of the Law that he doth with much vehemency affirm the contrary Rom. 3.31 Do we then make void the law through faith God forbid saith he yea we establish the law 2. Our Saviour in his preaching every where presseth Obedience to the Moral Law and urgeth the Duties thereof And in particular his most Divine and Excellent Sermon on the Mount doth in great part consist of that subject 3. In that Sermon he doth not only press the Duties of the Moral Law but vindicate the Law it self in many particulars and more strictly enforceth Obedience thereunto and severely threatens the Disobedient 4 He declares Mat. 5.20 that if our righteousness exceed not the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees who yet went very far in many things we shall never enter into the kingdom of God Promising Mercy to no Sinners but such as take his yoke upon them Mat. 11.29 And letting all workers of Iniquity and wilful Transgressors of the Law know that he will never acknowledge them for his but utterly disclaim them and cast them off at the great day of their appearance before him notwithstanding all their pleas and pretensions for being owned by him Mat. 7.23 5. As Christ himself ever called for Obedience to the Moral Law and urged the Duties thereof so did the Apostles after him St. Paul in his discourse with Felix Act 24.25 reasoned of righteousness and temperance and judgment to come And writing to the Corinthians he saith 1 Cor. 69 10. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God Be not deceived neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor abusers of themselves with mankind nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God All which being Sins against the Moral Law exclude Men out of Heaven so strictly doth God still even now under the Gospel insist on and require Obedience to the Moral Law Rom. 13.1 2. And thus the Apostle presseth the Duty of Subjects to Magistrates the Duty of Parents to Children and of Children to Parents Col. 3.18 19 c. Col. 4.1 as also the respective Duties of Husbands and Wives Masters and Servants He that peruseth these Scriptures how can he think that the Moral Law is now out of date and no longer in force to them that have embraced the Gospel and by Faith received Christ 6. The Gospel is so far from discharging the Professors thereof from Obedience to the Law that it more strongly enforceth Obedience and lays an higher Obligation thereunto upon Christians than was laid upon the Jews in regard that greater Light and more powerful Motives and Inducements to Obedience are now afforded Hence those severe and terrible threatnings in case of Disobedience This is the condemnation Joh. 3.19 that light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil Mat. 3.10 Now is the Ax laid to the root of the trees therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewen down and cast into the fire Christ comes with his fan in his hand Luk. 3.17 and he will throughly purge his floor and gather the wheat into his garner but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty Angels 2 Thes 1.7 8. in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the Gospel Tit. 2.11 12. And what doth the grace of God revealed in this Gospel teach us but to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly righteously and godly in this present world 7. Did Christ ever intend by his death to purchase for us a liberty of sinning Did he not therefore give himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works And lastly on whom was the injunction of walking circumspectly here in the Text imposed Was it not on Believers And this may suffice to have been spoken to that Objection Obj. 5. If so much heedfulness and circumspection be required of Christians what will become of many that profess the Christian Religion We see no great numbers of them that are so strict and circumspect shall they all perish notwithstanding all the Priviledges which they enjoy in the visible Church who attain not to this circumspection A. Our Saviour hath plainly declared Mat. 20.16 Mat. 22.14 that many are called but few are chosen And again That wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be that go in thereat and that strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life Mat. 7.13 14. and few there be that find it What can we say against such plain express and absolute passages of Scripture delivered by the mouth of him that is Truth it self and can neither deceive nor be deceived A very weighty and dreadful Truth it is that calls upon us all to give all diligence that we may be found in that small number which we are never likely to be unless we walk circumspectly If to walk circumspectly be a Duty incumbent on all Christians who is there amongst us all that may think himself exempted from it Who can plead for himself that he hath a particular Dispensation to lead his Life in another manner and to go to Heaven upon easier terms than others may But perhaps you will say though we are all enjoined to walk circumspectly and though it be a Duty incumbent on all yet 't is not enjoined as absolutely necessary to Salvation We may hope God intends not to shut all out of Heaven that have not walked circumspectly This were very hard A. I answer briefly If it be a Duty to walk circumspectly then 't is a Sin not so to walk and every Sin unrepented of excludes a man out of Heaven If any Man think this to be hard he must know that as hard as it is God will never alter the terms on which Eternal Life is offered men and frame more favourable and cheap terms to gratifie mens corrupt Affections Obj. 6. Many who never walked with so much circumspection die peaceably When they are going out of the World we hear of no complaints no discovery of fears no trouble of conscience A man would not wish to leave the World with more peace and quiet than many of these do A. To die without dread and horrour or free from inward troubles and conflicts is no certain and infallible Argument of a good Estate Their Estate is never the better or the more safe because they die quietly Their Consciences may be seared and their Hearts may be so hardened as they may have no sense of their Spiritual condition We find by Experience that this is the case of many a wicked man that hath led a very lewd and ungodly life Ask
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
that should open mens eyes shall shut them and when those means that should soften mens hearts shall harden them Let us take heed that this be not the case of any of us If what should convince humble and reform us take no other effect upon us but that we are so much the worse the more remote from repentance the more obstinately and resolutely bent after our sinful courses the more incorrigible and irreclaimable our Charge would be heavy when the day of reckoning comes How dreadful and intolerable would the Sentence of Condemnation to be pronounced against us be when the means we have enjoyed shall rise up in judgment against us and our mercies shall condemn us 4. As the most necessary and important work that we have to dispatch is limited to a certain time and the duration of that time is in divers respects very uncertain so not to have improved that time but to have left our greatest business undone till it be too late and till the only season in which it was to be done be now over and irrecoverably gone is a most deplorable and dismal thing How affectionately did our Saviour weep over Jerusalem in this respect Luke 19.41 42. saying If thou hadst known even thou in this thy day the things that belong to thy peace but now they are hid from thine eyes When mercy was offered her and she was earnestly importuned to accept of it she did not know the day of her visitation as it follows v. 44. She slighted mercy and refused the gracious tenders thereof But wherein doth the misery of such a condition lie I answer in these three things 1. Having finally refused mercy having obstinately persisted in the refusal of it to the end they shall never have the like offers any more The day of grace with them is run out once for all and shall never never be recalled no more opportunities of making their peace with God to eternity The united Prayers of all the Saints in the Church Militant and Triumphant if they should all join together in such a Suit could not obtain the offer of mercy for the space of one hour for any finally impenitent Sinner He hath sinned away his mercies and 't is utterly impossible that he should recover what he hath wilfully deprived himself of Lament his loss he may and rue it he shall to eternity but retrieve it he never shall 2. Another thing in which the misery of this condition lies is that the punishment of such persons shall be dreadfully heightened upon the account of the mercy that hath been offered them which they have so wretchedly slighted and rejected The Gospel it self fully and clearly represents to us what a direful aggravation of their punishment this will be We have three severe and most remarkable Scriptures to this purpose This is the condemnation that is Joh. 3.19 the most sore and dreadful condemnation that light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil Mat. 11.21 22 23 24. Wo unto thee Corazin wo unto thee Bethsaida It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you And thou Capernaum that art lifted up to heaven namely in the means of grace which she enjoyed but improved not Thou Capernaum which art lifted up to heaven shalt be brought down to hell it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day judgment than for thee How shall we escape Heb. 2.3 if we neglect so great salvation 3. The last aggravation of their misery is this That the thoughts of mercy once offered and rejected and of their having wilfully made themselves eternally miserable when they were in a capacity of being eternally happy if they had not stood in their own light and been wanting to themselves I say the thoughts hereof will be in their Consciences a never-dying Worm to torment them with unspeakable anguish to eternity So dismal and deplorable a thing it is not to have improved the time and opportunities afforded us for making our peace with God And so much concerning the Reasons why we must redeem the time I now proceed to the Application which was the last thing to be spoken to And here VSE 1. 1. If Time be upon so many accounts to be redeemed to be redeemed especially for heavenly things and to be improved for the good of our Souls what may they think of themselves who make little other use of their time than to dishonour God debauch their Acquaintance and Companions in sin and to bring swift ruin and destruction upon their own Souls who redeem time indeed but 't is for the satisfaction of their Lusts for gratifying their Corruptions for glutting themselves with sinful Pleasures and sensual Delights for heaping up sin upon sin for filling up the measure of their Provocations and making themselves ripe for judgment That spend their time in excess and intemperance in riot and drunkenness in chambering and wantonness in setting their mouths against Heaven in belching out horrid Oaths and Blasphemies in scoffing at Religion and deriding Piety that make it their business to sow the Principles of Atheism and to scatter the Seeds of Irreligion and Profaneness in all Places and Companies where they come to seduce poison and corrupt all they meet with and to make them twofold more the children of hell than themselves O how many such wicked Instruments such Agitators for Hell and Factors for the Devil have our times produced How doth City and Countrey abound with them and what swarms of them are there to be found in all Quarters of the Land Though such as these come seldom to the House of God yet in regard they sometimes drop in amongst others and in regard that no Congregation if numerous at least can be presumed to be without many lewd and vicious Persons though perhaps there may not be many that have arrived at the same height and excess of wickedness with those before-mentioned I shall propose these three Questions to all those who spend their precious time in lewd and ungodly Practises of what kind soever or rather I shall desire they would propose them to themselves 1. Let them ask themselves put the question to their own Hearts and Consciences Whether they think or can think that God made them and gave them excellent and immortal Souls to these ends If they think he did then it seems they are of opinion that God gave them a being to the end they might renounce their homage and disclaim their subjection to him and serve the Devil And that he still preserves them upholds them in their being to no other purpose than that they may still go on in the same ways of open rebellion against himself and defiance against Heaven Certainly it were an high disparagement and an horrid derogation to the wisdom and holiness of God for any man to imagine that God should make
Repentance and to give them Warning before he punisheth them then have the greatest Sinners abundant Incouragement to come in to God and to indeavour to make their Peace with him how long soever they have stood out against him They may be sure God would never call them to repent and invite them to come in to him unless he were most willing to entertain them and bid them welcome when they come Far be it from you to harbour such unworthy and dishonourable Thoughts of God as if he would invite you to come in to him and then reject you and cast you off when you do come Whatever your Sins have been they shall not hinder your being reconciled to him and your making your Peace with him if at length you lay down your Arms that you have taken up against him and cast your self upon his Mercy But then 1st You must do it sincerely and cordially you may not dally with God pretending to lay down your Arms to Day and taking them up again to Morrow If you expect to find Mercy with him you must return to him with your whole Heart and not feignedly 2dly You must come in to him speedily you must do it immediately He that saith he will repent hereafter he will repent to Morrow doth not repent to Day and for ought he knows may be in another World before the Morrow cometh Vse 2. If God be graciously pleased to call the greatest Sinners to Repentance then let us not utterly despair of any whom God calls let us not be discouraged from using Means for the Conversion of any for whose Conversion God is still using Means let us not be weary of waiting for the Conversion of any for whose Conversion God is still waiting There are two things that in this Case usually discourage us and make us weary of using Means for the reclaiming of Sinners 1st If Means have been long used and no Good hath been done upon them no Change for the better hath appeared in them 2dly If as sometimes it is the Means that have been made use of for reclaiming them and reducing them from the Error of their ways have made them worse more obdurate more obstinate more opposite to what is offered them and laid before them for their Good When thus it is we are very apt to say To what Purpose should any further Indeavours be used for gaining them who will not be gained and on whom all Labour that is bestowed is lost But notwithstanding all this if God be still pleased to call upon them to return though they turn the deaf Ear to all his Calls why should we think it much to be still calling on them Though they hitherto stop their Ears yet God can bore and open their Ears when he pleaseth and we know not but that he may yet shew Mercy to them in conquering them and subduing them to himself by his Grace how long soever and how obstinately soever they have persisted in their Impenitency wherefore let us go on to do our Duty in order to their reclaiming and let God do what seemeth good in his Eyes So I have done with the first Particular in the Text God's great Mercy to Manasseh and his People that had so highly provoked him he was graciously pleased to call them to Repentance and to give them Warning of those Evils that were approaching and would certainly overtake them and come upon them if they should still persevere in their sinful Courses How much soever they had provoked him he would not bring his Judgments upon them till he had first dealt with them by his Prophets to make them sensible of their Danger and to bring them to Repentance Now followeth the second Particular the Impenitency and Obstinacy of Manasseh and his People They would not hearken 'T is not said They did not hearken but they would not hearken Which Words imply a wilful disregarding and rejecting of those Admonitions Reproofs and Warnings that were given them by the Prophets Whence we may observe That wicked Men that have long gone on in a Course of Sin come sometimes to that Degree of Obstinacy and Hardness of Heart that no Calls or Invitations to Repentance no Warnings of impending and approaching Judgments will work upon them This their Obstinacy is many ways set forth and represented to us in the holy Scriptures The Psalmist compares such wicked Men to the deaf Adder that stoppeth her Ears Psal 58.4 5. and will not hearken to the Voice of the Charmer charming never so wisely The meaning is nothing can be so fitly spoken but that they refuse to hearken to it And as they stop their Ears so they close their Eyes When thy Hand is lifted up Isa 26.11 they will not see So of the perverse and obstinate Jews that lived in the Prophet Zechariah's time 't is said Zech. 7.11 12. that they refused to hearken and pulled away the Shoulder and stopped their Ears that they should not hear Yea they made their Hearts as an Adamant Stone Of this Unteachableness and Obstinacy of Spirit God complains saying Psal 81.11 My People would not hearken to my Voice and Israel would none of me To the same Effect is that most affectionate Speech of our Saviour O Jerusalem Jerusalem Matth. 23.37 how often would I have gathered thy Children together even as a Hen gathereth her Chickens under her Wings and ye would not Yea sometimes so far are wicked Men from hearkning to those gracious Calls and merciful Invitations to Repentance which God vouchsafeth them that they cannot endure any Man that shall indeavour to make them sensible of their evil Ways and to withdraw them from their Sins Upon this Account it was that Ahab counted Elijah his Enemy 2 Kings 21.20 Hast thou found me O mine Enemy said he when the Prophet came to reprove him and to denounce the Judgments of God against him and his Family for their Sins And so impatient were ungodly Men of being reproved in the Prophet Isaiah's time that they studied to do what Mischief they could to such as should attempt to reprove them They make a Man an Offender for a Word and lay a Snare for him that reproveth in the Gate Isa 29.21 saith that Prophet The like Complaint we have Amos 5.10 They hate him that rebuketh in the Gate and abhor him that speaketh uprightly Now there are several things that make wicked Men the more obstinate and that are if not Causes yet Occasions of their turning the deaf Ear to all those Calls and Invitations to Repentance which God vouchsafeth them Such as are 1st Outward Prosperity When the World smiles upon them when they live at Ease and injoy whatever Heart can wish this through the Corruption of their Hearts puffs them up with Pride and makes them slight whatever is offered them or laid before them for the Good of their Souls This ill Effect had outward Prosperity upon Jehojachin Jer.
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
unconscionable dealing and your dishonest methods and artifices in the managing of your Trades and particular Callings your scant Measures and deceitful Ballances your mingling adulterating and embasing your Commodities to impose upon the Buyer and inhance your gain your allowing your selves in dissimulation and lying and falshood for your advantage your laying aside the golden Rule of our Saviour and making no conscience of dealing with others as you desire to be dealt with your selves your seeking your selves and your own things with the disregard of your Neighbours and the neglect of the Publick good your lukewarmness coldness and indifferency in the things that concern the glory of God and the common and great interests of this place your not using your power and the authority you are entrusted and armed with for the due punishment of sin and the beating down and suppressing of vice your unequal and partial dealing in the administration of Justice your mutual animosities variances envyings emulations and heart-burnings I say in reference to all these so far as any of you may have been guilty of them and in reference to all other sins whatsoever which any of you may be convinced of as your own sins by which you have contributed towards the drawing down of the late terrible Judgment of God upon this place Say with Ezra in the Text After all that is come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great trespass should we again break thy commandments Should we again return to those our sinful practises that have laid this place in ashes and made it a ruinous heap That have made it a by-word and a Proverb a gazing-stock and an hissing and an astonishment to all that pass by and that have caused the ears of all to tingle that have heard but the rumour and report of what the righteous hand of God hath brought upon us O let 's never think of taking up our former sins and closing with them again after that God hath thus declared his anger against us for them and by such terrible effects of highest displeasure done almost whatsoever could be done to imbitter them to us and disingage us from them But besides all this to set our hearts at a greater remoteness from those sins let 's also make use of those other Considerations which this Scripture affords us 2 Therefore though God hath severely handled us yet he hath in wrath remembred mercy and punished us less than our iniquities deserve If we take a true estimate of his dealings with us we cannot chuse but discern much lenity and moderation much tenderness and compassion to have been mingled with his severity and that in many respects 1. He that turned your Houses into ashes and rubbish and took away a great part of your substance might have taken away all and left you nothing 2. He might by the same terrible Fire that deprived you of your Estate have also deprived you of your Children and dearest Relations The loss of one Child in such a way of terrible Providence would have troubled you more and have gone nearer your heart than the loss of all your Estate 3. It might have been your own lot to have perished in the flames God that mercifully spared you and rescued you from the violence of the fire might by it have hurried you out of this World into Hell and sent you from one fire to another This fire was terrible but the unquenchable fire of Hell had been much more terrible 4. Though you had escaped the fire and been as a Brand pluckt out of the burning yet such impressions might the fright and danger you were in have left upon you that you might have lost the use of your Reason and have been as a Child or Ideot all your days 5. God might have made such impressions of his Wrath upon your spirit by that terrible Judgment as you might never have been rid of them but have carried them to your Grave You might have been not only a terror to your self but Magor Missabib a terror to all about you as long as you had lived How mercifully and favourably hath God treated you amid his greatest Severities seeing none of these things have befallen you or any of yours O then go one step further with Ezra in the Text and say After all that is come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great trespass and seeing thou hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve should we again break thy commandments 3. God was not only pleased to deal mercifully and compassionately with you in that heavy stroke punishing you less than your iniquities deserved not stirring up all his wrath nor suffering his whole displeasure to arise but he hath also since been very gracious and favourable kind and bountiful to you many ways 1. Immediately upon that dreadful stroke what rowlings of Bowels and tender Compassions did he cause in all the Countrey round about What speedy and plentiful Supplies in that difficult Season in that hour of your extream necessities did God move the hearts of people to send you in from every quarter Nobility and Gentry and Commonalty Towns and Villages in all the circuit round striving who should do most for you and whose Charity should come most speedily in for your present succour and relief What Moses saith of that signal night in which God brought the Children of Israel out of Egypt Exod. 12 4â— It is a night much to be observed to the Lord for bringing them out of the land of Egypt this is that night of the Lord to be observed of all the children of Israel in their generations The same or the like may I say of that day of your distress when God in such a strange manner touch'd the hearts of all sorts of People with a tender sense of your sad and deplorable Condition and so enlarged their hearts and hands towards you for your relief and supplies 't is a day much to be observed to the Lord to give him the glory of that mercy 't is that day which deserves never to be forgotten by you or yours 2. How kind and gracious was God to you in the mild and favourable Winter-season that followed when many of the poorer sort were even housless and harbourless and when generally the Fewel that People had laid in for the Winter had been consumed by the fire What a gracious Providence of God towards you was it That when you had neither warm Houses nor provision of Fewel to defend you from the injuries of an hard Winter the Weather should be so mild and temperate as the like had seldom been known and that through his goodness to you you should less need those helps and defences against the cold which God had then deprived you of Should a severe and sharp Winter have followed the Fire it could scarce have been possible but that many must have perished before the Winter had been over 3. What Assistances and large
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
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
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
upon them how great a Mercy then is it and ought it to be acknowledged if God be pleased to give any Man a soft and tender Heart an humble and teachable Spirit if there be a Willingness to attend to wholsom Counsels a Willingness to be instructed to be admonished and when need is to be reproved if God be pleased so to frame a Man's Heart and so to break and take down his Spirit as that he can take Admonitions and Reproofs in good part as that he can receive them patiently and thankfully as that he can say with David Psal 141.5 Let the Righteous smite me it shall be a Kindness let him reprove me it shall be an excellent Oil which shall not break my Head 'T is certainly matter of great Thankfulness if God be pleased to give any Man such a Frame of Heart such a Temper of Spirit If it be thus with you if Counsels Admonitions and Reproofs upon just Occasions are welcome and acceptable to you if you cannot only submit to them patiently but gladly and thankfully entertain them and bless God for them Consider God might have given you up to as great a measure of Obstinacy and Perverseness as that of the most obdurate and refractory Person in the World that scorns to be admonished that hates Instruction and is ready to fly in the Face of any Man that shall reprove him Your Spirit might have risen and tumultuated within you as impetuously your Corruption might have boiled up and run over as violently against any Man that should endeavour to make you sensible of your Sin as his that is most impatient of Reproof or of whatever else might conduce to the Good of his Soul Say therefore to your self Who maketh thee to differ from another Hast thou not the same natural Corruption that the very worst the most obstinate Sinners have And who is it that restrains that Corruption in thee and keeps it from breaking out in the most fierce and violent Opposition against Reproof and Christian Admonition but he that hath placed the Sand for the bound of the Sea by a perpetual Decree that it cannot pass it and though the Waves thereof toss themselves yet can they not prevail though they roar Jer. 5.22 yet can they not pass over it as the Prophet speaks Vse 3. If wicked Men that have long gone on in a Course of Sin may come at length to that degree of Obstinacy and hardness of Heart as that no Admonitions or Reproofs no Calls or Invitations to Repentance no Warnings of approaching Judgments will work upon them then let all impenitent Sinners take heed how they still persevere in their evil Ways lest by degrees they come to this woful Estate that nothing that can be said to them will move them at all or do them any Good will rouze them up or awaken them to Repentance This is a most lamentable Condition a most fearful Estate an Estate to be trembled at And yet in this fearful Estate will your Perseverance in your evil Ways at length end Wherefore let me intreat you to endeavour to break off your Sins by Righteousness as Daniel counselled Nebuchadnezzar to do Dan. 4.27 to break off your Sins speedily while there is any sense of Sin any little Tenderness of Conscience yet remaining before your Heart be so hardned as that you be past feeling before your Conscience comes to be seared as with an hot Iron 2 Tim. 4.2 as the Apostle speaks before you be given up to a reprobate Mind Rom. 1.28 as again the same Apostle speaks Now to the end we may never be thus given up let us endeavour to be always ready and willing to hear whatsoever God shall be pleased to speak whoever be the Instruments by whom he speaks to us Let us endeavour to have both our Ears and our Hearts open to take in and receive whatsoever Counsels Admonitions Reproofs or Warnings shall be given us from him And here let us consider 1. That 't is a thing most pleasing and acceptable to God when a Man is not regardless of what he speaks but seriously minds it takes it to Heart and is affected with it To this Man will I look Isa 66.2 saith he even to him that is poor and of a contrite Spirit and that trembleth at my Word A most remarkable Instance of the gracious Respect that God hath to this Frame of Spirit is that which is recorded in 2 Kings 22. There we find that when Shaphan the Scribe had read the Book of the Law that had been found in the House of the Lord before Josiah the King and all the Curses and Threatnings contained therein as we may suppose Josiah took it so to Heart that he rent his Clothes and sent immediately to enquire of the Lord for himself for the People and for all Judah concerning the Words of the Book For said he Ver. 11 12 13. great is the Wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us because our Fathers have not hearkned to the Words of this Book to do according to all that is written therein concerning us So deeply was Josiah affected with what God had threatned against that People for their Sins But now how did God take it at his Hands that he was thus affected This you may see in the Answer which Huldah the Prophetess of whom he enquired returned him at ver 18 19 20. where she having assured that People that whatsoever Evils God had threatned should certainly come upon them she adds with reference to Josiah a very gracious Answer from the Lord But to the King of Judah which sent you to enquire of the Lord thus shall ye say to him saith she Thus saith the Lord God of Israel As touching the VVords which thou hast heard because thine Heart was tender and thou hast humbled thy self before the Lord when thou heardest what I spake against this Place and against the Inhabitants thereof that they should become a Desolation and a Curse and hast rent thy Clothes and wept before me I also have heard thee saith the Lord Behold therefore I will gather thee unto thy Fathers and thou shalt be gathered into thy Grave in Peace and thine Eyes shall not see all the Evil which I will bring upon this Place 2. Consider that to stop a Man's Ears and to harden a Man's Heart against such Counsels Admonitions and Warnings as God is pleased to give him is a thing highly displeasing to him as from the Scriptures afore-cited appears I now go on to the third Particular in my Text the Course which God was further pleased to take 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 Whence we may observe
the Holes of the Rocks Behold I will send and take all the Families of the North saith the Lord Jer. 25.9 and Nebuchadnezzar the King of Babylon my Servant and will bring them against this Land and against the Inhabitants thereof O Assyrian Isa 10.5 6. the Rod of mine Anger and the Staff in their Hand is mine Indignation I will send him against an Hypocritical Nation and against the People of my Wrath will I give him a Charge to take the Spoil and to take the Prey and to tread them down like the Mire in the Streets Isa 13.3 4. I have commanded my sanctified Ones I have also called my mighty Ones for mine Anger The Voice of a Multitude in the Mountains as of a great People a tumultuous Noise of the Kingdoms of Nations gathered together the Lord of Hosts mustereth the Host of the Battel This is to be understood of the Medes whom God would imploy for the Destruction of Babylon under the Conduct of Cyrus as is afterwards more plainly expressed ver 17. where God saith Behold I will stir up the Medes against them which shall not regard Silver and as for Gold they shall not delight in it Thus we see that God is said to stir up Adversaries to hiss for Enemies to send and imploy them against a sinful People that is to be punished to call them the Rod of his Anger to stile them his sanctified Ones Such Instruments as he hath made choice of and set a-part for the Service of being Executioners of his Wrath he calls them his Servants he is said to command them and to give them a Charge to perform the Work which he sets them about he is said to lift up an Ensign for them and to muster their Armies By all which Expressions 't is evident that 't is not only by his Permission but by his Order and Appointment that one Nation takes up Arms against and invades another But here however we must take heed that we make not God the Author or Abettor of the Sins of Men. He neither infuseth any Malice or Wickedness into their Hearts nor stirs them up by any sinful Motives to act as they do As his Ends and Designs are most just and holy so are all the Means and Expedients which he makes use of for compassing those Ends. How and in what manner his most wise powerful holy and righteous Providence influenceth and over-ruleth directs and orders moderates and governs the very worst Actions of the very worst Men is one of those deep things of God which are rather to be adored in Silence than rashly to be discoursed of and determined Most sure we are that God makes use of wicked Men and serves himself of them even in those things by which they most highly provoke him and yet as sure we are that he doth all this most righteously he being just in all his Ways and holy in all his Works Psal 145.17 In this therefore let us acquiesce and rest satisfied and instead of attempting to dive into those profound Counsels of God which while we are here we shall never be able fully and comprehensively to understand our selves much less to unfold and explain them to others let us see what Use and Improvement may be made of what hath been spoken Vse Is it of God that one Nation makes War with and invades another Then let us acknowledg God and take notice of his Hand in all Dispensations of this nature 1. Are other Nations infested with War Have they been harassed laid desolate and even ruined by the Sword while we in this Land have been at rest sitting quietly under our own Vines and Fig-trees and drinking the Waters of our own Cisterns Let us be sensible of the unspeakable Goodness Patience and Long-sufferance of God towards us in this merciful Dispensation Surely it cannot be denied but that our Sins have been as great as the Sins of those our Neighbours abroad that have most suffered by the Sword Yea rather if the Aggravations of our Sins be well considered it must be acknowledged that our Sins have not only equalled but exceeded theirs For our Mercies and Deliverances have not been common and ordinary but signal and eminent and these have not a little heightned our Provocations What other Account therefore can be given of God's Forbearance towards us in a time when he hath shewed so much Severity against other Nations but that he is gracious to whom he will be gracious Exod. 33.19 and sheweth Mercy to whom he will shew Mercy as he himself hath declared Let us all be duly affected with this his admirable Patience towards a most sinful People and give him the Glory of it 2. Are we at present full of many just Fears that it may e're long be our Lot to drink of the same Cup that our Neighbours beyond the Sea have drank of Do our own intestine Rents and Divisions which were never more sad than at present and the bloody Machinations of those many Enemies which we have within our own Bowels threaten us at home And do our Enemies abroad lie at the Catch to take the Advantages against us which our Divisions give them and to make the utmost Improvement of them Do these things together with the Thoughts of our crying Sins afright us and make us question whether the Dregs of that Cup of trembling which hath been put into the Hands of others may not be reserved for us Amidst our Fears 1st Let us look up to God who thus shakes his Rod over the Land and by sound Repentance and Reformation personal Reformation let us make our Peace with him who ruleth over all the Kingdoms of the World and hath the Hearts of all Men even of Kings in his Hand Prov. 21.1 and turns them as the Rivers of Water whither-soever he will This is the best way to be secured against all Adversaries so far as it shall be for God's Glory and our Good When a Man's Ways please the Lord Prov. 16.7 he will make his Enemies to be at Peace with him 2dly Having made our own Peace with God let us be truly humbled for the Sins of the Land and more especially for those Sins which most threaten us with the Invasion of a foreign Enemy such as are our Imitation of the Vices of other Nations our Compliance with them or our Approaches to them in any of their Superstitions our aping them and conforming to them in their vain and phantastical Garbs and Fashions In respect of these things the Jews doted upon the Babylonians and were fondly in love with them for which Sins God threatned to give them up into their Hands Ezek. 16. as we may see If we can be throughly humbled for our own Sins and be reformed and if we can be sincerely humbled for and heartily mourn over the Sins of the Land we shall hereby take the most effectual Course for securing our selves against whatsoever may
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
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
may imply either an Aggravation of his Sins or an Incouragement to seek unto God for the Pardon of his Sins 1. The Words may imply an Aggravation of his Sins which had been committed against so many Considerations as might and should have effectually refrained him from sinning against God in such a fearful manner as he had done As 1st That he had sinned against so many good Instructions and Cautions against Sin as his Father had given him and against the pious Education which under the Care and Inspection of so religious and conscientious a Father he had enjoyed 2dly That he had sinned against all the good Examples which his Father and other religious Progenitors had given him and against all the Patterns of sincere Godliness and true Piety which they had laid before him and either were or should have been still in his Eye 3dly That he had sinned at such a fearful rate and indulged himself in such vile and profligate Courses against all the Advantages for better things which all the Prayers of his Father and other godly Ancestors had afforded him Vse Let all wicked and graceless Children of pious and religious Parents consider seriously how sad their Account must needs be another Day if they shall still go on and persevere in those wicked and ungodly ways unto which they addict themselves they must not think to plead the Piety of their religious Parents and other Ancestors this shall be so far from being any Advantage to them that it will be found to be the greatest Aggravation of their Sins and accordingly procure the most fearful Aggravation and Heightning of their Punishment The most wicked Children are apt to please and flatter themselves with this fond Imagination that being descended from such good Parents and Ancestors they shall for their sakes find Favour with God at the Great Day of their Account and that the Children of such Parents and Ancestors though they should have lived irregularly cannot easily miscarry and perish everlastingly Let not wicked Children of good Parents deceive themselves if they continue and persevere still in their evil ways they must know and I desire all such to ponder it seriously that the Piety of their Parents will be of no other Advantage to them than only to rise up in Judgment against them and to condemn them with a more sore and dreadful Condemnation John the Baptist calling upon the Ungodly to break off their wicked Practices and to bring forth Fruits meet for Repentance tells them that they must not think to say within themselves Mat. 3.9 We have Abraham to our Father for God was able even of Stones to raise up Children unto Abraham Abraham wanted no such Children as they were Children that were a Dishonour and a Reproach to their godly Ancestors Abraham would never own such a wicked Posterity for his Children much less would he open his Mouth to speak one Word in their Behalf when they should stand before the Judgment-Seat of Christ to be accountable to him for all their Wickedness The true and genuine Children of Abraham are only those who imitate Abraham and tread in his Steps as for others he will utterly disown and disclaim them And the same Treatment must all wicked Children still continuing so to be expect from their godly Parents and Ancestors they must not think to shelter themselves from the Judgments of God under the Piety of their Progenitors 2. The Words may imply an Encouragement to seek unto God for the Pardon of his Sins and a great Encouragement thereunto it is upon several Accounts For 1st The Children of good Men are together with their Parents within the Compass of the Covenant which God makes and establisheth with his People Thus runs the Tenour of that Covenant Gen. 17.7 I will establish my Covenant saith the Lord to Abraham betwixt me and thee and thy Seed after thee in their Generations for an everlasting Covenant to be a God to thee and to thy Seed after thee By this St. Peter incourageth the wicked Jews that had stained their Hands with the horrid Guilt of crucifying the Lord of Life I say by this he encouraged them to Repentance for the Remission of their Sins Acts 2.39 For the Promise is unto you and to your Children and to all that are afar off even as many as the Lord our God shall call 2dly Godly Parents make Conscience of praying for their Children that God would be pleased to pardon their Sins to strengthen them against their Temptations and to bestow his Grace and holy Spirit upon them This Consideration if duly weighed must needs be a singular Encouragement even to the most wicked and ungodly Children to become humble and earnest Suitors unto God for the Pardon of their Sins they may upon good Grounds hope that all the Prayers and Supplications which their Parents have offered up unto God for them shall not utterly miscarry and be lost Vse 1. This may inform us how great a Mercy it is for Children to have been descended from pious and religious Parents and how thankful unto God they ought to be for this singular Favour a Favour that cannot be sufficiently valued and which hath its rise purely from the free Grace of God which alone maketh one Man to differ from another especially in Matters of this Nature wherein the eternal Welfare of our Souls is so nearly concerned Vse 2. Let all such Children who have been favoured with this inestimable Privilege of being descended from religious Parents improve this Mercy to their spiritual Advantage giving all Diligence to become Followers of their Parents and Imitators of their Piety to write after that Copy and to work after that Pattern which their Parents have set them And let them pray unto God fervently and incessantly that they may by a holy and unblamable Conversation approve themselves to be the true Offspring of such Parents and be accordingly owned and acknowledged by them and above all that they may be owned and acknowledged of God for such when they shall give up their Accounts to him and receive their final Sentence according to what they have done 2 Cor. 5.10 in the Flesh whether it be Good or Evil. And thus I have done with that Observation The next thing to be considered is what Manasseh joined with his Humiliation under the afflicting Hand of God namely Prayer He humbled himself greatly before the God of his Fathers and prayed unto him Whence we may observe in the next Place that Prayer is a seasonable and necessary Duty in the time of Affliction Is any among you afflicted Jam. 5.13 let him pray Psal 50.15 Call upon me in the Day of Trouble This God aims at in afflicting us and hiding his Face from us This is his Design in withdrawing his gracious Presence from us Hos 5.15 I will go and return to my Place saith he till they acknowledg their Offence and seek my Face in
Though we may in some Cases take the Liberty of humble and reverent Expostulation with God yet we must take heed of any unmeet Reflections upon his Justice or Goodness and still remember our Distance from him that God is in Heaven and we are upon Earth as Solomon speaks Eccles 5.2 And that he giveth not account of any of his Matters as Elihu excellently represents him to Job chap. 33.13 So then all these sorts of Complaints being allowed us the Complaint condemned in the Text is that which either proceeds from or is joined with Impatience under God's Hand and Discontent with his Providence 't is the Complaint of an unquiet and sinfully disturbed Spirit which the Scripture sometimes expresseth by murmuring so here the Word in the Original may properly enough be translated and so the same Word is rendred Numb 11.1 Now the Evil and Unreasonableness of this kind of Complaint under the Hand of God may appear several ways 1. 'T is long before God takes the Rod in Hand to correct he bears long even with the vilest of Sinners and exerciseth much Patience towards them He is slow to Anger and of great Mercy Psal 145.8 He is merciful and gracious long-suffering and abundant in Goodness Exod. 34.6 He takes no Delight in Severity further than we provoke him thereunto He doth noâ— afflict willingly nor grieve the Children of Men Lam. 3.33 And should noâ— this Consideration be of Force to suppress all our discontented Complainings and Murmurings that God is so unwilling to use Severity against us that he is so hardly drawn on to chaster us and that he never doth it till we have given him much Cause so to handle us 2. When we by our many Provocations have put the Rod into his Hand he is soon prevailed with to lay it aside again He is not of that implacable Temper that he can never be reconciled to those against whom he hath once taken up any Displeasure Upon our humble Submission to his Corrections and sincere Resolutions and Endeavours to reform what hath been amiss he is graciously inclined to lay aside his Displeasure He is ready to forgive Psal 86.5 most ready to shew Mercy as soon as we are in any measure fit for Mercy He doth not always chide Psal 103.9 nor keep his Anger for ever Was this only David's particular Experience and is it not ours also Do not we find how easy he is to be entreated and how ready to pardon Have we not had manifold Experiments thereof in the Course of our Lives And should not this perswade us quietly and patiently to submit to his Corrections while he is pleased to keep us under his chastning Hand 3. While he judgeth it fit to correct us he lays no more upon us than our Sins deserve When we are most severely handled and are apt to complain we have hard measure yet even then do not his Severities in the least exceed the Demerits of our Sins God doth us no wrong nor is it possible that he should for his Will is the Rule and Measure of Righteousness The Lord is righteous in all his ways and holy in all his VVorks Psal 145.17 The just Lord will not do Iniquity Zeph. 3.5 What Cause then is there or can there be of complaining where no Wrong is done With this the Church of God silenceth her self and stops her own Mouth when under the most dreadful Effects of God's Displeasure Lam. 1.18 The Lord is righteous saith she for I have rebelled against his Commandments And with this God stoppeth the Mouth of his People VVhy criest thou for thine Afflictions Jer. 30.15 Because thy Sins were increased have I done these things unto thee 4. When God afflicts most grievously his Severities are far short of what our Sins deserve Under the heaviest Weight of Punishment Ezra's Acknowledgment in the Name of the Church must be ours Ezra 9.13 VVe are punished less than our Iniquities deserve Our Sins deserve not only all the temporal Plagues and Judgments which we are capable of undergoing but Hell the unutterable and endless Torments of the Lake that burns with Fire and Brimstone Wherefore whatever our Sufferings be in this World so long as we are on this side Hell so little Cause have we to complain that we have great Cause to be thankful that it is not far worse with us than it is 5. How much soever God is pleased to afflict us yet still we enjoy many Mercies in the mean time by which the Bitterness of our Afflictions is much allayed and the Smart of them much abated For one or two Crosses we are compassed about with Variety of Blessings In Sickness we have the Pity and Compassion of Friends and Acquaintance we have all that Service and Assistance that many Hands about us can afford us we have all those Means of Relief that either Love or Art can supply us with And all this besides those inward and powerful Supports which we have more immediately from God Again if it so be that God afflicts us in one of our Relations we have Matter of Comfort in divers others of them If we have Losses in our temporal Estate yet our spiritual and better Concernments are safe and untouched If Man be at Variance with us yet we have Peace with God How sadly soever we may in our Afflictions represent things to our selves God never stirs up all his Wrath against us at once nor suffers his whole Displeasure to arise God never so mingles the Cup which he puts into our Hands but that there are some Ingredients of a benign and friendly Nature to qualify the Malignity of the rest The Malignity did I say There is indeed no real Malignity in any of the Ingredients of that spiritual Physick which God administers to his All things have a kind and beneficial Influence for promoting our Good and furthering our highest Interest And where now is there any Place left for complaining Amidst so many Mercies can we yet find in our Hearts to complain Be it so that some things are not only unacceptable but very grievous to us Shall we receive Good at the Hands of God and shall we not receive Evil Shall we bear nothing at the Hands of him who is so good and gracious so kind and bountiful to us many other ways Let us not suffer two or three Afflictions so to imbitter our Spirits and vitiate our Palats as that we should not relish the Sweetness of any of those Mercies which in our most afflicted Condition we still enjoy 6. Add to all this that God hath a Sovereignty of Power and Dominion over his Creatures by virtue whereof he may deal with them as he pleaseth According to this his absolute Power though the Creature had never sinned yet God might expose it to such Miseries as exceed not the Benefit of that Being he has given it He that made the Creature out of nothing as he might turn it into
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
wait and still our Expectations are frustrated but our long waiting shall turn to our greater Advantage in the end and we shall then see that if we had obtained our Mercies sooner we should have had less Mercy in them God's Mercies are then most sweet and yield most full Content and Satisfaction when they are fully ripe and come in their proper Season 'T is with them as with Fruit if it be plucked before it be ripe it 's either wholly unsavory or much less acceptable We lose much of the Comfort of our Mercies unless we can be contented to wait for them till they come to Maturity Object 4. Though my Afflictions be very sharp saith another and such as would try the Patience of any Man yet I think I could bear them without much complaining if the Instruments of my Sufferings were any other than such as they are To suffer by the Hands of such base and unworthy Persons is a Circumstance which I cannot think of without Indignation Answ But 1. This hath oft-times been the Lot of the best Men. No worse Man than David complained that he was the Song of the Drunkards Psal 69.12 and that the Abjects gathered themselves together against him Psal 35.15 And Job said that those had him in derision whose Fathers he would have disdained to have set with the Dogs of his Flock chap. 30.1 We are not better than these holy Men who met with this Measure in the World 2. God may take what Instruments he pleaseth to correct you with Is it meet the Child should chuse the Rod with which the Father should chasten him 3. 'T is not to be doubted but that he makes use of the fittest Instruments Should the Vessel that needs scouring complain against him that scoureth it that he useth such filthy rough and grating Materials rather than some clean near smooth and gentle thing If he should make use of such Materials as these they would do no good He knows those other are fittest to get off the Dirt and Filth which stick so fast that gentle Means will not remove them So God on purpose makes use of foul and rugged Instruments as fittest to rub off that sinful Corruption and Filth that cleaveth so fast unto our Nature To be short if we might be allowed to chuse the Instruments by which God should chasten us we would be sure to chuse those from whose Hands we might smart least and who would consequently do us least Good 'T is well for us if we can think it so that when God sees cause to correct us he hath a right to chuse his Rod. But here some might say The Baseness of the abject and contemptible Condition of the Persons from whom I suffer doth not so much trouble me as that they are those from whom I deserved better things I have obliged them by whatever Kindnesses I was capable of conferring on them and when they have served themselves of me they kick at me 'T is not what I suffer from them but their Ingratitude that I am impatient of enduring Answ Ingratitude indeed is an odious Sin in whomsoever 't is found and usually God some time or other meets with the ungrateful Person and pays him in his own Coin Whoso rewardeth Evil for Good Pro. 17.13 Evil shall not depart from his House 'T is seldom seen but that first or last he that hath been notoriously ungrateful to his Benefactors hath the same Measure returned into his Bosom by those who have received Kindnesses from him But however such odious Persons as these God makes use of and many times he makes them the Instruments of his Corrections rather than others because he sees no other so fit for his Purpose 1. It may be sometimes in the good Offices we do others we look more upon Man than upon God we look more after Mens due Resentment of our Kindnesses and their thankful Acknowledgments of them and the answerable Returns they should make us than after God's Acceptance of us therein Were our Eyes more upon God and less upon Men did we shew Kindness and perform Offices of Love to Man in obedience to God and satisfy our selves with his Acceptance for the present and encourage our selves with the Expectation of those Rewards of our sincere Obedience which he hath promised hereafter we should neither be so often disappointed of those Returns which we expect from Men neither should we be so much troubled at Disappointments in that kind when we meet with them If Men prove thankful we should take it well and bless God for it if they prove unthankful we should quiet our selves in God's Acceptance of what we have done as the chief thing which we looked after 2. God may sometimes correct us by the Ingratitude of Men that he may thereby mind us of our Ingratitude towards himself Wherefore when Man's Ingratitude is so grievous and afflicting to us let us reflect upon our selves and think how much more displeasing our Ingratitude must needs be unto God who hath done a thousand times more for us than ever we did for any Person living whom we look upon as most obliged by us If we therefore think we have just cause to complain of Man's Ingratitude towards us how much greater cause hath God to complain of our Ingratitude towards him in whom we live and move and have our being and from whose sole Bounty we have received whatever good thing we have at any time enjoyed or do enjoy And yet notwithstanding all these Obligations what hath our whole Life been but one continued Course of Provocations and an uninterrupted Series of those many ill Requitals which we have made him If we justify our selves and say we cannot be justly charged with Unthankfulness towards God we hereby plainly discover that we have never taken a just Account either of our Receipts from him or of the Returns which he hath had from us Object 5. But I have a continual Succession and Series of Afflictions God followeth me with one Trial after another VVhen one Affliction is but just over presently another is in a readiness to seize upon me I have no sooner obtained a little time to recover Breath but I am again alarmed to prepare my self for a new Conflict This is that which tireth out my Patience and makes me even weary of my self Answ 1. 'T is possible that former Afflictions tho many and great have not sufficiently humbled you nor mortified Sin in you Tho something may have been done upon you yet God hath not accomplished his whole Work upon you so that what hath been begun by former Trials he sees good to carry on yet further by what he still further exerciseth you with 2. 'T is possible that by your unmeet and sinful Carriage and the stirrings and breaking forth of Corruption in your Afflictions you may have given God just occasion of bringing other Afflictions upon you When being under God's Hand he expects we should be humbled
Grace are whether we go forward or backward whether it be better with us to day than 't was yesterday and this Week than 't was last Week or worse Hereby we come to know the Sins that most prevail in us and where our Weakness principally lies Hereby we come to know our Wants and Defects our Emptiness and Poverty in spiritual Things And of how great Concernment and Advantage is it to know our selves And how little will it avail us to know much abroad while we are Strangers at home To understand the World and to be thorowly conversant in all the Matters of it perfectly acquainted with all the Affairs and Transactions thereof To know all the Secrets of Nature and to have exactly dived into and found out all the hidden Causes of Things To have made such successful Inquiries into Divine Truths as to be able to discourse of them to Admiration and to give an account of all the profound and deep Mysteries of our Religion What would all this signify if after a Man hath attained to know all other things he should be ignorant of himself unacquainted with the spiritual Affairs of his own Soul which he is infinitely more concerned to understand Surely whatsoever else a Man hath attained to know if he knows not himself he knows nothing to any purpose And he that knows himself as he ought to know need not be much troubled at it though he know but little else 2dly By reflection on our selves we come to have the Comfort of our Estate and of all our good Actions 1. We hereby come to have the Comfort of our spiritual Estate Tho we should be in the State of Grace and Salvation in the Favour of God and in the Way that will undoubtedly bring us to Heaven yet if we know it not how can we take Comfort in it And how can we ever know it without Reflection on our selves and a narrow Inspection into our Hearts and Ways Some doubtful Conjectures we may make some dark Guesses there may be concerning our Estate but we can never come to attain any certain Knowledg any clear distinct and well-grounded Satisfaction touching our Condition without a serious Reflection on our Souls and a due search into and consideration of our Hearts and Ways And indeed this is one great Cause among others of the small Comfort that many true Believers have in their Estate They seldom reflect to any purpose on themselves they seldom take any pains by diligent search and inquiry to satisfy themselves touching their Condition hence it comes to pass that tho they be sound for the main tho they be in the right Way to Heaven and are still going on in it slowly and leisurely yet they are full of Fears Doubtings and Dissatisfactions and if they have sometimes a little Comfort in their Estate yet they presently lose it again But now frequent and serious Reflections on themselves and an exact Inquiry into their Estate and a reviewing of Matters as they stand within them and a taking an account of themselves how would it after some time by degrees so clear up their Condition to them as all their Fears would be banished all the Cloudiness and Darkness of their Minds would be scattered and their Doubtings and Dissatisfactions vanish For we must take it for granted that though there may be many great Weaknesses in Believers and frequent Relapses into Sin yet the constant Bent unfeigned Desires and serious Endeavours of the Soul are in all things to please God Now wheresoever this is and indeed without this there is no true Grace I say wheresoever this is a diligent and frequent Inquiry into our selves will discover it and discover it so clearly as a Man cannot but own it and readily acknowledg that amid many and great Weaknesses there hath been all along some sincere and unfeigned Desire and Endeavour to please God in all things Whence we may conclude that as it cannot easily be but that a sound and sincere Christian who makes frequent Reflections on and Inquiries into himself should evidently discern his own Sincerity so having discerned it he cannot but have Comfort in it at least according to the measure of the clearness of his discovery of it Wherefore I say it again one great Cause why many true Believers have so little Comfort in their Estates is this That they so seldom have any serious Reflections on themselves or apply themselves to make a diligent Inquiry into their Estate This this is a great Reason why they walk so heavily and uncomfortably why they are so often overwhelmed with Fears and Perplexities why instead of continual Thanksgivings unto God for his rich Grace and unspeakable Mercy vouchsafed them their Mouths are full of Complaints and their Discourses made up of little else than sad discoveries of their inward Troubles and Dissatisfactions and the Conflicts they continually have with Doubting and Unbelief How much sound Comforts and Refreshings do we lose by being such Strangers at home What Peace and Joy in believing what increases of Faith and further degrees of Establishment might we attain if we were better acquainted with and more conversant in this Self-reflection 2. We hereby come to have the Comfort of all our good Actions There is an inward Peace Joy Content and Satisfaction which usually attends sincere Obedience notwithstanding the Infirmities accompanying us in the Performance thereof and the manifold Imperfections of it But much of this Comfort is lost for want of looking back and reviewing what we have done and in what manner with what sincere Desires to be accepted with God therein with what Sense of and mourning over the Corruption cleaving to our best Actions though we cannot be rid of it With what Watchfulness and Opposition made against the Sin that dwelleth in us which would interpose and mingle it self with every good thing we take in hand with every Duty we perform These things more or less are to be found and may be observed in every sound Christian and Matter of very great Comfort they are to him who can discover them in himself But alas neglecting to review our Actions when they are over instead of the Comforts we might have in ways of Obedience too often nothing but Trouble and inward Regret follows When we have done our best we question our Sincerity in all that we have done for the Workings of our corrupt Nature and the sinful Imperfections of our Services come to our Remembrance and are fresh in our Memories but the Opposition we made against them is either hid from our Eyes or forgotten And all this for want of a serious Reflection on what hath past and a careful reviewing of our Actions together with the manner of them and all their concomitant Circumstances As reflecting on our Ways and reviewing our Actions we never want Matter of Humiliation so the upright and sound Christian never wants Matter of Comfort also in the Sincerity of his Heart These two
hath justly made you to be lightly esteemed 2. Compare your self with the Rule lay the Law of God before you and try your self thereby in reference to all the several Branches thereof By the Law comes the Knowledg of Sin Rom. 3.20 And here rest not in Generalities but descend to Particulars Take an Account of your self and make Enquiry wherein you have declined or swerved from any part of that Duty which God requires of you He that lays any one of God's Laws before him taking only the general Letter of it as 't is express'd in the Commandment may think he hath not much failed of the Performance of what the Law requires yea perhaps he may be ready to justify himself saying with the young Man in the Gospel Mat. 19.20 All this have I kept from my Youth And yet when he comes to look more narrowly into the several Parts of his Duty contained under that Law he may find he hath offended many Ways and that he hath not only come far short of exact Conformity to the Rule but failed more or less in almost every thing that the Law requires excepting only those fouler Acts of Sin which in the Letter of some of the Commandments are by Name forbidden 3. In this Search be sure that you avoid that common Error of heeding and looking after Sins of Commission only little or not at all regarding Sins of Omission Though we make light of our Omissions yet they may be such as God may be highly provoked by them To neglect Prayer in your Family and the Instruction of those that are under your Charge may be small Sins in your Account and scarce worth the taking notice of But they are not so in God's Account He sees that the Omission of these Duties is the ready way to bring upon us a Deluge of Profaneness Irreligion and Atheism and that they who make no Conscience of these Duties do in effect say unto God Depart from us they do what in them lies to banish God not only out of their Families but out of the Land For if these Duties should be as shamefully neglected by all as they are by some and those too many what would become of our Posterity in the next Generation Would not the whole Face of the Land be covered with Darkness as thick as that of Egypt And what would attend that Darkness but all manner of Ungodliness and Debauchery the inseparable Consequents of Ignorance The total Omission of secret Prayer you may think is no great Matter so long as you sometimes in publick or private join with others in that Duty but God hath other Thoughts of it he knows that all your other Services as by you performed are little better than mere Formalities as long as you neglect secret Duties He knows the great Consequence of keeping up a constant Course of secret Prayer and that without it 't is impossible that either your Heart or Conversation should be ordered aright He knows that the very Life and Vigour of all other Duties depends on this The Neglect of shewing Mercy to those that are afflicted you may think is no great Matter so long as you do no Man any Wrong but God lays more Stress upon such Omissions than you do his righteous Sentence is He that hath no Pity for others Pro. 21.13 Jam. 2.13 shall have none himself He shall have Judgment without Mercy that hath shewed no Mercy The Neglect of some one publick Ordinance as the Lord's Supper for example you may think is a thing that God takes little notice of so long as you give your constant Attendance on other Ordinances but you consider not how much Evil and Danger there is in the deliberate and wilful Omission of any known Duty and such is this For such an Omission as this was Moses in Danger of losing his Life Exod. 4.24 25 26. for neglecting to circumcise his Son the Lord met him took hold of him and sought to kill him neither would he let him go till Zipporah his Wife had taken a sharp Stone and cut off the Foreskin of her Son Neither may you think that any colourable Excuse that you may pretend you have for Neglect of a Duty or an Ordinance will bear you out Moses in Probability might have pleaded something for his Excuse his Wife Zipporah as it seems by her Carriage was extreamly averse from having her Son circumcised so that Moses could not do it but there would be a Breach between them there would be no Quiet in the Family This Consideration had been somewhat if the thing had been of an indifferent Nature and not a Matter of Duty but where God's express Command was That every Male-child should be Circumcised this Excuse could not justify Moses his Neglect Look well to it that your Excuses be good by which you would defend your absenting your self from any Ordinance of God It had need be a strong and a clear Ground on which you go when you shall willingly and upon Deliberation wave an express Ordinance of God But this by the way 4. Think not you have done enough if you have been searching within and round about you near at hand if you have with some Diligence enquired how Matters are with you at present or have been of late but look farther off and survey the former part of your past Life God may call to remembrance Sins long since committed and chasten you for them Thus God brought a Famine of three Years continuance upon the Israelites 2 Sam. 21.1 for Saul's Cruelty against the Gibeonites though Saul had then been dead many Years Yea God may chasten you for old Sins though you have long since left them and this for several Reasons 1st Though you have left them yet it may be that you never truly repented of them A Man may break off the Practice of some Sins because they consist not with his temporal Advantage or his Credit or his worldly Designs and Interest Upon such Considerations as these a Man may have forsaken some particular Sins though he never hated them nor was truly humbled for them 2dly A Man may have truly repented of his Sin he may have been truly humbled for it and forsaken it and yet he may still want some Degrees of that thorow Humiliation which God expecteth 3dly Former Sins long since committed and forsaken may now be almost forgotten at least they may not be remembred with that fresh and lively Sense of the great Evil and Hainousness of them with that mourning over them and loathing of our selves for them as heretofore 4thly God may see that you are in Danger of returning to those Sins again that you have long since forsaken and verily thought your self at so great a distance from them as you should never have any Inclination to commit them again So then 't is possible that God may afflict you for old Sins long since forsaken upon some worldly Consideration that he
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
before the coming of the Messiah Yet once it is a little while and I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land and will shake all nations 2. We have a Prediction of his coming And the desire of all nations shall come 3. A Promise of the Glory of the second Temple together with an answer to an objection against it And I will fill this house with glory the silver is mine and the gold is mine 4. An Amplification of that Promise concerning the glory of the second Temple The glory of this latter house shall be greater than the glory of the former 5. An additional Promise of Peace as an Appendix to all other Mercies promised And in this place will I give peace 6. The Ratification or Confirmation of the whole in those last words saith the Lord of Hosts so often mentioned before and with which all that was before promised is at last shut up and sealed To begin with the first of these the Prediction of great concussions and shakings in the World before the coming of the Messiah It is yet a little while and I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land and will shake all nations By these Metaphorical Expressions according to the usual Language and Style of the Prophets we are to understand great Troubles Commotions Changes and Alterations in the World in which high and low Persons of all Conditions Ranks and Qualities represented by the Heavens and the Earth should take their turns and have their share So God speaking of his terrible Judgments on the World saith Isa 13.13 I will shake the heavens and the earth shall remove out of its place in the wrath of the Lord of Hosts and in the day of his fierce anger But now all the difficulty is what shakings should be here intended Some understand the words of the great things which the Evangelists report to have been done at and upon the Birth of Christ the Miracles wrought by him in his Life the strange and miraculous Providences at his Death and Resurrection and of the shaking of the World afterwards by the preaching of the Gospel whereby Idols were thrown down Heathenish Idolatry and Superstitions were abolished the Christian Religion and the Worship of the true God coming in place thereof These were great and wonderful things but how they should be here by the Prophet intended is not easie to conceive For he seems to speak of such concussions and shakings as should be antecedent to the coming of Christ and go before it not concur with it much less follow after it Thus saith the Lord of Hosts I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land and I will shake all nations and the Desire of all nations shall come that is after God should thus have shaken the World Christ should come And indeed very great and dreadful shakings there were between the time of this Prophecy and the coming of the Messiah in which shakings the people of God the Jewish Nation were not a little concern'd The Persian Empire under which they now were was not only shaken but shaken in pieces dissolved and ruined by the Grecians under the Conduct of Alexander the Great Then presently after Alexander's Death who died in the flower of his Age the Empire which he had but just then acquired and been possessed of was in effect once more rent in pieces and divided amongst his Chieftains and Principal Commanders While this state of things continued the Jews were miserably shaken oppressed and harassed by the Tyranny and Cruelty of Antiochus Epiphanes besides many other grievous pressures and sufferings which during the Government of the Seleucides they underwent After some time the Romans came upon them all and subdued all to themselves in which Revolution the distressed Jews fell under the power of the Romans and were at their Mercy After all these terrible shakings nearer the coming of Christ the Civil Wars under Augustus Caesar caused horrible shakings and convulsions in the Empire after which the Temple of Janus was shut up and a peaceable time ensued all Swords being sheathed and all Arms laid aside throughout the whole Empire and then was Christ the Prince of Peace born in the Forty first or as some will have it in the Forty second year of the Reign of Augustus Caesar Now whereas all these shakings were to go before the coming of Christ which was the greatest Mercy that ever was vouchsafed the World we may observe That great Troubles and Afflictions sometimes go before and make way for great and signal Mercies This is indeed the ordinary and usual method of God's most wise and gracious Providence Thus Joseph is sold to the Midianites carried into Egypt and there again sold to Potiphar falsly accused cast into Prison and laid in Irons that by this Series of long-continued Afflictions way might be made for his Advancement to the highest Honour in Pharaoh's Court and for his being made Ruler over all the Land of Egypt Thus seventy years Captivity and Bondage in Babylon goes before the joyful and triumphant Return of God's people into their own Land of which the Psalmist thus speaks Psal 126.1 2. When the Lord turned the captivity of Zion we were like them that dream then was our mouth filled with laughter and our tongue with singing then said they among the heathen The Lord hath done great things for them Which Psalm though placed among the Psalms of David yet is by Learned men upon good grounds supposed to have been penned by some other Person after the return from Babylon as also Psal 137. that is to say 460 years at least after that David had been gathered to his Fathers and perhaps much more for we know not how long after the return from Babylon it might be penned Thus the Ten most Cruel and Bloody Persecutions of the Christian Church in the first Ages thereof went before that quiet and tranquillity which the Church enjoyed under Constantine and the succeeding Christian Emperors when to use the expressions of the Prophet God made the peace of his Church as a river and the righteousness thereof as the waves of the sea Thus that wicked Usurpation and Tyranny of Antichrist making havock of the Church which hath been drawn out to so great a length already and yet we know not how much longer it may last goes before that happy estate of the Church and of the World when those joyful Acclamations shall be heard The kingdoms of the world are become the kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ Rev. 11.15 And when they who shall have gotten the victory over the beast and over his image shall sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb saying Great and marvellous are thy works Lord God Almighty just and true are thy ways thou king of saints Rev. 15.1 2. And to add but one instance more here at home thus
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.