Contributions have you had throughout the Kingdom towards the recruiting of your Losses and the re-building of the Town Though some miscarriages and loss there may have been in managing the Collections and though all that you have received bears not that proportion to your Sufferings and Losses which some have conceived it did yet I believe there was never any instance of any Town in England burnt or ruined for which so large Collections have been made So exceedingly and almost universally throughout the Kingdom did God stir up and open the hearts of people to commiserate your Condition God who hath the hearts of all men in his hand and turneth them as the rivers of water whithersoever he pleaseth hath so toucht the hearts of Prince and People City and Countrey that all have contributed their assistances in an extraordinary and eminent manner towards your restauration And as for the King's favour and bounty towards you it hath been very signal several ways the Instances whereof are very well known and must for ever be remembred setting aside London the Metropolis of the Kingdom I think he never did so much for any distressed Town in his Dominions as for this In all which you must look to God and acknowledge him as your great Benefactor 4. Through the favour of God and the great helps you have had from those instruments of your good which he hath raised up the Town is now in a fair way of being rebuilt and of being improved and advanced to a greater degree of lustre and beauty than ever it had before the fire And moreover many of you I hope most of you are in a good way of imployment and livelihood the Trade of the Town beginning to recover together with the Building 5. It hath also pleased God to add another Blessing that sweetens all your other Mercies and gives you the comfortable enjoyment of them and that is Health There were great and just fears lest the straitness and inconvenience of poor Houses and narrow Rooms into which for want of better Accommodations several Families were sometimes enforced to crowd might have occasioned some Epidemical Disease in the Town but in this also the wonderful goodness of God to the Town hath appeared there having hardly ever been known so long a Season of so much health in the Town as since the Fire 6. There is yet one thing more that crowns all your Mercies and that is That God affords you his Gospel a Mercy which of it self alone were enough to make you ample amends for all your Sufferings though God should strip you of all other Comforts and give you only the bread of adversity Isa 30.20 and the water of affliction Now then God having done all this for you having raised you out of the dust and set you upon your feet once more and loaded you with so many Favours what remains but that now you add what Ezra further adds in the Text and say full out with him After all that is come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great trespass seeing thou our God hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve and hast given us such a deliverance as this should we again break thy commandments Wouldest thou not be angry with us till thou hadst consumed us so that there should be no remnant nor escaping I beseech you let us all labour to say so from our very hearts and with the same holy indignation against our sins and strength of resolution to forsake them as he did and then he that hath begun to do us good and carried on his work of mercy thus far will no doubt perfect it to his own glory and our comfort But seeing our danger is so great if we return to our folly after such terrible Judgments and signal Mercies give me leave to caution you against some of those sins which we are most in danger of 1. Now that your Town begins to rise again with greater beauty and lustre take heed of being lifted up Be not high-minded but fear lest for your sins God lay you low and level you with the ground once more You know what Solomon saith Prov. 16 18. Pride goeth before destruction and an haughty spirit before a fall The odious sin of Pride hath formerly been imputed to this place And doth it not begin to bud again as the Prophet speaks notwithstanding all that God hath done to humble us If it do not what means our apparrelling our selves above our rank and quality what means our forwardness to come as near as we can to every vain Fashion and immodest Dress which our loose times have taken up How is it that we cannot content our selves with such comely Apparrel and modest Dresses as become a People that have not long since been among the pots and lain in the ashes and whereby we might be Patterns of modesty and sobriety to others 2. Take heed of making too much haste to recover and repair your Losses by any unlawful Artifices or unjustifiable Methods of gain Solomon again hath taught us Prov. 28.20 That he who maketh hast to be rich shall not be innocent 1. Take heed of setting unreasonable Prizes upon your Commodities Do not so far deceive your selves as to think your Losses now justify you in demanding what Rates you please That were a very ill use of that heavy Judgment that hath been upon you Content your selves with moderate gain so shall you rise again more surely though more slowly 2. Take heed of dealing hardly with the Poor and oppressing them in those ways in which you make use of them Let them have what is fit and pay them well for their labour Though your own gain for the present may be somewhat the less yet both your Comfort and the Blessing of God upon what you have will be so much the greater Never think your self a loser by using a poor man well and giving him with the most rather than with the least for the service he doth you 3. As for you whose Calling lies in giving entertainment to others 1. Take heed that you for your advantage make not your selves partakers of other mens sins by entertaining idle and intemperate persons at unseasonable hours or by giving them more drink than is fit This were the ready way to debauch the Town and draw upon you the Curses of those Families that may be ready to starve at home while bad Husbands lose their time and mispend their Money in your Houses by which their Relations should be supported Can you think that what is thus gained will ever prosper with you Would it not bring the Curse of God upon all that you have 2. Above all take heed of making your Houses the harbour and rendezvouz of leud and filthy Persons Hath God for the sins of Sodom inflicted the Judgment of Sodom upon you and dare any set up and carry on the same trade again in contempt of God and in open defiance
after the sharp and bitter Persecutions under the Reign of Queen Mary followed that blessed Sunshine of the Gospel and the peaceable and undisturbed Enjoyment thereof throughout all the long and prosperous or rather glorious Reign of Queen Elizabeth and the continuance of it to us ever since even to this day notwithstanding all the destructive Machinations wicked Plots and restless Attempts of the Enemy to deprive us of it and to put out our light in obscure darkness Now some of the reasons of this method of Divine Providence are these 1. It conduceth very much to the displaying and illustrating of the glory of God's Wisdom Power and Goodness who can so wonderfully change the most dark and dismal state of things who creates darkness and forms light Isa 45.7 Who turns the shadow of death into the morning as the Prophet speaks Amos 5.8 Who turns a Town into Ashes and Rubbish in the space of few Hours making it a place meet for Zim and Okim to take up their abode in the merciless Element where it raged scarce leaving a Lintel for the Cormorant or Bittern to lodge in or the remainders of a scorched Window to sing in And then again within the space of few years out of the Dust and Ashes to raise up a Town for the Accommodation of men and a Church for the Service of God and both with the addition of that beauty and lustre which had never been unless God had laid the Foundations of that change for the better in ruin and desolation All Beholders must needs acknowledge such admirable turns and vicissitudes of things to be the operation of his Hands who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working 2. By dark Providences by Troubles and Afflictions God fits and prepares us for Mercies Our Afflictions when sanctified humble us lay us low make us reflect upon our selves and consider our ways make us repent reform and turn to him that smiteth us and all this tends to the rendring us meet to be partakers of the Mercies which God hath in store for us For while we go on impenitently in a course of Sin blessings would be cursed to us and abuse of Mercies would increase our misery 3. Afflictions commend God's after-mercies and make them more sweet and acceptable to us as the darkness of the Night commends the light of the Morning A quiet and calm Season after a Storm how welcome how pleasant and delightsome is it Such is the unspeakable goodness of God that he so much consults our comfort as to order and dispose of the circumstances of our Mercies so as they may afford us most content and satisfaction 4. Great Troubles and Afflictions going before great Mercies dispose our Hearts to greater thankfulness for them When Mercies come in upon us in such a season and with such circumstances they greatly affect us and make deep impressions on our Hearts so as we think we can never be thankful enough we can never bless God sufficiently for them Now to apply this briefly The consideration of what hath been said concerning this method of God's Providence and the Reasons of it should perswade us and prevail with us to bear Afflictions meekly quietly and patiently and with that composedness calmness and evenness of Spirit which becomes Christians who are no strangers to the usual ways of God's Providence neither fretting against the Lord nor desponding or casting away our confidence in him Though it be night with you at present yet you may hope it will not be so always the day will return There is an interchangeable vicissitude of these Providences after darkness light breaks forth and the longer your night hath been the nearer are the approaches of the day wherefore in the most dark and disconsolate condition say with the Church of God Mic. 7.7 8 9. I will look unto the Lord I will wait for the God of my salvation Rejoice not against me O mine enemy when I fall I shall arise when I sit in darkness the Lord shall be a light unto me I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him until he plead my cause and execute judgment for me he will bring me forth to the light and I shall behold his righteousness So I have done with the first thing the Prediction of great concussions and shakings in the World before the coming of the Messiah 2. I come now to the second Particular The Promise of his coming And the desire of all nations shall come The Desire of all Nations that is Christ the object of the desire of all Nations or whom all Nations shall desire But then this must be understood of some of all Nations of as many out of all Nations as are disposed to receive him though others perhaps the generality of some Nations may be so far from desiring him that they may hate him blaspheme his Name and persecute to the Death all that acknowledge him for their Saviour But if this sense be judged too strait then by the desire of all Nations we may understand the desireable of all Nations or he who hath that in him which should render him lovely and desirable to all Nations and in respect whereof all Nations may and should desire him and so far as they know him and understand their own interest will desire him This description or character of Christ is agreeable to what the Scriptures elsewhere say concerning him The Spouse having described him and set forth his Perfections and Excellencies saith He is the thiefest among ten thousand Cant. 5.10 And altogether lovely ver 16. And Jacob Prophetically speaking of him under the Name of Shiloh saith To him shall the gathering of the people be Gen. 49.10 That is all People and Nations out of an high esteem of him and an earnest desire after him shall flow in to him So God speaking of the coming in of the Gentiles to the Church in the Times of the Gospel and under the Kingdom of the Messiah saith Behold I will lift up my hand to the Gentiles and set up my standard to the people and they shall bring thy sons in their arms and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders Isa 49.22 In that day there shall be a root of Jesseâ— which shall stand for an ensign to the people to it shall the Gentiles seek Isa 11.10 Behold my servant whom I uphold mine elect in whom my soul delighteth I have put my spirit upon him he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles I will give him for a Covenant of the people for a light of the Gentiles Isa 42.1 It is a light thing that thou shouldst be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles that thou mayest be my salvation to the ends of the earth Isa 49.6 Hence it is that the Church gathered out of all Nations is represented to St.
take off our Hearts from Sin and make us willing to leave it How should it humble and abase us and cause us even to loath our selves that we should have such wicked and vile Natures that we should be so disingenuous and that there should be such a cursed League between us and Sin that we should have so much Kindness and intire Friendship and Affection for Sin which is most odious to God and most destructive to our own Souls Vse 2. If Afflictions will work upon Men and prevail with them to return to God from whom they have gone astray when all other Means are ineffectual this should reconcile us to Afflictions and make us willing to submit to that spiritual Discipline which the most wise God thinks fit to train us up under for our Good Why should you murmur and fret against the Lord when his chastning Hand is upon you Why should your Heart rise against that wholsom and necessary Severity which he makes use of for reclaiming you Is there not a Cause Doth he not see that nothing else will prevail with you What would you have him do Would you have him let you alone and suffer you to perish in your Sins Be not so in love with your present East as to be unwilling to suffer a little here to prevent your suffering eternally in another World Be not so fondly foolishly irrationally and madly in love with Sin as to be averse from undergoing any thing whereby you may be delivered from the Power and Dominion of it Have not such mean low and unworthy Thoughts of the great and inestimable Mercy of being reduced from the Error of your Ways and brought home unto God as to think much of any Severity by which it may be effected Certainly if you judg Sin to be the greatest Evil and if you be really of the mind that 't is the greatest Happiness to be freed from it and to be at Peace with God and to be reconciled to him you will not think any Course harsh grievous and intolerable whereby it may be attained I now come to a more particular Consideration of what Manasseh did in his Affliction He besought the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his Fathers and prayed unto him In which Words we are informed what Manasseh did First in general Terms He besought the Lord his God and then we are more particularly informed how he sought him namely by Humiliation and Prayer He humbled himself greatly before the God of his Fathers and he prayed unto him Concerning the Account in general of what Manasseh did in those words He besought the Lord his God I shall say nothing because there is nothing in those general Terms but what is comprehended in the following Particulars namely that he humbled himself greatly before the God of his Fathers and prayed unto him First He humbled himself greatly before the God of his Fathers In which Words there are three things considerable That he humbled himself That he humbled himself greatly and that he humbled himself greatly before the God of his Fathers 1st He humbled himself But when was it that he humbled himself It was when God had first humbled him and not till then when God had delivered him into the Hands of his Enemies when God had caused him to be carried away captive to Babylon made him a Prisoner and put him in durance there from whence he knew not whether he should ever be released and set at liberty again Whence we may observe That proud stubborn and incorrigible Sinners will not humble themselves till God hath humbled them till by Afflictions he hath taken down their haughty Spirits and laid them low Wherefore you who turn the deaf Ear to all God's gracious Calls and Invitations to Repentance and to all his severe Denunciations of Judgments would you prevent God's humbling you by those sharp and heavy Afflictions which would be very grievous to you then humble your selves betimes before he takes you in hand to humble you This is the best Course or rather the only Course that you can take for preventing God's humbling you 1 Cor. 11.31 for if we would judg our selves we should not be judged When Manasseh lay under God's afflicting Hand then he humbled himself The Time of Affliction is the most proper Season for Humiliation For 1. Then if ever we see our Sins our Afflictions open our Eyes make us look about us and help us to discover those our Miscarriages which before we would not own nor take notice of 2. Then the Heart is softned and touched with the sense of our Sins 3. Then also the Sinner begins to have a sense of God's Displeasure against him for his Sins By the Afflictions which the Hand of God hath laid upon him he perceives that God is angry with him which he was not in the least sensible of before he was afflicted Now all these things do not a little further our Humiliation Vse Let us therefore when Afflictions come upon us improve that Season for our Humiliation else all those Advantages will be lost Now if you ask how we are to be active in humbling our selves I answer 1. By making diligent search after our Sins by labouring to find them out and acquaint our selves with them And this is no easy Work considering our natural Blindness in spiritual things our Unwillingness to know the worst of our selves our Partiality to our selves and our Aptness to overlook our Sins 2. By using our best Endeavours to affect our Hearts with our Sins which is to be done by a serious Consideration of the Nature Quality and Aggravations of our Sins as also of the extreme Danger attending them and of the dismal Consequents of Sin unrepented of and the most fearful and eternal Wrath of God which it unavoidably exposeth the Sinner unto 3. By humble and affectionate Confession of our Sins unto God with our most earnest and importunate Supplications to him for the pardon and forgiveness of them 4. By judging our selves for them and by passing Sentence against our selves as those who have by our Provocations deserved to be disowned and cast off for ever and to be made the miserable Objects of God's fierce Indignation to Eternity 5. By taking up the most firm and stedfast Resolutions to cast off all our Transgressions for the time to come and as far as God shall be pleased by his Grace to enable us never to return to Folly any more Now followeth the second Particular He humbled himself greatly as he had been a very great and most heinous Sinner And hence we may farther observe That our Humiliation must be proportionable to the Nature and Quality of our Sins A little slight Humiliation for great and grievous Sins is in God's account next to no Humiliation at all Let not therefore such as have been guilty of great and horrid Sins think it is enough for them to have hang'd down their Heads as
and desperate Condition than which nothing could easily be more sad and rueful but notwithstanding all this God wonderfully appeared for him and rescued him out of his Misery And hence we may observe That there is no Condition so sad so disconsolate and so dismal but that God can afford a Man Relief therein and will do it if he be duly sought unto Jonah upon Prayer was delivered out of the Belly of Hell as he calls it Jonah 〈…〉 dark Prison or rather a Dungeon When the Israelites should by their Sins have so far provoked God as to be made the Objects of his fiercest Indignation and to be punished seven times and seven times and seven times more for their Iniquities yet after all this God promised them Mercy upon their sound Humiliation Lev. 26.40 41 42. and sincere Repentance So again when all the Curses of the Law should have overtaken and seized on that sinful People and when for their monstrous Provocations God should have dispersed them and scattered them amongst the Nations and driven them even to the uttermost Parts of the Earth yet if after all this they should return to the Lord and obey his Voice Deut. 30.2 3 4. he promiseth to turn their Captivity and to gather them out of all Places whither he had scattered them He is graciously pleased to assure them that if any of theirs should be driven out to the uttermost Parts of Heaven from thence would the Lord their God gather them and from thence would he fetch them There are two Branches of this Point 1. He can afford Relief in the most deplorable and desperate Cases for he is all-sufficient Gen. 17.1 He wants neither Wisdom nor Power to compass and work out the Deliverance of his People how forlorn or deplorable soever their Condition may seem to be 1st As for Wisdom He is the only wise God 1 Tim. 1.17 His Vnderstanding is infinite Psal 147.5 He knows how to deliver the Godly 2 Pet. 2.9 2dly His Power is equal to his Wisdom Nothing is impossible with God Luke 1.37 Nothing is too hard for him Gen. 18.14 He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think Eph. 3.20 He is never at a Loss though we be 2. As he can so he will afford Relief in all Cases if he be duly sought unto at least so far as shall be most for his own Glory and our real Benefit and Advantage For 1st The more sad any Man's Condition is the more ready is he to relieve him Psal 103.13 and the greater Compassion hath he for him Like as a Father pitieth his Children so the Lord pitieth them that fear him 2dly The more sad any Man's Condition is the more Glory will redound to God from relieving him Now to apply this in a Word The proper Use of this Point is to incourage us to look up to God and to be humble Petitioners to him for Relief in all our Distresses never despairing of obtaining Succour as long as we have such an one to have recourse unto But to go on with the Text which informs us that God was entreated of him and heard his Supplication and brought him again to Jerusalem into his Kingdom He was entreated of him not only so as to release him out of Prison and to bring him back again into Jerusalem into his Kingdom but so as to pardon his great and hainous Provocations by which he had drawn that Misery upon himself for that Manasseh was a true Penitent we have all the reason to believe not only in regard that it is said of him that he humbled himself greatly but also that upon his Return to Jerusalem he took away the strange Gods and the Idol out of the House of the Lord and all the Altars that he had built and cast them out of the City and commanded Judah to serve the Lord God of Israel These were Fruits and Evidences of the Truth of his Repentance Now whereas such an one as Manasseh obtained the Pardon of his Sins we may observe That the greatest Sinners may find Mercy with God if they duly seek it This great Truth for such it will be deemed by all that are truly sensible of their Sins may be confirmed several ways 1. From Instances of such notorious Sinners as have upon their Repentance obtained the pardon of their Sins Instances whereof are 1. Manasseh here in the Text whose most hainous and abominable Provocations are at large described 2 Kings 21. 2 Chron. 33. 2. The Woman mentioned Luke 7.37 38. and so on to the end of the Chapter This Woman is there said to have been a Sinner that is a notorious and infamous Sinner one that was known to be a lewd and vitious Woman all the Town over insomuch that Simon the Pharisee who had invited Christ to his House took great offence at it that he should suffer a Woman of such ill Report to come near him as we may see ver 39. and yet this lewd and vicious Woman upon her sincere Repentance obtained the forgiveness of her Sins whereof our Saviour assures her ver 48. saying unto her Thy Sins are forgiven thee 3. The Thief on the Cross is another Instance of Mercy obtained at the Hands of God by a great Sinner upon his sound Humiliation and unfeigned Repentance Luke 23.40 41 42 43. 4. Another Instance hereof may be in those who are said to have used curious Arts Act. 19.19 that is who addicted themselves unto Magick and Judicial Astrology Many of these are said to have brought their Books together that is their Books of Magick and Judicial Astrology and to have burned them before all Men thereby testifying the truth of their Repentance upon which without all question they obtained the pardon of those their great and horrible Offences 5. Another Instance may be in those notorious Sinners a black Catalogue whereof we have 1 Cor. 6.9 10. namely Fornicators Idolaters Adulterers Effeminate Abusers of themselves with Mankind Thieves Covetous Drunkards Revilers Extortioners Concerning which monstrous and prodigious Offenders the Apostle adds v. 11. And such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God The Sum of all is That as bad as they were and as notoriously wicked as they had been they obtained converting pardoning and sanctifying Grace 6. S. Paul may be another Instance hereof who though according to his own acknowledgment he had been a Blasphemer a Persecuter 1 Tim. 1.13 15. an injurious Person and the chief of Sinners yet upon his Repentance he obtained Mercy 7. Another Instance may be in those wicked Jews that crucified the Lord of Life three thousand whereof being converted by St. Peter's Sermon Acts 2.36 41. obtained the forgiveness of that horrid Sin 2. That great Sinners may upon sound and sincere Repentance obtain the pardon and
forgiveness of their Sins may be confirmed several other ways As 1. Because Mercy is promised to the greatest Sinners upon their Repentance Isa 1.16 17 18. 55.7 Ezek. 18.27 28. 30.31 32. Mat. 12.31 2. Promises of Pardon made unto penitent and believing Sinners run in general Terms John 3.16 Mark 16.15 16. Acts 10.43 3. Christ invites all that feel the Burden of their Sins to come unto him promising them Ease and Refreshing if they come Mat. 11.28 John 7.37 38 Rev. 22.17 4. Christ expostulates with Sinners and complains that they come not to him for Mercy John 5.40 Mat. 23.37 5. He declareth and professeth that he will reject and put off none that shall come unto him John 6.37 Vse 1. This Truth is Matter of very great Encouragement to the chief of Sinners to come to Christ and to be humble Suitors to him for the pardon of their Sins They see that pardoning Mercy has been obtained by many of the greatest Sinners that the Promises of finding Mercy with God upon condition of Faith and Repentance run in general Terms excluding none that are so qualified they see that Christ most graciously invites all sorts of labouring and heavy-laden Sinners without exception to come unto him that he expostulates with Sinners and complains that they will not come unto him that they may have Life and lastly that he declareth and professeth that he will cast out none that come unto him that come unto him in a due manner and as they ought to come that is to say with unfeigned and sincere Repentance for their Sins past and with firm Resolutions and sincere Endeavours to cast off and forsake their Sins for the time to come Now what more can the greatest Sinners wish or desire to encourage them to seek Mercy at the Hands of God than that they may rest assured that they shall not lose their labour that they shall not seek him in vain but certainly obtain what they are Suitors to him for But here however they must be careful to seek him 1. Seasonably Isa 55.6 2 Cor. 6.2 Heb. 3.15 2. Earnestly and importunately this manner of seeking God is that which prevails with him especially when we seek unto him for so great a thing as is the forgiveness of our Sins Jer. 29.13 3. Abandoning forsaking and casting off all their Transgressions Ezek. 18.30 that Iniquity may not be their Ruine If thus they come unto Christ and seek Mercy at his Hands as hath been said before Christ will in no wise turn them off with a Repulse but assuredly and without fail entertain them graciously and give them to find Mercy with him in the pardon and forgiveness of their Sins But here desponding and discouraged Sinners be apt to object several things Object 1. Saith the Sinner that is deeply affected and sadly cast down with the sense of his Sins None ever obtained Mercy that sinned as I have done Answ 1. That is a very rash and unadvised Speech as I have elsewhere shewed at large Do you know all the Sins which all the penitent Sinners that ever found Mercy with God have been guilty of 2. Consider and ponder a little better the Instances before-mentioned Are your Sins greater than the Sins of Manasseh Are your Sins greater than the Sins of that Woman Luk. 7.37 38. who was notorious for her Lewdness all the City over Are your Sins greater than the Sins of all those foul and abominable Sinners which the Apostle reckons up 1 Cor. 6.9 10 3. If your Sins have been really greater than the Sins of any of these or all of them together yet are they greater than the boundless Mercies of God and the Merits of Christ Take heed how you entertain such a Thought 4. Are your Sins so great as that they are without the compass of all the Promises made to believing and penitent Sinners Far be it from you to harbour such black Thoughts concerning your Condition If you had upon you the Guilt of all the Sins that ever have been committed since the Fall of Adam to this day yet if you could sincerely repent of them all cast them all off and truly believe in Christ you might be sure of the pardon of them for so universal and unlimited of so large a compass and extent are the Promises of Mercy which are made to all believing and penitent Sinners that they would extend to them all and take them in This is so clear and evident that no Exception can be made against it unless by one that will be satisfied with nothing that can be laid before him or offered him for his Satisfaction Object 2. But I have run on so long impenitently and rejected so many Offers of Mercy that I fear there is no Mercy there can be none for me Answ 1. Doth not God call and invite such as well as others Are not his gracious Calls and Invitations to Repentance general Are they any where restrained or clogged with any Limitations Are they any where narrowed and straitned with the exception of any sorts of Sinners whatsoever 2. How many of those in the Old Testament and in the New that had long gone on in a sinful Course impenitently obtained Mercy at length notwithstanding the long-continued Perseverance in their evil Ways 3. Do not the Promises of Mercy to be obtained by penitent and believing Sinners extend to such as well as unto others Where are they by any Scripture excluded from Mercy And if the holy Scriptures exclude them not why should they exclude themselves 4. Doth not our Saviour assure us that all manner of Sin and Blasphemy shall be forgiven unto Men upon their Repentance Mat. 12.31 for that is ever in this matter supposed though not expressed Now if all manner of Sin and Blasphemy shall upon Repentance be forgiven unto Men then undoubtedly no truly humbled and sincerely penitent Sinners shall be denied the Forgiveness of their Sins how long soever and how obstinately soever they have gone on in their sinful Practices Object 3. But I fear I may not belong to the Election of Grace and if so then all my Endeavours to find Mercy with God would be fruitless Answ 1. You ought not to neglect your known Duty because you cannot dive into God's secret Decrees though you know not what God 's secret Counsels and Purposes may be concerning you yet he hath plainly and sufficiently revealed what your Duty is and what he requires of you in order to your Salvation It concerns you therefore not to trouble your Mind about God's secret Purposes concerning you but to apply your self with all holy Diligence to the conscientious Performance of your Duty and so doing to cast your self upon the free Grace and Mercy of God in Christ Secret things belong unto the Lord our God Deut. 29.29 but things revealed belong to us and to our Children that we may do them 2. If you perform your Duty as you ought God will be
than against your self A due Sense of your Sin and of the Dishonour you have done to God thereby would make you even out of an holy Indignation and Revenge against your self humbly and patiently to submit to the utmost of that Severity which God is pleased to exercise towards you 5. Remember how ill God took it from his People the Jews that they complained the Way of the Lord was not equal which is in effect your Complaint Concerning this he complains and expostulates with them Ye say Ezek. 18.25 The Way of the Lord is not equal Hear now O House of Israel Is not my VVay equal Are not your VVays unequal And so again ver 29. And then he adds ver 30. Therefore will I judg you O House of Israel every one according to his VVays saith the Lord God repent and turn your selves from all your Transgressions so Iniquity shall not be your Ruine As if he had said Whereas ye complain of the Inequality of my Dealings with you unless you repent I will destroy you all and then you will have little Cause to complain of my inequal Dealings They who complain of the Inequality of God's dealing with them had need take heed lest God lay Judgment to the Line and Righteousness to the Plummet as he threatens Isa 28.17 Lest he lay heavier things upon them lest he bring such Judgments on them as shall come up more nearly to the Measures the Proportion and Demerits of their Sins How much soever they have suffered God may yet lay much more upon them and yet still punish them much less than their Iniquities deserve 6. Whereas you complain that God deals more severely with you than with many others think with your self 1st That 't is possible your Sins may have been greater than the Sins of such as you have in your Eye greater in respect of the Circumstances and Aggravations of them It may be they never sinned against so much Light and so many clear Convictions against such Mercies and so many Discoveries of God's Love against so many Warnings and gentler Chastisements against so many severer Stroaks when milder Courses would not prevail Can you wonder at it that God deals more severely with you than with others if upon Examination it should be found that your Sins have been greater than theirs 2dly It may be God intends you more Good than many others By sorer Afflictions he means to make you better and so much the better as your Afflictions have been and are greater His Chastnings though severe are no Evidences of his Hatred but Fruits of his Love and of his Purpose to do your Soul much Good by them for whom the Lord loveth he correcteth Prov. 3.12 even as a Father doth the Son in whom he delighteth 3dly What if the time for correcting some others be not yet come even they who have been hitherto spared or been dealt very gently with may hereafter if milder Remedies do no good be as severely dealt with as you have been God takes his own Time and makes use of his own Methods for disciplining all his and some he sees good to handle after one manner some after another as to his Wisdom seems best 4thly What if some of those who are for the present spared should be reserved to the Judgment of the last Day while you are chastned here that you may not be condemned with the World hereafter God may spare some others in Anger and correct you in Mercy for his forbearing to punish is sometimes no Fruit of his Favour but an Effect of his highest Displeasure according to that Psal 81.11 12. My People would not hearken to my Voice and Israel would none of me So I gave them up to their own Hearts Lust Object 3. But my Troubles are long and tedious saith another there is no End of them I have been waiting and waiting for Deliverance but it comes not I see others in Trouble and I see them come well out of it but my Feet stick fast in the Mire Answ To this I answer 1. That it is not your Case alone Did not the People of God take up the like Complaint The Harvest is past Jer. 8.20 the Summer is ended and we are not saved The time when we expected Deliverance is over and yet we are still where we were our Afflictions are still lengthened out Was there not a time when Zion said Isa 49.14 The Lord hath forsaken me my Lord hath forgotten me Was there not a time when David after he had been long praying for Deliverance and waiting Psal 69.3 said I am weary of my crying my Throat is dried mine Eyes fail while I wait for my God Wherefore have no hard Thoughts of God much less give way to murmuring against him who deals no otherwise with you than he often deals with many of his own 2. Is not the Cause of God's respiting your Deliverance in your self Are not you still unfit for Mercy and is not that the true reason why you have it not God delighteth in Mercy Mich. 7.18 He waiteth to be gracious Isa 30.18 How ready God is to shew Mercy to us when we are ready and prepared to receive it he hath declared in the most pathetical way of Expression Psal 81.13 16. O that my People had hearkned unto me and that Israel had walked in my VVays I should soon have subdued their Enemies and turned my Hand against their Adversaries The Haters of the Lord should have submitted themselves unto him but their time should have endured for ever He should have fed them with the finest of the VVheat and with Honey out of the Rock should I have satisfied thee And to the same Purpose is that Isa 48.18 O that thou hadst hearkned to my Commandments then had thy Peace been as a River and thy Righteousness as the VVaves of the Sea So then we may thank our selves that in our Afflictions we wait so long for Deliverance Our Mercies never meet with any Obstructions in God but in our selves We by our Continuance in Sin by our Remisness and Slackness in the Work of sound Humiliation and Reformation retard and set back our Mercies and then we complain and murmur as if God were slack and unmindful of his Promises as if he were hardly drawn to shew Mercy 3. Deliverance out of Trouble is of God's free Grace we cannot challenge it at his Hands We bring our selves into Trouble by our Sins and he may justly leave us to perish in our Troubles He therefore who doth all that he doth for us out of free Mercy may take his own time to do it when he pleaseth Is it fit that we who are unworthy of any good thing who can demand nothing of him should prescribe Times and Seasons to him and as if we required a Debt of him set him a Day when he should shew Mercy 4. His own Time is the best Time It may seem long to us that we
may bring you to sound Repentance for them or that he may more throughly humble you for the Sins that you have truly repented of or that he may thereby rub up and renew the Remembrance of former Sins and therewith also renew your former Sorrow and loathing of your self for those Sins which Time and Forgetfulness and carnal Security have almost worn out and lastly that he may prevent your Relapses into the same Sins Thus you see that God may have many Reasons to correct you for former Sins and therefore that if you will find out the Sin for which he chastens you it will sometimes concern you to cast your Eye far back and take a View of those your former Sins which you have long ago quitted and relinquished 5thly This searching and trying your Ways is a Work that must be often repeated and that not only in regard that you every Day contract new Guilt and run afresh in Arrears with God but because your former Sins may not be discovered presently though you search after them with some good measure of Care and Diligence When we search after a thing which much concerns us to find though we light not on it at first yet we search a second and a third time and will not easily give over searching until we have found it You have been making Search after the Sin for which God afflicts you and you cannot find it you are still in the dark and cannot understand God's Intentions in laying his Hand upon you But search yet once more yea a third and a fourth time if need be you may light on that at last which you have often overlook'd Whatever the Issue of your Enquiry be you will not lose your Labour He who digged up all his Vineyard in hope to find the Treasure which he had been told was hid there though he found not the Treasure he look'd after yet he had it in another kind which he expected not the loosening and mellowing of the Earth brought him in a more plentiful Vintage the next Year If by your Search you should not at last discover any one particular Sin which you can think God aimed at in the Affliction which he hath laid upon you yet you may light on somewhat else which may requite your Pains If no other Benefit accrue to you yet the Satisfaction you have in having used so much Diligence in reviewing the former Passages of your Life will be a sufficient Recompence of the Trouble you have been at therein But yet this is not all there are divers other certain Advantages which redound to us from taking a view of our former Sins and which if it be done in a due manner we never fail of attaining though we find not the particular Sin which we look'd after It makes us more humble it raiseth our Esteem and Valuation of Christ it fills us with Admiration of the free Grace and rich Mercy of God in pardoning so many and so great Sins it inflames our Love and increaseth our Thankfulness to God and it quickens us to more Care and Watchfulness to a more constant and serious Endeavour of sincere and universal Obedience for the time to come Now though it be most seasonable to search and try our Ways in time of Affliction yet there are also some other special Seasons for this Duty As 1. At any time when we are in any great Fear or Danger then though God doth not yet strike us yet he shakes his Rod over us and therefore to prevent what may be coming upon us and to avert those Evils which we fear there can be noâ— better Course than that we make a through Search after those our Sins for which God seems to threaten us 2. After a Man hath fallen into any great Sin Such Falls do for the most part fore-run some Affliction and make for the present a Breach between God and us For the closing up of which Breach and renewing of our Peace with God it will concern us not only to be humbled for that particular Sin but to make diligent Enquiry after such other Sins as may interpose between God and us and deprive us of the Light of his Countenance and the Sense of his Love 3. When we are in Expectation of or Suitors unto God for any special Mercy For considering that our Sins separate between God and us and withhold good things from us nothing can be more seasonable or necessary than that when we are waiting on God for any special Favour we carefully search and try our Ways that no Sin may hinder our Mercies obstruct the Passage of them to us or blast the Means which we make use of for obtaining them 4. Before our more solemn and extraordinary Approaches unto God as namely before our drawing near unto the Table of the Lord. God will be sanctified in all our Approaches unto him but especially in our most solemn Approaches And in particular as concerning our drawing near unto the Table of the Lord a more than ordinary Search into our selves at that time is in several Respects seasonable 1. In regard of the express Command of God 1 Cor. 11.28 Let a Man examine himself and so let him eat of that Bread and drink of that Cup. 2. In regard of the great Danger of coming unworthily He that eateth and drinketh unworthily Ver. 29. eateth and drinketh Damnation to himself Now unless a Man search and try his Heart and Ways how can he know whether he be an unworthy Receiver or no He must needs run a great Hazard who comes Hand over Head before he hath enquired into himself whether he be a meet Guest for the Table of the Lord or not Yea 't is very much to be feared that he who is so careless as that he never enquires into his Fitness comes unpreparedly and eats and drinks unworthily 3. In regard of the great Benefits which we shall reap thereby and the Usefulness thereof in relation to the Sacrament 1st In that Ordinance we are to bewail and mourn over our Sins we must come to it with godly Sorrow for them And how can that be unless we know them And how can we come to know them unless we search after them 'T is the reviewing of our Actions that sets before us the Sins for which we are to be humbled and affects our hearts with them 2dly We are at that Ordinance to renew our Covenant with God and to take up fresh Resolutions of cleaving to him with full purpose of Heart for the future And what is more conducing hereunto than that we by a narrow Search into our selves be informed how and wherein we have departed from God and broken Covenant with him 3dly We are there to act Faith on Christ for the Pardon of our Sins and we there expect to have the Pardon of them sealed unto us in both which Respects it is then most seasonable and requisite that we should look back and take a Survey of
light that it shine not in upon us to our conviction humiliation and conversion but he makes him shuttings to do it of our own darkness prejudices false Principles and corrupt Affections I now proceed to the third Objection taken from Matth. 11.25 where God himself is said to hide the Mysteries of his Gospel from the wise and prudent Before I say any thing to this Objection I must premise That God in this matter as in other things hath a Prerogative which he makes use of and according to which he acts where and when he sees good He being the Supream Lord of Heaven and Earth as our Saviour styles him in the place whence this Objection is taken may dispose of the knowledge of the Mysteries of his Kingdom as he pleaseth freely vouchsafing it to some and withholding it from others For what can restrain him but that he may do with his own as he pleaseth Matth. 20.15 as in the person of the Householder he argues This good pleasure of God is it into which our Saviour expresly resolveth his hiding the Mysteries of the Gospel from the wise and prudent Matth. 11.26 Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto babes even so father for so it seemed good in thy sight So then reserving unto God his Prerogative I answer That yet however God's hiding the Mysteries of the Gospel from men may very much and in many cases though not universally be resolved into the sins of men For whereas there are chiefly three ways by which God may be said to hide the Mysteries of the Gospel from men namely by denying to them or removing from them the means of knowledge or by with-holding the effectual influences and operation of his Spirit to accompany the means or by permitting Satan to blind them upon consideration of the matter we shall find That the sins of men have frequently very much to do therein and contribute much towards it though even here the good pleasure of God must also be acknowlegded who permits it so to be and doth not powerfully interpose to hinder it as he might do if he saw good 1. If God deny the Gospel to men 't is often through their thrusting it away and keeping it off from themselves when 't is approaching towards them How often do men oppose themselves against it How often do men decline the light and chuse to live in places of darkness where there are no means or as good as no means of knowledge So if God remove the Gospel from a People is it not most commonly not only for their own sin but by their sin that 't is removed God for their unfruitfulness and unthankfulness for their manifold sins against the Gospel most righteously gives them up to be active and instrumental themselves in putting out the light and sending the Gospel far away from themselves 2. If God continuing the Gospel and the means of grace to a People with-hold the powerful influences and co-operation of his Spirit what is this in effect but a leaving them to themselves suffering their lusts prejudices love of sin and hatred of holiness so far to prevail in them as to shut and bar up the Soul and forcibly to keep out the light or so far to weaken the influences and impressions of it as nothing to purpose is done upon them 3. If God hide the Mysteries of his Kingdom from them by giving them up to Satan to be blinded and deluded by him the thing is still upon the matter one and the same for as hath been at large shewed Satan effects his purpose much by their own sin and makes use of their Corruptions as the Weapons of his warfare against the Soul to keep it under the power of darkness Now to apply what hath been spoken VSE 1. This gives us a true account of the reason of several Practises of the Church of Rome As 1st Of their vilifying and disparaging the Holy Scriptures as defective and imperfect as obscure and uncertain and no better than a Nose of wax that may be turned any way at pleasure that may be moulded and shaped to every man's fancy as one of that Party wickedly and and profanely reproacheth it In short Their making the word written insufficient to inform us touching the matters of our belief and practise and to lead us in the way to Heaven without the help and supplement of Human Traditions 2. Of their refusing to bring their Doctrines Worship and Practises to the Test and Touchstone of the Holy Scriptures alone and of their setting up another pretended Infallible Judge of Controversies not admitting the Scriptures to be the common Umpire and Determiner of them 3. Of their shutting up the Book of the Holy Scriptures and forbidding it to be read by the People so taking away from them the key of Knowledge What 's the reason of these their ungodly and abominable Practises but this He that doth evil hateth the light and cometh not to it lest his deeds should be reproved Their Principles are unsound and rotten wicked and abominable their Doctrine false their Worship Idolatrous their Usages vain and superstitious and therefore they hate the light of the Scriptures that discovers their Errors Cheats and Juglings therefore they decline the light and run away from it they defame and reproach it they shut it up and imprison it they do what they can to extinguish it and keep men in darkness wheresoever they have power to do it But blessed be God that we are not yet brought into bondage by them they have not yet prevailed to deprive us of the light of the Gospel we have free access to the Holy Scriptures the Bible lies open before us in our Mother-tongue O! may we never by our unthankfulness our not improving the mercies we enjoy and our other sins so far provoke God as that he should suffer the Land of our Nativity to be again overspread with that worse than Egyptian darkness VSE 2. This discovers the true reason why many that frequent Publick Ordinances love and affect such Preaching only as comes not too near the Conscience meddles not with their spiritual estate toucheth not their own particular darling and beloved sins A smooth and general Discourse that descends not to the concernments of their own Souls or it may be a serious and smart Sermon that reproves the sins of the Age or the sins of some particular Persons known to them those sins which they thomselves are not guilty of all this they can hear with much patience and perhaps with some delight Mar. 6.20 as Herod is said to have heard John Baptist gladly But if any man shall lay open and set before them the great evil of their own sins the unsoundness of their spiritual Estate while they continue in them the extream danger of their present condition the absolute and indispensable necessity of Regeneration of sincere and universal Repentance of sound Conversion
no means untried for keeping them from that place of torment VSE 6. Let no Children think it any part of their misery or unhappiness that by God's Providence they are under the government and discipline of those Parents who keep them in and restrain them who endeavour to nip the first buddings and blossomings of sin in them who will not suffer them to run with others to that excess of riot which their corrupt Natures would be gratified with in a word who use the best means they can for preventing of those evil Customs and Habits of sin which would be the misery of both Parents and Children Let them think themselves well at ease under the Discipline of such Parents and willingly submit their Necks to that Yoke which is laid upon them for their good If they understand themselves and their highest concernment they will think themselves happier a thousand times happier under that restraint than if they had all that sinful liberty which man 's corrupt Nature reacheth out after and eagerly pursueth VSE 7. Hence moreover we may learn how great a benefit 't is to live under Magistracy where good Laws are duly executed and Sin is severely punished This through God's blessing is a means of the timely stopping of that course of sin in many which without this help would end in obstinacy and incorrigibleness The wholsome severity of good Laws put in execution prevents the growth of sin and the ripening of it into those habits which making the Sinner's condition incurable ripens him for his ruin 'T is no privilege but a great misery to live in a place where evey man may do what is good in his own eyes and where there is no Magistrate to put any man to shame This was the condition of Laish before its destruction Judges 18.7 VSE 8. This shews how much thankfulness is due unto God from those unto whom God hath been pleased to give converting grace after a long course of sin by which they were so wofully hardened as nothing would work upon them When God converts old and obdurate Sinners when he cures these Spiritual Diseases that seemed now to be past all cure how doth he hereby magnify the power of his Grace and how doth he exalt the riches of his Mercy When God converts a young Sinner he quickeneth the dead but when he converts old Sinners he quickeneth those who are as it were twice dead V. 12. as St. Jude speaks dead by nature and dead by long custom in sin which had made them twofold more the Children of Hell than they were by nature If converting Grace wherever God is mercifully pleased to vouchsafe it calls for thankfulness surely when 't is vouchsafed to old sinners it calls for double thankfulness And so I have done with the Uses of this Point It remains that I answer one Objection and so conclude Obj. If custom in sin make it so extreamly difficult to leave sin if to endeavour to reclaim such a one be as it were to attempt to wash a Blackmore white this may seem to be a great discouragement to any man's endeavours for reforming old Sinners Ans 'T is certainly a great discouragement and one of the greatest that is but yet should it not take a man off from seeking the Conversion even of such For 1. 'T is a Duty and so the difficulty and doubtfulness of success doth not discharge a man from it 2. Though it be extreamly difficult yet 't is not impossible Old Sinners have sometimes obtained mercy and God hath no where declared his purpose of denying converting Grace to such absolutely and universally 3. The more inveterate the habits of sin by long custom contracted are grown the sadder is the Condition of such and the louder doth it call upon us to lend them our best help for rescuing them out of the Snare of the Devil 4. Whatsoever the issue of our Endeavour may be God will be thereby glorified 2 Cor. 2.15 and we shall be unto God a sweet savour of Christ in them that are saved and in them that perish 5. Though our Endeavours should prove succesless yet shall they be nevertheless accepted of God and rewarded Isa 49.4 I have laboured in vain I have spent my strength for nought and in vain yet surely my judgment is with the Lord and my work is with my God The Third Sermon EPHES. V. 15 16. See then that ye walk circumspectly not as fools but as wise redeeming the time because the days are evil THESE Words though containing in themselves an intire sense have some coherence with what went before as the Particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then as we render it or therefore implies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 See then that ye walk circumspectly Which Particle seems to look back upon what the Apostle had said v. 8. touching their translation from darkness to light from the darkness of Gentilism to the light of the Gospel Ye were sometimes darkness saith he but now are ye light in the Lord. Whence he presently infers in the same verse walk as children of the light And again v. 11. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather reprove them Seeing they were enlightned he exhorts them to a conversation suitable to their present state And this yet once more he presseth them unto in the words of my Text See then that ye walk circumspectly that is Being now no longer in darkness but in the light Take heed that you indulge not your selves in those sins and in that sinful liberty which formerly you did when as yet the light of the Gospel had not been afforded you Then you led your lives as you pleased following the dictates of your dark Understandings and the corrupt inclinations of your sinful Natures but now better things are expected from you This seems to be the connexion of the words with the Apostle's former discourse but I shall not take any notice of what might be observed from the coherence but keep my self to the words absolutely considered without any reflection upon the dependance of them In the words we have 1. A great and weighty Duty strictly enjoined See that ye walk circumspectly 2. An Argument by which the Duty is enforced an Argument at least implied in those words not as fools but as wise As if he had said See that ye walk circumspectly because 't is our wisdom so to walk and our folly if we do not 3. We have one special instance of our circumspect walking or in which our circumspection should be shewed redeeming the time And 4. An Argument or Reason to enforce that also because the days are evil Of all these in order The first thing to be spoken to is The Duty enjoined See that ye walk circumspectly So then the point to be treated of is That 't is our duty to walk circumspectly In discoursing of this point I shall 1. Shew what 't is to walk circumspectly 2. I
fool runs on singing and dancing to the correction of the stocks If God be pleased to take us off from running on heedlesly and securely upon these dangerous Precipices should we not look upon it as our happiness Hath he reason to think himself hardly dealt with or injured by me from whose lips I snatch away a cup of sweet and delicious Poyson which he is endeavouring to swallow down as greedily as if it were a Cordial 2. Yet is not this all God calls us off from these killing Pleasures that we may exchange them for better for safe sound and substantial Pleasures true Delights satisfying Contentments durable and lasting Joys Such are to be found in the ways of God and the more any man denies himself as to all sinful Delights the more strictly heedfully and circumspectly he walks the more of these spiritual Comforts and Refreshings may he hope to enjoy Obj. 2. Many of those who seem to walk circumspectly and to be of a very strict and severe conversation seem to lead but heavy and uncomfortable lives For who are more full of sad Complaints and inward Troubles Who are more subject to doubtings and dissatisfactions about their spiritual Estate Who are more held under bondage through the fears of their Eternal miscarrying than many of these Ans Though all this be true yet is this no prejudice no just prejudice to circumspect walking For 1st The cause hereof is mostly in themselves and not in the ways of God neither is it in the least to be attributed to their circumspect walking but rather to their not walking more circumspectly Their own carelesness and want of due heed and circumspection in their ways their venturing on sin or inconstancy and slothfulness in holy Duties or some other miscarriage is often the true cause of all their troubles Were they more circumspect they would be freer from troubles 2. Sometimes their troubles arise from their darkness and misapprehensions of the Covenant of Grace and the Terms on which God offers mercy unto Sinners 3. Sometimes their troubles arise from their unbelief and from their refusing to be comforted and their putting off and thrusting away from themselves those Comforts which God reacheth forth unto them 4. Sometimes their troubles are much from the temptations of Satan God for divers wise and gracious Ends permitting them to be so exercised But however it be and from what cause soever their troubles proceed while they are in God's ways they are in the ways of peace and all shall at length end in peace 5. In the mean time their condition at present with all its disadvantages is a thousand times better than the condition of those who spend their days in sinful Frolicks and even glut themselves with carnal Pleasures and sensual Delights and suddenly go down to Hell and there meet with so much the more torment and sorrow by how much they lived more voluptuously and deliciously here O thrice miserable is their condition who go from their heaven of sensual Delights and Satisfactions here to an eternity of Misery and torment in the other World And thrice happy they who having made choice of the narrow way that leadeth unto life through many inward troubles and fears and much outward tribulation also if need be enter at last into the Kingdom of God That blessed and glorious Kingdom where all tears are wiped from their eyes where sorrow and sighing shall flee away and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads And so much in answer to that Objection Obj. 3. The God whom we serve is a God of mercy Mich. 7.18 Psal 145.9 He delighteth in mercy And his tender mercies are over all his works There is no Attribute of God which the Holy Scriptures do more exalt and magnify than his Mercy His Mercies being so great why may we not hope to find mercy with him although we take some liberty and be not so strict and circumspect Can we apprehend that a God of so great mercy will be so severe as to condemn us cast us into Hell and expose us to everlasting Torments for want of this circumspection Ans Though the Mercies of God be exceeding great yet saving mercy is not extended to all but reserved for those that fear him Psal 103.17 18. for such as keep his covenant and remember his commandments to do them 'T is for the truly humbled penitent and reformed Sinner He that confesseth his sin Prov. 28.13 and forsaketh it shall have mercy God shews mercy to them that love him Exod. 20.6 and keep his commandments But as for such as plead God's mercy to justify themselves in their careless and loose conversation these must expect no mercy from him God never promised saving mercy to any that are not so strict as to make conscience of the least sin and so circumspect as to keep a watch over themselves that they be not overtaken with sin Without some measure of this circumspection no man can satisfy himself touching the truth of his Repentance without which there is no forgiveness no mercy to be looked for at the hands of God For true repentance necessarily includes a sincere desire and serious endeavour to relinquish all sin Now how can this serious and earnest endeavour to leave all sin be without such an holy wariness and circumspection as that which hath been treated of Can an uncircumspect and careless person that heeds not what he doth or how he walks that takes liberty to please himself that sticks not to run upon any temptations to sin that lie in his way can this person be thought to be one that seriously and earnestly endeavours to forsake all sin Nothing less he that truly desires and seriously endeavours to forsake Sin will be circumspect and watchful if he be not 't is apparent that he hath no great edge against his Sin there is as yet no such deadly feud between him and his Sin as is required in every true Penitent Obj. 4. Christ hath freed us from the Law and Believers now under the Gospel are more at liberty than formerly they were What necessity therefore is there of so much strictness and circumspection How doth such a severe course of Life consist with the liberty that Christ hath purchased for us Ans Christ hath indeed freed us from any Obligation to the Ceremonial Law and from the Moral Law as a Covenant of Works that requires perfect and unerring obedience we are not to be justified by the works of the Law but by Faith in Christ But however the Moral Law is still in force as the Rule of Life and we are still under the commanding power thereof And that we are so is manifest several ways 1. Mat. 5.17 Christ himself expresly declares that he came not to destroy the law but to fulfill it And the Apostle even when he disputes against justification by the works of the Law is so far from asserting that we are freed from the obligation
experience Men of great skill and abilities that understand the World and know how to manage ther Affairs to the best advantage that lay many wise Plots and have many ingenious Designs for raising themselves and advancing their Estates that by their wit and forecast put themselves into many very probable ways of attaining Riches yet they do but labour in the fire lay out their wit and spend their strength for nought All their Projects and Contrivances are but as the Spider's Web finely and curiously spun indeed and drawn out of the very bowels of the Creature but instantly broken to pieces and swept away with one little brush of the Besome If God do but blow upon mens wisest Counsels for advantaging themselves they are presently blasted they wither fade away and come to nothing And so we may observe on the other side That men of far weaker parts less skill less forecast and contrivance less ability for managing their Affairs yet many times through the blessing of God who giveth power to get wealth attain unto great Estates In these as in all other things God's blessing and over-ruling Providence are all in all The Psalmist discoursing of the inconstancy and instability of all earthly things cries out Surely men of low degree are vanity and men of high degree are a lie To be laid in the ballance they are altogether lighter than vanity And hereupon he counsels men not to rely on any of these things nor to suffer their Affections to be fastened to them If riches increase Psal 62.9 10. set not your heart upon them And then presently he adds in the next Verse God hath spoken once twice have I heard this That power belongeth to God As if he had said 'T is a Divine Oracle worthy to be believed which I have heard from the mouth of God more than once That power belongeth to God 't is in the hand of his Providence to dispose of these things to give them and take them away again at pleasure and therefore he and he only is to be trusted in and relied on And as for Riches so again for Poverty 't is an effect of God's Providence also though many times as a just punishment of mens wastfulness prodigality unthriftiness idleness and many other sins But many there are who though they be industrious and unblameable yet the most wise Providence of God keeps them low still and whensoever they begin to get something about them and to put up their heads a little God provides somewhat to pull them down again that meaner Condition being that which his Wisdom judgeth to be meetest for them We use to say Some are born to be poor There is somewhat of truth in it if we understand it aright As God hath as it were destined and ordained some to be rich so he hath destined some to poverty Poor they are and poor they shall be do they what they can to shake of their poverty they shall never be rid of it Neither yet ought any man to be offended at this dispensation of God much less to charge God foolishly as if he had not done herein what is best Foolish man may be apt to think how much better it had been if God had made all men rich and Poverty had been a thing which the World never knew But let no man oppose his own foolishness to God's Wisdom Who hath been his counsellor Rom. 11.34 Shall any teach God knowledge Job 21.22 It becomes us weak blind and shallow Creatures that we are ever-more to think well of what God doth whether we can discern the grounds and reasons of his Providence or no and to have a holy veneration even for those his Works the causes whereof we do not understand nor are able to give an account of But as to the matter in hand though perhaps it may not be needful nor expedient that we should know all the reasons which God had for putting such a difference between men making some of them to be rich and others poor yet some imperfect account of some of the reasons of this Dispensation we can give That God doth no man any wrong in with-holding the things of this World from him while he is pleased to load others with his benefits giving them as much as heart can wish will be readily granted by all who acknowledge God's Sovereignty and allow him to have a rightful power to do as he pleaseth with his own Besides who can challenge any thing a crumb of Bread or a drop of Water at the hands of God He that hath least must he not confess that he hath more than he hath deserved Who hath first given unto him saith the Apostle Rom. 11.35 In him we live and move and have our being And seeing he hath given us our being and all our Powers and Abilities we can render nothing to him in way of service or otherwise but what we have received from him Can we deserve any thing at his hands by rendring him that which was his own before that which we owed him Again besides all this we have all by our manifold sins and continual provocations deserved to be deprived of whatever mercy we enjoy We should long ago have been turned into Hell if we had had our due and been dealt with according to our sins And how much more then have we deserved to be stripped of all our Comforts Be it never so little and so mean that you have you had not now had it if God had been extream to mark what you had done amiss It had been all gone it had been snatcht away from you in displeasure if God's patience and long-sufferance had not stood you in more stead than any deferts of your own Well then this I take for granted that he who is in the poorest the most destitute the most forlorn the most desolate and despicable condition among you all is convinced that God hath done him no wrong nor can do any man wrong by denying him that which he is not bound to give him Now moreover that God in putting such a difference between men is not only just but most wise and good may appear to any man that shall duly consider this dispensation 1. 'T is for the Order and Beauty of the Universe that there should be variety in the World and interchangeable Vicissitudes of things Winter and Summer Spring and Autumn Sickness and Health Prosperity and Adversity Light and Darkness do all contribute though in several ways to adorn and beautify the Creation and set forth the Power Wisdom and Goodness of the Creator And even those things which in some mens eyes may seem to be the spots and blemishes of the Creation for so men of profane spirits may be too prone to judge of them do as well contribute to the beauty and lustre of the whole as those things that are of eminent beauty and perfection Even Monsters serve to set forth and commend the Wisdom and Goodness of
the worst of all the Kings that went before him shall find that in all manner of abominable Wickedness he exceeded them all His Sins were of a most horrid Nature Idolatry Witchcraft consulting with Wizards and such as had familiar Spirits his causing his own Son to be burnt in way of Sacrifice to his Idols his barbarous Cruelty in shedding innocent Blood in that abundance that he filled Jerusalem with it from one End to the other Moreover as these his Sins were hainous and abominable in their own Nature so were the Aggravations of them such as greater or higher could not easily be These Aggravations hath the Spirit of God in the History mentioned and in a special manner insisted on 1. That he wrought all this Wickedness notwithstanding the good Example that his Father Hezekiah had given him 2 Kings 21.3 2 Chron. 33.3 2 Kings 21.4 by his Zeal against Idolatry That he built up again the high Places which his Father had destroyed 2. That he built Altars in the House of the Lord of which the Lord had said In Jerusalem will I put my Name Ver. 7. That he set a graven Image of the Grove that he had made in the House which God hath chosen to place his Name therein for ever It had been an horrible Sin if he had only built his Altars and set his Images any where else how much more to set them up in the House of God the Place which God made such account of and so highly esteemed that he should set up his Idols in that Place as it were in Defiance of God and of his Worship there 3. That he should not content himself to have offered other Sacrifices to his Idols unless he had also offered his own Son in Sacrifice and caused him to pass through the Fire 3. That he did worse than those Nations which God destroyed and cast out before them for their Sins that the fearful Examples of God's Severity against them should not deter him from committing the same and greater Abominations If you demand how this could be how it was possible that Manasseh should do worse than those Heathen Nations that were cast out and destroyed for their Sins I answer 1. Manasseh and his People had those Means of Grace which those Heathen Nations never injoyed Manasseh and his People sinned against that Light which was never vouchsafed the Amorites and this did not a little heighten their Sins 2. Manasseh erected more Images and Idols than the Amorites had The several Nations in Canaan generally kept themselves to those particular Gods which they called their own but Manasseh multiplied his Idols 3. Those Nations were not wont to change their supposed Gods but strictly adhered to them Thus did not Manasseh and his People and in this Respect their Idolatry was worse than that of the Heathen as God by the Prophet Jeremiah sets it forth and aggravates it Hath a Nation changed their Gods Jer. 2.11 which are yet no Gods But my People have changed their Glory for that which doth not profit The Gods of those Heathenish Nations were no Gods and yet those Nations would not cast them off and take up other Gods they stuck and adhered to them stedfastly and resolutely and would not exchange them for the true God but Manasseh and his People forsook the only true and living God that made the Heavens and betook themselves to the Worship and Service of false Gods they changed their Glory for such was the true God to them while they owned him alone and cleaved to him they changed their Glory for them that were no Gods but the Work of Mens Hands In these Respects Manasseh did worse than the Heathen 4. Another Aggravation of his Sin was that whereas the shedding the Blood of one innocent Person had been a crying Sin he shed it at such a rate that he filled Jerusalem with innocent Blood from one End to the other there was no Part of that great City where the Blood of innocent Persons that had been causlesly spilt was not to be seen and where the Cry of it might not be heard So great and so hainous were this Man's Sins and so high were the Aggravations of them Now in the Words which I have read we are informed how God was pleased to deal with him what Courses he took to reclaim him and his People and what was the Effect thereof upon him and them This in the General More particularly in the Words following In the Words we have 1st God's great Mercy to him and his People in calling them to Repentance and in giving them warning of approaching Judgments in case they should still persevere in their Sins and Impenitency The Lord spake unto Manasseh and to his People as 't is here briefly express'd but more fully in 2 Kings 21.10 11 12 13. The Lord spake by his Servants the Prophets saying Because Manasseh King of Judah hath done these Abominations and hath done wickedly above all that the Amorites did which were before him and had made Judah also to sin with his Idols Therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel Behold I am bringing such Evil upon Jerusalem and Judah that whosoever heareth of it both his Ears shall tingle And I will stretch over Jerusalem the Line of Samaria and the Plummet of the House of Aliab and I will wipe Jerusalem as a Man wipeth a Dish wiping it and turning it upside down 2dly We have the Obstinacy and Impenitency of Manasseh and his People they would not hearken 3dly We have an Account of that further Course which God took with Manasseh in order to his reclaiming when gracious Calls and Invitations to Repentance and Warnings of approaching Judgments would not prevail The Lord brought upon them the Captains of the Host of the King of Assyria which took Manasseh among the Thorns and bound him with Fetters and carried him to Babylon 4thly We have an Account of the Effect which this severe Course had upon Manasseh When he was in Affliction he besought the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his Fathers and prayed unto him 5thly We have the Issue of his humbling himself seeking God and praying to him God was intreated of him and heard his Supplication and brought him again to Jerusalem into his Kingdom 6thly We are informed what Manasseh gained or what he learned by all this Then Manasseh knew that the Lord he was God To speak of these Particulars in order 1. We have in the Words God's great Mercy to Manasseh and his People in calling them to Repentance and giving them Warning of approaching Judgments in case they should still persist obstinately and impenitently in their sinful Courses This gracious and merciful Dealing of God with Manasseh and his People may afford us these two Observations I. That God is graciously pleased to call and invite Sinners to Repentance and to give them Warnings of the Judgments that are hanging over
their Heads before he brings his Judgments upon them This is the usual Course of God's Providence he is not wont to surprize Men with his Judgments before he gives them any notice of the Danger they are in but he first warns them calls them to Repentance and threatens them if they shall still continue in their Impenitency and when all his Warnings are slighted then he strikes Thus he warned the old World and called them to Repentance by the Preaching of Noah all the while the Ark was a building Thus by the Prophets he called the Jews to Repentance and threatned them with the Captivity if they repented not Thus Christ himself called them to Repentance and in case of their Impenitency still persisted in threatned the utter Desolation and Destruction of the Temple and City of Jerusalem by the Romans Now the Reasons why God is pleased thus to deal with Sinners why he thus calls them to Repentance and gives them warning before he strikes are principally these two 1st That by their timely Repentance and Reformation they may prevent his Judgments and that he may have no Occasion of using that Severity against them which if they repent not will be necessary both for the Vindication of his Honour and in order to their Humiliation and Reformation God doth not afflict willingly Lam. 3.33 nor grieve the Children of Men. He takes no Delight in severe Courses unless where there is a Necessity of them in regard that gentler Means do no Good 2dly He gives Warning calls to Repentance and promises Mercy upon Repentance before he strikes to the End that if Men will take no Warning if sin they will and persevere still in their Sins whatever it costs them the Justice of his Proceedings against them may be cleared that the Sinners themselves may be rendred inexcusable and every Mouth may be stopped or be enforced to acknowledg that he is righteous even when he punisheth them most severely Vse 1. If God be so gracious as to call to Repentance and give Warnings before he strikes let us not be unconcerned at such Warnings let us not flight them or contemn them neither let our Hearts fret or rise against them but humbly patiently and thankfully entertain them and carefully improve them If God's Design in them be to prevent Punishments let not us by our slighting and disregarding them draw those Evils upon our selves which they are designed to keep off 'T is a dangerous thing not to take Warning when 't is given us when God gives it that he may bring us to Repentance by it The Admonition that Ely gave his Sons and the Representation that he made to them of the Danger of their sinful Practices was in effect a Warning from God but they regarded it not and what was the Issue but their Ruine The Spirit of God saith 1 Sam. 2.25 That they hearkned not to the Voice of their Father because the Lord would slay them Psal 68.21 God shall wound the Head of his Enemies and the hairy Scalp of every one that goeth on still in his Trespasses And the making good of this Threatning may They above others expect that still go on in their Trespasses against Warnings and especially if they still go on against many Warnings Prov. 29.1 He that being often reproved hardneth his Neck shall suddenly be destroyed and that without Remedy Do we believe this If we do how should we hasten to make our Peace with God especially such of us as have long gone on in our Sins against all Warnings and Calls to Repentance We may think perhaps that because we have been long warned and threatned and yet still God holds his Hand and forbears to strike we are in no Danger it may be the long Patience which God hath exercised towards us makes us regardless of his Warnings and now at length we begin to make account that we may safely enough go on in our old Ways there is no such Danger as hath been pretended But let us take heed how we thus abuse the Patience and Long-sufferance of God Whatever our present Thoughts are or how much soever we may now flatter our selves these two things we shall certainly find in the end 1. That how long soever God may bear with us yet he will fulfil his Threatnings in the end unless by our Repentance we prevent them Heaven and Earth shall rather pass away Mat. 24.35 than any one Word that he hath spoken shall fall to the Ground 2. The longer God is pleased to bear with us and wait for our Repentance the more severely will he handle us at last if still we refuse to be reclaimed Long-continued and abused Patience usually ends in Fury I kept silence said God to the wicked Man the obstinate Sinner that would not be reclaimed I had long Patience with him And thou thoughtest that I was such a one as thy self My Forbearance of thee made thee think that I was much of thy mind and had no great dislike of thy evil Ways Psal 50.21 22. But I will reprove thee and set thy Sins in order before thee Consider this ye that forget God lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver you As if he had said Though I have born long with thee yet thou art much mistaken if thou thinkest that I will always bear with thee The longer I stay the more terrible and irresistible will my Judgments be when I reckon with thee and come upon thee at last Vse 2. If God be pleased to call Sinners to Repentance and to give them Warning before he punishes them then let all such as are punished justify God and acknowledg that they suffer justly and that they have no reason to complain of God but of themselves For having offended and deserved Punishment God gave them Warning before he would correct them but they would not take Warning If they be punished they may thank themselves they might by their Repentance have prevented it but they would not Vse 3. The same Consideration should also perswade Sufferers to bear with Patience what God is pleased to lay upon them for their Sins They have wilfully made themselves Sufferers and drawn those Evils upon themselves which God would never have inflicted on them if any Warnings would have made them sensible of their Danger and have reclaimed them if any Calls and Invitations to Repentance and Offers of Mercy would have prevailed with them taken them off from their sinful Courses and gained them Is there not all the reason in the World that they should undergo with Patience those Evils which they would bring upon themselves notwithstanding all the Means which God made use of to keep them off Hab. 2.10 Thou hast consulted Shame to thy House said God to the King of Babylon When impenitent Sinners will take no Warnings when they will not be perswaded to take that Course by which alone Punishments may be prevented they
be coming on the Nation We read Ezek. 9. that God commanded a Mark to be set upon the Fore-heads of the Men that sighed and cried for all the Abominations that were done in the midst of Jerusalem that the Executioners of his Wrath might pass them by and spare them And 't is also the best Course that we can take for obtaining Mercy for the Land and for averting those Judgments which the Sins thereof cry aloud to Heaven for By the Intercessions of a few thus humbling themselves for their own Sins and mourning for the Sins of others the Wrath of God is sometimes turned away from the Places where they live But however they are sure to deliver their own Souls though they cannot obtain Mercy for others as we may gather from Ezek. 14.14 And this may suffice to have been spoken concerning the Lord's bringing upon Manasseh and his People the Captains of the Host of the King of Assyria What these Captains did and with what Success they managed their Business is express'd in the Words following They took Manasseh in the Thorns and bound him with Fetters and carried him to Babylon They took Manasseh in the Thorns it was as it seems a Place of Thorns or Thickets whither Manasseh in the Dread and Consternation of Spirit under which he was had fled to hide and shelter himself from the Enemy So we read in 1 Sam. 13.6 that the Israelites being greatly distressed by the Philistines that oppressed them did hide themselves in Caves and in Thiekets and in Rocks and in high Places and in Pits Now whereas Manasseh though a King was brought into that Distress that he was constrained to hide himself in the Thorns from his Enemies we may observe That great Men and Persons of high Places and great Dignity may sometimes be reduced to great Extremities and be put to make use of hard Shifts to preserve themselves Sisera the Captain General and Commander in chief of the Army of Jabin King of Canaan Judg. 4.15 16 17. was forced to light off his Chariot and on his Feet to betake himself to the House of Heber the Kenite to save his Life which yet he could not do but lost it there by the Hand of a Woman Zedekiah King of Judah and his Nobles were constrained to dig through a Wall to make way for their Flight in the Night Ezek. 12. Jer. 39. that they might not fall into the Hands of the Chaldees and yet was Zedekiah taken by them and being bound with Fetters saw his Sons slain before his Eyes and then after that lamentable Spectacle the last that ever he saw had his Eyes put out All Ages and even our own times have been full of the like Instances of the Mutability and Uncertainty of all earthly things The Consideration hereof may be useful to us several ways 1. Hence may such as are in Places of Eminency above others or enjoy more of the things of this World than others do learn not to trust in their Riches Honour Power Greatness or whatever else it is in which they excel others All these things are fading and transitory they are inconstant and unstable they have their Turns and Revolutions he that is full to Day may be empty to Morrow he that is now uppermost may e're long be nethermost How high soever any Man be God can bring him low enough before he dies Obad. 4. Although thou exalt thy self as the Eagle and though thou set thy Nest among the Stars yet thence will I bring thee down said the Lord to Edom. Of this sad Change Jeremiah complains and laments over it Lam. 4.5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the Streets they that were brought up in Scarlet imbrace Dunghills A remarkable Instance we have of the Instability and Uncertainty of these temporal things in Belisarius a great and famous Commander of the Forces of Justinian the Emperor This renowned and victorious General after that he had subdued the Persians overcome the Goths and vanquished the Vandalls and by these his Victories raised himself so high as that he became the Object both of the Fear and Envy of Equals and Inferiours was at length reduced to that Want and Misery that he was constrained to beg by the High-way-side crying out to Travellers that passed by Date Obolum Belisario give a Half-penny to Belisarius Let no Man therefore make Account that he stands so fast and firm but that his Feet may slip and he may take a Fall and the higher he is the more dangerous will his Fall be Neither is there any thing that threatens a Man more with a Fall than carnal Security and a vain Confidence of the Firmness and Stability of his present Station and the Unchangeableness of that prosperous Condition in which he is When David said Psal 30.6 7. In his Prosperity I shall never be moved Lord by thy Favour thou hast made my Mountain to stand strong God did but hide his Face and he was troubled 1 Thess 5.3 When Men shall say Peace and Safety then sudden Destruction cometh upon them as Travail upon a Woman with Child and they shall not escape Rev. 18.7 8. When Mystical Babylon saith I sit as a Queen and am no Widow and shall see no Sorrow Then shall her Plagues come in one Day Death and Mourning and Famine and she shall be utterly burnt with Fire for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her 2. Hence you may also learn not to insult over those who having formerly been in a better Condition are now brought low their present Condition may be your own you have no absolute Security against being emptied from Vessel to Vessel as they have been or against being subjected to the same Changes which they have undergone The Consideration hereof should beget in you Moderation towards Sufferers and such a compassionate Sense of their Adversities as becomes them who remember that they themselves are still in the Body Heb. 13.3 as the Apostle speaks 3. Seeing the Highest may be brought low and none are exempted from being obnoxious to Changes and Adversities it concerns all to prepare for Changes and to be always in a readiness to entertain them And those whose Condition hath elevated them above the common Sort and set them on high have so much the greater reason to be prepared for Changes because they are most in danger of them they being more exposed to Concussions and Shakings as the tall Oaks and lofty Cedars are more exposed to the Violence of Storms and Tempests than the lower Shrubs are Again it concerns these above others to labour to be prepared for Changes because they are so apt to think themselves to be above the reach of them For this fond Conceit is attended with two great Mischiefs 1. Their fancying themselves above the reach of Changes exposeth them to Changes so much the sooner for the evil Day is so much the nearer unto Men by
how much they put it farther off from themselves 2. When Changes come upon Men that had no expectation of them and that made sure account they were in no danger they are surprized with them and the Surprizal makes them the more grievous to them Quest But you will say Though none no not the highest be exempted from being subject to Changes yet may not something be done towards the preventing of Changes and securing our selves against them Answ I answer Though nothing that can be done can absolutely secure the highest against Changes yet there are some things that do very much conduce towards Mens Safety and Security and they are these that follow 1. Humility To have a low and humble Heart in a high Condition is both a great Ornament and a great Security to a Man Solomon saith Prov. 29.23 A Man's Pride shall bring him low but Honour shall uphold the humble in Spirit And St. James saith out of Solomon also though with some little Alteration Jam. 4.6 Prov. 16.18 God resisteth the Proud but giveth Grace unto the Humble Pride goeth before Destruction and an haughty Spirit before a Fall And again Before Destruction the Heart of Man is haughty Prov. 18.12 and before Honour is Humility I shall add but one Place more which shall be Job 40.10 11 12. where God himself speaking to Job and setting before him for his Humiliation God's incomparable Greatness and transcendent Excellencies manifested in the Effects of his Power Wisdom and Goodness saith Deck thy self now with Majesty and Excellency and array thy self with Glory and Beauty cast abroad the Rage of thy Wrath and behold every one that is proud and abase him Look on every one that is proud and bring him low In which Words God tells Job what he is wont to do and bids him do the like if he be able thereby to convince him of the infinite Distance between God and him But that which is to my present Purpose is that God here makes his casting abroad the Rage of his Wrath and his beholding every one that is proud that he may abase him and his looking upon every one that is proud that he may bring him low an Instance of the great Works of God's most wise powerful and righteous Providence So then this is the constant Course of his Providence to behold and abase whoever is proud and he is said to cast abroad the Rage of his Fury when he doth it to note the high Indignation that he hath against that Sin Prov. 6.16 17. which therefore is said to be an Abomination to him These six things doth the Lord hate yea seven are an Abomination to him A proud Look a lying Tongue and Hands that shed innocent Blood c. So then a proud Look is in Solomon's Catalogue the first of those Sins that are an Abomination to the Lord. By these Scriptures it is apparent that the Sin of Pride is most hateful and abominable in the sight of God that he casts his Eyes about and beholds every one that is proud that he may abase him and bring him low that he resisteth the Proud and sets himself against him but supports and upholds the humble in Spirit Wherefore I say if such as are high would prevent a Fall they must be humble 2. They must acknowledg the free Bounty and Goodness of God in what they are or have above others and give him the Glory of it They must not think that they shine in a higher Orb and have more of the World than others have because they are better and have deserved more at the Hands of God than others but reckon that they owe all to the pure and undeserved Mercy of God which alone hath distinguished them from him that is clothed with Rags and begs his Bread from Door to Door Thus Jacob professed himself unworthy of all that God had done for him and conserred on him I am not worthy of the least of all the Mercy Gen. 32.10 and of all the Truth which thou hast shewed unto thy Servant And so David in an humble sense of his utter Unworthiness of what God had done for him cries out 1 Chron. 17.16 Who am I O Lord God and what is my House that thou hast brought me hitherto Your acknowledging God in what you are and have and your giving him the Glory of it is one good Mean for obtaining the continuance of what you enjoy for God delights to do good to them that humbly and thankfully acknowledg his Goodness But when you take no notice of God in what you enjoy when you give him not your humble and thankful Acknowledgments thereof and ascribe all to his his free Mercy then are you in the ready way to be deprived of whatever you have received at his Hands Thus when God's People did not know that is did not thankfully acknowledg that God gave them Corn and Wine and Oil and multiplied their Silver and Gold then he threatned to take away his Corn in the time thereof Hos 2.8 9. and to recover from them his Wool and his Flax which he had given them to cover their Nakedness Our humble and thankful Acknowledgment of God in what we have is the Tribute and Homage the high Rent as it were which he expecteth from us and when this is not duly paid him we forfeit all into his Hands 3. If such as are in Place of Eminency above their Brethren and are intrusted with a larger Portion of the good things of this World than others have would prevent a Fall and obtain at the Hands of God the continuance of these his Mercies to them they must make a good use of what they excel others in and of what they are intrusted with above their Brethren Hath God placed them in a higher Sphere above their Brethren Hath he made them the Head and not the Tail Let them use their Power not to crush and oppress their Inferiours but to strengthen support and uphold them Hath God richly furnished them with a plentiful Portion of outward Things Let them make a sober and temperate use of them themselves and be helpful to others out of that Abundance which God hath blessed them with This is the way to secure to themselves what through the Bounty and Goodness of God they are at present possessed of The liberal Man deviseth liberal things Isa 32.8 and by liberal things he shall stand This is one special Duty properly belonging to those whose Cup God hath made to overflow Charge them that are rich in this World 1 Tim. 6.17 18 19. that they be not high-minded nor trust in uncertain Riches but in the living God who giveth us all things richly to enjoy that they do good that they be rich in good VVorks ready to distribute willing to communicate laying up in Store for themselves a good Foundation against the time to come that they may lay hold on eternal Life But when
a Bulrush for a day or two as those Hypocrites whose Carriage the Prophet describes Jer. 58.5 or to have made some slight and formal Confession of their Sins when they are now just ready to go out of the World This forced and half-Humiliation cannot be acceptable to God for it argues that such a Man hath neither any true sense of the Hainousness of his Sins nor of the high Displeasure of God against him for his Sins much less any sincere and firm Resolutions to forsake his Sins if God should raise him up again and lengthen out his Life for some longer time That you may be duly and soundly humbled for your Sins 1. Give your self no Rest until you be fully convinced of the hainous Nature of your Sins and the various Aggravations of them by which they have been heightned As 1. That your Sins have been so often repeated renewed and acted over again and again 2. That they have been committed against so many Cautions against them as you have had against so many Warnings so many Admonitions and Reproofs 3. Against so many Chastisements and so much Experience of the bitter Fruits of Sin 4. Against so many Mercies which should have led you to Repentance 5. That they have been committed against so many Purposes and Resolutions against so many Promises and serious Ingagements to the contrary and perhaps against so many solemn Vows and Covenants 2. Acquaint your self with the Threatnings of God against those your Sins and the high Displeasure of God therein manifested against you for them 3. Be an humble Suitor unto God that he would be pleased to break your Heart and according to his Promise to take away your stony Heart Ezek. 36.26 and give you a Heart of Flesh But be sure that you be in good earnest when you offer up this Suit unto God beg this Mercy with the greatest Importunity or other ways never expect to obtain it then and then only shall you seek God and find him Jer. 29.13 when you shall search for him with all your Heart And though you should not presently obtain what you seek unto God for yet give not over seeking him if you seek him with Constancy and Perseverance you shall be sure to speed in the End Gal. 6.9 In due time you shall reap if you faint not But you will say How may a Man know that he is truly and soundly humbled that his Humiliation bears some Proportion with the Quality and Degree of his Sins Answ 1. He that is truly effectually and soundly humbled will loath and abhor himself for his Sins so did Job Behold I am vile saith he Job 40.4 what shall I answer thee I will lay my Hand upon my Mouth And again I abhor my self Ch. 42.6 saith he and repent in Dust and Ashes This is that Frame of Spirit which God expects should be found in a sincerely penitent truly humbled and effectually reformed People they should remember and be confounded Ezek. 16.63 and never open their Mouth any more that is they should remember all their Abominations be confounded in the serious Thoughts and Remembrance of them and never open their Mouth any more to justify themselves 2. He that is truly effectually and soundly humbled will freely acknowledg and aggravate his Sins he will be so far from extenuating and lessening his Sins that he will lay them open and represent them as fully as he can and in his Confessions of them lay all the load on himself that he is able he will not spare himself or in the least favour himself in the Charge and Indictment which he brings in against himself Thus David making Acknowledgment of his Sin gives it its full Aggravations 2 Sam. 24.10 saying I have sinned greatly and I have done very foolishly And afterwards when he saw the Angel of the Lord stretching out his Hand against the People Ver. 17. Lo I have sinned and I have done wickedly but as for these Sheep what have they done Let thy Hand I pray thee be against me and against my Father's House An unhumbled Sinner would have shifted off all the Blame upon others as did Saul 1 Sam. 15.15 excusing himself he pleaded that the People had spared the best of the Sheep and the Oxen to sacrifice unto the Lord But David took all the Blame upon himself and wholly exempts his People from it 3. The Sinner that is truly effectually and soundly humbled will justify God in all that is come upon him for his Sins So Daniel acknowledging his own Sins and the Sins of the People saith To thee O Lord Dan. 9.7 8. belongeth Righteousness but to us Confusion of Face to our Kings to our Princes and to our Fathers because we have sinned against thee This Acknowledgment he makes after a long Recital of those heavy Judgments which for their Sins God had inflicted on them thereby clearing him from any unjust Severity which he had exercised upon them To the same purpose it is that Ezra making Confession of his own Sins and of the Sins of that People freely acknowledged that though they had suffered grievous things yet they had been punished less than their Iniquities deserved Ezra 9.13 God had in Wrath remembred Mercy even when he treated them with most Severity 4. The Sinner that is truly effectually and soundly humbled will meekly and patiently submit to God's Corrections and lay himself at the Feet of God while he is chastning him He will accept of the Punishment of his Sin as the Phrase is Lev. 26.41 He will cordially say with the Church Micah 7.9 I will bear the Indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him He will humbly say with Eli whatsoever his Sufferings are It is the Lord that thus handles me 1 Sam. 3.18 It is the Lord let him do what seemeth him good In like manner David expresseth his humble Submission to the good Pleasure of God when he lay under his correcting Hand when he fled from Absalom he ordered the Ark to be by Zabok carried back into the City â— Sam. 15.25 26. saying If I shall find favour in the Eyes of the Lord he will bring me again and shew me both it and his Habitation But if he thus say I have no Delight in thee behold here am I let him do to me as seemeth good unto him 5. The Sinner that is truly effectually and soundly troubled will take a holy Revenge upon himself in reference to those things to those particular Instances of his Life in which he has most provoked God and incurred his Displeasure Cor. 7.11 To manifest his Indignation against himself for the Sins by which he hath most highly dishonoured God he will deny himself some of those lawful and innocent Liberties which he might other ways without Sin make use of It now follows in the Text that he humbled himself greatly before the God of his Fathers Which Words
meet his Sin full-but as they say yet meeting it so disguised he takes no notice of it but lets it pass as a Man doth the Malefactor he is looking after when he finds him not in that Apparel by which he was described In all these Respects a diligent and narrow Search is necessary if we be in earnest and truly desirous to find out our Sins From what hath been spoken touching the difficulty of discovering our Sins we may infer 1. That some convenient Time must be set apart for this Work when a Man may wholly apply himself thereunto and when he may have nothing to distract or hinder him If a Man will find out his Sins he must search narrowly and carefully as hath been said he must look into every Corner of his Heart he must survey and consider all his Ways his Thoughts Words and Actions how he hath carried himself in his general or particular Calling how he hath discharged every Trust how he hath performed the Duties of every Relation in which he stands Such a thorow Search as this will not easily be made a few slight Thoughts or overly Reflections on himself while he is in a Croud of Businesses while his Heart and Head are full of the World will do little towards the discovery of all his Sins many of which do not appear in open view but so withdraw and hide themselves as it will cost a Man some time and pains to get a sight of them 2. That he who would so search after his Sins as to find them must get his Heart affected with a true hatred of Sin and a sincere willingness to forsake it For though Sin must be found out before it can be forsaken yet a Man must be willing to forsake it before he can readily find it out The reason is because so long as a Man is unwilling to leave his Sin he will be unwilling to find it and so will never seek narrowly and strictly after it When once we are fully convinc'd of the Evil and Danger of Sin when once we hate it unfeignedly and are resolved to do our utmost to be rid of it then shall we search after it with a Mind to find it then shall we make the most diligent and impartial Inquiry into our selves that it may not escape our Eye 3. We may also further infer that when we address our selves to this Work we must be suspicious and jealous of our selves We are too willing to favour our selves and to indulge our selves in some particular Sins which have gotten an Interest in our Affections and we are furnished with many Colours and Artifices to cover them over and hide the Evil of them from our Eyes 'T is therefore fafe and needful that we should suspect our false and deceitful Hearts and preserve a continual Jealousy of our selves lest we should be too favourable and kind to those Sins which lie nearest our Hearts whether they be profitable or pleasurable Sins or of what other Nature or Quality soever 4. We may likewise hence be informed how much it concerns us to implore God's Assistance in this Business that while we apply our selves to search and 〈◊〉 ways he would be pleased to search and try us as David's Prayer was Psal 139.23 that he would discover our Siâ—â— to us and give us a Sight of them than he would help us against the Deceitfulness of our Hearts and against our Self-love that he would enable us to search so narrowly and impartially as we may not overlook our Sins and more especially that he would be pleased to discover to us those particular Sins for which he doth afflict us Without this our Recourse to God in Prayer and his Assistance obtained all our searching will be to little purpose Now in the next Place the time of Affliction is a proper Season for this Duty For 1. Then God by his Chastisements doth as it were summon us to reflect and enquire after the Cause within our selves The Rod of God hath a Voice Micah 6.9 and it calls upon us for this Duty Every Providence of God hath its proper Language by which it remembers us of something that is expected from us Mercies call for Joy and Thankfulness and Afflictions for Reflection and Consideration Eccl. 7.14 In the Day of Prosperity be joyful but in the Day of Adversity consider We must then consider what God's Meaning and Intentions may be in laying such Afflictions on us and what those our Sins may be for which he so corrects us 2. 'T is then seasonable to search and try our Ways because that is the readiest and most effectual Course we can take for obtaining the Removal of our Afflictions I mean if we search and try our ways in order to the finding out of our Sins that we may forsake them and accordingly forsake them when we have found them out For the end of God's Chastisements being the taking away of our Sins Isa 27.9 and the cleansing and purifying of us from the Defilements thereof Dan. 12.10 When God hath his End we being turned from our evil Ways he hath by many Promises assured us that he will be at Peace with us So Jer. 3.12 Return O backsliding Israel saith the Lord and I will not cause mine Anger to fall upon you When thou art in Tribulation if thou turn to the Lord thy God and shall be obedient to his Voice he will not forsake thee neither destroy thee Deut. 4.30 31. Let the Wicked forsake his Way and the unrighteous Man his Thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have Mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon Isa 55.7 Neither particular Persons only but even whole Nations returning to the Lord find Mercy with him for the averting or removing of his Judgments Jer. 18.7 8 At what Instant I shall speak concerning a Nation and concerning a Kingdom to pluck up and to pull down and to destroy it If that Nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their Evil I will repent me of the Evil that I thought to do unto them Hereupon the People of God sorely smitten and wounded are encouraged to return to him in Confidence of Healing if they return Hosea 6.1 Come let us return unto the Lord for he hath torn and he will heal us he hath smitten and he will bind us up How sad and deplorable soever their present Condition were they made no question but all their Wounds should be healed and all their Breaches should be made up if they returned to God But now what must lay the Foundation of their Return or what must be the first step towards it but a diligent Search after their Sins by which they had departed from him The Neglect hereof is that which continues and prolongs our Afflictions whatever other Means we make use of to relieve our selves thereby But of this more hereafter when I come to speak of the second Duty
of God calls the accepting of the Punishment of our Sins Lev. 26.41 But if the Sinner be not convinced that he suffers for his Sins and that his Transgressions have been the Procurers of his Afflictions it cannot easily be but that his corrupt Nature should rebel against God and impatiently rise up against his Providence as unequal too rigorous severe 2dly Neither can a Man profit by his Afflictions unless he be convinced that his Sins have been the Cause of them and that God strikes at them in his Sufferings Who can think himself concerned to amend and reform that upon the account of his Afflictions which he never discerned to be the Cause of them nor can be convinced that they have any relation to it But let a Man once be throughly apprehensive of the Displeasure of God against him for his particular Sins and see the Hand of God in his Afflictions striking at those Sins and then he will soon think himself highly concerned to rectify or remove out of the way that which hath done him so much Mischief He will think he cannot make too much haste to quit and be rid of that for which he sorely smarts already and may yet smart more unless by his speedy Reformation he prevent it When God had sent a Plague among the Israelites for their murmuring Moses being deeply sensible of the fierce Wrath of God against them for that Sin saith to Aaron Numb 16.46 Take a Censer and put Fire therein from off the Altar and put on Incense and go quickly unto the Congregation and make an Atonement for them for there is Wrath gone out from the Lord the Plague is begun Go quickly saith he for Wrath is gone out from the Lord. A lively Sense of the Anger and Displeasure of God in your Afflictions for your Sins will speed and quicken your Endeavours to make your Peace with God by answering the End of his Corrections 3dly Neither can you rationally expect to be freed from your Afflictions in a way of Mercy until they bring you to the Sight of your Sins and you look upon them as the Punishment of Sin For till that be done upon you your Afflictions are wholly fruitless as having done no part of that Work for effecting of which God sent them To understand why you are afflicted and to see the Sins which God strikes at in your Afflictions is the first Step towards God's attaining his End in afflicting you If this be not done upon you nothing is done And therefore you have no Reason to expect the Removal of them unless it be to make way for some other more smarting Rod which may effectually work that in you which God intended But though in these Respects it be most necessary to see and own our Sins as the Cause and Procurers of our Sufferings yet to do it is as difficult as 't is necessary For such is the Pride and Stubbornness of our Hearts that we are not easily brought to take Shame to our selves and to acknowledg our own particular Sins to have been the Cause of our Sufferings saying to our selves as God saith to Jerusalem Jer. 4.18 Thy VVay and thy Doings have procured these things unto thee We are very unwilling to acknowledg our own Guilt and would much rather lay the Cause of our Sufferings at any other Door than our own And this we are especially apt to do in publick and common Calamities These we ascribe 1. To Chance or common Providence in which we do not think our selves particularly touch'd or concern'd 2. To the Wickedness of some malicious and mischievous Instruments that were the Contrivers and Causers of our Sufferings 3. To the Sins of others The Provocations of such and such profligate and abominable Persons drew down the Judgments of God upon the Place and not our own Offences As for our selves we suffered only in the Croud and because we were found among those who were to be punished Or 4. If we acknowledg our Sins in the general to have been the meritorious Cause of our Sufferings yet we descend not to Particulars we charge not our selves with such and such Sins for which God hath been angry with us And so our owning our Sin only in general as the Cause of our Sufferings is but a formal thing with which we are little affected 'T is little better than if we had said We believe indeed that we have deserved all that is come upon us but we know not how nor wherein Ezra no doubt went a great deal further 't is not to be questioned but that he had in his most passionate Confessions an Eye upon the particular Sins for which they suffered in Babylon We may be sure they were not Generalities only that so deeply affected him he had upon his Heart the particular Instances of their vile Provocations together with the Circumstances of them and so must we if we desire to be affected with God's terrible Providences as we ought and to take them to Heart in a right manner Though what I am now speaking concerns us all yet there may be those amongst us who may think themselves very little concerned therein 1. Those who though they have been Sufferers together with others yet have been free from all those foul and enormous Offences and high Provocations which many others have been guilty of and possibly over and above their being free from the Guilt and Stain of fouler Sins they have been such as have made a stricter Profession of Religion than most others These Persons may be very inclinable to think that God did not particularly intend the correcting of them for their Sins in the common Judgment that lighted upon the Place but that they suffer rather upon their Neighbours Account than their own 2. Of the same Opinion perhaps may they be tempted to be who seem even as to outward things to have gained by their Afflictions and to be in a better Condition as to Trade than they were in before 'T is easy for such if any such be to entertain themselves with a pleasant Dream that God only emptied them to the end he might fill them fuller than they were before and that he had no other Design in pulling down their Houses than that he might build them up fairer But let neither the one nor the other deceive themselves They would but flatter themselves if they should think that God did not aim at their Sins in his severe Providences as well as at the Sins of their Neighbours As for the former of these though they may have been free from the fouler Abominations and crying Sins of the Place and though they may have made a strict and high Profession of Religion yet even such may have been tainted with the Pollution of many Sins which may have had no small Influence in procuring the heavy Judgments of God upon the Town And their Sins in respect of their nearer relation to God and stricter Profession
accompanied with some pleasure And so are sinful actions when custom hath made them familiar to us and given them as it were the stamp of Nature 'T is strange that a Man should be sensible of any pleasure or delight at all in some sins and yet through custom there is that content and complacency in them that it is as death to forsake them To sit in an obscure Ale-house and to be continually pouring in that which to a sober Man would be little better than a Potion to spend days and nights in a dark hole amidst the stink of Vomits and Spewings round about to the blasting of a Man's Reputation the impairing of his Health the mis-spending of his time and the wasting away of that which it may be Wife and Children want at home who would think there should be any content in such a Life And yet there are who by custom have made it so pleasurable to them that they prefer it before all the contents and satisfactions that a fair House a Table richly spread and the Society of their nearest Relations can afford them and whatever other advantages and accommodations might render their converse at home comfortable and delightsom If custom hath once made such base and dirty ways of sin pleasant you shall in vain tempt them out of them or indeavour to draw them off from them by the fairest and most taking proffers that you can make them 3. Custom in sin blinds the mind and corrupts the judgment so that a man ceaseth to be a competent judge of the nature of things and of the differences between good and evil By degrees he is besotted and comes to be in great measure deprived of the reason of a man so far hath sin darkened his understanding and weakened his Intellectuals for judging of Spiritual things He is given up to a reprobate mind Rom. 1.28 as the Apostle speaks he puts good for evil and evil for good light for darkness and darkness for light And when the light of reason is darkened and the Eye of the Soul is put out when the leading and governing Faculty of the Soul is thus depraved it must needs be a difficult thing to draw a man off from those ways the evil whereof he cannot discern nor will be apprehensive of 4. Custom in sin seareth the Conscience and draws such a callus or brawniness over it as it becomes insensible At first there is some tenderness of Conscience some reluctancy and shrinking back from those sins which after a frequent repetition and customary practice of them a man makes no bones of but smoothly swallows down He that at first durst not tell a Lie or if he were at any time overtaken was wont to be much troubled afterwards yet upon a customary practice of that sin will add Lies to Lies and stand to them most impudently and obstinately He that seemed to fear an Oath will through customary Swearing arrive at that degree of insensibleness that he will not stick to multiply Oaths and Perjuries also if need be and all this without any touch of remorse any gainsayings or grudgings of his Conscience Now when a Man through custom in sin comes to that pass that his Conscience is quiet and doth not either interpose before the commission of sin to hinder him or molest him and disturb his peace afterwards 't will be no easie matter to disengage him from that sin 5. Custom in sin doth consequently harden the heart against all means by which the Sinner should be reclaimed 1. It hardens the heart against the Word The threatnings thereof and all the most dreadful denunciations of Judgments make no impression upon such a Mans heart 't is as Steel or Adamant that will not yield or relent 2. Neither will the wholesome Counsels Advices or Admonitions of Friends and Christian Acquaintance work upon it He hath no sense of any thing which in that way is offered him for his good His Ears are stopt against the voice of the Charmer Charm he never so wisely 3. He is fortified with Armour of proof against all Providences by which he might be stopt in his course of sin or reduced from the Errour of his ways Let God oppose him in his sinful course let him hedge up his ways with Thorns or stand before him with a drawn Sword all is one on he will fearlesly and presumptuously and adventure himself upon the thick Bosses of his Buckler in Job's phrase 6. Custom in Sin emboldens Satan to tempt Where the Conscience is tender and the Heart is sensible of the evil and danger of Sin and where he hath been formerly resisted and repelled there if he tempt yet he doth it with less confidence of prevailing and with some degree of Cowardly Expectation of being worsted but where he hath to do with those who have been long accustomed to the Sin he would again draw them into he makes little question of prevailing as knowing well the searedness of their Consciences the hardness of their Hearts and their strong propensions to the sin unto which he is about to tempt them as also remembring how often his Temptations in the same kind have already been successful 7. By Custom in sin God is provoked to leave a Man to himself to the power of Satan and the efficacy of Temptation and in way of his righteous Judgment to give him up to a further degree of impenitency and hardness of heart VSE 1. Then let such as have been long accustomed to any ways of Sin take heed that they make not account it will be an easie matter to leave those ways You may be apt to think that you can come off from those your sinful courses at pleasure that 't is but take up Resolutions against them and you shall be disengaged and freed from them presently But herein you would much deceive your self 'T is not so easie a matter to deliver your self from the power of that sin which you have been so long accustomed unto When you address your self to endeavour to leave it you will find other work of it You may take up Resolutions upon Resolutions and yet you may be still where you were at first as much enslaved to your Sin as ever and as unable to resist any Temptation to it They must be strong and firm Resolutions and those frequently renewed that will stand you in stead where Sin hath by custom gotten such possession of you And besides you must look higher than your own Resolutions you must earnestly implore God's help against your self so miserably brought under and subjected to the power of Sin Never think to prevail against those Sins which Custom hath strengthened and confirmed in you without much Prayer to God great watchfulness over your self and diligence in the use of all other means whereby the power of Sin may be weakened VSE 2. You must therefore acknowledge it to be a great Mercy if you meet with Crosses and Afflictions in your sinful ways
early and before longer Custom in Sin hath produced those confirmed radicated and obstinate habits of Sin which cannot easily be removed God is very gracious to some this way he takes them up sharply and chastens them severely betimes They no sooner enter upon the ways of Sin but he opposeth himself against them and hedgeth up their way with Thorns This is very grievous and afflicting to our corrupt Nature which can endure no restraint But we little consider or understand how much we are obliged to God for his Care of us herein How many others are there whom he suffers to go on in their Sins without check or controul till they contract those strong habits of Sin which they are never rid of as long as they live Do you think your self hardly dealt with that God doth not suffer you also to take your course and make your self as vile here and as miserable hereafter as others 'T is God's exceeding great kindness to you that he imbitters unto you the beginnings of Sin and strews the first entrance into sinful ways with Briars and Prickles so that you cannot go on but you must hurt your self It seems you would have liked it better if the way to Hell had been strewed with Roses for you Beware you do not misinterpret God's Providence If he be pleased to use seasonable means to make you weary of the ways of Sin before you are more hardened in them count it a singular favour and an effect of that his gracious care of you for which you can never be enough thankful VSE 3. This discovers the folly and danger of deferring Repentance and especially of putting it off till the time of Sickness or till our Deathbed The longer we defer Repentance the more difficult will the business be through so long custom in Sin If you find it hard at present to think of leaving your Sins what will it be hereafter when they will have taken deeper root in you and when your habitual Inclinations to them will be stronger And as for putting off Repentance till the time of Sickness or Death what wise Man would put off a work of the greatest Importance and the most difficult work and a work that will be still more difficult every day the longer 't is put off I say what wise Man would put off such a work till that time when he will be weakest and most unable to undertake it and go thorough with it Are the infirmities of Sickness are the pains and languishings of a Death-bed likely to make you stronger and abler for this work Is that a fit season to be chosen beforehand for beginning to break and subdue those inveterate Corruptions in you that have been gathering strength all your days Your greatest and most implacable Enemy the Devil himself could not direct you to the choice of a more unfit season for that business And yet besides who knows whether or no you shall then have any opportunity of endeavouring to do any thing in that great work which you put off till then as if it were of all other the fittest season for it Who can tell you but you may be so suddenly and violently surprized with Sickness and cut off that you may have no time to bestow one serious Thought upon that Business which is of no less Concernment to you than your Souls Eternal Happiness or Misery Or if you should not be so quickly taken away yet who can tell but you may then be deprived of the use of Reason and what then will become of this great business which being put off till that time must be then dispatch'd or never VSE 4. This should admonish the younger sort to remember their Creator in the days of their youth Eccl. 12.1 as Solomon counsels them To consecrate their tender years to God before custom of sin hath strengthened vicious Inclinations in them and hardened their hearts against God As 't is much more acceptable to God when we give him the First-fruits when we offer up to him the flower of our age so 't is much more easie and comfortable for us For hereby we prevent those habits of sin which time and custom would beget to our far greater trouble afterwards Those Vices which in younger years discover themselves are more easily pluck'd up as young Weeds out of the Soil in which they have not as yet taken any deep root Old habits of sin so close do they stick to us so deeply are they rooted in us and so strongly and intricately are their Roots twisted together with our Nature that the plucking of them up is as the rooting up of a great Oke that hath the advantage of many years growth to settle it self in the ground You who are young if you be wise create not so much trouble to your selves as to let sin grow old and strong in you before you break it off or pluck it up by repentance VSE 5. This should also prevail with Parents to be very careful of their Childrens Education beginning to restrain and beat down sin in them in season that so custom in sin and all the sad effects thereof may be prevented How happy had it been both for many Parents and Children if seasonable Restraints and Chastisements had been applied before the customary practice of sin had made them obstinate and incorrigible The neglect whereof how much sorrow and heart-breaking doth it occasion to Parents and how much sin and misery to Children Nothing is more ordinary than to hear the sad Complaints that Parents make of the stubbornness and untractableness of their Children and of those sinful courses which they addict themselves unto and cannot be drawn off from by all the means they can think of to reclaim them But whom may too many Parents thank for it rather than themselves whose indulgence to them or neglect of them in their tender years hath been the cause They would not begin with them in season while they were tender and pliable and now they are by long practice of sin become stubborn and refractory then they would not restrain them and now they cannot do it And what greater mischief can Parents do their Children than by giving them the head and laying the Reins on their neck when they are young whereby they come to be irreclaimably and desperately hardened in sin when they grow up While Parents complain of Children may not Children as justly complain of Parents that have by their neglect of them betrayed them to sin and Satan Many such Children when by their sins they have come to shameful ends have most passionately cried out against their Parents whose ill Example or neglect to correct them had brought them to that misery and could we listen to the Language of those who are in Hell there is no doubt but our ears would tingle to hear the lamentable Outcries and curses of the Souls of undone Children against those whose Parental Relation should have ingaged them to have left