Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	hear_v	lord_n	sin_n	15,720	5	5.7661	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45242	Forty-five sermons upon the CXXX Psalm preached at Irwin by that eminent servant of Jesus Christ Mr. George Hutcheson.	Hutcheson, George, 1615-1674.	1691 (1691)	Wing H3827; ESTC R30357	346,312	524

pardon that it hides God's Face from it as David prays Psal 51.9 Hide thy face from my sins and it is a notable word Mic. 7.18 That God passes by or over-pardons transgressions Who is a God like unto thee that pardons iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage though he be an Omniscient God to see sin yet when sin is pardoned he will as we use to say see and not see he will see and misken as he that passes by that which might irritat him he will not set his Face in that art so deals the Lord with pardoned sins in his people But 4ly Whereas ye have a cursed distinction of forgiving but not forgetting of injuries and temptations may be ready to use and say that though in the sense that I have been speaking of pardoned sins be blotted out covered put out of sight passed by or over that the Lord will not take notice of pardoned iniquities to punish them yet he may remember them by way of grudge against the pardoned person the Scripture secures us against the fear of that and tells us that pardoned iniquities are not remembred Isai 43.25 I even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mi●e own sake and will not remember thy sins and Jer. 31.34 with the paralel place Heb. 8. in the New Covenant it is said I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sins no more I will remember it judicially no more to call them to an account for the sin I have pardoned So that sins being pardoned they shall be as if they had not been committed as if they were everlastingly forgotten no more to be remembred so much for these expressions shewing how pardoned sin is looked upon in reference to God to which many mo might be added and O what a full and satisfactory ground do they afford that pardon of sin is no complement but a real security and firm ground of confidence when God hath said all this who are they who looking on the pollution or desert of sin will take pardon of sin for a complement and not look on it as a solid security And this will be further clear if in the second place we consider how it stands with the pardoned man for ye may say to me much hath been said for God and of the fulness of his pardon and that it is a real Security to the pardoned man but I find it not so with my case Therefore I shall in a few words hint how it stands with thee Thou who art a pardoned sinner may find much sin and pressures of guilt at thy door and lying near thy Conscience but the Scripture tells us that it is otherways with thee than thou apprehends Psal 103.12 So far as the east is from the west so far hath he removed our transgressions from us That which thy fears and doubts apprehends lying at thy door and to be as an heavy burden upon thy back sinking thee a pardon removes from thee as far as the East is from the West as far as one thing can be removed from another as the proverbial Speech imports Thou thinks thy self to be in a woful and wretched condition but the Scripture determines thee to be bl●st Psal 31.1 2. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven c. Thou may be crying out O wretched man who shall deliver me But the Scripture tells thee thou art happy and ought to thank God through Christ Rora 7.24 25. Thou mayest be drooping notwithstanding thou art fled unto Christ for pardon but the Scripture-language of pardon is another thing Mat. 5.2 Son be of good chear thy sins are forgiven thee The power and pollution of sin may make thee droop but the pardon of sin may make thee drink and forget thy misery and remember thy poverty no more Thy other sores and difficulties may stick to thee and press thee down but if thou read the pardon of sin rightly thou may say as Isai 33.24 The inhabitant shall not say I am sick why the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity since I am pardoned what can all me what can dare at me or trouble me since I am forgiven of my sin In a word the Scripture declares That have what thou will or want what thou will though thou should complain loving kindnesses are wanting thou hast not these proofs of love thou wont to receive yet thou wants not an admirable proof of love that hast pardon hence is that Exclamation Mic. 7.18 Who is a God like unto that pardoneth iniquity Others may say who is a God like thee in working wonders when thou brought thy people out of Egypt But as for me I will say Who is a God like thee in pardoning sin Thus if we take the Scripture-verdict of pardon of sin as well in reference to the pardoned man as in respect of God we will find that pardon is a sure foundation of confidence and it is so excellent a Character that if we could heed it believe it and improve it to the quickning of us to run and secure pardon in the right method whereof we may hear we should find that we have here a Treasure hid in this Field Christ a pardoner of iniquity lying in the bosom of this mercy Lord bless what ye have heard SERMON XII Psalm 130. Verse 4. But there is forgivenness with thee I Am now entred upon the 3d and great Head of this necessary Doctrine to clear wherein it is That the forgiveness of sin doth stand and after a general Resolution thereof That the pardon of sin takes away not the filthiness and pollution but the guilt of sin I proceed to name four Questions to be cleared on this Subject And the first to which I spoke was how the guilt of sin could be removed while the filthiness and pollution of sin remained guilt being inseparable from sin and the Resolution was that however guilt in it self or as the Learned call it The potential guilt the guilt of sin in it self be not taken away by pardon yet guilt as it results on the person or the actual ordination of the person guilty to condemnation is suspended everlastingly and taken away and for confirmation thereof I led you through several Scriptures to let you see what a sure character pardon is whether we consider pardon as it is to be looked on in respect of God or how it stands with the pardoned man And now without further repetition I shall go on with the rest of the Cases tending to clear the nature of the remission of sin A 2d Question in order is since pardon frees the pardoned man from obligation to punishment Whether is this to be held that no justified or pardoned person can fall under any punishment or chastisement for sin And here the Adversaries of Truth Papists on the one hand and Antinomians on the other run on two extreames for Papists say That in pardon of

stream of thy own inclination is more acceptable to God than if in thy believing thou were sailing before the wind ye will say ye press a command constantly to believe but what should I believe I have no work for Faith but I have work enough for Diffidence and distrust I cannot stay now to deduce the Answer to this in particular instances relating to several cases and times but as I marked before on this subject there are general foundations that cannot be moved Catholick Cordials for every condition and labour to believe these when thou cannot dip on particulars As 1. Believe at all times and in all conditions that thou art in God's hand Remember that word Mat. 14.27 It is I be not afraid believe that all the world cannot pull thee out of his hand thou mayest think thou art in frem'd handling A messenger of Satan is sent to buffet thee a wicked man is sent to oppress thee but believe thou art still in Gods hand 2. Believe that as thou art in God's hand so he in whose hand thou art doth all things well that is his Motto in all his dealing Mark 7.37 And he will not begin at thee to give beguile to Trusters in him 3. Believe that his thoughts are not as your thoughts neither are his ways as your ways Isai 55.8 And therefore although thou can see no outgate yet he sees it and the way how to bring it about and let him take his own way and do not limit him to thy model 4 Believe that he hath wisdom power love that thou may venture thy all upon and that it cannot be so well as when thou ventures it upon these 5. Believe that he is God and not man thou would have out-wearied the patience of men and angels having had to do with them but he is God and not man with whom thou hast to do 6. Believe that all that he saith or doth to his people or thee ●ver says go a way The scope of all the sound of all he does or says is come and go not away desertions tryals scourges or whatever else he sends says come 7. Believe that many a disappointment will he give to thy false and deceitful heart when thou hast said Wilt thou cast off for ever will he be favourable no more is his mercy clean gone for ever doth his promise fail for evermore hath he forgotten to be gracious hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies He will give these thoughts the lie and make thee re-cant and eat in that language with shame and repentance and believe this and say I am treasuring up matter of repentance and mourning for my self when God comes and calls me to an account for such thoughts of him 8. Believe that God is concerned in thee and his people and interest more than thou art his stake is greater than thine art thou come unto him Thou art given to him and he will count for thee and every one of his people He that touches them touches the apple of his eye And remember that argument Joshua hath Josh 7.9 What wilt thou do unto thy great Name Believe that and it will put thy mind to rest these are foundations and Catholick Cordials that thou mayest trust to at all times and make use of in all cases when thou knows not how to put forth Faith as to particulars And O! what sweet Cordials will flow out of them for Faith and Hope to feed upon in the darkest of dispensations But 3. If time would permit a word would be spoken to them that are troubled because they cannot get this Command of believing and hoping in God constantly obeyed Thou art convinced it is a commanded Duty but thou cannot win at it Unbelief makes a slave of thee when thou would comfort thy self against sorrow thy heart is faint within thee thou would look through the Cloud but thine Eyes are dim that thou cannot see through it thou that art so overpowered with Unbelief look that it be thy weakness and not thy wilfulness How shall I evidence that will thou say Here is a proof of it mourn over that which thou cannot overcome thou art overpowered with Unbelief and cannot help it come and sit down before God and cry violence is done thee Tentation and Unbelief prevails with thee and thou cannot master them but they overcome thee lament that to God if thou debate with Unbelief it will turn like a Snow Ball that grows the more the more it be rolled but mourning over it to God is the best way to get it overcome I thought to have deduced this at more length and shewed you it is an evidence of a blessed frame to be mourning for Gospel sins as well as for sins against the Law but the day being short I shall detain you no longer God bless what ye have heard SERMON XXXIII Psalm 130. Vers 7. Let Israel hope in the Lord for with the Lord there is mercy c. I Am now entered as ye heard upon the second part of the Psalm wherein the Psalmist who just before was wrestling with very humbling things in his case is now triumphant and victorious and though it be not exprest that he has gotten an outgate yet he implyes it very legibly in the improvement of it in his communicating the good that he had gotten to Israel the people of an hour of temptation may be lookt on as a very great folly and a poor shift for a man to betake himself unto and a man may then be tempted to cast them away but when men have tryed them well they will see cause to revock all the misconstructions that they had of Faith and Hope and to commend them from the rich advantage they have found in them if ye will consider David an eminent example and pattern of believing and hoping in God ye will find these three in him one is that he was as much put to it as any to live the life of faith ye will find that sometimes there is nothing betwixt him and fainting and over-giving but believing as Psal 27.13 I had fainted unless I had believed c. Ye will find that he had nothing for a casten-down soul and disquieted within but hoping in God Psal 42.43 Another is that as ye find him often put to it to live by faith and hope So ye will find him now and then under a temptation that he was at the next best under this shift and tempted to quite it How often is he put to that of the Church Lam. 3.18 I said my hope and my strength is perished from the Lord. So 1 Sam. 27.1 I shall one day perish by the hand of Saul And Psal 116.11 I said in my haste all men are liars Behold what a sad conjunction is in this case and what a low opinion he hath of faith and hope in an hour of temptation But in the third place take him again at the turn of the Tide as ye

reference to his misery The next Letter is Gracious to intimate that God having lookt on miserable man as the obje●● 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 ●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

passion or perturbation yet is he no less tender and careful in shewing mercy than if these passions abounded in him 2. It is to be considered that it is to be wondered that he should be merciful when none of these things are in him that prompts men to be merciful all his mercy we owe to his goodness allanerly Men are prompted to be merciful to others because they are of the same nature with them Beside that weakness and softness of spirit that is in some may make them compassionat others in misery The experience others have had of such pressures may excite compassion to others in the like case mens relations may warm and affect their hearts with compassion to their relations in misery when yet they will be less concerned how it fares with others not so related to them and men considering not so much the simple trouble as the age dignity of the persons troubled when they see such in trouble it may waken compassion But all these are far removed from the Majesty of God he is infinitly above and infinitly distinct from man's nature neither is his nature subject to Misery yet he is no less merciful but infinitly more merciful than if all these things that serve to excite mercy in men were in him Only 3. Take one word more concerning this mercy that is with God in general because it is not so easy as many think to take up this mercy in an infinit and glorious Spirit He hath been pleased to bring this mercy in him a little nearer to us and to take up his dwelling in our nature in giving the Son of his Love to be incarnat and our kinsman a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief experiencing the misery of man that his mercy may run through this channel that his infinit mercy may be communicate to us through the tender bowels of a merciful and faithful high Priest who was in all things made like to his brethren Heb. 2.17 And who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities and was in all things tempted as we are yet without sin Heb. 4.15 To assure us that he can be touched with our miseries But I proceed in the 2d place to speak to the Object of this mercy in God and here in general all the creatures of God do in some measure partake of this mercy of God Psal 145.9 His tender mercies are over all his works or upon all his works as the word will read or to be seen in all his works Psal 33.5 The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord Psal 119.64 The earth is full of his mercy his mercy is extended to the very ravenous birds and beasts whose needy crys are lookt on as directed to a merciful God Job 38.41 He provideth for the raven his food when his young ones cry unto him Psal 104.21 The young lions roar after their prey and seek their meat from God Psal 147.9 He giveth to the beast his food and to the young ravens which cry Joel 1.20 In time of drought the beasts of the field cry unto him And Jonah 4. God respects not only the infants that were in Niniveh who knew not the right hand by the left but the very cattel and if beasts partake of the mercy of God then wicked men are not deprived of it Luk. 6.35 He is kind to the unthankful and to the evil ver 35. and the commentary put on this verse 36. Be ye therefore merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful The visible Church they yet more peculiarly are the object of Gods mercy as witness all the promises made to Israel of old for the elects sake that were among them But the most peculiar objects of his mercy are his own elect who as ye heard Rom. 9.23 are vessels of mercy which he hath afore prepared to glory His mercies towards them cannot be enumerated The mercy of their Election Exod. 33.19 and Rom. 9.15 He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy compassion on him on whom he will have compassion It is not of him that wills nor of him that runs but of him that sheweth mercy No but election may be called and is an act of Dominion and Soveraignity yet its scope is mercy Then there is the mercy of their Regeneration Tit. 3.5 According to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration c. And being regenerat what a heap of mercy and goodness follows them all their days Psal 23.6 The mercy of pardoning their iniquity Exod. 34.6 The mercy of hearing their prayers as he sayes in another case Exod. 22.27 When he shall cry unto me I will hear for I am gracious The mercy of moderation in the midst of wrath Hab. 3.2 And not to enumerat all the mercies conferred on the saints the consummation of their mercies lies in their everlasting happiness Jude verse 20 Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life Then they will get that Prayer answered put up in the behalf of Onesiphorus 2 Tim. 1.18 The Lord grant that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day Thus the Elect from Election to eternal Glorification are the objects of Gods peculiar mercy I shall only in speaking to the object of this mercy in God desire you further to take notice under what notions the godly are described when he promises to express his mercy to them and to ensure it to them he is merciful to them because they are his own elect yet ye may notice these names and notions under which mercy is holden out and ensured to them and I shall name four or five 1. They are described as penitents bemoaning their sin and turning from their evil way Jer. 31.18 When Ephraim is bemoaning himself crying Turn thou me and I shall be turned and repenting then it follows I will surely have mercy on him An impenitent posture may obstruct mercy in its effects from coming to a godly man 2. The Objects of this Mercy are described to be lovers of him keepers of his commands as in the second command Shewing mercy to thousands of them that love me c. It is not simply to keepers of the commands but to such as keep them from a principle of love neglected obedience or obedience not from a principle of love may obstruct the manifestations of mercy 3. The objects of this special mercy are described to be fearers of God Psal 103.17 The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him and Luke 1.50 His mercy is upon them that fear him from generation to generation A heart standing in awe of God a man that hath all his performances and even his love seasoned with fear is the man that is under the drop of Mercy 4. The Objects of this peculiar Mercy are described to be merciful folk Mat. 5.7 Blest are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy They that have obtained mercy themselves cannot but have

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 ●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

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

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 ●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 ●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

wait on him It is beyond all peradventure that a waiting people on God in difficult times are a blest people Their lot may seem accursed but their waiting on God proves that the curse is taken out of it Blest is the man and woman that wearies not that frets not under difficult lots Why because they are at their duty Thrice blest are they as I may if the Lord will handle in the progress that love their duty for it self with an eye to Divine approbation whatever may be the issue of it But I shall add three Evidences of Blessedness that attends waiting on God 1. A waiter on God is blest because by waiting he keeps more than trouble can take from him ye have a very Emphatick word for this Luke 21.19 In your patience possess ye your souls Sharp Tryals long continued may dispossess you of all other things liberty wealth reputation or whatever is dear to you but says he if ye continue patient ye shall have this blessing ye shall possess your selves an impatient man is a sort of mad-man he is not at himself he possesses not himself because that Time or Instruments in Time have done him a prejudice he will do himself a worse because they have taken this or that away from him he will cast a sweet frame and mind away after it and that is to do himself a worse turn than the world can do to him in so doing he casts more away than the World can take from him So on that account the waiter on God is blessed even on that because of the sweet frame he is keeped in Cast the waiter on God where you will still he will fall on his feet and on that account Blest are all they that wait on God But again 2. Blessed is the waiter on God upon the account that the through-bearing that attends waiting on God will attend him till he get a good issue O! to see the desperat shifts that impatient fretful thoughts will put folk to in difficulties they go like mad-men as the Word is Isai 51.20 They are like wild bulls in a net full of the fury of the Lord O! how do they dash themselves on snares and run themselves on Rocks to their ruine The foul slips of fretful bodies are many though they be dear to God that temper will bring them halting home But would ye see the Blessedness of the waiter on God read at your leisure Isai 40.29 He gives power to the faint and to them that have no might he increaseth strength He desires none of your furniture to serve him with in a waiting posture and in the by if ye think ye have much furniture he will empty you and ye must be in a fainting posture ere he give power and be having no might ere he increase strength and then even the youths Bahurim selected ones shall faint and be weary and the young men shall utterly fail but they that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength they shall mount up with wings as eagles they shall run and not be weary they shall walk and not be faint one would think yoke youths with the faint and them that have no might it were easie to determine who would carry the Prize But here the faint the feckless waiting on God carry it when the youths are laid by How many a great Spirit hath Tryals broken When thou art a weak feeble body and yet has keeped up thine heart and held on the way How many a gallant have got a dash when thou a crasy crauling creature are kept to the fore and made to renew thy strength through waiting on God And 3. Reverencing Providence that I have been detained on this Subject They are necessarly blessed who are waiters on God on the account of the out-gate The waiter on God shall have an out-gate from all his difficulties Jam. 5.11 Ye have heard of the Patience of Job and have seen the end of the Lord that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender Mercy I dare assure you that Song abides waiters on God which ye have Isai 25.9 It shall be said in that day Lo this is our God and we have waited for him and he will save us This is the Lord we have waited for him we will be glad and rejoyce in his salvation It is not a God wrapped up in a Promise it is not a God covered with a cloud of whom the World said Where is their God Mic. 7.10 But lo there he is whom we waited for and the additional word is We will be glad and rejoice in his salvation It shall be seen and said then Blest are they that wait for the Lord Canst thou not then wait and watch for one hour when thou knowest not but in the hour that thou gives over he may come Therefore wait on the account of the blessed out-gate Psal 40.1 I waited patiently on the Lord and he inclined his ear unto me and heard my cry he brought me also out of a horrible pit and miry clay and set my foot on a rock and establisht my goings and he hath put a new song in my mouth even praise unto our God A new Song is the result of waiting on God Believers and the Church may hing their harps on the Willows and they may weep when they remember Zion and say How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange Land Psal 137. But a new Song in Gods good time shall be put in the mouths of all that are waiters on God And if I might insist to add a word further I would lead you to uncipher that Text I cited before Isai 8.9 Therefore will the Lord wait that he may be gracious unto you I shall not determine the scope of the place but the time comes when his waiting shall be seen to be gracious that waiters on him shall be convinced he took the fittest opportunity to manifest himself gracious and if such had come sooner there should no such Grace have been seen in it Flesh under difficulties thinks that he waits to be cruel but look again and thou will find he waits to be gracious and not only so but he will be exalted that he may have mercy on his on-waiters he will make it out that if he be an exalted God he will be a merciful God and so as his people that wait on him shall acknowledge him to be an exalted God in that and shall sing Who is a God like unto thee glorious in holiness fearful in praises doing wonders And whereas thou may think there is little regard to be had to thy fighting pingling life in waiting on him he will make it out that he is a God of Judgment pondering their condition he hath to do with as Physitians consider the condition of their Patients and weigh their Doses conform and will not add a grain more than what is needful so will he deal with them that wait on him he will be seen to

Duty recommended and that is Hope in the Lord. 3. I shall remark somewhat on the Recommender of this duty it is the Psalmist who had been trying Hope and had found the good of it 4. I shall add somewhat by way of reflection on these to whom this Duty is recommended Let Israel hope it is the Israel of God among whom as the word is Ezra 10.2 there is hope concerning cases and lots otherwayes hopeless and desperat 1. For what is implyed and is the general scope of this Exhortation I shall the Lord willing deduce these two from it 1. That the Psalmist is here delivered and is a victor or hath goten some good account of his former wrestling waiting for God and hoping in his word 2. That the good account he hath gotten he communicats his experience of it to the People of God 1. I say it is clear here that if the Psalmist has not been actually delivered from all his pressures yet he hath gotten so comfortable an account of his hoping in God that he dare from his experience recommend it to others to hope in him he bears witness of the great good to be reaped by hoping in God The Observation then is That there will be a blest account of all the exercises of the Saints and particularly of their waiting for God and hoping in his Word The Psalmist essayed it here and is able to give a good account of it This Point imports in the first place That real needy Saints have many errands to God they are never out of his mister and holden going to him which is a very enriching Trade though it be not always pleasing and satisfying to their flesh 2. It supposes this that as they have much ado with God so they are very earnest till they get a good account of what ever it be they are waiting for from him they are not such as can cry out of the depths and be indifferent whether they get a hearing fall asleep or turn stupid but their pressures ly so sore upon them that they cannot be laid by and worn out with time but they must have access and a good account of their suits And 3. As the point supposes these two so it proposeth that there will be a good account gotten of all their exercises and particularly of their waiting for God and hoping in his Word their exercises are not lost labour The Lord bids them open their mouth wide and he will fill it Psal 81.10 When he bids his people seek him he can appeal to malice it self to instruct if ever he bade them seek him in vain Isai 45.19 If he put poor Job to exercise patience he will make the world see the end of the Lord that he is very pitiful and of tender mercy Jam. 5.11 He hath made it out in the manifold experience of all his Saints that that song Psal 5.8 ult Was and is still abiding them verily there is a reward for the righteous a God that judges in the earth I might prove it further from the whole Book of Psalms wherein what ever sad exercise the Psalmist has been put unto in the beginning or progress of these Psalms for the most part they all close comfortably with some sweet word intimating an issue and victory And whereas ye find Heman Psal 88. Closing sadly yet ye will find him 1 Kings 4.30 Put in among these great wits and understanding persons in his time But leaving all these I shall give you these three words of Confirmation of this Observation And 1. I say they are all living that died in waiting on God and hoping in his word I dare not say that they were not affrighted or that they were not humbled but they are living that died in that way of waiting on him Gather all Believers together that have been from the beginning of the world ye will not find among them all a Saint that has perished in this attempt in waiting for God by Faith and Hope 2. Though the saints have been affrighted and humbled yet many a blest disappointment have exercised saints met with and will meet with of their fears and perplexing thoughts It is no strange thing to hear the waiting man say I am cut off and yet meeting with a blest beguile Ps 31.22 I said I am cut off from before thine eyes nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplication c. The answer of my prayers gave sense and suggestion the lie Nay it is no wonder that flesh tempted tempt the waiting man to say all men are liars So says the Psalmist Psal 116.11 But see and hear him verse 12. What shal I render to the Lord for all his benefits towards me Behold a man casting the Bible and all the Promises at the one bout and at the next nonpluss'd with a burden of benefits and mercies 3. I shall say this that though exercised saints and waiters on God have essayed and may essay many means in vain as to any present success yet that proves not their case to be hopeless The Bride Cant. 3.1 2 3. Seeks her beloved on the bed in the streets and broad-ways and at the watch-men in all the means and finds him not yet when she went a little further she found him Though the waiter for God hath assayed all the means without sensible success he is not to tine hope for all that but to essay them again we may find that in the second essay which we found not in the first For Use If it be so then that there will be a blest account of all the exercises of Saints and particularly of their waiting for God I would enquire who they are among you 1. Who have any thing of this account to bring forth to God's commendation There may be a woful generation taking up that desperat Note that ye have Mal. 3.14 15. Who say it is in vain to serve God and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinances and that we have walked mournfully c. And like these Isai 58.3 Who say Wherefore have we fasted and thou seest not and wherefore have we afflicted our soul c. But hast thou any thing to say for God to refute that Can thou say It is good for me to draw near to God to wait upon him I have not sought him in vain let the song fall on whose side it will it shall not fall on my side I will keep it up to his commendation I will sing and say that his Name endures for ever I was brought low and he helped me I sought the Lord and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears Psal 34.4 6. Blessed are they who have so good a report to bring upon God who can bear witness for him to shew that the Lord is upright He is their Rock and there is no unrighteousness in him Psal 92.15 But 2. Thou that hast not found this thou art waiting on God in the use of the means but

earth is full of his goodness yet notwithstanding all that goodness to all his creatures it is said in an appropriat and peculiar sense Truly God is good to Israel It 's a goodness indeed a goodness by it self whence I infer that if the common goodness of God to all which being compared with his peculiar goodness to Israel doth scarce deserve that name be so rich and full how rich and full must that his appropriat and peculiar goodness to his chosen people be If the crumbs cast to the dogs and cast to them in wrath be so plentiful what must the covered Table of his goodness to his children be If the common out-Pasture be so rank and fat what must the Inclosure be If his common communications be such a goodness what a goodness is that and what are these special communications that are reserved for the Chambers O! When thou sees the men of this world glutting themselves with Gods common goodness and blessing themselves in it as being so rich and satisfying to them wilt thou then consider how much more rich and satisfying must his peculiar and Chamber-goodness be that kindness must be a far other thing A 2d thing that may offer some account of this goodness I take from the various names it gets in Scriptu e that one Attribute of the goodness of God which ye have in your Catechism comprehends several under it or it may undergo several notions of this goodness of God in reference to the several cases of the children of men consider it 's called goodness it 's all good and therefore all that thou an Israelite meets with in thy way homeward thou may write upon it This shall work together for my good Rom. 8.28 We know c. Thou mayest say as Psal 23.6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life Thou may say as Psal 119.68 Thou art good and dost good and therefore he will do good to thee Thou may say It is good for me that I was afflicted That is one blest hint of the goodness of God to Israel that what ever an Israelite meets with it is goodness or it hath goodness written upon it Again this goodness is called his love Jer 31.3 I have loved thee with an everlasting love therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee It is called love to make sure the former that he will do nothing to his people but that which is good for them because his love cannot endure to hurt them Who can expect any thing from love but that which is good And love because he will rest in his love Zeph. 3.17 Love that when any thing would interpose to interrupt it to Israel will not hear tell of it he will rest in his love he hath loved them and will love them still Again because an Israelite hath no price to purchase goodness when he needs it therefore goodness is called grace upon the account of his freedom that all the goodness he communicats to his Israel it shall be without money and without price That if an Israelite has no price and consequently has nothing to give for it he hath to do with one that can take no price but communicats his goodness freely And further if thou be one that art not only worthless and hast no price but thou art such an one as art lying low in misery hast none to have pity on thee or bemoan thee or to turn aside to ask how thou dost His goodness is mercy with a relation to thy misery to consider thy trouble to know thy soul in adversities Psal 31.7 To remember thee in thy low estate Psal 136.23 To sit down beside thee and to stoop to the very dust unto thee that 's his goodness And I shall add further for finding out of this goodness that if thou who art an Israelite be vexed with thy own waywardness untractablness what will then the goodness of God do unto thee in that case The goodness of God to thee in that case is patience long-suffering to wait long upon a peevish Israelite to suffer his manners in the Wilderness not to chide with thee continually nor to retain anger for ever but to see thy ways and heal thee Isai 57.17 in Further if thou be one that is not only wayward but hath provocked him to strike thee with the rod what will goodness do to thee then I shall not resume what I said before that Psal 119.71 It is good for thee that thou art afflicted but in that case the goodness of God shall be clemency and moderation to thee to punish thee less than thy iniquities deserve Ezra 9.13 When thy luxuriant branches of corruption shoot forth to debate with thee in measure to stay his rough wind in the day of his east-wind Isai 27.8 He shall exercise such clemency and moderation towards thee that shall be admired and wondred at by thee when thou gets a right look of it Thus as the common goodness of God to all is one step to lift thee up to the consideration of his appropriat and peculiar goodness to his people so the many notes put upon his peculiar goodness or the many shapes if I may so term it wherein it turns it self unto thee of goodness love grace mercy patience long-suffering clemency and moderation how do these set forth how good God is to Israel and to thee who art one of them There is yet a 3d hint of this goodness which may be taken up more particularly in reference to Israels various cases And there 's a 4th general word to be said of it that it is no complement but a real goodness both which I leave till the Afternoon God bless what ye have heard for Christs sake SERMON XXXVI Psalm 130. Vers 7 8. Let Israel hope in the Lord for with the Lord there is mercy and with him is plenteous redemption And c. HOpe in God being of constant use and a duty for which there is a constant ground and warrand it is not ill employed time that is spent in enquiring who they be that go the world as it will hope in God They are indeed the Israel of God to whom the warrand of hope is appropriated and though these may be discerned by all the marks of regeneration yet none do give a more clear encouragement to hope in God than their wrestling with God as a Prince in Prayer and their endeavour to purge their hearts of sinful pollutions that God may have a Throne and Dominion there and to exercise you to study to be Israelites indeed for though ye be of Israel that is Christians by profession yet they are not all Israel who are of Israel I was laying before you some considerations of the goodness of God to Israel ye remember it was told you in general that the goodness of God was such to his people as might rationally perswade folk to seek to share in it with his Israel 2. That this

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 o● 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 streng●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 str●ngth to Israel not simply to bear them through difficu●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 pasport●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 iniqui●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

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

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 re●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 ●nd thou will not find it an heartless shift My heart says ●e shall rejoice in thy salvation I will sing to the Lord because ●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

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

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

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

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

denys his Power and Justice to exercise that Dominion to do him skaith therefore when the Lord would move men to fear him he gives an account of his Dominion over the Creatures and instanceth it in his bounding of the Sea Jer. 5.22 Fear ye not me saith the Lord will ye not tremble at my presence which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree that it cannot pass it c. A consideration that a sinner in sinning minds not or he does defy it Thus it is not unfitly determined that though sin be not infinitly ill in its kind for then no distinction should be among sins nor an infinite ill in its beeing for then all sins should be one or equal and a finite Creature cannot act that which is infinite yet safely it may be said that in respect of the person against whom it is committed it hath an infinite ill in it objectively as being against an infinite Majesty in Beeing and Dignity and consequently there is no standing if he mark it But 6ly for further proof of this assertion and for proof that the Saints do so see God as to give them a right sense and sight of the desert of sin I shall add this in the Text that when the Saints are in a right frame they are great Students of the exceeding sinfulness and hainousness of their sin therefore a Saint sees that none can stand before God marking iniquity because when a Saint sees God to be his Party and is in a right frame he passes no sin as insignificant or little but he is an aggravater of his sin and this I gather from the name that the Psalmist gives sin in the Text If thou Lord should mark iniquities he calls them not only many iniquities in the Plural Number of which I shall not now speak but iniquities gross in their nature and if thou Lord saith he should mark sins as such who could stand If I thought that I would not be cut short by the time I would here observe that the name of Iniquity and Transgression is frequently given to sins of a grosser nature not ordinary that are contradistinguished to the ordinary infirmities of the Saints To these sins Deut. 32.5 of which it may be said They are not the spots of his children To these sins of which David says Psal 18.21 23. I have not wickedly departed from my God and I have kept my self from mine iniquity And of these sins which Daniel 9.5 confesseth We have sinned and committed iniquity and done wickedly and have rebelled even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments But yet I find the Saints even in speaking of their ordinary infirmities not sparing to give them the name of Iniquities and Transgressions as Psal 65.3 Iniquities prevail against me O Lord as for our transgressions thou wilt purge them away where sins get the name of iniquities and iniquities prevailing against Saints and the name of transgressions Psal 40.12 The sins that were innumerable and moe than the hairs of David's head were his ordinary failings yet they are said to compass him about and are called iniquities that had taken hold of him so that he was not able to look up And if it be enquired upon what account the Saints do look on all their sins as iniquities and transgressions I might observe from that Psal 32.5 I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin That every sin as well as gross sins hath an iniquity a perversness in it that must be pardoned but ye shall particularly take notice of these three 1. That the tender and sensible frame of Saints leads them not to extenuat but to aggravat their sin they dare not minch their sin their tender frame leads them to lay it out in all the aggravating circumstances thereof and it 's a fruit of their tenderness so to do And 2ly A fight of God which is here supponed in the Psalmist is a magnifying Glass wherein a Saint will be made to see and look upon sin even the least sin as most hainous It made Job 42.6 to abhor himself and Isai 6.5 to cry out Wo is me for I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips A sight of God will represent a very ordinary infirmity as very hainous to him that sees God But 3ly and lastly Every sin even the meanest infirmity in a man it proves an iniquity if he think lightly of it or thinks he may pass it lightly without running to the remedy of pardoning mercy the least sin he is guilty of will on that account be an iniquity Now having taken some time to lay open this weighty Point anent the desert of sin before you That which I have said in Explication of it to you might easily be made Practical by you if ye were attentive and applying it to your selves yet for your help herein I shall add somewhat for Use The general Use is to intreat you as ye love the eternal happiness of your souls to learn to say over this Text sensibly with Application to your selves If thou Lord shouldst mark iniquity O Lord I cannot stand It were a blessed part of a very lawful Liturgy for a man once a day to say this over Lord if thou mark iniquity I cannot stand Let me exhort you to mind this more to make it your daily study to be sensible of the sinfulness of sin and of the dreadful desert of sin that ye be lost folk in your own eyes this is a matter that is but dallied with by the most part and so is seen on it Ye are such strangers to the Law and Sinai that the Gospel and Sion have but little imployment among you it doth not relish with you as it ought There are none that can say But forgivenness is with thee that thou mayest be feared but they that can say If thou Lord should mark iniquity who can stand Pardoning mercy may well get complements it will be sweet news to none else but such as have seen and are sensible of the dreadful desert of sin nay none other have right to the remedy of pardoning mercy And to help both good and bad to be more sensible I would offer a five-fold consideration to drive home the truth of this assertion That if God mark iniquity none can stand 1. Will thou take a look of God thy Party in sinning consider him in his Supream Dominion over thee to impose what duty he pleases and that his will is the Law of Righteousness Consider him in his Omniscience to know how thou observes these duties he enjoyns and comes up to that Law which is thy rule thou may cheat the world and thy self but God thou cannot cheat will thou consider him further in his Holiness and Purity abhorring sin in all and in thee O how loathsome and abominable is the pollution of sin to him a holy Lord God Which

makes him say Isai 1.13 Bring no more vain oblations incense is an abomination unto me the new Moons and Sabbaths the calling of assemblies I cannot away with it is iniquity even the solemn meeting And lastly consider God in his Power and Justice that if he put forth his Dominion to call thee to account thou being considered in thy self what will the issue be but that Heb. 10.31 It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God where there is not a Cautioner to interpose betwixt Justice and thee consider God thus if thou would be sensible of the desert of sin 2. When thou hast taken a right look of God thy Party in his Supream Dominion Omniscience Holiness Purity Power and Justice cast up the Sum of thy Debt which thou art owing to this Party and thou wilt be like that man Mat. 18.24 that was owing ten thousand Talents Consider the Law in its spiritual sense and meaning and thou wilt find that Paul found himself guilty upon the account of his concupiscence before it came to the consent of the will and so art thou Consider that the Law condemns evil thoughts unripe and indeliberat motions and how many of these art thou guilty of Again consider the Gospel what a Mass of Duties it commands or recommends upon the account of Gospel-encouragements and what a vast count or reckoning wilt thou find over thine head Sins of commission and sins of omission sins in the seed and root and sins in the fruit against the Law against the Gospel in thy particular station and in thy general Calling O! what a dreadful count will there be if a man cast up the rate of his duty and in how many things he hath offended There will be such a Count that as Job says Chap. 9.3 That if God contend with him he cannot answer one of a thousand There is not one of a thousand challenges that a righteous man can put off but he must say as David Psal 40.12 Innumerable evils compass me mine iniquities have taken hold upon me so that I cannot look up they are moe than the hairs of my head But 3ly When thou hast considered thy Party and the Debt which may be charged upon thee and the number of thy sins take another look of the nature of them and their aggravations from the times wherein thou hast sinned as if they have been times of light and it may be also thou hast been sinning with Zimri and Cozbi when the Congregation was weeping Num 25. When sad affliction hath been lying upon the people of God it may be thy sin hath been against as clear light as Absalom's sin was when he committed incest with his fathers concubines upon the top of his fathers house 2 Sam. 16.22 It may be when thou was under punishment and judgment for former sins to deterr thee from future It may be it was when thou was surrounded with mercies when God was drawing thee with cords of love with the bonds of a man and was to thee as they that take off the yoke from thy jaws and laid meat unto thee Hos 11.4 It may be thou hast been a person much obliged to God who hast often been refreshed with pardoning mercy he hath spoken peace to thee upon condition thou would not return to folly and yet thou hast returned to it It may be thou art one whose example hath had influence to harden many others in sin c. I cannot enumerat the aggravations of sin that Professors of the Gospel have been or are lying under but when the Account is casten it will not be found an Account of Cyphers or insignificant petty Nothings but an Account of iniquities and transgressions very hainous and dreadful all circumstances being considered I shall in the 4th place when you have considered your Party the Sum of your Debt the number of your sins in their nature and aggravating circumstances exhort you to ponder how just God is The truth of his threatnings against sin and the curse Think on that place Gal. 3.10 Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the Law to do them and it were to good purpose that these Chapters Deut. 28. and Lev. 16. were more frequently read and thought upon It were to good purpose that we heard Moses from Mount Sinai thundering oftner not to drive us from Christ but to him It 's a woful trick in our hearts that leads us to look over threatnings with a light eye We would consider that the threatnings will be accomplished as well as the promises and the least farthing of the sinners debt will be exacted off the sinner or off his Cautioner Thou must either do or get one to do for thee and when thou reads the threatnings think on the posture wherein thou stands And 5ly That ye may sensibly say over this assertion If thou Lord mark iniquity who shall stand I recommend to you to consider the sufferings of our blessed Lord. Consider if such things were done to the green tree what will be done to the dry And there a man that hath any sense of sin will read the dreadful desert of sin when he considers that wrath for sin made him cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me And how his Holy Nature abhorred that Cup and put him to pray that it might pass from him and how it made him in his agony sweat drops like blood when thou judges of the desert of sin by that thou wilt stand then and more sensibly think that thou wilt not be able to stand before God marking iniquity for if such things were done to the green tree when his Holy Humane Nature suffered so much being supported by his Divine Nature what will be done to thee who art a dry Tree out of him If God would speak home these things to your hearts ye would Subscribe to that Verdict Solomon hath Prov. 14.9 that they are fools that make a mock at sin nay that they are distracted that are lying under the guilt of sin and can take rest in themselves till they see if a remedy can be had till they come to that which follows in the Text But there is forgivenness with thee that thou mayest be feared There are some particular inferences that I intended to have spoken to from this point but the time being past I quite them Only remember that which I have been upon what hath been spoken to you of the dreadful desert of sin a Doctrine that is very necessary but little laid to heart by many of you Ye have got the Gospel-knack among you and have learned to talk of sin and of making Christ a refuge against it But I dare not account all Gold that glisters nor look upon all them as real Converts that can talk in a Gospel-Dialect in Irwine I would drive none of you from Christ if any of you find your need of a Saviour

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 ●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

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 prophani●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 Lo● 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

using sinful shifts to be out of it fell in these gross and scandalous sins of Adultery and Murther and he that fell in these sins after repentance for other escapes why might he not after repentance have fallen in these same sins over again if the grace of God had not prevented it for though Repentance for particular faults leave behind it an impression of the bitterness of these sins and make them to be loathed which will make it more improbable they will be relapsed in yet it is not impossible otherwise true Repentance being for all sin it should prevent relapsing in any Sin A 2d word which I shall say for clearing the case shall be this that as true repentance is not to be measured by relapsing in sin so it is contrary to Scripture to determine that relapsing in sin after Repentance is unpardonable It 's not the sin against the holy Ghost and therefore pardonable Isai 55.7 Our God will multiply to pardon Even as often as the sinner repents and comes aga●n to him to seek pardon were it till seventy times seven times as he bids us forgive others when they sin against us Matth. 18 22. and Hos 14.4 He hath promised to heal backslidings Now these are after Repentance when his people fall back in the same sins out of which they have been recovered by Repentance and for instances of this ye shall only ponder these two One is 2 Chron 18. Jehosaphat his joyning in affinity with Achab for which he is reproved by a Prophet Ch. 19.2 And his Repentance is apparent in the reformation he fell about And yet Chap. 20.35 He falls in the same Sin in joyning with Achaziah to make Ships to go to Tarshish in Eziongeber which were broken for which he was also reproved repented and was pardoned Another instance is that of Jonah A man that fled from the presence of the Lord when sent to Niniveh and is brought to Repentance for that sin in the belly of the Fish Chap. 2 Yet he falls in the same sin Ch. 4.2 Not in fleeing away from God but in repining at his mercy and in his opinion declaring it was needless to go to Niniveh and justifying his former fleeing away These are two clear instances of relapsing in sin after Repentance and Pardon for it This I would not have abused I may have occasion hereafter to speak to what prejudice relapsing in sin brings with it as that it will bring former pardon in question and under debate and though a penitent may be pardoned yet it 's dangerous to bourd with sin after God hath spoken peace to return to folly and to proclaim that all the bitterness folk have found in sin is nothing only I cannot conceal the truth of God from any that may be under a Temptation that having repented such and such sins they have relapsed in them and therefore as they question their Repentance so they think they are to expect no more pardon ye have it cleared from Scripture that these are but Temptations That God would multiply to pardon upon repentance Isai 55.7 And though folks have played the harlot with many lovers and among hands have rewed their wandrings they may return again unto the Lord Jer. 3.1 Now I have done with the first general head of this Doctrine concerning the remission of sin To wit the consideration of that which is pardoned I proceed to the second general Question and that is anent the Author of pardon or who it is that pardons iniquity even God There is forgivenness with thee says the Text That is as I exponed in the entry it 's thy property in opposition to all pretenders it 's thy Property and Prerogative when both the Law and the Conscience have condemned to pardon and forgive Sin This is a truth that was held fast in the Jewish Church when it was most corrupt Therefore Mark 2.7 When Christ pardoned the man sick of the Palsie The Scribes say Why doth this man speak blasphemies Who can forgive sins but God only And it 's one of God's Titles Exod. 34.6 7. That he forgives iniquity transgression and sin and he taketh it to himself as his Prerogative Isai 43.25 I even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions and Matth 9.2 c. Christ in curing the Palsie man paralels the pardoning of his sins with the healing of his disease as proofs of his Deity shewing that both were alike difficult and proved him to be God I must here clear a seeming difficulty that is That pardon of sin is attribut to others both Ministers and private persons It 's attribute to Ministers as John 20. 23. As the Father hath sent me even so send I you receive ye the holy Ghost whosoever sins ye retain they are retained and whosoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them But certainly it 's God only can loose a man from everlasting wrath due to him for sin and it 's the Word of God only can declare whom God will pardon Only as Ambrose sayes well Ministers are Judges in the matter of pardon but without any absolute Authority in that matter And for clearing of this ye would distinguish betwixt the external Court in the Church and the internal Court in the Conscience In the external Court in the Church Ministers have a power from Christ to remit scandals to scandalous persons upon their serious profession of Repentance to take in a man that hath fallen in a scandalous sin upon the profession of Repentance and to remit the scandal In the ●nternal Court of the Conscience Ministers have a Ministerial power upon scandalous sinners their repentance Ministerially to declare they are pardoned upon their Repentance they walking according to their Commission Whose sins they bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever they shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven Mat. 16.19 and 18.18 But Ministers ex pleni●udine potestatis as the Pope speaks have not an absolute and illimited power to pardon whom and when and as they will They are but Delegats and must walk according to their Commission in pardoning of sin or rather pronouncing pardon of sin neither have they power of pardong sin upon conditions of their own devising such as Pennances Pilgrimages visiting of Rome in the year of Jubile c. where to mark it in the by the Papists method in this is preposterous They first pardon and then enjoyn pennance and such things as Christ hath not prescribed Neither must they take Money and dispence with Repentance a fruit of Faith upon which pardon is promised This is but a cheat to hold their Ki●chen reeking Caesar Borgia the Son of Alexander the sixth when he had lost an hundred thousand Crowns at the Dice he passed it in a sport saying Those are the sins of the Germans that is they had been purchased for the remission of their sins Again it is attributed to privat persons and for privat Persons their pardoning

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

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 i● 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 gro●●●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

what I would say upon it ye shall take in these five 1. Pardon with God is not to be confounded with our forgetting Sin slighting of Sin or taking a pardon of it to our selves Gods pardon of Sin is one thing and mens taking of pardon to themselves is another There are many folk that think God sees no Sin in them and why they have no leisure to look after sin in themselves they think God hath forgotten Sin Why They themselves through length of time or other diversions have forgotten them This is all that many have for that great Article of their Creed I believe the Remission of Sins But do not cheat your selves as I cleared before to you from Josephs Brethren Gen. 42.21 Sin long ago committed even upwards of twenty or two twenty years if it be not pardoned will be as g●een when the Conscience is wakened as the first hour it was committed Therefore look to it ye who forgive your sins by forgetting them and take not your forgetting of Sin for God'● pardoning of it 2 In taking up the nature of pardon we must not look so lightly on Sin as if there were no more ado but we to Sin and God to forgive it 's indeed pardoned as to any satisfaction to Justice that 's exacted of thee but Justice behoved to be satisfied that God might pardon freely There is a Question agitat amongst Orthodox Divines whether God out of his Royal Prerogative might not pardon Sin without a satisfaction a Question that they determine variously either as they grapple with Arminians who say the satisfaction of Christ was only to loose God from any Bond lying upon him resulting upon a necessity to punish Sin or as they grapple with the Socinians who deny there was any satisfaction for Sin payed by Christ But were I worthy to umpire in such a thing there is so much hazard in Debates started anent the Nature of God when it is inquired what he might do and what he may not do That I would judge it safer to forbear it This is sufficient for us that in the case in hand he hath declared what he will do or not do particularly that he will not pardon sin without a Satisfaction So Rom. 3.24 Being justified freely by his grace through the Redemption that is in Jesus Christ whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation throgh Faith in his Blood he would have his Righteousness declared for the remission of Sins And that as it is Heb. 9.22 Without shedding of blood there is no remission Thus the pardon of our Sin cost Christ dear and yet it runs freely to us because God freely laid the burden on Christ Christ freely undertook it God freely accepts of his satisfaction in our Name so we come to be freely pardoned but remember sin is with God no triffle no light thing that he would easily pass no he would have his Justice satisfied that he might freely pardon and the consideration of this will not only comm●nd the love of God and the love of Christ in finding out such a way whereby pardon might come to sinners without prejudice of Justice But further the freedom of pardon will not hide from the sinner that is pardoned the odiousness of sin but make it so much the more loathsome and vile when he sees his pardon sealed with the Blood of Christ and all his exinanition that went before O! the pardoned sinner looking to Christ crucified and considering that he hath pierced him by his Sins it will make him mourn most bitterly as one that mourneth for his only Son and like that of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon Zech. 12.10 So when thou looks upon pardoning mercy thou takes not a right look of it except thou look also on the satisfaction made to Justice by Christ that a free pardon might come out to thee 3. In taking up the nature of Pardon beware that ye do not confound the pardon of Sin with Gods forbearing or not inflicting punishment on sinners if ye confound these ye will imbrace a shaddow get a lie in your right hand in stead of pardon Ye know what the Apostle says Rom. 2.4 There is a riches of Gods goodness and forbearance and long-suffering How long did God forbear the old World for an hundred and twenty years Gen. 6.3 How suffered he his peoples manners for about 40 years Now this forbearance of God as it is often a temptation to godly men so it is a snare to the wicked or they make it a snare to themselves It 's often a temptation to godly men as Psal 73.1 O! what a temptation was it to the Psalmist his feet were almost gone his steps were well near slipt he was envious at the foolish when he saw the prosperity of the wicked how they had no bonds in their death their strength was firm they were not in tr●●ble as other men c. O! he thought if he had been on the Throne he would have made these Children know themselves sooner nor God did and Hab. 1.13 Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil and canst not look on iniquity wherefore looks thou on them that deal treacherously and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he There ye see the forbearance of God is a temptation to the godly Wicked men also make a snare of it to themselves O! the wicked Doctrines that wicked men build on Gods forbearance One is wrong thoughts of God Psal 50.21 These things thou hast done and I kept silence thou thought that I was altogether such a one as thy self There is a Doctrine that wicked men found on Gods forbearance they think God is like themselves another is that thereby they are emboldened to go on in sin Eccles. 8.11 Because Sentence against an evil work is not execute speedily therefore the heart of the children of men is fully set in them to do evil so Rom. 24. They harden themselves by God's forbearance The riches of Gods goodness forbearance and long-suffering should lead them to repentance but they abuse it to produce hardness and impenitent hearts further they bless themselves in prospering in wickedness Hos 12 7. Ephraim is a Canaanite a Merchant the ballance of deceit are in his hand he loveth to oppress and he saith yet I am become rich I have found me out substance Let the Bible say of me what it will the Sun of prosperity shines on my tabernacle as well as on your tenderest folk I am as far from any mischance as the most upright in their coversation But still remember forbearance in God is no pardon that which is frested is not forgiven It 's no sign of Divine approbation when thou art forborn and prospers in a sinful way to these ends ye shall remember these 3. Scriptures and they will help you not to confound forbearance with pardon One is Eccles 12. Though a sinner do evil

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 ●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

pardon of sin so long as he wallows in new provocations without repentance be his pardon revockable or not revockable it shall be all a matter to him if he study not tenderness in his walk and any man that is going on in new provocations doth bless himself in former pardon I shall not say that he is blessing himself with a lie but sure he is blessing himself with a false comfort in his right hand 4. This must be granted that as the School-men say That sins that are pardoned do recur upon the commission of new guilt not formally considered as in themselves but in so far as these former sins that were pardoned and virtually contained in the ungratitude that is in that new guilt that is though formerly pardoned sins return not upon the Delinquent yet there is so much of ingratitude to God in new contracted guilt that in some respect the sinner may be accounted no less guilty as if all the former guilt were contained in that one provocation But when these four must be granted yet in the 5th place it is still to be held That a pardon past by God is a sentence irrevocable it is a sentence not made void nor cancelled by any new guilt It is one of these Gifts of God that are given without Repentance and this is clearly intimat to you in these Scriptures that I gave you before while I shew you how satisfactorily the Scripture speaks of the pardon of sin as it is looked on by God how it is called a blotting out of sin a covering of it a putting of it out of his sight a casting of it behind his back and in the depth of the sea and so as though it be sought for it shall not be found and how speaking of pardoned iniquities he says He so blots them out that he does not remember them and he will forgive their iniquities so as that he will remember their sin no more These Scriptures evince that pardon once past is irrevocable As for these Scriptures the Cannonists and Lutherians urge as Ezek. 18.24 26. That when a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness and commits iniquity and doth according to all the abominations of a wicked man all his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned he shall die in his sin That would seem to make all void but the answer is easie That either the Text speaks of a Temporary Righteousness of a man that was never pardoned and from which he may totally and finally fall away Or if it speak of true righteousness in the pardoned man it holds only by way of supposition That if the righteous man should fall away his righteousness should not be mentioned and this supposition says nothing to the possibility of the thing but is a blessed mean to prevent his falling away There is another word Mat. 18.32 spoken of the wicked servant that had his debt forgiven him and had no compassion on his fellow servant and was delivered to the tormentors that the Antients trouble themselves much about and speak of a Baptismal Remission that is gotten in Baptism but that Text is a Parable and a Parable is not to be strained beyond its scope Parables are like pictures wherein are many flourishes which are not Lineaments of the thing Portrayed The scope of that Parable is to prove that Christ will pardon the sins of none but such as forgive others and such as will not forgive others though they seem pardoned folk they will find their sins retained and that this is the scope is clear from Christ's Explaining it and no more From this that I have been speaking about the irrevocableness of pardon there is some Uses that I intended to have spoken to which I shall name and close one is That as they who have been pardoned and can reflect how much they have been humbled for particular sins before they attained to pardon they would walk tenderly for fear of wakening old sores and that guilt that God hath covered with the vail of Pardon and as they would not have these laid in their Dish and be made to look upon these unripe Graves of Abominations And another word that I intended to have spoken to is That a sensible Child of God though he fall in new guilt is not obliged to look upon former guilt which hath been pardoned as un-pardoned though he ought to be humbled for and repent the present guilt if Sathan and the Conscience and God in his holy Providence call to remembrance sins pardoned and waken them about his ears the sensible man in that case should not question former pardon though readily there is some unpardoned sin where these bygone compts are back-speared that should be sought out and mourned for yet all are not to be looked on as unpardoned but as beacons and warnings to make Conscience of repentance for unpardoned sin that we may get that breach semented and that wound bound up again God bless what ye have heard SERMON XIV Psalm 130. Verse 4. But there is forgivenness with thee I Did in the forenoon put a close to the third and main Head of Doctrine that is contained and included in this high and great Priviledge of the Remission of sins and that is to clear what this forgiveness is and wherein the nature of it consists and what ye heard upon it in the morning amounts to this That Pardon in the Court of Heaven is a distinct thing from the intimation of that pardon in the Court of Conscience and therefore they that are running to the Fountain and laying hold upon the Promise of Pardon they must not conceive that they are not pardoned because they cannot feel by any sensible manifestation that they are pardoned And the last thing I was upon was That however pardon past by God is irrevocable it is a Deed and Sentence that is never revocked once be pardoned of sin and it is eternally pardoned And consequently the Child of God that hath been at Christ the Remedy with any sin he must not conceive that every sin that troubles him especially upon his falling in new guilt is unpardoned yet they that know how much they are in Free Graces Debt for Pardon would walk tenderly that they open not these unripe Graves upon themselves which will be much bitterness to them especially when new guilt is made a prospect where through to read old guilt though it be pardoned I proceed to the 4. Head to be spoken to in this purpose and that is the time when God pardoneth sin in his people The Text hath a ground for this also for the Psalmist finds it a fit time to strick in for pardoning Mercy and by Faith to close with this There is forgiveness with thee When he is abased with the sight and sense of sin when he finds sin such a Debt such a Burden That if God mark iniquity none can stand he finds it then time I say to strick in

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

your selves to the end ye may walk sickerly in this matter I shall give you the impression that found out guilt after Examination should leave upon a man in four steps 1. He must not only not deny his faults as too many do with whom I do not trouble my self some being such monsters that they care not to deny their vileness and other abominations with perjuries to hide them from the world but he must not deny his sin in the guilt and ill-deserving of it he must take with it and all it's aggravations he must see it in its sinfulness and dreadful desert A man that would have pardon from God must not only know his Dittay but he must pass sentence on himself and judge himself if he would not be judged for it Thou hast examined thou hast found out much sin but what thinks thou of it as it is an offence done by a worm to the Majesty of God And hast thou thought upon the Aggravations of thy sin from thy place and station from the many Means thou art under from the many Mercies has been heaped on thee obliging thee to the contrary This is it thou should be about who would be affected with thy sin in order to pardon But 2. This taking with and aggravating of sin must not be an act of the Judgment only but it must sink down to the heart many will dream of sin and of the sinfulness of sin and will talk of sin and of the desert of sin but pass it over with words of that kind but a sight of sin and a thought of sin that is not heart-affecting is a proclaiming upon the matter thy contempt of sin Thy sight of sin and speaking of it must be like that of the Psalmist here it makes him in nettle earnest and to pour out a pathetick confession of it It must be a sight and sense of sin that bides not in the brain but goes down to the bottom of thy heart and affections and makes thee cry out with Paul Rom. 7.24 O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death Thou can talk of sin and the demerit of it distinctly and eloquently but as men do of America or some new found Land they know not but content not thy self with that The sight of sin in order to pardon requires a heart-pondering and affecting And I shall add 3. The sight of sin and it's sinfulness must not be a simple affecting only at some times Some cheat themselves with that also Take them at some times O how are they affected how mad will the drunkard call himself after that throw his drunkenness he is distempered and hath a sore head and pained stomach And what a monster will a profane man sometimes call himself after a conviction or challenge of Conscience but bide till the next bout of a Temptation and he and his sin will be as homely as ever The affecting of many with sin is like a shower upon the ice in frost that wets it above but brings not a ground thaw Therefore where there is a right affecting with sin it must bring the Man with the Psalmist here to be restless under that burden to see that there must be no standing still till he be relieved of it The sluggard may have his convictions of sin and desires to be rid of it But the man that sees sin in it self and the consequences of it and is rightly affected with it he will see it to be his greatest misery and consequently that it must be his greatest haste to be delivered from it Many of your convictions are false conceptions ye are in pain with them but ye do not follow them forth but stiffle them they never set you to your feet as is said of Ephraim Hos 13.13 He is an unwise son he stayeth long in the place of breaking forth of children it is a dreadful token to stick in the birth and to stiffle Convictions better thou had never had them though that case be most dangerous also than when thou hast been under them to stiffle them and set thy foot upon them before thou get a true ease And I shal add in the 4th place In this sense of sin that is when Souls are thus affected with sin as I have been speaking a pardon will be very precious it will not be lookt upon as the scor●er doth or as the Soldiers who said to Christ Hail King of the Jews and then buffeted him O! a pardon to a most sensible sinner will be most glad news and God on that account will be a matchless God Micah 7.18 Who is a God like unto thee who pardons iniquity He will be a blessed man whose sin is pardoned Psal 32.1 a good Lord that pardons his people 2 Ch. 30.18 And so in the Text he is to the Psalmist If thou Lord should mark iniquity O Lord who should stand But the Back-note is There is forgiveness with thee for to a sensible sinner there being no remedy for sin but pardon and no pardon of sin but from a gracious God what wonder that pardon of sin be very precious and God on that account a matchless God But a 4th Direction antecedent to pardon is That we study Repentance for these sins the pardon whereof we study and expect that we may be in capacity for pardon I shall not insist now upon this Doctrine or Direction only let me intreat you to make it sure work in this affair I have laid your duty somewhat home to you and I fear there is need ye will take it all and more and yet in the doing of it my meaning is not as if ye could produce these things called for antecedent to pardon of your self or that when ye are not come this length ye should bide away from Christ no ye must come to him for these antecedent qualifications that ye may get pardon But these are the true and faithful sayings of God and whosoever they be that are not in this order seeking pardon and yet think they are pardoned they had need to look to it that they have not a lie in their right hand for this is the Scriptures method wherein the Lord leads his own to pardon and pardoneth whom he doth pardon The Lord bless what ye have heard for Christs sake SERMON XVI Psalm 130. Verse 4. But there is forgivenness with thee I Am now entred upon that which is the Applicatory part of this Doctrine concerning the pardon of sins and upon a way to hold out Directions to you how without abusing this great Priviledge or deceiving your selves ye may come to it in the due order and look like it I was speaking before noon of some things required antecedent by way of preparation for pardon I spoke somewhat to a Caution and carefulness to avoid sin that the sins we come to God for pardon of may not be these we have run after impetuously as the horse runneth into the

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 monst●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 eye● 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

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 you● 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

of these and shew that in order to the obtaining of pardon men should be careful not to run headlong and voluntarly on in sin for that will make the coming at pardon more difficult that they should be frequent in self examination to find out sin That they should be serious in laying to heart the desert of sin as the Psalmist is verse 3. And serious in Repentance for sin I told you also that these things being premitted it was the duty of the penitent sinner by Faith to close with pardoning Mercy which I closed with a check both to the wicked who because they see not the advantage which is on the back of Conviction of Sin never look their sin in the face and with a check to the godly who notwithstanding their being humbled in the sense of sin stand aback from closing with pardoning Mercy And I came in the third place to speak to what was consequentially required to pardon as the Psalmist here having said There is forgiveness with thee he adds as a consequence of it that thou mayest be feared And upon this Head I named two or three things as native Consequences of pardoning Mercy as that there must be love to the Pardoner as that woman Luke 7. did evince much was forgiven her because she loved much That there must be a Heart-melting when we reflect upon the pardoning of iniquity and a Compassion●● looking on them that are still lying in that pit that through mercy we have escaped I told you there are other two consequential evidences of pardon that I intended to insist a little more on As 1st The forgiving of others that have injured us And 2ly The fearing and serving of God the one of these I find it necessary to insist upon because it is put in by Christ in that pattern of Prayer Mat. 6.12 And the other because it is recorded in the Text to be a consequent of pardon For the 1st of these concerning the forgiving of others I shall briefly speak to these three anent it as it is spoken of in that Pattern of Prayer 1. That the people of God are getting wrongs in the World 2. That it is the will of God that we should forgive those that wrong us 3. That folks forgiving of others that wrong them is an evidence of their being pardoned themselves 1st The people of God these that are allowed in the Pattern of Prayer to call God Father they are getting wrongs in the World they are getting debts in the World they have their debters in it thereby is not meant so much men that are under civil obligations to pay the debt they owe to them though that may have its own place as we may hear as chiefly and mainly wrongs injuries unrighteous dealing violating the Law of Love in their carriage and deportment This is the condition the woful condition that all the Children of men are in since the fall Tit. 3.3 They are foolish disobedient deceived serving divers lusts and pleasures living in malice and envy hateful and hating one another and Hab. 1.13 14. Tells that men are like the fishes of the sea and the creeping things that have no ruler over them where the greater are ready to devour the smaller and the children of God are large sharers in this matter And Paul confesses 1 Tim. 1.13 That before Conversion he was a blasphemer injurious and a persecuter and Mat. 5.44 Christ supposes the godly will have enemies cursers of them haters of them such as will despitefully use them and persecute them and experience in all ages makes it out how much work fearers of God have for this sweet disposition called for in them to be forgivers of others All that I shall say from this shall be in the first place to invite you to consider the state of all mankind since the fall as the Proverb is Homo homini lupus one man is a wolf to another that men are now more ready to wrong and injure one another than the brute beasts are in their own kind this is a sad document how far man is fallen from God by sin 2. From this I would have the Lords people to take warning what they are to expect in the world they will have wrongs to bear injuries to suffer and endure debts to forgive Cement as we will these two seeds the seed of the Woman and the seed of the Serpent will never be one one Family and Ark one Womb will never make them one But as it is Gal. 4.29 As he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit even so is it now Therefore ye are not to wonder when ye meet with trouble and persecution in the world but rather wonder at the moderation ye meet with 3. Let it be a warning to them that wrong others that thereby they constitute themselves debitors injurers breakers of the Law of love if not of justice and righteousness also They run themselves under debt which they must repent of Luk. 17.4 and make restitution of with Zacheus Luk. 19.8 They must not stand upon their credit so to do neither must they be as many who if they do an injury resolve to crush them utterly to whom they have done it that they may not be able to repay it and beside that they may remember that God is the principal Creditor who will crave and exact that debt if it be not repented and pardoned The second thing proposed to be spoken to is That it is the will of God that these debts men contract in reference to the people of God his people should forgive them Christ will have them to say Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors Mat. 6.12 It is commanded Eph. 4.32 Forgiving one another even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven you Col. 3.13 Forbearing one another and forgiving one another if any man have a quarrel against any even as Christ forgave you so also do ye And our Lord Jesus Mat. 5. when v. 44. he hath bidden his followers love their enemies bless them that curse them do good to them that hate them and pray for them that despitefully use and persecute them he adds v. 45. That thereby they should evidence their good condition they should evidence themselves to be children of their Father which is in Heaven that maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sends his rain on the just and unjust That which I would say anent this forgiving of injuries shall be briefly in answer to a few Questions As 1. If it be inquired what it is that men should forgive 1. I answer for Civil Debts what-ever the Law of Charity requires in some cases as to that yet it is as we hinted before mainly wrongs injuries defraudations persecutions oppressions and the like 2. If it be asked How can we forgive these they being sins against God Ye may remember when I spake before of the Author of pardon

Holiness and Jealousie of God that he will not be affronted in the matter of his service and worship it calls for Fear and reverence it is a strong Argument used by the Apostle to press us to serve God with Reverence and with Godly Fear Heb. 12.29 For our God says he is a consuming fire and that which Moses said to Aaron when his two Sons were slain burnt up with fire which went out from the Lord for offering strange fire before him This is the thing which the Lord spake saying I will be sanctified in them that come near me and before all the people I will be glorified I will either be honoured by them or I will be honoured upon them that draw near me and take my Name in vain Well then have ye any thing of this Fear of God will ye kythe it by your serving him Mal. 1.6 A son honoureth his father and a servant his master if he be a Father where is his honour and if a Master where is his fear stand ye in awe of God that do misken him all your time do ye fear him that never take a spare hour to pay homage to him that will not bow a knee to him But I shall add the service that ye pay to God I pray you look how it is ballast with fear that it turn not in presumption and if ye have need of an intimation of Mercy to correct your fear that it degener not in despondency Ye come to God's House to Worship him but how few of you when ye come here have said How dreadful is this place would ye have your Character take it from Jude verse 12. These are spots in your feasts of charity when they feast with you feeding themselves without fear ye come before God ye join in the publick Exercises of Gods Worship but without any impression of the fear of God more than if all we did while we are together had no relation to him O be ashamed that the fear and awe of God doth so little ballast and season your service and worship But in the 2. place we come to take a look of this purpose with an eye to the Scope There is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared says the Psalmist then the fear of God more tender walking being more frequent and serious in duty to God more reverence of his service it is the kindly product of a heart that hath on right terms closed with Christ in pardoning mercy a fear to offend God a reverential fear in his Worship and service And hence I shall lay these few particulars before you and close 1. Which is the main thing in the Scope come and try by this if ye have been closing a-right with pardoning mercy see what is the consequence of it and that will tell you Are ye closing with pardoning Mercy to make your boast of it that ye may sin on and sleep more securely That is all the Dream that some have in their head of God's goodness and mercy in pardoning sin to take in a new Swack but thou that does so turns the Grace of God unto lasciviousness and offers a contempt to pardoning Mercy which the Gracious God will not brook But O! here is the blessed Fruit of pardoning Mercy to be more tender in thy walk more afraid of sin more diligent in Duty the further God is pleased to put thee in his bosom the greater distance thou keeps with what may provock him the more freely he forgive thee the more thou delights to be active in his service find many Scriptures that gives an account of the overcoming goodness of God towards ingenuous Souls not only that Psal 85.8 He will speak peace to his people and to his saints but let them no●●urn again to folly but that of Hos 3.5 The goodness of God the Object of their Faith makes them fear him and his goodness and that of David 2 Sam. 7.27 Who when he gets a promise of building him a House the kindness of God sets him on fire as it were and puts wings to his Prayer Thou O Lord of hosts God of Israel hast revealed to thy servant saying I will build thee an house therefore hath thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee and Hezekiah Isai 38 15. When the Lord had spoken of his delivery he will not wax wanton but he will walk softly all the fifteen years added unto his dayes in the bitterness of his soul and when the Lord falls in upon Ephraim with sweet converting Grace and turns him Jer. 31.19 after he is turned he repents after he is instructed he smites on his thigh he is ashamed yea even confounded because he hath born the reproach of his youth see to it ye that grip to pardoning Mercy and lay claim to it I am so far from envying you that I say the Lord say so too But O! let it be seen in your tenderness in your reverential fear and awe of God in the constraining power that the love of Christ hath on you if ye believe that he died for you will not his love constrain you to l●ve to him 2 Cor. 5.14 And ye that are tender will ye not be afraid that that kindness of God ye lay claim to is either a lie in your right hand that produces not somewhat like this or that ye are in a plagued condition that the goodness and kindness of God works not upon you 2. If pardoning Mercy be let out that God may be feared it puts me in capacity to answer the Cavillations of the profane they live in the contempt of holiness they have a prejudice at it they see no form nor beauty in it wherefore they should desire it What shall they get if they turn fearers of God They see no advantage by it but loss But shall I say to thee if thou looked rightly on it thou would be ashamed to owne any such Cavillation Piety has no enemy but an ignorant there is none that ever knew Piety that would give it the Character thou gives it if pardoning Mercy work up a love to holiness in men and make them to fear him thou that has a prejudice at holiness evidences that thou art not a partaker of it and why would thou tell all the World that thou knows not what this pardoning Mercy means thy contempt of holiness proclaims that all thy iniquities are bound upon thy back If ever thou had layen at Gods Foot stool and been lift up with pardoning Mercy saying to thee Son or daughter be of good chear thy sins are forgiven thee it would put an edge upon thee to pursue after holiness and therefore let me intreat you who are profane and entertain a prejudice at holiness not to publish your own shame and by your contempt of the fear of God and his service to declare ye are yet without the pardoning Mercy of God But from this ye shall take a 3. word If closing with

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

waiters on God or if ye be backslidden and sitten up I confess there may be a temptation as to this haunting a tender soul some may think because they make not such din and noise of their Religion as sometime they did that they are backslidden but thou may have more life now than thou had in thy former fraziness and forwardness thou was before like green wood that has much din will crack much but hath less heat and light but now thou art like the dry wood that has better light and more heat and there may be also a mistake on this account that because God is leading thee through the abominations of thine heart and humbleth thee with the naughtiness of thy disposition which he discovers to thee thou may think thy self worse than sometime thou was when thou art not worse but sees better than thou did before therefore where there is tenderness we would guard against such mistakes upon that hand where tenderness lies But alas we have greater cause to guard against a blind upon the other hand that is that because folk keep up the tale of Duty and are as frequently about Rel●gious Performances as they wont to be they think they are not back-slidden nor sitten up in the way of God and yet they are far from that love to and delight in God that once appeared in their Service and Worship And to instruct this a little to you I would have these that would try if they be backslidden from that they had or might have had or that others have attained looking to these four or five things 1. If they be growing according to that 2 Pet. 3.17 Beware lest being led away with the error of the wicked ye fall from your own stedfastness but grow in grace in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ There is no standing still in a Christian course the person that is not growing in the fruit or to the root that is not making progress in Sanctification nor is not growing in Mortification and Humiliation for his shortcoming he is certainly a backsliding person 2. I would have folks looking to this whether Religion in many be not come from their hearts to their heads so that these who wont to be full of sap are now sapless these who had a lively impression on their Souls of the life and power of Religion are now come to that that all they have is bare tastless notions speculations not only do folks that are sitten up forget to look to the frame of the heart and few cabinet counsels are betwixt God them but O how tasteless sapless lifeless is Religion Religious Duties to them they have a notion of Misery and Mercy of Sin and a Saviour but it is like a dream a thing they can look on with very little or no affecting of heart 3. I would have folk that would try their frame looking to this what Conscience is made of sin when the saints are in a right frame they walk tenderly in a continual jealousie of themselves they have many a reflex look back check and heart-sinking for this and that they find amiss and this is not at a start but it will be their trade and exexcise But O when it comes to this that thou art a stranger to a tender walk with God to inward checks and challenges and thy Throat grows wide and thou gets over guilt without reluctancy thou miscarries and thy light tells thee of it but thy heart is not affected with it that tells thou art sitten up for a growing frame is tender in the matter of sin and guilt 4. I would have folk that would try their frame looking well to their diligence It is the hand of the diligent that makes rich Prov. 10.4 The soul of the diligent shall be made fat Prov. 13.4 And therefore folks that are at little pains in the Duties of Religion for the honour of God and their own souls advantage but spend much of their time in laziness and carnalness when they cast up their accompts they will find they are sitten up withered and under a decay 5. And to add no more They that would try their frame would consider that though they be free of these things hinted at yet if they be under a spirit of discouragement they cannot be making progress Look then to your frame who are more tender what discouragement ye find in it The day was when the Duties of Religion and closs following of Christ was thy delight but now thy Conscience is turned a Tormenter unto thee thou drives heavily in any task thou art called to thou art like Thomas Joh. ●1 16 who followed Christ but discouragedly Let us go also says he that we may die with him though thou keep up the tale of Duty thy discouragement evidences thou art fallen from thy first love from that love which once thou had or might have had Well then try your selves by these things what your growth is what your heart-work is what conscience is made of sin what diligence in Duty what discouragement in stead of delight and when ye have tryed reflect on that I said before of your hazard and prejudice what retardment in good what loss is in what ye had gained what indignity hath been offered to God what reflecting on him what stumbling-blocks have been laid before others what sorrows ye have been brewing to your selves And I shall only add this Consideration I wish that all back slidden and up-sitten Professors would ponder that place Rev. 2●4 5. Where there is a Church that is very zealous cannot bear with them which are evil hath tried them which said they were Apostles and found them liars had born and had patience and for the Name of Christ had laboured and not fainted and yet Christ quarrels her for that she had lost her first love and what follows Remember from whence thou art fallen Repent and do the first works or else I will come unto thee quickly and will remove thy candlestick out of his place A Church leaving her first Love her gradual decay may provock God to un-Church her except she consider from whence she is fallen repent and do her first works But a 2. word of Vse shall be to hint to you a direction what folk should do with an up-sitten condition when they find it and cannot win out of it I confess it is not so difficult to find out the Disease as the Remedy and here to say nothing to them that are so fast a-sleep that they will not waken to consider of their up-sitten condition I find on the one hand some that are sensible of their backsliding ready to sigh and go backward they look upon their case as deplorable and on themselves as in an evil plight and yet they loiter on and win not to their feet And I find on the other hand others who if a conviction of this kind be called home upon them they think they

make us say with that wicked King 2 King 6.33 This evil is of the Lord why should I wait on the Lord any longer And readily the man that will not wait on God hath that which he had with it v. 31. God do so to me and more also if the head of E●●sha the son of Shaphat shall stand on him this day The godly man resolves to be like the infirm man at the Pool Joh. 5.57 There will he ly● were it never so long till the water be troubled and some put him in or till Christ by his immediat hand cure him This was the Psalmists way here after he is put to cry out of the deeps and to wrestle with guilt meeting him in the teeth and to cry for pardoning mercie and no relief appears he resolves during the delay to wait on God I wait for the Lord my soul doth wait and in his word do I hope My soul waits for the Lord more c. And Psal 62. after he hath said Truly my soul waiteth on God from him comes my salvation v. 1. he presseth it over again v. 5. O my soul wait thou only upon God for my expectation is from him he will wait and better wait and continue in waiting Now the prosecution of this would lead me to the particulars in the Text wherein these four or five things are clear 1. The Psalmists exercise I wait 2. The object of his exercise of waiting I wait for the Lord. 3. His affection in waiting My soul doth wait 4. His support in his waiting My soul doth wait and in his word do I hope 5. The great measure of his affection in waiting My soul waits for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning I say more c. These are the particulars in the Text in the prosecution whereof we may have sundry things for laying open this exercise of waiting on God I shall now speak a few words and close I shall not touch on this that duty is ours and event is Gods a man having done his duty may if he could win up to the use of his allowance sleep very sound under cross events but it is our unhappy temper that we would still be at the Throne and have the guiding of things we are like the ill Scholar that 's busier at his neighbours Lesson than his own But to pass this consider four short words and I have done 1. Wai●ing on God is a blest mean appointed of God in order to an out-gate out of all difficulties Isai 30.18 Blest are all they that wait on him A man by waiting on God and brooking delays with faith patience affection and submission may find an out gate without a delivery 2. Waiting on God in the case of delays and persevering in waiting is commendable on this account that we can do no where else so well as to ly still at his door a man that wearies to wait on God would look what he will do next ere he give it over When Christ ask'd Peter Will ye also leave me He answers To whom shall we go We had need to seek a better Master ere we quite thee and that we cannot find thou hast the words of eternal life What will a man do next if he wait not on God David is fasht with waiting and dependence and he will go down to the Land of the Philistines and the History tells what befell him there he is forced to lie he is likely to be brought in a snare by fighting against the people of God and his interest and in Ziglag in hazard of being destroyed by the Amalekites a man may well get an ill Conscience by apostacy and declining he is never a step nearer delivery so that go the world as it will waiting on God is the best of it And 3. When we weary of waiting on God because of outward dispensations we bewray too much affection to the things of time thou art in a difficulty thou wearies because of the calamity that lies on and thou gets not an out-gate but it were better for thee to mourn over thy inordinat affection to the things of time that makes thee weary and that would make way for thy out-gate and lighten thy burden 4. Remember that even a delivery from any difficulty out of Gods way without waiting on God is a plague When a man comes not under a signal plague till he come under this that as the word is Mal. 3.15 he tempts God and is delivered And therefore rather abhor such an issue that is a plague than lust after it SERMON XXI Psalm 130. Verse 5. I wait for the Lord my soul doth wait and c. IN these words as ye heard the last day is contained the 3d Branch of the Psalmists exercise after that he hath wrestled with difficulties by crying to God out of the depths and wrestled with the conscience of guilt by taking with it and fleeing to pardoning mercy on right terms he is put now to wrestle with delays of comfort and an out-gate and this he wrestles with by confident affectionat meek and patient waiting on God I spoke to the general Doctrine of this Verse The task of perseverance and constancy in the way of God and followed it out a little in opposition to apostacy and back-sliding and more particularly to these brashy hot fits that folk have at some times which are followed with as great cools and in opposition to delays or wearying and sitting up from employing God when folks meet with delays which is in the Text which ye may remember I divided in these five 1. The Psalmists exercise I wait 2. The object of his exercise of waiting I wait for the Lord. 3. His affection in waiting My soul doth wait 4. His support in his waiting My soul doth wait and in his word do I hope 5. The great measure of his affection in waiting My soul waits for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning I say more than they that watch for the morning For the first of these that he is waiting this if I should follow forth in all that might be said of it I should take in that Confidence and affection the Psalmist hath in waiting which will occur in their proper places to be spoken to when I proceed in the words of the Text here I shall pass not only a general of the Psalmists reflecting on what he hath been doing and his giving an account of it which I purpose to take in afterward but I shall handle waiting on God here only in these two 1. Somewhat Supposed That he is put to wait 2. Somewhat proposed That when he is put to wait he doth wait For the first somewhat supposed that he is put to wait which affords us this Observation that the Saints even in their serious and sincere seeking of God in difficulties may be exercised with delays of comfort and an out-gate when a godly man is here crying

would be at or expect And I shall add that as waiting for God would be with much affection with affection suitable to his excellency so it would be suitable to thy need of him and these things thou waits for from him Thou sayest God is thy excellency Jerusalem is thy chief joy the joy of the Lord is thy strength but is thy affections suitable to thy need of him and his consolations when if thy comfort be suspended if thou can win at comfort in any other thing thou waits not for him and his consolation 3ly I shall add that when affection is indeed aloft for God there is no hazard no want of accommodation that would pinch men so sore as the want of God will pinch a man that is set to enjoy God The Psalmist whose affection is aloft he waits more for God than they that watch for the morning I shall not dip upon this it is a mercy not to get leave to sleep till folk be out of an ill condition when folks get no rest to the soles of their feet out of God And I wish them who want him more disquietness nor many loiterers have till they get to their feet and seek for their Husband and find him and I wish them no ill while I pray for this to them And I shall add raised affection for God Who knows what a prognostick it might be of a sweet and comfortable out-gate and that such a souls song should be with the Psalmist here Let Israel hope c. Affectionat waiting for God getting to the feet to run after him O! What a cloud might that be like an hand-breadth at first that will cover the Sky and at length bring abundance of rain But want of affection leaves folk in a woful condition to rot to dead And I shall add if affection should be put out thus for God and if want of God to an affectionat waiter be a distress that pinsheth him above any hazard they are in who are put to wait for the morning Then certainly the enjoyment of God according to the measure that a man doth enjoy him should make him drink and forget his misery and remember his poverty no more And the man that enjoys God Though the fig-tree do not blossom and though there be no fruit in the vine and the labour of the olive fail no meat in the fields no flock in the folds no herd in the stall Hab. 3.17 Though the earth be removed and the mountains carried into the midst of the sea c. Psal 46.2 He will be as far above the men of the world in their enjoyments as his affection while he wanted God was above their resentments I shall go no further God bless his word unto you SERMON XXXI Psalm 130. Verse 7. Let Israel hope in the Lord for with the Lord there is mercy and with him there is plenteous redemption Verse 8 And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities YE may remember in the first six verses of this Psalm we have the Psalmists wrestling which as we shewed you before hath three Branches He hath been wrestling with difficulties and plunging perplexities in his case which are represented under the notion of depths in the first and second Verse he hath been wrestling with the Conscience and sense of Guilt putting back his Prayers and offering to crush his hopes and so interposing to obstruct his success and access verse 3 4. and in the 5 and 6. he hath been wrestling with delays either of comfort or an out-gate or both and notwithstanding of all his hard exercise in crying to God by Prayer in his trouble and perplexity in taking with the dreadful desert of guilt and claiming to pardoning mercy and forgiveness he doth therewith wrestle by patience and hope He waited on God and that affectionatly and his patience in waiting was supported by hope in God grounded on the Word of God Now in these two verses read ye have the second part of the Psalm containing the Psalmists delivery or victory His delivery or victory is not expresly asserted but it is very sweetly implyed in his improvement of the exercise he hath been under and holding forth the good he hath gotten when it is well with him the issue he hath gotten he doth not conceal it nor only speak it out but he improves and layes it out for the good of God's Israel when he hath got a sweet sight of the good of waiting and hoping in God he conveens them all as it were to come and write after his Copy and encourages them to hope in God upon the account of mercy and pardon and plenteous redemption and redeeming Israel from all his iniquities So the words contain first an Exhortation to Israel in the beginning of the 7. verse Let Israel hope c. 2. They contain motives and encouragements pressing the exhortation by way of arguments that this counsel should be hearkned unto and these motives or encouragements are taken partly in the first place from what is in God In the end of the 7. verse Let Israel hope c. for with the Lord there is mercy c. There is mercy and power and authority in God to bring redemption to his people from all their sins and miseries And the 2. Argument is taken from this that God will let out that mercy and redemption that is in him for the good of his people Not only is there mercy and power with God if he please to let it out to redeem but it is expresly asserted that he will redeem his people verse 8. He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities a promise which howsoever it be made out to Israel in all ages yet it is signally to be erified to the Jews in their Conversion in the latter days for the Apostle Rom. 11.26 adduces this promise out of Isai 59.20 As it is written there shall come out of Zion the Deliverer and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob That is that shall redeem Israel as was hinted from all his iniquities To return to the Exhortation Let Israel hope in the Lord I have been would he say assaying to hope in the Lord and have found the good of it for when I was waiting for God I was supported by hope in his Word and now I have gotten so good an account of my hope that I dare recommend it from mine own experience to all and I have such a kindness to Israel that any experience I have gotten by waiting for God and hoping in his Word I will not hoord it up I will be no hookster of it but recommend it to them as a common-good Therefore let Israel hope in the Lord. That I may get somewhat digged out of the Treasure here I shall reduce the grounds of Observations to be gathered from this Exhortation to four general Heads 1. I shall touch upon what is implyed and held out in the general scope of these words 2. I shall speak to the

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 promised● 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 ou● 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

in more than ordinary exigence we might say through Christ strengthning us we can do all things Lord bless his word unto you SERMON XXXVII Psalm 130. Verse 7 8. Let Israel hope in the Lord for c. YOU heard that these two Verses do contain the second part of the Psalm wherein after that the Psalmist in the first 6 Verses hath been wrestling partly with plunging perplexities represented under the notion of Depths vers 1.2 Partly with the Conscience of guilt verses 3.4 And partly with the delays of comfort and an outgate verses 5.6 After that I say the Psalmist comes to get some issue and outgate whereof he giveth not a direct and express account but any good he hath gotten he presently makes it appear in good news to Israel he hath an exhortation to them to hope in the Lord and hath Motives and Arguments pressing his Exhortation which are taken partly from what is in God to the behove of his Israel For with the Lord there is mercy c. And partly from what he will let forth of this for their good and behove not only is mercy and plenteous redemption with him but he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities For the Exhortation I spoke to it at length And at the last occasion I brake in upon the Motives The Instructions to be gathered from which I reduced to two general Heads 1. Something supposed concerning them that are put to hope and allowed to hope in God And 2. Something proposed concerning such as are called and allowed to hope and as a ground to their hope For the first That which is supposed in the Words it may again be reduced to these two Heads of Doctrine 1. That the man called and allowed to hope in God is one that is acquainted with misery in himself and is put to look out to what is in God or with him to do his turn For with the Lord there is mercy That there is mercy with God implys That the man that is called and allowed to hope in God is in himself miserable and put to look out to God for mercy and so it is one of the blessed and sure characters of a person that is called and allowed to hope in God that he is kept humble not conceity nor dreaming of any good in himself and the nearer he be to the dust he hath the more warrand to hope for the man that spears the right gate to hope is he that Lam. 3.29 Puts his mouth in the dust if so be there may be hope he creeps low in the dust to seek encouragement to hope and the man that is called to live by Faith is opposed to the man whose soul is lifted up in him and consequently to the man whose heart is not upright in him Hab. 2.4 And further the man that is called to hope and allowed to hope in the humbling sense of his misery he is put to look without himself to what is in God or with God for him he is called to hope on the account of mercy in relation to his misery It intimats that the humble sensible man the Israel of God can never be undone so long as God is to the fore and there is enough in him to do his turn though he be miserable and wants that he stands in need of yet if it be in God he shall not want If mercy be in and with God he is made up in the midst of his misery To this I have spoken already and shall not repeat I proceed to the second Observation implyed in that which is supposed concerning the man that is put to hope and warranted to hope in God That not only is he simply miserable and needing mercy but he is under such a bondage of sin and misery as he cannot extricat himself out of it except God interpose He needs not only mercy in God but redemption and plenteous redemption in God to rid him out of these bonds wherein he is fettered and bound and out of which he is not able to deliver himself Although the consideration of sin will come in to be spoken to on the next Observation by it self yet I shall on this touch a little in general both on the bondage of sin and misery under which the Israel of God are supponed to be lying As for sin all men by nature are bound slaves to it they are hurried away with every impetuous blast of temptation that blows upon their corruption but it is the Israel of God that are called and allowed to hope in God that feel this bondage Hence the Apostle Rom. 7.19 saith The good that I would I do not but the evil that I would not that I do And he finds a law in his members warring against the law of his mind leading him captive to the law of sin on which account he crys out O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death There is a captivity indeed under sin and he tells the Galatians Chap. 5.17 That the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these two are contrary one to another so that they cannot do the things they would So the Israel of God are under a bondage of sin when they would do good as the same Apostle hath it ill is present with them And for the bondage of their misery the Scripture is so full anent it and the experience of the Saints so amply confirms it that it is needless to stand on particular proofs and instances of it How often are they put to that Psal 107.11 Because they rebelled therefore he brought down their heart with sorrow and labour they fell and there was none to help In the Application of this I shall speak a word first to the wicked and ungodly and then to Gods Israel who are called and allowed to hope in him notwithstanding this bondage they are under For the first to wit the wicked They would from this look on it as a sad character to know little and be as little sensible of their bondage through sin and misery They look on a licentious way of living in sin when they have eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin as it is 2 Pet. 2.14 When sin reigns in their mortal bodies and they obey it in the lusts thereof and they yield their members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin Rom. 6.12 When they give themselves up to work all uncleanness with greediness Ephes 4.19 They look upon that as their liberty and they are never out of bonds except when they are glutting themselves with sin they sl●ep not except they do ill O! that such knew what a madnes and distraction they are under while they glory in their chains as if a mad-man should glory in his fetters look to it assure thy self thou shalt find sin to be a bondage and need of looking to God for Redemption from it ere thou have a warrand to

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 othe●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

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

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

complaints call on God to lay more on folk to tame them better O! be sober and if ye be put in a Babel see if ye can build houses there and make your pressures as supportable as lawfully ye may without sin make them not intolerable for that is to break your back but see how tolerable ye can make them without sinning against God that ye may dwell beside your cross with silence and submission who wots but ere many days go over ye may meet with an out-gate But 2. As variety of pressures are supposed here so it expresses plenty of Redemption in God for all that variety time will not permit me to break in on that other thing that this plenteous Redemption relates to the recurring of pressures how frequently the people of God may fall under repeated pressures and may be ofter than once pressed but here for variety of pressures there is plenteous redemption He will deliver in six troubles and in seven Job 5.19 If they be assaulted on the right and left hand there is armour of righteousness for both 2 Cor. 6.7 If they be troubled on every side he can keep them from being distressed if perplexed they shall not despair c 1 Cor. 4.8 If they be troubled on every side have fightings without and fears within God that comforts those that are cast down can comfort them 2 Cor. 7.8 When thou sits down and cannot tell all thy pressures and are like a weak patient who when his wounds are opened up swerfs thy heart grows sick and thou faints He is all sufficient to afford Cordials for thy support thou cannot have so many wants but he can supply them And as the old man said to the Levit Judges 19.20 All thy wants shall be upon him Thou cannot be straitned in God though through the narrowness of thy confidence thou may be straitned in thy own bowels for with him is plenteous redemption Think upon this ye that have to do with it ye that in your pressures are left on God alone bring up a good report on him cry not up your wants above his furniture cry not up your griefs above his consolations which cannot be exhausted this would make folks life not so comfortless as oft times they make it to themselves while they cry out What will they do with this and with that it 〈◊〉 come in their way If indeed such a thing be before thee we may say as it was said to Jeremy Jer. 12 5. If thou hast run with the footmen and they have wearied thee then how can thou contend with horses If thy few pressures have laid thee by What wilt thou do with more and greater If in the land of peace wherein thou trusted they have wearied thee I shall not say thou wilt have that atheistical word What ca● God do But what wilt thou do if it come to the swellings of Jordan But if thou keep thy eye and heart on that word With God is plenteous redemption and then ask what shall I do with my troubles I say even bear them go to God and get much from him to bear them many proofs of his power and love his all sufficiency is infinite to bear thee thorow and bod well of him and have well look down on the greatest number of pressures as tolerable in his strength I love not carnal confidence but God loves not drooping or that folk should go discouraged to their work though humble they should be They that go drooping to their work will come halting from it but though a solemn assembly of terrors should surround you hold your eye o● plenteous redemption in God and it shall be well with you God bless his word to you for Christ's sake SERMON XLIII Psalm 130. Verse 7. And with him is plenteous redemption And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities AS there is no searching out of the Almighty to perfection as to what he is in himself for he is higher than the Heavens as it is said of his Wisdom and deeper than the Earth So that what can we do or know Job 11.7 8. So we are as little able to comprehend or fathom all that is in him for the good of his people and what wonder when over and above all particular Promises he hath given himself away to be their God hath made infinitness their portion Here we have a taste of what riches are in him for the behove of his people That for misery in Israel with the Lord there is mercy that for bondage and slavery in Israel with him is plenteous redemption And for the particular bondage and pressure of sin He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities I have already said somewhat to that attribute of mercy in God and the last day I came to a close of this That with him is plenteous redemption ye heard that this redemption imports partly authority to interpo●● and partly power to back authority to vindicat his people Ye heard also that it was called redemption on a threefold account 1. On the account of its rise and fountain that every redemption and delivery the people of God get is founded on and is the result of their great Redemption by Christ 2. It is so called with an eye to the trouble and troublers from which he redeems his Israel but without money 3. That it is so called upon the account of the issue when the Lord delivers his people he sets them at freedom and liberty he sets their feet in a large place as it is Psal 18.19 I came also to speak of the plenteousness of this Redemption The Text says that not only there is redemption but plenteous redemption with him and as I shewed it is called plenteous redemption on a double account 1. In relation to the great plenty and variety of pressures wherewith the people of God may be assaulted on the right and on the left hand with fightings without and fears within and as the Church hath it Lam. 2.22 They may have their terrors called as in a solemn day round about them but in reference to all these he hath plenteous redemption to deliver from six troubles and from seven to put on the armour of righteousness when they are assaulted on the right hand and on the left when they are troubled on every side to keep them from being distressed When perplexed to keep them from despair c. 2 Cor. 4.8 Of this I have spoken and shall not repeat It remains in the 2d place That I speak to this plenteous Redemption as it relates to the frequent relapses of the people of God into bondage through their folly after the Lord hath brought them out of former pressures they betray themselves and bring themselves under new pressures they fall in new provocations that bring them in new difficulties which puts them again and again to look up to redemption in God I shall follow out this a little in three heads 1. It is

accompanied with engagements on our part with our own consent to do our duty Jer. 2.20 When of old time I had broken thy yoke and burst thy bonds thou saidst I will not transgress thou took fair in hand when on every high hill and under every green tree thou wandred playing the harlot thou said thou would give my kindness in delivering thee another meeting when thou hast foully deboarded And further it may be sad to look on thir relapses on the account of the folly that is in them as in that Psal 85.8 When God speaks peace to his people if they turn to sin it is a folly there is a folly and madness in that prank for them who having sinned and God hath corrected them for sin and made them to find sin an evil and bitter thing to try again conclusions of that kind and relapse in these sins that hath bred them so much bitterness who after they have met God in their teeth hedging up their way with thorns that they should not find their loves and God hath delivered them yet no sooner are they delivered but they fall to that same way of sinning which brought them in bondage what a folly and madness is in that For Use let me intreat you not to look lightly on relapses which have such hainous aggravations whether they be privat or publick relapses lest God be provocked to make it apparent that he looks not lightly on them lest as it is Amos 7 7. after the grashoppers and contending by fire he come with a plum-line and will not hearken to that pleading Forgive I beseech thee by whom shall Jacob arise for he is small Therefore I say look not lightly on these relapses a Fever is dangerous but relapsing in it after something that looks like a Cool is far more dangerous Thou that hast been low and God hath helped thee out of thy low condition and made thee to wonder at his goodness Consider thy posture if thou be backsliden and how much need thou hast of a new Redemption and learn to aggravat that guilt by thy relapsing in it But the 3d thing to be marked in this plenteous redemtion is that though it be very usual in the Lords people to relapse into slavery and bondage and though it be an hainous fault so to do yet there is in God plenteous redemption even for that there is redemption with him for them who after they have been delivered have through their folly relapsed into bondage I shall not need to stand to prove this any length from Scripture Psal 106.43 Many times did he deliver them but they provocked him by their counsel and were brought low by their iniquity nevertheless he regarded their affliction when he heard their cry and he remembered for them his Covenant and repented according to the multitude of his mercies there is plenteous redemption And when Judg. 10. he hath told them v. 13. that when they had often relapsed and he had delivered them and now they had forsaken him and served other gods and he would deliver them no more yet when they insist and will not quite him it 's added v. 16. that his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel their misery pleaded with him to have compassion on them and deliver them And Neh. 9. ch How many proofs of love are there recorded from Egypt all along in the wilderness and in the promised land notwithstanding their rebellions and when he had wrought for them over and over again and they still relapsed he was provocked to say he would destroy them yet he tells that he wrought for his own Names sake that it might not be polluted among the Heathen for what-ever they did deserve his Name did not deserve to suffer therefore he wrought for them and relative to this is that invitation Jer. 3.1 Thou hast played the harlot with many lovers not at once but successively and in the intervals between deliveries yet return again to me saith the Lord. I shall not insist on this but they that are under convictions of privat and publick relapses and of the hazard of relapses and cannot tell what to make of them or what will be the latter end of their running back back again into bondage after deliveries they may encourage themselves from this that with the Lord our God there is plenteous redemption And if ye say how and in what terms may folk that have thus relapsed look out for this redemption in God Something for the direction of faith may come to be spoken to in the next Doctrine and therefore here I shall only press on them that would look our for redemption First That much neglected and yet most necessary work of Repentance according to that which some would have a plague but I think sounds like a promise Ezek 7.16 They that escape of them shall escape on the mountains and shall be like doves of the valleys all of them mourning every one for his iniquity O to see that frame of spirit to see repentance more in fashion among us God hath made us smart many ways because we would not afflict our selves and yet we will not do it O! this is an impenitent generation pray for repentance 2. I would have you in the study of repentance lo●king to the aggravations of sin and that from your frequent relapsing in it that after we have felt the bitterness of our folly we have turned again to it that we have given up to walk with God after we have spoken of much blessedness in his company that when we have found the threatnings verified and promises made out to us and to others yet the byass of our hearts is out of course and we will try these woful conclusions of new O! take a look of the dreadful aggravations that relapsing in bondage hath with it 3. As the result of all this I would recommend to you to be in Gods reverence in reference to that which I spoke the last day even his prerogative-royal in free grace for any redemption that we can expect I told you of Gods rejecting carnal confidences that folk shall not prosper in them because they would not quite them and lay their deplorable case at the footstool of Soveraignty in him and nothing looks with a more dreadful aspect to right discernets than to see the temper of the Jews among us who Jer. 12.4 when the Land is mourning say he shall not see our last end And Chap 2.8 The vessels of the Lords house shall come back again And there is nothing more hopeful under relapses than to be putting off our ornaments to see what God will do with us to be non-plussed under convictions of relapses and to be casting our selves at the Foot-stool of Soveraignty in free grace Were we in that humble posture it would speak more ground of hope than all our carnal confidences which are made Pillows to sleep on in our security Now I have done with

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 fash●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

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