pardoning mercy sets hearts on work to fear God and to tenderness in the study of holiness then ye may see how many of the Children of God do cut the throat of all their endeavours after holiness and to walk tenderly through their not closing with pardoning Mercy I suppose some have the Conscience a sad Monitor unto them a sad Wan-rest within doors for want of tenderness and some would fain be at serving and worshipping of God and yet they cannot win at it but look if thou leaves not thy encouragement behind thy hand in not closing with pardoning Mercy and by so doing not only cuts thy self short of the Joy of the Lord which is thy strength but provocks God to blast thy study of holiness that thou would put in his room or in the room of his pardoning Mercy But thou that would be keeped fresh and green in thy pursuit of holiness here is thy method that thou must follow first wrap thy self in the bosom of pardoning Mercy and then try thy work and thou shalt find it more delightsome and go better with thee than when thou leaves this encouragement behind thee lay thy self in his bosom for pardon and O! but that will make thee fear him much and love him much that woman Luke 7 that bad much forgiven her loved much and had abundance of tears to wash Christ's feet her closing with pardon did so melt her heart and so would it thine closing with pardoning Mercy would heal palsie hands and feet and make thee work walk and run it would kindle that love that is strong as death and that jealousie that is cruel as the grave the coals whereof are coals of fire that have a vehement flame and bring it to that that many waters cannot quench or the floods drown or contemn all that would compet with it I dare not offer to insist the day being shortened but as on the one hand they who fall asleep on pardoning Mercy as the bride of Christ may some times take a nap but wakens and sets to her feet again would know they make not a right use of pardoning Mercy but sin grievously and if they sleep on they evidence that they cheat themselves in that matter and these that love not holiness proclaim they were never partakers of it so upon the other hand thou that loves holiness but cannot win at it close better with pardoning Mercy as that which will strenthen and encourage thee and by waiting on the Lord in this way thou shalt renew thy strength mount up with wings as eagles run and not be weary walk and not be faint Now to our God be praise and glory through Jesus Christ SERMON XIX Psalm 130. Verse 5. I wait for the Lord my soul doth wait and in his word do I hope 6 My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning I say more than they that watch for the morning YE heard when I entred upon this Psalm that the first six Verses contain the wrestling and the exercise the Psalmist was under as the last two Verses contain his victory and issue and his improvement of it For his wrestling and exercise it consists as ye heard of three branches ye have him wrestling with the difficulties and plunging perplexities in his case these he expresses under the Metaphor of depths and his wrestling with them is by fervent wrestling and crying to God in Prayer verses 1 2. 2. Ye have him wrestling with the Conscience and sense of guilt that obstructed his audience put back his Prayers and offered to crush his hopes and with that he wrestles in the 3 and 4. Verses by taking with the dreadful desert of sin by laying hold on God's pardoning Mercy and carrying alongst with him God's end in letting out pardoning Mercy to sinners even that he may be feared and of this subject I have been speaking at great length and I must exhort and intreat that though a close be put to Preaching on it that yet ye may not give over the minding of that Doctrine it is that which will be your great Pasport pardoning Mercy if ye obtain it when ye come to grapple with the King of Terrors and go through the dark valley of the shadow of death Now in the two Verses read ye have the Psalmist in the third place wrestling with delays of answers to his Prayers or the delays of the out-gate prayed for and these he wrestles with by confident patient affection at waiting on God I wait for the Lord my soul doth wait and in his word do I hope c. And this purpose also we have cause to look unto because it gives an account of a Christians constant exercise in time he that would be a Christian indeed it is not enough that he pray in difficulties that he take with the desert of sin and look to pardoning Mercy when Conscience challenges him but when he hath done all that he must persevere in so doing and wrestle with the delays of answers to his Prayer he must give a proof of the patience as well as of the Faith of the Saints he must be a follower of these who through Faith and Patience inherit the Promises There is a general Remark which will make way to the purpose contained in the words which I shall insist on a little that is That perseverance and constant waiting on God in his way is the great task of Saints and the Touchstone of their sincerity in all other exercises and duties This tryes how well breathed the Saints are and what is their integrity in other exercises that they are at sometimes even that they be constant bide by it wait on God and persevere in waiting on him in his way notwithstanding they meet with delays And that I may unfold this General to you ye shall with me take a threefold look of this perseverance 1. Look upon it in general as it is opposed to Apostacy backsliding giving up with the ways of Religion 2. Which will deduce this General more fully and particularly ye shall take a look of this perseverance as it imports a constant Tenor and course in waiting on God and seeking of God in opposition to folks phrases fairds and hot fits at some times wherein they are but fleeting And 3. Which will lead me to the particular in the Text look on it as it is opposed to wearying sitting up or falling by from employing God and waiting on him if they be delayed especially in sad dispensations and exigences they meet with For the first of these Perseverance in general as it is opposed to apostasie back-sliding and giving up with the ways of God and godliness I shall not dwell much on that Doctrine The necessity of it appears in the Promises made unto it Mat. 24.13 It is he that endures unto the end shall be saved and Rev. 2. and 3. Chapters it is always to the overcomer that the Promise is made though I
sense of trouble without the sense of sin And a 3d Consequence is a woful issue when ever delivery out of trouble comes to folk in such a posture and I find in this issue these two to concur one is their hungry starved lusts meeting with mercies do surfeit upon them as the peilled Jews when they came from the Captivity and had not quit their covetousness they no sooner came back but they eat up one another And another is when such folk are delivered out of the strait wherein they were their delivery ordinarily hath the plague of God with it Psal 78.29 c. When that people cryed for flesh He rained flesh upon them as dust and feathered fowl as the sand of the sea they were filled he gave them their desire but while the meat was yet in their mouths the wrath of God came upon them and slew the fattest of them and smote down the chosen men of Israel This in short would put folk to it in shoring times to see what they are most affected with whether with trouble or with sin If ye be going with your hands on your loyns what ails you What affects you most Sin or trouble Provocation or trouble the fruit of your provocation Mark it there is much exercise in sad times when it is not about sin and the fruit of that exercise will be found wind Isa 26.18 We have been with child we have been in pain we have as it were brought forth wind Sense of sin over-weighing sense of trouble were a blest mean to cure our trouble Isa 27.9 By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged and this is all the fruit to take away his sin when he makes all the stones of the Altar as Chalk stones that are beaten asunder the Groves and Images shall not stand up But the 2d Note I proposed to be spoken to was That sense of guilt meets him in the teeth when he comes to God The Observation is that guilt will readily meet the people of God in their approaches to him under trouble when he is crying to God out of the deeps and is earnest for audience God's marking of iniquity stares him in the face to put some stop and demurr to his access and audience and the issue he would have been at If time would suffer I would deduce this point in these four 1. A tender soul is known by many heart-smitings for sin which David was well acquaint with in the Wilderness when he cut off the lap of Sauls garment 1 Sam. 24.5 A very innocent thing to vindicat his own integrity yet his heart smote him a heart-smiting for sin was no dainty to him then I confess when men are at ease and are not in a tender frame they may give way to gross sins and their heart not smite them What a temper is David in when he is at ease and secure What a wide throat hath he to swallow down Adultery and Murder and to betray a part of his Army 2 Sam. 11. The sword devours one as well as another saith he it 's the fortune as we call it and the chance of War let it not trouble thee That was not like David when he was tender but however the general holds true that heart-smiting from sense of sin is a most infallible sign and evidence of tenderness and nearness to God O but the skin of a Conscience near God is thin A little thing will draw blood of it And as upon the one hand ye would try your nearness to God by this so upon the other hand ye would look upon it as poor gallantry to digest sin without a heart smiting you for it There is a generation of men who are called strong spirits gallant men and wherein doth their strength of spirit and gallantry ly In contemning the Law of God in treading upon his Authority in defying God they can commit all wickedness and sleep in a sound skin and never be troubled with it these are our Gallants but the day will come when that will be found poor gallantry and that he is the brave spirit that knows what heart-smiting for sin is and hath tenderness in his walk There is in the 2d place this in particular that when Saints go to God then their guilt readily meets them although they have little sense of guilt in ordinary yet when they approach to God in earnest their sin will muster up before them 3. Although in ordinary Addresses they may be little sensible of sin yet when a strait comes and they are sent to God then their sin will find them out though they can walk in ordinary and be little troubled with guilt yet in a distress it cross-necks them And 4ly Although wicked men do not readily meet with guilt because they are plagued with stupidity yet their guilt will meet with them and they shall find it marked by God as if when they came to God in ordinary they came to proclaim their iniquity These are the Branches of the Point which now I cannot insist on to deduce at large only if ye have to do with God and be in earnest beware of unrepented guilt the longer it be in meeting with you it will be the sadder when you and it meet and the longer it be that ye lay it not to heart to repent of it and turn from it it will be the more sad God bless what ye have heard SERMON V. Psalm 130. Vers 3. If thou LORD shouldest mark iniquities O LORD who shall stand YOU have heard that the Psalmist being wrestling by Prayer with the difficulties and plunging perplexities that were in his case vers 1 2. Doth here come to wrestle more particularly with guilt which might stop his audience and success and as ye heard he doth 1. make a sensible confession of the misdeserving of sin that if God should mark it as a severe Judge none should be justified none should be able to stand 2. Ye have his relief and refuge being thus humbled in the pardoning mercy of God upon which he lays hold in the beginning of the 4. Verse But there is forgivenness with thee And 3ly as ye heard in the end of vers 4. This pardoning mercy of God is amplified from his end and design in letting it forth That thou mayest be feared There is forgivenness with him that sinners may draw near him who in himself is a consuming fire and that pardoned sinners may be excited to fear and worship so good a God that freely pardons sin From the first of these I spake to a general Note That the sense of trouble and the exercise about it should be attended with the sense of sin and exercise about sin for the Psalmist here is exercised and taken up with both while he is crying out of the deeps he is lying under the sense of sin I confirmed this and marked some sad consequences that followed sense of trouble without sense of sin I hinted also at a
come away he waits to receive you but lay a solid foundation acquaint your selves more with the sinfulness of sin with the desert of sin and with the impossibility of standing before God marking sin in strict Justice that ye may close with Christ in earnest God bless what ye have heard for Christ's sake SERMON VII Psal 130. Vers 3. If thou LORD shouldest mark iniquities O LORD who shall stand 4. But there is forgivenness with thee that thou mayest be feared YE have heard how the Psalmist in the 1st and 2d Verses being wrestling with plunging perplexities expressed here under the name of deeps gets guilt stopping his audience and success to wrestle with in the 3d and 4th Verses wherein as ye have heard we have 1. A sensible confession concerning the desert of sin Verse 3. Next we have his refuge when he is humbled with the sense of that and it is pardoning mercy forgivenness with God to which he claims in the beginning of the 4th Verse And lastly ye have the end for which God lets out and bestows pardoning mercy on sinners that he may be feared For the first of these in the 3d Verse I am near a close of what I purpose to say upon it for beside the conjunction ye have heard ought to be betwixt the sense of sin and the sense of trouble without which the sense of trouble is but bruitish and beside that ye have heard that guilt will readily meet the people of God in straits when they are made to cry out of the deeps unto God Beside these I say I insisted the last day on that great Point that iniquity marked by God according to the Covenant of Works and the Rules of strict Justice is that which no man is able to stand under and ye may remember how at great length I both Explained and continued this truth by several Deductions from the Text which I shall not now repeat I shut up the Point with a general word of Exhortation that sinners that look for everlasting happiness would learn to say over this Text with application to themselves If thou Lord should mark iniquity I cannot stand and to do it sensibly for the fixing of which and bearing of it home ye may remember what Considerations were laid before you as Considerations concerning God your Party Considerations concerning the number of your sins and guilt It 's called iniquities in the Plural Number Considerations concerning the nature and aggravations of your guilt upon which account also it 's called Iniquities Considerations also of the just threatnings of God and of the infallible execution of them upon the sinner or his Surety Considerations concerning the sufferings of Jesus Christ a Glass wherein the desert of sin must be seen Now before I come to the next Verse I shall mark three or four particular inferences And 1. Ye have here a clear discovery that there is no Justification by Works that a man by his Works cannot think of standing before God Justification by Works is that only which we know by the Light of Nature and that first Covenant made with mankind in Adam and therefore every man hath a natural propension to do his own turn that way The Jews being ignorant of the righteousness of God and going about to establish their own righteousness did not submit unto the righteousness of God Rom. 10.3 Ignorant persons think to please God with their Repentance and the mending of their faults and doing better Papists plead with an open mouth for Justification by Works some Mungrel Protestants would mumble out somewhat that way but ye are to consider that the Covenant requires that which is now impossible even perfect holiness and that Covenant being once broken is everlastingly broken and for any Evangelical Paction the Text leads us to there is no Medium betwixt God's marking iniqiuity and forgiving iniquity a man must either stand to his hazard of God's sitting down on his Tribunal and marking his iniquities to punish them or he must lay aside all thoughts of complementing with God in this matter or of patching up a business of Grace and good Works in his Justification before him they that study the first part of the Text well that if God mark iniquity none can stand they will easily be put from that conceit of Justification by Works and plead forgivenness And therefore 2 I would have sinners considering that there is no standing under guilt except Christ be fled unto for refuge if ye have not taken Sanctuary in Atheism that ye look upon all that is said in this Preached Gospel as cunningly devised Fables will you but look to it and think with your selves what will you do in the day of Visitation and in the day of Wrath when the just threatnings of God shall be execute against sin and all sinners that are out of Christ when many will be ready to cry out for Hills and Mountains to fall upon them and hide them from the wrath of the Lamb. O! consider it if ye can be perswaded to be in earnest about your souls what ye think to do in the day of Gods wrath for sin In that day wherein the sensless sinners that made a sport of sin will be made to sing that doleful Note Lam. 5.16 The Crown is fallen from our head wo unto us for we have sinned Then ye will find it desperate folly and madness that ye went on in sin and fled not in time from the wrath to come Ponder that Parable Luk. 16.24 which is not to be stretched beyond the principal scope as if there were charity for others in Hell and ye will find what a dreadful Bargain sin is when a drop of cold Water to cool the Tongue would be an ease to the Drunkard in torment and he cannot have it when his warning of others is a witness against himself that he was a desperat man that run such a hazard that is now past remedy Think I say on these things if ye look not on this Word as Fables But 3. If none can stand before God's marking iniquity then the sense of guilt should make us justifie God in all the troubles that come upon his People when we consider that the Lord may for sin not only as in a solemn day call our terrors round about as the word is Lament 2.22 But may everlastingly condemn us in hell how dare a sinner murmur under lesser calamities or troubles The language of a man sensible of the desert of sin is that which ye have Ezra 9 13. Thou our God hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve and that Lam. 3.22 It is of the Lords mercies that we are not consumed because his compassions fail not A man that is sensible of sin and of the desert of it ye will not find him a murmurer against any cross inflicted but a wonderer at the moderation that shines in the sharpest tryals Therefore as I said upon the first head the sense
of sin the Scriptures speaks clearly to it as in that patern of prayer Mat. 6.12 Forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors so Eph. 4.32 Forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you and Col. 3.13 Forgive one another if any man have a quarrel against any even as Christ forgave you so also do ye But private persons forgiving of sins is the forgiving the injuries done by mens sinning to them rules anent which I may meet with ere I have done with this Theme But though a privat person is bound to forgive injuries done against them It is still with a reservation of God's interest and the sinner must count to God notwithstanding from all which to resume it 's clear whatsoever hand man hath in forgiving sin God is the principal Creditor whose Law is violat whose Majesty is offended whose Justice must be satisfied and therefore it 's his property and prerogative to forgive sins and louse from the obligation to wrath that sin deserves In making use of this I shall not digress to deal with Papists who in receiving pardons from their Priests use not a judgment of discretion whether the persons pardoning them be acting according to their Instructions and according to their own principles for if they did they might be easily nonplus'd They put the power to give indulgences intirely in their Pope and assert that their Priests are Commission at by him to dispense them but they can only have a humane Faith concerning that Commission For beside that the Popes Power to do so is upon many accounts questionable They ask how we know the Scripture to be the word of God we might ask them how they know the Pope who must give these Indulgences to be the Pope That he is a Christian and hath gotten Baptism For according to their own principles the Pope is no Pope except he be Baptized Now they cannot certainly know their Pope is baptized that being one of their grounds that Baptism is not administred except the intention of the Priest go along Now they cannot be certain that the Priest who baptized the present Pope hath had an intention to baptize him while he went about that Action therefore they cannot be certain of any pardon this present Pope shall give them nor can they have any thing but a humane Faith as to the pardon of their sins But the Judgment of God is visible upon them for not receiving the truth inlove God hath been provocked to give them up to strong delusions to believe lies and shall I add further It 's a plague and a snare to prophane men that walk in the imagination of their own heart adding drunkenness to thirst that they have this woful shift get them a a Priest and let them have an Absolution and then they are as ready to take in a new swack of sin as ever they were this is the woful cheat that follows theit way if folk walked like a principle of Conscience they were to be pitied but when profligat men run that way they drive their carnal interest or have a sleeping God to their Conscience under all their abominations But passing this and leaving particular Inferences till the afternoon I shall give you these three words 1. If God be the only pardoner of sin they make a very blind block that pardon themselves for all their faults that is who can commit all sorts of iniquities and cast them over their thumb when they have done Thou that does so shall know that God only is the pardoner of sin ere long and that thy pardon will not stand 2. It leaves a sad check on all them that satisfie themselves with the plaudites of the world Why they are good folk cryed up and commended of their neighbours if they have done wrong they will confess it make reparation or restitution but what is all that if God pardon thee not though thou should get never so many to hugg thee or assoil thee so long as God the only pardoner of iniquity doth not assoil thee And 3. It leaves a sad check also on them that care not to displease God to please Men and O! what snares to men are these that give themselves to be pleasures of men with displeasing of God They make no bonds of any sins if they can please them they are obliged to But thou that dost so will find thou hast made an ill bargain when the reckoning comes for they cannot forgive thy sin when thou stands before God neither will thou get men for thy Intercessors God only is the pardoner of iniquity and therefore they make a very foolish bargain who to please any stand not to displease God SERMON X. Psalm 130. Verse 4. But there is forgivenness with thee IN handling of this great Point the Remission of sins which is in effect the great Article of the New Covenant Jer. 31.34 I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more After that I had spoken in the first place to that which is pardoned or pardonable sin I entered in the morning to speak to the Author of pardon that forgivenness is with God whatever hand Ministers or privat persons may have in pardoning the one in carrying the word of Reconciliation and pardon the other in forgiving sins so far as they are injuries done to themselves yet God is still the principal Creditor and pardon from him is still to be looked after from which as I told you not only Papists who ly down and sleep on the pillow of mens pardon without considering whether they act according to their Commission come to be reproved but these Self-absolvers and these who rest on the applause of others and these who to please men stand not to displease God are found to be culpable Now before I leave this Head I would draw somewhat from it for incouragement of these who are in earnest about the pardon of sin and here that there is forgivenness with God it should and will affect sensible sinners as a wonder he will not only be a matchless God to them but upon the account that he passes by iniquity and pardons transgression Mic. 7.18 But it will be a wonder to them that there should be a pardon for iniquity that pardoning mercy should be with him whose holy justice is so great who is of purer eyes than that he can behold iniquity who hath no pleasure in wickedness and who hateth all the workers of iniquity that such a holy and just God should pardon sin that his Holiness and Justice should combine so sweetly with mercy to the sinner is a wonder of wonders yea further this may heighten the wonder that pardoning mercy gives access to them who are secluded by the Covenant of works that when as it is verse 3. If he should mark iniquity none could stand yet as verse 4. there should be forgivenness with him That as it is deduced Rom. 3.20 22. When
an hundred times and his days be prolonged yet surely I knovv that it shall be well with them that fear God How will ye prove that because he fears before him but it shall not be vvell with the wicked neither shall he prolong his days which are as a shaddow because he feareth not before God No approbation lyes in the bosom of forbearance Another Scripture that gives a dreadful refutation to them that take forbearance for pardon is that Psal 50.21 These things thou hast done and I kept silence thou thought that I was altogether such a one as thy self but I will reprove thee and set them in order before thine eyes Now consider this all ye that forget God lest I tear you in peices and there be none to deliver There is a refutation of all the wicked mans dreams anent God and his forbearance And if ye would have a third Scripture take the forecited place Rom. 2.4 5. Thou despisest the riches of his goodness forbearance and long suffering not knowing that it leadeth thee to Repentance but after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up to thy self wrath against the day of wrath Thou may treasure up other things as thou will for thy advantage but thou shalt find thou treasurest up wrath to thy ruine thou may think because thou prospers in Sin God approves of thee as the saying is prosperum faelix scelus virtus vocatur Wickedness is called a virtue because it thrives yet remember that forbearance is no Pardon 4. In taking up the nature of pardon negatively Consider That God's pardoning of particular Sinners whereby he restores them in favour is not to be confounded with National Pardons which God gives to Nations This pardon is many times spoken of in Scripture though by analogy we may draw them to a particular pardon So the scope of that place Num. 14.19 runs another way than to particular Persons and respects a National Pardon Pardon I beseech thee the iniquity of this people sayes Moses according to the greatness of thy mercy as thou hast forgiven this people from Egypt even untill now I have pardoned according to thy word sayes the Lord but truly as I live all the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord. I have pardoned but yet I will punish and vindicat mine honour So that passage Psal 78.38 But he being full of compassion forgave their iniquity and destroyed them not when they deserved That was a pardon of the Nation or a National Pardon Now a National Pardon amounts only to this when the Lord forbears to root out a Nation as the Lord threaten â—o Moses that he would root out Israel in that forecited place Num. 14.12 That he would Dis-inherit them and make of him a greater Nation and a Mightier than they when he keeps them in their own Land as he did Israel and does not root them out or when he continues with them the priviledge of a Church though he plague them and weed out a godless generation from among them as he did out of Israel that in the space of 38 years time there was not a man of them left that were 20 years old and upwards when they came out of Egypt save Caleh and Joshua So the Lord may pardon a Nation and yet punish them he may by his Judgments weed out the generality of a Generation and send them to the Pit which may consist with a National pardon when he doth not cut off the Nation or suffers them to enjoy the priviledges of a Church But the pardon of a particular Sinner is when he sits down at God's Footstool and Judges himself and closes with Christ for righteousness and that 's another thing And 5. In taking up the nature of pardon Negatively We must beware of confounding the pardon of Sin with the removal of Sin the prosecution whereof would lead me to speak Positively wherein pardon of Sin consists to the guilt and pollution of Sin and the different acts of God about both but because that will give the rise to other Questions I shall remit it to another occasion only here ye shall distinguish these three The filth of Sin the power of Sin and the guilt of Sin The filth of Sin is the foul stain that Sin leaves behind it The guilt of Sin is the Offence done to God and the Obligation to punishment resulting thereupon the power of Sin is the Tyrrany that Sin exercises over the Sinner Now when I say we are not to confound the pardon of Sin with the removal of Sin ye would understand it aright I grant that God strikes at the guilt of Sin and the power of Sin both at once which is this in plain languege that a pardoned sin must not be a reigning sin where the vertue of the blood is applyed for pardon the power of the blood will also be applyed for the subjugating of sin and putting it from the Throne and therefore in the by ye may take it as a noble evidence of pardon when sin is subdued or if it be not subdued yet ye are engadged against your own sinful disposition that it prevails not with your consent but for the filthiness of sin though it be stricken at as soon as any of the former Regeneration layes the Ax to the Root of that Tree yet it remains in the Saints till death make the separation Paul Rom. 7. Hath a Law in his members rebelling against the Law in his his mind till Death but the pardon of sin is attainable before death and given in Justification and afterward upon the justified persons Repentance for particular faults and therefore consequently it is not to be confounded with the removal of sin sin may be pardoned and pardon of sin is consistent with the sight of the filthiness of sin for which the soul is abased before God dayly after Regeneration though sin doth not reign and that 's it wherein the pardon of sin consists even in the taking away of the guilt of sin and the souls obligation to wrath though the filth of sin remain SERMON XI Psalm 130. Verse 4. But there is forgivenness with thee I Am now insisting upon the refuge to which the man abased with the conscience of sin betaketh himself who when he hath reflected upon Gods proceedings in strict Justice according to the tenor of the Covenant of Works with sinners and who when he hath found that if God should thus mark iniquity none even the most godly should be able to stand he subjoyns this as a blest aftergain in mans deplorable case But forgivenness is with thee In prosecution of this great truth that there is pardoning-pardoning-mercy with God to be a relief for Self-condemned sinners I have spoken to two of the five heads that I proposed to be spoken to upon it 1. I have spoken to the Consideration of that which is pardoned that is Iniquity Sin or Transgression or call it by what name ye will 2. I
closing therewith ye would look upon pride of Heart as having a main hand in it Rom. 10.3 The reason why the Jews did not submit unto the righteousness of God they went about to establish their own A doubting Soul in its exercise may seem to be very humble and crucified it may be but it is not humbled but while it stands a-loof from pardoning Mercy proclaims its Pride for it proclaims it would have a price to bring in its hand to God and God is angry at that pride he will have thee coming to him as a Dyvour when thou hast tryed all thou can do to the yondmost And 6. and lastly in this aversion read another mistake folk think it presumption when they are convinced of their vileness to close with pardoning Mercy but it is so far from being presumption that it is the greatest evidence of humility to take mercy freely when thou comes to the Mercat of Free-grace with no price in thy hand and not only so but it is a high honouring of God The man that being sensible of his sinfulness closeth with pardoning Mercy doth with Abraham Rom. 4.20 Give glory to God and by his receiving his testimony put to his seal that God is true Joh. 3.33 and therefore any that are sensible of sin and have any thing of the conviction of the dreadful desert of sin and are in any measure in the exercise of repentance for sin they would take notice of these things that I have named as stumbling blocks in their way of closing with pardoning Mercy and labour to take them out of it that they may come up to close with it and say But there is forgiveness with thee 3. But now because folk may readily say all that I spoke to in the Morning for preparation to closing with pardoning Mercy is good and when they hear it holden out as the will of God that a sensible sinner should lay hold on Christ for pardon who are they that will not say they have sense of sin and may take a pardon therefore to prevent the stumbling of such I shall in the 3d. place as I proposed in the entry speak to some things required consequentially as a fruit of pardon whereby a man comes to know and evidence that he is pardoned and to improve his pardon answerable to that subjoyned to forgiveness in the Text and here in speaking to the evidences of pardon a posteriori as we use to speak or which are consequential to pardon I might touch upon many things but in general as those that would see the rising of the Sun in the East they would look to the West where they will see by the shade of his Beams when he rises so these that would make their pardon sure would mind well the consequences of pardon as the surest evidences of their pardon and that they are not deluded in that matter And the 1st that I would recommend to youâ— is Love to the Pardoner There is none hath gotten pardon but it will kyth in this and for proof of it take notice of that Luk. 7.47 Where Christ speaking of the woman that washt his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head he says her sins which are many are forgiven for she loved much The meaning is not that her great love to Christ did merit a pardon for if ye read the Parable before from verse 40. It will clear that that is not the meaning Christ says to Simon Which of the Debitors will love the Creditor most Simon answers I suppose be to whom he forgave most There Love is the result of pardon and the consequent of pardon not the cause and it is in that case that Christ applys it to the woman such love to me is an infallible evidence that much is forgiven her I would have imbittered folk and such as are reflecters upon and carps at Providential Dispensations noticing this That it is no good evidence of pardon and thou that has love to him whatever be his Dispensations towards thee it speaks good news of pardon though thou cannot discern it 2. I recommend much Heart-melting and Evangelical Repentance whereof I spoke before as it is required antecedently to pardon now I press that which is consequential to pardon when a sinner hath closed with pardoning Mercy and by a reflex act looks back upon what hath been forgiven him O what melting of heart hath it as in that woman Luke 7.47 Much is forgiven her therefore she loveth much and that melted her heart and made her weep much she is a tender melting woman and certainly if thou be a Child the too look to pardon and much more the application of pardon will melt the heart and work more than many Rods. And 3. I recommend to you as a Consequence of Pardon a deep sense of the hainousness of the sin pardoned and much compassion toward them who are yet lying in the same pollution and guilt a pardoned sinner looking on his sin through the Glass of pardoning Mercy it grows much more hainous than it was and a pardoned man cannot but with compassion look on others lying in the puddle of Nature Titus 3 2 7 Speak evil of no man says he but be gentle shewing all meekness to all men for we our selves were sometime foolish disobedient c. till the loving kindness of God was manifested O what compassion will the pardoned man have towards others wallowing in that pollution from which he is delivered There are other two Evidences consequential to pardon one is Our forgiving of others Mat. 6.12 which is no meritorious antecedent cause of pardon for it is the sense of Christ pardoning Mercy to us that should and doth loose our hearts to pardon others we are bidden say Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors Another Evidence in the Text is holy filial fear but because the one of these is a Point in the Text and the other concerns the pardoning of one another as an evidence we are pardoned which will require more time to deduce than now we have I shall fist here for this time The Lord bless his Word to you SERMON XVII Psalm 130. Verse 4. But there is forgivenness with thee YE may remember that I have insisted long upon this excellent Priviledge The remission or the forgiveness of sins I have spoken to the Object of pardon or what it is that is pardoned Iniquity I have also spoken to the Author of pardon GOD To the Nature of Pardon and when it is that Pardon is pronounced and I entered the last day upon the Applicatory part of this Doctrine to lead you in a right way of closing with pardoning Mercy following the scope of the Context I proposed to speak of somewhat required antecedently to pardon to somewhat required in closing with pardon and of something consequential to pardon whereby we Evidence that we are pardoned and do improve our pardon I spoke to the first
unseasonable were it but to give a check to the malicious disposition that haunts too too many in this generation What shall I say of it I shall only say this that little love is the first step to this malicious disposition when love grows cold and folk lives uncouth and fram'd one to another without intimations of that warmness of affection that should be which is much creept in among the fearers of God love I say growing cold then injuries bitter resentments back-bitings reproaches evil speakings c will threed in with that needle yea this is one of the great in-lets to that monstruous damnable dreadful sin of Witchcraft into which some have been led by their lusts others have been tempted to through poverty but moe by malice than by both to give themselves formally over to the Devil to renounce Christ to renounce their Baptism hope of happiness and to sacrifice all to their malicious and revengful temper therefore look to it and upon this as a necessary Doctrine that presses you to have love one to another forbearing and forgiving one another that love that suffers long is not puffed up behaveth not it self unself unseemly seeketh not her own is not easily provocked thinketh no evil rejoyceth not in iniquity but in the truth beareth all things hopeth all things believeth all things endureth all things 1 Cor. 13.4 It was the most known badge of the primitive Christians and no wonder their Master left it with them Joh. 13.35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have love one to another love to kindle up kindness that malice drowns love that extenuats faults that passion aggreges love that pities and compassionats where malice and revenge severely punishes love that will meet an injurer mid-way and more when revenge bids run away As ye would not be given up to the most dreadful temptations study love and from love to forgive and harbour not a malicious and revengful disposition Lord bless c. SERMON XVIII Psalm 130. Verse 4. But there is forgivenness with thee that thou mayest be feared IN the morning I was detained upon that evidence of a pardoned man which is of very common use in our walk that we have a tender-hearted disposition and be in a readiness to forgive others Now there remains before I leave this point another evidence or consequence of pardon when it is rightly closed with held out in that which ye may remember I made a third branch of this Text being an amplification of pardoning mercy taken from Gods design in letting it out even that he may be feared I shall not here stand on a general how needful it is to look to Gods design and what he drives at by every thing he doth unto us and about us as the Psalmist takes notice of Gods end in pardoning Though it were needful that we should look to it that we abuse no dispensation of God to serve our own ends neglecting his ends The reason why we speed not in many suits is we ask and receive not because we ask amiss that we may consume it upon our lusts Jam. 4.3 But passing that I come to the word in the Text. The word here fear of God it is one of these internal graces that naturally results upon the acknowledgment of a Deity and consequently belongs to the first Command where knowledge and acknowledgment of God faith and hope in God love to him and fear of him and patience under his dispensations are all commanded under that of having no other gods but frequently the fear of God is taken more largely for all the service and fear and worship of God and that because fear and reverence is a necessary ingredient called for in every part of service and worship we perform here we need not restrict the sense of the Word and so the meaning is pardoning Mercy is in God and let forth by God to the penitent that the pardoned sinner may stand in awe to offend God and may be invited to worship and serve God who invites him to it by a free pardon of iniquity under which he could not stand if God should mark it in strict Justice And hence in that sum of Christianity Philip. 3.3 If a man from having no confidence in the flesh come to rejoyce in Jesus Christ the result of that is to worship God in the Spirit hence Job 37.23 24. When God is taken up as one excellent in Power Judgment and plenty of Justice that will not afflict it hath this consequence resulting upon it men do therefore fear him and 1 Kin. 8.38 when his people pray to him he by his hearing of Prayer forgiving of sin doing and giving to every man according to his ways doth hereby invite them to fear him all the days that they live in the Land which he gave to their Fathers and Hos 3.5 It is said of converted Israel That they shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter dayes Now that I may speak somewhat of this for your edification I shall take a word or two from this purpose abstractly considered and then consider it with an eye to the scope 1. Then considering the words abstractly we may mark that fear and reverence is due to God that God is a suitable Object of humble and reverential fear in the Creature the fear of God is a thing frequently spoken of and prest in Scripture as most due to him Rev. 15.4 Who shall not fear thee O Lord and glorifie thy Name Psal 76.7 11. Thou even thou art to be feared bring presents to him that ought to be feared Isai 8.13 Sanctifie the Lord of hosts himself let him be your fear and your dread Heâ—â—e not to insist upon the Derivations that some give of the Greek and Latine Names of God from the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying Fear the Scripture sometimes Names God by this That he is the fear of his people Gen. 31.53 when Laban sware by the God of Abraham and the God of Nabor Jacob sware by the fear of his father Isaac that is by the God that was the Object of Isaac's fear and that word is very emphatick which ye have Psal 76.11 in your Translation it is bring presents to him that ought to be feared but in the Original and as it is rendred in the margin of your Bibles it is bring presents to the fear that is to God the Object of the reverential fear of his people It may be said that the Object of fear being things evil God who is the Chief Good seems not to be the proper Object of fear but that is easily cleared affection to God as to the chief Good cannot be without holy solicitude and reverential fear lest either our sin deprive us of him and of his favour or he be provocked to send evil on us upon the account of our provocations Now for the kinds of this fear of God I shall not insist upon
is not to trapane you in a course wherein your expectations will be defeat but all that is said of it are the true and faithful sayings of God I shall only offer to illustrat this in three words and I have done with the Point 1. What is the language of all the common goodness of God to your selves to you who are profane to you who are rebels to you who are mockers at all Religion that think it an evidence of a silly Spirit to fall in love with holiness What means all this common goodness of God to you I say that he makes not the Earth open and swallow you up quick into the pit as he did Core Dathan and Abiram that he puts not forth his hand to sweep you off the Earth or makes you not monuments of his Justice and Judgment upon it Know ye I say again What all this means I shall give it you in that word Rom. 2.4 The riches of his goodness and forbearance leads or should lead you to repentance that so ye may come in to know what his special and singular goodness to Israel means he is laying invitations at thy door who art traversing thy wayes whom the wind has bound up in its wings and who art as light as the wind in following thy follies inviting thee to come in and be an Israelite indeed that thou may share in his peculiar goodness and put him to it as he bids you Hag. 2. See if he will prove a wilderness or a land of drought to you He gives you a bill of defyance if ye will turn in to him and be his Israel indeed that ye shall turn your back upon him and say he disappointed you 2. The Scripture intimats the reality of his goodness to all his Creatures his kindness is palpable to all creatures beside man Job 36.41 He provideth for the ravens their food when their young ones cry unto him the young lyons roar after their prey and seek their meat from God Psal 104.21 He feeds the fouls of the air he cloaths the lillies and the grasse in the field which to day is and to morrow is cast into the oven Mat. 6.20 And from all this our blessed Lord gathers verse 30. If God provide for fowls and so clothe the grass will he not much more clothe you O ye of little faith If God be good to all his creatures and will he not be good to his own children And a 3. word to illustrat it Christ gives you Mat. 7.9 from Parents goodness to their Children who if they ask bread will not give them a stone or if they ask a fish will not give them a serpent and then infers if ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children how much more shall your father which is in heaven give good gifts to them that ask him So God's common goodness to your selves his common goodness to all the creatures and the natural affection of parents to their children all of these concur to demonstrat that the goodness of God towards his people is real and no complement and therefore to shut up this purpose with this word of Exhortation that ye would seek to be Israelites indeed and to leave it at every ones door that do not study to be Israelites indeed that they forsake their own mercy in slighting this peculiar goodness of God and such as do so let them stand to their own hazard so I have done with the Exhortation Let Israel hope in the Lord. I proceed now to consider the encouragements arguments or grounds on which the Psalmist presses that Israel should hope in God For with the Lord is mercy and with him is plenteous redemption and he shall redeem Israel from all his troubles and iniquities ye see the Arguments are taken partly from what is with God or in God and his power for the good of his people mercy and Redemption and that in great plenty that is authority and power to give a proof of his mercy to Israel and to rid them from all servitude and bondage and partly the Arguments are taken from that which God will let out for the good of Israel if mercy and plenteous redemption be with him then he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities I shall not here fall in upon a general Remark That folks hopes would be well and distinctly grounded for the Psalmist doth not satisfie himself to exhort Israel to hope in God but he layes down grounds of hope on which they are to go in the exercise of that Grace This Point if I were to stand upon it would give a check both to the blind guesses of the wicked who have hope enough alway and all that men can say cannot drive them from their carnal confidence when they cannot tell what their confident hope is or wherein it is grounded only they have a blind guess which they take for hope and partly it would give a check to the children of God for their â—ndistinctness in their hope and the grounds of it while they are hanging on God I do not deny but when they are opprest they must look unto God to undertake for them and when they are blind and cannot see through the cloud in the dark day they must grip unto him who must hold them by the right hand and when they are in a mist of confusion they must grip after God But confusion and undistinctness in ordinary makes much uncomfortable work whereas if folk studied to be distinct and clear in the grounds of their hope they would not lean so little weight on hope as tentation often perswades them to do But to leave this what I would say from these Arguments I shall draw it to these two general Heads I Ye see there is somewhat supponed here anent them that are put to hope and who are warranted to hope in God they are in such a condition that they are put to need mercy and plenteous redemption and that from many iniquities 2. There is somewhat proposed anent such persons that there is hope of mercy and plenteous redemption for them with and in God and there is Gods power and willingness to redeem them from all iniquities and this they are to look to and hope for For the first That which is supposed I shall take it up in three Notes 1. That the man called to hope in God is miserable in himself and put out of himself to see what is in God that makes for him 2. That he is not only simply miserable but under a bondage that needs redemption and plenteous redemption 3. That he is a man that above all pressures he is lying under finds the pressure of sin and guilt to be the greatest for he must have a peculiar Redemption for all his iniquities 1. The man put to hope and warranted to hope in God is a man miserable in himself and put to look for mercy he is not a man that is conceity
reference to his misery The next Letter is Gracious to intimate that God having lookt on miserable man as the objeâ—â— of his compassion because it might be objected God hath great compassion but what deserves miserable man He hath nothing to commend him yea he hath much to discommend him It is answered God is not only merciful to compassionat miserable man but he is gracious to notice him and compassionat him freely without merit and contrary to demerit Then he is Long suffering c. Now in reference to this mercy of God there are three things I intend to touch on before I come to the use 1. To open up the nature of this mercy 2. To speak a little of the object of it And 3. to the properties of it In speaking to the first I shall wave all School speculations anent it as whether mercy and punitive justice be essential to God and on what account they can be called essential Attributes seing mercy presupposes man miserable which is one of the Socinian foundations to overthrow the satisfaction of Christ but that might be easily cleared by adding a word to what hath been already said That mercy in God is nothing but the goodness of God with relation to the object to which it is communicat and punitive justice is nothing else but that essential Attribute of his holiness vindicating and avenging himself on a sinner the object of his justice and if we consider the mercy and justice of God thus we will find it no difficulty to rank them among the essential Attributes of God yea that it is blasphemy to deny them to be such I thought to have cleared to you how that mercy is no passion nor perturbation in God as it is in man though it be for our encouragment to hope in him exprest in most pathetick terms as also to have cleared That the Earth â—s full of his Mercy and Goodness Psal 33.5 All creatures share in it yet there are vessels of mercy afore pre-prepared to glory Rom. 9.23 That are objects of his especial mercy and to have spoken to its properties how it is real and not complementing How he delights in mercy Mic. 7.18 How it is free eternal sure and rich for all necessities But for want of time I forbear and recommend you and what ye have heard to His blessing whose word it is SERMON XXXIX Psalm 130. Verse 7 For with the Lord there is mercy THough when a look is taken of God's Israel none are more low and empty in themselves none that claim greater acquaintance with the dust than they are enabled to do yet none have such ample ground of encouragement as they if they be Israel thogh they be in misery and under bondage and particularly oppressed with and under the bondage of sin yet Israel is still allowed and commanded to hope in God and that because Israel's wealth and happiness and the ground of his encouragement is without himself Though he be poor and needy yet the Lord thinks on him though he have nothing in God he possesseth all things Though his house be not so with God yet his salvation and desire lies in this That God hath made with him an everlasting covenant well ordered in all things and sure And in a word have what he will or be what he will in himself yet he may hope in God considering what is with God Let Israel hope in the Lord for with the Lord c. I have spoken from this argument pressing hope in God to what is imported in it as to the hopers condition that he is indigent and miserable in himself needing to look for mercy in God that he is in bondage needing to look for plenteous redemption with God and particularly that he is under the bondage of iniquity which puts him to look for a particular redemption from that from him that redeems Israel from all his iniquities And the last day I came to break in on what is proposed in the words for Israel's encouragement to hope in God The first Observation of four which I could scarce break in on was That it is the great encouragement of God's people to hope in him in all exigents and cases that there is mercy with God that they have to do with a God with whom there is mercy This mercy as I then cleared is nothing else but the goodness of God and consequently an essential attribute relating to the misery of the object to which it is communicat even as his punitive Justice is an essential Attribute being nothing else but his Holiness manifesting it self against sin for as the goodness of God undergoes various notions on divers accounts as was said so it hath the name of mercy with relation to the misery of man In prosecuting of this I proponed to speak 1. more generally to the nature of this mercy 2. To the Object To the Properties And 4. Of the use of the whole For the first the nature of this Mercy 1. It must be fixed that this mercy is free of all passion or perturbation in God When we consider God as merciful we must not conceive of him as of one subject to the passions of grief or sorrow for the misery of others as mercy in man is to be considered and therefore mercy in men used to be condemned by the Stoicks as being in their opinion a debasing of the spirit of man below the hight and greatness that it ought to have and it is reported of Agesilaus King of Sparta that he said it was difficult for a man both to be merciful and wise at once because if he were merciful it would be ready to transport him to that which was not suitable to a wise man but we have nothing to do with that debate here Mercy in God is free of passion or perturbation of sorrow or grief for others misery as it is in creatures it is only the goodness of God willing to remove allay or sweeten the misery of others only though God in his mercy be free of passion or perturbation yet he sweetens allays or removes the misery of man as tenderly and carefully as if he were affected with it Therefore for our capacity and better uptaking of it the mercy of God is spoken of as very passionat affecting and transporting in him as Isai 63.9 He is spoken of as being afflicted in all the afflictions of his people Zech. 2.8 as being touched on the apple of his eye when they are touched Jud. 10.16 as having his soul grieved or shortned in his resolution to punish when he looked on his peoples misery And Hos 11.8 As being put to a very great perplexity about them How shall I give thee up Ephraim How shall I deliver thee Israel How shall I make thee as Admah how shall I set thee as Zeboim my heart is turned within me my repentings are kindled together All which terms are borrowed to shew that however God in shewing mercy be free of
merciful bowels to deal about them according to their ability and as there is cause and a cruel unmerciful disposition is a shrewd token that such an one has not obtained mercy But more of this afterward 5. And Lastly The Objects of this Mercy are described to be tender walkers according to the Rule and Pattern set before them Gal. 6.16 As many as walk according to this rule peace be on them and mercy Their tender walk puts them not without Mercies mister The more tender they are in their walk they see the more need of mercy and this keeps them under the drop of mercy So much for the Object of this Mercy that is with God and for the characters of them to whom it is exprest which would be looked to by all of you who would be partakers of it I proceed now in the 3d place to speak to the properties of this Mercy which will help to unfold the nature of it a little more distinctly and among all the Properties that might be assigned to it a little briefly to these five 1. This would be fixed that the mercy of God is a real mercy Ye will get fair weather and complemental mercy enough in the World mercy professed where it is not and where it kythes not in any effect ye will get mercy enough like that Jam. 2.15 When a brother or sister is naked or destitute of daily food men that will say to them depart in peace be ye warmed and filled but they give them nothing needful for the body The whole world as one says are like Histrionicks counterfeit masked persons and in nothing more than in their pretences and professions of mercy but the mercy of God is a real mercy a mercy that folk may lippen to if ye enquire for it in the inward affection what can be required but it is adduced to express it Isai 23.15 It is exprest by sounding of the bowels Jer. 31.20 By bowels being troubled or moved Hos 11.8 By the turning of the heart within and repentings kindled together All these expressions are to point out how cordial and real the Lord is as to the inward affection of mercy and for the Effects of it men want rather eyes to discern them than the mercies themselves Even his own people are straitned in their own bowels how to keep the proofs of mercy when his heart is enlarged to bestow them and yet they never want a proof of his mercy while they have a room in the Hospital of his Heart and Faith to believe that they are in the Hospital of his Compassion that is an evident proof how real his mercy is 2. As his mercy is real so the Scripture tells it is that wherein he delights Mic. 7.18 He retains not his anger for ever Why Because he delights in mercy No but he delights in himself and in all his Attributes and in the manifestation of them in the World but in a peculiar manner in his mercy upon divers accounts He may be said to delight in it partly on the account of the frequency of his merciful dispensations and manifestations in acts of mercy For works of Judgment towards his people are his Work his strange Work and his Act his strange Act. Isai 28.21 But the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord Psal 35.5 All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth to such as keep his covenant c. Psal 25.10 Again he delights in mercy because there is nothing flows from him but that which may invite not hinder sinners from coming to him being objects of his mercy It is true he willeth the death of sinners for sin to glorifie his Justice Yet Ezek. 18.23 He hath no pleasure at all in the death of him that dieth but rather that he should return from his ways and live Nothing flows from him to seclude any from his mercy that will not seclude themselves even when he strikes it is to drive to his mercy when he afflicts the language is Turn you and live why will ye die O house of Israel Again he delights in mercy because all the good he doth to his people he doth it not grudgingly Many a good turn among men is as ye speak spilt in the doing But the good that he does to his people he does it with his whole heart and soul Jer. 32.41 He acts mercy toward his people to speak so as one in his own Element and as going about a work that is kindly to him if I may so word it And lastly he delights in mercy because to speak after the manner of men he hath no pleasure that his people should ever raise any cloud betwixt his mercy and them the people of God cannot do themselves a greater wrong nor him a greater unkindness if ye understand it aright than by their provocations to incapacitat him to manifest his mercy towards them But mistake not this for he hath a Soveraignty in his grace even when they in a manner necessitat him to keep up the acts of his mercy and to afflict them hence when they go onfrowardly in the way of their own heart his tender mercy will make a stepping-stone of impediments that are put in its way Isai 57.17 Because he delights in mercy he will come over all these impediments to do them a good turn freely And that is a 3d property of this mercy it is a free mercy it is a mercy bestowed without money and without price But this as I told you the last day is comprehended under the notion of Grace that is imported in the Goodness of God in that it is freely given And therefore Exod. 33.19 cited Rom. 9.15 He will have mercy on whom he will have mercy compassion c. And it 's not in him that wills nor in him that runs but in God that shews mercy There is no place for disputing here Why he will have mercy on such and such and not on others it is an act of his royal prerogative in grace that none can hinder for who can hinder him to do with his own what he will A 4th Property of this mercy with God is That it is an eternal mercy I do not mean that any creature that gets not an Interest in the mercy of God in this life may look to be partaker of it after this life that was the Opinion of Origen that Devils and damned men and women should at length share in the mercy of God Either thou must grip mercy here or thou hast done with it eternally But to them that close with mercy here it is an everlasting mercy Hence is that over-word of the 136. Psalm His mercy endureth for ever and Psal 103.17 His mercy is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him from election to their eternal glorification so David finds that his tender mercies and loving kindnesses have been for ever of old And the Church Lam. 3.23 finds It is of the
Lords mercies that they are not consumed because his compassions fails not And David sings Psal 23.6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life It is an everlasting and eternal mercy There is a 5th property I intended to have spoken to and that is the fulness and riches of this mercy but because I am to speak a little more to that I shall leave it and the Use of the whole Doctrine to the afternoon God bless his word unto you SERMON XL. Psalm 130. Verse 7. For with the Lord there is mercy c. WHen some time is spent in speaking of the Mercy of God we are very far from sowing pillows to the Armholes or from making Kercheffs to the heads of the secure although I confess many do break their necks upon this blessed refuge of God's mercy and it will be their double condemnation that the mercy and goodness of God that should have led them to repentance was an occasion of their hardning in mischief Consider but the Scriptures design in speaking of that mercy that is with God that it is partly to leave Rebels and Wanderers without excuse when mercy is in their offer and they will have none of it And partly and especially to be the great cordial of the miserable man who when he is under all pressures that are ready to sink him hath this for his refuge that with God there is mercy as in Psal 13. who when he is troubled with soul-perplexities and desertion with apprehensions of being cut off and that his enemies should insult over him hath this for his cordial vers 5. But I have trusted in thy mercy and the sweet result of that is added My heart shall rejoice in thy salvation and vers 6. I will sing unto the Lord because he hath dealt bountifully with me that will be the sweet issue of the misterful mans trusting in Gods mercy Now ye have heard somewhat of the nature of this mercy in general somewhat of the peculiar objects of it and under what names and notions mercy is holden out and ensured to the godly man I have also spoken somewhat of the properties of this mercy that it is a real mercy that wherein God delights and that it is free and eternal and before I come to the use I am to speak a little to the fifth A 5th property then of mercy with God is that it is a rich full and infinite mercy a mercy to reach all the miseries and needs of his people as to the riches and fulness of his mercy the Scripture very plenteously speaks of it it is said of God that he is rich in mercy Eph. 2.4 He is said to be plentiful in mercy and full of compassion Psal 86.5 His mercies are manifold mercies Neh. 9.19 So they are called great mercies Neh. 9.31 Psal 119.156 Isa 54 7. And Dan. 9.18 It 's great mercy that Ushers in a supplication we do not present our supplications before thee for our own righteousness but for thy great mercies It is said further that he hath not only tender mercies that are very compassionat and condescending but he hath a multitude of tender mercies Psal 51.1 Psal 69.16 He is said to have abundant mercies in that 1 Pet. 1.3 He hath mercies in such abundance that they are infinitly above the mercies of man when David had it in his choice whether he would have three years famine or three moneths fleeing before the enemy or three days pestilence 2 Sam. 24.14 Let us now fall saih he into the hand of the Lord for his mercies are great and let us not fall into the hand of man And to add no more it is said of Gods mercies Psal 103.4 That he crowns us with his tender mercies c. That is partly he surrounds his people with proofs of love on every hand as a Crown compasseth the head that they cannot turn them about but mercy compasseth them about as with a shield as it is Psal 5.12 And partly his mercies put respect and honour on his people as if they set a Crown on every Saints head and made them Kings and Priests unto God as David says Psal 18.35 Thy gentleness hath made me great Thus I have let you see how copiously the Scripture speaks of the fulness and richness of this mercy and that I may let you see it in some particular evidences and instances consider 1. That the mercy of God toward his people is a mercy to pity them when no eye pities them when they are the object of contempt and abhorrency as Ezek. 16 when they are cast out into the open field lying polluted in their blood having no eye to pity them then it is a time of love and he saith to them Live and he spreads his skirt over them that is rich mercy to take the refuse of the earth and make them the objects of his special mercy 2. His mercy is full and rich in giving a vent to it self even when he is letting out severity his mercy manifests it self even when he lifts up his hand and is striking in inviting them whom he strikes to turn that they die not as Job 10. when he is destroying him as he apprehended after he hath enumerat some common providences about him he says vers 13. These things thou hast hid in thy heart I know that this is with thee I know there is some other thing in thy heart than what I can read in thy dealing 3. The riches and fulness of this mercy appears in pitying and passing by the peevishness and waywardness of his people especially when they take with it and be moan it in that they have been as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke Isai 57.17 For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth and smote him I hid me and was wroth and he went on in the way of his heart and what follows I have seen his way and will heal him and will restore comfort unto him and to his mourners I am God and not man I am a merciful God I 'le misken my petted people and heal them I 'le not prosecute this quarrel 4. The riches and fulness of his mercy appears in his fetching an Argument from his stroaks to pity his people a stroak extorted out of his hand to pity his people a stroak inflicted in justice mercy will make it an Argument to pity the afflicted Jer. 31.20 Is Ephraim my dear son Is he a pleasant child For since I spake against him I do earnestly remember him still my chiding and contending with him hath wakened my bowels towards him I will surely have mercy on him 5. The fulness and riches of this mercy appears in this that he considers tenderly the consequences of his pleading if he quarrel with them mercy tells him he may soon get the victory but that will lose him his people therefore he will forbear Isai 57.16 I will not contend for ever nor will I be always
his salvation yet pray on there is nothing formidable in a Supplicants condition so long as he is not driven from Gods Footstool but he prays on 2. Another direction is that repulses or delays should promove humility in Supplications and Supplicants It 's here supplications that he puts up when he pleads for audience Now the poor uses supplications supplications are the Beggers are the Dyvours Language many Supplicants when they have cryed long and are not heard may be in peril to fret to quarrel to repine to bark but that 's a wrong method to come speed with God in Prayer thou ought to be the more humble the longer thou art delayed thou ought to creep the nearer the dust and come in among the poor that speak supplications And a third direction shall be from the Phrase and Metaphor in the Text as I explained it in the entry that is that there be a believing that the Lord hath an affectionat ear to listen unto and hear the cry of humble Supplicants This is imported in the very terms of the Prayer put up to God as an affectionat Parent ready to notice the cry of his Child when he is in hazard and crys for help and this is a needful direction when the Supplicant is held at the door that beside diligence and humility he entertain Faith that bods well of God Faith that when God was seeming to destroy Job made him say These things hast thou hid in thine heart I know that this is with thee Job 10.13 I know thou hast a kindness for Job though thou appear terrible to me so must Faith reckon when answers to Prayer are delayed I know he will do me good though I seem not to be noticed Now I come to the third and fourth Verses wherein we have the second Branch of the Psalmist's wrestling and that is a wrestling with guilt that might hinder audience and to give you a general view of these two Verses ye shall take this Branch of his wrestling in these three 1. Ye have a very sensible and humble acknowledgment of the desert of sin in the most godly vers 3. If thou Lord should mark iniquity O Lord who should stand That is iniquities are so hainous a thing that if thou wilt mark them as a severe Judge and according to the Covenant of Works proceed with men none would be justified 2. Ye have the Psalmist's relief being thus humbled in Gods pardoning mercy on which he lays hold in the beginning of the 4. vers But there is forgivenness with thee 3. This pardoning mercy in God is amplified from the end he hath before him in letting it forth That thou mayest be feared that is not only in general because thou art a merciful and pardoning God in Christ men have access to worship and serve thee who otherwise art a consuming fire but in particular thy pardoning mercy will excite men to fear and worship so good a God that freely pardons iniquity under the weight and burden of which they could not stand For the first of these his sensible and humble acknowledgment of the desert of sin in the most godly I may touch it the more cursorily now because it will fall in when afterward I come to speak of the right way of applying pardoning mercy where I shall take a view of this Verse as it points out the right method of obtaining pardon and the qualification of the pardoned sinner calling upon God in trouble what I would say now upon it ye shall take up in these three 1. Ye have the sense of sin and guilt joyned with the sense of trouble 2. Ye have the sense of guilt meeting a godly man in the teeth when he is sent to God by Prayer in trouble 3. Ye have guilt meeting him with a terrible Aspect that if God marked it he nor none is able to stand For the first I shall give it to you in this brief Observation That in right exercise the sense of sin and guilt should go along with the sense of distress and trouble the Psalmist rests not on his being sensible that he was in the deeps but he is also lying under the sense of sin and guilt a man that hath the meer sense of trouble without the sense of sin he is no more than a beast that will feel a smart and so it is a bruitish thing to be houling under the sense of trouble without the sense of sin Hos 7.14 They have not cryed unto me with their heart when they houled upon their beds They houled for their trouble but they called not sincerely unto me And vers 16. They return but not to the most high they are like a deceitful bowe And hence Micah 6.9 The Lords voice calls unto the City hear ye the rod and who hath appointed it There must be a hearing of the Appointer of the Rod as well as the Rod it self To evince the truth of this point I shall shortly hint at some consequences that readily follows the sense of trouble without the sense of sin Not to stand upon this that readily they choise a new sin to an outgate Job 26.1 This hast thou chosen rather than affliction I shall name these three 1. Where the sense of trouble is without the sense of sin folks expects to win soon out of it There are readily a world of conceity folk that think they will win soon and easily out of their trouble Judah found the weight of trouble but not the weight of sin and when they were going to captivity they were filled with dreams of outgate Jer. 12.4 They said he shall not see our last end And Jer. 2.25 They said because I am innocent surely his anger shall turn from me And when they were brought very low that delusion did not leave them Ezek. 11.15 They say Get ye far from the Lord unto us is the land given in possession And Ezek. 33.24 These of them that did inhabite the wastes said Abraham was one and he inherited the land but we are many the land is given us for inheritance Whence it is clear that deluded confidence is one of the wofull fruits of the sense of trouble without sense of sin A 2d is woful bitterness and carnal distempers of Spirit if not when the trouble comes on because they trust to be soon delivered from it yet when it continues long How find ye that people Jer. 5.19 and the parallel places who are brought in saying Wherefore hath the Lord our God done all these things unto us What 's our iniquity And what 's our sin And Isa 51 20. Ye may take up the temper of such a people Thy sons have fainted they ly at the head of all the streets as a wild bull in a net they are full of the fury of the Lord the rebuke of thy God Ye will not tame a wild Beast by putting him in a Net but mad him the more and so are they who continue long under the
two of which I have spoken to in the Forenoon to wit that which is supponed here that God is a marker of iniquity and what it imports And secondly that which is proposed on this supposition That if God should mark iniquity as was explained men even the most godly men could not stand where somewhat was said to the importance of that Phrase Now I proceed in Explication of the Point from the Text for to that I confine my self in other four particulars The first and third in order shall be this That this assertion that men cannot stand before God marking iniquity is of infallible verity a most certain and infallible truth it is not a Bug-Bear to afright Children but the infallible truth of God This is hinted at in the Text partly in the Psalmist his proposing the matter to God If thou Lord shouldst mark iniquity O Lord who shall stand He proposes it to God who knows this matter better than any other and who is Supream Judge in the matter without whose determination a Decreet in our own favours will signifie nothing at all it imports O Lord let men dream what they will of their standing thou knowest that none can stand if thou shalt mark iniquity to punish it and particularly the infallible verity of this assertion may be gathered from the way of proposing it and that is by way of Question Who shall stand Which Question is a very peremptory denyal of the thing questioned for so the like Question is resolved Job 14.4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean Not one Yea the proposing of it by way of Question Who shall stand Doth import a defyance to any to attempt it or to succeed in their attempt and indignation at the presumption of any that should dream of standing before God marking iniquity But in the fourth place as this assertion is of infallible verity so it is of universal verity This is held out in the Question for the Question is Who shall stand That is as the parallel Question is answered Job 14.4 None at all good or bad If thou Lord shouldst mark iniquity none should stand for the Psalmist here a godly man is taking in himself with others as a man that could not stand himself without pardon And so the Phrase is Psal 143.2 Enter not into judgment with thy servant for in thy sight shall no man living be justified The best of men that are come of Adam by ordinary generation shall not be justified if thou mark iniquity Hence in Scripture it is clear that Saintship consists not in sinlessness but in sincerity for for Original guilt in that Job 14.4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean Not one and for a mans endeavours after he is brought in to God and is wrestling with corruptions to have these purged out says Solomon Prov. 20.9 Who can say I have made my heart clean I am pure from my sin Eccles 7.20 There is not a just man upon earth that doth good and sinneth not but as it is Jam. 3.2 In many things we offend all Thus ye see that Saintship doth not consist in sinlessness but in sincerity neither doth Saintship consist in the Saints their sins not deserving condemnation or in their being able to stand though they have sinned but in their sins being pardoned hence ye will find them sadly exercised in wrestling under the burden of guilt upon their gross out-breakings as David Psal 51. ye have them praying for the pardon of great iniquity Psal 25.11 For thy Names sake pardon mine iniquity for it is great Ye have them pleading for mercy upon the account of innumerable evils compassing them and their iniquities take hold of them and being more than the hairs of their head Psal 40.11 12. And when they are delivered from gross out-breakings ye have them with Paul Rom. 7. groaning under a body of sin and death till they attain to a song of thanksgiving thorow Jesus so that not only doth the Text hold out the infallible verity of this truth but the universal verity of it that if God mark iniquity none can stand The 5th thing I gather from the Text is that the infallible and universal verity of this assertion that if God mark iniquity none can stand might be gathered and closed with if men were eying God much this I gather from the Text where the Psalmist repeats the Name of God twice If thou Lord shouldst mark iniquity And then again O Lord who c. Wherefore is this twice repeated in this assertion Certainly not by way of idle repetition condemned Mat. 7.21 in many that say Lord Lord nor meerly because the Psalmist is affected with that which he is speaking of for so the expression of affections or mens being affected with a thing is expressed by a doubled Exclamation which may come in in the own place when I speak of the pardon of sin but here it is to make this truth out that serious and frequent repeated thoughts of God is a mean to give folk a right sense of the desert of sin And to make out this consider partly that when we seriously think of God we know that he is Omniscient to find out that which is hid from the world Omniscient to find them guilty that are innocent to others Omniscient to know more of us than we know of our selves A consideration that John would have us marking 1 Joh. 3.20 If our heart condemn us God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things If we know so much naughtiness of our selves by our selves what must God know who knoweth all things And Paul makes use of this consideration 1 Cor. 4.4 I know nothing by my self to wit in the administration of his Office yet I am not hereby justified but he that judgeth me is the Lord. Partly if we will consider what is imported in the Names of God here made use of by the Psalmist We will find it further clear the first Name JAH is a diminutive from JEHOVAH that imports a Supream Independent Beeing The second name ADONAI signifies his Dominion and Lordship Ponder these well and what a dreadful sight will it afford of the unspeakable desert of sin A sinner in sinning rebels against a Supream Beeing from whom he hath his beeing This is made a great aggravation of sin to Belteshazzar the greatest Monarch on earth Dan. 5.23 Thou hast lifted up thy self against the Lord of heaven the God in whose hands thy breath is thou hast renounced thy dependence on him from whom thou hast thy beeing Sin is also the casting off of the Yoke of his Dominion and Lordship it says upon the matter that which ye have asserted of wicked men Psal 12.4 They say with our tongues we will prevail our lips are our own who is Lord over us That 's the Language of every sinner in sinning and not only doth the sinner by sinning cast off the yoke of God's Dominion but he
of trouble without the sense of sin is ill company and will breed many distempers which the sense of sin joyned with the sense of trouble will bear down and prevent And 4. If even the most godly man be thus lyable to punishment for who can stand if God mark iniquity and even for his ordinary failings consider what is the godly mans case when he falleth in grosser out-breakings If when thou looks upon thy dayly escapes through ignorance rashness precipitancy short-coming in duty thou art made to lament and say Lord I cannot stand before thee if thou Lord mark iniquity how may the lamentation be hightned when thou falls in grosse sins and spots and by them causes the enemy to blasphem and the truth is were folk more frequent in laying to heart their ordinary escapes and infirmities it would be a mean to caution them against out-breakings in grosser debordings but when these are not laid to heart and mourned for it provokes God to write it with some vile blemish and I shal add if the Lord mark iniquity and a godly man cannot stand what shall become of a wicked man who hath no interest in Christ if a David suppose he hath been the penman of this Psalm be trembling and sinking under the Burden of iniquities what a posture should monsters for prophanity who declare their sin as Sodom be in I confess they are not troubled with sin because they forget that they have immortal Souls but their trouble is coming They see godly men plunged and perplexed under apprehensions of wrath when they are free of grosse out-breakings and they are not affected with all their impieties but O! what a witnes is that against them who walk as monsters among men and are never troubled ponder that word 1 Pet. 4.17.18 The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God and if it begin at us what shall become of them that obey not the Gospel of God and if the righteous scarcely be saved where shall the sinner and ungodly appear If godly men dare not think of standing before God marking iniquity how can these monsters for prophanity and ungodliness think to look God in the face marking their iniquities But now I proceed to the second General in the Text and that is the refuge to which the Psalmist betakes himself when he is thus humbled and abased under the sense of the dreadful deserts of sin But there is forgivness with thee That is thou hast declared thy self to be a pardoner of sin on gospel-terms and this forgivenness is with thee that is it 's thy peculiar right in opposition to all pretenders None have a right to pardon but thou and it 's thy right when the Law and our own Consciences do condemn us to stepin and forgive and therefore though upon account of the Covenant of Works I cannot think of standing before thee I betake my self to the refuge that forgiveness is with thee There is a General Word that I might here mark that is That there is a remedy in God for all difficulties under which the Saints are humbled and abased as insuperable for when in the 3. verse he hath said If thou Lord should mark iniquities who can stand There is a But a reserve an exception added Forgivenness is with thee There is indeed a hopeless case but here is a remedy for it in God so that there is no case how hopeless soever it be that is desperat if folks go to God with it But this I leave and pitch upon the main point in the Text That there is pardoning mercy in God for sin and this is the only refuge to a sensible sinner oppressed with sin and guilt It 's here the Psalmist's only refuge and ease when he cannot think of standing before God marking iniquity It 's Job's only refuge Chap. 7.20 21. I have sinned what shall I do unto thee O thou preserver of men Thou may set me as a mark against thee and make me a burden to my self but all that will not make thee reparation Why dost thou not pardon my transgression and take away mine iniquity and it 's the happiness of fallen Man not that he is sinless or able to satisfie Justice for his sin but that he is a pardoned man Psal 32.1.2 c. Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is pardoned blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity This we would not need to insist on to prove it if souls were in the Psalmists posture here if souls knew what it were to be under the burden of the debt of Sin there would be no happiness to that to have sin pardoned God would be to them a matchless God upon this account Mic. 7.18 Who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage he would be a matchless God upon the account of his pardoning iniquity whatever other proof of Love he should give or withhold Now because this is a most important and weighty Gospel point of Truth The pardoning of Sin and I know not when I may fall upon it in a Catechetical way I purpose to quite my ordinary way and to insist upon this head The pardon of â—in which would give me occasion to speak to several things for information of judgment and to set you to your duty I shall reduce what I intend to say on it to these Heads 1. What is Pardoned 2. Who they are that are Pardoned 3. What the nature of this Pardon is 4. When Pardon passes in favours of the Sinner whether it be irrevocable 5. What is the right method of the Application of Pardoning Mercy which will lead me to the last thing in the Text That forgiveness is with God that He may be feared These and the like through the determination of the Scriptures may be of special use to you 1. What is it that God doth pardon it is sin or iniquity so the former verse and this collated holds forth It 's the iniquities under which he is groaning in the former verse for which there is forgiveness with God in this verse so in that forcited place Mic. 7 18. He pardons iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage and Psal 52.1 2. It 's sin iniquity transgression that is pardoned covered not imputed to intimat that sin under whatever name it be expressed is that which God pardons Now to prosecute this I shall not fall upon many descriptions of sin and its nature it shall suffice us to know that sin is the transgression of the Law and that of the Law of God neither the crossing of folks humors will make a man a sinner James 4.11 12. There are a number of rigid Censurers that would make their Will a Law to all or have all to walk by their rash Judgment whereas there is but one Law-giver who is able to save and destroy
destroyes us not how often might he say as he said to Moses of Israel Exod. 32.10 Let me alone that my wrath may wax bot against them and that I may consume them that I may sweep them away from off the earth and yet he doth it not how often might he do with us in this World as he did with Sodom and the old World and yet he bears with us How often might he make the visible Church a terror to it self and all the World and how often might he make the Saints a burden to themselves and yet great is his goodness that he spares a sinful VVorld and sinners in it And upon another account it commends God and that is that he lets not the sinfulness of his People make void their interest in him but notwithstanding their sinfulness allows them to call him Father That though they be dayly by their repeated provocations iniquities and transgressions drawing Rods forth from his hand yet that doth not make void the Covenant Psal 89.32 33. That he will visit their transgressions with the rod and their iniquities with stripes nevertheless his loving kindness will he not utterly take from them nor suffer his faithfulness to fail O! but the study of our sinfulness would make dayly a new wonder to us it would not be common news but a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation That Christ came into the world to save sinners 1 Tim. 1.15 And as we grow in the study of our sinfulness the sweeter should these Truths that holds out the remedy of sin grow and continue SERMON VIII Psalm 130. Verse 4. But there is forgivenness with thee that thou mayest be feared AFter that I had spoken to this godly man his humbling sense and fight of the desert of Sin in the third verse I have begun to speak to this remedy of pardoning mercy with God upon which he layeth hold and I took up the words in that General Note That there is pardoning mercy in God for Sin and that is the only refuge for sinners sensible of the burden of sin and of the desert of sin and told you that I have a purpose if the Lord will to prosecute this Point in the resolution of several Questions which yet may be reduced to a few General Heads Which were hinted at That which now I am upon is the consideration of that that is pardoned Sin Iniquity or Transgression where I spoke to one particular that all Mankind have sinned and done that which will need a pardon They have iniquities even the most godly which makes them when they are sensible of them to look upon it as good news to hear of pardon That which I further proposed to be spoken to was 1. That as all have sinned so sin is a crime a debt a burden that men stand in need to rid their hands of 2. That sin is a debt that man cannot satisfie but must have it done away by Remission it must consequently follow That the unpardoned Man is in a woful plight And 3. That if this be a Debt that can only be done away by Pardon then to a sensible man this will be the chiefest of good news That there is forgivenness with God As to the First of these and the Second in Order proposed to be spoken to on this Branch when it is granted that all have sinned the stupid and carless will look lightly upon it wherefore it is to be considered in the next place what sin is to the right discerner it 's a crime which since he cannot expiat hath need of pardon It 's a debt which since he cannot satisfie hath need of forgivenness This imports that to be lying under the burden of sin is no light matter to a man that knows his case through sin I shall take notice of the Notion under which sin is expressed Luk. 11.4 with Matth. 6.12 Where sin is called our Debt I shal no insist here to clear that every mans sin is his own Debt contracted by himself in his own Person or in the common Root Adam and that he hath not others to blame for it Though as Adam did lay over his sin on the Woman which God gave him so is every one ready to do yet when God and the Sinner reckons he will find that he must reckon for his Sin by himself or by a Surety but waving that that sin is called a Debt it is not to be understood that Man is oblidged to sin for Obedience is that which is required and which we are oblidged to pay to God but what is imported in this metaphor I shall lay open before you in these four 1. A man that is adebted and not fulfilling his Bond is lyable to the Law so the Law of God is an hand-writting against sinful man oblidging him either to do his Duty or to satisfie Justice for his Fault or if he cannot do that and there be no other remedy to undergo everlasting punishment in hell 2. The Debt is heightned by this that all the means offered to Man of directions threatnings promises opportunities power and abilitie to do good in the time and station he lives in Gifts and qualifications for that end and Talents for the not improvement of which he becomes Debtor to God and his sin is hightned thereby 3. As sin resembleth a Debt so it is a Debt above all other debts a man under the debt of Sin is in a more dreadful plight than any under other debt he may be able to pay it and though he be broken he may come up again But a man under the debt of sin can never pay again a man under debt if he cannot pay he can shift his Creditor But for a man under the debt of sin there is no shifting of God his Creditor Psal 139. Whither shall he go from his spirit Or whither shall he flee â—rom his presence Again though a man be under debt and not able to shift his Creditor yet his Creditor is not always in a readiness to attach him though he be in his view because he is not in a legal capacity to reach him But we are in God's reverence every moment Again other Debt reaches the Body only this Debt of Sin reaches the Soul also And to add no more other Debt may reach a man with inconveniences in his Life but when he is dead his Debt is payed But the punishment of this Debt reaches a man chiefly after this Life all these clear that Sin is a Debt above all other Debts And I shall add 4. That Sin may well be compared to a Debt on this account that Sinners while they fall upon a right method of seeking pardon they much resemble an ill Debtor an ill debtor desires not to hear of his accounts far less to sit down and cast them up so it is with these ill Debtors they put the ill day far away They cannot hear of a day of compt and reckoning nor to sit
is forgivenness with God and this is it in the Text for verse 3. he sayeth If thou Lord shouldest mark iniquity Who can stand But verse 4. Forgivenness is with thee That is it ye have Mat. 9.2 Son be of good chear thy sins be forgiven thee Now for this Pardon the nature of it and the terms upon which it is attained it will come in in the own proper place to be spoken to Here I am upon consideration of the thing remitted and that that I shall pitch upon is That there is a remission of sin attainable by sinners in the due order It 's a blessed Article of our Creed the remission of sins When I spoke of the remission of sin I spoke of the remission of all sins great and small in their nature and number There is forgivenness with God for iniquities I confess there is an exception made Math. 12.31 32. All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men but the blasphemy against the holy Ghost shall not be forgiven Heb. 10.26 They that sin afer they have received the knowledge ef the truth there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin And 1 John 5.1 There is a sin unto death But the sin against the holy Ghost needs not trouble the sensible sinner that would fain have pardon It is true it should warn all to beware of malicious sinning against light and having sinned to beware of running away from God but the sensible sinner that is seeking peace and pardon needs not to be afraid of it That sin is therefore irremissible because the sinner comes not to seek pardon but if thou hast the sense of sin and if it be thy desire and endeavour to repent and to have pardon it is an evidence that thy sin is not that unpardonable sin But that I may make something of this I shall deduce it in two or three Branches The first whereof shal be 1. That small sins need Pardon 2. That gross sins are Pardonable 3. A word to the consideration of the persons whose sins are pardonable 1. The smallest of sins needs a pardon we are not as Papists would charge us Stoicks who affect a parity and equality of all sins we grant there are different degrees of sins and different degrees of punishment A beating with many stripes and a beating with few stripes Luke 12.47 48. But yet when we assert this difference we dare not with them assert venial sins that deserves not everlasting Wrath without repentance and fleeing to Christ for refuge sure the Apostle tells us Rom 6.23 The wages of sin is death What death look to the opposition and it will clear it but the gift of God is eternal life if the Gift of God be eternal life the wages of sin must be eternal death that he sayes it of sin indefinitly it 's equivalent to an universal the wages of sin is death so that they must take away the nature of sin from these sins they call Venial or grant the wages thereof is death and likewise Mat. 12.36 Christ tells that Every idle word that men speak they shall give account thereof in the day of Judgment And an idle word might seem a small sin well then if the smallest sin needs a pardon look that we do not practically make a distinction of mortal and venial sins even gross men if they fall into gross out-breakings it will affect them somewhat when they do not heed their ordinary escapes Godly persons also are culpable here a scandalous sin will affect them and so it should but how little are they affected with wanderings of mind in holy duties idle words and thoughts habitual distance from God and is not that a practical distinguishing of sin It is true none can in repentance distinctly overtake all their failings for Psal 19.12 Who can understand his errors Yet we ought to do what we can to overtake them and if we cannot overtake them be at Gods Foot-stool with them mourning over them in the bulk But 2. as the smallest of sins needs a pardon so the â—rossest of sins are pardonable in the due order There is forgivenness with him for iniquities as in the Text and Isai 55.7 Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will aboundantly pardon He will pardon greatest sins in their nature and kind and hence David saith Psal 25.11 Pardon mine iniquity for it is great And Isai 1.18 The Lord sayes Come now and let us reason together though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow though they be red as crimson they shall be as wool And these great sins are pardonable in the due order whether they be done in ignorance as Paul's persecution was 1 Tim. 1.13 I was a blasphemer a persecutor and injurious but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief Or whether they be committed through the power of temptation even against light as Peter's threefold denyal of his Master was yet not being malicious it 's pardoned Again as great sins for nature and kind are pardonable so great sins for the multitude and number of them when they are like a cloud and a thick cloud he will blot them out Isai 44.22 I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions and sins And that word Isai 55.7 He will aboundantly pardon In the original it is he will multiply to pardon one and moe a multitude of them and Psal 40.11 12. David pleads for mercy for innumerable evils for iniquities that are moe than the hairs of his head And as God pardons great sins for kind and many for number so frequent relapsing in these sins which I may speak to afterward Jer. 3.1 She that hath played the harlot with many lovers is allowed to return And he that bade Peter Mat. 18.22 Forgive his brother not only seven but seventy times will much more do so to his penitent People renewing their repentance But when I say he will pardon great sins I would have it well applyed It is not to embolden any body to sin thou that so improves this Doctrine does turn the grace of God into wantonness and thou that ventures on sin because God is merciful to pardon great and many sins and thinks thou may take a whelps fill of sin and then go and repent and get mercy the woful shift that many follow O! remember that Repentance is not in thine own hand nay I will say more thou bears a sad evidence of one that will never get the grace to Repent but that abuse of this doctrine being laid aside ye shall while I am upon the explication of this great Article of Faith take a word or two of Inference in the by And 1. It may be great encouragement to sensible sinners thou who art sensible of thy sins thy Dyvour-bill of great and many sins if thou come
any thing be hinted at of their faults will claim to pardon and yet they will not give up themselves to be Children they would live Rebels and yet be pardoned But ye would come to be made Children who in Faith would pray Forgive us our sins A 2d Word which I would say from this is That as Children are dayly falling in sin so their dayly sins are pardonable There were many dangerous and damnable errors in the ancient Church concerning the sins of Church-members that come here to be reproved Some who looked upon the sins of Church-members as the old Gnosticks the Progenitors of the Libertines did they held that sins in godly persons consisted only in opinion that regenerat men do what they would if they should commit the most vile and abominable Acts they were not sins in them This is nothing but corrupt principled monstruous prophaniâ—y or monstruous prophanity rooted in a corrupt principle and those that would hold themselves out of that fearful gulf they would beware of the Antinomian principles as that God sees no sin in Believers that his Law is not to be the Rule of their walk that they need not repent c. For Libertinisme is but a new Edition of Antinomianism in Folio Others again acknowledged sin to be in the godly but they slighted repentance and therefore when scandals fell out in the church they did not require any acknowledgment of their Offence who had fallen in these scandals but while they were reiking in these abominations they entertained Church-communion and fellowship with them This was a turning of the Grace of God into lasciviousness and it is the result in part of that Antinomian principle of the remission of sins from all Eternity so that according to their opinion Repentance was not required inorder to pardon of sin but for intimation of pardon And there were a 3d. sort such as the Novatians who looked so on gross sins after Baptism as though they would seclude them from pardon on repentance nor would they seclude such sinners from making profession of their Repentance yet they would not absolve them nor admit them to Church Communion and fellowship particularly in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper but left them to God to make of them what he pleased Now in opposition to all these is the truth I am upon we confess sins after the receipt of Great mercies are very hainous Ezra 9.14 Should we again break thy commands and joyn in affinity with the people of these abominations wouldest thou not be angry with us till thou hadst consumed us Judges 10.13 Ye have forsaken me and served other gods therefore I will deliver you no more And sin in particular after regeneration is so much the more hainous that God hath been gracious therefore the Apostle having spoken of the abounding grace of God where sin had abounded Rom. 5. At the close he begins the next Chapter with these words What shall we say then shall we continue in sin that grace may abound God forbid How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein He abominats that after regeneration there should be a relapsing in sin yet the Text here intimats thereis forgivenness with God for the iniquities of Godly men and the Pattern of Prayer Mat. 6. Tells the Children that they may go to God and seek the forgivenness of sins which sayes they would be dayly sinning and God would allow dayly pardon on them in the due order and consequently it was horrid cruelty in the Novatians to seclude such as fall in sins after Baptism from Absolution and Church-fellowship and they would not pardon where God did pardon which made Constantine at the Council of Nice to say to Aclesus their Bishop I see no other of it but ye would make a Ladder to go to Heaven your alone and would have one with you I confess the godly are not to be hugged under their failings but their failings are rather to be aggredged yet upright Walkers as they are most tender in their Conversation so are they most charitable in passing Judgment upon others though they have their failings But there is a 3d. word I would say from this and that is to clear whether all sorts of sins in the godly are pardonable This is a case that hath troubled the Learned and may trouble tender Consciences whether when a man hath repented a sin and found the bitterness of it and hath found God's favour and pardon intimat upon his repentance he may again fall into that sin and get it pardoned over again A case I say that some who are tender may be troubled with when they have fallen in sin and thereafter have found it bitter and have been at God confessed it and believed pardon and yet they have been over-hailed in the same sin over again This I confess before I say any thing to it is a sad case it 's sad to see folks after regeneration and tasting of the Grace of God falling in the same Sins again and it 's yet sadder to see a person after he hath been smarting for it running back to that very folly particularly if it be an out-breaking Sin and the Learned could hardly find an instance in Scripture of that relapsing in Sin in the Godly it 's true Peter did thrice deny his Master and Lot was twice drunken and twice fell in Incest but none of these were after Repentance and intimation of Pardon for Peter was keeped in the hurry of the Temptation till his Sin was thrice out with him and so it was with Loâ— yet I shall give two words for clearing the case 1. That 〈◊〉 regeneration makes not the Saints perfect so neither do I see a ground that a Saint his repenting for a particular fault should keep him from a relapsing in that fault and needing of pardon It is true Psal 85.8 God's speaking of peace to his people is with a caution That they turn not ogaîn to folly But to say if Repentance be true a man will not fall in that folly he hath repented it is not Scriptural Regeneration is our initial Repentance and if that do not prevent falling in Sin it is no wonder that a particular Act of renewed Repentance do it not all the Repentance grief or sorrow that a person hath attained to for Sin is but a creature that except God concurr cannot keep him from falling in sin and God hath not made an absolute promise so to concur with a penitent that he shall not again fall in the same Sin How often doth a penitent when he hath repented to day of his passion pride wandering of mind in duty c. fall in the same Sins to morrow and if he may notwithstanding of Repentance fall into lesser faults why may he not after Repentance fall in grosser we find also godly men after their repenting for their failings falling in grosser out-breakings David after he had repented his falling in trouble and his
by the deeds of the law no flesh can be justified in his sight for by the law is the knowledge of sin now the righteousness of God without the Law is manifested being witnessed by the Law and by the Prophets even the righteousness of God which is by the faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe without difference That there should be a righteousness by the faith of Christ closing with him for pardon O! what a wonder is that and how good news should that be to sinners how should it quicken up and revive any that are ready to sink under the burden of the sense of sin That when they look upon a holy and just God that hates sin with a perfect hatred they may also look upon him as one who will pardon That when they look to the Law and Covenant of Works their expectations are to be limited thereby because there is a Righteousness without the Law manifested to be had by Faith in Christ 3. But because sensible souls may readily think how can this be And may be afraid to lean their weight on a Pardon they have so much Guilt and the Conscience iâ— alarmed with it and pardoning mercy is an Act of free Grace whereupon they know not that they may venture Therefore to enforce this that God is a pardoner of Iniquity I shall not anticipat what may come to be spoken to this afterwards but the sensible Sinner would consider 1. That the pardon of Sin is an Act of Royal Prerogative in free Grace It 's an act of Princes Royal Prerogative to pardon Criminals in many cases and shall we deny that to God which we give to Creatures Seing He is above all Law who can hinder him to have Mercy on whom he will have mercy to do with his own what he will and pardon whom he will Salvation belongs to him as his Prerogative Royal. 2. Sensible sinners would consider that satisfaction is payed to Justice for their Sins though he freely pardons which will come in afterward only here such would remember that thoughts of the Holiness and Justice of God needs not afright the sensible Sinner why Justice is fully satisfied That fire that brunt continually on the Altar and was not quenched by these Sacrifices under the Law is now quenched the burning fire of the Justice of God is now satisfied and hence God in pardoning sins is not only Merciful but Just therefore Rom. 3.26 Upon Christ the Redeemer his being set forth as the propitiation through Faith in his Blood it follows to declare his Righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus without reflection upon his Justice and hence the Apostle 1 Joh. 1.9 says If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness not only upon the account of his fidelity that he will keep his promise but upon the account of the Paction past betwixt him and the Mediator and upon the account of the Satisfaction and Price payed by the Mediator upon that account he is faithful and just to pardon sin And hence 3ly Things being thus when sensible sinners come to Christ or to God through him for pardon and yet are filled with doubts and fears they would conclude that there hesitation results not on the uncertainty of their pardon for the holy and just God will not break bargain with his Son but partly it results on our ignorance of that Righteousness which is by the Covenant of Grace we know no Righteousness by the Covenant of Works but that which is inherent and the Ignorance of that Righteousness which is by the Covenant of Grace is the groâ—â—â—d of our hesitation and of many doubts and fears partly it results on a proud competition whether thy abounding sin or his superabounding grace should carry it Rom. 5.20 Where sin abounded grace did much more super-abound and therefore thou that comes to Christ for pardon and yet will not settle upon it thou would say upon the matter that thy abounding sin should carry it not his Super-abounding Grace So much for the second head proposed to be spoken to concerning the Author of Pardon The 3d. Thing I proposed to be spoken to was anent the nature of the pardon of Sin what this pardon of Sin Imports or Is And this when I have spoken to it at this time will give the rise to several other Questions which will come in in their own place and may be useful for you I shall not detain you upon the signification and importance of these Words and Phrases that expresses pardon in Scripture that may come in afterward that word Mat. 6.12 Forgive us our Debts signifies the dismissing of one accused and a loosing of one bound for Debt both concurr here as sins are a Debt they are forgiven and they are a Bond tying the Conscience to answer at the Tribunal of God they are remitted and loosed and considering sins as accusations as they that are in a Court accused a pardon remitts assollzies them So the pardoned man may say as Rom 8.33 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect it is God that Justifies c. The word rendered pardon or forgivenness Col. 2.13 Having forgiven you all trespasses hints at the freedom of the grace of God in pardoning of Sin It 's the Publicans Word Luk. 18.13 God God be merciful to me a sinner the word in the Original expresses pardon with an eye to the propitiation Pauls word also I obtained mercy 1 Tim. 1.13 which also is a word made use of in the new Testament or Covenant Heb 8.12 Intimats the yearning of the bowels of God relative to the miserable state of the pardoned sinner expressed in pardoning That word Psal 32.2 Rom. 4.8 not imputing of sin or iniquitie is borrowed from Merchants that in casting up accompts pass some Debts And that word Psal 32.1 Of covering sin imports that as sin is a loathsome thing so the pardoning of Sin takes sin out of the sight of Gods vindictive Justice Now all these expressions put together might give some general hint what pardon of sin is when God out of his free grace out of the yearning bowels of his mercy compassion accepts of the propitiation made by Jesus Christ and upon that accompt remitts the sinners obligation to wrath by pardoning sin dismisses him from the accusation laid against him looses him of his Bonds puts his Debts out of his Books and covereth the loathsomness of his Sin But to follow out this a little more distinctly what this pardon is I shall take up both negatively what it is not and then positively what it is For an error here is an error in the first digestion or concoction that will not be gotten well helped in the second For the first of these negatively what the pardon of sin is not and for clearing of this
the pardoned sinner upon the account of sin partly to prevent sin partly to rouse him up to repentance when he hath sinned partly to set sinners to their feet that they may be rightly affected with sin when it is pardoned and that they may be excited to make a right use of pardon There remains yet other two Questions or Cases to be cleared anenâ— the nature of remission of sin to which I shall now briefly speak as the Lord will give The 3d Case or Question in order to this whether the truth of pardon depends upon the intimation thereof to our hearts yea or no so that when a sensible sinner fallen down at Gods foot-stool in the confession of sin and crying for pardon through Christ yet he finds nothing like a pardon intimate to his Conscience In this case the Question is whether hath he ground to doubt that neither hath he repented of sin nor gotten a pardon from God for it The general Answer to this is that pardon and Gods intimation of pardon to the Conscience are not to be confounded The Apostle 1 Cor. 2.12 gives a general rule concerning all supernatural gifts that when we have received these things freely of God we must receive the spirit which is of God that we may know the things that are freely given to us of God It 's one thing to get these supernatural gifts gifted to us another thing to get the spirit which is of God to know they are given us and this hath place particularly in the matter of pardon of sin for the pardon of sin is a sentence already past in the Word of God in favours of all believers and penitents in Christ so that no sooner doth the penitent sinner flee unto him and look unto him as to the brazen serpent for pardon and cure but as soon that pardon becomes his before he can subsume and say I am fled unto Christ for pardon and am pardoned his direct act of faith draws out pardon before he can reflect and pass a judgment on that his pardon And hence when Nathan hath pronounced that David's sin is pardoned him 2 Sam. 12.13 Yet in the 51. Psalm he crys instantly for mercy for pardon and blotting out of his transgression Why Though he was pardoned in the Court of Heaven yet he was not pardoned in the Court of his own Conscience The intimation of pardon was suspended and kept up And hence is that which I named before Mat. 9.2 Son be of good chear thy sins are forgiven thee It 's one benefit to him to have his sins forgiven him and another benefit to be of good chear on that account Therefore as Christ tells him that his sins are forgiven him so he must bid him be of good chear Thus ye see the truth of a penitents pardon depends not on the intimation thereof to his conscience But this wakens up another Case or Question the following forth whereof will deduce this more distinctly and that is how it comes and for what ends it is that a child of God cannot get it discerned and closed with that he is pardoned For clearing of this Case we should look first to our selves and then to a wise hand of God suspending the intimation of pardon If we look to our selves when we are pardoned we cannot discern it because of our weakness that cannot discern our happiness we are blind and discern not our happiness discern not our health we confound the reality of pardon with the sense and feeling of pardon and we will not believe pardon except we feel the effects of pardon and it is also because we are ignorant of getting pardon through the satisfaction of another when we are brought to be sensible for sin and to look to Christ for pardon and God hath spoken pardon we are like the Sea which being raised by a storm doth tumble a while after the storm is over and there is a calm These are some hints on our part why the pardoned sinner gets it not discerned that he is pardoned But if we look up to God he may have a holy hand in keeping up the intimation of pardon upon several accounts As 1. The Lord would have us looking more to his Word wherein pardon in the Gospel is holden out to us on Gospel-terms and less to sense he would breed us to grip the promise while sense come and to grip the promise that sense may come and they that will suspend all assurance of pardon while it be sensibly intimat the Lord in his holy providence keeps up the intimation of pardon from them to teach them to pay more due respect to his Word and to seek and feed upon the consolation that depends upon pardon promised and pronounced therein that by following his method by faith they may come to sensible intimation of pardon 2. The Lord may keep up the sensible intimation of pardon from the penitent and pardoned man that he may learn him to look upon pardon not as a necessary result and effect of his repentance but as a free gift of God which though the Lord will not bestow without repentance yet he doth not bestow it for repentance therefore doth he suspend the intimation of pardon from the penitent man that he may learn to look less to his Repentance and more to the free Grace of God in obtaining of Pardon 3. The Lord sees it fit to keep pardoned sinners in suspence as to the sense of Pardon or the intimation of it that he may let them see that when he is provocked by their sinning it is not so easie to recover themselves and get into his favour Therefore though he have pardoned them yet he will keep them at the back of the door as to the intimation of it partly that they may be put to resent how bitter a thing it is to depart from God and to raise a Cloud betwixt him and them and partly that they may be affrighted to dally with sin again he will have them to know that though he give them mercy it is not so easie to bring a Delinquent in Court and Favour again And 4. The Lord keeps up the intimation of pardon from the penitent and pardoned sinner for this among other ends that he may be fit for sympathy with others that may come in the like case with himself he may cause his reconciled people feel the bitterness of departing from him and may suffer them to ly in the sense and under fears of their un-reconciled condition as to the intimation of pardon that they may bear burden with others that come to be in their case 5. The Lord keeps up the intimation of pardon from them that he may set them on work to repent more that they may search out sin more and repent more for their sin and for the sinfulness that is in their sin that possibly as yet they have not laid well to heart These reasons of suspending the intimation of pardon even
pollution of it Here as ye heard however Sanctification be taking sin to task in every pardoned man yet the tender man sensible of sin cannot but be affected when he finds sin in the pollution of it to remain though it be not reigning though it hath not the Throne but then with the publick Declaration of pardon there shall no blot of sin no spot no wrinkle nor any such thing remain Ephes 5.27 There shall no scar be left of these wounds that sin hath made which the pardoned sinner may bear about with him while he is here 2. While the godly are here though they get frequently pardon of sin yet they have still need of new pardon they must be pardoned over and over again and as often as they get their daily bread they must as often seek the pardon of their sins daily but the blotting out of sin in that Day shall be a Declaration of the Pardon of sin so fully that there shall be no need of a reiterat pardon they will then sin no more nor be in hazard of sinning and will have no more need of the open Fountain whereunto the pardoned man while he is here must continually resort with his foul feet to get them washen 3. The pardon of sin here is not only Transacted betwixt God and the sinner without the knowledge of the World but it is oft-times keeped up from the sense and feeling of the man that has gotten it A man that is pardoned may be keeped in fears as if he were not pardoned a man that hath his Bonds taken off him may be as if he were still bound But in that Day the Pardon of Sin shall be publickly declared in the audience of Men Angels and Devils and the pardoned mans pardon will be proclaimed and perfected in the sense and feeling of the pardoned man the Court of Heaven and the Court of the Conscience will say both one thing and there will not be a demur in the one about what is past in the other as now often there is And 4. Though sin be pardoned yet the effects and consequences of pardon are not at all times let out on the pardoned man here he may be not only keeped under Desertion but he may be under Chastisement on several accounts as I cleared to you before though he may say as the Apostle John speaks 1 Joh. 3.2 Now we are the sons of God but he must add it doth not yet appear what we shall be but in that day pardon shall not only be proclaimed and perfected in the Conscience of the man but all the effects and consequences of pardon shall flow out like a River upon him Then sighing and sorrow shall flee away and everlasting joy shall be upon his head and in his heart and these stripes that here were necessary for the back of fools shall cease and his pardon shall be written in that blessed Sentence Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. Thus ye see what is imported in that blotting out of sin at the great day and from it I shall shortly recommend to you two words in order to practice one is That this may be a strong motive to you to make pardon of sin here sure when ye consider that it hath such blessed effects hereafter the rich fruit and incomes of thy fleeing to Christ for pardon here may seem to thee as we use to speak to be far from the Sheaff but there is a day coming when the advantage of it will be made known to Men Angels and Devils their Conviction what it is to have pardon for sin Thou that gets a pardon here may be looked upon as an uncouth unknown body but thou carries about with thee a Treasure that in that day will be found a Treasure indeed And therefore 2ly Ye that are fled unto Christ for pardon and have gotten pardon believed and now and then ye are feeling some of the fruits of pardon it should quicken you to long for that day wherein the effects fruits and consequences of that pardon will be fully displayed and let out on pardoned sinners It it no wonder that a pardoned man long to be home when he considers what a mercy pardon of sin will be found to be when it is laid in broad-band in that day But now I come to the 5. general Head I proposed to be spoken to and that is To clear up to you the right method of coming to close with pardon and for attaining of pardon I have insisted to tell you what a rich priviledge pardon of sin is Now any that are not stupid and senseless will say how shall I be sure of pardon that I have closed with it and win at it and that I am not deluded in so great a concern I have occasionally hinted at the chief matter of these things that I am to say upon this in the preceeding purpose I shall now gather them together and lay them in view before you that ye may order your steps aright in closing with pardoning mercy If I should speak to this in general I find many things mentioned in Scripture to the obtaining of pardon I find Faith for we are said to be justified by faith and consequently we are pardoned by Faith Rom. 3.25 God hath set forth Jesus Christ to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins 2. I find Repentance often mentioned in this matter Mark 1.4 John preached the baptism of Repentance for the remission of sins The Apostles Doctrine was to preach repentance and remission of sins in his name Luke 24.47 Peters Doctrine is Repent ye and be converted that your sins may be blotted out Act. 3.19 The counsel given to Simon Magus is Repent of thy wickedness and pray God if perhaps the thoughts of thine heart may be forgiven thee Act. 8.22 3. I find also Confession of sin mentioned in order to pardon of sin Psal 32.5 I said I will confess my transgression unto the Lord and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin And 1 Joh. 1.9 If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness 4. I find confessing and forsaking of sin mentioned in order to pardon Prov. 28.13 He that confesseth and forsaketh his sin shall find mercy 5. I find prayer also required in order to pardon of sin Mat. 6.12 Christ bids the Disciples pray forgive us our debts c. But that I may speak to this purpose somewhat more distinctly and so in effect take a view of this Text and take in the 3d. thing I proposed to be spoken to in it I find that as the Apostle sums up Christianity Philip. 3.3 as running upon three things that like Letters on a Signet are drawn backward that ye may stamp them forward in your practice 1. That a man have no confidence in the flesh 2. That from that he be led to rejoyce
battel but such as we are driven in by the power of Temptation Likewise that there must be an exact and distinct account taken daily of our failings and of these evils the pardon whereof we expect and seek And 3. When upon Examination we have found out our Debt there must be a deep sense of the sinfulness and desert of these provocations such as the Psalmist had here when he crys out pathetically If thou Lord shouldest mark iniquity O Lord who shall stand I left at a fourth Direction and that was That we should study Repentance for these sins the pardon whereof we expect and seek and as the former Direction tells that the sense that these in the way of pardon have of sin must not ly floating in the brain so this will press further That the sense of sin we have must not be a crushing and killing sense but a sense that resolves in a kindly Repentance for sin a sense and hatred of sin and a grief and sorrow for it in which posture they that expect pardon must resolve to come to God This is so clear in the Scriptures that I adduced in the morning and it is so clear an Evidence of the poured out-Spirit Zech. 12.10 Which is a mourning spirit in them that partake of it that I shall not insist further to prove it neither shall I digress to make a common place of Repentance here I shall only desire you to take notice of these three concerning Repentance and I have done 1. That there is a legal Repentance and an evangelical Repentance A legal Repentance is that which flows meerly from the sense of the terrors of the Law and the curse and wrath due to men for sin And evangelical Repentance is that which hath something of Faith and somewhat of the Gospel in its bosom And I may again desire you to consider that evangelical Repentance is either the result of a general apprehension that there is pardoning mercy in God when a sinner confounded with the sense of guilt looks in general to this Truth That there is forgiveness with God or more particularly when the sinner closes with that pardoning mercy for his own behove and makes application of it to himself and so is a pardoned man Now for the Repentance that is antecedent to pardon there must be somewhat both of legal and evangelical Repentance some Too-look to that great Truth and Encouragement Verse 4. There is forgivenness with thee for the legal Repentance it may crush but evangelical Repentance makes the sinner to bow legal Repentance is like a hammer that breaks the Rock evangelical Repentance is like the fire that melts the mettal only that Repentance that results upon the Application of Pardon to a sinners self is not antecedent to but consequential of pardon 2. Ye would consider the room that Repentance hath in this bargain of the Pardon of sin it comes not in certainly by way of merit for all the Salvation we get first and last is through the merit of Christ but Repentance has place in the obtaining of Pardon partly as it is an inseparable companion of saving Faith that apprehends and lays hold on Christ for Pardon a man cannot say he has Faith if it be not a penitent Faith partly it comes in as a condition required in order to God's Pardoning for God as I said before though he hath promised to pardon no man for his Repentance yet he hath declared he will pardon none without Repentance and partly it comes in as a qualification of the person pardoned who is thereby fitted to ly low at Gods Footstool for pardon Repentance makes folk find sin as bitter as ever they found it sweet Repentance is that which excites them to condemn themselves and to justifie God without Repentance it were inconsistent with the Justice of God to pardon a sinner lying impenitent in his filth nor would it commend the Grace of God if it were cast a way to the despisers of Grace as well as to the penitent who highly esteem of Grace And a 3d. Word I would have you to consider is concerning the degree and measure of repentance I dare not digress on that much There is a Word that might give folk ground of sad thoughts Acts 2.37 compared with verse 38. where ye will find a people pricked in heart and put to a peremptor they have compunction and cry out What shall we do Verse 37. and Peters answer Verse 38. is Repent They that are pricked in heart and put to a peremptor may have their Repentance to begin not only they that have legal Repentance may have evangelical to begin but even those who have made some progress in evangelical Repentance their hard and impenitent heart may be so habituated with obduration that when they have a gail of the Spirit of Repentance they may need to employ God to help them to repent to purpose I shall say no more on this but beseech you to look to your Repentance it fears me that few be come the length of legal Repentance or to examine whether they have sinned or not But suppone that ye had examined and found out sin had some sense of it I intreat you make Conscience of Repentance Thou that has confidence to believe and seek pardon give this evidence that thou art in earnest about it by making Conscience of Repentance daily O! how long is it since many of you sat down and communed with your own heart and smote upon your thigh saying What have I done How long is it since ye was in Ephraim's posture Jer. 31.19 Ashamed yea confounded because ye have born the reproach of your youth O think on it in earnest neglected Repentance daily will make an ill revel'd Hesp daily to you if ever ye and your Conscience meet and as I said before let never folk talk of their Faith that is not dipped in tenderness and repentance daily Only take what hath been said with this Caution if ye be convinced of your need of repentance and yet ye want it ye know where to get it That exalted Prince for giving pardon is also exalted to give repentance Acts 5.31 So much for these things required antecedent by way of preparation for pardon In the 2d place I proposed to speak somewhat to that whereby a soul so qualified prepared closes with Christ for pardon and that is Faith whereby a sinner having his sin discovered the sense of it wakened up within him and having made conscience of Repentance for it grips unto Jesus Christ by Faith for the pardon of it and that is the thing which the 2d word in the Text holds out after he has said verse 3. If thou Lord should mark iniquity who can stand he adds verse 4. But there is forgivenness with thee there is his Faith closing with pardoning mercy to get a good account of that iniquity and sinfulness whereof he is convinced So we find David when making his Testament
2 Sam. 23.5 Although my house be not so with God there is his abasing of himself in the sense of sin and shortcoming in duty Yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant ordered in all things and sure he runs to the Remedy held forth in the everlasting Covenant and that is it which Paul subjoins to that which I cited in the morning Philip. 3.3 When a man hath no confidence in the flesh when all beside Christ is flesh to him and consequently that which he dare not have any confidence in Then the next step is not only to close with but to rejoice in Jesus Christ That I may make something of this I shall speak a short word to wicked men and insist a little longer in speaking to convinced sinners 1. For wicked men that which I am upon may serve to discover to them a great mistake they are afraid to grow acquaint with themselves O! how dow they think of casting up their accounts These black Libels and dreadful Dittays that are lying in process against them that were their ruine and would undo them if they should look thereaway they would never have a day to do well they would turn desperat and I would willingly know what it will avail them not to look over their Accompts will they resolve never to repent or will they get them shifted out of the way will their forgetting of their faults mend them will not the iniquity of a man's heels soon or syne compass him about Will not their sin find them out as is said Num. 32.23 But shall I add thou art in a great mistake that thinks the searching out of thy sin will undo thee I confess if thou do it in earnest thou must not continue in a course of sin as thou hast done but it is thy advantage to search out sin and repent if thou can say If thou Lord mark iniquity who can stand Thou shall have reason to say But forgiveness is with thee Wilt thou consider what rich advantage is in taking with thy guilt and being humbled for it that it is a man's safety to be thus lost it is an argument whereon he may plead for mercy when he finds himself undone without it It is thy ignorance of the rich advantage that is on the back of Self-judging that makes thee voluntarly continue a stranger to it But 2. For these who are convinced of sin and sensible of it who can say They have no confidence in the flesh and yet dare not say They rejoyce in Christ Jesus I would have such looking upon it as their great mistake that keeps them from resting on Christ and rejoycing in him and it makes all their other exercise to be but wind though ye had so much sorrow for sin as to sink you in the pit if ye add not There is forgiveness with thee if Christ be not the end of all your Exercises they will miscarry and leave you sinking in sin and misery And had I many to speak to that are making conscience of Repentance of sin and yet come not up to close with the Remedy of pardoning mercy in Christ I would point out several things that would be adverted to by such as are in such a frame and I shall pitch on five or six of them 1. Thou that art under convictions of sin and does not close with pardoning mercy thou evidence a mistake of that mercy thou considers not that thy necessity and impossibility to stand without it is a claim unto it thou considers not that it is the design of the Gospel to rescue the lost whose feet are sinking thou considers not that then thou begins to be beautiful when thou becomes loathsom in thine own eyes and that thou begins to be saved when thou art put to cry Save Master I perish and so in standing a-loof from pardoning mercy thou mistakes the design of the Gospel 2. In this standing a loof thou discovers thy ignorance of Gods Design in giving thee the sense of thy condition what a posture art thou in Thou art one that sees thy self abominable monstâ—ously vile the chief of sinners But may I say who told thee who shewed thee that thou was so and made it out to thee Has there not been a day when thy condition and frame was as bad and thou saw no such thing which says that it hath been Christ who by his spirit convinceth the world of sin that has opened thine eyeâ— discovered to thee thy vileness through sin But thou may think though he hath done it yet it is to be the Narrative of a sad sentence against thee and to send thee to the gate But if thou abuse not Mercy there is another thing in it if he hath opened thy mouth wide he will not fill it with an empty spoon but with good things if he hath made his Law to have a work upon thee it is not to drive thee from him but that the Law may be a school-master to bring to Christ So then it is the ignorance of God's design in giving thee the sense of sin that makes thee under convictions stand a loof from Mercy 3. In this aversion and unwillingness to come unto pardoning Mercy I would have you to consider a great reflection upon the Truth and Faithfulness of God 1 Joh. 5.10 He that believeth not God hath made him a liar because be believeth not the record that God gave of his Son I wish that I had many to speak unto that have to do with these things but I cannot pass it being the Applicatory part of the Doctrine Hast thou any sense of sin art thou afraid of wrath because of it what makes thee afraid is it not the Authority and Veracity of God speaking in his Law when thy Conscience is wakened and thou sees how faulty thou art and the Law leaves thee under the curse it afrights thee and there is good cause but how comes it that when thou hast believed God speaking in his Law unto thee thou does not believe him speaking in the Promise seing it is the same God that speaks in both is not this to make God a liar and hast thou not a witness against thy self while the Faith of his threatnings troubles thee and yet the Faith of his Promises doth not encourage and comfort thee But 4. In this unwillingness to close with pardoning Mercy read corrupt and ill principles man by nature is ignorant of a Gospel-righteousness he knows nothing of Pardoning Mercy through a Mediator but if the Covenant of Works be once broken it is everlastingly broken and hence the sensible sinner being ignorant of the New Covenant of Grace he chooses rather to ly mourning under the ruines of that first Covenant than to look up to a better and this ignorance of Gods righteousness is a thing which the Saints ought rather to mourn for than to foster But 5. In this standing a-back of sensible sinners from pardoning Mercy and in not
How shall they get their crap submitting to it How shall they get their bitter disposition under their feet that they may heartily remit wrongs done unto them I confess this is a duty that requires more than an ordinary measure of grace and grace in exercise and few attain it Alas How few are who when they have gotten a wrong have that testimony that they mourn more over their own disposition than resent the wrong and pray for the person that hath wronged them but in short there are four words I would recommend to you in order to that meâ—k and mortified temper 1. It were a special mean to bring you this pardoning-humour to be daily sensible of the wrongs that ye have done and are doing to God and who wots but a wrong done by thee to God is laid in thy dish by a third hand to make thee sensible of it The man that is daily sensible of the wrongs he doth to God is the only man to be a good neighbour when he comes out loadned with the sense of his own provocations he will be ready to forgive others He that finds he hath ten thousand talents to be forgiven will easily be brought to forgive an hundred pence It 's our distance with God and the want of the sense of the wrongs done to him that makes us keep up a revengful humour 2. They that would have this pardoning-disposition would be sensible of how much need they have to be forgiven themselves Eccles 7.21 22. Take not heed unto all words that are spoken lest thou hear thy servant curse thee do not sash thy self with noticing every injury were it from as mean a person as thy servant for oft-times also thine own heart knoweth that thou thy self hast cursed others There is no living in the world if as we use to speak we do not live and let live if we forgive not as we would be forgiven If thou seest a more in thy brothers eye pull the beam out of thine own and then thou wilt see more clearly to pull the more out of thy brother's eye This will make thee of a meek and condescending frame 3. I recommend to thee that would forgive to labour to get a sight of the hand of God in the wrong done to thee When thou gets a wrong it may be of a person far below thee and one that thou can easily reach O! How doth poor dust swell with thoughts of revenge But were the hand of God seen in that wrong it would tame thee when David is fleeing from his son Absalom and Shimei comes out and curses him Abâ—shai says Should a dead dog curse the King let me go over and take off his head O let him alone saith David God hath said unto him Curse David Who then shall say Wherefore hast thou done so 2 Sam. 16.9 10. If the providence of God extend to the hairs of our head that they are all numbered Mat. 10.30 Unquestionably it is not unconcerned in the affronts and injuries done to us by men and whatever thou hast to say to the person that hath injured thee yet if thou look up to the hand of God in it thou wilt be silent and calm And 4. Remember when thou does not pardon but offers to revenge at thine own hand thou usurps Gods place Rom. 12.19 Dearly beloved revenge not your selves but rather give place unto wrath for it is written Vengeance is mine I will repay saith the Lord and consequently when thou offers to revenge thou takes his place and provocks him to leave thee and let thee stand to thy self and not concern himself in any wrong done to thee But the third thing I proposed to speak a word to is That this forgivenness of others is absolutely necessary to them that would evidence that they are pardoned of God themselves Mat. 6.12 We are bidden pray Forgive us our debts as we forgive others I shall briefly explain this and close And 1. As I have often hinted before our forgiving others doth nor merit pardon for forgiving of others is not an antecedent to pardon but a consequence of it it 's the evidence of a pardoned man and consequently cannot be antecedent to pardon far less a meritorious cause of pardon 2. While Christ bids us pray Forgive us as we forgive there is no proportion to be understood there is a vast difference betwixt Gods forgiving and our forgiving his forgivenness extends to ten thousand talents ours only to an hundred pence Mat. 18.24 28. His forgiving requires a satisfaction to justice before he give out the sentence of pardon not so ours his forgivenness brings no profit to him as ours doth to us we having thereby access to pardoning mercy only in this the parallel holds that we forgive frankly and freely as God forgives us 3. Consider the connexion a little more nearly partly it is an encouragement to the sensible sinner to believe he is pardoned when he finds a disposition in himself to forgive others a poor sensible sinner lying at Gods foot-stool suing for pardon though he be pardoned yet he hath a hink whether he be so or not but this encourages him to believe it that he finds in himself a loosing of heart to forgive another that hath wronged him often he may reason have I gotten many wrongs and yet I can find in my heart to forgive and put them in my bosome that have wronged me upon their repentance and shall I doubt but God who is a God infinite in mercy hath pardoned me So that thy warmness and loosing of heart to forgive others looses and opens a door to thee to believe that the infinite God in mercy hath pardoned thee and partly ye would remember that it is a condition of pardon not antecedent but subsequent whereby a man may reflect and gather whether he be pardoned or not read Mat. 6.14 15. he contents not himself to say Forgive if we would be forgiven but he adds if ye forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father will also forgive you But if ye forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Father forgive your trespasses Ye can have no evidence that ye your selves are pardoned except ye have a tender disposition and frame of heart to forgive others and therefore that servant who Mat. 18.27 had ten thousand talents forgiven him and yet when he got his fellow-servant would not forgive him an hundred pence he proclaimed that though he seemed to be forgiven he was not forgiven but behoved to go to prison Now I have been detained in providence upon this Doctrine for this time a Doctrine that is not unseasonable to you if ye be in earnest in seeking the pardon of your sin it serves to point out to you the terms on which it is attainable and by which ye evidence that ye are pardoned that ye may not in this matter cheat your selves in taking a lie in your right hand in stead of pardon and it is not
praise when the waters overflowed their enemies but they soon forgot his works or made haste to forget them they waited not for his counsel but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness and tempted God in the desart Now in opposition to this it 's the great mercy of Saints when not only they hold out as it may be to the end and get their souls for a prey but they endeavour to be solid fixed constant equal to draw out as ye speak an even threed of a godly walk not but that they have their ups and downs of comfort and abasement but they guard against their brashy fairds and fits and against their being at a hight now and sinking again as low And the grounds why ye would guard against this fleeting unstable disposition are 1. A fleeting temper is not to be trusted to that which light unsolid hearts are at in a faird they are not wise that lean to it God at the first view tells Israel their goodness was as a morning cloud or as the early dew Hos 6.4 promising fair but passing away And when they make their great ranâ— Deut. 5.27 Who but they for obedience O saith the Lord v. 29. that there were such a heart in them I know them better than themselves do I know they want that heart they profess to be solid and constant in their obedience to me 2. This fleeting disposition would be guarded against because these hot fits that folk sometimes have in the way of godliness will be a dreadful witness against them when they turn their back upon it What a sad check is that Christ gives to the Jews Joh. 5.35 John was a burning and a shining light and ye rejoyced to walk in his light for a season Who but John for a time to you but ye soon tyred And see how the Apostle beats home a reproof for this Gal. 4.14 My temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not nor rejected but received me as an Angel of God even as Christ Jesus Where is then the blessedness ye spake of c. Where is that heat and edge now 3. This fleeting disposition would be look'd to because these unsolid fits have no present access and acceptation as they are not lasty so they are little noticed for the time Hos 6.4 O Ephraim what shall I do unto thee for your goodness is as a morning cloud c. What shall I do with that What service can I have of it What is in it to be noticed For thou aâ—t unstable as the morning cloud is soon dispelled and the early dew soon evanishes 4. This fleeting humour would be guarded against because besides it 's not acceptance with God it keeps folk that they know not the good of godliness It 's not faiâ—ds and brashes that will bring home the real advantage of piety Hos 6.3 Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord his going forth is prepared as the morning and he shall come unto us as the rain as the former and latter rain upon the earth And Joh. 8 31 32. When there were many that professed to believe on Christ he saith to them If ye continue in my word then are ye my disciples indeed and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free if ye hold at that which ye profess ye shall find the good of Religion and be Disciples to me From all that I have been speaking on this folks would learn not to be cheated with brashes and fairds of this kind it may be folks please themselves in an ill course because now and then their minds have been under dwams and they have had their fits and motions and they should beware of slighting these lest folks be given over to their own hearts lusts to walk in their own counsels but such folk should look to it ye that are brashie either hot and frazie or key cold There is much of this in a natural temper that in some skips from hot to cold from liveliness to deadness and holds at nothing But that ye may learn to be still the same in so far as is attainable in this state of misery I would recommend to you partly that ye would labour to fix your selves on rational principles know what ye are doing and the grounds whereon ye go when ye close with Religion be as Peter Joh. 6.68 When many went back Lord saith he to whom shall we go for thou hast the words of eternal life And we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ the Son of the living God Stuff thine heart solidly with rational and solid grounds to go upon in Religion and these put in the hand of God will be a constant spring to feed thy diligence 2. To these rational grounds add solid resolutions that as Barnabas perswaded the Christians Acts 11.23 Thou may with full purpose of heart cleave unto the Lord it must not be a surprisal like one in a passion that sets thee on to seek God but a solid fix'd purpose of heart And when thou hast laid down rational grounds and backed them with solid resolutions thou must in the 3d place wait on God it 's he that must unite thy heart to fear his Name Psal 86.11 It 's he that can gather the fleeting heart and fix it on the nail that 's fastened in a sure place It 's he in whose hand thou must put all thy resolutions and purposes as David who when he hath resolved well Psal 17.3 Thou hast tried me and shalt find nothing I have purposed that my mouth shall not transgress Concerning the works of men I have by the words of thy lips kept me from the paths of the destroyer He adds v. 6. Hold up my goings in thy paths that my footsteps slip not These are resolutions that are settled and backed with needy dependence on God else though thou were never so well fixt in thy resolutions they may prove like Sampsons Cords when thou art assaulted with a new temptation These few directions through the blessing of God may fix you in the way of godliness prevent fleeting unconstancy debording and deviating from it But now in the 3d place to give you a look of perseverance as it is opposed to wearying lying by sitting up and it may be the taking of many sinful shifts on delayes and when difficulties are met with that is when a needy person goes about the means frequents the Ordinances and gets nothing his Word is a sealed Book the Preaching of the Gospel is under a Cloud when they go to God in Prayer they come no speed they are not heard and it may be wrath meets them in the teeth such may be strongly tempted to give over and weary and it 's in opposition to this the Psalmist will wait on God and in opposition to such temptations we are to fix this truth that no delay we meet with in Gods way ought to cut our perseverance short No delay should
of the Lord. And Chap. 2.10 he says to his Wife Shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil O! there is a stooping to Soveraignty in the greatest straits and shakes that ever befell any except our Lord Jesus and that Argument is made use of by him to his Disciples in the matter of timing mercies Acts 1. Lord say they wilt thou at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel He answers It is not for you to know the times and seasons which the Father hath put in his own power Proud dust miskens it self when it dare offer to prescribe to God and were Soveraignty more studied and practically improven in the lots that befall us and in their continuance we would often find matter of a song where we make a quarrel Now as these Considerations might press waiting in opposition to hastiness so there are some other Considerations that serve to press meekness and calmness of spirit in opposition to bitterness and fretfulness and among many I shall only name three 1. Meekness and sweetness is commendable on this account that it takes the poison and sting out of all our lots The Apostle Rom. 12.21 when he hath been speaking against passion and fretfulness at our neighbours that angers us he hath a very speaking word that he closes with Be not overcome of evil as if he said ye think your self victorious when ye have gotten your crop and spleen wracked on crowing over them that have wronged you but ye are far mistaken the soil is yours ye are overcome of evil ye are slaves to your own corruption in venting your passion and bitterness So is it here it 's fretfulness and bitterness that poisons any sad lot we are under Lam. 3.19 When a man remembers the affliction and the misery and the wormwood and the gall and hath them still in remembrance his soul sinketh in him but when he gets victory over these he says It 's of the Lord's mercy that we are not consumed because his compassions fail not He that had said before that his soul was removed far from peace and he forgot prosperity he finds prosperity among his despised and undervalued lots It 's not your continued crosses and long delays that is your affliction it 's your bitterness that is the poison and sting of them all and makes them so afflicting It 's with you as with that man Solomon speaks of Prov. 19.3 The foolishness of man perverteth his way and his heart fretteth against the Lord When he hath perverted his way he would blame God for his own unthrift There is no outgate of a Cross comparable to this the coming off with a meek mind as that word Psal 55.18 holds out He hath delivered my soul in peace from the battel that was against me O! look to the peace of your mind under continued difficulties let not that break Ye know not what affliction means till ye get an imbittered mind which will make a Mole-hill a Mountain nay will create a Cross to it self yea is a Cross in it self and can contrive a Cross where there is none even when a man is convinced his lot is good Set him in a Paradise of pleasure his imbittered mind will make it a torment to him therefore look on an imbittered mind as the greatest sting and poisoner of all that can befall you and guard against it 2. It may perswade folks to study meekness and calmness of spirit when they consider what an imbittered fretful disposition portends what doth it import and portend to a man I shall tell you it portends mo and sharper rods to tame that wild and imbittered heart to humble that fretful disposition a man who though he hing on yet is fretful cankard bitter all that he meets with in his lot is the wormood and the gall to him he is like a feverish man that hath something in his stomach that must be purged his taste is marred which makes that which is sweet bitter and though thou belong to God yet as it is said of wicked men if thou walk contrary unto him he will walk contrary unto thee Levit. 26. And thou may expect seven times more yoke upon yoke cross upon cross till thou be tame and subject thy self to him In a word so long as a man is in a bitter frame he evidences that the medicine God hath given him hath never won to the root of his disease and he may look for a harder potion 3. It may perswade to the study of meekness and to set against bitterness to consider that bitterness is unreasonable Isai 45.9 Wo to him that strives with his Maker let the pot sheards strive with the pot sheards of the earth shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it what makest thou He is the Lord to whom who can say What dost thou Ponder that word which I have often occasion to mind you of Job 18.4 He teareth himself in his anger a lively and pathetick description of a fretful disposition he would eat himself in his anger but shall the earth be forsaken for thee and shall the rock be removed out of his place Is there no more ado but turn all the wheels of providence up-side down when ye take the pett When such a goodly thing as thou art not pleased with it says Bildad to Job O fretful body wilt thou sit down and ask who should guide the world Who should have the Throne Whether God or thou Whether should he guide thee or thou guide thy self Whether wilt thou yield to God or have him yield to thee Shall not God brusk his Throne and Government but thou like a Child of Belial envyeth it Nay further let me plead for God bitter body what ails thee what would do thy turn Thou can name many things thou wants and would have but thou knows not where thy disease lyes it is within thee that ails thee let God cut thee short of favours or restore them to thee put thee in trouble or deliver thee it will not cure thee thou wilt never want a cross so long as that base lust of bitterness abides in thee unsubdued that which was a lust in the enjoyment of favours will turn a lust in the deprivation of them change thy case every day it will not ease thee thou art like a sick man that crys for drink but it doth not slocken him the cooling of his blood and purging of his distemper must do that therefore look on bitterness and fretfulness in your frame as a most absurd irrational thing Now as these Consideratious should perswade you to look on the excellency and advantage of waiting on God in opposition to making haste and to fretfulness severally So I shall shut up both with a general Word pressing waiting from the advantages that generally results from it and I can give you no better thing to command it than that of our Lord Isai 30.18 Blest are all they that
at duty I shall say no more of it but thrice happy they who esteem of duty abstract from all comfortable events yea more it were a good prognostick that good events would not be long withholden if folk were diligent at duty but who are still poring on events I may without breach of charity say that these are the idlest folk and foreslow their own mercy But 2. As duty is the great business so duty acceptable to God is attainable in the worst of times in the lowest of conditions I need not stand on the general how it's Gods mercy to his people that they may well be deprived of comforts or comfortable issues but they are not put out of service they can never want acceptable work to put their hand unto and if they be turned idle from the work of their Calling and Station their idleness is a work with submission to God But that which I am upon is that the difficulties of the Lords servants and people are never so great but duty acceptable to God is attainable My soul waits saith the Psalmist he wan at it I confess times and dispensations may soon fall forth to be such that hypocrites will think duty to be impossible Isa 33.14 The sinners in Zion are afraid fearfulness hath surprized the hypocrites they are afraid out of their wits Who shall dwell with devouring fire c. Who can hold their feet Who can stick by duty in such critical dispensations of providence I confess also things may come to that that Balaam hath speaking of the calamities to come on the world Numb 24.23 Alas who shall live when God doth this Such a time may come that it may be a wonder to consider how folk can stand how they can fend when storms are so boisterous and thick and temptations and snares so many And I shall add further that which our Lord hath Mat. 24.22 Vnless these days should be shortned no flesh should be saved he means both that none should be saved from cutting off by judgment and none but they should be in peril to be eternally lost by seduction but for the elects sake these days shall be shortned outward trouble and seducing snares may be so many and impetuous that if God put not some Bridle upon them no flesh should be saved But yet when I have said all this I must resume the point that in the worst of times duty acceptable to God is attainable through his strength A sincere man depending on God may win to say I wait for the Lord my soul doth wait This I mark to give a check partly to the discouragements of Gods own people who in sad times lose heart and hand I confess I may say to the discouragement of this generation that which Jeremiah hath Chap. 12.5 If thou hast run with footmen and they have wearied thee how then canst thou contend with horses and if in the land of peace wherein thou trustedst they wearied thee how then wilt thou do in the swellings of Jordan If any ordinary difficulties scarr this generation from duty what would they have done if they had met with the difficulties that many before the Throne met with But be as it will it 's thy great sin as discouraged to ly down and die as if there were no work for thee The Psalmist here in his practice hath witnessed that in the saddest of difficulties duty acceptable to God is attainable if duty be set about in Gods strength though humbling it may prove it shall not be impossible if thou believe all things shall be possible partly to leave a sad check at their door who upon difficulties and the impetuousness of snares and temptations take a dispensation to themselves to go wrong to leave Gods way and joyn in evil courses How many are there that in difficult and snaring times for all that the Bible hath said against such and such sins and sinful courses yet take them by the end and say there is no hope and it 's for no purpose for men to essay to keep their integrity or think to hold off and not imbrace such a course The storm blows so hard but you that take a dispensation to your selves so to do in difficulties know that there will be witnesses found to testify against you that in the worst of times duty acceptable to God is attainable But the 3d thing I proposed to be spoken to is That as duty is attainable so a man may know he hath attained it he may win not only to wait for the Lord and with his soul to wait but to know and avow it that with his soul he doth wait This if I might insist on it would again branch it self out in two or three things 1. In order to this knowledge it is necessary that folk be at self examination asking what they are doing Ye may take many woful counsels with your selves having sorrow in your heart daily it may be and yet not come speed but were ye enquiring What work am I at and examining it that were a ground of a right walk to be serious in that It 's the Lords complaint Jer. 8.6 No man repented him of his wickedness saying What have I done Every one turneth unto his course as the horse rusheth into the battel And 2. When we set about this Examination we should know that we have need of the spirit of God to go along with us and assist us in it we have need of that spirit which is of God that we may know the things that are freely given us of God 1 Cor. 2.12 We have so much presumption and security on the one hand when we are at ease ready to cheat us and on the other hand when we are in trouble so much discouragement to amaze and break us that in both conditions self-examination would desire a manuduction a leading by the hand by the Spirit of God that they get not a back-set in either And 3. Tender walkers examining and assisted by the Spirit of God may come to know they are in duty acceptable to God and their integrity in it to say their soul waiteth I am at my duty and am acceptable to God in it It may be sad that trouble should discover so much guilt and so many imperfections in our best things yet still no dispensation of providence or delay should take away the testimony of our integrity and that we are waiting upon him in his way what-ever providence be an enemy to it is never an enemy to integrity There is a weakness hinted at in that word Psal 69.4 though few be obnoxious to it Then I restored that which I took not away Some may be ready to father that on themselves whereof they are not guilty but the people of God Psal 44.17 hold fast and avow their integrity in a sad time All this is come upon us say they yet have we not forgotten thee neither have we dealt falsly in thy Covenant c.
continue in it and when he hath done his duty and hath denyed himself and in his best performances is humbled for the iniquity of his holy things he hath need of Faith to sit down under Christs shadow to put it up in his hand and to close with imputed righteousness Thus ye see what need there is of Faith and Hope in respect of the relation they have to duty And 5. There is constant need of Faith in relation to Sense and manifestations of comfort and love A man that wants Sense and would be at it the only right way is by believing that he may see by believing that he may rejoyce with joy unspeakable and full of glory 1 Pet. 1.8 Believing that he may be sealed with the holy Spirit of promise Eph. 1.13 And when a man is win up to believing and finds no sensible comfort it 's no call to cast away his Faith but he must cherish his Faith more and yet more till God be pleased to send Sense He must still hold the grip of Faith if he would have sensible manifestations flowing out rightly and solidly to him Again when he hath gotten Sense he hath need of Faith still to try Sense when he doubts of his comfort whether it be a delusion or not and whether it be of God or a lie in his right hand it is by Faith and the rule of Faith by which he must examine and try that So that when he is hugged in his Fathers bosome there is need of Faith walking by its rule to assure him that he is not deluded And yet further when he hath gotten Sense and tryed it by the rule of Faith he hath need of Faith still he must not observe Peters way while he was on the Mount with Christ Master saith he it is good to be here if thou wilt let us make three tabernacles Mat. 17.4 But he must lay his account to come down again he must not reckon now I see and it will never be dark again now I have peace and I shall have no more perplexity but after a Sun-blink he must come down from the Mount of sensible enjoyment and meet with desertion and when he hath sensible manifestations he must lay them at his Masters feet and be content to return to the Trade of Believing Even as the Bride Cant. 2.17 when there hath been much fair Weather betwixt the beloved and her what says she Until the day break and the shadows flee away turn my beloved as if she had said I look not upon this as my ordinary allowance within time the day is not broken in time The shadows are not fled away as yet therefore I will submit to it that thou turn or flee that thou withdraw only on this condition that when I need thou wilt come swiftly unto me like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether or division Thus ye see how in all cases and lots there is constant need of Faith and Hope and that there should be a constant esteem of these Graces all that I shall say from it by way of inference shall be in the first place to press you to study this necessity well that ye may not mistake that ye may not be surprized what ever ye may meet with if ye have Faith and Hope God will not let it rust he will give you clouds to see thorow dark nights of Dispensations to grapple with And once fix your self in the perswasion of the constant usefulness and necessity of Faith and Hope and it will help to break many snares and temptations and particularly your fretting and petting and the casting away of your confidence Let Faith be your one thing O how cruel are they to themselves that weaken their confidence and cast away their esteem of Faith and Hope They consider not the constant necessity of these Graces And 2dly Particularly I would recommend to you that as I hinted in the forenoon ye would take grace to believe for an out gate Do never complain that ye are ill-guided so long as Faith keeps the Feet that were the moderation and sobriety becoming a Christian Spirit That whatever means for an issue be used that it be a mans satisfaction to get grace to judge well of God and of all his dealing Paul counted it a great favour 2 Cor. 4.1 That having received mercy he fainted not if folk knew what a woful life want of delivery and issue joyned with unbelief makes they would think them delivered folk who get grace to believe whose faith is not brangled or though it be brangled yet it is not put off the field Ye that have advanced to believing bless God for it and follow it as your chiefest mercy And 3. I shall add as a consequence of what I had in the Explication of the Point that ye would learn to hold a loose grip of all things that come to give Faith relief when either ye meet with a temporary delivery from a difficulty or with a sun-blink of Consolation coming to Faith as its post and saying sit down and rest you a while hold a loose grip of the one and the other It is but a fair blink in a Winter stormy day and it will overcast again Remember when ye have drawn your breath a little ye must up and make to your Faith and hope again when ye have seen your Sun he must be overclouded and ye must wait on the Lord who hides his Face from the house of Jacob and through the clouds ye must look for him Isai 8.17 And therefore as ye would not cast your Sun-blinks because they are not lasty as many do so ye must take heed ye sit not down upon them like a tir'd body set down to rest him he sits not long least he grow stiff The sober mind is a fixt mind he feeds with an eye to his journey he takes his comfort with an eye to the sight wherein he knows not how soon he may be engaged So much for the first Note on the second general Head of Doctrine that the Saints will have constant need of Faith and Hope and therefore should highly esteem of them The second is That if Faith and Hope be constantly necessary then there is need for a constant warrand for believing and hoping in God Now what is my warrand the Psalmists Exhortation to hope in the Lord imports the constant will of God concerning this as a duty even a constant warrand to believe and hope without any restriction of time lot person or condition Let Israel hope c. The Observation then is clear That it is allowed to the Saints at all times to believe and hope in God at all times whatever their lot or case be or seem to say there is no time wherein this duty wears out of fashion or the Command enjoyning it wears out of date whatever times pass over them or lots they fall under it is a constant duty and it is a sin
to neglect it If ye speak of Faith for personal reconciliation and the influence it hath on Duty 1 Joh. 3.23 This is the commandment that we should believe on the Name of his Son Jesus Christ if ye respect Faith as it is exercised about the various lots and times that pass over Gods people it is a commanded duty at all times Psal 62.8 Trust in him at all times there is no time wherein ye are dispensed with not to trust in him yea even these times wherein ye will need God for a refuge and if I might insist I would let you see how Faith is a commanded duty in the most desperat conditions and lots Ps 46.1 2 3. God is our refuge a very present help in time of trouble Therefore we will not fear though the earth be removed and though the mountains he carried into the midst of the sea c. The Believer in God thinks himself in a surer posture than the course of nature The World may turn upside down but the Believer is then sure having God for a refuge and a present help Hab. 3.17 Though the fig-tree do not blossom though no fruit be in the vine c. yet he finds warrand to believe I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my salvation a fruit of Faith Many would have been ready to say What should I do believing if the tryal had come half that length but come what will come he finds ground to believe Luke 8. A man comes to Christ with his sick daughter and she is a dead daughter ere he come to the house and they say thy daughter is dead trouble not the Master But what says Christ verse 50. Fear not believe only Faith hath a warrand when trouble goes from sickness to death not to fear but only to believe David was tryed with formidable things as Psal 56. Yet that takes not away his warrand to believe Therefore verse 3. He says what time I am afraid I will trust in thee my fear shall feed my confidence and not drive me from it Look on him again as a man whose troubles and fears had confounded and run down yet he looks not on himself as a man that might quit Faith for all that Ps 61.2 When I am at the ends of the Earth says he when my heart is overwhelmed when I have perplexity like to make me swoun when I am surcharged and laid by with them yet from the ends of the Earth I will cry unto thee an act of Faith when my heart is overwhelmed lead me to the Rock that is higher than I my heart and my flesh failing shall not warrand me to cast away my confidence and the Acts resulting thereon and Job 3.5.14 Elihu says to Job Although thou sayest thou shalt not see him yet Judgment is before him Therefore trust thou in him and that was Abraham's practice who against hope believed in hope Rom. 4.18 when he could see no probability of the thing promisedâ— it is in that case in that Paroxism the Believer is to trust in God so ye see the Point is clear that Faith is the allowance of the Saints at all times in all conditions and Faith hath still a warrand to put forth it self to exercise The rich good will of God the immutability of God and his promise bottoms Faith in all times conditions it was a good word that David had when the sycophant Doeg came and told Saul of his coming to the house of Abimelech and flew fourscore five of the Priests Why boastest thou in mischief O mighty man the goodness of God endureth continually and seing it is so Faith hath continual ground to go upon For Use I would give you these three words from it The first shall be to represent this as a mercy 2. To press upon this ground constant believing and hoping in God as a duty And 3. To speak a word to them that are troubled because they cannot get this Command constantly obeyed 1. I wold represent this as a mercy that its thy duty to believe hope in God at all times though I fear I have but few to speak to on this score few would ever venture an hair of their head on Faith or on God if they could get any other fend so long as they could have any sinful shift ouâ— of hell I had almost said in hell it is to no purpose to speak to them of Faith But are there any of you sensible of the ill of Unbelief that when ye would sit down and take a lift of your self or of your condition or of anything that is dear to you your unbelief and discouragement is like to break you the discouragement of some through the prevailing power of Unbelief is so great that they turn like dyvors they dare as soon look on hell as on all the perplexities that are in their case I would say to such does thou in this case resent it as a mercy that thou knows it is thy duty to believe and a sin to give way to discouragement and unbelief O bless God thou may venture on Faith which if thou had not it is sad to think what thou would do next I am now speaking to them that have any thing to do betwixt God and their souls though I fear there be few that have ado with what I am now upon And O that I could lament over you and that ye could lament over your selves But are there any of you pressed with your souls condition and yet ye are too fool hardy in venturing upon unbelief and discouragement One of two either ye have never tryed these deep foords of discouragement and unbelief or otherways ye are under a dreadful tentation for of all the mercies next unto Christ a soul that is crusht with discouragement and unbelief will think this the greatest mercy that it hath a warrand to believe and if ye could bless him for that who knows what it would produce if ye would bless him that ye know ye have a command to believe and that it is a sin to misbelieve and give way to discouragement But 2. If it be a constant commanded duty to believe and hope will ye constantly obey that command Trust in him at all times Whatever ye read in your cases or lots or in the times read this never to cast away your confidence but to believe and hope in God Thou will say I have few motives to it but on what account does thou forbear murther or theft or any other gross sin Is it because thou wants temptations to them or because God hath forbidden them and hast thou not a command for believing Thou must not abstain believing till thy faith be budded but because he has commanded fall about it Thou thinks thy Faith little worth it is a blind guess like the blind mans gropping for the wall But shall I say Faith in obedience to a Command believing with the judgment against the
goodness of God is better known by experience than it can be talked of even by them that have tasted of it for it is a ravishing and overcoming goodness Zech. 9.17 For how great is his goodness and how great is his beauty And yet 3. I was minting to lay it before you from some hints the Scripture gives of it and in the first place was telling that if the common goodness of God to all be so rich how rich must his peculiar goodness to his people be And in Explication of this I was hinting at the various names and notions oâ— this goodness of God held out in the Word how it keeps all temptations that they hurt not the true Israelites but makes them work for their good how it is love and tenderness how it is grace and free grace to the unworthy mercy to them in misery patience and long-suffering to the way-ward clemency and moderation to them that wring stroaks out of his hand I shall now add a word or two further that will help to give an account what this goodness of God is to Israel and that is in the 3d place to take a look of it in reference to the various cases of the Saints though the considerations we had of it in the morning do look here-away yet I shall now deduce this consideration of it more distinctly And 1. That God is good to Israel it may encourage Israel under weakness for why It 's one of the Lord's designations that he is called the strength of Israel 1 Sam. 15.29 Also the strength of Israel will not lie The word strength as it is in the Margin signifies not only strength but eternity and victory and all may very well go together here in this goodness of God to them he is strength to Israel out of weakness to make them strong when they faint to give them power 2 Cor. 12.10 Heb. 11.34 When they have no might to increase strength to them Isai 40.29 He hath strength to make the weak say I am strong Joel 3.10 And he hath strengâ—h to Israel not for a fit but to eternity Israel cannot be continued so long weak that everlasting arms will not give him strength for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength and he is strâ—ngth to Israel not simply to bear them through difficuâ—ties and to keep them from total sinking but he is so the strength of Israel as he is the victory of Israel in due time to make them Conquerours and more than Conquerours through him that hath loved them 2. That God is good to Israel it may encourage them as I was hinting in the morning against unworthiness in themselves For as ye will hear in the progress with the Lord there is mercy for Israel saith the Text Seek all Christs Court there is not a worthy person of all he hath but himself and if there be any addition any competition amongst Christ's train and followers it lies in this who shall be the greatest dyvors and debters to free Grace who shall be the most unworthy less than the least of his mercies who shall be the Mephibosheth these whom David will allow to sit at his Table but worthlesness is a noble claim in Israel a dyvor bill is a noble pasportâ—s dittay is a claim For with the Lord there is mercy 3. That God is good to Israel it may encourage all true Israelites under the multitude of their frequent recurring necessities accompanied with the sense of the ill improvement of what good things he hath done for them and to them I suppose amongst the many humbling considerations that the Israelites have of their case this is not the least that they are daily needing daily getting and dayly misguiding proofs of love they are like that man Prov. 19.19 That when he is delivered must be delivered again How often do they think with themselves What should they do looking again to God for relief they have so often needed so often gotten and as often proven dyvors misguiding all they got selling themselves without money and without price which makes them blush to look to God again for new supply and new delivery but the goodness of God may encourage them to look again For with the Lord saith the Text is plenteous redemption that is not only delivery but delivery in great plenty so oft as they need 4. That God is good to Israel it may encourage Israel under the Conscience of guilt in particular for so the Psalmist saith here in particular He will redeem Israel from all his iniquiâ—ies these things I but name now because if the Lord will I will have occasion in the progress to speak more amply 5. The goodness of God to Israel may encourage them against the contempt they meet with and the mean and low condition wherein they are put in the world many a time our hearts think it a wonder that the Blood-Royal of Heaven the excellent Ones in the Earth should be no more esteemed of in the World while we little mind that word 1 Joh. 3.1 Therefore the world knoweth us not because it knew him not Otherwayes we would think it a wonder that the Israel of God are not made the filth and off-scourings of all things yea but the goodness of God is a cordial to Israel in this case let the world count them the filth and off-scourings of all things yet the Lord hath chosen Jacob for himself and Israel for his peculiar treasure Psal 135.4 Let their nearest relations cast them off he will not cast off any of his Israel Hence David could sing Psal 27.10 when my father and my mother forsake me then the Lord will take me up and Isai 44.21 O Israel thou shalt not be forgotten of me saith the Lord that is Israel's priviledge and verse 23. The Lord hath redeemed Jacob and glorified himself in Israel The world may leave the Israel of God to send for themselves but in that case Israel may sing as Psal 121.4 He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep the Lord is his keeper the Lord is a shade upon his right hand the Sun shall not smite them by day nor the Moon by night the Lord shall preserve them from evil he shall preserve their soul he shall preserve their going out and their coming in from this time forth and even for evermore So that in all cases Israel hath ground of encouragement in the goodness of God and who would look upon these things and believe them and not think themselves engaged to make it sure that they are of the Israel of God that share in these mercies and priviledges And this leads me to the 4th word that I proposed to be spoken to for pressing you to study to be Israelites in Spirit and that is that this goodness of God to Israel that I have been minting to lay before you though I have been but spilling it in the speaking to it it is not cunningly devised fables it
we should silence all clamors about trouble with being throng about guilt that we should look on troubles and afflictions as things that we may get home with whether we be rid of them or not but we should look on redemption from sin as a thing absolutly necessar For without holiness none shall see God and that we should not take every trouble of mind for kindly exercise of Conscience for sin we should not let Conscience be sleeping in the bosom of a Delilah while there is a clamour made about trouble and that because it will not be suffered to sleep there without interruption Now to follow out this a little more particularly I shall offer you four or five words from the Text about their right exercise whose trouble is about sin or some Characters of them who have ground of hope that God will redeem them from all iniquity And 1. which is more general they that would approve themselves to God in their exercise about sin must learn to look on sin as a burden whereof they would be rid as a bondage from which they need redemption In the right Israel of God that is rightly exercised about sin no grievance goes so near the heart as that of sin The want of a delivery from trouble if they could be delivered from sinning under it or from having their corruption irritat to sin more by it it would be to them an outgate and they would drink and forget their misery if they could get sin shaken off if they could get that weight laid aside and be made light to run the race that is set before them What will ye say to this ye to whom wickedness is sweet and who hide it under your tongue who spare sin and forsake it not who count it not a bondage but a liberty surely to a true Israelite sin is the most unsupportable burden 2. They that look aright on sin as on a burden whereof they would be rid they must look on it as an iniquity abominable and hateful He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities and as the phrase is Psal 32.5 Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin Some sins may be troublesom or vexatious and folk would not care to be quit of them on that or some other carnal account but there is none rightly exercised with sin that do not weary of it as hateful abominable and ugly in God's Eyes Thou may desire to be quit of one sin because it crusheth another sin but that is no evidence of a right groaning under the pressure of iniquity till it be groaned under as loathsom to God 3. As they that are rightly exercised about sin look on it as a burden and as iniquity so all of it is hateful and abominable as such I might here if I would follow it out point out to you that there is an all of sin in every one of mankind that there is an all of sin even in Israel who are allowed to hope in God a notion that David notices Psal 140.12 Mine iniquities have taken hold on me so that I cannot look up they are more than the hairs of mine head And O but they that are well acquaint with their own heart that are often upon a self-examination and search and do not live strangers to themselves they will find greater and greater abominations there Whither do they turn them but they will find pollutions in their omissions and commissions in reference both to Law and Gospel in reference to mercies received and corrections inflicted c. But that which I am upon is That Israel looks upon all sin as iniquity A partial opposition of sin is a self-deceiving undertaking a sacrificing of many sinful delights to one predominant a burning of many Cities to save one Zoar will not be taken off saints hands as a right opposition of sin As far as iniquity extends so far must their groaning under and opposition to it extend 4. They that are rightly exercised about sin will find it a pressure that needs a redemption that is a pressure that they 'l not get shaken off till God interpose There is some other thing in delivery from iniquity than for a man to think he will go forth as Sampson and shake him as at other times No a man will be put to look to God to attain it I confess painfulness in the use of means is our duty and it will never be taken off our hands for us to say that iniquity is our burden and hurtful to us so long as we are not using means to be rid of it No there must be endeavours on our part to cast out these Devils by Fasting and Prayer and though it were to beat down the body and bring it in subjection as the Apostle does 1 Cor. 9.27 in the exercise of Mortification that must not be wanting but it fears me there is little of the painful work of Mortification to be found among Christians in those days profession is the broadest thing in Religion among all and next to that some positive duties but for the serious study of Mortification to get Satan trode under foot to be above corruption O! how few Christians can have a sober testimony on that account And yet shall I say it that next to thy closing with Christ and making him thy City of Refuge thy painfulness in Mortification will be thy great Test But that which I am now on is to lay before you that on the one hand slipt in Mortification I had almost said sleeped in Mortification of sin is much to be suspected when some iniquities that had power over you seem to be subdued but ye never did any thing to subdue them ye would remember that parable Mat. 12.43 of the unclean spirit that goes out of a man many Devils go out that are not casten out that is he withdraws to take the man from off his watch and to surprize him to put himself in a capacity to return again to his house whence he came out with seven other spirits more wicked than himself But further as slipt in Mortification will not hold water so on the other hand when we have used all pains to mortifie and subdue sin our endeavours will not prove effectual though Prayer and Fasting be our duty and the use of other means till God come and give redemption from it It is God only that hath power over iniquity yea it may be that he hath a judicial hand in it and hath past a sentence making it thy plague as well as thy sin that till thou know the plague of thine own heart and look up to him for delivery from it as a plague thou shalt not be rid of it And therefore as on the one hand thou must be at pains to get the burden and bondage of sin shaken off that Naphthali may be a Hind let loose so on the other hand thou must not mistake though thy pains be not effectual as to that thing but
remember though when thou hast done all thou can thou cannot rid thy self of iniquity and it will be with thee he in whom thou art called and allowed to hope can deliver thee But 5. Iniquity being a burden and bondage and abominable and hateful to the true Israelite and the wrestler to be free of it finding that he cannot get himself rid of it God interposing to redeem from it is a peculiar mercy That 's a proof that with him is plenteous redemption if he redeem him from iniquity This is the main point and a point that I cannot enough batter on you Redemption from iniquity to a right discerner will make up all redemptions Let a man be a servant a slave a bond-man a worm and not a man he is the Lords freeman if he be redeemed from iniquity Isai 33.2 Then the inhabitant shall not say I am sick the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity It 's a noble Physick for sickness to be a pardoned man it 's a noble antidot to all pressures to be redeemed from iniquity it compenses and makes more than up all other pressures to be redeemed from this pressure And as this redemption makes up all other redemptions so other redemptions without this will signifie little to a right discerner this to him is the choice of mercies let God cast him in trouble and bring him out of trouble if he bring him not from the bondage of iniquity it 's no delivery to him if when he is cast into the furnace his skum depart not from him but he brings it out with him he can see a plague in other redemptions when the bondage of sin continues In a word to the right discerner of the bondage of sin God is a matchless God to him on this very account that he pardons iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage a place which with others I had occasion to make use of in speaking on the 4. verse And whoever are complaining of pressures and seeking to be rid of them yet they continue if ye would read the language of that dispensation aright here it is God is making that pressure to ly on till redemption from sin be lookt on as the crownning mercy which if we enjoy we cannot be miserable and if we want it have what we will we cannot be happy Mind this mercy more redemption from iniquity to humble uncircumcised hearts to be groaning under the bondage of sin longing for delivery from that woful Trade of walking contrary to God and provocking him to walk contrary to you and to punish you seven times more and seven times more till ye be humbled and take with the chastisement of your iniquity Remember I have left it with you in the Name of the Lord that there be more conscience making of sin and of being exercised mainly about it and putting God to redeem you from it let this be your great task and exercise whatever be your exercise otherwise Now I have done with that which is supposed in the motives backing the Exhortation to hope in God I come then to that which is proposed to encourage to hope in God And I suppose the rest of the Doctrines in these two Verses may be distinctly enough reduced to these four 1. That relative to Israels misery There is mercy in God or with him 2. That relative to Israels bondage There is plenteous redemption with God 3. That what is with God shall be put forth as the Israel of God needeth it Redemption is with him and he shall redeem c. 4. We shall speak a little to this redemption from iniquity how God works it For the first it may thus be taken up that it is a great encouragement to Israel to hope in God in all cases and exigents that there is mercy with God This mercy of God is in effect the goodness of God that Attribute of God which ye have in your Catechism It 's the goodness of God I say exprest under a notion relative to the misery of man and so ye have it Psal 136.1 O give thanks to the Lord for he is good How is that evidenced for his mercy endureth for ever He who is good in himself and doth good to others as David hath it Psal 119.68 He is good and manifests his goodness by doing good to otheâ—s by his mercy that endures for ever Not to insist on the various notions and expressions of this goodness of God if we look to it in the fountain his goodness as it is communicate to his creatures is called his love and his goodness in the fountain is called his love because it 's an eminent proof of his goodness that he loves with an everlasting love Jer. 31.3 That he hath a love to his people wherein he will rest Zeph. 3.17 That he hath such a love to them as nothing shall separate from and partly because he doth not bestow this his goodness grudgingly or complementingly but in love Love stretcheth out the hand of bounty Jer. 32.41 He rejoyceth over them to do them good with his whole heart and with his whole soul Again is the goodness of God in its root and fountain is called the love of God to his people so in respect of its freedom and their ill-deserving to partake of it It 's called the grace of God a term that we find frequently occurring in Scripture and it 's nothing else but the goodness of God or the effects of his goodness freely communicat freely bestowed without money or price where there is no merit or deserving yea where there is much undeserving or deserving of the contrary Again this goodness of God as it is manifested in opposition to the waywardness and peevishness of his people it is called patience and long-suffering for his patience in waiting on them and his long-suffering in bearing with their manners in the Wilderness what is it but the goodness of God overcoming the waywardness and peevish disposition in his people Again the goodness of God as it is still continued even when Justice and Severity takes place it 's called Clemency and Moderation that in measure when it shutteth forth he debateth with it and stayth his rough wind in the day of his east wind Isai 27.8 And that in wrath he remembers mercy Hab. 3.2 There the goodness of God moderating deserved stroaks droping in proofs of love in the midst of deserved wrath all these are the goodness of God represented to us under various notions and here in the Text the goodness of God in reference to his peoples misery is called mercy And Exod. 34.6 When the Lord proclaims his Name in Moses hearing ye will find there are various notions of the goodness of God that I have been speaking of and in the same method The first Letter of his Name is Merciful to nominat that the first look that God takes of poor man is pity and compassion in
wroth Why The spirit should fail before me and the souls that I have made I could soon destroy them but that I may not do and therefore will not contend for ever c. And 6. The riches and fulness of his mercy may be read in this that when he lets out bowels of mercy there will be no mercy which the Creature needs will be withheld from them When Ishmael hath slain Gedaliah whom the King of Babylon had made the Jews Governour and they are afraid of the Chaldeans Be not afraid of the King of Babylon saith he for I am with you to save and deliver you and I will shew mercy to you that he may have mercy on you Jer. 42.11 12. Fear not if ye partake of my mercy I will make the Chaldeans compassionat you So Psal 106 44. He regarded their affliction when he heard their cry and he remembred his Covenant and repented according to the multitude of his mercies What follows he made them also to be pitied of all that carried them captives He needs no other instruments of compassion to his people nor bitter enemies when he will have compassion on them So Solomon prays Give them compassion before them that carry them captive 1 King 8.50 And Hezekiah when he is to keep the Passover tells the people If they turn again to the Lord their brethren and children shall find compassion before them that lead them captive 2 Chron. 30.9 Gods compassion can soon bring the compassion of men in so far as he sees it needful Thus ye see in a few hints how rich and full the mercy of God is In a word it 's a mercy for all the needs and pressures of his people a Plaister broad enough to cover and effectual enough to cure all their griefs and sores For the use of this great truth That with the Lord there is mercy I shall briefly touch on five inferences from it and leave it And 1. If this mercy of God be relative to mans misery if it be good news manifested to the Creature on the account of its misery then those who are partakers of this mercy would have much sense of their misery mercy will not relish to any but to the man sensible of his misery a pardon will signify nothing but to a Rebel that is sensible of his Rebellion And here all that I have spoken of the riches freeness fulness c. of this mercy if ye read it right will be the first Lesson ye will learn from it all this is not proclaimed for a complement but because it 's needed by the miserable And consequently thou must infer If I have a right to you mercy it must not be ordinary thoughts of my misery that I must have there must be deeps of misery in me to call for deeps of mercy in God If we thus fence the point we need not fear that it be a sleeping Pillow to the secure look what misery is in thee to close with every thing in mercy If mercy be free look what ill-deserving is in thee if pardoning-mercy be in God look what sense of unpardoned guilt is in thee if multitudes of mercies be in God what sense of multitude of miseries is in thee They that have a right to mercy must tryst it in the dust in the very pit of misery 2. From this that there is mercy with God there is ground of assurance offered and afforded to the miserable that their irrecoverable case by the Covenant of Works is not now desperat O! the blessed intimation of that Attribute to fallen man that with God there is mercy How good news was it and should it be What had been the case of Adam and all his posterity after the Covenant of Works was broken had it not been for this blest Attribute that interposed But now because there is mercy with God irrecoverable distresses are not desperate Somewhat ye heard of this from vers 2 and 4. What a deplorable case had all been in if there had been no more to be lookt for but that vers 3. If thou Lord mark iniquities O Lord who should stand But a gracious answer is added vers 4. But there is forgivenness or mercy with thee and how this is prest upon the account of Gods mercy ye have an account given Jer. 55.67 Seek ye the Lord while he may be found call on him while he is near let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous his thoughts and let him return to the Lord Why For he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon That there is mercy in God abundantly to pardon is an intimation to the man that is in an irrecoverable condition to look again to God And in that 2d of Joel after that the Lord hath uttered a sore and terrible Judgment and hath told verse â—1 That he will utter his voice before his Army for his Camp is very great and strong is he that executes his word and in the by if the Lord hath a Nation to punish he needs not raise and bring in an uncouth Nation to punish them he can cause Grashoppers or Locusts do his turn after all that Verse 12 13. He bids them turn to him with all their heart with fasting weeping and mourning for he is gracious and merciful slow to anger and of great kindness and repenteth him of the evil When the Lord is setting forth and inflicting an apparent and remediless stroak this yet invites to repentance That he is gracious and merciful and therefore as on the one hand thou that slights this offered mercy and makes it a pillow to security who when thou hears tell there is mercy with God makes no use of it but rather abuses it to go on in sin O the Justice of God in the day of thy accompts will be a sad sight in comparison of mercy or justice execute on slighters of mercy will be dreadful Justice then it will be Hills and mountains fall on us and bide us from the face of the Lamb What There is little terror in a Lambs Face yea but the fight of the Lambs face in the day of compt and reckoning that he that offered mercy was a Lamb that mercy was with him will be most dreadful think on it slighters of the Gospel sit-fasts never-do-wells abusers of mercy or ye that would take mercy in the accomplishment but never give mercy employment who follow your abominations if not openly yet secretly better for you that ye had sitten all your time at the foot of Sinai than at the foot of mercy in Zion This is often told you but little laid to heart and the ofter it be told many the less it is laid to heart but the day will come when many will get Hell affrighting memories wherein ye will remember that which drops at your feet and is not noticed or is stept over and not regarded So on the other hand thou who on the account of
hopelesness in thy condition runs away from God take heed what thou dost thou looks on thy case as incurable and what will thou do with it If thou run away where will thou go next Thy case must either break thee or thou will grow stupid under it and besides if thou run away thou reproaches the mercy of God so far as thou can while thou runs from him with any condition how desperat and irrecoverable so ever and will thou bring up an ill report on his mercy as if there were no cure in it for thy case When thou should rather sing as David Psal 13.5 In opposition to every hopeless like case But I have trusted in thy mercy my heart shall rejoyce in thy salvation O then take heed that thou reproach not nor bring not up an ill report on this rich full mercy in God by running from it whatever thy condition be 3. Come here all ye that are making mercy your refuge under all your pressures miseries troubles temptations desertion or whatever ail you that know no other door to knock at but mercy in God ye have no song but that one which David had Psal 13. before cited and that I can never often enough repeat though God seem to forget him for ever and hide his face for ever from him though when he takes counsel in his soul he hath sorrow in his heart daily though his enemies had exalted themselves and said they had prevailed over him and reâ—oyced and the sleep of death seems to approach he hath nothing to all that But I have trusted in thy mercy Take a look how richly thou art made up that trusts in this mercy Remember the song that follows in that Psalm â—nd thou will not find it an heartless shift My heart says â—e shall rejoice in thy salvation I will sing to the Lord because â—e hath dealt bountifully with me And the Psalmist sings Psal 31.7 I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy Why For thou hast considered my trouble thou hast known my soul in adversity I got acquaintance with thee in adversity which otherwise I had not been capable of therefore I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy and consider that sweet song Psal 136.23 Who remembred us in our low estate Why for his mercy endureth for ever or as Hezekiah hath it Isai 38.27 He loved my soul from the pit of corruption That is the word in the Original His love and mercy have an Adamantine vertue to draw a soul out of the pit of corruption when he remembers us in our low estate consider thou that hast made mercy thy refuge how sweetly it can kep a deep distress Psal 69.15 Let not the water flood overflow me hear me O Lord for thy loving kindness is good turn unto me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies And Psal 86.14 O God the proud are risen up against me and the assemblies of violent men have sought after my soul but thou O Lord art a God full of compassion gracious long suffering and plenteous in mercy and truth O turn unto me and have mercy on me Consider what a good account of very hopeless tryals mercy will give Jam. 5.11 Ye have heard of Jobs patience and have seen the end of the Lord and what was the end of the Lord even this That the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy O but they are sad difficulties which tender mercy and pity in God will not afford relief unto and therefore think not your self in a poor plight who have mercy for your refuge who have no song to sing But I have trusted c. 4. When ye have closed with and are made up by this mercy look how ye improve it and do not abuse it I confess the want of the faith of mercy in a strait is an estranging thing Zech. 11.8 My soul loathed them and their soul also abhorred me but when thou grips to mercy see what influence it hath on thy heart for warming it for putting it in a sweet and tender frame on thy part may I say it I defie folk to abuse mercy taken by the right handle O the alluring melting constraining perswading power that is in mercy rightly closed with and O that folk could win to this gate of making use of mercy Rom. 11.1 The Apostle in pressing holiness saith I beseech you brethren by the mercy of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice c. And I may allude to that Phil. 2.1 If there be any consolation in Christ if any comfort of love if any fellowship of the spirit if any bowels of mercy fulfil ye my joy If folk knew what overcoming mercy means they would let it be seen in a tender walk Thou talks of mercy yet thou art not overcome with it thou art not melted nor made more tender by it what a cheater of thy self and abuser of mercy art thou Remember the abuse of outward mercies will make a sad dittay Ezra 9. If after all these we break his commands But ah what shall be said when folk pretend to special mercy and abuse it But 5. Among other Uses that ought to be made of believed and closed with mercy this is one That we learn to be merciful Luke 6.36 We must be merciful as is our heavenly Father even in loving enemies c. Ye heard in the morning from Mat. 5.7 That it is the merciful that obtain mercy And that Parable of the man that had much forgiven him and would not forgive his fellow servant but cast him in prison Mat. 18.23 It was a sad evidence that he was not pardoned himself In a word thou who art much in mercies common it will make thee of a merciful meek temper which is that pressed Tit. 3.2 That we should speak evil of no man be no brawlers c. but gentle shewing meekness to all men seeing we our selves were sometime disobedient deceived serving divers lusts But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour towards man appeared not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of Regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost A boisterous malitious unmerciful temper in any is but a poor Evidence that such live under the drop of the multitude of the tender mercies that are with God But the time being ended I leave this great Point and you to the rich blessing of this merciful God To whom be glory SERMON XLI Psalm 130. Verse 7 For with the Lord there is mercy THe Songs of the people of God while they are within time are made up of very mixed Notes yet in this they are sweet that their over-word or last word is still the best of it Poor and needy are they and may they be yet they are thought upon by God Troubled they may be but not distrest perplext but not in despair persecuted but not forsaken cast down but
not destroyed 2 Cor. 4.8 9. Much may they have to say both from within them and about them to brangle their threed of hope which is their great stock and store-house but they have infinitly more above them to support it though Israel be in misery and bondage and under servitude through sin yet says the Text Let Israel hope in God Let nothing they find within or about them in the world brangle their confidence For with the Lord there is mercy Ye may remember that from these encouragements to Israel to hope in God I have been marking what is implyed on the part of hopers that they need mercy and redemption and particularly redemption from iniquity and I began to speak the last day to what is proposed for their encouragement notwithstanding all these disadvantages they are under and I took some time to speak to that sweet Attribute of Mercy in God In speaking to which ye had some account in general of the nature of this mercy and of the Object and Properties of it and somewhat was spoken to the Use of the whole Doctrine A Doctrine which though some may abuse and break their neck on and which will be the sad dittay of these within the visible Church That mercy was in their offer and they slighted it yet it is a Doctrine absolutely necessary to them that are lying under the sense of sin and misery Now I proceed to a 2d main Point to encourage Israel to hope in God That with him is plenteous redemption That is both Authority to redeem and power to vindicat his people out of the bondage and servitude wherein they are and that in a great measure a plenteous redemption and that is connected with the former with the Lord there is mercy and with him is plenteous redemption That same God with whom there is mercy hath also plenteous redemption which gives a ground to this general Remark that I shall batter out a little that mercy in God is not a bare naked affection if I may so word it in him as ye may find it amongst creatures some are very merciful and compassionat and can condole the case of others in chains when they cannot help them they may weep over them whom they cannot relieve But I say mercy is not such a bare naked affection in God but it is accompanied with authority and power to make the effects of his mercy forthcoming for the miserable as he finds there is cause To lay this a little open to you and in the passing thorow to hint at some Uses of it I shall speak a little to these three 1. What this redemption imports 2. Why it is called redemption And 3. What the plenty of this redemption that is with God may look to or hint at For the first What redemption imports ye know that redemption properly is a recovery by paying of a price or by exchange or otherwise of that which hath been brought in bondage or under the power of another Now redemption when it is attribute to God imports a recovery of his people out of that bondage of sin and misery unto which through their own folly they have cast themselves And for the import of it beside mercy relative to their misery who have sold themselves it imports both authority to redeem and power to redeem 1. Authority and authority of Soveraignity in Dominion to recover or bring back what or whom he pleases out of that bondage and servitude under which they had brought themselves To allude to that Plea of the Caldeans anent the Redemption of Captives Isai 49.24 Shall the lawful Captive be delivered we have taken them lawful Captives and who has authority to interpose and take them from us So when guilt and justice pursuing for guilt hath the Israel of God lawful Captives in that case he hath authority and supremacy a soveraign dominion to interpose for the Redemption of his people when he will as it is said Psal 3.8 Salvation belongs to the Lord it is his prerogative royal to give salvation to redeem as Princes have a power Paramount to pardon Crimes the Law strikes against he hath a power to pardon to love freely to see his peoples ways and to heal them Isai 57.18 That is the first thing then imported in this redemption an authority and right to redeem and before I passe from it I would leave this word with the people of God that when their distresses are great and many and all other doors are shut on them they would learn to look to Soveraignty in God as the Latin Proverb is They may be in that case wherein salvation cannot save them and then they must look no laigher than God and to a Soveraign Dominion in God to redeem remembring whatever be the sad premisses in their case he hath a dominion to make the conclusion what he pleaseth his authority and soveraign dominion can make the conclusion comfortable when the premisses writes bitter things against them this would be the last anchor that we would hold by when all others are driven and come home and I would have you so far from mistaking and stumbling when ye look to Soveraignty in God and ye are brought so low that you have no claim but to put off your Ornaments and see what God will do to you all things in your case or what ye can look to for relief are so hopeless and desperat only ye dare not limit God I would in this case have you so far from stumbling at Soveraignty in God that I would have you rather afraid when ye have any thing to look to beneath it It is sad when God is afflicting his people with crosse Providences it should be with them as with that people Jer. 2.37 They go forth from him with their hands on their head and the Lord hath rejected their confidence that is a sad trade when Gods work of Providence is to blast and reject their carnal confidence and to defeat them that they shall not prosper in them because they will not quite them and lay their deplorable case at the footstool of Soveraignty in God So much for the first thing imported in redemption That is authority to redeem 2. This Redemption in God imports further even a power to exercise that authority and dominion for the actual redemption of his people many a time experience shows that authority is baffled and affronted in the world because it is not in its way backed with power but our blessed Lord who has authority to redeem has also power to exercise that authority and actually to redeem he is the God of the Spirits of all flesh to whom nothing is too hard Psal 115.3 Our God is in heaven he hath done whatever he pleased Psal 135.6 Whatever the Lord pleased that he did in heaven and in the earth c. And ye have his power asserted in this very affair Isai 29.24 Shal say they the prey be taken from the mighty
godliness is profitable unto all things having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come Many never mind this that godliness and making sure an interest in Christ is the only thriving gate as for such as find prosperity in another method I shall speak to them just now But for you that are godly or pretend to godliness to be taken up in seeking things in time ye forget your main work when ye are too eager and keen in your pursuit of these things wherein if God love you he will not let you thrive I wot not what of this is among you but if there be a nearness a nippedness and eagerness after the things of the world in that you may read your poverty if ye be seeking God and making an Idol of the world or any things in it he loves you better than to let you prosper in that pursuit and if ye would thrive indeed put godliness in the first place begin at it as the work of all your thrift But 2. Because many may laugh at this Exhortation founded on this that other mercies come as the result of Redemption through Christ and therefore that folk ought in the first place to sicker an interest in him and think that they speed best in things of time that neglect Piety I might bid them laugh at leasure Many profane folks that have had more prosperity than heart could wish and have thought they should never be in adversity and that they had no need of God to hold to their head they have win through it all and have been put to imbrace dunghills and in their straitned condition have been contemptible when the godly have shined in their greatest poverty But that which I press here is that every lot that folk have they would see how they hold it by what Title and Right thou that gets the mercy of prosperity or a delivery out of trouble if thou be not interested in Christ and a Student of holiness it 's but as a Bone cast at a Dog for thy portion as it is Psal 17.4 And I shall tell you the Testament of such men from that parable Luk. 16.25 Son saith Abraham to the rich glutton remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things and likewise Lazarus evil things but now he is comforted and thou art tormented Thou hast prosperity while thou neglects piety but it may be thou art getting what thou gets in wrath and while thou art running to Satan and perdition thou gets outward mercies as a Post-horse to further thee in that deplorable Journey yea thou who art a child of God may be getting outward mercies when God is not pleased with thee There is a sad word 1 Cor. 10.5 after the Apostle has spoken of great mercies conferred on Gods people he subjoyns But with many of them God was not well pleased for they were overthrown in the wilderness And therefore thou that would put a right value on mercies read them at that rate Isai 42.16 where when he hath spoken of bringing the blind by the way they knew not making darkness light before them and crooked things straight he subjoyns These things will I do unto them and not forsake them look if thou has God with what thou hast Have a man what he will till he have interest in him and stand in his favour he has little cause to insult or boast If thy mercies be not the result of redemption through Christ they will turn a snare But a 3d word of Inference from this is that it is an invitation to the fearers of God who have an interest in his love and are studying to walk tenderly to look sweetly on their portion and lot in time what-ever it be it may be thy share in the things in time is little thy troubles many thy breathing times betwixt troubles short thy comfort mixt with what is bitter and sad but that which will make all relish is that the same love that has given Christ for thee and to thee and will give thee everlasting happiness hath afforded these mercies as the result and appendices of that great redemption and that same love will sanctify all thy crosses and make them work for thy good And O! How sweet might sorry accommodations mean food and raiment be to have this written over them That love that hath given Christ for me and to me and will give me a Crown one day hath given me these This might be rich and sweet Sauce to a sober Diet excellent Furniture to a poor House to learn to look on these as the result of the great Bargain Seek to have your interest in Christ your Union and Communion with him more near and warm and to be more tender That thus ye may look on your mercies and be comforted the Lord bless what ye have heard SERMON XLII Psalm 130. Vers 7. And with him is plenteous redemption MAny are the exceptions and grounds of fears which the people of God entertain for fostering their discouragement and no fewer are the Cordials that are allowed in God to make out that to them that when they are afraid they are called to trust in God when Israel is invited to hope in God if misery and ill-deserving retard their obedience to that command they are told here that with the Lord there is mercy If they look on themselves as lawful Captives and none have a right to offer to rescue or ransome them they are told here that with the Lord there is redemption a Soveraign Authority Right and Power to step in when he will and vindicate them into freedom If they look upon it as hard and impossible ever to get out of the bonds they are under with him is plenteous redemption as the Psalmist sings Psal 146.7 To loose the Prisoners and open the prison doors and set them at liberty This is that I was speaking to in the morning That with God there is redemption I cleared that this Redemption imported Authority and Right to redeem and power to reedeem and vindicate And I came in the second place to clear in what respects this Redemption is so called or in what respects his delivery of his people is called a Redemption of them And the first to which I have spoken it 's because all their deliverances are founded upon and are the result of their eternal Redemption through Christ the Uses whereof I mentioned and shall not repeat I proceed now in the 2d place to clear that their Redemption is so called or their delivery is called Redemption in relation to their trouble and the instruments of their trouble from whom God will redeem them not by paying a price for them for that is already payed to Justice for doing away the controversie that God the principal Creditor had with them who therefore put them in Bonds and under Arrest but by the strong hand he redeems them from the instruments of their trouble to their
on stroaks from which folks will not easily come to be delivered O how oft may we write that over ill improved pressures which ye have Psal 81.13 O that my people had hearkened to me and Israel had walked in my ways I would soon have subdued their enemies and turned my hand against their adversaries And Isai 48.18 O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandment then had thy peace been as a river c. It must be otherwayes with pressed saints than it is with others It is a sin and a shame that so many ruines are under saints hands not improved but a double sin shame that they should increase under their hand and an evidence they have not been improved But a 3d word most directly from what I have spoken on this branch is this That if every delivery be a redemption and enlargement Then it calls the people of God to be comforted and enlarged under every mercy and proof of love how mean soever it be The Lord who calls men in the day of adversity to consider calls them in the day of prosperity to be comforted and joyful in any measure of redemption that they meet with Eccl. 7.14 And it 's marked by Nehemiah and others when God had brought Israel into the land of Canaan and gave them abundance of good things they delighted themselves in his great goodness Neh. 9.25 a practice very rare among God's people proofs of love particular redemption trists them which calls them to rejoyce in God and his goodness and yet they are where they were when they got them their mercies are little seen upon them by any enlargements given them and what wonder therefore that mercies be withholden from them who cannot be worse with the want of them than when they have them they droop when they have and they droop when they want the having of them is no enlargement to them and this they mourn not for as a sin they are better at picking quarrels at them than at being thankful for them which speaks a proud unsubdued selfie disposition I shall not stand to discuss the shifts and pretexts that folks make use of in their byasses in setting no value on Redemptions bestowed on them many a time their own spirit is a spirit of bondage when God allows on them a spirit of liberty It is not the want of allowances from God but the want of enlargement of heart a slavish servil disposition that makes a spirit of bondage when it is not Gods allowance Sometime they pretend the smalness of the mercy to undervalue it when they rather proclaim the want of humility in themselves The humbled Church Lam. 3.22 Under many pressures sees That it is of the Lords mercies that we are not consumed if our mercies be compared with our lustings or deservings they will be great and admirable mercies And sometimes the cloud of continued pressures hides the sight of partial Redemptions but certainly every evidence of mercy remembred in wrath is a redemption and should be delighted in and our heart should be enlarged in receiving it as such in a word it is an evidence of a blest disposition when whatever be folks lots they love not to cast out with God they love not to fish faults with his Providence to miscal a mean mercy how insignificant soever it be to their sense and when they are content to pick up their mercies amongst the crouds of their crosses that these shall not tempt them not to be comforted in the meanest mercy and who knows but such a frame if it were studied might prove a door of hope to the increase and growth of favours they that delight to commend mercies shall find them grow Now I have done with the accounts on which deliveries are called Redemptions In the third place it remains that I should speak a little to the plentifulness of these redemptions With him there is plenteous redemption Ye heard the last day when I was speaking of the mercy of God That God is full of compassion and plenteous in mercy Psal 86.5 15. That he has manifold mercies Neh. 9.19 and that he is abundant in goodness Exod. 34.6 Here He is plenteous in redemption and this hath relation to these two 1. To the variety of the pressures the saints may be assaulted with for plenteous redemption speaks plentiful pressures 2. To the recurring of these pressures that when folk are brought out of them they fall in them again through their own folly There is plenteous redemption with God in relation to both For the first The variety of pressures wherewith saints may be assaulted There is somewhat 1. Supposed here That not only the Israel of God may have pressures but a variety a great many of them Hence Eliphaz Job 5.19 Supposing Job a penitent says God should deliver him in six troubles and in seven a number of perfection 2 Cor. 4.8 The Apostle says we are troubled on every side and Ch. 6.7 He tells There is need of the armour of righteousness both on the right and left hand there is no hand we can turn us to would he say but there is need of armour Chap. 7.5 Troubled on every side without are fightings and within were fears and in a word the Church tells us Lam. 2.22 That God had called as in a solemn day her terrors round about her in the day of Gods anger no pressure was wanting and there was a convention of them 1. Hence from this that variety of pressures are the lot of the people of God it doth on the one hand point out that they are ill to tame ill to hold like a wild ass snuffing up the wind it is not easie sisting them except they be hedged in on all hands hard wedges tells there are hard stone or timber to be divided and they who have many pressures may sit down and lament over their dispositions that less would not do their turn many might steal more quietly in to heaven were it not for their dispositions that are so wild and ill to be tamed Though yet I shall add the more pressures thou hast if thou could improve them well thou has the more doors open for mercy and occasions to get meat out of the eater 2. From it I would have many folks learning to silence their murmuring and complaining many have learned a gad of crying ere they be toucht there be many who though there be pressures be such as many of the people of God would count an outgate yet there is no biding of their complaining O! what would many of you do if ye were put in Job's case who in one day was stript of all that he had and the next day of his health and quietness of mind and yet he was born through it is a great evidence of mortification to be enabled to bear pressures well to make little din of grievances much din and crying under them tells there are many boyls to be let out and many
the second main Point to encourage Irsael to hope in God that with him is plenteous redemption I proceed now to the 3d Observation that at the entry to these words I proposed to be spoken to That what God is or what is in God is put forth by God for the behove of his people according as they need it I gather this from the connexion of the two Verses with God there is merey and with him there is plenteous redemption and what follows And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquity If he have mercy to compassionat them in their misery and if he have authority and power to vindicate them from bondage it shall be seen in their actual deliverance The point is plain and obvious Gods all-sufficiency his furniture for the need of his people shall not be wanting but put forth actually as he sees good for the behove of his people If he have plenteous redemption he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities Hence it is that in Scripture we have not only an account of furniture in God if I may so word it for his people That with him is mercy and with him is plenteous redemption and of promises wherein God engages himself to put forth that furniture for their behove but the Scripture gives an account of his actual putting forth that mercy and power for them Jer. 31.10 There are news to be sent and publish'd in the Isles afar off and what is that He that scattered Israel will gather them and keep him as a shepherd doth his flock and what more For the Lord hath redeemed Jacob and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he It 's spoken of as a thing done and on this account David in his Prayer promises himself a good day Psal 35.9 My soul shall be joyful in the Lord it shall rejoice in his salvation all my bones shall say alluding to that Psal 51.8 Make me to hear joy and gladnesse that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice who is like unto thee that delivers the poor from him that is too strong for him yea the poor and the needy from him that spoils him I am would he say looking for a Song when not so much as a broken bone shall be dumb but all shall get a voice to sing praise for actual redemption I shall not need to stand to prove this from the all-sufficiency of God from his love and affection to his people and from his fidelity that cannot lie Nor will I break in on the particular inferences of this point now Only in general be not vexed take it not ill though ye be put to and kept at a task to keep a good report in your hearts of God when temptation says as Psal 77.7 8 9. The Lord hath cast off for ever and will be favourable no more his mercy is clean gone c. When temptation says what means this and that in my case If all this mercy and redemption be with God and thou may then have a hard steek of work to keep up a good report of him when so many Hell Fire-brands are going thick and three-fold Be encouraged and comforted in this that a day comes when actual redemption shall take all these off thy hand and thou shalt not have it to say only That with God is redemption in opposition to thy troubles but he hath redeemed Jacob and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he Be comforted in this ye that are engaged in a task to keep up a good report of God against prejudices The time is coming when he will leave you little to say to his commendation when he shall come and relieve you and make actual redemption give the lie to all mistakes and prejudices whatsoever SERMON XLIV Psalm 130. Vers 8. And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities I Am now ye see towards the close of this Psalm which hath detained me so long upon the account of the riches and universal usefulness of the matter therein contained Ye may remember that after that Exhortation to Israel to hope in the Lord I came to the motives encouraging them so to do wherein somewhat was spoken to what is supponed concerning the Israel of God called to hope and allowed to hope in God that they are under the sense of misery needing mercy and under the sense of bondage needing plenteous redemption and in particular under the sense of the bondage of sin putting them in need to be redeemed from all their iniquities and in speaking to what is proposed for the encouragment of such to hope in God I hinted somewhat concerning these two great truths That with God there is mercy and with him is plenteous redemption You may remember that I told you there be two words further to be gathered from this 8. v. One is that what is in or with God it shall be put forth for the behove of his people as they have need he shall redeem Israel and another is That it 's in particular Israels great mercy that God shall be a Redeemer to him from all his iniquities For the first of these I brake in on it on the close of the mornings Exercise that what is in or with God shall be put forth for the behove of his people as they need it and they shall find it made forth-coming to them as they need it for if there be with him plenteous redemption he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities I left at a general word of Use from this That we should not take it ill to be kept at a task of bringing up a good report on God against all prejudices and whatsoever temptation suggests of him for the time is coming which the Lord will hasten in his time that he will leave us little to say to his commendation his own performances will say so much and declare him to be exalted above all blessing and praise The time is coming that they shall not think shame of it that if we may so word it have spoken good of him behind his back and would not take a report of him but from his Bible But to follow out this a little for the comfort of them that are looking for the accomplishment of what is in or with God for the behove of his people I shall lead you to a fourfold direction in order to this and endeavour to put a close to this Scripture The first direction is this That ye would study to be well acquaint with the Word to be well acquaint with what God hath declared is in him for his people The Bible should be a well-finger'd Book in gloomy times David knew well what he was doing when he made the Statutes his song in the house of his pilgrimage and the reason why I press this acquaintance with the Word is to help you to prevent a double hazard there is on the one hand the hazard of ignorance
sin but he sets them on work to purge out all sin and in due time he will redeem them from the reliques and remainders of sin every thing that hath the relique or remainder of iniquity in it he will redeem them from it in due time And 4. Ye would consider the object of this mercy who they are that he will redeem from all iniquity they are his people Israel the object of God's power and mercy in redeeming in his being a propitiation for sin in redeeming from the power and guilt of sin are Israel and they only That as Adam when he fell drew all his seed along into perdition with himself So Christ the second Adam will redeem all his seed which is the true import of that comparison institute betwixt the first Adam and the second Rom. 5. and not to prove an universal redemption for then as all fell in Adam so all should be actually redeemed and liberat by Christ but the meaning is That as in Adam all his seed fell with him so by Christ all his seed are redeemed and as in Adam all fell not Christ was excepted so by Christ all are not redeemed his seed only are recovered This is a Point I need not enter to debate It is too evident many are not redeemed by Christ for many have not the outward means that make offer of redemption by Christ many never heard tell of Christ and if Christ had payed a price for all it were not agreeable to Justice that so many should be put to suffer punishment in hell It is clear also from that that Christ would not pray for the world Joh. 17.9 And he did not die for them for whom he would not pray and he doth not sanctifie himself for all therefore he redeems not all and yet this needs be no impediment to them to look to him for Redemption who find their need of him their fleeing to him for refuge and gripping to him for satisfaction opens up the council of God that they are among the given ones to be redeemed by Christ only remember that as none of God's Israel are secluded from this redemption how worthless soever they be Though they may be secluded from these gifts and measures of graces afforded to others yet not from this redemption from all iniquity That is the common-good of all that 's the nail fastned in the sure place on which all the vessels of greater and smaller quantity are hung so on the other hand it is to Israel alone and to none other that this redemption is ensured Having thus explained the Point it remains That we should draw some Uses from it and put a close to the Psalm and there are four or five words of inference that I would give you from what hath been said 1. See here what is the great concerning business the chief Interest and exercise of the true Israel of God It is the matter of iniquity what to do with it how to be rid of it and delivered from it therefore after all the former encouragements to hope in God That with him is mercy and with him is plenteous redemption this comes in as the reserve that he shall redeem Israel from all his Iniquities To tell that the great exercise of a true Israelite will be about iniquity the conscience of sin and guilt what to do with that how to get the conscience pacified in reference to it this exercise is a great stranger in the visible Church there may be much trouble of mind where the conscience is dormient and sleeping There may be much vexation and fashâ—ie about trouble and cross dispensations of providence when guilt is little minded but ye would look to it I shall not say they are not Israelites that fall into this error but surely it looks not like a true Israelite where sin is not made the main exercise where daily searching out of sin and endeavours to have the conscience purified and purged from guilt is not folks great task And I shall add that exercise about sin and guilt would give a more comfortable account about trouble If we were studying to have this Text made out to us He shall redeem Israel out of all his iniquities we should find that of Psal 25. Redeem Israel O God out of all his troubles also made out to us redemption from iniquity would bod well were a good prognostick of redemption from trouble for as ye heard from Isai 10.12 Trouble hath a work on Mount Zion and if ye would know what that is see 27.9 By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged and this is all the fruit to take away his sin when he maketh all the stones of the Altar as chalk stones c. Were trouble getting its work it should have the less ado when it had gotten its errand and therefore ye that are fasht and vexed folks with the Cross tost with many troubles shall I say to you that ye run long on little ground and to little purpose if ye had more ado about sin ye should have less ado about trouble or your exercise about it should soon be discust Therefore look on it as a mark of a true Israelite that whatever exercise he have sin is the greatest exercise 2. Whereas folk may seem to have some exercise about sin but all that it amounts to is to take with sin and grip to pardoning mercy and this is very common in the visible Church to name sin and to name pardon and upon the naming of sin to make a present Plaister of pardon and there is an end To obviat this mistake take this word That the pardon of sin and purging out of sin must go together hand in hand But in this mistake me not I would hurt none nor have I commission to hurt any Ye may remember that when I was on the 4th Verse I told you that the filthiness of sin remains after the pardon of sin but remember also that I then told you God strikes at the guilt and power of sin both at once that where Christ comes with the merit of his death he comes also with the power of his death he lays the Axe to the root of the Tree but I would not be mistaken in this either the pardoned sinner gets not the power of sin presently subdued yea when he is pardoned the power of sin may fash him more than before and when sin is in the dead-throws it may vex him most with strugling Many a sad bout may pardoned sinners have alongst their life with their predominants but where-ever God pardons sin he sets folks to be in necks with sin and to have the dominion and power of sin subdued that sin reign not in their mortal bodies they and sin will not dwell in peace in one house they will not be taken alive captive without a scart they oppose it and protest against the prevailing of it they sin not with full consent And O! but this