all fulness with marrow What is Wines on the Lees what are all earthly royal dainties to these rich graces and Divine special favours and blessings offered and bestowed and participated of in the Sacraments At which sumptuous and delicious banquet every worthy receiver that has made due preparation by self examination is or should be much affected and ravished As the Divine Poet was who thus expresseth himself First as to the manner of Importation and submission Herb. H. Com. Not in rich Ornament or fine Aray Nor in a Wedge of Gold Thou who for me wast sold To me dost now thy self convey For so thou should'st without me stil have been Leaving within me Sin But by the way of nourishment strength Thou creepest into my Breast Making thy Way my Rest And thy small quantities my length Which spread their Forces into every part Meeting Sins force and art Yet can these not get over to my Soul Leaping the Wall that parts Our Souls and fleshly Hearts But as the out-works they may controll My Rebel-flesh and carrying thy Name Affright both sin and shame Only thy grace which with these Elements comes Knoweth the ready way And hath the Privy Key Op'ning the Souls most subtile Roomes While those to Spirits refin'd at Door attend Dispatches from their Friend Give me my Captive Soul or take My Body also thither Another life like this will make Them both to be together Before that Sin turn'd Flesh to stone And all our Lump to leaven A fervent sigh might well have blown Our innocent Earth to Heaven For sure when Adam did not know To sin or sin to smother He might to Heav'n from Paradise go As from one Room to another Thou hast restor'd us to this ease By this thy Heavenly blood Which I can go to when I please And leave the Earth to their food When he was pleased to go to this Heavenly Banquet and he was so pleased as oft as might be and so should every godly Christian hear him warbling this Divine Rapture Idem the Banquet Welcome sweet and sacred cheer Welcome deer With me in me live and dwell For thy neatness passeth sight Thy delight Passeth Tongue to taste or tell O what sweetness from the Bowl Fills my Soul Such as is and makes Divine Is some Star fled from the Sphere Melted there As we Sugar melt in Wine Or hath sweetness in the Bread Made a head To subdue the smell of Sin Flow'rs and gums and powders giving All their living Lest the Enemy should win Doubtless neither Star nor Flower Hath the Power Such a sweetness to impart Only God who gives perfumes Flesh assumes And with it perfumes my heart But as Pomanders and sweet Wood Still are good Yet being bruised are better sented God to shew how far his love Could improve Here as broken is presented c. Let the wonder of this pitty Be my ditty And take up my lines and life Hearken under pain of Death Hands and breath Strive in this and love the strife Nor found he this food beyond all degrees of comparison nourishing and strengthning but he feeleth it also most effectually healing Physick as appeares by what he speaks to his pratling Conscience which call'd every fair look sowl every sweet Dish sower If thou persist I will tell thee That I have Physick to expell thee And the Receipt shall be My Saviours Blood when ever at his board I do but taste it straight it cleanseth me And leaves thee not a Word No not a Tooth or Nail to scratch And at my actions carp or catch Here is therefore no such provision of food no such sumptuous fair in any House as this Solomon's so much admired was as Husks yea and stark hunger compared to this and each of the Houshold fares alike And they have both Dinner and Supper every Day of the same delicates that which Matthew calls a Dinner Luke calls a Supper And they are called upon to feed heartrly Eat O Friends Drink yea drink abnndantly O well-beloved Nor are there any such fellow-Commoners to Dine and Sup with any where as here These are all Noble Honourable Persons The choicest and most excellent Kings and Priests A chosen Generation a Royal Priesthood a Holy Nation a peculiar People Yea the King of Kings and Lord of Lords Dines and Sups with them Mephibosheth thought it no small honour that David set him among them that did eat at his own Table How great honour must it then be to sit at Christs Table who is David's Lord And to increase their comfort they have assurance of the same Session with him in the Kingdome of Glory I appoint you saith he a Kingdome as my Father hath appointed me that ye may eat and drink at my Table in my Kingdome Nor are there any such servitures in any House as in this to wit the Holy Angels Are they not all Ministering Spirits sent forth to Minister for them who shall he Heirs of Salvation There are that make them both Cooks and Butlers that dress and dish up and bring in the provision of this continual Feast attend at Table and Minister Cups of Consolation And moreover wait upon every Member of this Family when they go abroad about the works of their Callings and in all the changes of their life who have care of them besides this common attendance a peculiar Guardian of Angels from their new birth at least as some probably gather from sundry Scriptures Nor are there any such Vessels in any House to serve up the Meat and Drink in as are in this The Dishes Spoons Covers and Bowles belonging to the Sanctuary were all of pure Gold so were all the Vessels of the pure Table All the drinking Vessels of King Solomon were of Gold and all the Vessels of the House of the forrest of Lebanon were of pure Gold At that Royal Feast which Ahasuerus made to all his Princes and Servants That lasted an hundred and fourscore Days They gave them Drink in Vessels of Gold The Vessels of this House wherein the Saints dwell and wherein they have their Meat and Drink served up are much more precious than the Gold that perisheth which is corruptible how pure soever even great and precious promises in which are contained all the choicest Viands that Earth and Heaven can yield both for the nourishment of Soul and Body For Godliness is profitable for all things having the promise of the Life that now is and that which is to come Nor are there any such Seats to rest both Souls and Bodies on in taking repast in any House as in this Kings have had their Seats for themselves and by them for their Children and Favorites on which they sate down to eat meat they were terrestrial these coelestial places We read of the great King sitting at his Table with his Spouse
meat for those that are of full age profounder and more mysterious Doctrines The Stewards of the House appointed to dispense both to both as they are able to bear them As the head of the House taught them to do by his practice every part and particle of the Holy Scriptures Histories Precepts Prohibitions Promises threatnings are all of them choice Viands wherewith holy Souls are satisfied as with marrow and fatness Nor are they only meat but Medicinal also and therefore called wholsome words that have a healing property in them The Spirit of God accompanying his word is called by our Saviour the Water of Life Hadst thou asked of me said he to the Woman of Samaria that denyed to give him of her Water I would have given thee a better and far more excellent kind of Water than this is that I have desired of thee Whosoever drinketh of this Water shall thirst again but whoever shall drink of the Water that I shall give him shall never thirst Of this living Water they that dwell in God do drink continually whereby the thirst of their Souls after earthly things the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye and the pride of life is quenched And their consciences are satisfied and quieted against the sense and apprehension of Gods wrath due for their fins And the sense of his love affected by this Water is better than Wine whose property is to comfort the heart beget new Spirits purge warm refine and waken them Yea this House is a House of Wine And the graces and fruits of the Spirit are delightful to them as Wine with which they being spiritually drunk have inward spiritual joy bred in them testified in the private and publick praises of God by Psalmes Hymns and spiritual Songs Their hearts being merry and chearful They make a rejoyce as if they were set on fire with Wine But here is another food which every one of this House have for commons every Day The Body and Blood of Jesus Christ His flesh is meat indeed and his blood is drink indeed Note well that spiritual things have their truth and reality as much and beyond comparison in their kind as corporal ones have theirs This meat and drink surpasseth all other upon a manifold account 1. Of the place from whence it comes This is the Bread which cometh down from Heaven Not out of the middle Region of the Aire as Manna did but from the highest Heaven 2. The Variety of Viands in it for all things are in Christ who of God is made unto us Wisdome Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption Let our wants be what they will let our wills be what they can to feed on this or that dish Nothing can be imagin'd nourishing or cheering which is not to be found in Christ Manna which was but a type of this true bread is said to have had all sorts of good tasts in it 3. Of the sufficiency of it for it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily The whole Mass and gathering together of all Divine and everlasting goods Whereof the parcels and streams do issue out upon the Church They are in him not in shaddows and figures as in the Old Testament but in reality and substance And of his fulness have we all received grace for grace Not a fulness of abundance only but a fulness of redundance also out of which a sufficient portion is distributed to every of his Members There can be no want in him where Riches are unsearchable As he is able to save them unto the uttermost that come unto God by him and so to satisfie them that feed upon him as it is said of those four thousand Men beside Women and Children They did all eat and were filled 4. Of the powerful efficacy that is in it I am the Bread of Life That is there remains in me received and applyed by a lively faith power to quicken the Soul that is dead in sin separated from God the true Spring of Life and to preserve it alive by a communicative and continual influence of Divine grace and to give it also the life of joy and comfort yea and to cure not only all the Maladies that molest the Life of Grace but of Nature also 5. Of the permanency of it this is not like other Food and Physick that perisheth it self and is not able to keep the body into which it is received from perishing Upon which account we are forbidden to labour for it Labour not for the Meat which perisheth but for that Meat which endureth to everlasting life which the Son of Man shall give unto you What is that The Bread that I will give is my Flesh If any Man eat of this Flesh he shall live for ever This Meat and Drink is every Day received by this whole Houshold not after a corporal and carnal manner as those Capernaites conceived Christs meaning How can this Man give us his Flesh to eat But by believing that it was given for them and is the Price of their sins to God He that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth on me shall never thirst As Meat is received into the stomack by eating so is Christ into the Soul by believing He that eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood dwelleth in me and I in him that is to say is inseparably united to me and I to him even as food is with him that eats it This and no other way is this meat and drink received in the Holy Supper wherein here is or ought to be a frequent communicating where and when every Communicant by eating and drinking the consecrated Bread and Wine being Sacramentally Christ's body and blood Signes to represent it Seals to confirm aud Instruments really to exhibit them doth acknowledge and preach the benefits of the Lord's Death and protesteth to take part thereof by a lively faith which is as the Eye and Hand to the Mouth and Stomack of the Soul taking Christ into and uniting him to them even as corporal Food is by eating and digesting united to the Body 6. This is that Feast of fat things of Wine on the Lees of fat things full of Marrow of Wines on the Lees well refined which the Lord of Hosts promised to all Nations gathered together in his Church to some of all veiling Heavenly things under Earthly condescending so low as to enter into the inward Man by the outward our apprehensions being so weak and narrow that we cannot otherwise be acquainted with them while our Souls are in our Bodies They are much guided by our fancy and then spiritual things are conveyed to them this way only we must remember that there is a far greater excellency in the things themselves than in their representations For what is
removed and carryed too and fro God himself sends word to David since the Day he brought up Israel unto that Day he had not dwelt in a fixed setled House But had been from Tent to Tent from one Tabernacle to another But I have been with thee saith he whither soever thou hast walked Yea though I walk through the Valley of the shaddow of Death saith David unto God I will fear no evil for thou art with me While I sleep and when I awake I am still with thee Jacob had this assurance given him that God would accompany him and go too and fro with him when he fled from the face of his Brother Behold I am with thee and I will keep thee in all places whither thou goest and will come back again with thee I will not leave thee And so when he went to see his Son Joseph I will go down with thee into Egypt As the Wheeles accompanyed closely the living Creatures exactly following their motion and their rest resting with them When the living Creatures went the Wheels went when the living Creatures were lift up the Wheels were lift up when those went these went and when those stood these stood This living House as closely accompanies the living Creatures in it and as punctually attends their motions up and down and resteth with them in their resting place every where 11. Nor is this House capable of or subject to any such casualties as other houses are The houses of some poor Creatures which they bear about with them are so brittle that a foot that treadeth on them or a Cart-Wheel going over them may crush and destroy them The best built houses may be burnt with Fire or blown down with Tempests or rent with Meteors or broken up with Thieves Job's Sons and Daughters were eating and drinking Wine in their eldest Brothers House and behold there came a Wind from the Wilderness and it fell upon the young Men and killed them The Hold whereinto a thousand Men and Women of the Tower of Shechem entered was set on Fire and consumed with all the Persons in it Nebuzaradan burnt in one Day the House of the Lord and the Kings Houses and all the Houses of Jerusalem and every great Mans House burnt he with Fire I will gather all Nations against Jerusalem and the City shall be taken and the Houses rifled The Earth opened her Mouth and swallowed up Korah Dathan and Abiram and their Houses and all their goods But there is no fear of any such accident to this House what Plots or conspiracies soever are made to harm it or them that live in it there shall not a hair of their heads perish nor their Treasures be touched True it is this House is it self a Consuming Fire Infinitely hoter than that in Nebuchadnezar's Furnace the Flame whereof consumed those Men that took up Shedrach Meshach and Abednigo but it is only so to them that are without and dare to come nigh to pillage it or hurt any in it who walk as comfortably in this Fire as those three Children did in the burning Furnace upon whose Bodies the Fire had no Power nor was an Hair of their Heads singed neither were their Coats changed nor had the smell of Fire passed on them 12. It is a holding House as it holds the Souls of the Inhabitants in Life so it suffers not their feet to be moved out of it but it keepeth them constantly and perseveringly in Nor is it in the Power of Men or Devils to eject them no nor of the old Man that hath still a Beeing in them and perswades them to depart and make a change for though they may do both if they will yet they cannot will to do either for God hath promised that all whom he receiveth within himself shall not have a heart to leave him But to abide for ever in him I will put my fear in their hearts and they shall not depart from me And he hath power to perform what he has promised he is able to keep you from falling and to preserve you blameless before the presence of his glory is exceeding joy We are kept by the Guard of Gods Power his strongest if degrees be in Omnipotency through faith unto salvation There were never any that went into this House by the Door Such as Jesus Christ is I am the Door By him an abundant entrance is made into the Church and consequently unto God No Man cometh unto the Father but by me by him we have access with confidence that ever apostatized finally or totally Some that have seemed unto themselves and others to be real Members of this Family Demas for example that went out but they were never truly in as appears by their going out Hear the testimony of one of the houshold the truth of whom is without question They went out from us because they were not of us for if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us but they went out that they might be manifest that they were not all of us the servant abideth not in the House for ever but the Son abideth ever The righteous is an everlasting Foundation True it is he may set one Foot out of Doors David did so when he committed Adultery and practiced the Death of Uriah and Peter did so when he forsware his Master and with such direful curses denyed that he knew him But this was through the violence of temptation The purpose and resolution of both their hearts was not to take a step out but to keep close within Door I have sworn and will perform it that I will keep thy righteous Judgments Though all Men should be offended because of thee yet I will not be offended Though I should dye with thee yet will I not deny thee How fell they then into so foul sins Surely they were suddenly overtaken the one with a passion of lust the other with a passion of fear and so they fell But even then both of them had one Foot still within the House which stai'd while the other stept They had sanctifying grace still in their hearts whose essential property is constancy called therefore immortal Seed And it appeared like sparks of Fire when the ashes covering them are blown away as soon as they came to themselves David yielded to the reproof of Nathan presently And Peter when the Lord turned and looked upon him went out and wept bitterly Each drew his Foot back into the House again and kept close in unto the end of their lives 13. It is a House held by the best tenure none like it 't is held in such a head as is non-such Jesus Christ whom God hath made head of the Church in a singular and eminent manner far above the domination which he hath
where I did and going did a Rain-bow note Surely thought I This is the Lace of Peaces Coat I will search out the matter But while I lookt the Clouds immediatly Did break and scatter Then I went to a Garden and did spie A gallant Flower The Crown Imperial sure said I Peace at the root must dwell But when I digg'd I saw a Worm devour What shew'd so well Pleasures Riches Honours under which all the good things of the World are comprehended are utterly impotent altogether insufficient to give the Soul of Man any Rest Herb. Dot. False glozing pleasures Casks of Happiness Foolish Night fires Womens and Childrens wishes Chases in Arras guilded emptiness Shaddows well mounted dreams in a Career Embroider'd lies nothing between two dishes These are the Pleasures here Riches seem to be something able to do something in order to this end but in truth they are nothing can do nothing Labour not to be rich Wilt thou set thine Eyes upon that which is not wherefore do you lay out your labour for that which satisfyeth not Take Earthly Honours in and take his testimony who had all these in abundance made tryal of them to finde what good was in them and was more able to improve them than was ever any meer Man since the fall and hear him after his utmost experimental disquisition that not only he found not what he taught namely rest for his Soul Vanity of Vanities saith the Preacher Vanity of Vanities all is Vanity But that he found the clean contrary trouble sorrow anguish bitterness Vexation of Spirit The rich Man is brought in singing a Requiem to his Soul Soul thou hast much goods laid up for many Years take thine ease eat drink and be merry But wisdom upbraids his folly for placing his joy and peace in his possessions and promising to give his Soul ease and rest in his abundance 2. Nor is it to be found in knowledge Humane or Divine not in the former For in much wisdome is much grief and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow Learning cannot be attained without great pains of mind and body and he that hath attained the highest degree and greatest measure hath his minde more unsatisfied than when he began to study And herein Children and fools have the advantage who as they want wit so they want wo. Not to know much but to know nothing in the sweetest life of all Nor in this neither for experience shews that such that give themselves most to the study of Scripture and get greatest ability to discourse of Divine matters are as far from rest as others which appears by the falling off of many of them from one Sect to another till they have made tryal of every dispensation as they call it and then they are as far from satisfaction as ever and farther 3. Nor in a form of Godliness 't is not the outward profession of the true Religion nor frequent use of holy Ordinances or religious exercises publick private secret that hath any more power to bring rest and quiet to the soul than Elishah's staff laid upon the dead Childes face had to bring heat or life into it The frequent complaints of many Christians that are much in both confirm this 4. Much less in Doctrines and Inventions of Men. These are Husks that Swines do eat they that fill their Bellies with them are like unto Pharaoh's lean kine And as they nourish not so they quiet not miserable Comforters are they all All that would take up their rest in any of these may hear the Prophet speaking thus unto them Arise ye and depart for this is not your Rest Positively the Souls true rest is to be had only in God who is a fit Harbour and Heaven for the heart to cast Anchor in because he is a Spirit 2. Being infinite he is able to fill the boundless and endless desires of it Moreover he made the Soul for himself And gave it at the first a Being in himself a local Being in the Body and a Spiritual Being in himself This being in God is Mans first being when Man fell by sin God in Justice cast him out of himself Forsook him and so the Union and the Communion that he had with God was broken off Hence it is that the Soul being out of God its proper Habitation can have no true rest till it return thither Return unto thy Rest O my Soul The first step the Soul takes in this return to its rest is a free and well-advised choice of God to dwell in him and serve there observing and conforming to the Laws and Orders of the House Joshua put the Children of Israel to their choice Choose you this Day whom you will serve whether the God your Fathers served on the other side of the Flood or the Gods of the Amorites in whose Land ye dwell if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord. Professeth her resolution that whatsoever they did what choice soever they made He and his House would serve the Lord. They make the same profession express the same resolution God forbid that we should do otherwise we are witnesses against our selves that we have chosen us the Lord to serve even the Lord our God him will we serve and his Voice will we obey Such a choice David made I have voluntarily Decreed to give up my self to be guided by thy Word I have chosen thy Precepts above other things for my soverain good and treasure with which I am resolued to be satisfied and contented and precisely to order my words and thoughts and actions according to them Having inclined my Heart to perform thy Statutes always even unto the end And being fully purposed that my Mouth shall not transgress and that my Feet shall run the wayes of thy Commandments Yea were I put to my choice I would choose rather to sit at the Threshold of the House of my God to be a Door-keeper in it than to dwell in the Tents of Wickedness The like choice did the three Children make and so did Daniel and Moses and Mary and those ancient Martyrs who would not accept deliverance which was offered them conditionally that they would deny the true God and not serve him this is the first way whereby Men make God their habitation namely by choosing him giving him their judgments wills and affections the probation before all other Persons or things or service Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none upon Earth that I desire in comparison of thee A Day in thy Courts is better than a thousand Thy loving kindness is better than Life How much better is thy Love than Wine and the smell of thine Oyntments than all Spices The Law of thy Mouth is better to me than thousands of Gold and Silver It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in Princes The second follows which
longest to be freed from it It 's Grace certainly that makes thee able to discern so hidden and close a Corruption and to hate it And as sense and feeling is a certain sign of a living Man as was now said So thy sense of hypocrisie with a hatred of it is a sure note and token of thy sincerity So that thou art not in the Flesh but in the Spirit Nor matters it so much what evil motions thou findest in thy self as how thou standest affected to them There are and will be filthy scums rising up in thy heart continually while thou livest here But while thou castest it off as it riseth by confession and self-condemnation it shall never hurt thee God will not condemn but absolve and acquit thee of it Thou mayest and oughtest to take comfort in the allowance of the Law of God in thy judgment and in thy will consenting to do it having an unfeigned desire purpose and endeavour to please God and to do his will this being the work of God's sanctifying Spirit and a special fruit of Christ's purchase as real comfort therefore herein as if thou wast perfect in obedience For if there be first a willing mind it is accepted according to that a Man hath nor shall he be rejected for that he hath not In this God's choicest Servants have comforted themselves against all their imperfections and falls and failings Obj. But I question the truth of my desires Answ That thou need'st not do as long as thou esteemest God's grace and favour above all things Seeking by prayer and other means every Day to grow less sinful and more holy and mournest for thy Daily miscarriages lamenting after the Lord. Obj. But my Conscience condemns me for an Hypocrite Ans O spiteful bitter thought bitterly spiteful thought Thou hast reason to discredit thy Conscience if it be opposite to the Word of God and not to regard it against the Word of God If our heart condemn us God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things He knowes the way thou takest that it is right And his word which is the Judge of Conscience hath given Sentence on the right side And therefore thou art bound in this case to check and condemn thy Conscience for troubling thee causlesly So did David and Job Let me give thee one caution take heed of making inherent Grace the only and chief ground of thy comfort Though it is indeed the only evidence of thy title to comfort For in so doing thou shalt commit two great evils one against thy self in leaning upon a bruised Reed for thine own Spirit may fail thee and be overwhelmed and thy heart may reproach thee another against the Lord making an Idol of that gift of his which cannot be so trusted in without sin Rely more upon God's Grace without thee than that which is within thee Yet cherish also inherent Holiness as thy only evidence of Life Eternal and the beginning of it Finally give not credit to thy misgiving heart that would perswade thee thou hast no assurance that God is thy Habitation For thou hast that degree of assurance which is necessary to the beeing of Grace the lowest degree of certainty which is in every true believer consisting in an application of adherence Whereby the Soul of a penitent sinner casts it self upon Jesus Christ with a resolved humble recumbency cleaving to him as the Ivy doth to the Oak Eagle to the Carkass goes out of it self renouncing its own Merits and relying upon the Person and Merits of Christ his active and passive obedience for forgiveness of sins and for Life and Salvation This is the act of Faith and every one that thus receiveth him with an Obediential affiance knows that and that through him dwelling in his heart he hath his dwelling in God You therefore as yet that have not any comfortable assurance cease hence-forth to doubt and fear and assay to joyn your selves with them that have with whom we are next to deal as Saul assayed to joyn himself to the Disciples at Jerusalem Who will not at all as they were awhile of him be afraid of you but receive you joyfully into their blessed Society And when thou hast told despair Divine Herbert's strange story Say to it as he doth Hark Despair away THE FOURTH SERMON HAving dealt with those of this Divine Houshold that have as yet no comfortable assurance that the Lord is their Habitation we proceed to deal with them that have higher degrees of assurance which carry sensible comfort with them one is the Application of Experience when a Christian discerns in himself Divine impressions effects of regenerating Grace two or three whereof we will mention The prime and most general is a real change of the whole Man from evil to good This is a sure evidence of our being in Christ If any Man be in Christ he is a new Creature old things are past away all things are become new Whoever is changed in all his senses motions and affections speeches and actions is certainly ingrafted into the Body of Christ by his spirit The substance of the Soul and Body is the same the qualities and operations altered Another is walking in the light as God is the light Living and conversing following that light of God which is conferred upon us by Grace evidenceth us to be partakers of the Divine Nature Purifying our selves as he is pure Hereby we know we have fellowship one with another God with us and we with him that he dwells in us and we in him Love to the Brethren Christ's whole spiritual kindred who are knit to him to the bond of Faith and among themselves by that of love another infallible note We know that we have passed from Death to Life because we love the Brethren When a Christian's faith in lively exercise reflects upon its own acts receptive of Christ and operative by him having withall a sanctified Conscience witnessing sincerity in the actings he gathers by discourse and reasoning his own spiritual estate as Paul did Our rejoycing is this the testimony of our Conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity not with fleshly wisdome but by the grace of God we have had our conversation in the World and now abundantly to you-ward Such an application of experience had Thomas upon his Faith not quite exquisit before but very weak was raised and renewed by beholding touching and feeling The other application is that of evidence when the testimony of God's spirit comes and concurs with ours when we finde the Holy Ghost in us not only as a seal imprinting the graces of Christ upon our Souls nor only as an earnest giving us the first Fruits and as it were handle of Heaven Those holy and Heavenly Gift conferred in this life being a pledg of the perfection which shall be in the next but
to draw them from Perdition without any vain respects or considerations as Men draw things out of the Fire in any fashion or what way they can First Them that you finde grosly ignorant instruct in Fundamental Truths without the distinct knowledge whereof no Man can have any entrance into this House Especially you that have Children and Servants take pains in Catechising them till they be as able and ready to render a reason of their Faith as to answer to their Names These words which I command thee this Day shall be in thy heart and thou shalt teach them diligently to thy Children and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy House and when thou walkest by the way and when thou lyest down and when thou risest up and ye Fathers bring up your Children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. But you must not neglect to instruct strangers also even Beggars that come to your Doors they have precious immortal Souls which you should be as willing to relieve as your Bodies You that are godly Women as well as Men must perform this duty We finde Women not only teaching their Husbands Manoah's Wife said unto her husband concluding the Death of himself and her If the Lord were pleased to kill us he would not have received a burnt-offering and a meat-offering at our hands neither would he have shewed us all these things nor would at this time have told us such things as these and their Children and Servants What my Son and what the Son of my Womb and what the Son of my vow give not thy strength unto Women nor thy wayes unto that which destroyeth Kings She openeth her Mouth in wisdome among her Maidens and in her Tongue is the Law of Kindness sweet and gracious speeches sounding to edification in knowledge and holinesse but expounding the way of God to others also Aquila and Priscilla took Apollos to them and expounded to him the way of God more perfectly Seeing godly Women may and should be private patterns and may have a gift of expounding Scripture and much more private Men and use that gift in the presence of Ministers for the edification of others yea of Ministers themselves 2. Those you finde led away with the Errour of the wicked holding any points in Religion contrary to sound Doctrine denying directly or by consequence any Fundamental Verity Such was that of Hymoeneus and Philetus and that false Doctrine which the Galatians held namely that to be justified before God it was necessary together with faith in Christ strictly to observe the Mosaical Ceremonies as a part of Man's righteousness and holiness appointed by the Law and that of the Nicolaitans who permitted the community of Women held it a thing indifferent to commit Adultry and eating Meats sacrificed to Idols and Popish and Pelagian Errours when ever you have occasion to converse with any such as these or that hold any point not consonant to Scripture though having less filth and danger do your endeavour to recover them by soft words and hard Arguments So you are taught by the Apostle James's Practice who calls a damnable blasphemy by the gentle name of errour and useth a loving compellation Do not erre my beloved brethren But observe what powerful Arguments he useth both before and after his dehortation and by the Apostle Paul's precept In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledgment of the truth that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the Devil Two things especially should move you to endeavour to convert souls from errour especially if Fundamental The one from the nature of such an errour it is like a Canker or Gangreen a Malady so contagious that it presently spreads it self into the next Members and so by degrees destroyes the whole Body being once admitted into the soul it will glide into it to the total extinguishing of the spiritual life thereof And having possessed it self in one of the Members of the Church will spread over all the Body of it if it be not withstood in time Another is the great reward promised to this endeavour if it prove successful if not the will as it is accepted so it shall be equally rewarded 3. Such as are prophane Persons the shew of whose Countenance doth witness against them and declare their sin as Sodom and hide it not that draw iniquity with Cords of Vanity and sin as it were with a Cart-rope and that live in the neglect and contempt of divine Ordinances and religious exercises publick domestick or secret professing by their practice that they are the Children of Belial and rank Atheists If you finde that any of these have not as yet commenced Dogs and Swine but are as yet Undergraduates and in the Devil's Academy and that you shall not provoke them to Blasphemie nor aggravate their rage against you thereby allure them to go with you into Divine Herbert's Church Porch and then sprinkle them with his Holy Water-stick Beware of Lust it doth pollute and fowle Whom God in Baptisme washt with his own blood Drink not the third Glass which thou canst not tame When once it is within thee Take not his name who made thy mouth in vain It gets thee nothing and hath no excuse Lye not but let thy heart be true to God Thy Mouth to it thy actions to them both Flie idleness which yet thou canst not flie By dressing Mistrissing and Complement Look at thy Mouth Diseases enter there Slight those who say among thy sickly health Thou livest by rule Be thrifty but not covetous Play not for gain but sport Be sweet to all Catch not at Quarrels Laugh not too much Pick out of mirth Prophaneness filthiness abusiveness Be useful where thou livest Restore to God his due in tith and time Resort to Sermons Sum up at Night what thou hast done by Day And in the Morning what thou hast to do Take heed lest through fear or too much respect towards any whom you hear speaking or see acting prophanely you become by your connivance or silence guilty of want of Zeal towards God's glory and of Charity towards your Neighbours Souls and Salvation Thou shalt not hate thy Brother in thy heart thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy Neighbour and not suffer sin upon him Not but regard must be had to Person time and place and the manner of reproving which sometimes may be by discountenancing as well as by discourse and alway so that the party reproved may see it proceeds from love 4. Them that are civil have a care to keep their good word deal justly with all that are meek merciful ready to help such as stand in need of them when you meet and converse with such commend these and all other good things in them as being such as God loves and will reward but labour to convince them that
9 10. Because thou hast made the Lord which is my refuge even the most High thy Habitation there shall no evil befall thee neither shall any Plague come nigh thy dwelling IT is as natural for all Men to desire happiness as it is For the sparks to flie upwards To make them happy there is required an absence of all oppressing evils and a concurrence of all things necessary convenient and decent Among and above many other things an habitation or resting place for their bodies is needful to their outward happiness without which they cannot but be miserable whatever other good things they may enjoy Herein our blessed Saviour seems to prefer the felicity of Foxes and Fowles before his own The Foxes have Holes and the Birds of the Aire have Nests but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head The better House any Man hath the more happy he is in that He that hath the best is happiest Now that House is best that is higher stronger larger more lightsome warm and better furnished with provisions and all desirable accommodations than any other That is not subject to any casualties and which secures its Inhabitants from all manner of evil present and future And withall is a resting place for their Souls They that have such an habitation cannot but be acknowledged by all the World to be the only happy People in the World If the Question be where such an habitation can be found Where such a People And by what means they become thus superlatively happy This Text resolveth it The habitation is the Lord who was David's refuge even the most High Find him and this habitation is found The People are such as he to whom David directs his Speech whom the Lord himself describes and ownes a little after He hath set his love upon me he hath known my Name The meanes whereby this People come to be possessed of this happiness it is by their own making Because thou hast made the Lord c. Who the Lord is it is well known even Israel's God the same whom we Christians own and worship One in Essence Three in Subsistence the Father the Son the Holy Ghost What and what a One he is his Name Jehovah in part imports an Absolute Simple Infinite Independent and Immutable Beeing That he is a real habitation appears by all those places of Scripture where Men are said to Dwell in God whereof we shall have occasion hereafter He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall lodge under the shaddow of the Almighty He that keepeth his Commandements dwelleth in him Hereby we know that we dwell in him because he hath given us of his Spirit Whoso shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God he dwelleth in God He that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God That he is such an Habitation as hath been formerly mentioned and consequently the best as far surpassing all others even the choicest under Heaven as the stateliest Pallace in the World doth the poorest Cottage or Heaven Earth and infinitely more is now to be proved And hereby the Conclusion asserted will be evinced to be a truth That all and only they are the most yea the only happy People upon Earth whose Habitation the Lord Jehovah is 1. Begin we with the Properties of this House The first whereof is Height expressed in the Text. The Scituation of it is exceeding high The Babel-builders designed to erect a Tower whose top might reach unto Heaven This is far above it They that are in it are out of danger of any deluge beyond the reach of Men or Devils David calleth God his high Tower And he that can as David could prove God to be his Habitation is said to dwell in height 2. It is also a non-such for strength Hear that holy Man of God thankfully acknowledging what God had been for him in times past Thou hast been a shelter for me and a strong Tower from the Enemy And what he was at present Thou art my strong refuge And he not only prayeth that God would still be his strong habitation whereunto he might continually resort his strong Rock for an house of defence to save him But frequently declares his confidence that as God was so he would ever be as he wished and how oft doth he call him his strength His Son tells us he is the same to every one that is as he was The Name of the Lord is a strong Tower the Righteous runneth to it and is safe And the Prophet Esay praiseth God for this Thou hast been a strength to the Poor a strength to the needy in his distress a refuge from the storm a shadow from the heat when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the Wall The greatest Canon-bullets shot against the Walls of this House make no more Impression do no more execution than Paper-pellets shot against a Wall of Brass or Marble 3. It is a House exceeding large this is accounted a great commodity of a House to have Roomes enow and Room enough Solomon intimates as much when he saith it is better to dwell in a Corner of the House top than with a brawling Woman in a wide House To have any thing we use too narrow or too streight is very troublesome The Bed is shorter than that a Man can stretch himself on it and the Covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it In God there is Room more than enough both for the understanding and affections of Man to expatiate themselves in Canst thou by searching finde out God Canst thou by searching finde out the Almighty to perfection 'T is as high as Heaven What canst thou do deeper than Hell What canst thou know the measure thereof is longer than the Earth and broader than the Sea His Commandements are exceeding broad How much more are his Attributes Absolute and Relative proper and figurative God bid Abraham to walk through the Land of Canaan which is called a good Land and a large good because large in the length of it and in the breadth of it And he bids every Child of Abraham to whom he gives himself for a possession as he gave that Land to Abraham to walk within and pass through all his Divine Properties going out of one Room into another as also his great and precious promises Nor shall they have cause to complain of straitness as the Churches Children do in their Mothers eares The place is too strait for me give place to me that I may dwell To whom we may conceive her giving them this Answer Children though your bodies may be present in your Earthly dwellings the faculties of your souls have space enough abundantly more than your faculties can conceive in God who saith to every Saint of his dwelling in him apt to make the like complaint as Paul to the Corinthians Ye
are not straitned in us but you are straitned in your own Bowels 4. It is a House no less lightsome than large God is light and in him is no darkness at all in this light we shall see Light The Lord will be unto thee an everlasting Light When there was a thick darkness in all the Land of Egypt The Israelites had Light in their dwellings All that are Israelites indeed have light in God their dwelling place When all others in the World sit in darkness and the shaddow of Death And they do contemplate the light of his Mercy Truth and Power With open Face beholding his Glory by which they are transformed more and more into his Image Sometimes indeed they are compelled to sit in darkness of dangers and distresses inward and outward Who is among you that feareth the Lord that obeyeth the voice of his Servant that walketh in darkness and hath no light He hath led me and brought me into darkness but not into light But even in this darkness they are not altogether without light they have the light of God's Word They Word is a Lamp unto my Feet and a light unto my Path. And in his Word they have the light of his promises that he will bring them out of that darkness whereinto he brought them and turn their grief and afflictions into joy For thou wilt light my Candel the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness Yea even when and all the while I sit in darkness the Lord shall be a Light unto me God is a Sun ten thousand times more full of Light than this material Sun and it is impossible that he that dwells in the Sun should want Light 5. It is a warm House Light hath heat in it emiently as the Peripateticks say yea it is both warm and cool A Summer and a Winter House both great Men were wont to have several Mansions for these two several Seasons of the Year This House is as some choice Roomes in some great Houses are warm in Winter and cool in Summer Many there are that dwell in God who have more Winters than one every Year scarce one Summers day in many Years I am afflicted and ready to die from my Youth up Yet in the sharpest weather this House of yours keep their hearts warm So that the Spouse said I sleep but my Heart waketh They can say with Paul As sorrowful yet alway rejoycing I am filled with comfort I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulations Being justified by faith we have peace with God and rejoyce in hope of the glory of God and not only so but we glory in tribulations also Because the Love of God is shed abroad in our Hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us Although the Fig-Tree shall not blossome neither shall fruit be in the Vines the labour of the Olive shall faile and the Fields shall yield no increase the Flock shall be cut off from the Fold and there shall be no Herd in the Stalls yet I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my Salvation If it be objected that this is not alway true that they who dwell in God are alway thus joyful nay many times their hearts have not the least sense of comfort yet in such a case they have a warmth and heat that is far better and includes abundance of comfort in it and in due season will flame forth namely that of love and that both of desire and complacency Set me as a Seal upon thine arm for love is strong as death The Coals thereof are coals of fire which hath a most vehement flame many Waters cannot quench love neither can the floods drown it This warmth their hearts never want though sometimes the sense of the second motion of it may seem to them as dull as that of their joy Nor is there any time wherein they cannot say with David My Heart was hot within me Yea discouragements from the World are so far from cooling your love to God that they make it hotter as Water cast upon Lime so Michol's scoffs were to David's Zeal such is a flame issuing from the fire of Love If this be to be vile I will yet be more vile than thus Others of God's People have many Summer Days yea almost all their Days all the Year long for many Years together are such Job had such a long Summer all which time God's Candle shined upon his head The secret of God was upon his Tabernacle His most wise Conduct governed his House provided plentifully for it He washed his steps with Butter and the Rock poured him out Rivers of Oyl Hyperbolical termes As if he had said I enjoyed all my goods and pleasures according to mine own desire When the Eare heard him then it blessed him and when the Eye saw him it gave witness unto him He sat chief and dwelt as a King in the Army Was both beloved and feared yet in all these hot Sun-shine Dayes of prosperity this House of his kept his heart cool towards the things of the World He lived in continual fear of loosing them I feared saith he a fear and it came upon me I never all this while gave my self over to carnal security I alway affrighted my heart with the apprehension of the Accidents of this life and contained my self in fear and humility towards God and within the bounds of modesty towards men Hear him making a solemn protestation how cool his heart was kept from evil concupiscence and cursed love to Women I set a watch saith he at the entrance of my sences made a Covenant with mine Eyes That my Soul might not by them receive any vicious enticements to uncleanness Or if my sences had been at any time allured by any object of sin yet my heart which is the seat of God's Spirit hath opposed them It never walked after mine Eyes And as for temporal good Though I had exceeding great store of them and all justly gotten yet was I free from rejoycing carnally or setting my whole delight in them nor did I put any confidence at all in them Thus loose was this holy Man's Soul kept from the things of the World The lusts of the flesh the lusts of the eye and the pride of life And so was the Soul of Moses who living by faith in God had his affections so cooled to the pleasures of Egypt that with ease he forsook them all and with joy joyned himself to the Ignominious condition of his brethren 6. No House is so full of goods as this is none so stored with all things both for necessity and delight Houses that are high and strong and large and lightsome and warm if they want provision of good and furniture are far from being accounted good Houses These only where there is a fulness of Houshold stuff
will be with thee and through the Waters they shall not overflow thee and through the fire it shall not burn thee neither shall the flame kindle upon thee for I am the Lord thy God I will never leave thee nor forsake thee Be of good cheer thy sins are forgiven thee If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins Blessed be the Poor for theirs is the Kingdome of God Blessed are ye that hunger now for you shall be filled Blessed are ye that weep now for ye shall laugh All things shall work together for good to them that love God If there be a willing mind it is accepted according to what a Man hath with a thousand more This is the Musick that David desired to hear which he calls joy and gladness Such Musick and Dancing there is to it in this House every moment and frequently an expression of spiritual joy and jollity in Psalmes and Hymns and spiritual Songs makeing melody in the Heart unto the Lord. And as for Treasures of Gold and Silver there is not one of this House which hath not alway plenty of both Though many of them many a time may say as Peter did Silver and Gold have I none First they have that which is a thousand times better The Word of God which they justly claim as their Heritage for ever Thy Testimonies have I taken as an Heritage for ever as my true Soveraign and peculiar good which I hold from thee as a Child of thy grace The Law of thy Mouth is better unto me than thousands of Gold and Silver More to be desired than Gold yea than much fine Gold And in that word they have bonds which made by solvent Men are esteemed every whit as good as the sums therein specified Divine Promises One shall suffice for all Thou shalt lay up Gold as Dust and the Gold of Ophir as the Stones of the Brook yea the Almighty shall be thy Gold and thou shalt have plenty of Silver There are a World of goods more wherewith this House is stored the worth whereof is unvaluable the smallest quantity whereof being a thousand times more worth than a thousand such Worlds as this Visible one is The Lord the Lord God gracious merciful long-suffering abundant in goodness and truth The Earth is full of the goodness of the Lord thy right Hand is full of Righteousness Touching the Almighty he is excellent in Power and in Judgment and in plenty of Justice Holy holy holy is the Lord of Hosts the whole Earth is full of his glory Thou Lord art good and ready to forgive and plenteous in Mercy unto all them that call upon thee the Voice of the Lord is full of Majesty And O the fulness of God manifested in the Flesh We beheld his Glory the Glory of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth Of his fulness have we all received With him is plenteous Redemption 7. This is a living House other Houses are made of dead Materials Wood and Stone most of them of Clay whose Foundation is in the Dust which are crushed before the Moth. God the Father hath life in himself and he hath given to the Son to have life in himself and to be the cause and giver of life of the life of nature to all Men and of grace and godliness to sinful Men and of comfort to sorrowful Men and of Resurrection to dead Men and of Glory to godly Men. It is God in whom we live and move and have our Beeing and he it is that maintains our life O bless our God ye People and make the voice of his praise to be heard which holdeth our Soul in Life Watching continually to prevent them that seek after it and lay snares for it Men that are Princes Life-Guards are fain sometimes to sleep cannot watch always and Men that dwell in costly Houses are fain to watch their Houses Know this saith our Saviour that if the good Man of the House had known in what Watch the Thief would come he would have watched and not have suffered his House to be broken up But this House watcheth over all that dwell in it that no hurt be at any time done them He that keepeth thee will not slumber saith the Psalmist speaking to himself who dwelt in the secret place of the most High in the spirit Behold he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep This is a new House alwayes new and so needs no repair it is not subject as all other Houses are to age and decay Though some old things are better than new No Man having drunk old Wine straight-way desireth new for he saith the old is better They sacrificed to new Gods that came newly up Yet generally new things are best and so accounted both things of Gods making Behold I make all things new I create new Heavens and a new Earth I will make a new Covenant A new Heart will I give you and a new spirit will I give you thou shalt be called by a new Name which the Mouth of the Lord shall Name And so of Mens Garments and all manner of Utensils when and while new are most set by Especially Houses both themselves live and lodge in and also Out-houses when they are over old they pull them down and build new ones This House is never old but as new at this day as it was when the first holy Man had his habitation in it as full of lustre and glory ten thousand times more glorious than that Palace of the Sun which the Poet describes and it must needs be so because every Inhabitant is not only glorious made so by it but glory it self Upon all the Glory shall be a defence By Glory are meant the Saints of God the abstract put for the concrete to note their eminent shining surpassing transcendent excellency though in this life they are compassed about with many infirmities which makes their glory less conspicuous They are all glorious within Now do but note what kind of defence what manner of covering this House is promised to be to all those glorious ones that dwell in it namely like that of the Israelites when they went out of Egypt The Lord went before them by Day to lead them in a Pillar of a Cloud in the way and by Night in a Pillar of Fire to give them light It shall be though not so visibly conspicuous yet as illustrious and miraculous and that against all manner of evils heat and rain and for all times Day and Night There shall be a Tabernacle for a shaddow in the Day-time from the heat and for a place of refuge from storme and from Rain God hath been ever such a house of defence to all his holy ones is now and ever shall be World without
really safely serviceably satisfyingly He must needs have all that hath the haver of all He is by faith in Christ Heir of the World Yea they are in actual possession of all things when they are in want of all things Having nothing and yet possessing all things 15. It is a House of the easiest rent the chiefage to be paid is not so much as a Pepper Corn all that 's required is thankful acknowledgment and invocation which are pointed out by termes of the Law Sacrifices Prayers and Vows Offer unto God thanks-giving and pay thy vows unto the most High and call upon me in the Day of trouble Thou that teachest another teachest thou not thy self Yes that I do and that practically and continually Hear it and know it for your good What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me I will take the Cup of Salvation I will solemnly and thankfully acknowledge him a phrase taken from the custome observed in thanks-giving after which they made a place wherein the Father of the Family took a Cup in his hand and used a certain form of blessing and having drank and caused the Cup to go round to all the rest And I will call upon the Name of the Lord I will pay my Vows unto the Lord. I will offer the Sacrifice of thanks giving every Day will I bless thee and I will praise thy Name for ever and ever God is willing we should have the comfort of his blessings but he will have the glory of them My glory will I not give to another We must give him the glory which we do when we give him the praise and thanks Whoso offereth praise glorifyeth me The Shepwards returned praising and glorifying God The Samaritan that was heal'd turned back and with a loud Voice glorified God giving thanks For his healing now his thanks must not only be vocal but vital and cordial Bless the Lord O my Soul and all that is within me bless his holy Name I will praise thee O Lord with my whole heart the Life and Conversation also must be rightly ordered The best livers are the best thanks-givers To him that disposeth his way aright will I shew the salvation of God He hath shewed thee O Man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God And lest any should think it difficult and grievous to do all this let these Scriptures be consulted 1 John 5. 3. Pro. 21. 15. Phil. 1. 29. 2. 13. Math. 11. 30. Ezek. 36. 26 27. 16. Who ever dwells in this House shall be sure not to want an Earthly House to dwell in with all provision and furniture convenient He that gives the greater will not deny the less Thus our blessed Saviour reasoneth Is not the Life more than Meat and the Body than Rayment God out of his Power and Goodness having granted unto Man his Beeing which is the greater will not deny him the lesser which is the preservation thereof And the Apostle He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all How shall he not with him also freely give us all things Object The Son of God himself when on Earth had not where to lay his head Those Worthies mentioned in that little Book of Martyrs wanted houses Wandering about in Sheep-Skins and Goat-Skins in Deserts and in Mountains and in Dens and Caves of the Earth Saint Paul describing the condition of himself and his fellows saith Even unto this present Hour we both hunger and thirst and are naked and are buffeted and have no certain dwelling place Now the Disciple is not above his Master nor the Servant above his Lord. And who will be so arrogant as to think himself better or better privileged than those of whom the World was not worthy or that Holy Apostle Answ Touching our Saviour as he was Voluntary poor to enrich us Ye know the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor that ye through his poverty might be rich He sorrowed that we might rejoyce dyed that we might live So he would be houseless that none of his might want a House 1. As for those other Worthies God did indeed exercise their faith and patience Yet 2. their Dens and Caves were better to them than any Earthly Palaces having God's gracious presence with them which was better to them than ten Houses as Elkanah to Hannah Am not I better to thee than Ten Sons Though Paul had no House of his own yet those that had willingly received him into theirs Lydia did so If ye have judged me faithful unto the Lord come into my house and abide there and she constrained us So did Publius the Chief Man of the Island receive him and his Company and lodged them Three Days courteously And Paul dwelt two whole Years in his own hired House Thus God provided for Elijah and Elisha and thus he provided for his Gospel-Ministers who have not been suffered to live in their own Houses 17. They that dwell in this House here are sure of an Heavenly House hereafter We know that if our Earthly House of this Tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an House not made with hands Eternal in the Heavens 18. While they are here they are or may be sure no evil shall befall them Because thou hast made the Lord even the most High thy Habitation there shall no evil befall thee See parallel promises Psal 121. 7. Pro. 12. 21. 19. 23. Eccl. 85. By evil is not meant moral evil sin and iniquity Evil of fault or crime for the holiest are not free from this while on this side Heaven There is not a just Man on Earth that doth good and sinneth not Who can say I have made my Heart clean I am free from my sin If we say that we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us if we say we have not sinned we make God a lyar and his word is not in us in many things we offend all Nor are injuries and wrongs from Men intended in which sense evil is sometimes taken for none are more subject to these than the Houshold of God nor the matter of any other poenal evil sent by God as indeed all such evils are for these befall as well the Righteous as the wicked All things come alike to all there is one event to the Righteous and to the wicked to the good and to the clean and to the unclean to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not As is the good so is the sinner as he that sweareth so he that feareth an Oath As the evil partake of common blessings with good Men so the good of
is by closing with him Many Nations shall be joyned unto the Lord and shall be my People and I will dwell in the midst of them This joyning makes this natural dwelling Neither let the Son of the Stranger that hath tyed himself to the Lord speak saying the Lord hath utterly separated me from his People Also the Sons of the Stranger that joyn themselves to the Lord to serve him and love the Name of the Lord to be his servants even them will I bring to my holy Mountain and their Sacrifices shall be accepted He that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit United with Christ and so to God the Father in Body and Soul as by a Bond of spiritual Matrimony in the Communion of the Spirit of Holiness This actual closing with God is especially by faith which is a trusting in his mercy through the mediation of his Son with an obediential affiance I have trusted in thy mercy and by this means made thee my Habitation and Salvation wherein I take no small Consolation Let him trust in the Name of the Lord and stay upon his God Rely with hearty confidence upon his faithful promises and most powerful wise and good providence for preventing and removing of evils and obtaining all good spiritual temporal and eternal The want of this is noted in that wicked mighty Man Loe this is the Man that made not God his strength but trusted in the abundance of his Riches and strengthned himself in his wickedness By repenting whereof and closing with God by a religious trust he might have made him his dwelling place for not doing so he is threatned to be pluckt out of his own dwelling place 3. God is made our Habitation by cleaving to him thus closed with persevering in faith and holiness adhearing constantly and abiding faithfully to God Seeking and expecting all our safety from his sole protection and accordingly qualifying our selves for a capacity thereof keeping in the way to which he hath promised his safeguard This is the meaning of the subject of this proposition in the first Verse of this Psalm He that dwelleth in the secret Place of the most High The same with making the Lord even the most High our Habitation Sticking fast also to him with the affections of the heart especially that of Love which hath the Nature of Glew The Soul of Jonathan was knit with the Soul of David and Jonathan loved him as his own Soul Ruth clave to Naoimi intreat me not says she to hear thee or to return from following after thee For whither thou goest I will go and where thou lodgest I will lodge where thou dyest will I dye and there will I be buried Hezekiah cleave unto the Lord and departed not from him but kept his Commandments him shalt thou serve and to him shalt thou cleave thus thou shalt make him thy habitation To the later Branch of the Question I answer in the words of the Apostle John in his first Epistle where he gives among others these four Characters of Persons dwelling in God 1. He that keepeth his Commandments dwelleth in him and he in him The Commandments of the moral Law are meant which whosoever keepeth approves himself to God and Men and to his own Conscience that he hath his dwelling in God He that lives in the breach of them evidenceth that he hath not his abiding in God Nor will obedience to some of these Commandments be any comfort to a Mans conscience that God is his habitation That young Man in the Gospel could say to Christ who bad him if he would enter into life keep the Commandments and mentions sundry of them All these things have I kept from my Youth up The proud Pharisee thanked God he was not as other Men were Extortioners Unjust Adulterers that he fasted twice a Week and gave Tithes of all that he possessed Herod did many things Obedience must be Universal Whosoever shall keep the whole Law and yet is guilty in one point offendeth in all David did according to all that God commanded him Zacharias and Elizabeth walked in all the Commandments and Ordinances of the Lord then shall I not be ashamed when I have respect unto all thy Commandments Conscience must be made of every sin great and small They only are blessed that do no iniquity I have refrained my Feet from every evil way I hate every false way Darling sins must be abandoned and abominated sins of constitution calling company I kept my self from mine iniquity So must every secret sin even of thought Why should I think upon a Maid Whosoever shall break one of these least Commandments shall be excluded out of Heaven yea all appearance of evil must be abstain'd from And conscience must be made of every duty how costly dangerous or difficult soever 2 Cor. 8. 7. Phil. 4. 8 9. Dan. 6. 10. Rom. 12. 19 20. True it is we must be most careful of such duties that God hath laid a charge upon us especially to perform namely substantial duties of Piety and Charity and the duties of our particular Callings and Relations Mat. 22. 38 39 23. 23 24. 1 Sam. 15. 22. Hos 6. 6. Luk. 3. 13 14. 1 Tim. 6. 1 2. Tit. 2. 15. Eph. 5. 22. Not that it is expected that we should legally keep all these Commandments for this is impossible while we are in these earthly Tabernacles Evangelical obedience will be accepted which stands in five things 1. That we approve of all the Commandments of God I esteem all thy Commandments to be right the Law is holy the Commandment is holy just and good 2. That we unfeignedly will and earnestly endeavour to keep the whole Law We trust we have a good conscience in all things willing to live honestly O that my ways were directed to keep thy Statutes Let now thine Ear be attentive to the Prayer of thy Servants who desire to fear thy Name 3. That there be in us as earnest an endeavour Herein do I exercise my self to have always a Conscience void of offence both towards God and Man 4. That we unfeignedly repent as oft as we fall or fail Grieving that we have done amiss and resolve to do so no more If thy Brother Sin against Thee seven times in a Day and seven times in a Day turn again to thee saying I repent thou shalt forgive him Repent and be converted that your sins may be blotted out I gave her space to repent of her Fornication and she repented not They repented not to give him glory neither repented they of their murders or of their Sorceries nor of their thefts no Man repented him of his wickedness saying what have I done There was under the Law a Sacrifice even for Perjury whereby a Man seals himself to the Devil 5. That we believe in the Lord
Word of God and all other meanes of grace and in the Saints of God and a more fervent zeal against sin in our selves and others and for advancement of God's glory For zeal is nothing else but a flame issuing from the Fire of Love And because there is a zeal which is not according to knowledge the five requisites in the exerting of our zeal ought to be examined namely whether we have a good cause and calling and a good Conscience and use only good meanes and aim at a good end Where there is true love to Men it will be extensive to all and manifest it self by unfeigned desire of their salvation and an earnest desire to procure them all the goods their necessities require according to our ability and even to our greatest Enemies compassionate affection towards them pitying and grieving for any evil that befalls them with a gentle usage of them in speech and action Thus are we commanded to deal with our Enemies Oxe or Ass Moreover we are bound to pray for the pardon of their sins and conversion of their minds and manners and readily to relieve them But especially we prove our dwelling in God by Love to the Brethren Christs whole spiritual Kindred that are knit to him by the bond of faith and among themselves by that of love Those on whom we discern the new Man put on which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness though different from us in judgment in points of faith that are not fundamental Our love to these must not only be unfeigned So it must be to all others and with a pure heart free from Lust and evil surmising but with extraordinary heat of affection Having thus proved the Doctrine and resolved the Question we proceed to Application And there are three sorts of Persons to be dealt with 1. Such as are or may be sure they have not yet made God their Habitation 2. Such whose Habitation the Lord is sure enough but they have no comfortable assurance that he is so 3. Such as have this assurance The first of these are the greatest part of the Visible Church as for the rest of the World which are 28. or 31. by computation they are without doubt without God in the World wherein there are no less than one and thirty sorts of Hypocrites of whom eleven come not up so high as the profession of the true Religion The other 20. Persons the true Religion without being truly Religious Affecting the Name Religion but dis-affecting the thing The description of each of these are legible in Crook's Characters Now an Hypocrite shall not come before God cannot subsist in his presence much less have his abode in him Many of them have confidence in Gods mercies But the Hypocrites hopes shall perish whose hope shall be cut off and whose trust shall be a Spiders Web their hopes shall be as the giving up of the Ghost For what is the hope of the Hypocrite though he hath gained when God taketh away his Soul Will God hear his cryes when trouble cometh upon him There is no hope of mercy for them no though the fittest objects of mercy The Lord shall have no joy in their young Men. Neither shall have mercy on their Fatherless and Widdows for every one is an Hypocrite Nothing but woe is their Portion as appeares by those 8. woes pronounced against them by our Saviour in one Chapter And he makes them as it were the Free-holders of Hell All others but as Inmates holding under them And he hath given 14. Notes together whereby they may be known any one of which raigning in any Man proves him to have nothing to do in God that God is not his Habitation but that he is a Simon Magus was in the gall of bitterness It is too manifest alas that most among us are out of God by what hath been spoken in answer to the Question 1. There are none in comparison that will be perswaded to make choice of God Not only the whole World out of the Church lyeth in wickedness as in a deep puddle have chosen to live under the power and command of the wicked one and with the Swine to wallow in the mire and filth of Sin but also the whole Multitude that is within the Body and Kingdome of Christ Yea they have chosen their own ways and their Soul delighteth in their Abominations When I called none did answer when I spake none did hear but they did evil before mine Eyes and chose that wherein I delighted not They hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord they would have none of my counsel My People would not hearken unto my Voice and Israel would have none of me No for I have loved strangers and after them will I go Strange Nations and Gods their Idolatries Superstitions and Customes They choose new Gods that came newly up whom their Fathers feared not From the least of them even to the greatest every one is given to Covetousness from the Prophet even to the Priest every one dealeth deceitfully They have chosen the Tongue of the Crafty Such a choice most of the sacred stock and Members of the Church of old made The Sons of God saw that the Daughters of Men were fair and they took them Wives of all which they chose Without making any distinction for spiritual matters or Religion did intimate was to be done and such a perverse choice the Jews long after made who were the only Visible Church For Salvation is of the Jews They cryed all not this Man but Barabbas They denyed the holy One and the just and desired a Murderer to be granted unto them And no other choice do the generality of the World among us at this day make The World hath three Daughters The lust of the Flesh the lust of the Eye and the Pride of Life One of which every one chooseth before God the Voluptuous the first the Covetous the second the Ambitious the third And who or where is he or she that is not one of these Many walk of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping that they are Enemies of the Cross of Christ Whose God is their Belly whose Glory is their shame who mind Earthly things 2. There are as few that lay hold on God joyn themselves to him close with him There is none that calleth upon thy Name that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee Where are there any that do as those Children returning to Judea did the Children of Israel and the Children of Judah together of whom it is said They shall go and seek the Lord their God they shall ask the way to Zion with their Faces thither-ward Saying come let us joyn our selves unto the Lord in a perpetual Covenant that shall not be
hypocrites have been conversant in them even afflicting their souls and fasting frequently and praying on such Days very servently And this is that which God's Ministers are bound to press upon Men that are in a natural condition to do matter of duty to set themselves as objects of the spirit of God attending upon Divine Ordinances As a neglected Courtier sets himself in the Kings sight standing and waiting where he usually passeth and there humbly faces him It is observed that the Spirits out-goings are only upon such as face him He goes right on and turns not as he goes They must do as Esther did who esteemed her self as lovely as she could in the Kings sight set her self in the best dress she had as an object of the Kings call and see what good success she had by so doing Qu. How far doth nature qualifie her self for grace when she reacheth forth her abilities as far as she can Answ 1. Morally God took occasion from Ahab's humiliation to spare his life when upon hearing of Elijah's words he rent his cloaths put Sack-cloath upon his flesh and fasted and lay in Sack-cloth and went softly seest thou saith God unto the Prophet how Ahab humbleth himself before me because he humbleth himself before me I will not bring the evil in his Days So he took occasion from what those noble Bereans did in bringing their Bodies to publick Assembly takeing the heads of Paul's Sermons and examining the Notes they had taken by the Scriptures to work effectual faith in them 2. Passively a Man makes himself an object of the grace Life a handle for the Spirit to lay hold upon when he harps upon the string of his misery Cries out of his sin implores mercy and waits for grace in the use of means And it is not only possible that he may be translated out of the state of nature into the state of grace but probable he shall be so The Gospel being the market of grace he that goes to buy there without Money it 's probably he may be furnished to his mind As they that lay at the Pool of Bethesda waiting for the moving of the Water were in fair probability to be healed of their Diseases The Scribe that answered discreetly was not far from the Kingdom of God If there be no certainty of obtaining saving grace yet this should not discourage any natural Man from doing their utmost for the obtaining of it no more than the Husband-man is discouraged from Plowing Sowing because he is not certain he shall have his seed again No more is the Merchant sure he shall have his Ship come home laden with goods yet he ventures and so do all that trade for earthly commodities The Argument or motive to pains-taking from a peradventure or may be hath a force in it 2 Tim. 2. 25 26. Dan. 4. 27. Joel 2. 14. Zeph. 2. 3. They that neglect to use the means are sure to perish and such are most Men in these last Days who embezzel Nature's abilities make her poorer than she is strip her naked even of common Principles Sensual livers that drown all in Belial manners and having stifled Conscience give themselves over to work all uncleanness with greediness live as if they had no God to serve no soul to save or as if their souls served only as the souls of Swine to keep their Bodies from putrifying They that are less licentious and lead a civil life are generally prodigiously sloathful work not at all or not with half their might as if grace and glory were not worth the while to labour for Now them that are such we command and exhort to be impatient of a natural condition to look upon grace as lovely and the Mother of delights Herb. Ch. the Foil If we could see below The Spheer of Virtue and each shining grace As plainly as that above doth show This were the better Skie the brighter place God hath made Stars the foyle To set off Virtues Griefs to set off sinning Yet in this wretched World we toyle As if Grief were not foul nor Virtue winning Thus saith the Lord God O ye House of Israel let it suffice you of all your abominations It is now even time to turn over a new leaf Let possibility and probability put you upon straining your selves with all your strength for the improving of Nature in her abilities and prove me now herewith saith the Lord. If so the common grace I have given you to actuate nature I will not also add sanctifying saving Grace Yea let me assure you that if you finde in your selves a valuing of an estate of Grace in your selves above all earthly things and a vehement and constant desire to have admission into God's Grace and savour and that not only for the benefit and comfort it brings with it but for the beauty and excellency it brings with it also at least you would and wish heartily that it were the ground of your desire and if withall your purpose and resolution be to persevere in the use of all the means appointed to bring you to this estate God hath begun a work of Grace in your Souls which he will perfect and you are in the number of those thrice happy People whose habitation the Lord Jehovah is With whom we are next to deal And first with those whose habitation God is sure enough but they have no comfortable assurance that he is so Cannot say as David here in my Text He is my refuge I say they are not comfortably assured for there are none whose habitation the Lord is are utterly without all assurance Certainly the Lord is theirs that he dwells in them and they in him but many of them know not that they have this knowledge and some of them deny it yea conceive and conclude that they are out of God and as far from him as Hell from Heaven That it 's possible for Men to know a thing and not to know they know it yea to deny that they know it appears by these words of Thomas in the name of all his fellow Disciples to our Saviour who had assured him that Whither he went they knew and knew the way Lord we know not whither thou goest and how can we know the way They knew both but they knew not that they knew either And that Men in the state of Grace and abiding in God may be so far from any sensible and comfortable assurance of their interest in God of his love and favour towards them that they may seem to be assured of the contrary apprehend him as their mortal Enemy appeares by those words of Job He teareth me in his wrath who hateth me Mine Enemy sharpeneth his Eyes upon me Wherefore hidest thou thy face and holdest me for thine Enemy Now the Grounds and Reasons why many precious Souls have such doubts and feares and are apt to pass such a sad conclusion
all their Moral parts and actions till they be members of Christ will yield them no true comfort by being in him they are brought to dwell in God This you may easily prove unto them by the example of sundry Persons who though endowed with many civil Virtues yet are branded by the Holy Ghost for most unhappy Men. Esau was a dutiful Childe to his Father careful to please him fearful to offend him of a bountifull disposition and free from covetousness Ahab a kind-hearted Man pittiful towards an insolent inveterate Enemy The Pharisee that went up into the Temple to pray could thank God that he was not as other Men were Extortioners Unjust Adulterers that he payed his Tythes duly And what Man in the World could live a more unblameable life than that young Ruler did And so Paul before his Conversion If any Man think he hath whereof he might trust in the Flesh I more touching the righteousness which is in the Law blameless Yet without Faith in Christ and a real change wrought in the heart all this and much more is nothing he being the Fountain of all true goodness The civil Devil carries Men to Hell as well as the prophane Devil though somewhat more about 5. Those whom you discern to be Hypocrites by living and allowing themselves in some one known sin of Omission or Commission Thus Jehu discovered himself to be an Hypocrite He took no heed to walk in the way of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart for he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam which made Israel to sin When you have occasion to confer with these acknowledge the good that is in them much more than in Moral Men as having a prime respect to the first Table affecting the Ministry of the Word giving themselves to Prayer and Fasting abstaining from petty as well as bloody Oathes strictly observing the Lord's Day loving the pure worship of God and hating will-worship commend them for these things but labour to fright and Fire them out of their Hypocrisie by pressing that of St. James upon them Whosoever shall keep the whole Law and yet offend in one point he is guilty of all that breaketh one Commandement Habitual sincere obedience is Universal extending to the compass of the whole Law evangelically And as one Leak in a Ship let alone will sink it as well as many and one Mortal Wound destroy the Body So any one sin wilfully continued in will drown and destroy the Soul and finally how more intolerable their torment shall be in Hell than any other sinners 6. In like manner deal with them who are haters and Persecutors of the People of God pretending that it is for their Hypocrisie that they cannot away with them perswade them that their pretence is false for if they hated them as Hypocrites they would hate them as sinners and so they would hate all sinners and the greatest sinners most as he that hates a Toad because of his poyson the greater the Toad is the more he would hate it But these Men know themselves and are known to love well enough Drunkards Whoremasters Swearers and practical Atheists and therefore the true reason why they hate strict Professors is for their godliness which condemns their irreligious and loose living as Noah by building the Ark condemned the World So Cain slew his Brother because his own works were evil and his Brothers righteous Saul Saul why persecutest thou me His Conversion presently followed his Conviction They that dwell in God dwell in love Your love to poor Souls that are out of God expressed thus by making essayes to draw them unto God will both evidence to your selves and others that he is your habitation Make this therefore your work every day do as Lot did by the two Angels Turn in I pray you into your Servants House no but we will abide in the Street and he pressed them greatly and they turned in unto him and they entred into his house What know you but you may prevail as he did and if so you will make Men Angels for this is their highest happiness Alway to behold the Face of God Let love constrain you not only that which I have now pressed you owe love to every Man are bound to love them as your selves and to seek their welfare as your own and there is no love in any Man to his Neighbour that loveth not his Soul But the love of Christ should more constrain you to put the whole strain of your strength to this work God having declared his desire to have his House filled and his Sons Kingdome enlarged and there being joy in Heaven at the Conversion of every sinner Yea love to your selves should force this It being the best meanes to increase your graces and comforts the more you draw to knowledge and faith and holiness the more will these graces increase in you and the comfort of them As a Man casting forth of his Seed brings it him back again with great increase Nor will any work you can do have the like recompense which was hinted before They that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the Stars for ever and ever Nor can you be ignorant that this is the end why God hath bestowed his graces upon you whereby you were made meet to be partakers of this Inheritance not that you should keep them to your selves but that you should benefit others by them The manifestation of the Spirit that is those gifts of grace whereby it is manifested that they dwell in God is given to every Man to profit withall Finally The Lord hath strictly commanded that no Man should content himself to know and believe aright himself to repent of his own prophaneness and to be religious and righteous but that he should seek also to cause others to be and do so that they may be as well housed as he as happy as himself Cause others to return that you and they may live together under the same Roof and the more the merrier and better cheer to Obj. There is no hope of doing good upon many that we meet with scarce upon any Answ If with all your pains taken all the Days of your Life you can win but one Soul it 's as much as the gaining of the whole World Yea one Soul is more worth than the whole World 2. Despair of none how wicked so ever as bad as bad can be have been reduced and brought in Manasseh for example and three thousand at once 3. If assaying three or four or five or six times prevail not the 7th may Go up now look towards the Sea Master there is nothing go again seven times and it came to pass at the seventh time that he said behold there ariseth a little Cloud out of the Sea like a Mans hand 4. Suppose when you have done all you can all your
believers and those that are regenerate by God's spirit apply themselves to the obedience of the Law without constraint or terrifying having the habit of righteousness and holiness in themselves as an inward and living Law They have no need of the horror and constraint of it and also being justified by Christ they are freed from the condemnation of it seeing that a Soveraign pardon stayeth and endeth all Actions and Condemnations grounded upon the Law Great Houses with the Gardens Orchards Parks and Grounds belonging to them have their bounds and limits made by Walls Pales and Hedges That great glorious House which Ezekiah saw in a Vision had its limit This is the Law of the House upon the top of the Mountain the whole limit thereof round about shall be most Holy God is said to have determined the bounds of all Mens Habitations upon Earth The Ten Commandments of the Moral Law are the Bounds Walls Pales and Hedges set round about the House wherein you that are Saints on Earth inhabit beyond which you may not pass but must keep within this compass As the Waters dwelling within the great Channel have their bounds which they are commanded to keep and forbidden to transgress pass or go over I establish saith God to Job my Decree upon it speaking of the Sea break up for it my Decreed place set Bars and Doors to it Figurative terms to express the concavities wherein the Sea is enclosed and said hitherto shalt thou come and no further and here shall thy proud Waves be stayed You are commanded in like manner to keep within the bounds of your Decreed place and you are bound to keep within them under a greater penalty than that which was laid upon Shimei when he was confined to his House by Solomon and to the City of Hierusalem the Walls whereof were his utmost limits The King sent and called for Shimei and said unto him build thee an House in Hierusalem and dwell there and go not forth thence any whether For it shall be that on the Day thou goest out and passest over the Brook Kidron that thou shalt surely dye Abide within So long as you do so you abide with God Cursed be the Man whose Heart departeth from the Lord. As a Bird that wandereth from her Nest so is a Man that wandereth from his place Thou hast rebuked the proud that are cursed who do erre from thy Commandements Thou hast trodden down all them that erre from thy Statutes Take heed Brethren lest there be in any of you an evil Heart of unbelief in departing from the living God Every Sin small and great is a transgression of the Law Exceeds the bounds which God by his Law hath appointed unto Men for the moderating regulating of their thoughts words and actions And every transgression and disobedience every commission and omission received a just recompence of reward If at any time through frailty or violence of temptation you pass these bounds If at any time said I Alass who doth not every Day both in thought word and deed There is not a just Man upon Earth that doth good and sinneth not In many things we offend all David a Man after God's own heart passed these bounds oft through infirmity once most abominably Well consider what is to be done after such excursions Consider your wayes in your hearts Bend your minds very diligently weigh ponder think seriously with your selves what you have done Most Men are guilty of this neglect No Man repenteth of his wickedness saying What have I done Remember this and shew your selves Men bring it again to mind O ye Transgressors Know therefore that it is an evil and bitter thing that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God Be ashamed and confounded to have been found out of the bounds of your House Then shalt thou remember thy ways and be ashamed What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed Let it not be said of you as of the generality of the Jewes in Jeremyah's time Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination Nay they were not at all ashamed neither Let the review remembrance and thought of every ordinary sinful digression by rash anger or any bitter expression against Wife Husband Childe Servant Neighbour by vain empty idle unprofitable conference at any time by intemperance in Eating or Drinking though never so little beyond necessity or honest delight making you unfit for divine service in either of your Callings by immoderate sleeping or not being up as early for God as for your selves or spending more time in dressing your Bodies than your Souls by wanton glances of your Eyes or lusting after strange Flesh or abusing the lawful duty of Marriage by envying and grieving at the outward welfare of others or discontentment with your own health wealth credit or carking distrustful caring for to morrow or hasting to be rich by passing rash censure upon the spiritual estate of others or speaking of their faults and follies with mirth by silence at the unsavory speeches of any or conniving at their miscarriages not reproving them at least by discountenance for fear of giving them offence by having too great a hankering of heart after things not evil in themselves Tobacco Hunting Hawking Angling Gameing though not for gain but sport by suffering buying and selling thoughts and vile distractions to have incursions and lodging within you in holy Duties Let the thoughts I say of these and numberless other sinful digressions fill your Souls with shame and blushing ing and sinful abhorrence Much more if you call to mind grosser crimes Then shall ye remember your own evil wayes and doings that were not good and shall loath your selves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations Nor let your shame for taking so many steps out of your Heavenly Fathers House or sense of selfloathsomeness hinder your return thither but say as that unclean spirit for it is lawful and stands with godliness honesty and reason to learn of an enemy I will return unto my House from whence I came out And as that penitent Wife that had stept aside from her Husband I will go and return unto my first Husband for then was it better with me than now So did the Prodigal resolve to do I will arise and go to my Father and say unto him Father I have sinned against Heaven and before thee O Israel return unto the Lord thy God for thou hast fallen by thy iniquity Go and knock at the Door of Divine Mercy confess your folly accusing and judging your selves Surely it is meet to be said unto God who hath revealed himself not only in his Law by commanding and threatning but also in his promises of grace to comfort and encourage by the remission of sins so the Italian reads the word following I
distress and vexation of mind call to mind such promises as are fitted to your condition For there can be no condition imagined but there are promises suited to it and a Christian wisdome must be to accommodate the remedy to the sore and malady of his heart Enquire what word there is in God's Book to still the tempests and distempers of your spirits and then make application of it Promises faithfully remembered and well digested will arm and fortifie your Souls that they shall be able to put any case of trouble inward or outward and come off victoriously and triumphantly Put case you be as poor as Job Lazarus the Prophets Widdow Call to mind the promises of temporal blessings in abundance Put case you be persecuted by the tongues or hands of wicked Men call to mind the promises that you shall be delivered your enemies confounded Put case your hearts be heavy for some great losses of Goods or Friends Call to mind the promises that you shall be gainers by your losses Put case your spirits be wounded with the sense of Divine wrath Call to mind the promises of pardon peace and rest Put case your Graces be weak and corruptions strong Call to mind the promises of sanctification and quickening Put case some great eminent danger threaten you Call to mind the promises that nothing shall hurt you that every thing that befalls you shall work together for your spiritual and eternal good 2. Provision thus brought in by the Memory the next work of Faith is to prepare and make it fit nourishment This is done by searching for and finding out that Grace or part of obedience upon which the fruition of the promise depends to which sufficient hath been spoken already nor will it be disheartned for weakness if there be truth yea if no more than a true desire Mat. 5. 3 6. Neh. 1. 11. The third and last chief work of Faith is application of the promises to your selves in particular this is feeding upon the provisions brought in and dressed Faith first does its utmost to assure the soul that what God hath promised is already done Mark 11. 24. 15. 28. Job 13. 15. Yea and it makes it good thus 1. It hath Christ and he is all 2. It hath if not the thing promised as good or better 3. When it findes much ado It goes to God and seeks help of him Mark 9. 24. 2 Chr. 20. 12. Psal 73. 23. 24. 27. and concludes with the Psalmist 60. 12. 73. 1. You will be sure to finde while you live here on Earth the Devil ever anon throwing his Fiery darts into your Souls You must take the Apostles advice to stand alwayes Armed with the whole Armour of God Above all taking the Shield of Faith whereby ye shall be able to quench all his Fiery Darts THE EIGHTH SERMON YOu have heard what the Daily Duty is of all who live and dwell in God viz. To live by Faith How faith maintains the Soul in life and the Apostle bidding you to take the Shield of Faith and to use and move and mannage it according to the place Satan casting his Darts at you aimes at and according to the kindes of his temptations I shall give you a truth and tast how faith may be mannaged and what the several acts of Faith are by which the fierceness of these Darts of Satan may be quenched There are six Fiery Darts besides many others which Sathan throwes at the Souls of those that dwell in God whereby he works them much disquiet and trouble The first and worst is concerning the forgiveness of sins He would and often doth perswade them that their sins are unpardoned and that God will damn them for their manifold transgressions and mighty sins The apprehension of this fills their Souls with horror nor can the greatness and grievousness of this affliction be expressed A second is Concerning their spiritual Estate he would make them believe they are yet in a state of Unregeneracy and that the Root of the matter is not in them but that they are but painted Hypocrites A third is Concerning Mortification of Lusts and Sanctification of Life neither of which they have attained and they are afraid they never shall A fourth is Fear of Poverty and temporal Misery what will become of them in sickness and old Age they cannot tell want coming on them like an Armed Man this Dart sets on Fire many Lusts A fifth is Concerning the right use of prosperity and adversity Satan perswades them they neither do nor ever shall use either rightly A sixth is Fear of falling away Faith rightly mannaged will blunt the piercing points of all these Darts and take away all the burning Poyson in them and so repell them that the Soul shall not be hurt at all by them though until Faith have done it suffer much affliction by each of them I shall not now undertake to shew what be the several acts of Faith that have force to overcome these several temptations but will declare very briefly what those acts are whereby Faith supports and settles the Soul and makes it victorious in any trouble or affliction whatsoever inward or outward which may be applyed to any of the cases fore-mentioned Qu. What use will this Doctrine be to those that are not under any trouble that have no manner of affliction upon them Ans There is no Christian that is at any time of his life free from all affections no Day comes so fair over any godly Man's head wherein he meets not with some matter of grief yea so much that he findes enough ado to sustain and master it Luk. 9. 23. 2. Those that are now free from affliction may they know not how soon be hem'd in compassed about and overwhelmed with variety of afflictions as Job was and therefore ought to live in continual expectation of crosses and distresses publick domestical personal and although there are great hopes of peaceable times yet hopes may be frustrate our sins are many and mighty which gives us just cause to fear God's judgments we have also Enemies many and politick and malicious and the Devil and his Instruments are busie but howsoever how calm soever the publick state may be yet afflictions and miseries may and will sure enough befall those that fear God If not outward yet inward Many are the afflictions of the righteous And manifold are their infirmities in their afflictions and therefore they are called by that name Evils will not come the sooner because expected but they will fall the lighter And faith is necessary that they may so do it cannot therefore but be necessary and profitable to acquaint you with the acts of Faith in general at least whereby a Christian Soul may be upheld in evil times against all afflictions and miseries whatsoever This grace well acted will bring
of the Day we are not of the Night nor of Darkness therefore let us not sleep as do others There is a twofold waking literal and metaphorical the former is sometimes a punishment Thou holdest mine Eyes waking It is alwayes a duty to with-hold your Eyes from immoderate and unseasonable sleep How long will thou sleep O sluggard when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep yet a little sleep a little slumber a little folding of the hands to sleep Too many Christians willingly suffer this Thief to steal away the best and feed upon the very fat of their time which are a shame to the House they live in It was thought in Austin's time to be an undecent thing for a Christian at any time of the Year to have the Sun beames finde him in Bed How early every Morning was David up at his Devotions My Voice shalt thou hear in the Morning O Lord. In the Morning will I direct my Prayer unto thee Awake up my Glory awake Psaltery and Harp I my self will awake early yea mine Eyes prevent the Night Watches that I might meditate on thy Word I have awaked of my self in the Night before I have been called upon by the Watchmen who give warning of the seasons of the Night Yea at Mid-night will I arise to give thanks unto thee This was ordinary for the Servants of this House to do their Master service as well by Night as Day Behold bless ye the Lord all ye Servants of the Lord which by Night stand in the House of the Lord. Nothing was more ordinary in Primitive times in the House of godly great Men than to have Vigils Paul says of himself that he was oft in voluntary fastings which he undertook to fit himself the better for Supplications and Prayer So oft in such Watchings It 's said of our blessed Saviour that He continued all Night in Prayer to God Come lye all Night in Sackcloth ye Ministers of my God David fasted and went in and lay all Night upon the Earth This was extraordinary literal watching for spiritual ends and for our imitation upon like occasions time allow'd to spend in sleep must sometimes be set apart for religious Duties And every Night of of our life when we are awake we must take care to spend piously â—is the Character of a godly Man His delight is in the Law of the Lord and in that Law doth he meditate Day and Night When I remember Thee upon my Bed and meditate on Thee in the Night Watches With my Soul have I desired Thee in the Night Stand in awe and sin not commune with your own Heart upon your Bed But it is the latter wakeing and watching which the Apostle chiefly intends when he saith let us not sleep as do others that is through carelesness slacking giving over acts of faith and piety or doing them listlesly or perfunctorily sluggishly or by being lull'd asleep and over-burthened by worldly desires cares or pleasures 't is an heedful observation of our selves in all things and a serious careful and diligent circumspection over all our thoughts words and ways that we may please God by doing his will and neither commit any sin nor omit any duty This Christian heedfulness is very frequently and earnestly urged upon God's People no duty more Take heed to thy self and keep thy Soul diligently take heed unto your selves lest ye forget the Covenant take diligent heed to do the Commandment and the Law take heed then that ye walk circumspectly not as fools but as wise Watch ye therefore for ye know not when the Master of the House cometh at Evening or at Mid-night or at the Cock crowing or in the Morning lest coming suddenly he finde you sleeping and what I say unto you I say unto all Watch. This watchfulness must be in all things what Saint Paul saith unto Timothy who was as all Gospel-Ministers should be religious faithful Watch-men warning their People of spiritual dangers and enemies as God's Prophets of old were somewere then as too many are now careless Guids Watch-men in Name but not in truth wretched or rather wretchless and scarce Watch-men he saith to every private Christian Watch thou in all things Evil civil good Take heed how ye hear read pray give Almes How you do the works of your particular Calling and even natural actions eat drink play and watch over all the powers and parts both of your Souls and Bodies your outward Senses Eyes and Eares and tast and touch Job 31. 1. Mat. 5. 28. Psal 119. 37. Esay 33. 15. Pro. 23. 1 2 3. Your Tongues especially Psal 39. 1. 37. 30. Pro. 15. 4. 7. 23. 18. 20. 25. 11. 1 Cor. 15. 31. Jam. 3. 2. Mat. 12. 34-38 Psal 45. 1. Eph. 4. 29. Col. 4. 6. But above all your hearts must be watched over Pro. 4. 23. Heb. 3. 12. And you must watch especially against those sins that are most dangerous and whereto you are naturally most inclined Luk. 3. 12 13 14. 12. 15. The Pathes of your Feet must also be pondered Pro. 4. 26. And this must be in all places and at all times all the days of your lives Deut. 4. 9. Nor must you only watch over your selves but over your Brethren also Heb. 10. 24. 3. 13. Gen. 4. 9. Lev. 19. 17. A great many reasons may quicken you to this duty besides the many Precepts that press it in reference to your selves 1. The estate and condition wherein you stand 1. You are weak at best full of infirmities Mat. 26. 41. As they that have weak sickly Bodies observe a strickt Dyet so should you much more be careful and fearful whose Souls are so 1 Cor. 10. 12. Phil. 2. 12. Pro. 28. 14. 2. You are naturally drowsie and therefore had need to do as the Nightingal that is said to set her Brest against a Thorn to keep her self from sleeping Mat. 25. 5. Cant. 5. 2. Eph. 5. 14. The wise as well as foolish Virgins slept your hearts are naturally wicked and deceitful and desperatly wicked Jer. 17. 10. Psal 18. 57. Deut. 11. 16. Heb. 3. 12. 1. You are extreamly apt to relapse into your former condition Rev. 2. 5. Mat. 12. 45. 2 Pet. 2. 21 22. 2. You have many mighty and subtile and malicious and dangerous enemies Eph. 16. 12. 1 Pet. 5. 8. 3. Great are the benefits of this continual watchfulness You will hereby tame your Flesh The wildest Beasts are tamed by watching This will be a great furtherance to your Prayers and hereby you will be kept from being foiled by temptations Mat. 26. 41. 4. Great is the danger of neglecting this one Moment There is no sin but may be sowne in you while you sleep Mat. 13. 24. witness David 2 Sam. 11. and so you hazard your salvation Means enabling you to the performance of this duty are 1. Sobriety in the
be Governours of Families set before you the example of the virtuous Woman Pro. 31. 13 28. If Servants Eleazar and Jacob Gen. 24. 31. 6 40. Col. 3. 22. to the end Remember the promise of protection of Angels while you are diligent in your Callings Psal 91. 11 12. and how God hath graciously and gloriously appeared unto them he found therein Exod. 31. 2. Judg. 6. 11. 2 Sam. 7 8. Amos 7. 14 15. And how he will welcome you with a well done good and faithful Servant Mat. 25. Only be sure to follow these Rules in your particular Callings 1. Labour principally for spiritual and heavenly things Mat. 6. 33. Esay 55. 2. Joh. 6. 27. 2. Let your end be right 1 Cor. 10. 31. Acts 20. 35. Eph. 4. 28. And 3. For the manner do your work without all carking care And without discontent of any providences and with a heavenly mind Phil. 3. 20. 3. Be alway rejoycing God hath declared abundantly his will and pleasure that you who dwell in him should be continually cheerful and comfortable in your Spirits and he hath in his Word as oft charged you to be so and he hath charged you to fear him and live a godly life Psal 119. Psal 2. 117. 32. 11. 33. 1. 48. 11. 5. 11. 68. 4. Mat. 5. 12. Phil. 3. 1. 1 Thes 5. 16. And he is delighted to see you cheerful and offended much when you are disconsolate and uncheerful Deut. 28. 47 48. You are the only People that have right and title to joy and comfort Psal 116. 15. 47. 11. 64. 10. 106. 4 5. Rom. 5. 1. 14. 17. 15. 13. The objects of your joy are such as have in every one of them force and power if seriously pondered to keep up your hearts in frame of comfort and so fill them with joy at all times Quest. What are these objects Answ 1. The Lord himself he is the prime main ultimate adequate object of your joy Phil. 4. 4. Psal 4. 6 7. Hab. 3. 17 18. Jesus Christ John 16. 33. Phil. 3. 3. 4. 13. The word of God Psal 119. 92. 94. 19. Rom. 15. 4. All the Ordinances of God especially Prayer Phil. 4. 6 7. The works of God these are also a great object of his Peoples joy both the internal eminent ones that werewrought within himself especially Election Luk. 10. 20. And the outward viz. Creation and providence Psal 107. 22. Especially the work of Redemption Psal 53. 6. 71. 23. 126. 1 2. All the gifts of God Faith Hab. 2. 4. 1 Pet. 1. 8. Hope Rom. 5. 2. The testimony of your sanctified Conscience 2 Cor. 1. 12. Experiences of the love of God Psal 63. 3. Remission of sins Mat. 9. â— Co-operation of all things for their good Rom. 8. 28. The Attendants of the holy Angels the immensity of their wages for their works which is from free grace 2 Tim. 4. 8. Heb. 11. 26. Rom. 8. 18. Afflictions themselves of all sorts both natural being prepared for them corrected with Lenitives one whereof is commonness 1 Cor. 10. 13. Another that they are love-tokens like the Rain-bow And another the effects they produce whereof you have heard much and much more accidental for Religion and Christianity sake Mat. 5. 11 12. Col. 1. 24. 1 Pet. 4. 13. 2 Cor. 12. 15. Acts. 5. 41. Jam. 1. 2. 4. Be alway praying opening your desires to God with reverence and confidence in the name of Christ for things agreeable to his will viz. That he will glorifie his own great name immediatly by himself and by all his providential Dispensations That his paternal Kingdom may be brought to perfection both by means and gifts of grace That his will may be done by your selves and others as the Angels in Heaven do it chearfully without murmuring speedily without delaying totally without mincing or reservation sincerely without self-seeking constantly without fainting That you your fellowes may enjoy all necessary temporal blessings personal domestical Political National have title to them leave to use them and comfort in the use of them That he will free you from the guilt of sin grant you remission free and full And that he will sanctifie you and them throughout giving you conquest over all temptations and perseverance to the end Neglect not to keep a constant course of praying twice a Day at least Morning and Evening and occasionally Day and Night sending up servent short Ejaculations Continue in Prayer and watch in the same with thanks-giving which is the next duty to be performed and the next which every Day must be payed duly 5. Be alway giving thanks 1 Thes 5. 18. In thanksgiving there is both the Memory Meditation and serious acknowledgement of God's blessings And in token of the truth thereof and dedication and consecration of our Bodies and Souls with all we have to divine use that is to the honour and service of God This was figured in the Sacrifices of the old Law which were first set before the Altar and so presented to God and then afterward were offered unto him This dedication is made when the intention of our mindes and purpose of our hearts and in all our affections we give up and set our selves apart This was first done in our Baptisme and is continually renewed in the Lord's Supper Thankfulness is all the Rent God requires of us for the House we dwell in and all the accommodations thereunto annexed Psal 5â— 15. We would not forfeit any thing we hold for non-payment of rent Take we heed lest for want of thankfulness we give God occasion to dispossess us of himself and of all the good things we enjoy in him 6. Be alway willing to remove from these lowest into higher Rooms in this House By Death we do no more but change our Lodging from lower to higher Rooms in the same House Be willing to dye at any time So Simeon was Lord now lettest thou thy Servant depart in peace So was Paul Having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better Be alway prepared to dye by dying to sin and to the World continually And by making every Day your dying Day by breaking off sins and avoiding all occasions of sinning and embracing all occasions of doing good and doing all in such a manner as you would if you knew you should dye presently Making also to your selves Friends of the Mammon of Unrighteousness and setting your House in Order and praying to God continually To teach you to number your Dayes that you may apply your hearts unto Wisdom FINIS IMPRIMATUR Rob. Grove R. P. D. Humph. Episc Lond. a Sac. Dom. Mart. 9. 1668 9. Mat. 8. 20. P. 14. Psal 91. 1. 1 Joh. 3. 24. 4. 13. 15 16. Gen. 11. 4. Psal 144. 2. Esa 33. 15 16. Psal 61. 3. 71. 7. Prov. 15. 10. Esa 25. 4. Jer. 22. 14. Prov. 21. 9. Esa 28. 20 Job 11. 7 8 9. Psal 119. 69. Gen. 13. 17. Exod. 3.