to be offered up and the time of my departure is at hand I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness which God the Righteous Judge shall give me at that day and not to me only but to them also which love his appearing 2 Tim. 4.6 And as you expect so to finish your course with joy be diligent in the use of all means to prepare and make your selves ready to follow the Call of God whether it be to Bonds or to Death for the Name of the Lord Jesus FINIS