is for men to refuse the presence of God Was there ever wickedness like this that the great God should be as an unbidden guest with his own creatures and have no better entertainment than Christ with the Gaderens who besought him to depart out of their Coast yea which is far worse rejected as Christ was by the possessed in the Gospel Mat. 8.29 What have we to do with thee art thou come to torment us before the time Secondly Consider it will be a very terrible day when God and Christ depart from such persons God threatens it as a sore judgement upon Jerusalem Jer. 6.8 Be thou instructed O Jerusalem lest my Soul depart from thee When God departs in comes all Judgements for it follows in the Text Lest I make thee desolate Desolation comes as soon as God is gone yea saies the Lord Hos 9.12 Woe to them when I depart from them And though he depart from such by removing his Counsells Gospel and Ordinances He will still be with them in judgement when he is far from their Affections he will be nigh to their Consciences then he will shew his terrour and his wrath and then they shall find that as there is not a sweeter promise than this I will never leave thee nor forsake thee so not a more terrible judgement than this I will not love thee nor abide with thee Thirdly Use of Lamentation Let us lament our selves who have had God and Christ making their abode with us for many years in their special Providence Gospel Ordinances c. Yet we have not improved so glorious a Presence so rich a mercy especially we have cause to lament this four-fold neglect First That we have so little acquainted our selves with God and Christ so little prized and observed their Presence with us that we have learn'd no more of God and Christ but are yet strangers to them so that Jesus Christ may say to us as in Joh. 14.9 Have I been so long time with you and yet hast thou not known me Philip so he may say to us Have I been so long time with you in my Providences Ordinances and by my Spirit and yet have you not known my Goodness my Faithfulness my Name my Laws and Ordinances Sure it is with most of us as with Jacob Gen. 28.15.16 The Lord was with him and he was in his Dream and when he awaked he said Surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not So God hath been with us but we have been in a dream or in a sleep all this while but when God shall awaken us we shall say with him God was in this place and we knew it not Secondly We may lament our selves that we have so little conformed to God and Christ God hath been with us but we have refused his company as Ephe. 2.12 And had our conversation as without God and without Christ in the world O when God and Christ shall depart from us it will be a heart-breaking to us and we shall dearly repent the least miscarriages Thirdly We may lament that we have not lived more upon God and Christ to trust in them and depend upon them for life and Salvation and made him our Counsellour Guide and Strength and lived upon his All-sufficiency we have not made them our Sanctuary our Treasury our Happiness though they have been with us in whom are all things Yet have we lived at so poor a rate as to our spiritual comforts as if we had been under the Hypocrit's Curse Job 20.22 In the fulness of his sufficiency he is in straits Or guilty of that vanity mentioned in Eccle. 6.2 To have Riches and Honours c. and not a heart to use them To have a God and Christ in whom are all Riches and Honours and have had no Faith to use them for our comfort we have even starved our selves at the fullest Table and Spring-head of plenty Fourthly We may lament our selves that we have not taken more pleasure in the enjoyment of God and Christ in the Gospel and Gospel Ordinances accounting all Company and delights solitarinesse in comparison of the joy and comfort that is in the abode of God and Christ especially when God expects we should rejoyce in him and hath promised to abode with such Isai 64.5 Thou meetest him that rejoyceth and worketh Righteousnesse and remembreth thee in thy wayes Use 2 Two Uses of Exhortation 1. To get the Presence of God and Christ with us 2. To endeavour to keep God and Christ abiding with us The first Use of Exhortation Let us be Exhorted above all desires to desire Gods presence and above all getting Get God and Christ to make their abode with you O with what Ardency and heat of desire doth David expresse himself Psal 27.4 One thing have I desired of the Lord that will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the dayes of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to enquire in his Temple and so in Psal 42.1,2 As the Hart pants after the water brooks so panteth my Soul after thee O God My Soul thirsteth for God when shall I come and appear before God O when wilt thou come unto me and in a multitude of such like Pathetick breathings after God And that we may the more earnestly desire this mercy the abode of God and Christ with us Consider three particulars First Consider the presence of God and Christ is the special favour and honour that God bestows only upon his own people By this was Israel distinguished from all the world Exod. 33.16 My presence shall go with thee and in the last verse of the last Chapter of Ezekiel It is the Church only that is call'd Jehovah Shammah The Lord is there her Founder Preserver and Governour Secondly Consider that they that have God and Christ with them dwell continually at the Fountain Head of Consolations as David sayes Psal 23. I shall want nothing The Lord is my shepheard My Cup runs over Surely Goodnesse and Mercy shall follow me all the daies of my life This Fountain keeps our Cisternes full our Channels run shallow sometimes but never are they dryed up Hos 14.5 I will be as the Dew unto Israel He shall grow as the Lillie and cast forth his roots as Lebanon they shall grow up as the Lillie beautiful and fair and as the Cedar well rooted and established He that hath the Sun hath Light He that hath the Well must needs have Water Ille possidet omnia qui possidet possidentem omnia He hath all things who hath him from whom all things come Thirdly Consider that when all Comforts leave us God will not when Friends forsake and Riches profit not in the evil day God is a present help in time of trouble and loves to shew himself in Dubiis Arduis in the greatest difficulties and on the Mount of straits Jesus Christ sayes truly to us what Peter said rashly to
such a store that he is alwayes full He hath an Antarchy in himself and saies to his creatures as in Psal 81.10 Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it ask what you will and there 't is to be had There be full Treasures of temporal and spiritual good things with them with whom God and Christ do make their abode As the Ark of God brought all kind of blessings to the house of Obed-edom so when God comes he brings all things Deus meus omnia My God and all things When Jesus Christ came to Zacheus he tells him This day is Salvation come to thine house that is both temporal and spiritual preservations and deliverances Salvation doth consist in the total absence of all evil and in the presence and possession of all good Secondly God and Christ have left with us the promises of the Covenant to live upon till we come to the inheritance of the purchased Possession These be like the Widows Cruse that never fails this like the Manna will not be with-held while we be in the wilderness till we come into Canaan to feed on the fruits of that Land Heb. 13.5 That 's a sure Promise in which we may by faith see present supplies I will never leave thee nor forsake thee and in Phil. 4.19 we may possesse in that Promise whatever we want My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus Thirdly God hath given us his Son and Jesus Christ hath given us himself as an ensuing pledge of all mercies contained in the promises Rom. 8.32 He that spared not his own Son but gave him for us how shall he not with him also freely give us all things He that hath not spared his Son will not with-hold any mercies he that hath given us the best of blessings will not with-hold smaller mercies He doth alway tell his people as in 2 Cor. 12.9 My grace is sufficient for you Thirdly The abode of God and Christ with Believers is their Heaven upon Earth All our happiness is in the abode of God and Christ with us First Consider it is a wonderful mercy of the great God that by his common Providence he is with the works of his hands which is mans safety and David admires at this Psal 8.4 Lord what is man that thou art mindful of him and the Son of man that thou visitest him Secondly Consider it is a mercy of the greatest worth and to be for ever admired that God and Christ do not only visit us by common Providence and Inspection as his creatures but make their abode with us as with children and friends O this is our glory God doth not come with a short visit for a day for a few days but makes an everlasting abode The Church complained when she thought God was departed because he had been with them and made so short a stay Jer. 14.8 Why shouldst thou be as a stranger in the Land and as a way-faring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night c. but when she remembred the Covenant of eternal abode she comforts her self in the 9. verse Yet thou O Lord art in the midst of us To be ever with the Lord is all we can hope for and it is mans contemplative happinesse to converse in his thoughts with that Glory First Consider Jesus Christ hath promised this as our great Glory and full reward I will take you to my self they shall behold my glory 17. Joh. verse 24. 1 Epist Joh. 3.2 We shall be like him 〈◊〉 we shall see him as he is Secondly This abode with God and Christ is the highest option and aim of all the people of God This was Pauls pressings in Phil. 3. That he might attain to the resurrection of the dead i. the state of them that are risen and with God and Christ Therefore resolves after a long debate with himself Phil. 1.21 To be with Christ is best of all and David in Psal 73. at the latter end professes He had none in Heaven but God and there was none upon earth that he desired in comparison of him Use 1 Use First of Lamentation and laments three sorts of persons First Let us lament such as be without God and Christ in the world all ignorant and ungodly persons yea this is the sad case of all the Sons of Adam ever since he sinned and lost communion with his God They be brought forth into the world with their backs upon God and with Gods face against them What was Cain's grief how was his heart hurried into a world of inconceivable distempers and distracting thoughts when he must be turn'd out of Gods presence from the enjoyment of God in his Ordinances Gen. 4.14 Behold thou hast driven me out this day saies poor Cain from the face of the earth but this is as nothing and from thy face shall I be hid and now where is my comfort and safety it shall come to passe that every one that findeth me shall slay me Such persons be as Lambs in a large place Hos 4.16 Without a Keeper in their most plentiful state What hope have such to escape Hell and Destruction Consider these two particulars First Consider it is a very sad case when God and Christ withdraw or depart but for a moment 't is a sad and intolerable moment as we see in the complaint of Christ when God withdrew himself from him My God my God why hast thou forsaken me and in the example of David Asaph and Heman in Psal 77. and Psal 88. and the whole Church laments in Jer. 14.8 Secondly Consider if God and Christ do never come to make their abode with us here we are never like to make our abode with them hereafter and then it were better we had never been born Psal 73.27 They that are far from thee shall perish And this is Hell to be separated from God and Christ 2 Thes 1.8.9 They i. the wicked shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power It is Heaven where-ever God is in his special abode and that is Hell where He is not present in his mercy and grace Secondly Use of Lamentation Let us lament over a worse sort of men and they be such as in Job 21.14 That say to God depart from us for we desire not the knowledge of thy wayes That refuse the word of Christ and be weary of God and his Ordinances and so reject God as if one house could not hold them both as the peoin Isa 30.10.11 Who say to the Seers see not and to the Prophets prophecy not c. Cause the Holy one to cease from before us They that stop the mouths of them that speak the word of Christ or turn away their ears from harkening to that which is spoken say in effect Let God be gone let Christ depart from us First Consider what an evil frame of spirit it