he was their Saviour It seems to refer to the deliverance from Aegypt Shall I have so little regard to the League I have entred into with their Fathers as to be unconcern'd in their misery There is hope in Israel till God forgets his Covenant and Christ strip himself of the name of a Saviour Christ hath his Priestly habit in Heaven for his People but Eyes as flames of fire quick and piercing to consume the very hearts of his Enemies and Feet like fine Brass to trample upon them Rev. 1.13 14 15. He is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah to tear his Enemies as well as a Lamb slain to expiate the sins of his People He hath meekness for his Friends and terrible Majesty for his Enemies Psal 45.4 In thy Majesty ride prosperously because of meekness His kindness to his People makes him ride in Majesty against the others God will not be at rest till he hath revenged the Cause of his People Aegypt will be drowned Babylon will fall Rev. 18.2 Christ can have no satisfaction without it The Executioners of his Judgments in the North Country which was Babylon lying Northward from Jerusalem do quiet his Spirit both as tending to the glory of his Justice and the manifestation of his Mercy to his People Zach. 6.3 Christ will stain his garments in the blood of Edom and Bozra Isa 63.2 3. Edom the Posterity of Esau Bozra a City of Moab Types of the Churches Enemies The Jewish Doctors by Edom in the Prophets understand Rome Christ sits in Heaven till his Enemies be made his footstool All the time of his sitting God is acting and preparing things for a final Issue There is a strong cry of Blood and a file of Prayers the one will be revenged and the other will be answer'd Their own pride and cruelty witness against them God hath a noise of Petitions every day for a full end a combin'd importunity will prevail But clouds now hang over us a gloomy storm seems to threaten us God may indeed blow over the cloud Our Saviour hath the command of the storms and winds in Heaven as well as he had upon the Earth the Pillar of the cloud which hath hitherto conducted us may be our Guardian in the Rear to defend us But yet if he doth suffer them to prevail they shall be but as Whisks to brush off the dust wisps of Straw to cleanse the filthy Pot. You know what is to be done with them when their work is done Their Language indeed is Let Sion be defiled but they understand not the counsel of the Lord who in time will make the Horn of Sion Iron and her Hoofs Brass Micah 4.11 Though the Beasts that ascend out of the bottomless Pit do kill God's People Rev. 11.7 yet even in this Victory of theirs Satan himself shall be overcome As when Christ was taken out from among the living by Satans means it was but for a time but himself was cast out for ever so after this Victory the Church shall overcome Rev. 11. and God shall break the head of the Leviathan in the waters and when he doth by his wisdom contrive waies of salvation he will by his power execute them and save in such a way as may most glorifie himself and witness that the salvation was the immediate work of his arm Hos 2.7 I will save them by the Lord their God 2. Remember former deliverances in time of straits In our plenty of mercies we should not be unmindful how near we were to the Pit nor let the impression of God's power wisdom and mercy wear off from our hearts The Israelites were apt to forget the most signal mercies though they had seen them and had more sensibly tasted the sweetness of them than their Posterity God therefore often puts them in mind of them The Lord that brought them out of the Land of Aegypt out of the Iron Furnace Deut. 4.20 Hos 12.9 I the Lord your God from the Land of Aegypt Ezek. 23.3 It was the more fit to be remembred by them because many of them were fitter subjects for God's wrath with the Aegyptians than for his delivering-kindness since she committed whoredoms in Aegypt in her youth i. e. had been guilty of the Aegyptian Idolatry Unmindfulness of former experiences may make you hopeless of future deliverances The remembrance of former mercies is a ground of confidence in God for the like mercies for the future God recalls to his Peoples minds in their afflictions the memorable defeat of the Moabites by his sole power in the time of Jehoshaphat's Reign they should from that deliverance hope for as great from the hands of God in their straits And Zech. 10.11 God would have them consider their deliverance at the Red Sea as a ground of hope in the time of their distress 3. Thankfully remember former deliverances If we have not some praise for God we may suspect our selves * Lightfoot Temple cap. 3. p. 9. 'T is observed that the City Shushan the Royal seat of the Persian Monarchy was pourtrayed upon the east gate of the temple not because of the Persian command or because of their fear of that King as some think but to have a thankful remembrance of the wonderful deliverance of Purim which was wrought in Shushan Esth 9.26 If it had been only by the Persians command it would have been defaced after the fall of that Monarchy which held but thirty four years after the building of the second Temple The 136. Psalm is a good Copy where is a threefold exhortation to thankfulness in the beginning and one at the end and in the record of every mercy the burden of every verse is his mercy endureth for ever How should we imitate the Psalmist He broke the teeth of the invincible Leviathan in 88 and sent a strong wind to disperse the Fleet for his mercy endureth for ever God prevented the dreadful blast of Gun-powder for his mercy endureth for ever God sent the light of the Gospel into England and freed it from the yoke of Antichrists tyranny for his mercy endures for ever God hath been a wall of fire about Ireland in the protection of it for his mercy endureth for ever Let mercy receive the praise of what our own wisdom and power could not effect The way to overcome the same Enemies we fear is to praise God for what he hath before acted against them The strength of a people consists in praises as well as praying Psa 8.2 Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength In the Evangelist thou hast perfected praise Mat. 21.16 The more Hallelujahs we put up the more occasion God may give us for them If we have any fears of the overflowing deluge God formerly delivered us from our non-improvement of those deliverances the fruits whereof we enjoy this day may strengthen our fears When Israel was Idolatrous in Jeroboams reign yet God delivered them from the Syrians because he
As God shews his mercy in his Peoples Redemption he will shew his strength in their conduct Exod. 15.13 He that made this deliverance a standing Monument of his Power entitles himself by it Isa 43.16 Thus saith the Lord which makes a way in the Sea a path in the mighty waters 2. His kindness to and care of his People When the straits are remediless and the counsels whereby the Projects are laid not to be defeated by humane skill when God seems to have forgot then in a seasonable deliverance he shews himself the careful Watchman of Israel When the Ship is in a raging storm and Christ asleep he will leave his own ease to keep his word and content his People When the Church thinks God hath forgotten his mercies and they have forgotten their dependance when the misery is so pressing that there is no faith of a deliverance left then Christ comes when faith is scarcely to be found upon the Earth Luke 18.8 to exalt his mercy in the depths of their misery and work terrible things they looked not for Isa 64.3 The Israelites would not have understood God's care in their protection without this or the like strait God had a new opportunity to shew his watchfulness over them to turn the cloud which went before them as their guide behind them for their defence Exod. 14.19 The scoffs of the Enemy at the Churches misery are God's motive to help her I will restore health to thee because they called thee an out-cast Jer. 30.17 'T is in straits we see God's salvation not man's Exod. 14.13 Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. 3. His Justice He lets the Church be encompassed with miseries and the Enemies in a Combination against her that he may overthrow them at once God makes a quicker dispatch with the Aegyptians when they were united than when they had assaulted Israel with a smaller body His Righteousness gets glory at one blow when he makes them to lye down together Is 43.17 His Justice is unblemisht in striking when their wickedness is visibly ripe the equity of it must needs be subscribed that when the Enemies malice is greatest when they have no mixture of compassion 't is the clearest righteousness to crush them without any mixture of mercy God brings things to that pass that he may honour both his Justice and Mercy in the highest That the black horses and the white horses may march firm together Zech. 6.6 the black horses that brought death and Judgment Northward to Babylon where the Church was captive the white horses that followed them and brought deliverance to his People the one to be Instruments of his Judgments the other of his Mercies God loves to glorifie those two Attributes together he did so in the redemption of mankind by the death of his Son and he doth so in the deliverance of his Church there is a conformity of the Church to Christ in her distress that there may be a conformity of God's glory in temporal to his glory in eternal Salvation God singles out a full crop to be an harvest for both A wicked man is said to be waited for by the sword Job 15.22 God attends the best season for revenge when mercy to the one shall appear most glorious and vengeance on his Enemies most equitable and all disputes against his proceedings be silenced 2. It makes to the Churches Advantage God had a work to do upon Mount Sion and on Jerusalem before he would punish the stout heart of the King of Assyria and the glory of his high looks Isa 10.12 His end shall be attained in the correction of his Church before his glory shall be exalted in the destruction of her Enemies There are Enemies in the hearts of his People to be conquered by his grace before the Enemies to her peace and prosperity shall be defeated by his Power he will let them be in the fire till like gold they may have a purer honour in a brighter lustre 1. Humiliation is gain'd hereby God would not presently raze out the Canaanites lest the wild Beasts should increase upon them Deut. 7.22 Too quick deliverances may be occasions to multiply the wild Beasts of pride security and wantonness in the heart humility would have but little footing There is need of a sharp Winter to destroy the Vermin before we can expect a fruitful Spring Without humiliation the Church knows not how to receive nor how to improve any mercy The Enemies hasten their own mine by increasing the measure of their sins and Israels deliverance by being instruments to humble then hearts The sooner the plaister hath drawn out the corrupt matter the sooner it is cast into the fire God hereby prevents the growth of weeds in that ground he intends to enrich with new mercies 2. A Spirit of Prayer is excited Slight troubles make but drooping prayers Great straits make it gush out as the more the bladder is squeezed the higher the water springs We hear not of the Israelites crying to the Lord after their coming out of Aegypt till they had a sight of the formidable Army Exod. 14.10 They were sore afraid and the Children of Israel cried unto the Lord. Prayer gains mercies but scarce springs up free without sence of distress We then have recourse to Gods power whereby he is able to relieve us when we are sensible of our own weakness whereby we are unable to relieve our selves men will scarce seek to God or trust him while any creature though but a reed remains for their support they are destitute before they pray or believe God regards their prayers Psa 102.17 He will regard the prayer of the Destitute and not despise their prayer Distress causes importunity and God will do much for importunities sake Luke 11.8 3. Discovery of sincerity Hereby God discovers who are his people and who are not who are in the highest form of Christianity and who are not in the School or at least but in the lowest form he separates the good corn from the useless chaff No question but there were some among the Israelites that in this extremity acted faith upon the remembrance of the wonders God had wrought for them in Aegypt before their departure certainly they did not all murmur against Moses Were there no Calebs and Joshuahs that followed God fully in a way of faith and submission Their faith courage had not been conspicuous without this extremity Thundrings and Lightnings and terrible things in righteousness are to prove us whether the fear of God be before our faces that we sin not Exod. 20.18 20. God separates the dross You never know a new building without pulling down to separate the rubbish and rotten rafters from the sound materials Abraham was put upon hard work the imbruing his hands in the blood of his only Son to prove his integrity when God sees his sincerity he divers the blow not only delivers him from his grief his Son from his danger
punishment Psal 22.1 But thou art holy when he expostulates with God why he had forsaken him justifies Gods holiness Howsoever thou dealest with me thou art holy in all thy waies Thou dost me no wrong why should I complain when holiness and hatred of sin guides thee in all those actings with me 4. How earnest should we be to get rid of sin By pardon by Sanctification Guilt is the sting of punishment Sin only embitters trouble The Remission and Mortification of sin is the health of the Soul If the arrows head be out of a wound the cure will be more easy Look upon my affliction and my pain and forgive all my sin saith the Psalmist Psal 25.8 forgiveness of sin would mitigate the sharpness of his pain 5. How should we act faith on God in Christ before and under such a condition of punishment As we can never love God too much because he is the highest good so we can never trust God too much because he is one of immutable truth when we are in straits it is not for want of faithfulness in God but for want of Faith in us that we are many times not preserved We distrust God and this is the cause we fall into many distresses which otherwise would not come upon us or be quickly removed from us Did we grasp the promises closely and plead them earnestly we should often find the deliverance we desire We pray but we pray not in Faith we cry for deliverance but not with confidence we plead Gods power but forget his promise Many temporal promises are not perform'd to us not for want of truth in God but for want of faith in us Particular fiduciary acts will draw out the riches of a promise for want of which we remain poor in the midst of abundance Some think that the promise made to Josiah of his dying in peace which phrase is usually meant in Scripture of a peacable death upon the bed was not performed because Josiah was out of the way against the precept of God and therefore could not act faith requisite to the fulfilling of that promise for faith is much dampt in its actings under present contracted guilt †Tho. Goodwin This Faith in promises for outward preservation is not an absolute infallible assurance that God will bestow such outward things because the promises themselves are not absolute but it is rather an indefinite act of recumbency and submission referring it to his good pleasure towards us But it is certain we are very much defective in acting Faith upon promises for temporal mercies because it is an Epidemical distemper in us to trust God with our Souls rather than with our bodies and outward concerns 1. Exercise Faith before such a time Furnish your selves with the comforts of the Covenant and the efficacy of the death of Christ In bodily distempers our minds are discomposed and we cannot have that Freedom of thoughts and spiritual reflections This is the way to engage God who is the best assistant a very present help in time of trouble 2. Exercise it in the use of spiritual means God never Commanded us to trust him but in his own methods That is not trust in God which is attended with any wilful Omissions If we be careful in doing our duty God will be careful in doing what belongs to him Prayer is the best means for Faith to exercise it self in A spirit of Prayer before-hand is a sign of good success When the heart is drawn out to cry it is a sign God stands ready with the mercy in his hand Times of distress are times of calling upon God Psal 18.6 In my distress I called upon the Lord and he heard my cry God is to be acknowledged in all our ways Prov. 3.6 In the beginning by prayer for his direction in the end by praises for the success We are usually more earnest in trouble We have not at all times an equal fervency Christ himself some say had not for when he was in his agony he prayed more earnestly than before Luke 22.44 3. Act Faith upon the Relation God bears to you He is our Father We trust earthly Fathers and are confident they will not abuse us How much more ought we to trust our heavenly Father and not doubt of his sincerity towards us The greater the trouble the more we should plead Gods relation to us Our Saviour in the garden Mat. 26.39 42. at his entrance into his passion for us prays to God by the title of my Father whereas at other times he calls God Father without that appropriation But now he would excite his confidence and trust in God and those promises he had made him to assist him in that hour 4. Act Faith upon the attributes of God There is nothing in God can affright a believer There is not an attribute but seems fixed in God to encourage our dependance on him in any strait wisdom mercy truth omniscience power justice too for what comfort could we have to trust in an unjust God All which attributes are promised to be assistant to a believer in any case of need in the Covenant of grace where God makes himself over to us as our God and therefore all that God hath and is is promised there for our good Upon the Power of God Gods Omnipotence was the ground of our Saviours prayer to him in his distress and that which the Apostle seems to intimate his eyeing of Heb. 5.7 He offered up prayers unto him that was able to save him from death And Psal 16.1 The Psalmist or rather Christ pleads the power of God Preserve me O Lord for in thee do I put my trust 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aquila renders it strong Plead the truth of God in his promise The promise that preceded the threatning viz. The bruising the Serpents head the defeating all his plots and designs whereof this was one to bring man into a state of punishment There is a promise which hath been especially tryed and made good though all in the book of God have been found true Psal 18.30 The Word of the Lord is tryed Not one word but the truth of it hath been tryed but especially this word That God is a buckler to them that trust in him i. e. That he will preserve and defend depending believers 5. Act Faith upon Christ Hath God delivered Christ to death It must be for some glorious end not for destruction of the Creature that might have been done without the death of his Son but for remission if so there is sufficient ground to trust him for every thing else We have a merciful high Priest which encourageth us to make our addresses to him He cannot but be touched with the feeling of our infirmities our penal infirmities which he suffered our sinful infirmities for which he suffered Where can he shew his mercy but in our misery Are we under Gods strokes Christ himself felt them that he might the better pity us
himself Some Heathens were more Orthodox and among the rest Ovid whose amorous pleasures one would think should have smothered such sentiments in him The Lord whose knowledg is infallible knows the thoughts of men that they are vanity Psal 94.11 yea and of the wisest men too according to the Apostle's Interpretation 1 Cor. 3.20 And who were they that became vain in their Imaginations but the wisest men the carnal world yielded The Graecians the greatest Philosophers the Aegyptians their Tutors and the Romans their Apes The elaborate operations of an unregenerate mind are fleshly Rom. 8.5 7. If the whole web be so needs must every thread The thought of foolishness is sin * Prov. 24.9 i. e. a foolish thought not objectively a thought of folly but one formally so yea an abomination to God †Prov. 1◠26 As good thoughts and purposes are acts in God's account so are bad ones Abraham's intention to offer Isaac is accounted as an actual Sacrifice ‖ Heb. 11.17 James 2.21 that the stroke was not given was not from any reluctance of Abraham's will but the gracious indulgence of God Sarah had a deriding thought and God chargeth it as if it were an outward laughter and a scornful word * Gen. 18.12 15. Therefore Sarah laughed within her self saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in visceribus suis Targum Rom. 7.7 I had not known lust except the Law had said Thou shalt not covet Thoughts are the words of the mind and as real in God's account as if they were expressed with the Tongue There are three Reasons for the proof of this that they are Sins 1. They are contrary to the Law which doth forbid the first foamings and belchings of the heart because they arise from an habitual corruption and testifie a defect of something which the Law requires to be in us to correct the excursions of our minds Doth not the Law oblige man as a rational creature Shall it then leave that part which doth constitute him rational to fleeting and giddy fancies No it binds the soul as the principal agent the body only as the instrument For if it were given only for the sensitive part without any respect to the rational it would concern brutes as well as men which are as capable of a rational command and a voluntary obedience as man without the conduct of a rational soul It exacts a conformity of the whole man to God and prohibits a difformity and therefore engageth chiefly the inward part which is most the man It must then extend to all the acts of the man consequently to his thoughts they being more the acts of the man than the motions of the body Holiness is the prime excellency of the Law a title ascribed to it twice in one Verse Rom. 7.12 Wherefore the Law is holy and the Commandment holy just and good Could it be holy if it indulged looseness in the more noble part of the creature Could it be just if it favoured inward unrighteousness Could it be good and useful to man which did not enjoyn a suitable conformity to God wherein the creatures excellency lies Can that deserve the title of a spiritual Law that should only regulate the brutish part and leave the spiritual to an unbounded licentiousness Can perfection be ascribed to that Law Mat. 5.28 which doth countenance the unsavoury breathings of the Spirit and lay no stricter an obligation upon us than the Laws of men Must not God's Laws be as suitable to his Soveraignty as mens Laws are to theirs Must they not then be as extensive as God's Dominion and reach even to the privatest closets of the heart 'T is not for the honour of God's holiness righteousness goodness to let the Spirit which bears more flourishing characters of his Image than the body range wildly about without a legal curb 2. They are contrary to the order of nature and the design of our Creation Whatsoever is a swerving from our primitive nature Eccles 7.29 God made man perfect but they have sought out many inventions is sin or at least a consequent of it But all inclinations to sin are contrary to that righteousness wherewith man was first endued Man was created both with a disposition and ability for holy contemplations of God the first glances of his soul were pure he came every way compleat out of the mint of his infinitely wise and good Creator and when God pronounced all his Creatures good he pronounced man very good amongst the rest But man is not now as God created him he is off from his end his understanding is filled with lightness and vanity This disorder never proceeded from the God of order infinite goodness could never produce such an evil frame none of these loose inventions were of God's planting but of man's seeking No God never created the intellective no nor the sensitive part to play Domitian's game and sport it self in the catching of Flies Psal 49.20 Gen. 3.6 Man that is in honour and understands not that which he ought to understand and thinks not that which he ought to think is like the Beasts that perish he plays the beast because he acts contrary to the nature of a rational and immortal soul And such brutes we all naturally are since the first woman believed her sense her phancy her affection in their directions for the attainment of wisdom without consulting God's Law or her own reason The phancy was bound by the right of nature to serve the understanding 'T is then a slighting God's wisdom to invert this order in making that our Governour which he made our Subject 'T is injustice to the dignity of our own souls to degrade the nobler part to a sordid slavery in making the brute have dominion over the man as if the Horse were fittest to govern the Rider 'T is a falseness to God and a breach of trust to let our minds be imposed upon by our phancy in giving them only feathers to dandle and chaff to feed on instead of those braver objects they were made to converse withal 3. We are accountable to God and punishable for thoughts Nothing is the meritorious cause of God's wrath but sin The Text tells us that they were once the keys which opened the floud-gates of divine vengeance and broach'd both the upper neather Cisterns to overflow the world If they need a pardon * Acts 8.22 If perhaps the thought of thy heart may be forgiven thee as certainly they do then if mercy doth not pardon them justice will condemn them And 't is absolutely said that a man of wicked devices * Prov. 12.2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A man of thoughts i. e. evil thoughts the word being usually taken in an ill sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or thoughts God will condemn 'T is God's prerogative often mentioned in Scripture to search the heart To what purpose if the acts of it did not fall under His censure as well
voluptuousness fancy the pleasures in the ways of wisdom here and at God's right hand hereafter This is to deal with our hearts as Paul with his hearers The heads of the Catechism might be taken in order which would both encrease and actuate our knowledge Psal 40.5 to catch them with guile Stake your soul down to some serious and profitable mystery of Religion as the Majesty of God some particular Attribute his condescension in Christ the love of our Redeemer the value of his sufferings the vertue of his blood the end of his ascension the work of the Spirit the excellency of the soul beauty of holiness certainty of death terror of judgment torments of Hell and joys of Heaven Why may not that which was the subject of God's innumerable thoughts be the subject of ours God's thoughts and counsels were concerning Christ the end of his coming his death his precepts of holiness and promises of life and that not only speculatively but with an infinite pleasure in his own glory the creatures good to be accomplished by him Would it not be work enough for our thoughts all the day to travel over the length breadth height and depth of the love of Christ Would the greatness of the journey give us leisure to make any starts out of the way Having settled the Theme for all the day we shall find occasional assistances even from worldly businesses as Scholars who have some Exercise to make find helps in their own course of reading though the Book hath no design'd respect to their proper Theme Thus by imploying our minds about one thing chiefly we shall not only hinder them from vain excursions but make even common objects to be oyl to our good thoughts which otherwise would have been fuel for our bad Such generous liquor would scent our minds and conversations all the day that whatsoever motion came into our hearts would be tinctured with this spirit and savour of our morning thoughts as vessels having been filled with a rich wine communicate a relish of it to the liquors afterward put into them We might also more steadily go about our worldly business if we carry God in our minds as oâ—e foot of the Compass will more regularly move about the Circumference when the other remains firm in the Center 2. Look to the manner of it 1. Let it be intent Transitory thoughts are like the glances of the eye soon on and soon off they make no clear discovery and consequently raise no spritely affections Let it be one principal subject and without flitting from it for if our thoughts be unsteady we shall find but little warmth a burning glass often shifted fires nothing We must look at the things that are not seen as wistly as men do at a mark they shoot at 2 Cor. 4.18 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 3.18 Such an intent meditation would change us into the image and cast us into the mould of those truths we think of it would make our minds more busie about them all the day as a glaring upon the Sun fills our eyes for some time after with the image of it To this purpose look upon your selves as deeply concern'd in the things you think of Our minds dwell upon that whereof we apprehend an absolute necessity A condemned person would scarce think of any thing but procuring a reprieve and his earnestness for this would bar the door against other intruders 2. Let it be affectionate and practical Meditation should excite a spiritual delight in God as it did in the Psalmist †Psa 104.34 My meditation of him shall be sweet I will be glad in the Lord. and a divine delight would keep up good thoughts and keep out impertinencies A bare speculation will tire the Soul and without application and pressing upon the will and affections will rather chill than warm devotion 'T is only by this means that we shall have the efficacy of truth in our wills and the sweetness in our affections as well as the notion of it in our understandings The more operative any truth is in this manner upon us the less power will other thoughts have to interrupt and the more disdainfully will the heart look upon them if they dare be impudent Never therefore leave thinking of a spiritual subject till your heart be affected with it If you think of the evil of sin leave not till your heart loath it if of God cease not till it mount up in admirations of him If you think of his Mercy melt for abusing it if of his Soveraignty awe your heart into obedient resolutions if of his Presence double your watch over your self If you meditate on Christ make no end till your hearts love him if of his Death plead the value of it for the justification of your persons and apply the vertue of it for the sanctification of your natures Without this practical stamp upon our affections we shall have light spirits while we have opportunity to converse with the most serious objects We often hear foolish thoughts breathing out themselves in a house of mourning in the midst of Coffins and trophies of death as if men were confident they should never die whereas none are so ridiculous as to assert they shall live for ever By this instance in a Truth so certainly assented to we may judg of the necessity of this direction in truths more doubtfully believed 7. Draw spiritual Inferences from occasional Objects David did but wistly consider the Heavens Psal 8.3 4. and he breaks out in self-abasement and humble admirations of God Glean matter of instruction to your selves and praise to your Maker from every thing you see It will be a degree of restoration to a state of innocency since this was Adam's task in Paradise Dwell not upon any created object only as a Virtuoso to gratifie your rational curiosity but as a Christian call Religion to the feast and make a spiritual improvement No creature can meet our eyes but affords us lessons worthy our thoughts besides the general notices of the power and wisdom of the Creator Thus may the Sheep read us a Lecture of patience the Dove of innocence the Ant and Bee raise blushes in us for our sluggishness and the stupid Oxe Isa 1.3 and dull Ass correct and shame our ungrateful ignorance And since our Saviour did set forth his own excellency in a sensible dress the consideration of those Metaphors by an acute fancy would garnish out divine truths more deliciously and conduct us into a more inward knowledge of the Mysteries of the Gospel He whose eyes are open cannot want an instructer unless he wants a heart Thus may a Tradesman spiritualize the matter he works upon and make his commodities serve in wholsom meditations to his mind and at once enrich both his Soul and his Coffers yea and in part restore the creatures to the happiness of answering a great end of their Creation which Man depriv'd
before them and a raging Enemy behind them Hear a confused noise of women and Children in the midst of them feel the pantings of their own hearts perhaps see a consternation in the faces of their governours they see themselves disarmed of weapons lying almost at the mercy of an oppressor with a well furnisht Army they repent of what God had done for them and are more ambitious of slavery than liberty Quarrel with Moses And as one of their Historians saith were about to stone him Exod. 14.10 11 12. Without doubt they then thought him a lyar and it is likely had no more honourable thoughts at that time of God for when they saw the happy success in the miraculous overthrow of the Aegyptians then they believed God and his servant Moses Exod. 14.31 as if they gave credit to neither of them before They had a pillar of Fire and a Cloud the chariot of God A greater argument to establish them than the preparation of their enemies to terrifie them But what a faithless creature is man under the visible guard of Heaven and so far naturally from living by faith that he will hardly draw establishments from sense 4. God orders the lusts of men for his own praise He had forced Pharaoh to let the People go he had stopt the streams of his fury when he removes his hand and pulls up the dam Pharaoh returns to his former temper with more violence thereby giving occasion for God's glory in his own destruction he serves himself of the desperate malice of his enemies to make his Wisdom and other Attributes more triumphant 5. The nearer the deliverance of the Church is the fiercer are Gods Judgments on the enemies of it and the higher the enemies rage The former plagues were but small gashes in the Aegyptian state But when the time approach'd of the Israelites perfect Deliverance then the first-born in every house the delight and strength of the parents is cut off And at the compleating of it the glory flower and strength of Aegypt buryed in the Sea the fuller beams of mercy on the one are attended with more scorcing darts of judgments on the other 6. All creatures are absolutely under the Soveraignty of God and are acted by his Power in all their services Thy wind All are subject to his conduct and are the Guardians of his People and the Conquerours of his Enemies How easie is it for the Arm of Omnipotency to demolish the strongest preparations against his Israel and with a blast reduce their Power to nothing The Sea suffers violence to preserve his People and the liquid Element seems transform'd into a wall of Brass God can make the meanest creatures Ministers of his Judgments raise Troops of Flies to rout the Roman Army as it was in Trajans Siege of the Agarens 7. By the same means God saves his People whereby he destroys his Enemies the one sank the other past thorow That which makes one balance sink makes the other rise the higher the red sea was the Guardian of Israel and the Executioner of Aegypt the Israelites gallery to Canaan and the Aegyptians grave The cloud that led the Israelites through the red Sea blinded the Aegyptians the waters that were 15 Cubits high above the mountains kept the Ark from dashing against them whereby Noah might be indangered and drowned the enemies though never so high according to humane stature 8. The strength and glory of a people is more wasted by opposing the Interest of the Church than in conflicts with any other enemy Had the Aegyptian arms been turned against any other Enemy they might have prospered or at least retired with a more partial defeat or saved their lives though under chains But when they would prepare them against Gods Israel they meet with a total defeat where they expected victory and find their graves where Israel found their Bulwarks the choicest of their Youth the flower of their Nobility the strongest of their chariots and horses at one blow overthrown by God 9. We may take notice of the folly of the Churches Enemies Former plagues might have warned them of the power of God they had but burned their own fingers by pinching her yet they would set their force against Almighty power that so often had worsted them 't is as if men would pull down a steeple with a string But the Observations I shall treat of are 1. When the Enemies of the Church are in the highest fury and resolution and the Church in the greatest extremity and dejection then is the fittest time for God to work her deliverance fully and perfectly When the Enemy said I will pursue I will overtake I will divide the Spoil c. then God blowed with his wind then they sank 2. God is the Author of all the deliverances of the Church whosoever are the Instruments Thou didst blow with thy wind who is like unto the Lord among the Gods 1. For the first When the Enemies of the Church are in the highest fury c. Great resolutions against God meet with great Disappointments The Churches straits are the enemies hopes but Gods opportunity When their fury is highest Gods love is nearest 1. There are four seasons on the part of the Enemy God takes hold of 1. Flourishing Prosperity Here is Pharaoh in the head of a gallant Army the Israelites in a Pound at his mercy The Aegyptians prosperity is a forerunner of their destruction the adversity of the other of their salvation Haman is in the top of his favour when the Jews are marked out for slaughter and then himself is marked out for ruine Prosperity like Rain makes the weeds of Pride and Atheism to grow up and then they are fit matter for God's Sickle to cut down When the Clusters of the Vine of the Earth are ripe full of an outward glory and sweetness then the Angel thrusts in his sharp Sickle Rev. 14.18 There is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 set them When the great City is clothed in fine Linnen Purple and Scarlet deckt with gold and pretious stones Rev. 18.16 and come to the highest point of its glory and prosperity then shall God thicken the clouds of his vengeance and bring their riches to naught in one hour 2. Swelling Pride I will pursue c. Pride is provoking because it is a self-deifying and sets up the creature as God's Mate God stands upon his honour and loves to attaque those that would equal themselves with him Pride sunk the glory of the fallen Angels into misery and so it will that of the Serpents seed this is the immediate forerunner of destruction Prov. 16.18 Men have their hairy scalp the prime of their strength and pride of their hearts when God wounds them Psal 68.21 Aegypt was become Rahab pride it self as the word signifies and so God called it by that name Isa 51.9 When Aegypt mounted to Rahab to the top of pride then God cut it When the Dragon bristled and
but renews the promise of the Messiah to him as a reward Deliverance then comes when God hath separated the Corn from the stubble 4. A standing encouragement for future faith When the straits are greatest from whence God delivers us there is a stronger foundation for a future trust When the distress is inconsiderable faith afterwards will be more feeble large experience heartens strengthens faith in the promise When gloomy clouds are blown over the brighter and thinner will not be much feared When we see the Sun melt the thickest over our heads we shall not doubt its force to disolve the lesser vapours which may afterwards assemble when the Ship hath escaped a raging storm we shall not doubt it in a less God often puts them in mind of their deliverance in the red Sea to strengthen their faith and dependance on him It must needs be an establishment to faith for deliverances from great straits are some kind of obligation on the honour of God When the Israelites had provoked God by murmuring and wished they had dyed in Aegypt and not in the wilderness Moses intercedes with this argument The Aegyptians shall hear of it from whom God brought up Israel with a strong hand and it would disparage Gods power and tax him with an inability to bring his people into the Land he intended then God grants their pardon Numb 14.13 14 20. 5. Engagement to future Obedience 'T is upon this account God prefaceth the Law with his mercy in delivering them out of Aegypt The strongest Vows are made in the greatest straits Many obligations there are when the extremity forces us to cry When we are in the Jaws of Death God may have his terms of us when we are at some distance we will have our own The lower a person is the more readily will he bend to any condition hope of deliverance will make him stoop And when God snatches his People as fire-brands out of the fire they are more obliged to him from common ingenuity and must be more ashamed of breaking their Vows than if their mercies were of a great alloy If common patience leads to repentance a rescue from an amazing danger is a stronger cord to draw us to repentance and obedience And it is certain that when the Church in sincerity makes Vows to God it will not be long before God puts her into a condition to pay them and furnish her with Incentives of a holy ingenuity 6. The greater thankfulness The more straitned the greater thankfulness for enlargement As we hear not of the Israelites prayers after they came out of Aegypt till they were in the pound so we read of none of their songs though they had matter enough for them in their first departure till God had dasht in pieces the Enemy and thrown the Horse and the Rider into the Sea Then and not till then had they a deep sense how glorious God was in holiness fearful in praises doing wonders Exod. 15.11 Great mercies unvail God's face more to the view of his People When Israel inherits great salvation then the Lord shall inherit the praise of Israel When we have less mercies we take little notice of the Author God hears the language of but one of our bones but when he delivers the poor from him that is too strong for him and spoils him then all my bones shall say Lord who is like unto thee 7. To prevent future mischief to the Church The destruction of the greatest Enemies is a disarming the less God by this destruction struck a terrour into those Nations upon whose confines Israel was to march into Canaan who without so remarkable a rebuke of providence would have been desirous to finger some of their prey Then trembling took hold of the mighty men of Moab All the Inhabitants of Canaan did melt away fear and dread fell upon them by the greatness of the Arm of God that they should be as still as a stone till they passed over the River Exod. 15.15 16. Their present deliverance was a Pass-port for their future security in their Journey and no Enemies troubled them in the way but those upon whom God had a mind to shew his Power 2. How doth God deliver when the season is thus 1. Suddenly They sank like Lead in the mighty waters which quickly reaches the bottom Judgment comes like lightning Death and Hell are said to ride upon Horses Rev. 6.8 They are too swift for God's Enemies and will easily win the Race of them Destruction comes as travel upon a woman with child 1 Thes 5.3 How suddenly did God turn the Assyrian Camp into an Aceldema overthrow a powerful Army and make their Tents their Tombs in the space of a night He will dash them in pieces like a Potters Vessel Psa 2.9 all in bits at a stroke He comes suddenly he rides upon a Cherub Psal 18.10 But because the motion of an Angel is not so intelligible he adds another Metaphor from the nimblest of sensible things he flies upon the wings of the wind to assist his People in extremity The Enemy comes like a whirlwind * They came out as a whirlwind to scatter me Hab. 3.14 and God goes forth as a whirlwind of fury Jer. 30.23 The whirlwind of his Judgments shall be as quick as the whirlwind of their malice a continual whirlwind when the other is vanishing it shall fall with pain upon the head of the wicked when the other shall be as fruitless as a Snow-ball against a wall of Brass The Enemy beholds him not till he be upon him for the clouds are as dust under his feet Nahum 1.3 and obscure his appearance as the raising the Dust doth the march of a Troop he comes unawares upon them in a Cloud The Execution is sudden They shall be cut down as grass Psal 37.2 which this moment faceth the Sun triumphing in its natural bravery and the next moment is cut off from its Root with one shave of a Sythe He quencheth them as Tow is quencht in Water Isa 43.17 as the snuff of a Candle is quench'd by being bruis'd by the fingers He cuts them off as foam the excrement of the water Hos 10.7 which bursts in pieces like a bubble on the sudden Vengeance comes upon Tyre and Sidon swiftly and speedily Joel 3.4 Tyre comes of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to afflict to straiten Sidon of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word signifies to pursue All Persecutors are threatned in Tyre and Sidon with a swift destruction God delays the time to try the faith and patience of his People to make the expected deliverance more sweet and welcom and mercy more singular He may have some of the seed of Christ in the loins of some of his Enemies But when he doth draw his Sword he gives a sudden blow before the Enemy fears it or his People expect it The Jews in Babylon when the Chains of their Captivity were unloosed were like those that
a look There is no need of an Arm a word and a look of Omnipotency will be efficacious both for the one and the other one Royal Edict from him will perform it Psal 44.4 Thou art my King command deliverance for Jacob. He hath Authority as a King Engagement as the Churches King As he hath right of Dominion so he hath an Office of Protection which the Church of right may claim and is it Jacob that wants deliverance be not afraid but sanctifie the Lord of Hosts himself Isa 8.12 13. To trust in his Power is to sanctifie his name and regard him as the Soveraign of all creatures and the Lord of Hosts If we sanctifie his name by relying on his Power he will sanctifie his name by engaging his Power 7. To this end study the Promises God hath made to his Church and what Predictions are upon Record 'T is a title of the faithful that they are such as keep the sayings of the Book of the Revelation Rev. 22.9 The Angel that came to John owns himself his fellow-servant and of the Prophets and those that keep the sayings of that Book See God's Bond and behold his witness compare the promise the prophecy and performance See his mercy in making them his truth in performing them let these be as the Hur and Aaron to support the glory of God in our Souls This will be a matter of praise and furnish us with Arguments to spread before God Daniel first looked into the Book for the set time of the Jews return from Babylon Dan. 9.2 and took his rise for pleas from thence You may have need of this food a Divine Promise is the best Cordial at a Stake or Gibbet or when a Sword is at your breast 8. When a time of straits comes wait patiently upon God Let not hope sink when reason is non-plust by storms and sees nothing but wracks Wait upon God in the way of his Judgments Isa 26.8 in his storms as well as calms God waits to be gracious and therefore we should wait to be gratified Not to wait is to be partners in that sin which brought destruction upon the Churches Enemies viz. pride It concerns God more in point of his glory to hasten deliverance in its due time than us in point of security but there is as much danger in coming too soon as too late By waiting we imitate the highest pattern who waits with patience for the Reformation of his Enemies and Christ who waits for the total Victory The longer God keeps the Church at any time under the Enemies Chains the sweeter will be his mercy to the one and the severer his Justice on the other The Israelites waited and God followed Pharaoh with Plagues as he followed them with burdens and took his time to cut off their Oppressors with most glory to himself and most comfort to them The Vision hath its appointed time Impatience will not make God break the Chains of his Resolves but Patience will bring down the blessing with great success and big with noble Births God is not out of the way of his wisdom and grace and we can never keep in our way but by patience in waiting By this we give him the honour of his wisdom by too much hastiness we check and controul him and will not let him be the Master and Conductor of his own blessings We many times get more good by waiting than we do by enjoying a mercy Such a posture keeps the Soul humble and believing whereas many times when we receive a mercy too hastily with one hand we let go faith and humility with the other Sincere Souls have the strongest and most heavenly raptures in a time of waiting Isa 40.31 They mount up with wings like Eagles 9. In times of such straits Be found only in a way of duty If our straits should ever prove as hard as the Israelites at the red Sea i. e. have something of a resemblance to their case let us follow Moses his counsel to them Exod. 14.13 Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. Let us not anticipate Gods gracious designs if we will have our finger where God only will have his arm God may withdraw this arm and leave us to the weakness of our own fingers Let them that want a God to relieve them use sinful and unworthy shifts for their deliverance If any success be found out of the way of duty it may be attended with a curse and want that favour of God which only can Sanctify it We may purchase a present deliverance with a more durable plague at the end of it because we forfeit that favour which only can work a real freedom Sinful ways do not glorify God but disparage him our actions at such a time particularly should adorn the gospel not discredit it for it is by the Sword of his mouth that such enemies will be destroyed and every Sword cuts best when it is sharpest and cleanest not when it is blunt and rusty Not but that lawful means may nay they must be used Noah though he went into the ark by Gods command and was not to stir out without his order yet he sets open the windows and sends forth a Raven and a Dove to bring him notice when the waters were dryed up 'T is a foolish thing to offend God who only can help us in our straits and by our sin to hold his Sword in his sheath which upon our obedience would be drawn for our relief We know not how soon we may need him and our distress be such that none but he can bring Salvation let no sin be a bar in the way 10. Be much in prayer Israel cryed unto the Lord before God did relieve Exod. 14.10 The persecuted Church cryed travelling in birth and found a security both for her self and her off-spring Rev. 12.2 c. The distress of the time is an argument to be used Psal 123.34 Have mercy upon us Lord for we are exceedingly filled with Contempt When Enemies are high and access to God free 't is an high contempt of God not to use the priviledge he allows us and 't is to trust in an arm of flesh rather than an arm of Omnipotence to think him either inexorable or unable And for encouragement consider you have Christ arm'd against his Spouses Enemies and provided with merit to make her prayers successful Our prayers may at last be turned into praises And we may say with David Psa 9.6 Oh thou enemy destructions are come to a perpetual end A DISCOURSE OF Delight in Prayer Psal 37.4 Delight thy self also in the Lord and he shall give thee the desires of thy heart THis Psalm in the beginning is a heap of Instructions The great Lesson intended in it is plac'd in verse 1. Fret not thy self because of evil doers neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity 'T is resum'd verse 7 8. where many Reasons are alledged to enforce it Fret not 1.
foundation There may be joy in a title as well as in possession 3. In contemplation The consideration and serious thoughts of heaven do affect a gracious heart and fill it with pleasure tho it self be as if in a wilderness The near appproach to a desired good doth much affect the heart Moses was surely more pleased with the sight of Canaan from Pisgah than with the hopes of it in the desert A travellers delight is more raised when he is nearest his journeys end and a hungry stomach hath a greater joy when he sees the meat approaching which must satisfy the appetite As the Union with the object is nearer so the delight is stronger Now this delight the Soul hath in duty is not a delight of fruition but of desire hope or contemplation Gaudium viae not patriae 1. We may consider delight as Active or Passive 1. Active which is an act of our Souls in our approaches to God When the heart like the Sun rouzeth up itself as a Gyant to run a spiritual race 2. Passive Which is Gods dispensation in approaches to us and often met with in our chearful addresses to God Isa 64.5 Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and works righteousness When we delightfully clasp about the Throne of grace God doth often cast his arms about our necks Especially when chearful prayer is accompanyed with a chearful obedience This joy is when Christ meets us in prayer with a be of good cheer thy sins are forgiven thy request granted The active delight is the health of the Soul the passive is the good complexion of the Soul The one is mans duty the other Gods peculiar gift The one is the inseparable property of the new birth the other a separable priviledge There may be a joy in God when there is little joy from God There may be Gold in the Mine when no flowers on the surface 2. We may consider delight as setled or transient As Spiritual or Sensitive 1. A setled delight In strong and grown Christians when prayer proceeds out of a thankfulness to God a judicious knowledg and apprehension of God The nearer to God the more delight As the motion of a stone is most speedy when nearest its Center 2. A Sensitive delight As in persons troubled in mind there may be a kind of delight in prayer because there is some sense of ease in the very venting itself And in some because of the novelty of a duty they were not accustom'd to before Many prayers may be put up by persons in necessity without any Spiritual delight in them As crazy persons take more Physick than those that are healthful and observe the Spring and Fall yet they delight not in that Physick The Pharisee could pray longer and perhaps with some delight too but upon a sensual ground with a proud and a vaunting kind of chearfulness a delight in himself When the Publican had a more spiritual delight Though a humble sorrow in the consideration of his own vileness yet a delight in the consideration of Gods mercy This sensitive delight may be more sensible in a young than in a grown Christian There is a more sensible affection at the first meeting of friends though more solid after some converse As there is a love which is called the love of the espousals As it is in sorrow for sin so in this delight A young convert hath a greater torrent a grown Christian a more constant stream As at the first conversion of a sinner there is an overflowing joy among the Angels which we read not of after though without question there is a settled joy in them at the growth of a Christian An elder son may have a delight in his Fathers presence more rooted firm and rational than a younger child that clings more about him with affectionate expressions As sincerity is the Soul of all graces and duties so this delight is the lustre and embroydery of them Now this Delight in Prayer 1. 'T is an inward and hearty delight As to the subject of it it is seated in the heart A man in prayer may have a chearful countenance and a drowsy spirit The Spirit of God dwells in the heart and love and joy are the first-fruits of it Gal. 5.22 Love to duty and joy in it joy as a grace not as a meer comfort As God is hearty in offering mercy so is the Soul in petitioning for it There is a harmony between God and the heart Where there is delight there is great pains taken with the heart a gracious heart strikes it self again and again As Moses did the rock twice Those ends which God hath in giving are a Christians ends in asking Now the more of our hearts in the requests the more of Gods heart in the grants The Emphasis of mercy is Gods whole heart and whole Soul in it Jer. 22.41 So the Emphasis of duty is our whole Heart and whole Soul As without Gods chearful answering a gracious Soul would not rellish a mercy so without our hearty asking God doth not rellish our prayer 2. 'T is a delight in God who is the Object of Prayer The glory of God communion with him enjoyment of him is the great end of a believer in his Supplications That delight which is in prayer is chiefly in it as a means conducing to such an end and is but a spark of that delight which the Soul hath in the object of prayer God is the Center wherein the Soul rests and the end which the Soul aims at According to our apprehensions of God are our desires for him when we apprehend him as the chiefest good we shall desire him and delight in him as the chiefest good There must first be a delight in God before there can be a spiritual delight or a permanency in duty Job 27.10 Will he delight himself in the Almighty will he always call upon God Delight is a grace and as faith desire and love have God for their object so hath this And according to the strength of our delight in the object or end is the strength of our delight in the means of attainment When we delight in God as glorious we shall delight to honour him when we regard him as good we shall delight to pursue and enjoy him and delight in that which brings us to an intercourse with him He that rejoyces in God will rejoyce in every approach to him The joy of the Lord is our strength Neh. 8.10 The more joy in God the more strength to come to him The want of this is the reason of our Snail-like motion to him Men have no sweet thoughts of God and therefore no mind to converse with him We cannot judg our delight in prayer to be right if we have not a delight in God for natural men may have a delight in prayer when they have corrupt and selfish ends they may have a delight in a duty as it is a means according to their apprehensions to gain
Sanctuary Or do we delight in it not when our Tongues are most quick but our hearts most warm not because we have the best words but the most spiritualiz'd affections We may have Angels gifts in prayer without an Angels spirit 2. Is there a delight in all parts of a duty Not only in asking temporal blessings or some spiritual as pardoning mercy but in begging for refining grace Are we earnest only when we have bosom quarrels and conscience-convulsions but flag when we come to pray for sanctifying mercy The rise of this is a displicency with the trouble and danger not with the sin and cause 3. Doth our delight in prayer and spiritual things out do our delight in outward things The Psalmists joy in God was more than his delight in the Harvest or Vintage Psal 7.4 Are we like Ravens that delight to hover in the Air sometimes but our greatest delight is to feed upon Carrion Though we have and may have a sensible delight in worldly things yet is it as solid and rational as that we have in duty 4. Is our delight in Prayer an humble delight Is it a rejoycing with humbling Psal 2.11 Serve the Lord with gladness and rejoyce before him with trembling If our service be right it will be chearful and if truly chearful it will be humble 5. Is our delight in Prayer accompanied with a delight in waiting Do we like Merchants not only delight in the first lanching of a Ship or the setting it out of the Haven with a full fraught but also in expectations of a rich return of spiritual mercies Do we delight to pray though God for the present doth not delight to give and wait like David with an owning God's Wisdom in delaying Psal 130.6 Or do we shoot them only as Arrows at random and never look after them where they light or where to find them 6. Is our delight in praising God when mercy comes answerable to the delight in praying when a wanted mercy was begged The ten Lepers desired mercy with an equal chearfulness in hopes of having their Leprosie cured but his delight that returned only was genuine As he prayed with a loud voice so he praised with a loud voice Luke 17.13 15. And Christ tells him his faith had made him whole As he had an answer in a way of grace so he had before a gracious delight in his asking the others had a natural delight and so a return in a way of common providence 3 Use Of Exhortation Let us delight in Prayer God loves a chearful giver in Alms and a chearful petitioner in Prayer God would have his children free with him He takes special notice of a spiritual frame Jer. 30.21 Who hath engaged his heart The more delight we have in God the more delight he will have in us He takes no pleasure in a lumpish Service 'T is an uncomely sight to see a joyful Sinner and a dumpish Petitioner Why should we not exercise as much joy in holy duties as formerly we did in sinful practices How delightfully will men sit at their games and spend their days in gluttony and luxury And shall not a Christian find much more delight in applying himself to God We should delight that we can and have hearts to ask such gifts that thousands in the world never dream of begging To be dull is a discontentedness with our own Petitions Delight in prayer is the way to gain assurance To seek God and treat him as our chiefest good endears the Soul to him Delighting in Accesses to him will enflame our love And there is no greater sign of an interest in him than a prevalent estimation of him God casts off none that affectionately clasp about his Throne To this purpose 1. Pray for quickening grace How often do we find David upon his knees for it God only gives this grace and God only stirs this grace 2. Meditate on the Promises you intend to plead Unbelief is the great root of all dumpishness It was by the belief of the Word we had life at first and by an exercise of that belief we gain liveliness What maintains our love will maintain our delight the amiableness of God and the excellency of the Promises are the incentives and fuel both of the one and of the other Think that they are eternal things you are to pray for and that you have as much invitation to beg them and as good a promise to attain them as David Paul or any other ever had How would this awaken our drowzy Souls and elevate our heavy hearts and open the lazy eye-lids to look up And whatever meditation we find begin to kindle our Souls let us follow it on that the spark may not go out 3. Chuse the time when your hearts are most revived Observe when God sends an invitation and hoist up the sails when the wind begins to blow There is no Christian but hath one time or another a greater activeness of spirit Chuse none of those seasons which may quench the heat and dull the spriteliness of your affections Resolve before hand this To delight your selves in the Lord and thereby you shall gain the desire of your hearts A DISCOURSE OF Mourning for other Mens Sins Ezekiel 9.4 And the Lord said unto him Go thorow the midst of the City thorow the midst of Jerusalem and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the Abominations that be done in the midst thereof WHen God in the former Chapter had charged the Jews with their Idolatry and the multiplicity of abominations committed in his Temple And v. 18. had past a resolve that he would not spare them but deal in fury with them though they should solicit him with the strongest and most importunate supplications In this Chapter he calls and commissions the Executioners of his just Decree Ver. 1. He cryed also in mine ears with a loud voice saying Cause them that have charge over the City to draw near even every man with his destroying weapon in his hand And declares whom and in what manner he would punish and whom he would pardon The Executioners of God's vengeance are the Chaldeans described by the situation of them from Judea and the direct Road from that Country to Jerusalem v. 2. Six men came from the way of the higher gate which lies towards the North. Babylon lay North-East from Jerusalem and this gate was the way of entrance for Travellers from those parts it led also into the Court of the Priests which shews from whence the Judgment should come and upon whom it should light Six men A certain number Whether the Holy Ghost alludes to a particular number of Nations which the Chaldean Army might be composed of under their Prince who reign'd over several Countries or respects the other chief Captains or Marshals of his Army which are nam'd Jer. 39.3 or speaks with reference to the other places wherein the City was assaulted by
that Army as some think is uncertain And every man a slaughter-weapon in his hand A Hammer of destruction an Instrument of death the word seems to signifie a weapon much like a Pole-ax And one of them clothed with Linnen with a Writers Ink-horn by his side Christ say the Ancients and so they understood it before and in Hierom's time who appears here in his Priestly habit a Linnen garment being the Vestment of the Priests Levit. 16.4 White is an Emblem of Peace Christ seals his People with his Spirit the Spirit of Peace Calvin rejects not this Interpretation but rather understands it of an Angel whom God commissioned to secure his People in this destroying Judgment And indeed Angels have often appear'd in the form of men and clothed with Linnen as to Daniel Dan. 10.5 Dan. 12.6 7. Christ's Royal Power is founded upon his Priestly Office which is the ground of all the spiritual and temporal salvation Believers have from God Ink-horn The word is so translated Though the word say some signifies a Table such as they then used to write upon with a Pen of Iron Or rather it signifies a case to put those Pens in wherewith they wrote And they went and stood beside the brazen Altar 'T is uncertain whether this respects the original cause of their punishment viz. Their offering Sacrifices to their Idols upon that Altar which was consecrated to the Service of God Or else respects the Sacrifices of vengeance those were instrumentally to offer to God's Justice The Judicial punishment of God's Enemies is called a Sacrifice in Scripture Isa 34.6 A Sacrifice in Bozrah Jer. 46.10 God's Day of Vengeance is called God's Sacrifice in the North Country Observe 1. With what a small number if God please can he destroy a city or nation But six mentioned Almightiness needs not great numbers to effect his will no not a man since he can do it by his immediate hand and command judgment in a trice 2. How quick are Gods creatures to obey his call for the punishment of a rebellious people He calls those six men and they presently appear ready to execute Gods pleasure 3. God doth not bring judgments on a people till their wickedness hath overgrown the goodness of his own Children Six to destroy But one to preserve a Sixfold work of Judgment to one of preservation intimating that there were six bad to one good in the City 4. The security of Gods people in this world as well as that to come depends upon the priestly office of Christ v. 3. And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the Cherub whereupon he was to the threshold of the house The glory of God which was in the Propitiatory above the Cherubims went from one Cherub to another till it came to the threshold as birds that are leaving their nests leap from one branch to another till they fly quite away Observe 1. God is not fixed to any one place He hath his temple among his people discovers himself in his Ordinances but upon provocations departs The glory of God and his Ordinances are not entayled upon any nation longer than they walk worthy of them 2. The glory of Gods Ordinances is obscured among a people before judgments come upon them The glory of God went up from the Cherub I will take away the hedge of my vineyard and it shall be eaten up and break down the wall thereof and it shall be troden down Isa 5.5 The Ordinances of God are understood by some interpreters to be the hedge and wall of a People when God takes away the Hedge the breach is made wide for every wild beast to enter and tread it down The presence of God in his Ordinances the presence of God in his providences is the hedge of a people The Temple is forsaken by God and then polluted in judgment by men v. 7. God then comes to the man clothed with linnen that had the Writers inkhorn by his side said unto him Go thorow the midst of Jerusalem and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof v. 4. And v. 5. He commands the executioners of his wrath to go after him smite without any pity both small and great beginning at his Sanctuary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Interpreters trouble themselves much what this mark should be and tell us from Origen that a believing Jew told him the ancient Samaritan letter called Tau was written like a cross But that is a fancy the ancient Samaritan letter being the same with the Phaenician was not writ in that form Vossius de Arte Grammar l. 1. c. Some say it was the law because the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying the law begins with that letter to shew that such were to be marked that were devoted to the observance of the law Markt they were saith Calvin with a Tau because that being the last letter in the Alphabet shews that the people of God are of the lowest account among men and the off-scouring of the world ת being the first letter of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vives noted the preservation of them On the foreheads * Grotius Alluding to the custom of the Eastern countries to mark their Servants on the foreheads with the names of their masters * Oecolampad Not on their visible foreheads but on their invisible consciences the conscience is the forehead of the Soul As eminent in the heart as a forehead in the body The bloud of Christ upon the conscience is the best mark of distinction as the blood of the paschal Lamb upon the posts was the mark whereby the Israelites were discerned from the Aegyptians and the edge of the Angels destroying sword diverted from them It was a mark of a special providence of God The destroying Judgments were to follow the Sealing Angel and not touch those that were markt by him on the forehead Observe 1. All judgments have their commissions from God whom to touch whom to overthrow God doth not strike at random The man in the linnen garment was to bridle the Chaldeans direct their Swords to the right objects God overpowers the natural inclinations of all his creatures whom he appoints executioners God hath a hook in the nostrils of Leviathan nothing can be done without the leave of providence man forms the weapons God gives the edge and directs the stroak 2. In the highest fury and vengeance God hath reserves of mercy for his own people Angels are appointed to be preservers of his children in the midst of the destroying of a people Invisible Angels are joyned with visible enemies to conduct and govern their motions according to the Command of their great General God's Judgments are dispensed with greater kindness to his People than desires to take vengeance upon his Enemies He hath a heart of Mercy as well as a hand of Justice
wisheth his head were a full springing Fountain to weep for the slain of the Daughter of his People for the sin the cause as well as the calamity the effect Jer. 9.1 He wishes his head to be filled with the vapours from his heart and become a fountain What a transport of sorrow had Ezra when he heard of the peoples sins and the mingling the holy Seed with that of Idolaters A horror run thorow his whole Soul His astonishment is twice repeated Ezra 9.3 4. Every faculty was alarumed at the sin of the People 'T is probable John Baptist used himself to those severities which are mentioned Matth. 3.4 because of the sinfulness of that generation among whom he lived Paul discovers it to be a duty when he reproves the Corinthians for being puft up instead of mourning for that fornication which had been committed by one of their profession 1 Cor. 5.2 And when he writes of some that made the glorious Gospel subservient to their own bellies he mixes his tears with his Ink Phil. 3.18 19. I tell you weeping they are enemies to the Cross of Christ The Primitive Christians did much bewail the lapses of their fellows Celerinus among the Epistles of Cyprian acquaints Lucian of his great grief for the Apostacy of a Woman through fear of persecution which afflicted him so that in the time of Easter the time of their joy in that Age he wept night and day and was resolved that no delight should enter into his heart till through the mercy of Christ she should be recover'd to the Church And we find the Witnesses clothed in Sackcloth when they prophesied in a sinful time to shew their grief for the publick abominations Rev. 11.3 The kingdom of Satan can be no pleasure to a Christian and must therefore be a torment 2. It was our Saviours practice As he had the highest love to God so he must needs have the greatest grief for his dishonour He sighed in his spirit for the incredulity of that generation when they askt a sign after so many had been presented to their Eyes Mark 8.12 He sighed deeply in his spirit And the hardness of their hearts at another time raised his grief as well as his indignation Mark 3.5 He was sensible of the least dishonour of his Father Psal 69 9. The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell upon me I took them to heart Christ pleased not himself when his Father was injured as the Apostle descants upon it when he applies it to Christ Rom. 15.3 His Soul was more pierc'd with the wrongs done to God than the reproaches which were directed against his own person His grief was unexpressibly greater than can be in any creature because of the unimitable ardency of his love to God the nearness of his relation to him and the unspotted purity of his Soul Christ had a double relation to Man to God His compassion to men afflicted him with groans and tears at their bodily distempers his affection to his Father would make him grieve as much to see him dishonoured as his love to man made him groan to see man afflicted This grief for sin was one part of Christ's Sacrifice and Suffering for he came to make a full satisfaction to the Justice of God by enduring his wrath to the holiness of God by offering up an infinite sorrow for sin which it was impossible for a creature to do We cannot suppose that Christ should only accept the punishment but not bewail the offence which was the cause of it A Sacrifice for the sins of others without remorse for those sins had not been acceptable it had not been agreeable to the purity of his humane Nature He wept at Jerusalem's obstinacy as well as for her misery and that in the time of his triumph The loud Hosanna's could not silence his grief and stop the expressions of it Luke 19.41 It was like a shower when the Sun shined If Christ as our Head was filled with inward sorrow for mens displeasing the holiness of God 't is surely our duty as his Members to imitate the afflictions of the Head He is unworthy of the name of Christ who is not afflicted as Christ was nor can call Christ his Master who doth not imitate his graces as well as pretend to believe his Doctrine he cannot see that God who hath distinguisht him from the world dishonoured his precepts contemned but he must have his Soul overcast with a gloomy cloud 'T is our glory to value the things he esteem'd to despise the things he contemn'd to rejoyce in that wherein he was delighted and to grieve for that which was the matter of his sorrow and indignation Thus was he afflicted though he had a joy in the assurance of his Fathers favour and the assistance of his Fathers power The highest assurance of God's love in particular to us ought not to hinder the impressions of grief for the dishonour of his name Did Christ ever look upon the swinish world without melting into pity Did he bleed for the sins of the world and shall not we mourn for them 3. Angels as far as they are capable have their grief for the sins of men The Jewish Doctors often bring in the Angels weeping for sin * Grotius Luc. 15.7 Ob peccatum Hebraei Angelos flentes inducunt And one tells us that in an Ancient Mahumetan Book he finds an Answer of God to Moses Even about this Throne of mine there stand those and they are many that shed tears for the sins of men But the Scripture tells us they rejoyce at the repentance of men Luke 15.10 Their Lord is glorified by a return of a Subject The Subject advantaged by casting down his arms at the feet of his Lord. They do therefore as far as they are capable mourn for the revolts of men suo modo as Beza upon the place They can scarce rejoyce at mens repentance without having a contrary affection for mens prophaneness if they are glad at mens return because God is thereby glorified it cannot be conceived but they mourn for and are angry with their sins because God is thereby slighted Unconcernedness at the dishonour of God cannot consist with their shining knowledge and burning love They cannot behold a God so holy so glorious so worthy to be beloved without having some regret for the neglects and abuses of him by the Sons of men How can they be instruments of Gods Justice if they are without anger against the deservers of it II. 'T is an acceptable duty to God Since it is an imitating the copy of our Saviour it is acceptable to God nothing can please him more than to see his Creatutes tread in the steps of his Son 1. 'T is a fulfilling the whole law which consists of love to God and love to our neighbours 't is set down as a Character of Charity both as it respects God and man Not to rejoyce in iniquity 1 Cor. 13.5 i. e. to be
God A Son is as much a Son under the Rod as in the Bosom neither the Fathers stroke nor the Childs grief dissolve that dear relation Nay a Father may shew more of a true paternal affection in his Chastisements than in his Caresses The Branches which are battered with Sticks may be nearer the Root than those that flourish at their ease Christ while a Man of sorrows was pronounced by God his well beloved Son and bore our punishment not only without forfeiting his Fathers affection but with a high gratification of him Neither doth God's visiting the seed of Christ with stripes cut off their relation to him Psal 89.32 Then will I visit their transgressions with Rods. Whose transgressions v. 30 His Children Whose Children Even the Children of him whom he would make the first born higher than the Kings of the Earth v. 27. Which cannot be understood literally of David or his Lineal Posterity in the Jewish Kingdom who were never higher than the Kings of the Earth 2. They debar not from the presence of God God may be and is as near to us in supporting as he is in punishing 'T is not the cloud that interposeth between the Sun and us that alters the Suns course or obstructs its influences Christ took not off the badges of Original Guilt from those disciples which had the greatest interest in his affections he left them in a sinful world to endure the fruits of sin he sent them not to ease pleasure and a quiet and painless life but to labour toyl and sweat yet promised that he would abide with them that he and his Father would manifest themselves to them And he turned that sweat and pain which was the fruit of sin by his presence with them to be instrumental for the glory of God and the good of themselves in the world 3. They break not the Covenant His Rod and his Stripes tho they seem to break our Backs make no breaches in his Covenant Psalm 89.32 33 34. he will visit transgression with Rods but he will not suffer his faithfulness to fail nor break his Covenant No they are rather covenant mercies when they break our Hearts and are means by his Grace to make our Stony Hearts more Fleshy He makes even those dispensations which were pronounced for punishment to bring forth covenant mercies and the rich fruits of his grace to grow upon the sour crab-stock of his judgments Jacob in Gen. 49. is said to bless his Children tho he predicts smart afflictions to come upon them they are rankt among the blessings because the covenant should remain firm The lash removes not the inheritance Austin saith well Noli attendere quam poenam habes in flagello sed quem locum in Testamento 6. Add to all this That the first promise secures a believer under the sufferings of those punishments Gods affection in the promise of bruising the Serpents head was more illustrious than his wrath in the threatning There are the Bowels of a Father in the promise before there was the voice of a Judge in the Sentence God brought Sugar with his Potion and administred his Cordial before he struck with his Lance. And therefore that threatning which commenc'd after the promise can no more prejudice the fruits of the promise to a Believer than the Law which was given 430 years after the promise to Abraham could disannul that and make it of no effect as the Apostle argues in another case Gal. 3.17 Much less can the threatning denounced immediately after the promise change the veracity of God in that which was fresh in his mind at the very time of his threatning Ob. But it may be askt What is the reason these punishments are continued since the redemption wrought by Christ Ans 'T is frequent with God to inflict a temporal punishment after pardon Not as the Papists assert in order to satisfaction Moses his unbelief hindred him from coming unto Canaan so that when he desired to go over Jordan God was wroth with him cut him off short and commands him silence Deut 3.25 26. Speak to me no more of this matter There are reasons 1. On Gods part 2. On our part 1. On Gods part 1. 'T is congruous to the wisdom of God to leave them upon us while we are in the World Since God created man to gain glory by his actions but was presently after his creation disgrac'd and disparag'd by him it seems agreeable to the wisdom of God not immediately to bring him to his former state but to leave some marks of his displeasure upon Man to mind him of the state whence he was fallen the misery he contracted and the necessity of flying to his mercy for succour 2. 'T is congruous to the holiness of God God keeps up those punishments as the Rector and Governour of the World to shew his detestation of that sin which brought a disorder and deformity upon the Creation and was the first act of dishonour to God and the first pollution of the Creature 'T is an high vindication of the Holiness and Authority of God and the Majesty and Purity of his Law to punish sin in them that are dear to him upon anothers righteousness whereby he evidenceth that he hates sin in all and will not wink at it or approve of it So he pardoned David but for the honour of his name which had been blasphemed by occasion of David's sin he would leave the smart of it upon his Family 2 Sam. 12.10 14. 3. 'T is a declaration of his Justice 'T is not congruous to the Justice of God not to leave some marks of his anger against that sin which caused him to be at the expence of his Sons Blood and is the source of all those evils whereby God is injur'd for which the Redeemer bled and by which the Spirit is grieved Since Pardon doth not neither can alter the demerit of sin but that will continue and what is once meritoriously a capital crime in its own nature can never be otherwise God may for the demonstration of his justice inflict and continue something upon the creature though he free him from actual condemnation We should not be so sensible of the justice of God in the death of Christ did we not feel some strokes of it upon our selves nor what the purchase of our redemption did cost our Saviour What we hear doth not so much affect as what we feel That which brought disorder into Gods Government of the world and made him change the Scene of his Providence may very justly have some signal remark upon it notwithstanding the Redemption especially when the fruits of it are not fully compleat For since Man was the immediate end of the creation of this lower world and since all Creatures were made for the service of Man that he might be fit for the service of his righteous Creator he did by his fall violate the order of the Creation and subjected it to the service
of the Devil a corrupt Creature and an enemy to God the chief Lord of the World and so did deprave the order of the universe and endeavoured to frustrate the end of God and the end of all the Creatures 'T is very rational to think that tho God out of his infinite compassion would not lose his creature yet that he should set such a badge upon him that should make him sensible of a depravation he had wrought in the world 4. 'T is useful to magnify his love We should not be sensible of what our Saviour suffered nor how transcendently he lov'd us if the punishment of sin had been presently removed upon the first promise Nay how then could he have died in the fulness of time which was necessary to the demonstration of Gods love satisfaction of his justice and the security of the Creatures happiness God adds the threatning to the promise as a dark colour to set off and beautify the brighter As Christ suffered that he might have compassion on us so are we punished that we might have an estimation of him When Paul cries out of the body of death so when we cry out of the punishment of sin it should raise our thankfulness for redeeming love I thank God through Jesus Christ Rom. 7.24 25. We never know the worth of mercy till we feel the weight of misery The sharper the pains of sin the higher are our valuations of redeeming mercy In Isa 4.2 In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious In what day After great punishments v. 1. and in the foregoing chapter He appears most beautiful to us when we are under the lash for sin As sin continues in us that the justifying grace of Christs righteousness might more appear to us so punishment continues on us that redeeming love might be more prized by us 2. On our parts 'T is useful to us 1. To make us abhor our first defection and sin 'T was great and is not duly considered by us * Kellet Miscel This sin of Adam is the worst that ever was committed in the world Extensively though not Intensively worse than the sin of Judas or the sin against the holy Ghost In respect that those are but the effects of it and branches of that corrupt root Also because those sins hurt only the persons sinning but this drew down destruction upon the whole world and drove thousands into everlasting Fire and Brimstone 'T is not fit that this which was the murder of all Mankind the disorder of the Creation the disturbing of God's rest in the works of his Hands should be past over without a scar left upon us to make us sensible of the greatness of the evil Though the wounds be great upon our Souls yet they do not so much affect us as those strokes upon our Bodies This certainly was one main end of God in this to what purpose else did he after the promise of restauration and giving our first parents the comfort of hearing the head of their great seducer threatned to be bruised by the Seed of the Woman order this punishment but to put them in mind of the cause of it and stir up a standing abhorrency of it in all ages of the world Had not this been his intent he would never have usher'd it in by a promise but ipso facto have showered down a destroying judgment upon the world as he did upon Sodom without any comfortable word preceding God inflicts those punishments both to shew his own and excite our detestation of this sin He binds us in those fetters to shew us our work and our transgression wherein we have exceeded Job 36.8 9. 2. To make us fear to sin and to purge it out Sin hath riveted it self so deep that easy Medicines will not displace it It hath so much of our affections that gentle means will not divorce us from it We shall hate it most when we reap the punishment of it Punishment is inflicted as a guard to the law and the security of righteousness from the corrupt inclinations of the Creature So it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plato calls punishment As death is continued for the destruction of sin in the Body so are the lesser punishments continued for the restraint of sin in our lives We need further conversions closer applications of our selves to God more quick walks to him and fixedness with him Gods smitings are to quicken our turnings As it was the fruit of Jacobs trouble to take away sin Isa 27.9 So it is a great end of God in those common punishments of mankind to weaken corruption in a believer by them Therefore when we have any more remarkable sense of those punishments let us see what wounds our sin gets thereby How our hatred of it is encreased If we find such gracious effects we shall have more reason to bless God for it than complain of it Oh happy troubles when they repair not ruine us when they pinch us and cure us like Thunder which though it trouble the Air disperses the infectious vapours mixed with it or the Tide which though turning the stream of the River against its natural course carries away much of the filth with it at its departure 3. To exercise Grace Punishments of themselves have no power to set any grace on work but rather excite our corruptions but the grace of God accompanying them makes them beneficial for such an end God hath to a believer altered the commission of such punishments they are to exercise our Faith improve our patience draw us nearer in acts of recumbency but he hath given them no order to impair our grace waste our faith or deaden our hopes 1. Faith and Trust 1. Tim. 5.5 She that is desolate trusts in God The lower the state the greater necessity and greater obligation to trust such exercises manifest that the condition we are in is sanctified to us As sin is suffered to dwell in a regenerate Man to occasion the exercise of Faith so is the punishment of sin continued for the same end The continuance of it is a mighty ground of our confidence in God We experiment the righteousness of God in his threatning and it is an evidence he will be the same in his promise When we bear the marks of his punitive justice it is an evidence that he will keep up the credit of his mercy in the promise as well as of his justice in the punishment both being pronounced at the same time the good of the one is as sure by God's grace to our faith as the smart of the other is by our desert to that sin The continuance therefore of those punishments may be used by a Believer as a means to fix a stronger confidence in God for if he were not true to the one we might suspect his truth in the other If God should be careless of maintaining the honour of his truth in his threatnings we should have
doth not commit sin nor cannot sin He commits it not Potiùs patitur quà m facit he gives not a full consent to it he hates it while he cannot escape it He is not such a committer of it as to be the servant of sin John 8.34 He that commits sin is the servant of sin because he serves with his mind the Law of God He bestows not all his thoughts and labour upon sin in making provision for the flesh Rom. 13.14 in being a Caterer for sin He yields not up his Members as Instruments of unrighteousness unto sin he doth not let sin reign in his mortal body nor yield a voluntary obedience to it in the lusts thereof Rom. 6.12 13. for being God's Son he cannot be sins Servant he cannot sin in such a manner and so absolutely as one of the Devil's Children one born of the Devil His Seed remains in him His refers to God or the person born of God God's Seed efficiently man's Seed subjectively Born of God Twice repeated In the first is chiefly intended the declaration of the State in the second the disposition or likeness to God Observe 1. The Description of a Christian Born of God 2. The Priviledge of this Birth or Effects of it 1. Inactivity to sin He doth not commit it 2. Inability to sin He cannot 3. The ground and reasons of those Priviledges 1. The inward Form or Principle whereby he is regenerate which makes him unactive 2. The Efficient Cause which makes him unable Born of God or likeness to God makes him unable 4. The latitude of them in regard of the Subject Whosoever every regenerate man I intend not to run thorow all the parts of this Text having only chose it as a bar to presumption which may be occasioned by the former Doctrine upon mens false suppositions of their having grace There needs not any Doctrine from the Text but if you please take this Doct. There is a mighty difference between the sining of a regenerate and a natural man A regenerate man doth not neither can commit sin in the same manner as an unregenerate man doth That I may not be mistaken observe when I use the word May sin I understand it of a May of possibility not a May of lawfulness And when I say a regenerate man cannot sin so or so understand it of a settled habitual frame distinguish between passion and surprise a sudden effort of nature and an habitual and deliberate determination The sense of this cannot I shall lay down in several Propositions 1. It is not meant exclusively of lesser sins or sins of infirmity There are sins of daily incursion and lighter skirmishes there are some open some secret assaults a multitude of secret faults Psal 19.12 undiscernable and unknown Every good man is like Jacob though he hath one thigh sound he hath another halting I do not find that ever God intended to free any in this life from the remainders of sin What he hath not evidenc'd to have done in any we may suppose he intended not to do 'T is a total Apostacy not a partial Fall that the Covenant provides against Christ in his last prayer prays for Believers preservation and gradual sanctification not for their present perfection The very Office of Advocacy erected in Heaven supposeth sins after regeneration and during our continuance in the world 1 John 2.1 My little Children I write unto you that you sin not and if any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father In many things we offend all James 3.2 Not only you that are the inferior sort of Christians but we Apostles We is extensive All offend in many things 'T is implyed in the Lord's Prayer the daily standing Pattern As we are to pray for our daily bread so for a daily pardon and against daily temptations which supposeth our being subject to the one and our commission of the other The brightest Sun hath its spots the clearest Moon her dark parts The Church in her highest comeliness in this world hath her blackness of sin as well as of affliction because though sin be dismounted from its Throne by grace it is not expelled out of its residence It dwells in us though it doth not rule over us Rom. 7.20 And it cannot but manifest it self by its fruits while it remains Yet those sins do not destroy our Adoption Christ in his Sermon on the Mount to his Disciples supposeth the inherency of sin with the continuance of the relation of Children Matth. 7.11 If then you being evil know how to give good gifts to your Children how much more shall your Father which is in Heaven give good things to them that ask him He doth acknowledge them evil while he calls God their Father and gives them the title of Children To sin is to decline from that rectitude in an act which the Agent ought to observe In this respect we sin according to the tenour of the Law in every thing we do though not according to the tenour of the Gospel 2. A regenerate man cannot live in the customary practice of any known sin either of omission or commission 1. Not in a constant omission of known duties If a good man falls into a gross sin he doth not totally omit the performance of common duties to God Not that this attendance on God in his Ordinances doth of it self argue a man to be a good man for many that walk in a constant course of sin may from natural Conscience and Education be as constant in the performing external services as he is 'T is a proper note of an Hypocrite that he will not always delight himself in the Almighty nor always call upon God Job 27.10 i. e. not customarily Whence it follows that a delight in God in duties of Worship is a property of a regenerate man An act of sin may impair his liveliness in them but not cause him wholly to omit them We need not question but David in the time of his impenitency did go to the Tabernacle attend upon the Worship of God 'T is not likely that for ten months together he should wholly omit it though no doubt but he was dead-hearted in it which is intimated when he desires a free spirit Ps 51. prayes for quickening Psa 143.11 one of his Penitential Psalms A total neglect of Ordinances and Duties is a shrewd sign of a total Apostacy and that grace was never in such a mans heart especially a total omission of prayer this is an high contempt of God denying him to be the Author of our mercies depriving him of the prerogative of governing the world disowning any need of him any sufficiency in him declaring we can be our own Gods and subsist of our selves without him and that there is no need of his blessing Grace though sunk under a sin will more or less desire its proper nourishment the Milk of the Word and other Institutions of God Nature though opprest by a disease will
punish whence follows the non-imputation of sin Not imputing their trespasses unto them The justice of God will not suffer that that sin which is pardoned should be punished for can that be justice in a prince to pardon a thief and yet to bring him to the gallows for that fact Though the malefactor doth justly deserve it yet after a pardon and the word passed it is not justly inflicted God indeed doth punish for that sin which is pardoned Though Nathan by Gods Commission had declared Davids sin pardoned yet the Sword was to stick in the bowels of his family 2 Sam. 12.10 15. The Sword shall never depart from thy house the Lord hath put away thy sin thou shalt not dye But 1. 'T is not a punishment in order to Satisfaction Because Christs Satisfaction had no flaw in it and stood in need of nothing to eek it out But 't is for the vindication of the honour of Gods holiness that he might not be thought an approver of sin and this was the reason of Davids punishment in the death of his child by Bathsheba 2 Sam. 12.14 Because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to Blaspheme 2. 'T is not so much poenal as medicinal A judg Commands a hand to be cut off that is for punishment a Physician and a Father order the same but for the Patients cure and the preservation of the body And though God after pardon acts not towards his people in the nature of a Judg yet he never lays aside the authority and affection of a Father We are delivered from a Judges wrath but not from a Fathers anger In that remarkable dumbness inflicted upon Zachary for his unbelief Luk 1.18.20 there was a confirmation of his Faith as well as the chastisement of his incredulity The Angel upon his unbelieving desire of a sign gives him a Testimony of the truth of his errand but such an one that should make him feel in some measure the smart of his unbelief 3. If it be penal 't is not the eternal punishment due to sin 'T is but temporary and not embittered by wrath which is the gall of punishment This taking off the obligation to punishment is the true nature of pardon Which will be evident from 2 Sam. 19.19 Let not my Lord impute iniquity unto me Shimei desires David not to impute iniquity and not to remember it It was not in Davids power absolutely to forget it and Shimei's confessing the fact with those circumstances in verse 20. was enough to recall it to Davids memory if he had forgot it but he desires David not to bring him to satisfy the penalty of the law for reviling his Soveraign II. The Author of Pardon God For pardon is the Soveraign prerogative of God whereby he doth acquit a believing Sinner from all obligation to Satisfactory punishment upon the account of the Satisfaction and Righteousness of Christ apprehended by Faith 1. 'T is Gods act Remission is the Creditors not the Debtors act though the Debtor be obliged in Justice to pay the debt yet there is no obligation upon the Creditor to demand the debt because it is at his liberty to renounce or maintain his right to it and God hath as much power as man to relax his right provided it be with a Salvo to his own honour and the holiness of his nature which he cannot deny for the sinners safety as the Apostle tells us God cannot deny himself Yet properly say some though sin be a debt God is not to be considered in pardon as a Creditor because sin is not a pecuniary debt but a criminal and so God is to be considered as a governor law-giver guardian and executor of his laws and so may dispence with the severities of them If an inferior person tear an indictment it may be brought again into Court but if the chief Magistrate order the casting it out who can plead it 'T is Gods act and if God justifies who can condemn Rom. 8.33 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect It is God that justifies who shall condemn That God absolves thee that hath power to condemn thee that God who enacted the law whereby thou art sentenced proclaims the Gospel whereby thou art reconcil'd 'T is an offended God who is a foregiving God that God whose name thou hast prophaned whose patience thou hast abused whose laws thou hast violated whose mercy thou hast slighted whose justice thou hast dared and whose glory thou hast stained 2. 'T is not only his act but his prerogative and he only can do it God is the party wronged Nemo potest remittere de jure alieno This prerogative he glories in as peculiar to himself the thoughts of this honour are so sweet to him that he repeats it twice as a title he will not share with another Isa 43.25 I even I am he that blots out thy transgressions Pardoning offenders is one of a Princes royalties And this is reckoned among his Regalia as a choice flower and jewel in his Crown Exod. 34.7 for giving iniquity transgressions and Sins A Prince punisheth by his ministers but pardons by himself And indeed God is never so glorious as in acts of mercy Justice makes him terrible but mercy renders him amiable When Moses desired to see God in his royalty and best perfections he displays himself in his goodness Exod. 33.18 Shew me thy glory v. 19. I will make all my goodness pass before thee I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious And though the Apostles had a power of Remission and binding that was only ministerial and declarative like that prophetical power which Jeremy had to root up nations and destroy Jerm 1.10 i. e. to declare Gods will in such and such Judgments as he should send him to pronounce Men cannot pardon an infinite wrong done to an infinite justice Forgiveness belongs to God as 1. Proprietor He hath a greater right to us than we have to our selves 2 Soveraign He is Lord over us as we are his creatures 3. Governour of us as we are parts of the world 3. 'T is an act of his mercy Not our merit Though there be a conditional connexion between pardon and repentance and Faith yet there is no meritorious connexion ariseth from the Nature of those graces but remission flows from the gracious indulgence of the promise 'T is the very tenderness of mercy the meltings of inward bowels Luke 1.78 To give knowledg of Salvation and Remission of their sins through the tender mercies of our God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an inexhaustible mercy Psal 86.5 Thou Lord art ready to forgive and art plenteous in mercy A multitude of tender mercies Psal 51.1 What Arithmetick can count all the bublings up of mercy in the breast of God and all the glances and all the doles of his pardoning grace towards his creatures And he keeps this mercy by him as in a treasury to
time and the sins thou hast committed twenty years ago are as fresh as if thou hadst acted them all since thy coming into the congregation Josephs brethren Gen. 37.24 laboured to wipe out the thoughts of their late cruelty by their eating and drinking when the cries and tears of their brother were fresh in their memory and might have dampt their jollity His affliction troubled them not his relation to them his youth and their Fathers Love to him could not make them relent but twenty two years after conscience began to fly in their faces when awakened by a powerful affliction Gen. 42 21. Is not thy conscience oftentimes a remembrancer to thee of thy old forgotten sins and doth it not turn over the old records thou hadst quite forgot 7. Hopes of Gods mercy are no grounds of thy being pardoned Gods mercy is not barely enough for then Christ needed not have dyed for sin Nor Christs death enough without the condition of that covenant whereby God will make over the interest and merits of his death to thee Gods mercy must be considered but in Gods own way God is merciful but his Mercy must not abolish his Truth Doth not a Judges mercy consist with condemning a malefactor God hath been merciful to thee and thou would'st not accept of it thou wouldst not hear mercy speak in a day of grace why then should not justice speak in a day of vengeance Thou would'st not hear a God of mercy when he cryed to thee how then should mercy hear thee when thou comest to begg 2. Some false grounds why those that are pardoned think themselves not pardoned 1. Great afflictions are not signs of an unpardoned state Moses had sinned by unbelief Aaron by making a golden calf God pardoned their sin but took vegeance on their inventions Psal 99.8 Thou wast a God that forgavest them though thou tookest vengeance Nathan in his message to David brings at once both pardon and punishment The sin is removed but the sword must still stick in the bowels of his family 2 Sam. 12 13 14. The Lord hath put away thy sin thou shalt not dye Howbeit because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to Blaspheme the child also that is born unto thee shall surely dye God may afflict temporally when he resolves not to punish eternally What! because he will not condemn thee as a Judg will he not chastize thee as a Father We may well bear a scourge in one hand when we have a pardon sealed in the other God pardons thy sin but there is need of affliction to subdue that stout stubborn heart of thine Psal 89.32 33. God doth visit with rods when he is resolved not utterly to take away his loving kindness from a people 2. Terrors of Conscience are no sign of an unpardoned state We find a pardoned David having broken bones and a rackt Conscience after Nathan had pronounced his pardon when there was no remorse before Psal 51. He had the grant of a pardon but the comfort of a pardon was wanting God may scorch thy Soul when he gives a pardon not that justice is thereby Satisfied but sin more embittered to thee By a pardon thou dost rellish his mercy and by the torments thou mayest have in thy Soul thou wilt understand his Justice He shews thee what he freely gives but he would have thee know what thou hast fully deserved he gives thee pardon but Gall and Wormwood with it that thou mayest know what the purchase of it did cost thy Saviour The Physick which heals causeth pain That Physick which doth not make thee sick is not like to bring thee health God pardons thee that thou mayest be saved he terrifies thee withal that thou mayest not be induced by temptations to sin 3. Sense of sin is no argument of an unpardoned state A pardon may be granted when the poor condemned man expects to be haled out to Execution Mary stands weeping behind her Saviour when Christ was declaring her pardon to Simon That much was forgiven her and afterwards Christ turns to her and cheers her with the news of it Luke 7.44 45 46 47. He pronounceth her pardon v. 48. and the comfort of it v. 50. Thy Faith hath saved thee go in peace The Heavens may drop when now and then the Sun may steal a Beam thorow the Clouds There may be a pardon where there are not always the sensible effects of a pardon We find after the stilling of a Storm the ragings and roulings of the Sea A penitents wound may ake afresh when a Saviours blood drops in mercy 4. The Remainders of sin are not a sign of an unpardoned state Though a Disease be mastered by Physick there may be some grudgings of it in a person Though sin be pardoned yet the dregs of sin will be remaining and sometimes stirring Christ hath enliven'd us not by wholly destroying but pardoning sin Pardon takes away the guilt of sin grace takes away the power of sin but neither pardon nor infusion of grace takes away the nature and all motions of sin for in purging out an humour some dregs still remain behind Col. 2.13 And you hath he quickened together with him having forgiven you all trespasses 3. What are the true signs of a pardoned man 1. Sincerity in our walk A Spirit without guile is made the Character of a pardoned man in the Text There may be failings in the life yet no guile in the heart such a man is a pardoned man A heart that hath no mixtures no pretences or excuses for sin no private reserves from God A heart that as the needle in a Compass stands right for the Interest glory of God answers to the profession as an Eccho to the voice A heart that would thrust out any sin that harboured there would not have an Atom of any filth odious to the Eye of God lurk there Where this sincerity is a willingness and readiness to obey God which is the condition of the Covenant the substance of the Covenant is kept though some particular Articles of it may be broken Grace the pardoning grace of God is with them that love Christ in sincerity Eph. 6. ult Grace be with all them that love Christ Jesus in sincerity Not a man excluded that is sincere though he hath not so sparkling a flame as another yet if he be sincere the Crown of pardoning grace and that of consummating grace shall be set upon his head 2. Mourning for sin A tender heart is a sign of a pardoned state when sin discontents thee because it displeaseth God What showers of tears did Mary Magdalen weep after a pardon Love to God like a gentle fire sets the Soul a melting Tears that come from love are never without pardoning mercy God's bowels do first stir our mournings 'T is impossible a gracious heart can read a pardon with dry Eyes 't is the least it thinks it can do as it