HABAKKVKS PRAYER Applyed to the Churches present occasions on Hab. 3. 2. AND CHRISTS COUNSEL To the Church of Philadelphia on Rev. 3. 11. Preached before the Provincial Assembly of London By that late Reverend and faithful Minister of Jesus Christ Mr. SAMUEL BALMFORD Pastor of Albons Woodstreet Jer. 30. 7. Alas for that day is great so that none is like it It is even the time of Jacobs trouble But he shall be saved out of it London Printed by E. M. for Adoniram Byfield at the three Bibles in Corn-hil neer Popeshead-Alley 1659. Judicious READER FOr such the works of this holy man of God Mr. Samuel Balmford now with the Lord require and deserve Here is represented to thee a Forlorn-hope or two Scouts being a small parcel of those many excellent pieces intended for the presse sent before ad vada tentanda not as if these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were of higher stature in worth then others their fellows and therefore fitter for it Among all Superlatives Comparisons are excluded Pharez and Zara strove with equal strength for precedency of birth but this piece to satisfie the importunity of friends hath broken forth first The Author was a person of eminent Orthodoxy of Word and Life by both which as a burning and shining light he was an exact and powerful Teacher the observant eye of impartial conversers with him finding the Transcript of his Sermons in his life his actions being living walking Sermons He was a man of a meek and modest spirit cloathed with humility lowly in heart but high and eminent for gifts and graces in the esteem when living and honoring remembrance now dead of those that are best able to judge of real worth An excellent husbander of time a painfull Student of great diligence and faithfulnesse in all Trusts and Relations of much Candor affability communicativeness and condescention in matters capable of it but immoveable where sence of duty obliged him Not forward to speak and therefore his words were more savoury by lying long in the falt of a deliberate minde and administring more grace to the hearers A man of a publick spirit pitying souls mourning for the sins of others and deeply laying to heart the afflictions of the people of God abroad and their dissentions at home as these ensuing Sermons do abundantly testifie For his labours in the Ministry he was one would not do the work of the Lord negligently nor offer unto God what cost him nothing or a corrupt thing when as indeed he if any had a male in the flock and was a workman that needed not be ashamed He thought the delivery of Embassies from God to man most needed and best deserved careful preparation and therefore chose rather to approve himself to his Master and the alwayes smaller number of judicious hearers by an industrious searching the Scriptures and digging to the bottome of that excellent Mine than to spare himself and please the most by taking up with the nearest uppermost and lesse precious parcels of Ore he hung not forth Alchimy lace that a little wearing by judicious meditation would have changed the colour of but of such true and pure metal as would wear brighter and brighter When some thorow injudiciousnesse and possibly prejudice the Lord give such repentance to life accounted his bodily presence as they Pauls weak and contemptible and felt not the evidence and demonstration of the spirit in his words others more judicious and candid hearers Christians and Ministers have had their souls hanging on his lips and heard him with joy and delight to their great profiting Though he well knew the distempered palate of these diseased times yet would not this fisher of men bait the ground to draw multitudes about him with curious enquiries and speculations unprofitable though pleasing notions quarum inventarum solus fructus est invenisse nor talking impertinencies without book or filling up vacuities by most insipid and nauseous tautologies He did not by strength and strain of lungs comick actions peculiar modes of carriage having more of affectation than affection in them make up defect of matter nor cloud wisdom with words without knowledge wrapping up mysterious non-sense in silken phrases nor dresse up sober truths in the meretricious garb of enticing words of mans wisdom nor yet did he prostitute the Word to the contempt of the worldly-wise or disadvantage it to better-minded more judicious hearers by flatnesse or rudenesse of stile but sought out acceptable words those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 making words still servants to matter neither going before vainly nor yet following at too great a distance negligently He did not leap into his matter without trying and showing the ground he went upon but accurately weighed the Original carefully consulted with expositors solidly stated the subject of his discourse and then excellently divided the Word of Truth by exact natural Method and faithful application to the different conditions of soules therein not venting his passions nor concealing Gods truth He was every way such as not to have known him was an unhappinesse to have indeed known him and not honoured him an impossibility Of him the world was not worthy he therefore is taken away from the evil to come These things I freely testify from the full knowledge I had of him having by him been allowed the happinesse of a free converse and intimate acquaintance with him by which I must acknowledge my selfe to have been much and often profited Thomas Parson THe Reverend and Learned Author of these ensuing Sermons very seasonable and useful for these times was a Minister of Christ endued with very good abilities a workman that needed not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth full of piety modesty humility and integrity Sound in the Faith immovable in the Truth painful in his Ministerial imployment and one who hath left a precious name behind him among stall those who throughly knew him And therefore unto the testimony given of him by my Reverend Brother I do freely chearfully and most heartily subscribe Edm. Calamy Errata Page 1. in the Text for receive r. revive for people r. years p. 2. l. 21. for open r. opine p. 5. l. 15. dele and mercy page 6. line 9. for use r. verse page 13. line 10. for Psal r. Isai p. 15. l. 4. for favor r. wrath p. 34. l. 21. for know r. known p. 41. l. 2. dele experienced and appeared p. 53. l. 4. for of r. by p. 66. l. 26. for keep r. kept p. 72. l. 11. for Christ r. Christians p. 78. l. 8. for usual r. useful p. 84. l. 9. for apprehension r. approach Habakkuks Prayer applyed to the Churches present occasions Habakkuk 3. 2. O Lord I have heard thy speech and was afraid O Lord receive thy work in the midst of thy people in the midst of the year make known in wrath remember mercy THe Prophesie of this holy Prophet is termed a Burden especially in regard of the sad and
heavy threatnings and curses which are denounced against several sorts of persons in it When it was that he saw this burden that is when he received it from the Lord in a Prophetick-Vision or when he held it forth to be seen of the people of God by a Prophetick publication is not precisely certain No doubt it was not long before the captivity of the Jews by the Chaldeans and so either in or after the raign of Manasseh but more probably a good while after it than under it yea to me it seems not improbable that it was about the beginning of Zedekiahs reign after the So Danaeus Jews had tasted somewhat of the bitterness and hastiness of the Chaldeans in carrying away Jehoiakim toward Babylon though they had not yet gone through the breadths of the Land nor compleated the captivity of the Jews as they did not many years after But let this be left indifferent to the Learned to open at pleasure The Contents of this Book are held forth mainly in three parcels according to the division of it into three Chapters In the first we finde the sad condition of the Jews their perverse disobediences and present impunity seeming burdenous to the Prophet himself the people of God at that time though much degenerated laid down partly by way of complaint made to God partly by way of menacing from God that he would in a strange manner bring them under the power of the Chaldeans And then upon the Prophets Deprecation that God would not utterly destroy his people but chastise them in measure especially since he took those whom God was about to make as the rod in his hand and the instrument of scourging to be worse then they who were to be scourged In the second Chapter after the Prophets professed standing upon his watch to hear what the Lord will answer him we finde he had an answer by way of vision tending to the comfort of Gods people but such as they were to wait for till the appointed time that the vision was to speak that is till it should be manifested effectually For all that are just and upright before God are to live by faith and that faith to shew it self in a waiting tarrying patience And that excellent Principle The just shall live by faith we may finde three times alledged in the New Testament viz. Rom. 1. 17. Gal. 3. 11. Heb. 10. 38. Now the Contents of that comfortable Vision concerned the downfall and ruine of the Chaldeans the wicked enemies of Gods people and that for their unsatiable pride and ambition and covetousness and cruelty and drunkenness and Idolatry But beloved God looks to be sought unto for the fulfilling of all his praedictions in behalf of his Church and people Therefore In this third Chapter we finde the holy Prophet framing a Prayer in the behalf of the Church and for the use of the Church doubtless in after-times And accordingly Luther notes it as a Prayer or Song for it is metrical in the Hebrew and set for Musical Instruments which hath been in quotidiano usu per omnia passim templa in daily use almost in all Churches though saith he most commonly as Nunns read the Psalter without understanding Now the Contents of this Prayer lies summarily in Petitions concerning the Church of God and in grounds of those Petitions taken chiefly from former demonstrations of Gods power and mercy and mercy toward his Church and in professed confidences and rejoycings upon those assuring grounds Therefore I shall not spend time in a punctual Analysis of it nor speak any thing of the Inscription of it in the first verse only this we may note that as it was set or composed according to variable tunes in the Hebrew called Shigionoth as our Learned Translators gloss it so may it be made use of on various occasions by Gods people And as this Prophet sealed up the Doctrine of the life of Faith in this Prayer by the exercise and demonstration of it so should we do in making any accommodation of it unto the Churches present occasions Sect. This second Use which I have taken for my present subject matter to treat of holds forth the grand request of the Prophet and which he most intended in this Prayer and that indeed which all that follows in it referrs unto either in the nature of argument that it should be granted or of consequent upon the supposed grant of it The whole verse contains 1. A preparative of â—ear in the way of address to God O Lord I have heard thy speech and was afraid 2. A Prayer of Faith and this Prayer brancheth it self into two or three Petitions 1. O Lord revive thy work in the midst of the years 2. In the midst of the years make known 3. In wrath remember mercy Petitions that are of near affinity one to the other and full of Emphasis in the expressions For the first is the chief and primary The second may be taken to be but an enforcement of the first by a Rhetorical Anadiplosis or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taking up again these terms In the midst of the years and adding only make known somewhat abruptly yet so as by an easie reference we may gather his meaning to be Make known thy reviving or revived work And the third implies the same thing only involves an Argument from the nature of God to urge the forementioned as we may hear in the Sequel Sect. Begin we with the Preparative of Fear O Lord I have head thy speech and was afraid What speech means he Not the speech or fame or report that is of thee though the Original word Sual so signifies but the speech that hath been spoken by thee And that as partly concerning the Calamities thou hast threatned to bring upon the Jews and partly concerning the destruction thou hast threatned to the Chaldeans And hearing this I was afraid What you may say afraid of the judgements of God denounced against the Chaldeans the enemies of the people of God It s even of them Ne Judaeos etiam in Babylone captivos involvat clades Chaldaeorum omnino deleat saith A Lapide Lest the Iews also should be wrapped in the same bundle of destruction with the Chaldeans being found resident among them and so be utterly ruined together with them Now touching his Fear after what manner he was affected we may gather by what was said after at verse 16. where he makes recognition of his temper before he had prayed and gathered strength and confidence upon the remembrance of Gods wonderful workings Therefore when I heard lo my belly trembled my lips quivered at the voice rottenness entred into my bones The passions he was struck into were very great and the trouble of his Spirit and the Symptomes of it upon him were very terrible though all tending to good c. Well Obs We have here to observe that The best of Gods servants are and ought to be affected with
put on incense and go quickly unto the Congregation and make an atonement for them for there is wrath gone out from the Lord the plague is begun And Aaron took as Moses commanded and ran into the midst of the Congregation and behold the plague was begun among the people and he put on incense and made an atonement for the people And he stood between the dead and the living and the plague was stayed Psal 30. 5. For his anger endureth but for a moment in his favour is life weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning and 138. 7. Though I walk in the midst of trouble thou wilt revive me thou shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies and thy right hand shall save me And therefore in the midst of the years of the afflictive sense of Gods anger there may be expectation of a mercifull reviving therefore in the midst of the cords and bonds of servitude there may be expectation of a merciful breaking of them Et ubi funis tenacissimus fuerit rumpitur Where the cord is stiffest and strongest there it is broken suddenly saith Luther when God is pleased to shew mercy Use 1 Use 1. This Point serves first to stir us upto a comfortable exercise of Faith that God would be pleased to revive his work in the midst of these years c. Why what years are they I cannot say they are years of Gods peoples servitude or captivity under the Chaldeans or Egyptians blessed be God for those freedoms and liberties which are yet left unto us But we are in the midst of years of dissentions even among brethren of divisions and distractions of hearts and wayes of wars and bloody hostilities between the professed Members of the Church of Christ of various concussions and shakings of Foundations of confusions of tongues tenents and practices of eruptions and overflowings of errors and blasphemies of contempts cast upon Gods Ministers and Ordinances and dissentions or shatterings in pieces of Church Assemblies in manifold places In a word we are in the midst of these years wherein it seems to me God hath dealt or is dealing with our Nation as he threatned to deale with Jerusalem in 2 Kin. 21. 13. when withall he threatned to make that people a prey and spoile to their enemies I will wipe Jerusalem said he as a man wipeth a dish wiping it and turning it upside down God hath been wiping us and wiping us and in an overly way of cleansing and purging us but is he not so doing it as he is turning us upside down Surely then beloved we are in the midst of those years wherein we need to pray that God would revive his work and make it known and in wrath remember mercy True it is we know not what periods God hath determined to such years as we are in we see not our signs we have not any foretelling Prophets as the Psalmist complained Psal 74. â— Wee see not our signs there is no more any Prophet neither is there among us any that knoweth how long It is not therefore with us as with the Jews Jer. 25. 12. And it shall come to passe when seventy years are accomplished that I will punish the King of Babylon and that Nation saith the Lord for their iniquity and the Land of the Chaldeans and will make it perpetuall desolations And 29. 10. For thus saith the Lord That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you and perform my good word toward you in causing you to return to this place Nor have we like grounds of duty as Daniel had Dan. 9. 2 3. In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by Books the number of the years wherof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the Prophet that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem And I set my face unto the Lord God to seek by prayer and supplications with fasting and sackcloth and ashes Yet this we may and ought to do 1. Hold to the general grounds and principles of faith 1. Believe that God hath revived his people in the midst of far sadder years than we have yet seen according to foregoing instances and others that might be given And 2. Believe and therefore the rather that God can revive his work in the most seeming difficult cases And 3. Believe that God will not forsake his own work to leave it to ruine or under imperfection and a languishing condition continually And 4. Believe that God is of such infinite mercy that in wrath he will remember it c. But I commend that of Bernard to consideration as an approved truth Deus olcum misericordiae ponit in vase fiduciae But then 2. We must not faile to do what we in this Congregation are solemnly in doing this day viz. we must ply God by prayers For we know that whatever God determines to his people though they know he hath determined it yet he requires and expects his people should seek unto him concerning it See Ezek. 36. 37. therefore did Daniel so pray c. Much more ought we in cases wherein we have no circumstantial grounds of assurance c. that we may obtain at length assurance and establishment 2. This may serve more specially to stir up to seek God for a reviving of his work of Reformation in the Church in the midst of these years of disturbance and hinderance of it For my part I take that to have been the work of God which was set afoot some years since in this Nation for a Reformation in our Doctrine Worship Government and Discipline But how hath it now and that for a good while lien still almost and how hath it been cast back How have close counter-workers undermined it and open enemies opposed it how miserably is it defaced How do some Deformations out-face it And how do scoffers mock at it like those Samaritans Nehem. 4. 2. will these few Jews revive the stones out of the the heaps of the rubbish c And we could point at the causes of all this Mainly The not countenancing and furthering of the work of Civil Authority But beloved if it be Gods work begun for his people as many of us here I presume doubt not but it is we may believe it shall be revived and perfected sooner or later against all unlikelihoods And accordingly we may pray that in the midst of the years of unlikelihood it may be revived that instead of having our Land darkned over us in the clear day and our Sun set at noon a curse denounced Amos 8. 9. light may arise unto the Church in the midst of obscurity c. Isa 58. 10. and so strength be raised in the midst of weaknesse and livelinesse spring up in the midst of dying languishings We may use that argument in respect of this work which the people of God And the work hath had but a little reviving as Ezra 9.
and will fulfill his determined work within his appointed time for them or in plenitudine temporis in the fulness of time determined yet this is a sense that falls too short of the Emphasis of the doubling of this Phrase in our Text which may seem to import more than so Yet secondly neither do I take the midst here Geometricè precisè for the midst according to a precise measure as some do For they that think he prayes that this reviving work of God might be wrought either about the middle of the years of the worlds duration presuming it shall last 6000. years or just between Samuels Prophecying and Christ his coming or suffering supposing just 490. years between that Prophet and the Captivity in Babylon and as many between the Captivity and Christ they build upon uncertainties and that in the judgement of our latest English Annotators c. What construction then may we make of this expression The meaning may be taken up as I conceive As the Psalmist prayed for himself or rather in behalf of the Church Ps 102. 23 24. with those whom I account most judicious in these two particulars 1. In the midst of the years i. e. In the middle course of thy Church or people while yet they are not grown up to a maturity or ripeness of age suffer them not to perish but hold them up in life Now that ancient people of God saith Calvin and our Genevian Annotators after him came not to their fulnesse of age till Christ and therefore should they not have been held up in a Church frame till then they had sunk as it were in the flower or middle of their age therefore he prayes thus c. 2. In the midst of years i. e. illorum calamitosorum infaelicium dierum c. of those calamitous and unhappy dayes or years when thy people shall be under the Chaldean bondage when they shall be tumbled headlong into miseries and be even overwhelmed with the waves of afflictions rushing in upon them and over them then do thou revive thy work thy work of promised grace and goodness on their behalf Etiamsi videmur destinati esse morti tamen nos restâ—tâ—e so Calvin And this I take to be the most genuine sense of this expression This midst of years being as emphatical as Davids midst of troubles Psal 138. 7. or the mountains being carried into the midst of the Seas Psal 46. 2 c. But to proceed to the last Quere Fourthly what means that abrupt speeh make known in the midst of c. what would he have made known Truly 't is very easie to gather both what and how by referring to the foregoing words viz. Make known thy reviving and revived work c. Let it be actually seen that it is thy work that such people are thine and that such works of Providence for them are thine let them and all the world about take notice of it And withall in so doing make know what a God thou art as for wisdom and truth and power and other excellencies so for mercy in wrath remembring mercy as follows in the last clause Of which excellent and comfortable sentence I shall be able to speak but briefly and that as a ground onely of that one point I shall speak unto for our instruction which I gather up out of this branch of the Use thus Obs There be good grounds for the people of God to build their faith and prayers upon that God will preserve his Church and restore it unto a comfortable condition in the midst of the greatest dangers or miseries they can fall into in this life Or thus Gods people may rely on him for reviving grace amidst their most perplexed desperate and according to man deadest condition When there is otherwise no hope of recovery they may hopefully apply themselves unto him I take the Observation in this frame bcause I finde the Prophet praying to this purpose and all warrantable prayers are grounded upon Principles of Faith and this Prayer was intended for the use of Gods people and not for the Prophet himself onely as if the Spirit of God from heaven had shewed them how God was to be sought unto And therefore we might state the Point thus That it is the duty of Gods people to pray unto him to revive his work in the midst of most unlikely years So Calvin Sect. Now that in the depth of distresses the people of God have good ground of reliance on him for reviving grace I will first shew by way of Instance and then of Reason By way of Instance to make it appear that God hath revived his work in the midst of calamitous and disastrous times besides those of the Babylonish Captivity I will mind you but of two most memorable cases Instances out of the Scriptures We are not to omit that reviving was granted for which most directly this Prayer was made In that God hath preserved life of grace in his people druing the Captivity refreshing and confirming them by his servants the Prophets as Ezekiel Daniel and others lest they should despair and utterly sink with grief and restored them c. witnesse Haggie and Zacharie following One before that Captivity viz. Gods deliverance of his people out of Egypt For in the midst of the years of their bondage there under Pharaoh while they were groaning heavily under it and felt their pressures tasks and burdens multiplyed upon them then God sent them reviving comfort by Moses and wrought their deliverance wonderfully when according to man they were out of all hope of any such thing And this is that case which this Prophet most of all commends to their Posterity in this Prayer as a ground of Faith by way of president Though there be some mixed references in it to some other writings vouchsafed them in languishing and fainting cases while they were in the Land of Canaan Among other verses see the 13 14 15 c. Another after the Babylonish Captivity viz. The redemption of his people wrought by Christ For in the midst of years of sad and mournfull condition when his people were much degenerated and corrupted though they had the second Temple standing amongst them yet much polluted in worship as well as in other sinfull courses and thereupon left destitute of Prophets for a time and deprived of the Royal dignity among them being subdued by Romans then was Christ sent into the world and when the hearts of the best were troubled with longing expextation of a Messiah Venit Christus cum morbus creverit ad summum paroxysmum Then Christ came as a great Physitian when the disease was grown to the highest and sharpest fit of it then came he to work the Patients most necessary spiritual deliverance And this is that reviving act which divers Pontificial Expositors at least make the Allegorical sense of our Text and think it most intended by the Spirit in this place But it may suffice
to take knowledge of it as an instance for proof of a reviving work of God and surely the most eminent of all other to spiritual consideration For certainly look how much their deliverance out of Babylon surpassed that out of Egypt so much and more doth this spiritual deliverance by Christ surpasse that out of Babylon Jer. 16. 14 15. and 23. 6 7 8. Therefore behold the dayes come saith the Lord that it shall no more be said The Lord liveth that brought up the Children of Israel out of the land of Egypt But The Lord liveth that brought up the Children of Israel from the Land of the North and from all the Lands whither he had driven them and I will bring them again into their Land that I gave unto their Fathers In his dayes Judah shull be saved and Israel shall dwell safely and this is his Name whereby he shall be called THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNES Therefore behold the dayes come saith the Lord that they shall no more say The Lord liveth which brought up the Children of Israel out of the Land of Egypt But The Lord liveth which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the North Countrey and from all Countreys whither I had driven them and they shall dwell in their own Land And this is intimated to be so strange and wonderfull that the former should not be remembred in comparison Isa 43. 18 19. Remember not the former things neither consider the things of old Behold I will do a new thing now it shall spring forth shall ye not know it I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert And this is the Grandmother and ground-work of such special deliverances of the people of God in sundry quarters since experienced as appeared and of which it might be said as of the threatned punishment of his people before Chap. 1. 5. Behold ye and regard and wonder marvellously for God worketh such a work in your dayes which ye will not believe though it be told you c. Reasons Sect. But from Instances come we to Reasons and there are so many insinuated in our Text as we need not at present look further for more 1. God may be relied on for reviving grace in a dead condition because he is the Lord Jehovah Almighty to give a being unto what he pleaseth as the being of beings and therefore able as to give a being unto his threatnings to actuate them as the just ground of fear before so to give a being unto his promises and speeches of grace as the ground of hope We say sometimes of men that they are good to help at a dead lift yet finde them often failing our greatest expectations but that can be said of none in comparison of God And therefore we may believe because this makes for the glory of his power This was Abrahams ground of believing he should have a childe by Sarah He being fully perswaded that what God had promised he was able to perform therefore he considered not his own body now dead when he was about an hundred years old neither yet the deadnesse of Sarah's womb nor staggered at Gods promise but was strong in faith giving glory to God Rom. 4. 18 19 20 21. 2. Because the work here supposed to be revived is Gods own work as we heard Now it stands upon the glory of his wisdome to preserve and sustaine his own special work and not to let it fall and die under his hand and not to leave it in the midst unfitted unfurnished Therefore was that Prayer of the Psalmist Psal 138. 8. The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me thy mercy O Lord endureth for ever forsake not the works of thine own hands And therefore is that application made to God by the Prophet Jer. 14. 8 9. Oh the hope of Israel the Saviour thereof in the time of trouble wherefore shouldest thou be a stranger in the Land Why as a man astonied Yet thou O Lord art in the midst of us and we are called by thy Name thy work leave us not Apply that other also in Isa 26. 12. Lord thou wilt ordain peace for us for thou hast wrought all our works in us c. 3. Because it concerns the glory of Gods goodnesse and mercy And it is his most excellent nature in the the midst of wrath to remember mercy as we finde in the last clause of our Text. By the way enquire we Is there any wrath or furious indignation in God properly No He is not subject to such passions as man is Fury is not in him Isa 27. 4. The just and severe execution of punishments is called his wrath c. Then why is his wrath said to be somewhat stirred up against his people We answer Gods wrath relates rather to the sins than to the persons of his people The opposition rising in him is not properly against his own work or people but against Sathans work in them or their own evil works And secondly the stirring of his wrath or anger argues rather their apprehension and sense who feele smart and affliction than his affection stirred up against them who doth but as a Chirurgian or a Father handle roughly and correct his own for their good Now hence we may the better conceive how 't is said in way of Petition Lord in wrath remember mercy And this we are to conceive as an eminent excellency in God above the Creature that in wrath he can and will remember mercy towards his own workmanship his Church his people How remember By a merciful change of his work of Providence and so giving real arguments of a mercifull remembrance Now this the poore impotent creature cannot do when it is in passion Man is subject to forget himself and forget mercy in his wrath and fury nor can he stop and cease suddenly in his hot executions and turn his course because he hath not his passions at such a check or command but God can never forget himself and he can easily hold up his severest executions See Exod. 32. 11. to 14. And Moses besought the Lord his God and said Lord Why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people which thou hast brought forth out of the Land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand Wherefore should the Egyptians speak and say For mischief did he bring them out to slay them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth Turn from thy fierce wrath and repent of this evil against thy people Remember Abraham Isaac and Israel thy servants to whom thou swarest by thine own self and said'st unto them I will multiply your seed as the stars of Heaven and all this Land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed and they shall inherit it for ever Numb 16. 46 47 48. And Moses said unto Aaron Take a censer and put fire therein from off the Altar and
of temptation drawing on upon the present reformed Churches of Christ which sweetly answer to Philadelphia to say no more wherein they are likely to be extreamly shaken and so tryed to the purpose Nay be there not some symptomes that such an hour is already entred upon some of them Is there not an horrible tempest already risen among the poor reformed Churches in Piedmont which hath already shaken divers of them in pieces and scattered them among the Mountains and some other neighbouring places where they may hope for no shelter Now how soon and how farre the like Earthquakes may shake other Churches and places the Lord onely knows but the probability of a time of shaking triall to passe over all may be sufficient ground of warning to hold fast what good we have Never are men more in danger to let go what they have than when they are terribly shaken never were the Disciples in more danger of taking scandal at Christ and letting go their hold of him than when Satan desired to sift and winnow them as wheat Luke 22. 31. Therefore in apprehension of such a time that the reformed Churches abroad and we together with them may hold fast that we have They that seem to be as pillars in the house of God Gal. 2. 9. though they be not used as that prophetical Simeon did those Material Pillars before an Earthquake yet need such a warning as he gave them Stand fast for we shall be shaken 2ly understand here Christ his coming quickly in a way of mercy to moderate the trial to deliver from the power of temptation q. d. I come quickly to restore thee Thy troubles and trials shall not last long The trials of the Church of Smyrna were measured by dayes and were called tribulations of ten dayes suppose years to be understood by dayes as usually in this book that was no long time But here the Churches time of temptation is measured I cannot say by hours but onely by an hour it is foretold onely to be an hour that is a very short time of temptation And truely Beloved such short trials 't is conceived and hoped will be the remaining trials of the reformed Churches how sharp soever they may be for the while But whatever their duration may be ye know what the Apostle said that our the Churches afflictions are but for a moment 2 Cor. 4. 17. Now therefore as Christ said to his Disciples what Could ye not watch with me one hour So I say shall we not hold fast what we have one houre not one moment after which all hard trials shall be over O let this perswade us Especially since we are to understand Christ his coming quickly Thirdly In a way of judicature to call men to an account and to distribute rewards according to their works To shew himself gracious and bountifull to such as do hold fast the good they have till he come and severe toward others See Chap. 22. 12. And behold I come quickly and my reward is with me to give to every man according as his work shall be Heb. 10. 37. For yet a little while and he that shall come will come and will not tarry James 5. 8. Be ye also patient stablish your hearts for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh But the meditation of this will carry me into the second Motive following the duty in the latter part of this verse passe we therefore over unto it That no man take thy Crown 2. Motive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. that no man take away thy Crown or that thy Crown be not taken away from thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hic idem est quod 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. 5. 40. Brightman And doubtlesse want of good hold fast hath lost many a Crown It is an argument taken from the danger of losing her Crown if she did not hold fast But withall insinuating a Crown assured unto her keeping fast her hold Well Our first enquiry here may be what means he by her Crown It is taken two wayes First for that Crown she had in some sort already viz. That honour which this Church had partly gotten and was further to get by that holy Spiritual grave manner of administration and observation of Gods Ordinances which carried that lustre of excellency and Authority in it as convinced the mindes and affected the spirits even of Adversaries so that they which were formerly of the Synagogue of Satan which said they were Jews i. e. true worshippers of God and of the onely Church of God but were not should come and worship before the face of that Church and acknowledge her beloved of God and honourable ver 9. And in some such respect as this did the Apostle Paul call the Philippians and Thessalonians his Joy and his Crown Phil. 4. 1. 1 Thes 2. 19. For how came he to esteem them so In that God was pleased by his Ministery to translate them out of darknesse into the kingdom of Christ Jesus and to make his Ministery instrumentally powerfull to bring them under the yoke of Christ and to lay down their former pride and professedly to subject themselves to the Gospel of Christ 2 Cor. 9. 13. yea when persons convinced shall be ready to fall down upon their face and worship God and confesse that God is in his servants and Ordinances of a truth 1 Cor. 14. 25. Secondly For that superexcellent Crown or highest honour and dignity in Heaven which God hath promised out of his free grace to bestow upon those who persevere in Faith and obedience to the end that which is called the Crown of life Chap. 2. 10. the Crown of righteousnesse 2 Tim. 4. 8. a Crown of glory that fadeth not away 1 Pet. 5. 4. Now Beloved for the Argument In respect of the former Crown it stands thus If thou dost not hold fast what thou hast thou art like to lose the glory of Gospel-Ministery and the due reverence and authority which it hath had hitherto more or lesse in the hearts of men and may yet further have if thou be not wanting unto thy self and negligent to retaine and keepe those Ordinances and Priviledges which make for thy spiritual honour And it is possible for a particular Church in time to lose its Ecclesiastick Crown here below as it fared long since with that Church of Philadelphia Again In respect of the other Crown of life and glory never fading the Argument standeth thus Thou hadst need use all thy prudence and diligence and fortitude to hold fast what thou hast and to persevere unto the end lest being at a loss of grace thou be also at a loss of glory Thou standest by Faith be not high-minded but fear said the Apostle Rom 11. 20. And look we to our selves that we lose not those things which we have wrought but that we receive a full reward saith the Apostle John 2 Joh. 8. Quest. But doth not the implyed danger and caveat upon