compleated by their Successors And what little reason we have now to think to ingratiate our selves with the Pagan-Christians as some think they have ground enough to stile the Papists I would rather ye should hear from a learned Doctor than from me who delivers this among his Documents as he calls them Seeing we are so well assured that the Papacy is the Kingdom of Antichrist or that City of Babylon wherein the people of God were held captive we should leave no string or tassel of our ancient captivity upon us such I mean as whereby they may take hold on us and pull us back again into our former Bondage but look upon our selves as absolutely free from any tie to them more than in endeavouring their Conversion and Salvation Which we knowing so experimentally not to be compassed by needless symbolizings with them in any thing I conceive our best policy is studiously to imitate them in Nothing But for all indifferent things to think rather the worse of them for their using them As no Person of Honour would willingly go in the known garb of any lewd and infamous Persons Whatsoever we court them in they do but turn it to our scorn and contempt and are the more hardened in their own wickedness Dr. Hen. More Divine Dialogues Part ii pag. 398. How easily soever Pagan Rites were admitted into the Christian Church I am sure many of them have taken such deep root that it is very difficult to eradicate and purge them out So much for the third Obstruction Fourthly They who desire to be helpful in promoting the entertainment of the Gospel must not unnecessarily provoke and exasperate those whom they would win over to it Moses refused to permit the Israelites to sacrifice to the Lord before the faces of the Egyptians lest they should be enraged thereupon and stone them Exod. viii 25 26. They must not indeed forbear to do that which under all due circumstances God hath made to be their present duty Yet even in such cases they should remember my Text Walk in wisdom toward them that are without And learn what that meaneth I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice They must declare against their idolatry and endeavour to convert them to the true God as Paul did Acts xiv 15. We preach to you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God And his success therein was wonderful as Demetrius testifies Act. xix 26. Moreover ye see and hear that not only at Ephesus but almost throughout all Asia this Paul hath perswaded and turned away much people saying that they be no Gods which are made with hands But this must not be done with revilings reproaches and insultations but with judgment tenderness and meekness 2 Tim. ii 25 26. In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves We may conclude then that it is none of Gods way from whomsoever men have learnt it to convert Heathens by robbing them of their Goods and Estates and butchering their Persons which was the method that the Spaniards took to Gospellize the Indians or to send Dragoons as Missionaries to torment those whom they call Hereticks thereby to reduce them to their Catholick Church That 's the fourth Obstruction Fifthly They must religiously avoid that which is the greatest Obstruction of all The profligate and flagitious lives of some that call themselves Christians If men were prompted and employed by the Devil himself they could not take a more effectual course to make the Gospel to be abhorred than by living as some Christians do How can it be expected That the poor ignorant Heathen should have any reverence for the great and Sacred Name of God when they hear those who pretend that they have a deep veneration for him to Reproach and Blaspheme it They will conclude That men do but prevaricate when they tell them That Christ gave himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Tit. ii 14. and yet live so as if Christ died only to procure for them a Licence to continue in sin or to purchase impunity for them that do so Will they believe those that tell them Christ was made manifest to destroy the works of the Devil and that they act under him as the Captain of their Salvation while they employ all their time parts and power to establish and defend Satan's Kingdom Can ye perswade men That ye believe there is an Hell and eternal Flames prepared for the ungodly and impenitent and that the wicked shall be cast into it when they observe those that say They believe this to run posting sporting and laughing unto it They will never apprehend That the Heaven which they are told the Gospel promiseth to the Faithful and Holy is any other than a Poetical Elysium or a Mahometan Paradise while they perceive that such as call themselves Christians do prefer the world and sensual pleasures before it Can any man convince them That the Saints are such excellent Creatures when they see those who call themselves so to live like Bruits or Devils It is a vain attempt to perswade others To believe and obey the Gospel until they who profess it have learnt better what it teacheth them Tit. ii 11 12. To deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live Soberly Righteously and Godly in this present world These are some of the stumbling Blocks which are to be removed out of the way before any successful perswasions Motives Inducements or other Means will prevail to dispose and incline those who have not received the Gospel to embrace it 2. But these Obstructions being removed what ways are to be taken to help on the Entertainment of the Gospel To answer that Question I shall recommend unto you some Few among many which I conceive to be most obvious practicable and effectual e. gr 1. Private Christians should endeavour to oblige those whom they would perswade by Civilities Kindness and doing good Offices for them that they may be assured that they love them and seek their real and eternal good Our blessed Saviour who best understood what Attractives were most proper and powerful to draw men to receive Him and his Gospel took this Method Act. x. 38. He went about Doing good He did Good to mens Bodies that he might do good to their Souls The Miracles which he wrought were generally of Beneficence and Obligations as To heal the Sick To give Sight to the Blind c. It 's true He had a superior Aim and End in working Miracles which was To shew forth his Glory to confirm his Doctrine to strengthen the Faith of his Disciples c. Joh. ii 11. and xx 31. yet secondarily it was To testifie his Kindness and Compassion toward those whom he designed to perswade to believe on him Matth. xv 32. I have compassion on the multitude and thereupon he wrought a Miracle for their Refreshment ver 36 37 38. feeding Four thousand
here the feast is reserved for hereafter wrath to come and life to come are unconceivable and therefore unexpressible we can neither order our Speech by reason of our inward darkness nor of that ineffable Light thoughts fail us words fail us we are lost in the thoughts of future blessedness as well as in those of our former misery What therefore we cannot perfectly understand let us silently and reverently Admire and Adore What a prodigious height did Man fall from when he fell from his God What a desperate Abyss of misery did he fall into when he fell into sin And therefore what a stupendious height is that which Love shall raise him to in Glory All we can do is to put no bounds to our Love to Christ The true measure of our Love to Christ should be to Love him without measure and the true degree of our Love to a Redeemer is to Love him in the highest Degree But alas Where is our Love to Christ How weakly do we express our Love to him who has given us the fullest clearest demonstrations of his to us beyond all expressions His was stronger then death ours ready to die the water-floods coulds not quench his a few drops extinguish ours he shed blood for us with more freedom than we a few tears over him and his bleeding almost dying interest in the World he loved sinners better than we can love Saints he died for us with more flame of zeal than we can live to and for him Let us be ashamed that we can find a love so vehement for our perishing comforts nay for our killing corruptions and yet have so indifferent affections for a Saviour How shall we be able to Love our enemies for his sake when we can neither Love him with an intense Love for his sake nor our own Let us mourn therefore bitterly that the Love of Christ should be unconceivable and invisible and that our Love to him should be so too upon such different accounts his for the greatness of it ours for its smallness II. Prop. There is a sufficiency of the Love of Christ to us that may be known The Love of Christ to sinners may be considered either in the cause or as in the effects in the Spring and Fountain or in the streams that flow from thence into Souls Love as it was in the heart of Christ is unmeasurable the Spring the original cause and reason of it was his own unaccountable Love and can only be measured by the Love of the Father to his Son which is equally unmeasurable John 15.9 As the Father has loved me so I have loved you But Christs Love in the effects that it has been pleas'd to produce in and upon our Souls may be understood and in some good measure apprehended If we cannot fix our eyes immediately upon the body of the Sun in its meridian glory yet we may comfortably refresh our selves with its beams and feel the healing warmth of the Sun of righteousness arising and shining upon our Souls If we cannot measure Christs Love when it dealt with God in making his Soul an offering for sin nor what that Love was wherewith he loved us and gave himself for us Gal. 2.20 yet we may know that Love wherewith he loved us and washt us from our sins Rev. 1.5 The Love of Satisfaction passes knowledge the Love of Sanctification may be known As that poor Man John 9.15 tho' he could not give a Philosophical account to the Scribes and Pharisees how Clay and Spittle should contribute to the opening his Eyes yet could say This one thing I know that whereas I was born blind I now see So may a renewed Soul say Tho' I know not from what unmeasurable Fountain this Grace and Mercy did proceed tho' I am ignorant of the manner of its working yet this one thing I can say Whereas I was a lover of sin I now hate it and whereas I have been a despiser of Christ I now prize and love him as the chiefest of Ten thousand I can say That that vanity that corruption which sometime had a mighty power over me is now subdued and conquered More particularly 1. Altho' we cannot perfectly know the Love of Christ yet may we know so much of it as may raise our desires to know more As he that meets with a Vein of precious Metal tho' it be small yet it gives him hopes of meeting with more and those hopes encourage his labours to dig deeper and search further so that little we can attain of the knowledge of Christs Love in our wayfaring state makes the Soul labour and strive and hope and pray that it may come to fuller knowledge of that love in its own Country As that sight which Moses had of God encouraged him to pray Exod. 33.18 I beseech thee shew me thy glory So that view we have of Christ in a glass darkly serves to engage our endeavours and sharpen our desires to see him face to face in glory As we gain upon the knowledge of Christ so we grow and as it were encroach upon him still if God will condescend and come down to visit the Soul the Soul will make an argument from thence that he would take it up to himself A taste of Christs Love whets the Spiritual appetite after a feast 1 Pet. 2.2 As new born babes desire ye the sincere milk of the Word that ye may grow thereby If so be you have tasted that the Lord is gracious 2. However our knowledge of Christs Love is imperfect yet we may know so much as may shame us that we have loved him no better we know the Love of Christ carried him out to suffer most dreadful things upon our account and may hence reflect upon our selves with great shame that our love has been so weak as not to carry us out to suffer for his Name he endured the cross we are terrified at the sight of it The argument is very strong 1 John 3.16 Thus if Christ laid down his life for us we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren But how weakly does it work upon us How little a matter can this love constrain us to lay down for their sakes And it s a most concluding argument Col. 3.13 that we should forbear and forgive one another if any man have a quarrel against any as Christ forgave us but alas how little does this instance of the Love of Christ prevail upon us That Love which prevail'd with him to forgive us Talents will not does not prevail with us to forgive our brethren a few Pence Matth. 18.27 28. The Love of Christ was a conquering a triumphant Love it bore down what-ever stood in its way It grapled with the displeasure of God with the malice of Devils the fury of unreasonable Men and with the unkindness of his Friends it broke through all Discouragements and trampled upon all Oppositions the waters could not quench it the floods could not drown
eateth up both Truth and Love For such contentions are rather for Victory than Truth Now passion doth nothing well which made one Emperor say over his Alphabet to get the Dominion over his anger Ahasuerus fann'd himself in his Garden Esth 7.7 and he in Plutarch would not smite his Servant because he was angry Passionated persecution makes only Hypocrites become Proselites and in their Breasts also lodge such a revenge as will be satisfied one time or another upon them who have made them offer violence to their Consciences Religion is a free choice upon judgment or 't is not Religion therefore it gets in by perswasion not persecution Yet 't is strangely true they who are so tender of their own Wills that God must not touch them unless by Argument yet laxate themselves to Club Law with their Brethren not content with a moral swasion 2. Loving converse taketh off those prejudices which hinder Mens minds from a true knowledge of others Principles and Practices which at a distance seem horrid and monstrous Opinions and Practices when as a little free converse with them breedeth quite other apprehensions The Papists picture the Protestants as bruits with Tails as Devils with Horns to terrifie the Vulgar but knowing Merchants dare trust them So some Protestants have represented the Puritans as Pestilent and Seditious persons as Mad and having a Devil as the Scribes and Pharisees did John Baptist and Christ but the plain hearted people saw thorough those pious frauds and tricks and were astonished at their Doctrin and Life when they healed Souls and Bodies on the Sabbath day 3. Sincere love and converse breedeth a good opinion of persons who differ from us they can taste humility meekness and kindness better than the more speculative Principles of Religion These get into Mens affections and so bore away into their judgments and cause them to alter their minds Two Heads like two Globes touch but in one point the whole Bodies at a distance but two Hearts touch in plano and fall in with each other in all points Love openeth the Heart and Ear to cooler consideration and second thoughts The Spirit of God directed Elijah 1 Kings 19.12 not in the strong Wind which rent Rocks and Mountains nor in the Earthquake or Fire but in the silent whisper or tranquil voice Vse of Instruction How to carry our selves towards them who are weak in the Faith in these days and doubtless it is a sickly season when there are so many feverish heats among us I will not say what once a Romanist said to me That these are the spuria vitulamina the Bastard frisks of our Reformation in Henry the Eighths days But I rather think the violent endeavours after External Uniformity without the Inward the smothering of the industrious Bees in one Hive was a great cause of their castling into several Swarms Threshing the Corn hath driven it out of the Floor and the grasping so hard the Granes all into the Hands and Power of some hath made them creep out through their Fingers Rigid Impositions and violent Prosecutions and Exactions of Conformity to things extra Scriptural and Divine Institution and without any manifest tendency to Edification have and will make fractions without end As D. W. said Till Men be Infallible and the World Immutable moderation becometh every Man who is in his senses and considereth himself 1. There are some who have all Faith believe incredibly as that Katharina Senensis praying for a new Heart she had her real Heart cut out of her Body and after some days had a new Heart formed by Christ put into her That making a cross on the Body with a Finger driveth the Devil away That a Priest by these words this is my Body transubstantiateth the Bread into the Body of Christ and so he offereth that Sacrifice to deliver Souls out of Prison and then by his Dirges conducteth them to Paradise 2. Others have no Faith at all as that Infallible one who said What vast Wealth hath this Fable of Christ acquired to the Church So when some had Disputed about the Immortality of the Soul most gravely determined in a Verse Et redit in nihilum quod fuit ante nihil That which is nothing must needs come to nothing And I fear there are more Atheists than Papists who seem to believe all on the Stage nothing in their retiring thoughts We are not bound to receive such into our Bosoms or Communion lest we sting our own Breasts out of charity to our Souls we must take heed of receiving such 3. But there are others who seem seriously to believe the Doctrin of the Gospel yet have a weakness in their judgments about little things These we must receive and instruct them Rom. 14.17 That the Kingdom of God is not in Meat or Drink but Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost Shew them all kindness pity them pray for them and let them see Col. 2.5 Nothing but your order and the stedfastness of your Faith in Christ 1. Stand fast and fix'd in the good Word of God which is setled for ever in Heaven Psal 119.89 as the Copy of the Divine Nature and Law Stand having your Loins girt about with Truth Ephes 6.14 and having on the Breastplate of Righteousness This is the grand and perfect rule of Faith Worship and Life Keep within these Trenches and you have an assurance of protection I know no other method possible to Peace but in an universal resolution to impose nothing upon others but what Christ himself hath imposed what Scripture commands Matth. 28.20 Teach Men to observe whatever I have commanded you and then I am with you to the end of the World This is a Minister of Christs Commission and he cannot look for Christ to be with him if he go either coâ—trary to beyond or not according to his instructions Let this be first done and then Men may consider whether any thing further be necessary or convenient Let us therefore in the Name of God beg his holy Spirit whom Christ hath promised and that he shall lead us into all Truth John 16.13 He is the only infallible Interpreter of Gods mind He shall take of mine says our Saviour and shew it unto you vers 14. Then read the Scriptures as Christ himself did Luke 4.16 his custom was he went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up for to read and when the Book of God was delivered to him he read the 61 of Isaiah a Prophesie of himself and so he closed the Book and gave it to the Minister then he expounded and applied it to the present circumstances That he came to preach to the poor heal the broken hearted give deliverance to the captives open the Eyes of the blind to set at liberty them that are bruised Oh blessed pattern for every Minister of Christ to follow And sing the Psalms or Hymns as we read he also did Matth. 26.30 and the Ancient Christians
and terrifie the imagination that may work upon the Principles of Reason and Sense by which Men are naturally and strongly moved 1. Sinners shall be excluded from Communion with the blessed God in Heaven in whose presence is fulness of joy and at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore In the clear and transforming vision of his glory and the intimate and indissolvable union with him by love consists the perfection and satisfaction of the immortal Soul The felicity resulting from it is so entire and eternal as God is great and true who has so often promis'd it to his Saints Now sin separates lost Souls forever from the reviving presence of God Who can declare the extent and degrees of that evil For an evil rises in proportion to the good of which it deprives us it must therefore follow that Celestial blessedness being transcendent the exclusion from it is proportionably evil and as the felicity of the Saints results both from the direct possession of Heaven and from comparison with the contrary state so the misery of the damned arises both from the thoughts of lost happiness and from the lasting pain that torments them But it may be replied if this be the utmost evil that is consequent to sin the threatning of it is not likely to deter but few from pleasing their corrupt appetites for carnal Men have such gross apprehensions and vitated affections that they are careless of Spiritual glory and joy They cannot taste and see how good the Lord is nay the Divine Presence would be a torment to them for as light is the most pleasant quality in the World to the sound Eye so 't is very afflicting and painful to the Eye when corrupted by a suffusion of humors To this a clear answer may be given in the next state where the wicked shall for ever be without those sensual objects which here deceive and delight them their apprehensions will be changed they shall understand what a happiness the fruition of the blessed God is and what a misery to be uncapable of enjoying him and expell'd from the Celestial Paradise Luke 15.28 Our Saviour tells the infidel Jews There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth when ye shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the Prophets in the Kingdom of God and you your selves shut out How will they pine with envy at the sight of that triumphant felicity of which they shall never be partakers Depart from me will be as terrible a part of the judgment as eternal Fire 2. Gods justice is not satisfied in depriving them of Heaven but inflicts the most heavy punishment upon Sense and Conscience in the damned for as the Soul and Body in their state of union in this life were both guilty the one as the guide the other as the instrument of sin so 't is equal when reunited they should feel the penal effects of it The Scripture represents both to our capacity by the worm that never dies and the fire that never shall be quenched and by the destroying of Body and Soul in Hell fire Sinners shall then be tormented wherein they were most delighted they shall be invested with those objects that will cause the most dolorous perceptions in their sensitive faculties The lake of Fire and Brimstone the blackness of darkness are words of a terrible signification and intended to awaken sinners to fly from the wrath to come But no words can fully reveal the terrible ingredients of their misery the punishment will be in proportion to the glory of Gods Majesty that is dishonour'd and provok'd by sin and the extent of his power And as the Soul was the principal and the Body but an accessary in the works of sin so its capacious faculties will be far more tormented than the more limited faculties of the outward senses The fiery Attributes of God shall be transmitted through the glass of Conscience and concenter'd upon damned Spirits the fire without them is not so tormenting as this fire within them How will the tormenting passions be inflam'd What rancour reluctance and rage against the power above that sentenc'd them to Hell What impatience and indignation against themselves for their wilful sins the just cause of it How will they curse their Creation and wish their utter extinction as the final remedy of their misery But all their ardent wishes are in vain for the guilt of sin will never be expiated nor God so far reconcil'd as to annihilate them As long as there is justice in Heaven and fire in Hell as long as God and Eternity shall continue they must suffer these torments which the strength and patience of an Angel cannot bear one hour From hence we may infer what an inconceivable evil there is in sin and how hateful it is to the most High when God who is love who is stiled the Father of mercies has prepared and does inflict such Plagues for ever for the transgression of his holy Laws and such is the equity of his judgment that he never puniâ—â—es offenders above their desert I shall now apply this Doctrin by reflecting the light of it upon our minds and hearts 1. This discovers how perverse and depraved the minds and wills of Men are to chuse sin rather than affliction and break the Divine Law for the obtaining temporal things If one with an attentive Eye regards the generality of mankind what dominion present and sensible things have over them how securely and habitually they sin in prosecution of their carnal aims as if the Soul should not survive the Body as if there were no Tribunal above to examine no Judge to sentence and punish sinners if he has not marble bowels it will excite his compassion or indignation What comparison is there between the good things of this World and of the next in degrees or duration Aiery honour Sensual pleasures and Worldly riches are but the thin appearances of happiness shadows in masquerade that cannot afford solid content to an immortal Spirit the blessedness of Heaven replenishes with everlasting satisfaction What proportion is there between the light and momentary afflictions here and a vast eternity fill'd with indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish and desperate sorrow What stupid Beast what monster of a Man would prefer a superficial transient delight the pleasure of a short dream before ever-satisfying joys Or to avoid a slight evil venture upon destruction Yet this is the true case of sinners if they can obtain the World with the loss of Heaven they count it a valuable purchase if they can compound so as to escape temporal troubles tho involved under guilt that brings extream and eternal misery they think it a saving bargain Amazing solly Either they believe or do not the recompenses in the future state if they do not how unaccountable is their impiety If they do 't is more prodigious they do not feel the powers of the World to come so as to regulate their lives and
Favour of God he is eminently precious Who can break the Constraints of such Love If there be a spark of reason or a grain of unfeigned Faith in us We must judge that if one died for all then all were dead and those that live should live to his Glory who died for their Salvation Add to this that in the Sufferings of Christ there is the clearest Demonstration of the Evil of 〈◊〉 and how hateful it is to God if we consider the Dignity of his Person the Greatness of his Sufferings and the innocent recoilings of his humane Nature from such fearful Sufferings He was the eternal Son of God the Heir of his Fathers Love and Glory the Lord of Angels he suffered in his Body the most ignominious and painful Death being nail'd to the Cross in the sight of the World The Sufferings of his Soul were incomparably more afflicting For though heavenly Meek he indured the Derision and cruel Violence of his Enemies with a silent Patience yet in the dark Eclipse of his Fathers Countenance in the desolate state of his Soul the Lamb of God opened his Mouth in that mournful Complaint My God my God why hast thou forsaken me His innocent Nature did so recoil from those fearful Sufferings that with repeated ardency of Affection he deprecated that bitter Cup Abba Father all things are possible to thee let this cup pass from me He address'd to the Divine Power and Love the Attributes that relieve the Miserable yet he drank off the dregs of the Cup of Gods Wrath. Now we may from hence conclude how great an Evil Sin is that could not be expiated by a meaner Sacrifice then the offering up the Soul of Christ to atone incensed Justice and no lower a Price than the Blood of the Son of God the most unvaluable Treasure could Ransom Men who were devoted to Destruction 4. The consideration of the evil of sin in it self and to us should excite us with a holy circumspection to keep our selves from being defiled with it 'T is our indispensable duty our transcendent interest to obey the Divine Law entirely and constantly The tempter cannot present any motives that to a rectified mind are sufficient to induce a consent to sin and offend God Let the scales be even and put into one all the delights of the senses all the pleasures and honours of the World which are the Elements of carnal felicity how light are they against the enjoyment of the blessed God in glory Will the gain of this perishing World compensate the loss of the Soul and Salvation for ever If there were any possible comparison between empty deluding vanities and celestial happiness the choice would be more difficult and the mistake less culpable but they vanish into nothing in the comparison so that to commit the least sin that makes us liable to the forfeiture of Heaven for the pleasures of sin that are but for a season is madness in that degree that no words can express Suppose the tempter inspires his Rage into his Slaves and tries to constrain us to Sin by Persecution how unreasonable is it to be dismayed at the Threatnings of Men who must dye and who can only touch the Body and to despise the terrors of the Lord who lives for ever and can punish for ever Methinks we should look upon the perverted raging World as a swarm of angry Flies that may disquiet but cannot hurt us Socrates when unrighteously prosecuted to Death said of his Enemies with a Courage becoming the Breast of a Christian They may Kill me but cannot Hurt me How should these Considerations raise in us an invincible Resolution and Reluctancy against the Tempter in all his Approaches and Addresses to us And that we may so resist him as to cause his flight from us let us imitate the excellent Saint whose Example is set before us 1. By possessing the Soul with a lively and solemn Sense of Gods Presence who is the Inspector and Judge of all our Actions Joseph repell'd the Temptation with this powerful Thought How shall I sin against God The fear of the Lord is clean 't is a watchful Sentinel that resists Temptations without and suppresses Corruptions within 'T is like the Cherubim plac'd with a flaming Sword in Paradise to prevent the Re-entry of Adam when guilty and polluted For this end we must by frequent and serious Considerations represent the Divine Being and Glory in our Minds that there may be a gracious Constitution of Soul this will be our Preservative from Sin for although the habitual thoughts of God are not always in act yet upon a Temptation they are presently excited and appear in the view of Conscience and are effectual to make us reject the Tempter with Defiance and Indignation This holy Fear is not a meer judicial Impression that restrains from Sin for the dreadful Punishment that follows for that servile affection though it may stop a Temptation and hinder the Eruption of a Lust into the gross act yet it does not renew the Nature and make us Holy and Heavenly There may be a respective dislike of Sin with a direct affection to it Besides a meer servile Fear is repugnant to Nature and will be expell'd if possible Therefore that we may be in the fear of the Lord all the day long we must regard him in his endearing Attributes his Love his Goodness and Compassion his rewarding Mercy and this will produce a filial Fear of Reverence and Caution lest we should offend so gracious a God As the natural Life is preserved by grateful Food not by Aloes and Wormwood which are useful Medicines so the Spiritual Life is maintained by the comfortable Apprehensions of God as the Rewarder of our Fidelity in all our Trials 2. Strip Sin of its Disguises wash off its flattering Colours that you may see its native Ugliness Joseph's reply to the Tempter How shall I do this great wickedness Illusion and Concupiscence are the Inducements to Sin When a Lust represents the Temptation as very alluring and hinders the Reflection of the mind upon the intrinsick and consequential Evil of Sin 't is like the putting Poison into the Glass but when it has so far corrupted the mind that Sin is esteemed a small Evil Poison is thrown into the Fountain If we consider the Majesty of the Law-giver there is no Law small nor Sin small that is the Transgression of it Yet the most are secure in an evil course by conceits that their Sins are small 'T is true there is a vast difference between Sins in their nature and Circumstances there are insensible Omissions and accusing Acts but the least is Damnable Besides the allowance and number of Sins reputed small will involve under intolerable Guilt What is lighter than a grain of Sand you may blow away a hundred with a Breath and what is heavier than a heap of Sand condenst together 'T is our Wisdom and Duty to consider the Evil of Sin
Thanks and holy Wonder And when these thoughts do as it were return again from Heaven to set us more delightfully and strenuously to our needful work on Earth for Heaven and for the most generous and true services to the great benefit of the Church and World O what a Sea of Pleasures and Advantages do Love and good Works cast us then into and keep us in How often have the delicate composures of grave and sprightly Musick well managed by the sweet and skilful Voice or touch provoked and urged my Soul to admire the chief good and the Eternal source of all communicated and communicable ingenuity and expertness in that and in all sorts of Arts and Sciences The delicate composure of the ear to render it receptive of melodious sounds the usefulness of the Air for the conveyance of them to the prepared Ear The pregnancies of humane Souls and Fancies for the endlessness of various compositions The command that the Soul hath over the Animal Spirits to order and command the Voice or Fingers the rules of harmony and the particular gracefulness of relishes and flourishings and humourings of some particular Notes and Touches And the different tempers that God hath made whereto the varieties of sounds have their as various degrees and ways of gratefulness these things with all the Mysteries of sounds and numbers O what is their cry How lovely is the Eternal God that gives us such Abilities and Entertainments How lovely are the Souls of Men that are receptive of such things How lovely are those Labours and Designs that are with Wisdom Diligence and Faithfulness directed to the Cultivation and Salvations of such Souls O how beautiful and lovely are the feet of those and how deserving of our Prayers and universal helpfulness are they themselves who lay out all their Time and Strength to get each other and as many as they can in readiness to bear their parts and take their share in the Melodies and Entertainments of that Triumphant state of Love and Holiness in the Heavenly Glory The cry of all is Love Love These are things and objects that require and deserve our Love in it's most urgent vehemencies to promote their Interests this noble flame is desecrated and prophaned by us and used to it 's own prejudice and reproach when it is not directed to and diligently conversant about Objects and Services truly worthy of it self Gal. iv 18. I should have thought my Thoughts and Heart not only Faeculant but in a sort prophane had I applyed my Studies or this Sacred Directory in my Text to the promoting of fervour noise and stir about things much below or repugnant to the weightier things and matters of Christs Gospel Kingdom Judgment Mercy and Love Mat. xxiii 23. The love of God saith Luk xi 42. Wo worth that Papal zeal and diligence that is for the promotion of an universal Visible Headship wherein they pretend that all the Church Militant must be united into whose Arbitrary and bold dictates it must resolve it's Faith according to whose Edicts it must form all it's practices and to the supports whereof in all it 's secular Grandeurs Pageantries and usurped Prerogatives it must devote and sacrifice it 's all Is He luke-warm in Gods account that will not Anathematize traduce distress destroy Souls Persons Families Churches Kingdoms and the choicest and most useful Persons who will not absolutely devote himself hereto and shew his zeal in desolating flames and slaughters Such Zeal we know by whom it was called Madness Act. xxvi 9. 11. Phil. iii. 6. Wo worth Malignant and Censorious zeal that overlooks much excellence in others and that envies or despises all deserving Services Gifts and Graces if not seated in and performed by themselves Wo worth dividing zeal that intimately espouses particular opinions modes forms and humours and then makes these the main or the only terms of Peace and Concord that lays out all it's Time Strength Interest and Fervours to gain Proselytes and Votaries hereto and to defend their own Fictions and quarrel with and keep at sinful distances from Persons better perhaps than themselves because their Schibboleth is not pronounced by them Wo worth partial zeal that measures things and Persons by their discords and agreements with our own Interests Parties or Perswasions Every thing is Idolatry Superstition and rigorously to be dealt withal that falls not even with our sentiments and ways Wo worth self-conceited zeal that lays it's quarrels upon this cause and bottom that others will not reverence and yield to us as wiser and better than themselves And wo worth all zeal that lays the Christian Interest Peace and Welfare on Covenants Subscriptions or any terms too mean and narrow to sustain them I shall never value vindicate practise nor endure that zeal which bears not all those Characters of God mentioned in Jam. iii. 17 18. Postscript ANd now Reader let me bespeak thy Candour I am very sensible of very great inaccuracies and defects in this Resolution of so great a Case It became my work under unusual disadvantages not fit to be mentioned here I have exposed my first draught to an observant Generation the Truths contained therein are Gods and the Directions offered are for the substance of them according to the Doctrine of the Scripture of Truth May they but prosper to the câ—re of luke-warm hearts I can the better spare the praise of men and bear their Censures and Contempt It is the desire endeavour and design of my poor Soul to think as meanly of my self as other's can I have no time and through the infirmity of my Right hand writing is the most tedious part of my work to correct my first Copy which entertains me in the perusal thereof with many superfluous expressions to be retrenched many inaccuracies of Phrase and Method to be rectifyed many defects to be made up as to that matter which the full Resolution of the Case requires Many hints and heads which might more copiously have been insisted on yea and some passages in the Text it self I find upon review might have been more fully and nervously improved to the exacter Resolution of the Case Much more I could have said and much more than that can a Multitude of my Brethren speak were they to undertake the Subject and handle it according to the Grace and Wisdom which God hath more copiously given unto them than unto me Tho I will leave this Testimony to his Great and Gracious Name upon record that he hath ever helped me and had done more for me had I not unworthily obstructed the Current of his kindnesses to me My Books and helps are nothing to me without him it is ignorance of our selves and of God that makes us proud but our sensible approaches to Eternity and to himself will make us sneak and lay us in the dust before him we being hereby made to see how little we know can signifie obtain or do without him Some may perhaps
the one because they must the other because they ought Some get into the greatest crowd for the advancement of their diving trade of picking pockets they not at all observing how the Devil tricks them of their Souls for perverting the ends of the Gospel 3. Some propose Ends frivolous and trifling though they are sinful too e. g. some to see fashions some to be taken notice of among serious Christians for Worldly not Spiritual advantage Prop. 4. Those that propose a good End must call themselves to a strict and severe account how that end is obtained or lost A slight account is in some respect worse than none at all for by a shuffling account you do but as it were bribe Gods Officer natural Conscience to respit you from time to time till Death surprizeth you with a summons to give up your account to Christ himself I 'll name four Metaphors which will illustrate and prove this 1. We must give such an account as a Scholar to his Teacher of what he learns (r) Mar. 4.13 And he said unto them know ye not this parable and how then will ye know all parables q. d. If you understand not those similitudes that most plainly shew you how you must receive the Word if ever you get saving benefit by it how will you ever profit by any thing else 2. You must give an account as a Steward to his Master (s) Luk. 16.2 Give an account of thy Stewardship c. But here 's the difference between being Stewards to our Heavenly and to an Earthly Master Christ and his Servants have but one and the same interest if we improve whatever he intrust us with for our real profit we do thereby give him the Glory he expects and he will accept of our accounts 3. We must give an account as a Debtor to our Creditor (t) Mat. 18.24 The Kingdom of Heaven is likened unto a certain King which would take account of his Debtors and when he had begun to reckon one was brought unto him which ought him ten thousand talents c. We are so far sinfully indebted to the Justice of God that unless we be discharg'd upon our Suretyes payment we must be imprisoned with Devils unto Eternity 4. We must give an account as a Malefactor to a Judge (u) Mat. 12.36 Every idle word that men shall speak they shall give account thereof in the day of Judgment for by thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned Unprofitable words cannot scape being accounted for Let 's fulfil all these Metaphors in calling our selves to account and when we have done that we have not done all for Prop. 5. The strict Account we take of our selves must be frequent Every Christian is Christs Garden that drinketh (w) Heb. 6.7 in the rain that cometh oft upon it As there must be frequent Showers on Gods part so there must be frequent Weeding on our part or no Blessing to be expected This is not a Duty that can be dispatcht at once those that do not often account never account as they ought Methinks I may allude unto the dying words of Elisha to Joash (y) 2 King 13.18 19. when he bid the King smite upon the ground without prescribing how oft but when he smote only thrice the man of God was wroth with him and told him he should have smitten oftener What do you reflect upon your selves only upon some qualm of Conscience or upon some rouzing Sermon or upon some startling Providence Don't you know that your hearts are incredibly deceitful Satan perpetually watchful to steal away the Word and he will do it unless you (z) Ps 119.11 hide it in your heart Your ordinary Experience tells you that you never let your accompts run on to any length but they are intangled and that your frequent self-reflections are always blessed with growth of Grace But I 'll come to some Inferences from the Doctrine Infer 1. It is not the bare hearing of the best Preachers in the World that will save you Though a Minister be never so successful in the Conversion of Sinners unless your Souls be Converted you had better never have heard him Let not any scoffing Atheist say Then I 'll never hear any of them more Sirs pray believe this one word that will not make your Damnation more tolerable (a) Ezek. 20.32 33. That which cometh into your mind shall not be at all We will be as the Heathen as the families of the Country to serve wood and stone As I live saith the Lord God surely with a mighty hand and with a stretched out arm and with fury poured out will I rule over you God will not send his Word to a people and leave them at their liberty to continue in their infidelity or to return to it at their pleasure if they will live as Heathens their Condemnation shall be far worse Infer 2. Many persons who lay aside other Business spend much time and take much pains to hear the best Preachers but they either not proposing or not pursuing a right end renders all they do worse than nothing and they drop into Hell while they seem to be knocking at Heaven door We read of five thousand Men besides Women and Children may we not moderately reckon the Women and Children to double the number (b) Mat. 14.15 c. and 15.32 c. these poor people when they came from home took Provision with them for several days drank Water lay several nights upon the ground in the open Fields staid after their Victuals was sâ—ent till they were scarce able to get home for saintness all this appears by having Baskets so ready to gather up the Fragments whereas in the Wilderness there was none to be bought or borrowed But alas How few of this Ten Thousand were then savingly Converted We read not of any great numbers of Converts by Christs Preaching for Christ but covertly and sparingly discovered himself to be the Messiah least he should hinder the main thing he came into the World for viz. to dye for sinners for (c) 1 Cor. 2.8 had they known him they would not have Crucified the Lord of Glory Besides Christ told his Disciples (d) Joh. 14.12 their Preaching should be followed with the Conversion of more Souls than his Pauze a little and think how many will tell Christ they have heard him Preach in their streets and they have followed him into the Wilderness they have there wanted their sleep in the night and gone with a hungry belly in the day for which Christ fed them by Miracle and yet Christ will profess unto them I never knew you depart from me ye that work iniquity (e) Lu. 13.26 27. Let me follow these Inferences with a word or two of Reproof 1. Of those whose other Duties do not hold proportion with their Hearing Mistake me not I had rather never speak word more while
I live than speak a word to gratifie scoffers at Religion who scornfully twit those that are better than themselves with their Hearing so many Sermons but yet I dare not sooth up those in their Hypocrisie whose Religion lies all in Hearing of Sermons as if there were no other Duties to be minded no Family Duties no Relative Duties whereas only Hearing will make at best but rickety Christians 2. They are also to be reproved that only go to See a Sermon What went ye out into the Wilderness to see What To see Fashions They can give a more exact account of every fantastical Dress than of any one savoury Truth they heard whereas 't is said of Christs hearers (f) Luk. 4.20 the Eyes of all that were in the Synagogue were fastened on him A wandering Eye is an infallible evidence of a wandring Heart But I 'll come closer to the Case in a Use of Exhortation With Directions to all sorts of Hearers that they would sorthwith set upon the practice of this great comprehensive Duty to give Christ a satisfying account why they attend upon the Ministry of the Word Every one must give an account of himself to God That you may do it with Comsort take these or such like Directions Dirâ—ctiâ—n 1. Set your selves towards the removing of those Hinderances whiâ—h tiâ—l you iâ— good earnest set upon the removing of them you can never give a good account to your selves much less to Christ of any Soul-business I 'll name but four and with the naming of them give a word of Direction how to attempt their removal e. g. 1. The state of Vnregeneracy is a dead weight to the Soul it keeps it down from lifting up it self Heaven-ward One dead in sin blesseth himself that his Conscience is not troublesome i. e. 't is neither squeamish to boggle at sin nor inquisitive after the danger of it The only Remedy I shall name is this viz. Mind Conversion as far as 't is possible for an unconverted person to mind it How far is that Thou canst never tell till thou hast tryed Query Whether ever any pusht this forward to the utmost and missed of Conversion Not that any thing an Unconverted person can possibly do can merit Grace but the Soul 's holding on in its attempt and in some measure breaking through the Corruptions and Temptations that way-lay it is a token for good that the Spirit of Grace is hopefully at work to bring over the Soul to Christ the Spirit of God saying to that Soul what David said to his Son Solomon (g) 1 Chr. 22.16 Arise and be doing and the Lord be with thee 2. The second hinderance is love of Ease Persons don't love to meddle with that which they apprehend will be a troublesome business What To be always upon our watch To be always examining why and to what end we so much as hear a Sermon This is wearisome and intolerable For Remedy Rouze up thy Soul as thou would'st do thy Body in a Lethargy thou wouldst then be jogg'd and pull'd and shook there 's more need in thy Soul-Lethargy 'T is the voice of him that deserves to be thy Beloved that calls thee do not give an answer directly contrary to Christs Spouse (h) Cant. 5.2 I am awake but my heart is asleep 3. A third hinderance is Vnbelief As to this I speak not now of the state of Unbelief but they do not believe this to be so needful as 't is represented The truth is if we run up sins into their causes we shall find Vnbelief to be the most teeming Mother of most omissions and of more than omissions e. g. Why do you omit such a Duty I do not believe it to be necessary Why do you not reflect upon the Duties which you do not omit I do not believe God requires it For cure Consider you have more grounds and Motives for Faith in this matter than you have for any thing you practise e. g. You Pray I hope you do I would not have my supposition fail me 't is more your Duty to reflect why you Pray and how you Pray than 't is meerly to Pray you may teach a Parrot to speak words of Prayer but 't is a special exercise of Grace to Pray aright as to the manner of it So you believe 't is a Duty to attend upon the Word 't is more your Duty to propose a right End and to reflect how that end is pursued attained or lost than 't is barely to hear Pardon me if I use a nauseous Metaphor to set forth an odious sin Some of you bring your Dogs with you and they hear the sound of words lye still and depart when the Sermon is ended Upon reflection you 'l be ashamed to do no more 4. A fourth hinderance is the satisfaction that natural Conscience takes in a little tiny Devotion Natural Conscience requireth a little and but a little a little will satisfie it so it be but something Doeg (i) 1 Sam. 2.7 was detained before the Lord. It had been better for him to have been sick in 's Bed than to have been quieting his Conscience with such circumstantiated devotion For cure Do but review what thy natural Conscience takes satisfaction in and thou wilt be more dissatisfyed bring but thy Conscience with thy Duty to the Rule and then examine it To act only like (k) Gal. 4.30 a Slave that desires no more than to turn his Work off hand to do no more than he needs must this leads to rejection whereas a Conscience guided by Scripture will put you upon doing all as a Child that the Manner of it may please your heavenly Father and this will qualifie you for an heavenly Inheritance This is the first Direction remove hinderances Direct 2. Call your selves to an Account before in and after the hearing of the Word to what End thou camest and how the end is pursued or dropt 1. Before you hear Solomon adviseth thus (l) Eccles 5.1 Keep thy foot when thou goest to the House of God and be more ready to hear than to offer the sacrifice of Fools be more ready to receive Instruction and to accept of what God says which will be thy Wisdom than to offer Sacrifice and neglect Obedience like foolish Hypocrites And a greater than Solomon (m) Luke 14.28 31. our Lord Jesus Christ cautions us by a double Metaphor at his School-door when we come to be his Disciples viz. That spiritual Edification will be in this like worldly building cost more tha we imagine and our Spiritual warfare will be in this like the carnal more costly than at first we conceive 't will cost us more careful thoughts more waking nights more painfull days more Prayers and Tears more Self-denyal and Contempt of the World than inconsiderate persons will believe For your care before you hear I shall propose but three things 1. Renew your Repentance of the Sins of your hearing the
more particularly and expresly and heartily you do this the better you will be able to give account of your attendance upon the Word This will be like the washing or scouring of a Vessel before you fill it that what you put into it may not be spoil'd According to that of the Apostle James (n) Jam. 1.21 Lay apart not only restrain and keep in but put off and throw away all filthiness ◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sordes 'T is a Metaphor borrowed from the filth of the Body and thence transferr'd to the Soul Sin is a sordid thing and we must not only lay aside all things that defile us but all superfluity of naughtiness Some interpret of it those Excrements which we are in pain till we are rid of them q. d. Wash off all outward filth and purge out all inward for without this we can never savingly receive the Word 2. Propose to your selves such an End for your hearing that you will not be ashamed of If God should give you your Liberty propose what End you will to your selves provided it be such as upon serious reflection you will not be ashamed of e. g. You go to hear a Sermon to see a Mistriss is not that an End to be ashamed of or you fetch a Walk for your Recreation and sit down to rest you at the end of it to hear a Sermon and when you have rested you return may you not be ashamed of this You go to a Sermon for the Language or Notions of it though both these may be excellent your End is sinfull But yet I 'll close this with this Advice viz Hold on to hear Sermons though with an end to be repented of for while you play with the Bait you may be caught with the Hook while you are in the way of Grace you may be graciously surprized 3. Above all preface your hearing with Prayer As praying is the last thing the Minister doth before he Preacheth let praying be the last thing you do before you go out to hear Neither is he that planteth any thing neither he that watereth but God that giveth the increase (p) 1 Cor. 3.7 Many times our profiting is according to our praying But here again I advice you to hear though you pray not at all for by hearing you 'l be convinced that 't is your Duty to pray you 'l be instructed and incouraged in it 2. In hearing When you are engaged pray don't gratifie Satan then by a diversion for Preparation No tho it be by Prayer any other than Ejaculatory that must have been before herein likewise take these three Directions 1. Set your selves before God to hear Christ speaking to you from Heaven The more actually and seriously you presentiate Christ unto your selves the more you will give up your selves to him I grant we can't preach as the Apostles wrote by the immediate guidance of the Holy Ghost without all error and mistake Query whether all their popular Sermons were so infallibly guided it seems not (*) Gal. 2.11 yet Christ speaks through us as through a crack'd Trumpet though we betray our own frailties yet for the main of our Sermons we dare say Thas saith the Lord which is a proof of Christ speaking (q) 2 Cor. 13.3 in us this will be matter of thansgivings by both your Ministers and your selves when (r) 1 Thes 2.13 you receive the Word of God which ye heard of us not as the word of men but as it is in truth the Word of God then 't will certainly work effectually 2. Mix your hearing with Ejaculatory Prayers Ejaculations to God and Soliloquies to your selves will help to make and keep the heart tight Jogg your own hearts as you do your sleeping Neighbour call in your thoughts while they are within call and as far as 't is possible think of nothing but what you are about A Heart thus confin'd is like to be most enlarged both with Grace and Comfort 3. Be sure to hold fast the Seope of what you hear Not only those passages which more particularly affect you but that which is the main design of the Sermon I think this the weakest Memory may retain and I think this will do most good when 't is retained In short be be sure you retain something Do thus or somewhat like it in hearing 3. After hearing These Questions were proposed by Christ both negatively and affirmatively some months perhaps some years after they had heard John And Christ proposeth that with some vehemency That you may give a good answer I shall commend to you but two things 1. Consideration Chew the Cud this is the Metaphor that 's commonly made use of (ſ) Lev. 11.3 The Beasts that chewed the cud were clean for food and sacrifice◠these Creatures gather up their food into a kind of inward bag and then they sit down and bring it up to chew it over again and then convey it into the stomach for nourishment So that Christian whose self and service is a Sacrifice acceptable to God gathers up what he thinks the Best in a Sermon and when retired chews it over again for his spiritual nourishment and growth in Grace As your considering thinking Man is the only wise man so your considering thinking Christian is the only thriving Christian 2. Add something to your practice and continue that till it give way to something else of greater moment I am far from laying any stress upon any spiritual Prudentials that I can offer but I would humbly propose it to thinking Christians whether if every Lord's-day I do not exclude other days but Query Whether we may not expect more from Lord's-days Sermons than any other The Lord's-day being the time of Divine appointment and other days of humane conveniency The business of the Lord's-day is Devotion on other days we make a scape from worldly business to a Sermon and then rush into the World again as if we would redeem that time for the World that we spent with Go◠I query therefore If we do charge our selves upon what we hear on the Lord's-day to practise something more or something more carefully than before and to keep to that till that give place to something else of greater moment Did we begg something of God more this week than the last Did we single out some sin for mortification more this week than the last Did we do something enjoyned on the Lord's-day This would be to us like the Shew-bread to Israel which was made thus They brought twenty four pecks of Wheat-meal out of which they sifted twenty four Pottles of fine flower of which they made twelve unleavened Cakes every one was ten hand breadth long and five broad and seven fingers high which signified the multitude of the Faithfull presented unto God in his Church as upon a pure Table continually serving him (t) Lev. 24.8.9 as also the Spiritual repast which the Church of God obtaineth from
taking pleasure in the promoting of the Graces and Comforts of others in our way to Heaven Christians forget not that the joy of the Lord is your strength (m) Neh. 8.10 The serving of God with chearfulness strengtheneth both Body and Mind whereas excess of grief damps the Spirit and infeebles the Body unfitting us for the Service of either God or Man But the complaining Soul will still complain Say what you will or can Comfort belongs not to me (n) Ps 77.3 4. I may say with Asaph My Soul refuseth to be comforted I remember God and am troubled I complain and my Spirit is overwhelmed God holds mine Eyes waking I am so troubled that I cannot speak q. d. I cannot but reject all the Consolations that my Friends suggest to me The thoughts of Gods Goodness Wisdom and Power have sometimes been refreshing to me but now they are matter of terror to me God is angry with me and I cannot bear it my trouble is so great I can't express it your speaking Comfort to me is but as the Singing of Songs to a heavy Heart 3. Notwithstanding all this and a great deal more of such Complaints yet I 'll assert and make good my assertion That Comfort belongs to them that conclude against themselves that their case is hopeless and I 'll try to make those very persons confess it We are not to take Mens own word that either the Promises or Threatnings are their portion but we must examine the grounds of their peremptory assertion e. g. If a wicked wretch shall confidently boast he doth not in the least doubt but he shall as certainly be saved as any of those that take most care about their Salvation though he ne're troubles his thoughts about it Do you think that in taking his Accounts Chist will let his Confidence pass for saving Faith and give him Heaven for his Presumption surely you can't think he will while he hath given us so plain a Rule how to judge of words by things viz. By their fruits you shall know them (o) Mat. 7.16 c. A good Tree cannot bring forth evil fruit So then as a Man shall not save his Soul for his groundless Presumption so neither shall he lose his Soul for his groundless despondency Thou complainest of thy self not of Christ he is precious (p) 1 Pet. 2.7 in thine eye therefore thy Faith is saving thou fearest that thou dost not cleave to Christ yet thou hadst rather die than offend him this is a Faith of adherence and that is saving Thou complainest but restlesly strivest to be more inwardly outwardly universally holy that is a good Evidence thy state is good though while under a Temptation or under a Cloud thou canst not see it to be so But thou still sayest I am an unprofitable Hearer and I cannot believe that Christ will pardon what is amiss and accept of any thing as good of what I can do and therefore pray quit this way of answering my complaint by telling me of Comfort If you have any thing else to offer I 'll hear it I may expect rather to hear of Christ in a clap of Thunder than in a soft and still voice 4. I 'll speak to thee no more directly of Comfort but only ask thee a Question about the Comforts of others What are thy thoughts about the Comforts and Joys of the Holy Ghost are there any such things or are they meer Fancies If there be any such things what thinkest thou of those that partake of them Is the enjoyment of them desirable Are they happy that have them Whether is more eligible to spend your Life in mourning Complaints or to spend it in the joyfull Praises of the Lord our Redeemer Are these Questions hard to be answered These Questions are out of question Oh! there are no joys like the joys of the Holy Ghost the best of carnal joys are incomparably below them Though I fear I shall never be so happy as to enjoy them yet I can't but admire them that do Do you ask which is more eligible a life of mourning Complaints or a life of Joys Ask a Man under a fit of the Stone whether that is more eligible than a state of health Well dost thou speak this heartily Ask thy Heart again that thou mayest not mistake me or go back from thine own answer Are the joys of the Holy Ghost Realities Are they unspeakably beyond all other joys Are they happy that enjoy them Wilt thou stand to thy word Then they are all thine own thou hast a title to them at present and as sure as thy Redeemer lives thou shalt be put into the possession of them Mark how I prove it Every one that hath Truth of Grace hath an indefeasible Title to Glory (q) 1 John 5.13 These things which I have written unto you that believe on the Name of the Son of God that ye may know that you have eternal life (r) 2 Cor. 1.22 They have a Seal for Assurance but an earnest which is a begun possession elsewhere called the first-fruits (Å¿) Rom. 8.23 but every one that prizeth the holy joys of the Holy Ghost hath Truth of Grace Graceless Persons make a mock of the joys of the Holy Ghost they can scarce forbear sneering at the mention of them he perfers carnal Comforts before them (t) Psal 4.6 7 Many say who will shew us any good But the gracious Soul says Lord lift thou up the light of thy Countenance Thou hast put gladness in my heart more than in the time that their Corn and their Wine increased ver 3. This is the godly Man whom the Lord hath set apart for himself Not any one that is not a Saint himself hath any esteem for a Saint as a Saint (u) 1 Joh. 3.14 We know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren He that loveth not his brother abideth in death Now I dare appeal to your selves in the very midst of all your complaints when thou fearest thou shalt never have any of these joys yet thou hast a value for them above any other Thou preferrest thy complaints before worldly Pleasures thou dost not thou canst not but follow Christ though it be tremblingly If all these be not infallible Evidences of Grace what are Chide thy self and pray thy self out of thy complaining temper (w) Eccl. 9.7 Go thy way eat thy Bread with joy and drink thy Wine with a merry heart for God now accepteth thy works And thus you have my Answer as well to the Complaint as to the Case God make it beneficial to all that shall read it There remains some questions depending upon the Case that require some Answer I 'll attempt that also Qu. 1. When we make choice of a Minister to be under Christ the special Guide of our Souls How shall we avoid the sinfull preferring of one before another How may we escape that
the same Duty press'd by another he directeth otherwise (n) 1 Cor. 14.8 If the Trumpet give an uncertain sound who shall prepare himself for the Spiritual Warfare Answ 1. Those that ordinarily ask this Question don't do it for practical Direction but for captious diversion they don't speak by way of Enquiry but excuse they 'll except against this and the other but they 'll follow none and therefore I 'll pass by these 2. Do but practise that wherein all the Ministers of Christ are agreed and you are safe They all give the same Directions for substance though their Directions are different they are not contrary You know there 's nothing more ordinary than for two Ministers to preach upon one Text and to handle it different ways and to draw from it different Inferences and different Uses but while they keep to Scripture and to the Analogy of Faith all is commendable and beneficial Christ is pleased variously to distribute both Graces and Gifts both to Ministers and Christians and 't is to the Glory of his Wisdom and Grace that he doth so All who are Faithfull to Christ and Souls agree in such things as these viz. To convince of the evil of Sin and of the necessity of Regeneration there 's none that 's worth the name of a Minister that can give Sin a good word they cannot speak slightly of sin they cannot encourage sin they cannot they dare not flatter you in your sins they all agree to assure you (o) Numb 32.23 That your sin will find you out that if you do not find out your Sin to Repentance your Sin will find you out to your Ruine They all agree to direct you to Christ some do it with more skill and warmth than others but all agree in the thing (p) 1 Cor. 3.11 Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid which is Jesus Christ They all agree in pressing a Life of Holiness to evidence the sincerity of your Faith (q) Heb. 12.14 Without holiness no man shall see the Lord with comfort 3. Endeavour to learn the holy Skill and the holy Zeal of making your Advantage of the different Talents of Christ's faithfull Ministers Hear none but whom you may groundedly take to be Ministers of Christ And then esteem such for their Masters sake whoever brings me a Message from Christ shall be welcome (r) Isa 52.7 How beautifull upon the Mountains are the feet though sweaty dusty dirty of him that bringeth good tidings of the dissolution of the Babylonian Captivity that publisheth Salvation by Jesus Christ how much more amiable must these be (Å¿) 1 Cor. 12 7 11 21. The Manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withall dividing to every man severally as he will No one shall have all lest he should be proud none shall want all lest he should be discouraged 4. Strive to approve your selves to be of a healing Temper You will hereby get more profit to your selves and be more usefull unto others (t) Mat. 5.9 Blessed are the Peace-makers for they shall be called the Children of God Those that long and labour for Peace they are like God and Christ and shall be owned as such It is a Duty for every one to sit down under a particular Pastor for the enjoyment of all Ordinances but as still holding Communion with the truly Catholick Church Though you can hold local Communion but with one Congregation at once yet you may hold mental Communion with the whole Church of Christ at the same time Do any thing but sin to comply with others for their spiritual Edification and be not too hasty in accounting any thing sinfull wherein the sincere Servants of Christ may have Sentiments different from yours rather suspend your own practice than censure others I would commend it to you to love the Truth and Peace to love Truth more than Peace but yet to consider several Truths of lesser moment may be waved for Peace sake e. g. I may part with several things of my own right for Peace sake (u) Gen. 13.8.9 Abraham the Uncle lets his Nephew Lot make that choice which belong'd to himself lest their Infidel Neighbours should scorn both for their Contentions The Blessed Apostle will not insist upon (w) 1 Cor. 9.12 his due maintenance lest he should hinder the spreading of the Gospel This Rule is therefore to be observed that when two different Commands at the same time call for our Obedience we must consider which of them is of greatest moment not so much in it self as to that season for so a Command about the immediate Worship of God must give place to a command that concerns but Mans bodily relief (x) Mat. 9.13 I will have mercy rather than sacrifice Several good works must be omitted when the doing of them will do more hurt than good I 'll close this with that of the Apostle (y) 1 Cor. 9.19 22. Though I be free from all men not obliged to any one more than another yet have I made my self servant unto all I have complyed with the perswasions and inclinations of others in things Indifferent that I might gain the more that I might win them to Christ for their Salvation To the Jews I became as a Jew that I might gain the Jews i. e. To the unbelieving Jews I conformed to some of their Ceremonies that I might perswade them to embrace Christianity To them that are under the Law as under the Law that I might gain them that are under the Law i. e. To those believing Jews and Gentiles who yet think 't is necessary to observe the Law of Moses I comply also with them in some Ceremonies which were not yet unlawfull To them that are without the Law as without Law i. e. To those Gentiles that do not look upon themselves as bound to observe the Law of Moses among them I use my Christian Liberey for the non-observing of dayes and meats c. being not without Law to God but under the Law to Christ i. e. I walk by the Rule of the Moral Law and subjecting my self to all the Commands of Christ in the Gospel To thâ—â—â—ak became I as weak that I might gain the weak i. e. I condescended to the weak in teaching them according to their Capacity to learn I am made all things to all men that I might by all means save some i. e. I accommodate my self to all persons for the promoting of the Gospel Quest 3. How shall weak Christians that have but low Parts little Grace few helps and many hinderances follow these or such like Directions Answ 1. Know this to your Comfort that though you are such yet while you are low in your own esteem and diligent in the use of what means and helps you have you stand fair to be as thriveing Christians as rich in Grace and Comfort as those you apprehended far exceed you 'T is the
should attempt to re-build it Vse Last From all that hath been said we may lastly conclude That Sinners that are impenitent have little reason to flatter themselves because of their present impunity Let them consider how it will fare with them in the day of Judgment Christ refers to that in the Text. And those who have Eyes to see afar off will look so far as that day So did Paul 2 Cor. 5.11 Wherefore we strive whether present or absent to be accepted for we must all appear before the Judgment-seat of Christ And hereupon he counted it a small thing to be judged of Men or at Man's day looking to the Judgment to come and that great Day of the Lord 1 Cor. 4.5 6. The fal'n Angels are said to be bound in Chains of Darkness reserved to the Judgment of the great Day and so are impenitent Sinners reserved to that day when notwithstanding their present Impunity they shall then fall under Judgment more intolerable than that of Sodom As a Malefactor that is kept in the Gaol under Bolts and Fetters till the Assize hath little reason to rejoyce in his present freedom from the Sentence of the Judge And this is the case of Sinners Because Sentence is not speedily executed their hearts are fully set to do evil Eccles 8.11 And so I make the Conclusion of this Discourse with that which Solomon makes the Conclusion of the whole matter Fear God and keep his Commandments c. For God will bring every work to Judgment and every secret thing whether Good or Evil. Quest How the uncharitable and dangerous Contentions that are among Professors of the true Religion may be allayed SERMON III. GALAT. V. 15. But if ye bite and devour one another take heed that ye be not consumed one of another MY Business from this Scripture is to enquire into the Cause the Danger and the Cure of uncharitable Contentions in the Church of God The Holy Apostle Paul having some few Years before planted a Church in Galatia a region in the upper parts of the lesser Asia there soon crept in a sort of false Teachers who contended that the Mosaical Ceremonies in particular that Circumcision was still to be observed even by the believing Gentiles and that the Christians were not justified before God by Faith but by the Works of the Law Which two Errors when he had fully confuted in the former part of this Epistle he Applies in this Chapter and in the Next 1. By way of Exhortation to stand fast in this their Christian Liberty ver 1. which he backs with divers Arguments 2. By way of Direction to use the same aright not for an occasion to the Flesh ver 13. the Works whereof he afterwards reckons up at large but rather that they should by Love serve one another and abound in all Holiness and Goodness which he inlargeth upon in the rest of this Chapter and in the Next This Text in hand lies within the Verge of this latter Vse where the Apostle using their own Weapon the Law whereof they crack'd so much against themselves he roundly tells them that the whole Law to wit the second Table which also hath an inviolable connexion with the first is fulfilled in loving their Neighbour as themselves and so though they were free from the Law of Ceremonies yet not from the Law of Love and though the Moral Law had now no power to justifie the Sinner nor to condemn the Believer yet still it hath the force of a Rule to guide them in that grand Duty as much as ever before These Words then come in as a Motive to press the Galathians to exercise that Charity which he had affirm'd before to be the summe and scope of the whole Law and it is drawn from the Danger of the contrary temper Plain Commands of God should be sufficient to sway us to our Duty but generally we have need of the most powerful Motives especially when the violent streams of Rage Lust or Revenge do oppose it as in the Case â—efore us But if ye bite and devour one anothir take heed that ye be not câ—â—â—â—med one of another In which Words you may see 1. The Sin specified whereof they were suppos'd to be guilty But if ye bite that is reproach and defame one another some violently maintaining these Jewish Ceremonies and others passionately opposing them and devour one another that is tear and oppress each other by all the mischievous Hostilities ye can for religious Feuds are always sharpest 2. Here is the Danger forewarn'd in Case they proceeded therein take heed that ye be not consumed one of another that is you will certainly destroy one another The Division of the Members must issue in the Dissolution of the Body The Decay of your Love will weaken your Faith both parties will rue it ye will be in danger of total ruine Body and Soul here and hereafter Now if we consider these words only in Hypothesi or in Relation to these Persons in the Text they teach us 1. That there were Contentions in the Church of Galatia So that Vnity is no infallible Mark of a true Church Unity may be out of the Church of Christ and Dissention may be within it 2. That many People were Violent in them For the Apostle would scarce have express'd himself in such terms of biting and devouring unless there had been some outragious Carriage among them toward one another 3. That these Contentions were very dangerous to them all They threatned no less than the overthrow of both the contending Parties the consumption of them all But considering the words of the Text in Thesi or Absolutely which we may safely do seeing the same Causes do still produce or at least dispose unto the same Effects we may collect this Conclusion That Vncharitable Contentions do prepare for utter Destruction And here I shall 1. Clear and open the Terms 2. Amplifie and confirm the Truth And 3. Apply and bring home the Influence of this Point unto our selves I. To understand the Subject of this Proposition to wit Vncharitable Contentions we must distinguish 1. Of the Matter of Contentions and they are either of a Civil or of a Spiritual Nature 1. Of a Civil Nature which concern Men in their Lives Liberties Names or Estates And these are either Private or Publick 1. Private Contentions which are about Meum and Tuum and these are troublesome to those which are in the right and damnable to those that are in the wrong and oftentimes ruinous unto both and therefore are by all good means to be prevented or else by all fair and just means to be managed and all fit opportunities are to be watched not so much to obtain a full Victory as a quiet Conclusion lest the Remedy prove as it doth frequently worse than the Disease 2. Publick Contentions which are usually about the Succession Power or Prerogative of Princes and the Liberties or Properties of Subjects And here
nor value them Sayes the other These men are all either blinded with preferment or hunting after it their Parts are either utterly abus'd or quite blasted Thus the Ball of Contention is toss'd from one to another by the hands of Pride and Scorn Whereas Humility makes a Man think meanly of himself moderately of his own Notions and Apprehensions highly of those that deserve it and respectfully of all It was this which taught excellent Bishop Ridley when he was in Prison thus to accost honest Bishop Hooper However in some by-matters and circumstances of Religion your wisdom and my simplicity I grant hath a little jarr'd yet now c. More comfort to them if they had been on these terms in the time of their Liberty and Prosperity Humility is a great step to Unity Ephes 4.2 I beseech you that ye walk with all lowliness and meekness with long-suffering forbearing one another in love Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace Pray behold how these Graces are here link't together lowliness meekness unity and peace The humble man will not indure that his Reputation shall outweigh the Peace of the Church and therefore is more willing that Truth should be victorious than Himself Hee 'l go two miles for one to meet his Adversary in an honest way of Accommodation and when he cannot make his Judgment to bend yet his Heart shall stoop to you with all sincerity This Vertue made Aristippus come to Eschines when they were at fewd with this greeting Eschines Shall we be friends And this dictated his answer Yes Sir with all my heart But remember saith Aristippus That I being elder than you do make the first motion Yea said the other and therefore I conclude you to be the worthier man for I began the strife and you began the peace Let us all then be cloathed with Humility assume not in regard of your Learning Wit or Parts consider you are but Sharers in our Common Benefactor neither let your Riches or Dignities make you to speak or write otherwise than you would do without them and this will go a great way to prevent our biting and devouring one another 5. Apply your selves to the Practice of Real Piety By this I mean that we should imploy our chief care to procure and increase a lively Faith to exercise daily Repentance to strengthen our Hope to inflame our Love to God and to our Neighbour to grow in Humility Zeal Patience and Self-denyal To be diligent in Watchfulness over our Thoughts Words and Wayes in Mortification of our sinfull Passions and Affections in the Examination of our Spiritual Estate in Meditation in secret and fervent Prayer and in universal and steady Obedience In these things do run the vital spirits of Religion And whoso is seriously imployed in these will have but little time and less mind for unnecessary Contentions These will keep that heat about the Heart which evaporating degenerates into airy and fiery exhalations and leaves the Soul as cold as Ice to any holy desires It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace not with meats which have not profited them that have been occupied therein Hebr. 13.9 It is manifest what a sad decay of these hath followed our multiplied quarrels and how hard it is to be fervent in Spirit and withall to be fiery in Controversies He that walks with God and whose Conversation is in Heaven will be quickly weary of windy disputes with men and will be apt to conclude with one of the Ancients Lassus sum dum cum sermone atque invidia cum hostibus cum nostris pugno Which hath occasioned divers great Divines the more earnestly to long for Heaven that they might be out of the noise of endless and perverse disputations The serious Practice of Godliness hath the Promise of Divine Direction in all material points The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him and he will shew them his Covenant Psal 25.14 If any man will do his Will he shall know of the Doctrine whether it be of God John 7.17 And likewise he that lives in the Spirit and walks in the Spirit dares not bite or devour his Neighbour Let not us saith the Apostle that so walk be desirous of vain-glory provoking one another envying one another Gal. 5.25 26. 6. Follow after Charity Knowedge puffeth up but Charity edifieth This is the healing Grace and if this be not applyed to our bleeding wounds they will never be cured This suffereth long and is kind Charity envieth not Charity vaunteth not it self is not puffed up Pray read on and mark all these passages Charity doth not behave it self unseemly seeketh not her own is not easily provoked thinketh no evil Rejoyceth not in iniquity but rejoyceth in the Truth Beareth all things tolerable believeth all things credible hopeth all things possible indureth all things and as it follows indureth after all things 1 Corinth 13. That whole Chapter most fit to be read and often studied by all that love peace Charitas dicit aliorum bona certa meliora certa mala minora bona dubia certa dubia mala nulla An excellent Conclusion of Charity That it reckons the good parts qualities or actions that are certainly in others to be rather better than they are indeed and the ills to be less than they are indeed the doubtfull good things in them to be certain and the doubtfull evil to be none And how far would this Temper and Practice go to the promoting of Unity and Concord And how directly contrary do most of them proceed that make the greatest noise in our irreligious quarrels Not only putting the most invidious fence upon one anothers words and actions but also the most uncharitable judgment upon their persons upon their Spiritual and Eternal Estate We must know that as Faith unites us to the Head so Love unites us to all the Members and as we can have no Faith nor Hope without Charity so as any Man increaseth in Faith so he is inlarged in his Charity The more true Piety any man hath doubtless the more Charity still that man hath We that did hate one another saith Jâ—stin Martyr of the Christians do now live most friendly and familiarly together and pray for our Enemies If we must err one way as who is infallible it is safer for you to err by too much mildness than by overmuch rigour for Almighty God though he be Wise and Just yet he is most emphatically called Love 1 John 4.8 Beloved let us love one another for Love is of God and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God He that loveth not knoweth not God for God is Love And for you to reply That you do heartily love those that are every way Orthodox that is that agree with you in Opinion is nothing thank-worthy do not even the Publicans the same That may be nothing but Self-love but your Religion
be admitted as a foregoing condition of our Justification for the Reasons above given yet it must be acknowledged to be a condition in the Heirs of Salvation for without holiness no Man shall see God And rightly understood Holiness is such a thing with which we shall be saved Heb. 12.14 and to be sure without which we shall not be saved The Heathens made the way to the Temple of Honour thro the Temple of Virtue And amongst Christians Grace is the way to Glory that is walking in the way of God's Commandments brings us to the place where God is which way is as necessary to be walk'd in by all those that will go to God at last as a path that leads to a Town or place must be gone in by all that will come thither 'T is true good Works do not go before Justification but follow after for being sanctified also when we are justified we are created unto good works in Christ Jesus Eph. 2.10 Till we have a Being we cannot act and till the Root be made good the Fruit cannot be good Amongst the Moralists it may still be a Rule Bona agendo sumus boni By doing good we become good but this must not be so strictly urged in Divinity where the Fountain must be cleansed before the Stream can run pure indeed after Conversion and Regeneration nothing increases the habits of Grace more than the actings of Grace and in this natural and infused Habits do agree they are both strengthned by acting of them Whatsoever Grace you would have strong and lively in the Soul let it be conscienciously and frequently exercised and it will become so This hath many a probatum est amongst the Children of God The consideration of these things do give us a true account why in Scripture we shall find good Works and Holiness so much magnified on the one hand and yet sometimes on the other hand so debased Not to make proof of the former the extolling good works which deservedly is every where in Scripture Yet withall we shall find them very diminutively spoken of in Scripture as where it is said That Our righteousnesses are as filthy Rags and also where the Apostle says Isa 64.6 That he accounts his blamelesness and righteousness which is in the Law but loss nay dung That is to say when good Works are considered with any relation to Justification or when they are compared with the Righteousness of Christ we cannot think or speak too meanly of them But when Holiness is considered as a Fruit of the Spirit always accompanying Justification and a requisite preparative for Glory and an Ornament to our Profession in the mean while we cannot too much extoll it nor be too zealous and earnest in the acquiring and practising of it especially considering that 3. Holiness is indispensibly necessary unto all justified Persons Holiness is indispensably cessary to justified Ones Departing from Iniquity is the Duty of all that name the Name of Christ As it was necessary that Christ should take upon him our Flesh so it is as necessary that we should receive from him his Spirit he must become Flesh of our flesh and Bone of our bone that he might pay our debt in the same nature which contracted it so we must partake of his Spirit that we may be capacitated to receive the Fruit of his Redemption and be one with him Nay all Promises the very Covenant of Grace its self is thus to be understood viz. That the Beneficiaries or they that receive benefit by them should be holy otherwise they might not without presumption hope for any good from them And tho we do not meet with this always express'd yet it is alwayes to be understood Jer. 22.24 God expresly declaring that tho Coniah a wicked Person was as a Signet upon his right hand yet he would pluck him thence And when God engageth to continue his Favour unto any he engageth to continue them in a fit disposition to receive his Favour Thus to the Posterity of David Psal 89.32 which in a Type were the Representatives of the spiritual Seed that should be raised to our Elder Brother-Christ Jesus whom David typified it was promised that they should endure for ever but then in case of forsaking of God's Law he would visit their Transgressions with a Rod Vers 29. or he would use such means tho irksome for him to do and grievous for them to bear as might bring them back unto himself by Repentance Nay were the Promise of God never so plain and full in any case unto any Person yet there is always a Subintelligitur of such a demeanour as may be fit to receive the mercy promised as we may see in the case of Eli and his Family which God doth acknowledge that he had promised the Priesthood to and yet upon the provocations of Eli and his Sons 1 Sam. 2.30 God says Be it far from me that I should perform it Neither is God unrighteous or his Veracity to be excepted against for so long as we have to do with so Holâ— a God all Covenants are to be understood so as may agree with his Holiness and not otherwise Thou sayest But they are but vain words that thou hast such Mercies promised unto thee and treasured up for thee whereas unless thou beest sanctified and born again thou canst not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven John 3.3 or so much as see the Kingdom of God or be benefited by any promise that God hath made As 't is storyed of one who was very debauched and wicked and taking up a Bible which by his Religion he had not been acquainted with being a Papist he confessed that whatsoever Book that was it made against him So unless thou dost sincerely labour after holiness there is never a word in all the Book of God that speaks any comfort unto thee none of the Fruit that grows upon the Tree of Life can be tasted by thee This might be more evinc'd if we fix our mind on these following Reasons 1. Reason From the Nature of God 1. The first may be taken from the Nature of God I mean the Essential Holiness of this Nature by which he cannot have communion with any one that is unholy no more than Light can have fellowship with Darkness but he indispensibly hates and opposes all wickedness and hath declared his Enmity against it As fire cannot but devour stubble Isa 5.24 so God's Holiness will not suffer him to spare any whom he finds sin and guilt upon hence so many threatnings and denunciations of Judgments against it which do not linger whatsoever the Sinner may think neither can the Gospel change God's Nature or make him less to abhorr sin It is indeed a Declaration of the way and means which God hath ordained to exalt his Grace and Mercy to the Sinner by but it is in saving of him from his sin and not with it
to be the best interpretation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That ye may be perfect in every Divine perfection knowing all Spiritual things as far as 't is possible Seeing then there is a fulness of God which we cannot comprehend cannot receive and yet there is something of the fulness of God which we may receive it will be seasonable to propound that Question which has been recommended to our Consideration Question What is that fulness of God which every true Christian ought to pray and strive to be filled with This Inquiry will oblige us to speak something by way of Supposition and then something further by way of direct Solution § 1. That which is necessary to be spoken by way of Supposition will fall under these two Heads That there is a fulness in God and of God which we cannot be filled with And that there is a fulness of God with which we may and therefore ought to pray and strive to be filled with 1. Supposition It is presupposed to this Inquiry That there is a fulness in God with which we cannot be filled and therefore ought not to pray ought not to strive to be filled with it It was the destructive suggestion and temptation of Satan to persuade our first Parents to be ambitious of being like to God Gen. 3.5 Ye shall be as Gods And the Tempter never shew'd himself to be more a Devil than when he prosecuted this Design nor did Man ever fall more below himself than when he was blown up to an Ambition to be above himself It is the perfection the glory the happiness of the Rational creature to be like unto God in his communicable Attributes It is the destruction the ruin of the Rational creatures to aspire after a likeness to God in his incommunicable ones And 't is a sinful ambition too to aspire after a likeness to God even in his communicable Attributes and perfections in that way wherein they are in God so that it may be our destruction to aspire after a conformity to God and it may be our perfection to aspire after a conformity to him For first God is essentially full of all Divine excellencies he is so by nature by essence what we are we are by Grace 'T is not much we have and that little is Grace 1 Cor. 15.10 By the grace of God I am that I am Holiness is not our essence there was a time when we were not holy we were born without it and may die without it but if we die as empty of Grace as we were born it had been good for us never to have been born Secondly The holiness of God is a Self-holiness God is not only full § 2 but self-full full with his own fulness he lends to all borrows of none But the fulness of a Believer is a borrowed a precarious fulness we depend on God for the beginning and begetting of Grace for the encreasing and nourishing of that Grace he has begotten and begun for the confirming and strengthning that Grace he has encreased for the perfecting and compleating of that Grace he has confirmed and strengthned and for the crowning of what he has so perfected and compleated Chrysostom upon that John 1.16 And of his fulness we all have received and grace for grace informs us that Christ is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very Self-fountain Believers must confess with David Psal 71.8 That all our Springs are in him Again that Christ is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very Self-root We must freely and thankfully own that in him is our fruit found Hosea 14.8 Again that Christ is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very Self-life John 5.26 He has Life in himself That we have we acknowledge it to be from him as our Principle Spring Root with whom is the fountain of life Psal 36.9 And that the life which we live in the Flesh we live by the faith of the Son of God Gal. 2.20 In a word all our Obedience is rooted in the habits of Grace wrought in the Soul and those habits are all rooted in Christ who as Chrysostom goes on 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 contains in himself the treasures of all good things and not only so but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he overflows and ever flows with Streams of Grace to all the Saints not only being full but filling others not only rich but enriching others a living Jesus and giving Life to others And thus by Faith engraffed into Christ we partake of the root and of the fatness of the Olive-tree Rom. 11.17 Thirdly The fulness of holiness of Grace of all perfections that are in God are unlimited boundless and infinite God is a Sea § 3 without a Shoar an Ocean of Grace without a Bottom The fulness of Believers is circumscribed within the bounds and limits of their narrow and finite Beings And this finiteness of Nature will for ever cleave to the Saints when they shall be enlarged in their Souls to the utmost capacity Mortal shall put on Mortality but finite shall never put on Infiniteness Corruptible shall put on Incorruption but our measured Natures shall never put on Immensity Fourthly And hence the fulness of God is inexhaustible As all the § 4 lesser Stars replenish their Urns with light from the Sun and yet he 's never the less full of light Thus God is called the Father of lights Jam. 1.17 by which some think is meant the Father of Spirits who as so many Lamps are lighted up from the Sun or else the Father of all Grace Comfort Peace each of which may be termed Light Now when all the Saints in Earth all the Angels in Heaven have filled up their Vessels from this Fountain yet he is still the same infinitely blessed all-full God Fifthly And the forementioned Father thinks that the similitude of § 5 the Fountain and of the Ocean do not fully express the fulness of God For if you take but one drop from the Ocean there is that drop less in the Ocean than there had been if it had not been taken thence and therefore we add this last Head That the fulness of Goodness Grace Holiness and all other Divine Perfections that are in him are not only inexhaustible but undiminishable For after all the derivations of Grace from the God of Grace he remains full and not only so but as he expresses it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not at all lessened by those communications Nor need we puzzle our selves with this matter for our Derivations from God are not essential but influential the Soul partakes not of the Divine Nature materially but by way of efficiency Believers are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Partakers of the Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1.4 Not by substance but resemblance for we must hold this as a fixt Principle that the Divine Nature essentially considered is not discerptible nor divisible and therefore not communicable This therefore is the first thing we must suppose and take as granted That there is a
Fulness in God viz. his essential self-fulness which is infinite inexhaustible undiminishable and therefore incommunicable 2. A second thing we must suppose is That there is a fulness of God with which we may and therefore ought to pray and labour that we may be filled We cannot reach the original fulness but we may a borrowed derivative fulness tho' we cannot attain the fulness of the Fountain we may receive a fulness of the Vessel from that Fountain and if we cannot partake any thing of Gods Essence we may partake of his Influence we cannot be filled with the formal holiness of God for that holiness is God yet may we derive holiness from him as an efficient cause who works all things according to the counsel of his Will Eph. 1.11 The Wisdom of God there 's Principium dirigens the Will of God there 's Principium imperans and he works according to these there 's the Principium exequens His Will commands his Wisdom guides his Power executes the Decrees and Purposes of his wise Counsel and holy Will Having thus cleared the way we proceed to the direct Solution of the Question What is that fulness of God which every true Christian ought to pray and strive to be filled with For seeing we have supposed that there is a fulness of God which we cannot be filled with we must lay aside all ambitions and vain aspirings after that fulness and seeing we have supposed that there is a fulness of God wherewith we may be filled and the very Prayer of the Apostle supposes it We therefore are to take up this holy and humble ambition to be filled with it Now this Question can be no sooner proposed but our thoughts will suggest to us these two things First What is the matter of that Fulness and what is the measure of that Fulness with what of God and with how much of God ought we to pray and strive that we may be filled And therefore of necessity we must divide the Question into these two Branches First Branch of the Question What is the matter of that Fulness of God which we are to pray and strive to be filled with When we speak of Filling we conceive immediately that under that Metaphor there must be comprized these three things A Fountain from whence that Fulness is communicated A Recipient a Vessel a Cistern into which that Fulness is derived And then of something Analogous to the matter which from that Fountain is communicated and by that Vessel received Now in the Case before us This Fountain must needs be God the Author of every good and perfect Gift Jam. 1.17 Souls are the Vessel into which the Fulness is received but what we are to conceive and understand by the matter or the quasi materia with which these Vessels from that Fountain are filled is the Subject of our present Enquiry And to this branch of the main Inquiry I shall answer First more generally Secondly more particularly 1. To speak generally That which we are to pray and strive to be filled with is the Spirit of God Eph. 5.18 Be not drunk with Wine wherein is excess but be ye filled with the Spirit where first the Apostle dehorts against Intemperance we may have too much of the best outward things It 's easie to run into excess in these matters The Psalmist assures us Psal 104.15 That Wine makes glad the heart of man And the Prophet Hos 4.11 assures us too that Wine takes away the Heart It 's no more but this the Use is good the Abuse is sinful and the danger is lest from the lawfulness of the Use we slide insensibly into the Abuse Be not therefore filled with wine wherein is excess but then he exhorts too But be ye filled with the Spirit No fear of excess or Intemperance in this case when God fills the Souls of his People with his Spirit he fills them with all the Spiritual good things that their hearts can fill their Prayers with Compare but these two places Matth. 7.11 How much more shall your Father which is in Heaven give good things to them that ask him Luke 11.13 How much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him The comparing of these two Scriptures evidently proves that in praying for the Holy Spirit we pray virtually for all good things and that when God is graciously pleased to communicate his Spirit he communicates all good things when the Father gives his Son he gives all things So the Apostle has taught us to believe and argue Rom. 8 32. He that spared not his Son but delivered him up for us All how shall he not with him freely give us all things And we have equal reason to believe that he that spared his Spirit and gave him to us will in him and with him freely give us all things But these all things are to be taken in suo genere The Gift of Christ comprehends all things that are to be done for us the gift of the Spirit includes all things to be wrought in us Christ is all things for Justification the Spirit is all things for Sanctification and Consolation I shall touch at present upon some few things 1. Do you find an emptiness of Grace and do you long to have your Souls replenisht with it You go to the God of all Grace 1 Pet. 5.10 That he would give you more Faith more Love more Patience more Self-denyal more Heavenly-mindedness c. you do well but the compendious way is to pray that God would fulfil that Promise and so fill your Souls with his Spirit Zech. 12.10 I will pour out upon the House of David and Inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of Grace and Supplication First the Spirit of Grace that we may pray and then the Spirit of Prayer that we may be filled with more Grace Can we be content with a few drops when God has promised to pour out his Spirit John 7.38 He that believes in me out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water this spake he of the Spirit Can we satifie our selves that we have so much Grace as just keeps us alive when if we would pray and strive for the Spirit we might be more lively and vigorous Christians Can we be content with a Taste when God has provided a Feast Some of the Ancients who were anointed with material Oyl were anointed with the Cruise others with the Horn O let us not be satified that we have a few drops from the Cruise when God is ready to pour out his Grace more abundantly John 10.10 2. Would you answer the glorious Title of a Child of God with a more glorious and suitable Spirit that you may pray as Children walk as dear Children come to God not as Slaves but as Children and walk before God not under the resemblance of the Spirit of Bondage but with an ingenuous Liberty and Freedom as becomes the Heirs of Salvation Pray for
the Spirit of God that he may be a Spirit of Adoption to you as well as of Regeneration pray in the Spirit for the Spirit that you may have the frame of a Child filled with Zeal for the Fathers Name and Interest 'T is the Spirit of Adoption that teaches us to cry Abba Father Rom. 8.15 'T is the Spirit of God that gives us an inward freedom and liberty 2 Cor. 3.17 Whâ—â—e the Spirit of the Lord is there 's Liberty This Spirit will not give you a liberty unto sin but from it nor from God but with him This Spirit will not break the Bonds of the Commandment but tye up your hearts to it and give you liberty and chearfulness in it We read that the Son makes us free John 8.36 If the Son shall make you free then are you free indeed We read also that the Spirit makes us free too but in different respects The Son makes us free from the Curse of the Law from the guilt of Sin from the Wrath of God but the Spirit makes us free too from the reigning power of sin from the bondage that is in the Conscience The Authority of God has made his Precepts necessary what is necessary in the precept the Spirit makes voluntary in the principle God charges the Conscience with Duty and the Spirit enlarges the heart to obedience Psal 119.32 I will run the way of thy Commandment when thou shalt enlarge my heart 3. Pray for the Spirit that he would perform his whole Office to you that you may not partake only of the work of the Spirit in some one or some few of his operations but in all that are common to Believers And especially that he that has been an anointing Spirit to you would be a sealing Spirit to you also that he that has sealed you may be a witnessing Spirit to his own work and that he would be the earnest of your inheritance a pledge of what God has further promised and purposed for you 2 Cor. 1.21 22. Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ and hath anointed you is God Who hath also sealed us and given the earnest of the Spirit into our hearts 2. To speak a little more particularly what the Apostle prays for his Ephesians in more general Terms he prays for the Colossians more particularly Col. 1.9 10. We do not cease to pray for you and to desire that you might be fill'd with the knowledge of his Will in all Wisdom and Spiritual Vnderstanding that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing being fruitful in every good work and encreasing in the knowledge of God And when I have opened the particulars of this Scripture I shall not need to seek elsewhere for an answer to this Inquiry What is the matter of the fulness of God which we ought to pray and strive to be filled with I. Let us pray and strive and strive and pray again adding endeavours § 1 to prayers and prayers to endeavours that we may be filled with the knowledge of Gods will And we have need to make this an essential part of our prayer for first We may happily do the will of God Materially when we do it not Formally not under that formal and precise consideration that what we do is the will of God and that we do it under that consideration because it is the will of God A Man may perhaps stumble upon some practices that are commanded by the Moral Law and yet in all this not do Gods will but his own that which in all our obedience we are to eye and regard is the Authority the will of God we cannot be said to observe a Commandment unless we observe Gods Authority in that Commandment nor to keep Gods Statutes unless we keep God in our eye as the great Legislator and Statute maker A blind obedience even to God is no more acceptable than a blind obedience to Men is justifiable Secondly We ought to pray that we may be filled with the knowledge of Gods will that there may be more employment for the powers and faculties of the Soul which in every heart wherein the grace of God radically is are in the general inclined to do the will of God There are some well disposed Christians of strong affections and good inclinations to do Gods will who are but slenderly furnisht with knowledge what that will of God is which he would have them do And thus those warm propensions of Spirit either lye like dead stocks upon their hands or else they laid out the zeal of their Souls upon that which is not the will of God and when they have spent their vigour and strength of Soul upon it they come to God for a reward who asks them who required this at your hand And thus even holy Davids zeal was mislaid upon this account that God had not spoken a word nor revealed his will in the Case 2 Sam. 7.7 Thirdly It s our great concern that we may know the will of God and be filled with that knowledge that the knowledge of Gods will may be an operative principle of obedience thus David prays Psal 143.10 Teach me to do thy will O God We are to pray that God would teach us to know and then teach us to do his will knowledge without obedience is lame obedience without knowledge is blind and we must never hope for acceptance if we offer the blind and the lame to God Luke 12.47 That Servant which knew his Lords will and prepared not himself neither did according to his will shall be beaten with many stripes As therefore all our practice must be guided by knowledge so must all our knowledge be referred to practice Fourthly and lastly We ought to pray that we may be filled with the knowledge of God's will that this knowledge being rooted and grounded in our Souls it may render that obedience easie and delightful which is so necessary to its acceptation when Satan had entred Judas his heart he would not stick at any of the Devils commands and when he had filled the heart of Ananias and Saphira Acts 5.3 how ready were they to lie unto God If our hearts were more filled with the knowledge of Gods will that this Divine Law were written there duty would be our delight obedience our meat and drink nor would there be room left for those corruptions which hang upon us like dead weight always incumbring us in our obedience § 2 II. Let us pray again that we be filled with all wisdom in the doing of the will of God we want knowledge much we want wisdom more we need more light into the will of God and more judgment how to perform it For first It 's one great instance of wisdom to know the seasons of duty and what every day calls for As the providence of God disposes us under various circumstances so it calls for the exercise of various duties one circumstance calls for mourning another for
6.12 Ye are not straitned in me but ye are straitned in your own Bowels Our hearts are narrow towards Spiritual and Heavenly things because they are so enlarg'd towards earthly and visible things when the heart is enlarged as Hell and death that cannot be satisfied Hab. 2.5 For these perishing things no wonder if there be little room for the Graces of the Spirit This is therefore our great concern to pray that God would enlarge our desires that he may satisfie and fill them 4. We ought to pray and strive That all the Powers and Faculties of the whole man may be filled according to their measures There is much room in our Souls that is not furnish'd much waste ground there that is not cultivated and improved to its utmost We might have more light in the Understanding more tractableness in the Will more heat in our Love and a sharper edge set upon our Zeal And we have warrant to pray for this measure of the fulness of God 1 Thess 5.23 Now the God of peace sanctifie you wholly and I pray God your whole Spirit Soul and Body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ 5. Every gracious Soul ought to pray and strive for such a measure of Grace that he may be qualified for any Duty and Service that God shall call him to and engage him in The Hebrew word which we render Consecration or separation to an Office is Filling the hand Exod. 29.9 Consecrate ye Aaron and his Sons in the Hebrew Fill the hand of Aaron and his Sons Where God employs the hand he will fill the hand we have ground to believe that he will send us about no Errand but he will bear our Charges where-ever he gives a Commission he will bestow a competent qualification when we go about his Work we may expect his presence and assistance in the Work And Moses seems to stand upon these terms with God Exod. 33.15 If thy presence go not with me carry us not up hence As therefore there is great variety of Duties in our Christian Calling we may in Faith expect and from that believing expectation pray that we may be furnish'd with a suitable variety of Grace for the discharge of them 6. Every true Christian ought to pray strive for such a measure of Grace as may enable him to bear patiently chearfully and creditably those afflictions and sufferings which either God's good pleasure shall lay upon us or for his Names sake we may draw upon our selves We ought to pray that either he will lay no more upon us than our present strength can bear or if he encreases our trials he will encrease our Faith There 's no danger of excess in our Prayers when we confine them to the limits of his gracious promises Now here we have encouragement from his Word 1 Cor. 10.13 God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able but will with the temptation make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it 7. Every true Christian ought to pray and strive for such a measure of Grace as may bring the Soul to a settlement and stability that he be not soon shaken by the cross and adverse evils that he shall meet with in this Life And the Apostle Peter has gone before us in this Prayer 1 Pet. 5.10 The God of all grace who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus after that ye have suffered a while make you perfect stablish strengthen settle you And herein especially let us keep an eye upon these particulars § 1. Pray that God would so stablish you in the truth that ye may not be blown away with every wind of Doctrin A sorry trivial Error many times oversets and puzzles a weak Understanding Now 't is our great Interest to pray and strive that we may reach such a clear distinct coherent Light into the Doctrin of the Gospel that every small piece of Sophistry may not perplex and stagger our Belief of it So the Apostle Paul Eph. 4.14 would have Believers be no more Children tossed to and fro with every wind of Doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive § 2. Pray also that God would so stablish you in the truth of the promises that your Faith may not be shaken with every wind of Providence We are apt to have our hearts tossed by contrary Dispensations So upon a rumour Isa 7.2 The heart of Asa was moved and the heart of his people as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind It argues great weakness of Faith that we cannot maintain an equality of mind under various Providences the only remedy of which evil is to pray that God would encrease and strengthen our Faith that we may be so firmly built upon the unmoveable rock that we may not be afraid of evil tidings having our hearts fixed trusting in the Lord Psal 112.7 And this was the glory of Job's Faith Job 13.15 That tho' God should slay him yet would he trust in him § 3. Let us pray and strive that God would so settle and stablish us in Love to himself that no blast of Afflictions from his hand may cool the fire of Divine Love in our hearts We want exceedingly the Faith that God carries on a design of Love under all his various and seemingly contrary dealings with us he can love and correct why then cannot we love a correcting God Whether he wounds or heals his love is the same and why not ours Can we not love God upon the security of Faith that he will do us good as well as upon the experience that he has done us good § 4. Pray we and strive that God would so settle and stablish us in our inward peace that no wind of temptation may overthrow it 'T is a slender and ill-made peace which every assault of the Tempter dissolves The Psalmist stood upon a firmer bottom when the terrifying Onsets from without made him fly more confidently to his God Psal 56.3 What time I am afraid I will put my trust in thee And we have Gods own promise to answer our Faith Isa 26.3 Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is staid on thee because he trusteth in thee And thus I have return'd some Answer to the second Branch of the Question What is the measure of the fulness of God with which every true Christian ought to pray and strive to be filled There will still remain an enquiry How we may reach to such a measure of the Divine fulness as has been described To which tho' the limits of this discourse will not allow a full and just Answer yet the importance of the Question will oblige me to point at some few things upon which your own Meditations may find matter of enlargement 1. And first it is necessary that we be convinced that we are very far short
Had he had none himself he would not have been so much concerned for the others want of it 5. He makes a publick profession of his faith in Christ and owns him to the very teeth of his Enemies and that too when Peter had denied him the other Disciples forsaken him and those that had rallied after their rout and were now come to be the Spectators of the most doleful Object had ever been presented before their eyes were so far from making any such publick confession of him that their Faith was ready to expire with him ch 24.21 II. Repentance being Gods gift and God being a Sovereign Agent he may give it where and when he pleaseth as to whom he will to one and not to another so at what time he will to one sooner to another later He may give it to one early in the morning of his days to another late and when his Sun is Setting And if the great Master of the Vineyard shall call some into it not only at the sixth or ninth hour but even at the last minute of the eleventh hour what is that to any who shall call him to an account for it 3. God being not only a Sovereign Agent but an Almighty one can by his Power and that in an instant remove all hindrances on the Creatures part and whatever might obstruct his work and so with one turn of an Omnipotent hand bring about the heart of the most obdurate Sinner work repentance in the most unlikely Subject and where there is most within to make head against him and resist his Grace suppose the most obstinate and rooted habits of sin Grace is an infused and supernatural habit and the power that works it a supernatural and creating Power and we are not to confine God in his working Grace to those methods whereby men acquire natural or moral habits In these I grant there may need time to unlearn and extirpate those vitious habits they have so long been contracting and to acquire new ones by a long series of and accustoming themselves to better actions Custom in Men may be strong and like another Nature and they may not be able presently to overcome it nor on the sudden to bring themselves to a readiness and easiness in doing those things which tho their reason approves yet their boysterous appetites strengthned too by custom hurry them against But let the habit of sin be never so deeply radicated in the Soul and the Heart of Man never so averse to holy actions yet God can soon make a change soon remove the sinful disposition and enable and encline the Soul to what it was most averse and impotent He can even in a moment overcome that love of sin and hatred of holiness which is either natural to a Man or contracted by him and both abate lessen weaken the power of sin in the Soul whereby it was wont to resist the workings of his Spirit and restrain and suspend any actual resistance it might make Let the mind of a Man be as dark as darkness it self yet he that caused light to shine out of darkness can enlighten that mind when he pleases 2 Cor. 4.6 Let the Soul be never so dead in sin and destitute of all Spiritual Life yet he that quickens the dead and calls things that are not as tho they were Rom. 4.17 can quicken it and breathe the Breath of Spiritual Life into it and whatever there be in the Soul to oppose him in his working yet the same power can at once quell the opposition and produce the Grace 4. God having infused the habit can as easily enliven it and draw it out into act in those that are capable of exercising grace wrought in them as I suppose dying sinners to be at least when they are capable of exercising their rational faculties For there is less to make opposition against God than in the former case the prevailing power of sin being broken and something in the Soul to take Gods part in the work viz. grace now begun and some habitual promptness and disposedness of the heart to spiritual good and compliance with the will of God It doth not require more power to awaken a vital principle tho dormant than to infuse it where there was none before 5. It may be for Gods honour sometimes to give Repentance to dying sinners the honour of his Sovereignty and free Grace in shewing that he hath mercy on whom he will Rom. 3.18 and that the deepest guilt even of an old hardned sinner cannot hinder the outgoings of his grace and mercy and the honour of his power when it prevails over the most setled habits of corruption Should God work only upon lesser sinners and who are not so confirmed in evil Man might be apt to think that he could not do it and that Mens lusts might be too hard for his power and so reflect on his Omnipotence or to think he could not find in his heart to do it and so reflect upon his Mercy II. By way of Position or Assertion It is a very dangerous thing to run the hazard of a death-bed Repentance or defer Repentance till the approach of death that is to neglect the doing a Mans own part in order to the obtaining this grace as was above premised viz. the seeking it of God and using all those means by which he ordinarily works it The danger of this neglect may appear by the following considerations 1. That no Man knows the time of his death any more than the manner of it or means by which it shall be brought about Our breath is in Gods hands Dan. 5.23 No Man hath a lease of his earthly Tabernacle but is Tenant at will to his great Landlord Who knows when he shall die or how Whether a natural death or a violent one To how many thousand unforeseen accidents are Men subject Not only Swords and Axes may dispatch them but God can commission Insects and Vermin to be the executioners of his justice upon them Hatto Archbishop of Mentz A great Prelate may be eaten up of Mice and a potent Prince devoured by Worms Acts 12.23 And who doth not carry the principles of his own dissolution perpetually within him Death lies in ambush in every vain in every member and none know when it may assault them It doth not always warn before it strikes If some Diseases are Cronical others are Acute and less lingring and some are as quick as lightning kill in an instant Men may be well in one moment and dead in the next God shoots his arrows at them they are suddenly wounded Psal 64.7 How many are taken away not only in the midst of their days but in the midst of their sins The lusting Israelites with the flesh between their teeth Numb 11.33 Julian if Historians speak truth with blasphemy in his mouth and how many frequently with the Wine in their heads In such cases what place what time for repentance for seeking it
of Scripture hath he revealed it where doth he promise you repentance and pardon at the last when you had never seriously sought either all your days 2. The wickedness and profaneness of them You resolve you will repent when you die and that implies you will not repent till then i. e. you do and resolve still to love sin as long as you live but you intend to leave it when you can live no longer in it you hate God now and resolve to hate him till you die and then you will begin to love him You will make work for repentance now and seek for repentance at last offend God and provoke him and make work for pardoning mercy all your days and then sue to him for it You will persevere to affront the grace of Christ and throw his blood back into his face and then expect to be washed in it from your sins and saved by it when you go out of the World It is to as little purpose to say Object You will then send for the Minister to instruct you to pray with you c. For what if you do your case may be such that all the good Men Ans good Ministers good Instructions good Counsels in the World may not help you not save you All may come too late and signifie no more to your Souls than Physitians and Physick at that time do to your Bodies Alas what can Ministers do for you Can their instructions enlighten your minds when God hath blinded them Can their counsels soften your hearts when he hath hardned them Can the breath of prayer waft your Souls to Heaven in the last moment of your life when you have been stearing towards Hell all your days What can your Spiritual Physitians do for the cure of your Souls when the great Physitian of all hath left you as incurable and will never any more visit you Do not tell me on the other side That repentance is Gods gift Object and you cannot have it till he give it you and therefore you must tarry till he do For 1. It is as much Gods gift at last as at first Ans and you can no more have it at your death if he do not give it you than you can have it now 2. Tho it be Gods gift and you cannot work it in your selves yet cannot you seek it of God desire him to work it in you And can you not use the means by which he ordinarily works it And are you not as capable of so doing when you live and are in health as when you are sick and dying When you are sick you cannot heal your selves health is Gods gift as well as grace is tho of another kind But do you then use to lie still and say you must wait till God restore you Or do you not rather send for your Physitian and betake your selves to the use of means by which God is wont to work it You cannot get an estate unless God give it you riches are his gift Prov. 10.22 Do you therefore sit still and fold your hands in your bosom and say you must tarry till God give you an estate Or do you not rather engage in some honest Calling or Trade as the ordinary way God is wont to bless to that end The diligent hand maketh rich vers 4. and why do you not do so here too If you will go on in sin and say you wait till God give you repentance you may wait long enough when every day you continue in sin so much the farther off from repentance you are and so much the more you provoke God to deny it you To conclude Take heed especially of those things which are the ordinary hinderances of a timely repentance I. Wrong notions of repentance 1. That it is an easie thing and so may be done at any time that it is but sorrowing for sin and crying God mercy for having offended him This prevails with too many that know not wherein the nature of it consists Remember therefore that it is no easie thing to get a through change wrought in your hearts to divorce your lusts to which you have been so long wedded to part with those sins you love best and engage in those ways of strict holiness which of all things in the World you hate most The old Man will fight hard ere he die The flesh will never yield and hardly be overcom And if ever God work repentance to you he will so work it as to make you work at it too and labour after it his grace using and employing your faculties And what can you ever do either in seeking repentance before the infusion of the grace or exercising it when infused but you will find sin opposing you in it and so creating difficulties in your work 2. That it is a sour and an unpleasant thing made up of sorrow and sadness and unquietness of Spirit They know no delights but sensual ones and think if they part with the pleasure of sin they part with the comfort of their lives Do not therefore look meerly on the dark side of repentance or what may make it seem uneasie to you look through it and you will find that which will make it more pleasant In the very sorrow you fear if it be right i. e. godly sorrow there will be such a mixture of Love as will make it in a good measure delightful to you If it seem painful to you to strive against sin and there be trouble in the combat yet when you prevail over it you will find comfort in the Victory You will be more pleased with having denied your selves than you could with having gratified your selves Our Saviours promise Matth. 5.4 Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted one would think should reconcile you not only to any seeming trouble in the work of repentance but to all the greatest difficulties and severities of the most strict and mortified life If indeed your repentance be meerly legal proceeding from fear of wrath or Popish for the expiation of your sins I grant it may be a sad and unpleasant thing but if it be a true Protestant repentance i. e. an Evangelical one mixed with Love to God and proceeding from the Faith of Free Grace and remission of sin through the Blood of Christ it need not be such a scare-crow to you as to make you hazard your Salvation by shifting your duty II. Presumptuous thoughts of Gods mercy that God may be merciful to them and give them repentance and pardon their sins at the very last Consider therefore 1. As merciful as God is yet his will sets bounds even to that infinite mercy as to the actings and outgoings of it and beyond those bounds it will never pass There is a time a day a now of grace which when it is once over no mercy will be shewn you Offers of mercy invitations made to sinners and the acceptation of them are but for a time the door is
who is weak in the Faith who though he hath embraced the Doctrin of our Saviour yet is not of a mature concocted judgment clear enough about the abolition of Ceremonial observations things he judgeth ought to be forborn or done Now let things be never so indifferent in the general definition or Thesis yet when they come to be used and exercised in their individual circumstances they will be determinately good or determinately evil in all moral agents and actions And that which in general seemeth indifferent to one is not so to another these Gentiles could freely eat things strangled but the Jews could not Therefore it is a very strong weakness or wilfulness in some who love to turn Straws into Trees and Feathers into Birds and not to leave things as Christ hath left them and as they are in their own nature but will transpeciate as others transubstantiate by their own breath in their own Opinions and more fiercely contend for their own Laws than the commands of God as Saul was more severe on Jonathan for tasting hony than on himself for rebelling against Gods express command These heats indicate an Hectick Fever to be in the body preternatuâ—â—â—â—y eating up and preying on the vital heat Love to God and our Neighbour the zeal for Mens own Chimnies eateth up the House of God II. Here is the injunction of Charity towards weak ones 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 take them to you receive them into your Houses use Hospitality towards them supply their necessities Rom. 12.13 not magnificent receptions such as Levi gave our Saviour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 5.29 But when they fly for their Religion and Lives supply their wants though they be not just of your size or Opinion do not force him to practise what he cannot freely do to buy your Charity this is a dear purchase and a cruel sale Generous hospitality is a duty of another fashion receive them into your Arms into your bosoms into your Love and Converse that you may instruct them and win upon them receive them into your Society into your Communion treat this weak Brother with all humility condescention love and kindness yea with all the warm graces Christianity hath indued you with Let not these least differences cause the greatest distances as often they do if he hath so much candor as he will be received and be not sullen and angry receive him and by strength of Love bear with him and forbear him till by Love you soften and overcome him by heaping coals of fire upon his Head For if he be weak yet seriously and sincerely a lover of Christ and beloved of him the Lord hath received him vers 3. therefore do you also receive him 3. The limitation of this exception not to doubtful Disputations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some would render it discerning of thoughts and 1 Cor. 12.10 there was such an extraordinary guift as the discerning of Spirits So there may be an ordinary prying into Mens thoughts and what is Mark 9.4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Luke 5.22 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jesus seeing their thoughts and thoughts are but Mens dialoguing and discoursing with themselves and so the sense it thus Receive him but not to the discerning or judging of his Opinion or Thoughts or that he should be hardened to judge others Thoughts to be altered because they receive him But receiving is receiving him into their Society therefore not receiving him must be not to something which was apt to be in their Society and among them which was not the discretion of the strong but their disputes which were not fit for these weak ones And the word most commonly signifies disputing with others Acts 19.9 Paul disputed dayly in the School of Tyrannus And Mark 9.34 The Disciples disputed who among them should be greatest But in Jude 9. both words are met together Michael contending with the Devil disputed about the body of Moses Doct. Christians are to receive such as are weak in the Faith into their Hearts by Love and not to trouble or heat their Heads with cramping disputes For practical Piety will sooner rectifie the judgment of the weak than fierce argumentations Lay aside this heat about Ceremonies on all Hands and attend to Reading and Hearing the Word and Exhortation Pray and Praise God together and Converse in holy Ordinances in Love to each others Souls let but this fire live upon the Altar of your Hearts and then all other strange fire and heats will die away 1. I will shew you that weak Christians cannot well judge of arguments 2. That the practice of known duties is the way to get more light 3. That Christian Love will sooner win others from error than rigid Arguments 4. The Inferences from all for Instruction and Direction First then Disputations and Arguments are not easily judged of by such as are weak in Faith and Knowledge of Christian liberty Now this is evident from the first Dispute that ever was in the World For Satan was a Disputer from the beginning and is still the Father and Author of all insnaring and contentious Disputations The first thing he disputed was Gods command The Prohibition and Threatning was absolute 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Moth tamuth Gen. 2.17 but the Woman who was first in the Transgression faltreth in the recital of it with a perhaps we shall die Gen. 3.3 But by this first dispute with the Serpent our first Parents when in uprightness and strength of the image of God newly stamped on them in knowledge and holiness yet this Father or fomenter of Disputes foiled them and so all mankind being naturally and federally in them was drawn into their guilt and filth So that reason is ever since debased and deposed and no Man is able to rule himself much less another his rule and measures being broken he hath only some fragments and splinters of the Tree of Knowledge which he darts against God and himself The holy Lamp and Flame is so extinguished that now he only compasseth himself about with his own sparks till he lie down in sorrow Isa 50.11 Creatures as Creatures are fallible and failable witness Men and Angels especially by the impulse of false Arguments It is God's only Prerogative to be intrinsecally Infallible and Immutable And it is a perfection incommunicable to Men or Angels But now sinful Man is in a much more dark and doleful state For 1. He cannot form an Idea of any thing nor frame a true notion of any thing as it is in it self but he conceives by the Air of Metaphors Smilitudes and Phantasms he cannot see into things themselves nor their Essences He is hardly put to it to tell what dull Matter or Body is much more what nimble forms motion or Spirits are or what his own Soul is though so nigh to him and part of himself He is so in the dark he cannot define what light it self is If any be so confident as to think he knoweth
any thing our Apostle tells him He knoweth nothing as he ought to know 1 Cor. 8.2 He is not sufficient as of himself for one good or true thought 2 Cor. 3.5 which cuts the top sinew of Pelagianism and the Champions of the power of Nature 2. His judgment therefore must needs be dubious or wrong whereby he is to compare things that differ or agree together If God leave him or give him up to himself the Prophet is a fool and the Spiritual Man is mad Hos 9.7 so as he will put darkness for light and light for darkness bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter call good evil and evil good Isa 5.20 Conscience the Souls taster and common sense is so vitiated and defiled Tit. 1.15 that he hath no true judgment or discretion having not his senses exercised to discern between good and evil Heb. 5.14 3. His conclusions therefore must needs be distorted from these premises and the Errors in the first and second concoction are not corrected and amended by the third he who cannot make one strait step can never take three together All the Errors and Fallacies in the World are but the products of his Ratiocinations viz. I can go to the Tavern or Exchange I find therefore I can Repent and Believe when I will whereas these are actions of another Life and Nature which he was never born to unless Regenerated by the Spirit of God To Repent and Believe are God's gift Acts 5.31 His work in us John 6.65 and Ephes 2.8 Though for this very Doctrin many of his ignoranter Disciples went back and walked no more with him John 6.66 And so Men jog on in their sensuality presumptuously as if there was something in the pleasures of sin which was sweeter and dearer to them than God or Heaven and when they have no more strength to serve their Lusts nor any thing else to do but to die they can in one quarter of an hour make their peace with God as one of that herd said to me who soon after drawing Water out of his own Well and being Drunk was by the weight of the Bucket drawn into the Well and drown'd Another saith I may sin because Grace aboundeth this is a most disingenuous and unnatural argument I may hate God and my Saviour because he hath so loved me when holy Herbert said Let me not Love thee if I love thee not love being stronger than Death or Hell in the Hearts of Gods beloved ones So without holiness none shall see God therefore we must be justified by our Evangelical Obedience and Righteousness whereas this is only a concomitant for the cause for God pronounceth and declareth none to be Righteous but such as are Righteous now there is none Righteous no not one Rom. 3.10 but in the Righteousness of Christ who of God is made Wisdom Righteousness and Redemption Dav. de Just 1 Cor. 1.36 In sound Davenant's words An Alderman sits in the Court not because he is to come in his Gown but because he is an Alderman by Election c. So you must obey the Laws of the Church if that wedge will drive if not the Laws of the State both which are inconsequent if they be not according to the Law of God the establishing perversness by a Law Psal 94.20 made neither Davids nor Christs sufferings the worse but their sin the greater who twisted such a Law So that we need a new Logick from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Eternal Word as a directory to our Reasonings as well as the common Logick which teacheth us the regulation of the operations of our minds II. As we are lame in our Feet by our Naturals so even those who by the light of the Gospel and Grace are brought over to better understanding yet by vertue of the old crasiness they are not throughly illuminated and refined The very Apostles themselves Luke 18.34 were plainly told by our Saviour that he should suffer Death and rise again the third day yet they understood none of these things these sayings were hid from them until he opened their understandings to understand the Scriptures Luke 24.45 We have all a dark side and Paul says We know but in part 1 Cor. 13.12 we see but one side of the Globe we cannot view things round about they are above our Hemisphere These weak Jews were Zealous for their Ceremonies as being instituted by God the Gentiles as hot for theirs let no Man think himself infallible for these were all out and mistaken Form Custom and Education do wonderfully confirm Men in Error How hardly were People in our first Reformation drawn from their Prayers in Latin to English yet they understood not Latin as hardly would they still be weaned from little formalities though it were to entertain the most real and reasonable service in the World So great a Tyrant is tough custom over Phlegmatick Souls so apt are Men to heats for trifles by which Straw and Stubble they turn the Church into a Brick-kiln These Jews had Divine Right to plead and the usage and practice of all the seed of the Faithful enough to stagger a weak Christian Errors fairly set off may pass for Truths and if but weakly confuted may hang a doubt in Mens minds so Truths ill guarded may go for Errors objections not well cleared had better never have been started for they may puzzle a weak Head and Heart and make them both ake with fear of mistakes A Sophistical Disputant will prove there is no Motion the best way to confute him is in our Saviours words rise up and walk John 5.8 which is a real silent demonstration of it III. Nothing so convulseth Mens reason as interest as Hobs saith Though there is no Problem in Mathematicks more demonstrable than that all strait Lines drawn from the Center to the Circumference are equal yet if this did but cross any Mans interest it would be disputed Now 1 John 2.16 the Apostle reduceth the whole World to those three Elements the lust of the Flesh the lust of the Eye and the pride of Life a threefold cord strong enough to pull any Truth in pieces as easily as Sampson did his Wyths 1. The lust of the Flesh modo hic sit bene pleasing the Flesh goeth a great deal further than the Monks Bellies who yet have a lusty share in it as one of their own said They had all things so complacent that they wanted only a Vicar to go to Hell for them when they should die The Bishop of Romes Kitchin and Purgatory mutually support one another Disorders of Life hold up Celibacy in Men in Orders The lust of Idleness inviteth to Stage-plays the nurseries of Vanity and Vice to Cards and Dice in defiance of that Canon which pronounceth them unlawful Games A lusty Dinner makes the Veins so strut they can leap or fly to Heaven by their Free-will without the necessity of Free-grace so strong is Flesh and Blood without the
Spirit of God Sure he who hath an Immortal Soul within him and a Dubious State to himself as that dreadful Eternity before him should never be sick of his time that lies upon his Hand one hour whereof millions of Wolds can't redeem 2. Covetousness is a weighty Argument Thousands are enough to break the Loyns of most Mens minds too heavy for the back of the strongest Rationalist in the World the Scale of Judgment cannot turn while this beam is in the Eye nor any Argument counterpoise this dead and deadly weight but Tythe Mint and Cummin will outweigh Faith and the Love of God Luke 11.42 St. Briget prophesied Fox's Martyr The Roman Clergy would ruin the Church by their avarice for she said They had already reduced the Ten Commands to two words da pecuniam 3. Pride of Life swells Men till they break all bonds and bounds like Stum in the Cask makes all the Hoops fly off The zeal of a party and having declared for a way makes Men they cannot retreat but will spur on for honour and profit though the Angel of the Lord oppose them till they are crushed to the Wall If Christian Religion be founded in Self-denyal Mortification and bearing the Cross they who seek their own glory are not of God John 7.18 that is either no Gospel or these certainly are no Disciples of Christ We had need look to ourselves for this lust of domination and glory as Charon saith Is the very Shirt of the Soul on from the first but last put off Secondly I am to shew you that the practice of holy Duties clearly commanded is the ready way to have our minds inlightned in the knowledge of Principles Reading the Scriptures discoursing about Heaven and about their Souls everlasting welfare Reproving one another and admonishing Rom. 15.14 comforting and supporting the weak and dejected Soul 1 Thes 5.14 To exhort one another dayly lest any be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin Heb. 3.13 Duties so much out of fashion in these days that it is not counted good manners or civility to practise them friendly reproof is esteemed want of good breeding But are they not strange Christians who are strangers to Scripture Duties 1. These Practical Duties performed would give us light He that doth the Truth cometh to the light John 3.21 not only out of boldness but discovery of knowledge Truth is nothing but goodness explained and goodness is nothing but Truth consolidated Rudiments of knowledge are prerequisite to practice but examples clear all things to us Demonstration by the Compasses maketh the Maxim evident He that doth best knoweth best for he seeth the actions as they are in themselves and circumstances he doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he seeth the bottom by diving into them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psal 119.130 pethac pethaiim the very entrance into the command giveth light the Door is a Window to him that hath a weak sight even those things Men have formerly ridiculed practice hath reconciled them to be their Diana and great delight As the Gnostick in Clem. Alex. who could not taste lewdness till he was in all evil as t is Prov. 5.14 If wicked practices darken the mind as all the works of darkness do than holy actions illuminate the Soul 2. The exercise of holy Duties advanceth light every step a Man takes he goeth into a new Horizon and gets a further prospect into Truth Motion is promoted by motion actions breed habits habits fortifie the powers the new life grows stronger and fuller of Spirit The yoke of Christ is easier smoother and lighter by often wearing it this anoints us with the oyl of gladness and makes the ways of Wisdom pleasantness Prov. 3.17 Life and light are nearly related John 1.4 The life was the light of Men Acts 1.1 These things Jesus first did then taught and so he was mighty in Deed and in Word Luke 24.19 very airing and motion heateth to a flame this made his light burn vers 32. and shine too Truth incarnate in action seems a lively resemblance of God in flesh the unfolding a doubt to another hath often expounded and resolved it to the proponent 3. If any be in danger of Error or got into an ill way keeping up warm Duties Meditation and Prayer will keep him in or help him out communion with the Saints is an admirable antidote against sin or Error As in a Team of Horses if one lash out of the way if the other hold their course they will draw the former to the right path 1 John 2.20 ye have an unction and ye know all things when there are Antichrists and great Apostacies keeping to Duty like keeping the Road preserveth us from by-paths I remember a Snowy night when many wandring homeward were frozen to death A Shepherd feeling himself foiled by often falling set down his Crook in one point and beat a path round and so preserved his life and kept him out of precipices and ditches And we have a promise of light if we press to the mark and prize of our high calling Phil. 3.15 carry the Goale in your Eye and it will direct you a path where there is none upon a plain Sincerely aim at Gods glory and your Souls salvation and you shall not miss your way If in any thing you should miss it and be otherwise minded God will reveal even this unto you Yea our great Lord and Master assureth us John 7.17 He that doth the will of God he shall know the Doctrin whether it be of God or I speak of my self But if Men will make bold with God and Conscience and act for their own ends and glory they rob God of his supremacy and will lose both their way and their end He that walketh uprightly hath God for his guard and guide with devout Zachary he is within the Vail and if he be in a mistake God will reveal it to him For the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him and he will make them know his Covenant Psal 25.14 Go to thy Oracle and pray and a ray of heavenly light shall direct you as the Wise-mens Star to the holy Jesus their minds are Gods candles Prov. 20.27 and as Father of Lights he will light them when they approach him with ardent supplication Thirdly I am to shew that Christian charity and reception will sooner win weak ones to the Truth than rigid Arguments for so the Apostle adviseth them who were to deal with people weak in Faith and strongly zealous for Ceremonies dispute not with them but receive them first 1. In regard opposition breeds oppositions a Man will never believe that he Loves his Soul who cuts his purse belies his actions torments his Body Passion begets passion but love only kindles love when Men do hotly Dispute they jostle for the way and so one or both must needs leave the path of Truth and Peace The Saw of contention reciprocated with its keen teeth
the Psalmist declaring their inward sentiments The Lord shall not see neither shall the God of Jacob regard it Lastly The sinner slights the power of God This attribute renders God a dreadful Judge He has a right to punish and power to revenge every transgression of his Law His judicial power is supreme his executive is irresistible He can with one stroke dispatch the Body to the Grave and the Soul to Hell and make Men as miserable as they are sinful Yet sinners as boldly provoke him as if there were no danger We read of the infatuated Syrians that they thought that God the Protector of Israel had only power on the Hills and not in the Vallies and renewed the War to their destruction Thus sinners enter into the lists with God and range an Army of lusts against the Armies of Heaven and blindly bold run upon their own destruction They neither believe his all-seeing Eye nor all-mighty Hand They change the glory of the living God into a dead Idol that has Eyes and sees not and Hands and handles not and accordingly his threatnings make no impression upon them Thus I have presented a true view of the evil of sin consider'd in it self but as Job saith of God how little a portion of him is known May be said of the evil of sin how little of it is known For in proportion as our apprehensions are defective and below the greatness of God so are they of the evil of sin that contradicts his Sovereign will and dishonours his excellent perfections 2. Sin relatively to us is the most pernicious and destructive Evil. If we compare it with temporal Evils it preponderates all that Men are liable to in the present World Diseases in our Bodies disasters in our Estates disgrace in our Reputation are in just esteem far less evil than the evil of sin for that corrupts and destroys our more excellent and immortal part The vile Body is of no account in comparison of the precious Soul Therefore the Apostle enforces his exhortation Dearly beloved brethren abstain from fleshly lusts that war against the Soul The issue of this War is infinitely more woful than of the most cruel against our Bodies and Goods our Liberties and Lives for our Estates and Freedom if lost may be recover'd if the present Life be lost for the cause of God it shall be restor'd in greater lustre and perfection but if the Soul be lost 't is lost for ever All temporal Evils are consistent with the love of God Job on the dunghil roughcast with Ulcers was most precious in Gods sight Lazarus in the lowest poverty and wasted with loathsom Sores was dear to his affections a guard of Angels was sent to convey his departing Soul to the Divine Presence But sin separates between God and us who is the fountain of felicity and the center of rest to the Soul Other evils God who is our wise and compassionate Father and Physitian makes use of as Medicinal preparations for the cure of sin and certainly the Disease which would be the death of the Soul is worse than the Remedy tho' never so bitter and afflicting to sense Sin is an evil of that malignity that the least degree of it is fatal If it be conceiv'd in the Soul tho' not actually finisht 't is deadly One sin corrupted in an instant angelical excellencies and turn'd the glorious Spirits of Heaven into Devils 'T is a poison so strong that the first taste of it shed a deadly taint and malignity into the veins of all mankind Sin is such an exceeding Evil that 't is the severest punishment Divine Justice inflicts on sinners on this side Hell The giving Men over to the power of their lusts is the most fearful judgment not only with respect to the cause Gods unrelenting and unquenchable anger and the issue everlasting destruction but in the quality of the judgment Nay did sin appear as odious in our Eyes as it does in Gods we should account it the worst part of Hell it self the pollutions of the damned to be an evil exceeding the torments superadded to them Sin is pregnant with all kinds of Evils the seeds of it are big with Judgments The evils that are obvious to sense or that are Spiritual and Inward Temporal and Eternal Evils all proceed from sin often as the Natural cause and always as the Meritorious And many times the same punishment is produc'd by the efficiency of sin as well as inflicted for its guilt Thus uncleanness without the miraculous waters of Jealousie rots the Body and the pleasure of sin is revenged by a loathsom consuming Disease the natural consequence of it Thus intemperance and luxury shorten the lives of Men and accelerate damnation Fierce desires and wild rage are fewel for the everlasting fire in Hell The same evils considered Physically are from the efficiency of sin consider'd legally are from the guilt of sin and the justice of God This being a point of great usefulness that I may be more instructive I will consider the evils that are consequential to sin under these two Heads 1. Such as proceed immediately from it by Emanation 2. Those evils and all other as the effects of Gods justice and sentence 1. The evils that proceed immediately by emanation from it and tho' some of them are not resented with feeling apprehensions by sinners yet they are of a fearful nature Sin has deprived Man of the purity nobility and peace of his innocent state 1. It has stain'd and tainted him with an universal intimate and permanent pollution Man in his first Creation was holy and righteous a beam of beauty derived from Heaven was shed upon his Soul in comparison of which sensitive beauty is but as the clearness of Glass to the lustre of a Diamond His understanding was light in the Lord his will and affections were regular and pure the Divine Image was imprest upon all his faculties that attracted the love and complacency of God himself Sin has blotted out all his aimiable excellencies and superinduc'd the most foul deformity the original of which was fetcht from Hell Sinners are the natural Children of Satan of a near resemblance to him The Scripture borrows comparisons to represent the defiling quality of sin from pollutions that are most loathsom to our senses from pestilential Vlcers putrifying Sores filthy Vomit and defiling Mire This pollution is universal through the whole Man Spirit Soul and Body It darkens the mind our supreme faculty with a cloud of Corruption it depraves the will and vitiates the affections 'T is a pollution so deep and permanent that the Deluge that swept away a World of sinners did not wash away their sins and the fire at the last day that shall devour the dross of the visible World and renew the Heavens and the Earth shall not purge away the sins of the guilty Inhabitants This pollution hath so defil'd and disfigur'd Man who was a fair and lovely type wherein
like but worse than the Beasts for the fiercest Beasts of Africa or Hyrcania have a respect for their own likeness tho' they devour others yet they spare those of their own kind but Men are so degenerate as to be most cruel against their Brethren These are some of the Evils that proceed from sin as their natural Cause And from hence 't is evident that sin makes Men miserable were there no Hell of torment to receive them in the next State 2. I will consider the Evils consequent to sin as the penal effects of the sentence against sin of Divine Justice that decrees it and Divine Power that inflicts it and in these the sinner is often an active instrument of his own misery 1. The fall of the Angels is the first and most terrible punishment of sin God spared not the Angels that sinned but cast them down to Hell reserved in chains of darkness to judgment How are they fall'n From what height of glory and felicity into bottomless perdition How are they continually rackt and tormented with the remembrance of their lost happiness If a thousand of the prime Nobility of a Nation were executed in a day by the sentence of a righteous King we should conclude their crimes to be atrocious innumerable Angels dignified with the titles of Dominions and Principalities were expell'd from Heaven their native seat and the sanctuary of life and are dead to all the joyful operations of the intellectual nature and only alive to everlasting pain One sin of pride or envy brought this terrible vengeance from whence we may infer how provoking sin is to the holy God We read of King Vzziah that upon his presumption to offer incense he was struck with a Leprosie and the Priests thrust him out and himself hasted to go out of the Temple a representation of the punishment of the Angels by presumption they were struck with a Leprosie and justly expelled from the Celestial Temple and not being able to sustain the terrors of the Divine Majesty they fled from his presence 'T is said God cast them down and they left their own habitation 2. Consider the penal effects of sin with respect to Man They are comprehended in the sentence of death the first and second death threaten'd to deter Adam from transgressing the Law In the first Creation Man while innocent was immortal for altho his Bâ—â—y was compounded of jarring Elements that had a natural tendency to dissolution yet the Soul was endowed with such vertue as to imbalm the Body alive and to preserve it from the least degree of putrefaction But when Man by his voluntary sin was separated from the fountain of life the Soul lost its derivative life from God and the active life infused by its union into the Body It cannot preserve the natural life beyond its limited term A righteous retaliation Thus the Apostle tells us Sin came into the World and death by sin Even infants who never committed sin die having been conceived in sin And death brought in its retinue evils so numerous and various that their kinds are more than words to name and distinguish them Man that is born of a Woman is of few days and full of trouble at his birth he enters into a labyrinth of Thorns this miserable World and his life is a continual turning in it he cannot escape being sometimes prick'd and torn and at going out of it his Soul is rent from the embraces of the Body 'T is as possible to tell the number of the waves in a tempestuous Sea as to recount all the tormenting passions of the Soul all the Diseases of the Body which far exceed in number all the unhappy parts wherein they are seated What an afflicting object would it be to hear all the mournful lamentations all the piercing complaints all the deep groans from the miserable in this present state What a prospect of Terror to see Death in its various shapes by Famine by Fire by Sword and by wasting or painful Diseases triumphant over all mankind What a sight of woe to have all the Graves and Charnel-houses open'd and so many loathsom Carcasses or heaps of dry naked Bones the trophies of Death expos'd to view Such are the afflicting and destructive effects of sin For wickedness burns as a fire it devours the Briars and Thorns Besides other miseries in this life sometimes the terrors of an accusing Conscience seise upon Men which of all evils are most heavy and overwhelming Solomon who understood the frame of humane Nature tells us The Spirit of a Man can bear his infirmity that is the mind fortified by Principles of moral Counsel and Constancy can endure the assault of external Evils but a wounded Spirit who can bear This is most insupportable when the sting and remorse of the mind is from the sense of guilt for then God appears an enemy righteous and severe and who can encounter with offended Omnipotence Such is the sharpness of his Sword and the weight of his Hand that every stroke is deadly inward Satan the cruel enemy of Souls exasperates the wound He discovers and charges sin upon the Conscience with all its killing aggravations and conceals the Divine mercy the only lenitive and healing Balm to the wounded Spirit What visions of horror what spectacles of fear what scenes of sorrow are presented to the distracted mind by the Prince of darkness And which heigthens the misery Man is a worse enemy to himself than Satan he falls upon his own Sword and destroys himself Whatever he sees or hears afflicts him whatever he thinks torments him The guilty Conscience turns the Sun into darkness and the Moon into blood the precious promises of the Gospel that assure favour and pardon to returning and relenting sinners are turn'd into arguments of despair by reflecting upon the abuse and provocation of mercy and that the advocate in Gods bosom is become the accuser Doleful state Beyond the conception of all but those who are plung'd into it How often do they run to the grave for sanctuary and seek for death as a deliverance Yet all these anxieties and terrors are but the beginning of sorrows for the full and terrible recompenses of sin shall follow the Eternal Judgment pronounc'd against the wicked at the last day 'T is true the sentence of the Law is past against the sinner in this present state and temporal evils are the effects of it but that sentence is revocable at death the sentence is ratified by the Judge upon every impenitent sinner 't is decicive of his state and involves him under punishment for ever But the full execution of judgment shall not be till the publick general sentence pronounc'd by the everlasting Judge before the whole World It exceeds the compass of created thoughts to understand fully the direful effects of sin in the Eternal State For who knows the power of Gods wrath The Scripture represents the punishment in expressions that may instruct the mind
and brought under his Government Rom. x. 14 15 17. If ye then promote the spreading of the Gospel ye enlarge the Kingdom of Christ 3. Tenderly pity and compassionate the many Millions of the Sons and Daughters of Adam who were hewn out of the same Rock and dig'd out of the same hole of the Pit with your selves who as yet lye in thraldom under Satan and are Members of his visible Kingdom It would doubtless be very grateful to you if your assistance might contribute any thing toward their deliverance out of that miserable bondage and the means to procure it is to help on as far as ye may the bringing of the Gospel among them for that is God's appointed way to effect it Luk. iv 18. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted to preach deliverance to the captives Acts xxvi 17 18. and from the Gentiles to whom I now send thee To open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God that they may receive forgiveness of Sins and an inheritance among them which are sanctified 4. Remember That Grace when it hath its freedom of exercise will draw you off from centering in Self and raise in you a spirit of freedom and nobleness to seek the good of others especially to advance the Glory of God in the Salvation of Souls Take heed that ye be not found in the number of those of whom the Apostle speaks Phil. ii 21. For all seek their own not the things which are Jesus Christs 5. I hope ye do not desire to be excused or excluded from bearing any part in that honourable and glorious work of being employed by Christ in your Stations and according to your Capacities in the affairs of his Kingdom but that it would grieve you at the very heart to be laid aside as a despised broken Idol when all this is recollected and maturely pondered where is that godly private Christian that will deliberately say I am not concerned to be helpful in such ways as are proper for me in promoting the Entertainment of the Gospel Secondly As for those godly private Christians whose hearts are sincerely willing to be serviceable to the Lord Jesus Christ and would exceedingly rejoyce to contribute all the assistance that they are able to afford for the Conversion and Salvation of perishing Souls but complain That the work in which this Discourse would engage them lies a great way off and is out of their reach But could they be employed about any thing of that nature within the compass of their sphere of activity they would most gladly embrace it and vigorously bestir themselves in it If that be really the Case of any Then I say to such Up and be doing and the Lord be with you to direct help and succeed you for ye will find enough to do at your own doors and probably in your own Houses Briefly and plainly then the matter stands thus There are many who have entertained the Gospel as far as a general ignorant customary Profession will go but are so far from admitting the spirit life and power of it into their hearts that they are not only utter strangers to it but are full of bitter enmity against it Will ye be helpful now to prevail with them to receive it with Faith Love and Obedience It will be as acceptable and I fear ye will find it as difficult a work to bring a wicked hard-hearted Christian to believe in Christ to the Salvation of his Soul as an open Infidel to make profession of the Gospel Ye will find many as ignorant of the very Essentials of Christianity as the very Pagans as froward perverse and opposite to all means of Instruction as Indians many that love their Lusts and hold them as fast as any in the world The Barbarians are prejudiced against our Religion because they understand it not or have had it mis-represented to them but the more plainly and truly it is set forth before prophane ones at home the more bitterly do they hate it and discover the greater aversation to it So ye see That tho' the Scene of the Question seemed to be laid afar off yet the purport and design of it reacheth us at home And I believe No godly private Christian will say that he is not concerned to seek the Conversion and Salvation of the ignorant sensual prophane and ungodly ones among whom they live If ye ask me then How may we be helpful thereunto I answer That generally the same Methods are to be made use of that have already been insisted upon As To endeavour in our several Stations and Capacities That such may be employed and encouraged to Preach the Gospel as are themselves seasoned with the Spirit and grace of it and zealously seek the Conversion and Salvation of Souls To Pray more fervently for the pouring out of the Spirit to make the Preaching of the Word successful To remove all Impediments and Obstructions as far as we can out of their way To assist them with what help we can by obliging instructing and perswading and walking exemplarily before them But I shall not proceed farther in this because it would draw out the Discourse to too great a length and I think it would be for your Edification to review over again what hath been already insisted upon and then upon second thoughts ye may discover more than fell under your notice in the first cursory reading I shall conclude all with Jam. v. 19 20. Brethren If any of you do err from the faith and one convert him Let him know that he which converteth the Sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and hide a multitude of sins Quest How Christ is to be followed as our Example SERMON XIII 1 Pet. 2.21 lat part Leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps THE Persons to whom the Apostle wrote this Epistle are in the beginning of it styled Strangers So they were because dispersed and scatter'd in several Kingdoms of the Gentiles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Joh. 3.7 and they were Pilgrims and Sojourners in the Earth it self being regenerated and born from above and minding a better Country than was to be found here below The Apostle endeavours to strengthen their Faith to enliven their Hope to fix their hearts upon the incorruptible and undefiled Inheritance and to keep them in the way that leads to it In this Chapter where my Text lies He admonishes them to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul he exhorts them to a conversation that would glorifie God convince the World and adorn the Gospel their Zeal ought to be so great of those works that are good that they should not think much to suffer for well doing Bona agere mala pati to do good and to hold on in
by the Sword of the Spirit all his force was repelled Christians are to look upon the Evil one as an Enemy that Christ has conquer'd and this should encourage them in their conflicts with him they are to despise his offers they are not to be perswaded by his misapplication of Scripture to any thing that is unjustifiable and irregular The Word of God should abide in them that they may be strong and overcome the wicked one 1 Joh. 2.14 The Head always resisted shall the Members yield to this Destroyer Let not your hearts be filled with Satan let not your heads and hands be employed by him who works in the Children of disobedience 4. Christ is to be followed in his contempt of the worlds glory and contentment with a mean and low estate in it Never was the world so set forth in such an alluring dress as when the God of it in a moment of time shew'd unto our Lord Jesus all the Kingdoms of the world and all the glory of them Luk. 4.5 yet the heavenly Mind of Christ is not taken with the sight he knew he saw nothing but what was Vanity and his Kingdom which was not of this world was a far better thing than the worlds best Kingdom Instead of pursuing he flees from a Crown which the people were ready to force upon his head Ambition and covetousness after worldly grandeur and gain which make us so unlike to Christ should be far from us If the world be the great thing with us Mammon will have us at command and Christ will have but little service from us Why should that be high in the esteem and affection of your hearts which Christ so little minded Love not the world neither the things that are in the world 1 Joh. 2.15 Set your affection on things above not on things that are on earth Col. 3.2 If you have the worlds riches let not your minds be high nor your hearts set upon them and be rich in good works if you are in a meaner estate be satisfied remember who said The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head The best men in the world that have done most good in the world have least cared for the world and have been most willing to leave the world and go to a better 5. Christ is to be followed in his living a life so very beneficial doing good being his perpetual business The Apostle Peter who was one of his greatest and most constant attendants says that he went about doing good Act. 10.38 to do thus was meat and drink to him How great was his Kindness and Compassion to Souls how much Mercy does he shew to the Bodies of Men You that are Christians be very active in the best sence the true Members of Christ have the Spirit of the Head in them whose fruit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth Eph. 5.9 What have you Faith for but that it may work by Love Why are you created in Christ Jesus but that you may be employed in good works which God hath before ordained that you should walk in them Eph. 2.10 Be sure to do justly be injurious to none render unto all their dues and do not only consult the dues of others but their needs also and love to be merciful and let the perishing Souls as well as the distressed Bodies of others have a great share in your Compassions As you have opportunity do good unto all men and good of as many sorts as may be especially to the houshold of faith Gal. 6.10 The Apostle speaks with great authority and asseveration when he presses Christian practice This is a faithful saying and these things I will that thou affirm constantly that they who have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works these things are good and profitable unto men Tit. 3.8 A Christian by Profession who lives wickedly is not a true Member but a Monster in the Church and will not be endured long but is near to be cut off and destroy'd It 's a true Saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Death does not destroy the Soul but 't is an ill Life that ruins it 6. Christ is to be followed in his most profitable and edifying Communication We read Psal 45.2 That grace was poured into his Lips the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth were the wonder of the hearers Luk. 4.22 Exact truth always accompanied his Speeches he never spake a word that was offensive to God or injurious to any man Was he chargeable with guile or when he was reviled did he revile again No no he gave a better example he speaks words to awaken Sinners to search Hypocrites and how does he comfort the mourners calling all the weary and heavy laden to come to him for rest He takes occasion almost from every thing to discourse of the heavenly kingdom His parables of the sower of leaven of the Merchant man seeking goodly pearls and such like plainly shew that the most ordinary things may spiritually be improved unto great usefulness All Professours and especially you of London set a watch before the door of your lips and let your words be like the words of Christ Jesus Your lying and corrupt communication your slanderous and backbiting words your passionate and angry speeches and revilings are these like Christs language An unbridled tongue though it utters many a falshood yet it speaks one certain truth that your Religion is but vain Jam. 1.26 Let Conscience be tender and purpose with the Psalmist that your mouths shall not transgress Let the word of Christ be more in your Hearts for out of the abundance of the Heart the mouth speaks Let your speech be always with Grace Col 4.6 Discourse as those who do believe you are debtors of edifying words one to another that idle words are heard by him that is in Heaven and an account must be given of them in the day of judgement 7. Christ is to be followed in his manner of performing holy duties never was He negligent in an Ordinance His cries were strong his tears many Heb 5.7 and how does he wrestle with his Heavenly Father Christians should take heed of doing the work of God deceitfully they should be fervent in Spirit when serving the Lord Rom. 12.11 Look to your Hearts in all your performances for Gods eye is fixed upon them and if they are not present and right with him your duties are but dead duties and dead duties are really dead works so far from being acceptable that they are an abomination When Christ was here upon the Earth as he taught in other places so he went to the Temple and to the Synagogues though there was much corruption in the Jewish Church Christians should learn so much moderation as to own what is good even in them in whom there are mixtures of much that is bad and there should be a
sublime nervous Epistle whether St. Luke or Barnabas or Clement or Apollos or the Apostle Paul as I most think I here dispute not is evidently walking in the searches of the great Excellency of Christianity as it was brought unto us by and took its denomination from and serves the purposes and speaks the Eminence Unction and Prerogatives and Designs of Christ the Son of God And this discourse he here directeth to the Hebrews by whom we may understand those Christian Jews that were in Syria Judea and principally at Jerusalem for those that were dispersed through the Provinces of the Roman Empire were commonly called Greeks And those indeed who were Converted to the Christian Faith were terribly persecuted by the Jews their Brethren and assaulted by Seducers to work them back again to their deserted Judaism and much ado they had to stand their ground Whereupon this Author mindful of what his Lord had said in Mat. xxiv 9-13 attempts to shew the Eminencies of their State and that Judaism was every way transcended by Christianity The Author of it was a greater and better Person than Moses Aaron or Melchizedeck The Doctrines were more mysterious and sublime The Laws more spiritual and most accurately suited to the compleating and perpetuating of the Divine Life and Nature in them and to the advancing them unto all Conformities to God imitations of him and intimacies with him The Promises were more glorious rich and full and all the Constitutions Furniture Services Ministry and Advantages of the Gospel Polity and Temple carried more glorious signatures of God upon them and were more eminently attested patronized and succeeded by God than ever Judaism was or than it could pretend unto Why therefore should it be deserted or coldly owned or improved negligently or defectively This Author having therefore gained his point and throughly proved the dignity of the Christian state and calling beyond all possibility of grounded Cavils or competition He next proceeds to shew these Hebrews the genuine and just improvement of what he had demonstrated Heb. x. 19-39 xi xii xiii 1-19 The Casuistical consideration of the Text best serves the stated purpose of this hour And that I may be evidently pertinent clear succinct and profitable let me now lay the Case and Text together and consider them in their relative aspects each toward the other 1. Luke-warmness is the remissness or defectiveness of heat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a middle thing betwixt cold and heat When there is not heat enough in subjecto capaci to serve the purposes that such a thing under such circumstances should subserve Now God and Christ expect a fervent Spirit burning and flaming Love and in the Text Love is here represented as needing Provocation Heart-warmth is nothing else but love suiting and accommodating it self to worthy objects according to their apprehended dignity usefulness or concerns Love is the endearing to our selves of apprehended Excellence or Goodness and our letting out our selves or the issuings forth of our pleased wills in correspondent motions towards reposes in obsequiousness to and engagements for what we admire and affect for worth or excellence discerned makes us accommodate our selves unto the pleasure and concerns thereof according to its nature place and posture towards us and our affairs therewith When therefore this Affection Principle or Grace or Passion if Love may properly be called so is grown too weak to fix the will and to influence the life so as to please its God and turns indifferent and unconcerned and variable as the winds and weather change this languor of the Heart and Will and its easiness and proneness to be drawn off from God and things Divine we call Luke-warmness which is nothing else indeed but the sluggishness and dulness of the heart and will to such a degree as that it is not duly affected with nor startled at nor concerned intimately about what is truly excellent and of great consequence and importance to us And hence our Author phrases it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in that Love may and ought to be smart and keen heating and urging all the powers of the Soul to excite all their vigours and to perform all their Functions with strength and pleasure Consider well Cant. viii 6 7. ii Cor. v. 14. i Thess ii 8. Heart unaffectedness unconcernedness and inactivity let Souls and their concerns God's interest and the Matters of Christ's Kingdom go and be as they will Phil. ii 20 21. This is the malady to be cured 2. It is not so much a single instance of luke-warmness as a temper that the case speaks of Nor doth the Text intend an intermittent Feaver in the heart 't is not a transient Paroxysm by fits and starts for hearts to burn but 't is a stated frame that must be changed and fixt The Malady is a luke-warm temper a frame and constitution of the inward man too weakly bent and byassed towards God and heavenly things to make them statedly its predominant ambition business and delight Act. xi 23. ii Cor. v. 9. A frame of Soul that sits too loose towards God to do to bear to be to hope to wait much for him in the stormy and dark day 3. It is the effectual cure hereof that the case aims at and in this Paroxysm of Love and of Good Works the cure consists Hence Labour of love Heb. vi 10. i Thess i. 3. Love abounding more and more in knowledge and in all judgment that ye may approve things that are excellent that ye may be sincere and without offence until the day of Christ being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ unto the Glory and Praise of God Phil. i. 9. 11. when Love is fervent fixt and genuinely fruitful then is this luke-warm temper cured indeed Hence zealous of good works See Tit. ii 11. 14. 4. How this Cure of such a temper may be effectually wrought is the next thing to be enquired into and the great import of the case before us and a great cluster of apt and pertinent Expedients doth the Text here entertain us with Such as 1. Determining and designing to enterprize the thing here called Provocation to love and to good works 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 · This is the great concern to be espoused and the great scope of our intentions resolutions and endeavours Love and good works are the great Cure of this Distemper to which we must direct our thoughts words deeds provokingly Col iv 5 6 Such a Distemper must not be ordinarily expected to be cured by accident nor are their Labours likely to be prosperous who do not cordially design this Cure 2 The mutual Considerations of Persons Consider one another to a Provocation So the Greek We must take into serious deep and frequent thoughts the quality capacity spirits courses and concerns of one another and see wherein they are defective or exemplary and proficient in these things as
Entertain Accommodate and Improve to the great ends and benefit of the exhortation given 4. And the actuated knowledge of the approaching day must quicken us to and in the more serious and intense performance of these duties Exhorting by so much the more by how much the more as ye see the day approaching Let me but touch a little upon these things 1. Let us consider one another for this provoking work or in order to this Provocation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The word here in the Text imports strict observation of and great sollicitousness of thoughts about each other as to great matters for their Good So that we have 1. The Objects each other 2. The Act or Duty towards them Let us Consider 3. The end and scope To a provocation unto love and to Good works 1. The Objects One another 1. As to the great and Stated ends of our Creation and Redemption Such as the Divine nature and Life and Joy Gods image in us service from us and the delightful blissful and that eternal presence with us in the glorious discoveries and Communications of himself to us in heaven And as we are recovered redeemed by Jesus Christ So our loyalty gratitude and fruitfulness to him in all acknowledgements and improvements of his kind Conduct Government Providence and Grace unto the Fathers Glory through him As we are related to the Holy Ghost it is our correspondent Temper and Practice with Improvement of and our fit returns unto the Offered Accepted and Profest relations of the Spirit and his Communications to us his Operations in us and his Effects upon our Spirits that he might thereby suit us to the Concerns Priviledges of our Christian state and that we might be built up furnisht and possest as the Eternal Temple of the living God Linked and laid together and so related and obliged to each other dependant each on other and consequently useful and delightful in being heartily and practically faithful each to other unto the Edification of the whole in love that so God three in One may be eternally and evidently All to Universal Satisfaction For we were made and bought and are committed to the care of Christ and of the Spirit and we are accordingly entrusted with Gospel helps and means that we might hereby be the Mirrours of Divine Communicable excellencies and perfections the Monuments of prosperous and rich Grace and Instruments of special Service For these ends God Created and Redeemed us and in respect hereto are we to be considered each by other 2. As to our capacity of serving and reaching such Great Ends and Purposes The powers of our Souls the members of our Bodies and all our natural accommodations for these Ends. For we are men and so have faculties and powers naturally capable of and formed to a propenseness and appetite to the Supream Good and thereupon receptive of all the attractive influences of the first cause and were it not for our moral depravations and Corruptions and alienations of heart herefrom which we have sinfully contracted espoused and indulged considering Divine Discoveries Assistances and Encouragements procured for us and dispensed to us by Jesus Christ what hinders our return to God and unto those reciprocations of Endearments betwixt him and us to which by our rational Frame and Constitution we are so admirably suited Are we not capable of discerning what may excite enflame preserve and regulate our love and of the fixing and managing it accordingly We are capable of judgment choice and motion and reposes right objects being set before us in their apt illustrations and addresses So that we cannot speak to bruits and stones as we may do to men For nothing but sinful ignorance prejudice negligence and malignity or sad delusions and mistakes through inconsiderateness and unreasonable avocations and diversions can prevent the return of our first love and all these things may be redrest by our judicious well advised and warm discourses about these things duly attended to impartially considered and prudently and pertinently applied unto our selves Thus mistakes may be Rectified known Truths and Notions actuated Hearts affected Lives reformed and Love restored to its regular Fervours and Productions of Good works He that is capable of knowing what he is to do and why and of doing and being what most concerns and best becomes him deserves to be accordingly considered by us 3. As to our obligations and advantages as we are Creatures Subjects Favourites As we are redeemed to God by Christ so our obligations to the returns of Gratitude should be considered by us ii Cor. v. 14 15. We are Christs and Gods by him and so he must be glorified in the whole man i Cor. vi 20. And all the vast advantages of our Gospel day as they are talents and encouraging advantages put into our hands must be considered by us too and our selves and one another as Steward 's entrusted and accountable ii Pet. i. 3 4. i 4.11 So that we must regard each other as under ties and bonds to God and Christ and as greatly helped and furnished to be provoked thus if well considered and managed accordingly 4. As to our Spirits and behaviour according to our Christian Claims and Helps Relations Obligations and Professions Whether we foot it right or not Gal. ii 14. Whether professours value their Souls to their just worth or not in keeping them intent upon their great concern whether their furniture discipline temper and behaviour bear evidently their fit and full proportion hereunto How Gospel transforming and reforming work goes on with them Whether the Christian name and interest the Gospel and its Patron be credited and promoted or disgraced and hindred by us and whether our proficiency and improvements be answerable indeed to our advantages obligations and professions 5. Wherein our helps and hopefulness or our dangers mainly lye their Gifts and Graces and Encouragements and Advantages on the one hand Their Constitutions Customs Callings Company Temptations and secular Concerns and Hindrances on the other hand are all to be considered 2. The Act or Duty towards these Objects 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us Consider 1. Bend your minds to observation of one another that ye may understand how matters are with one another concern your selves about the right knowledge of the principles tempers actions circumstances and concerns of persons so far as your duty towards them calls you to it For this injunction doth not countenance what we find elsewhere forbidden ii Thes iii. 11 12. i Tim. v. 13. i Pet. iv 15. So far as you may do or get Good prevent redress or allay evil under such circumstances relations and advantages as may notify that God then calls you to it and so encourages your expectations and endeavours of doing Good or preventing the sin and mischief which God would have prevented by you So far may others be inspected enquired after and observed by you But when it is and evidently appears to be to
The Vsefulness of the worshipping Assemblies of Saints and Christians to this great and needful provocation must quicken us unto and keep us in these Courts of God Psal .xcii. 13. 15. Exod. xx 24. There God commands the blessing even Life for evermore Psal cxxxiii 3. There you have the openings of the Gospel Teasury there are these golden Candlesticks which bear the burning shining Tapers whose light and heat diffuse themselves through all within their reach who are receptive of them The Gifts and Graces the Affections and Experiences of Gospel Ministers are in their Communicative Exercises there God the Father sets and keeps his Heart and Eye there the Lord Redeemer walks by and amongst his Commissionated Officers and Representatives dispensing warmth and vigour through their Ministry to Hearts presented to him at his Altar There doth the Holy Spirit fill Heads with Knowledge Hearts with Grace and all our Faculties and Christian Principles with Vigour There Mysteries are unfolded Precepts explained and enforced Promises fulfilled in Soul improvements Incense is offered up in golden Censers and foederal concernments are solemnly transacted and confirmed in open Court And there through the Angel of the Covenant his moving upon the Waters of the Sanctuary are Soul distempers and Consumptions healed And there you are informed acquainted with and confirmed in what may instruct you in and encourage you unto this Provocation to Love and to good works And there Prayer gets fuel and gives vent to Love drawing forth all the Energies of Souls and Thoughts towards God And thus fervent Prayers and love quickning returns thereto are like the Angels of God ascending and descending from and upon the Heart while the deserters hereof grow cold thereto and starve their Love and practical Godliness thereby All there is known obtained and exercised There you may fill your Heads with Knowledge your Hearts with Grace your Mouths with Arguments your Lives with Fruitfulness your Consciences with Consolations and your whole selves with those experiences of Divine regards to Soul concerns which may inflame your Hearts with Love to God and Christ to Holiness and Heaven and fit you both to kindle and increase this holy flame both in your selves and in each other And indeed what greater advantages can be derived into our Souls to make our Altars burn than what our Christian Assemblies duly managed will entertain us with What understanding do the Inspirations of the Almighty here afford Such curious Explications of the Name and Counsels of your God Such large and full accounts of all the endearing Grace of Christ Such Critical dissections and anatomizings of the state of Souls Such over-shâ—dowings of the Spirit of God Such clear and full descriptions and accounts of the Divine Life and Nature in all their Strength and Glory How are desires invigorated and twisted to make them more effectual to our selves and others This Sanctuary Love is like the best wine going down sweetly and causing the Lips even of those that are asleep to speak Keep then to these Assemblies that you may duly know whom what how and why to Love and how to suit your selves in spirit speech and practice towards God your selves and towards each other unto this generous and noble Principle Thus will you grow exceedingly both in the knowledge and savour of what is most considerable and most deservingly affecting both as to Things and Persons for Christianity is contrived for Love and Godliness in all its Doctrines Laws and Ordinances and in assemblies you have the Explications and Enforcements of those Truths which will compleat the Man of God as to his Principles Disposition and Behaviour Here you may know your most holy Faith as to it's matter evidences and designs upon you and it 's improvableness by you to it 's determined and declared ends and services That Faith which is to illuminate your Eyes to exercise your thoughts to fix your holy purposes to form and cherish expectations to raise desires to embolden prayer to fire your affections and regulate them as to their Objects Ends and Measures and Expressions And when you there attend you are in the way of Blessings How oft and evidently are Divine Truths there sensibly sharpened and succeeded by the God of Truth Rom. i. 16. Paul and Barnabas so spake as that a Multitude believed of Jews and Gentiles Act. xiv 1. And thither must you and I resort and there attend for Doctrine Exhortation and Instruction in Righteousness The Priests Lips must preserve Knowledge how to speak of God with him and for him there Gospel luminaries are to diffuse their Light and there must we receive it and know what is considerable eligible practicable and encouraging to love and to good Works Why then should we forsake that 3. But let us exhort each other â—or consideration and attendance on Assemblies are for our own and others good for personal and mutual quickenings to Love to good works I know that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and thence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is sometimes used more largely for any pleading of and pressing home a thing pursuant to it's import and design whether by Counsel Comfort or sometimes it imports Consolation or Encouragement This is too well seen and known to need its Scriptural Instances and Quotations That which is here intended I offer in this Paraphrase Draw forth all the Spirit and Strength of what you know and have advisedly considered as to your selves and others of what you have seen and heard in your Assembling of your selves together concerning your obligations to attend them their fitness to advantage you and all the benefit derived or deriveable therefrom Draw forth the vigour of all your received Discoveries Directions Assistances and Inducements to do and be what is required and expected from you professed by you and of eternal Consequence and Concernment to you Plead this throughly with your selves and one another that so your Christian love be not extinguisht or abated but wrought and kept up to its genuine and just pitch of fervour and effectual Operations and Eruptions in Good works Drive home upon your selves by deep and serious thoughts and pertinent applications of them to your selves and warm debates about them with your selves the things which God hath manifested and proposed to you as credible acceptable and practically Improveable He that expects this flame upon his heart must be a thoughtful man severely contemplative and sollicitous about the things of the Kingdom of God and the Name and Interest and Servants of the Lord Redeemer How can that man be warm and active or zealous of Good works whose knowledge is not actuated by self-awakening Meditations and whose furniture Principles and Spirit are commonly neglected by himself What! are divine Truths Laws Promises and Institutions only to be with us or in us as empty Speculations or thin Notions Have Divine Revelations and Endearings no Errand to our Hearts and Consciences and no business there and no practical Vigours to
and Provisions to bring and keep our God and us together in order to all the Solaces and Satisfactions of Steady Full Eternal Friendship the eminent importance of his Gospel Interest and Kingdom in and to the world the Church and us the loveliness and vigours of his Interest and Image in us as formed fixt and actuated and possessed by his eternal Spirit to his eternal praise by Jesus Christ the solid pleasures peace and usefulness of regular zeal for God Christ Christianity and all that are near and dear to God with all the comforts and renown which this well fixt and ordered zeal prepares us for All that we are saved from by to through the effectual cure of this disease All the solemnities of Christs approaching day and our great concerns therein All the good that is in that attends upon and that issues from the prosperous Successes of the Gospel the holiness and and peace of the Church and the health the usefulness the possession the Conflicts and Conquests of a well cured Soul and all the Honours Ease and Blessings that attend our glorious Gospel All this and much more deserves deep thoughts and all the fervours and acknowledgments and Services of love And the plain truth is this We are both constituted of and surrounded with enflaming objects of this love And the great object and attractive shines even most gloriously in all Nature in all its Harmonies Stores and Beauties Providence in all its illustrations of its excellencies and exactness suiting it self in all the Articles thereof to every thing and being and concern in Heaven and Earth The sacred Scriptures every way entertaining us with what may exercise and enrich the mind of man heal and compose his Conscience enthroning it as Gods vicegerent to inspect the principles designs and practices and State of men to make and keep them orderly safe and easy and so to affect the heart and life as that we may be lovely in the sight of God the blessings of our Stations in our generations and a most comfortable entertainment to our selves Our very selves are most provoking objects unto love So many faculties in our Souls So many passions and affections to be ordered and exercised aright So many sences for reception So many Organs and Instruments for the commodious promoting and securing of our own Good So many Objects Employments and Acquests to be engaged vigorously about and orderly conversant with all continually And God in all this eminently beaming forth those perfections which are so fit and worthy to take endearingly with us How inexcuseable is cold heartedness whenas it may so easily be cured by serious Contemplations of these objects Light and Colours and beautiful proportions to the eye Words and Melodies to the Ears Food to the tast and all the objects exercises and entertainments of every sense afford our very minds and hearts their delicacies to feed on and urge us to love God and Man And let me add this also the beauties and delightfulness of holiness and practical Religion as exemplified in holy persons those excellent ones in whom is my delight saith David Psal xvi 3. O to observe them in all their curious imitations and resemblances of their God in the Wisdom of their Conduct the fervours of their Spirits the steadiness of their purposes the evenness of their tempers the usefulness and blamelessness of their lives the loftiness of their aims the placed gravity of their Looks the savour and obligingness of their Speeches the generous largeness of their Hearts the openness of their Hands the impartiality of their Thoughts the tenderness of their Bowels and all the sweetnesses of their Deportments towards all Such things are really where Christian Godliness obtains indeed Tho meer pretenders or real Christians in their decays and swoons may represent Religion under its eclipses to it's great disadvantage and reproach When therefore we contemplate all these excellencies and many more not mentioned will not our Hearts take fire and burn with love of Complacency where these things are visible and with the Love of benevolence and beneficence to that degree towards those that are receptive of but want them which shall enrage Desires and Prayers and quicken us to diligent endeavours after what by such may be attained unto were they but closely and warmly followed by us and brought to the diligent pursuits thereof Thus you see deep thoughts about lovely Objects will get up love and cure luke-warmness in us to the purpose Let this then be done 3. Heart-awakening and Love-quickning Truths are to be duly and intimately considered And this is indeed in part to truthifie in Love if I may make an English Word to express the valor of the Greek Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eph. iv 15. The existence and excellence of the great Jehovah the Trine-Vne Holy one the care which he hath taken and the expensive cost he hath been at to cure this Malady by the fore-mentioned means and helps The critical Inspections of his Eye into the Heart of Man and his making this the test and balance of the Sanctuary to try us by counting and judging us more or less fit for Mercies and Judgments Heaven or Hell Service or to be thrown aside as refuse as our Hearts stand affected No exact soundness in our Spirits no safety in our State no real ease and chearfulness in our Souls no evidence of our acceptance with our God no Duty well performed towards God or Man no Sins subdued no Trial bravely managed and resulted no Talents used fully to the Masters Satisfaction and Advantage nothing profest performed endured or obtained without this Love And according to it's Ebbs and Flows it's Inflammations and Abatements so doth it fare and go with all our Christianity and Concerns The Truth is all the concerns of Souls and Persons in Life Death Judgment Heaven and Hell are hereupon depending These Articles of Truth considered well will make us serious fervent resolute and industrious in the things of God 4. Heart-warming Duties are to be performed throughly in Publick Private and in Secret Eccl. ix 10. Rom. xii 11 12. Pray hard read frequently and seriously hear diligently and impartially meditate closely and concernedly upon all you read or hear relating to the great concern Be much in Christian conference in the due Spirit and to the genuine design and purposes thereof be much in Praise Thanks Self-observation Government and Discipline Look up to Heaven for help and improve faithfully what you thence obtain And I do take the Supreme Essentially Infinite Good to be dishonoured and degraded by us in our Thoughts and Walk if any Creature Interests or Excellencies do ultimately terminate our Affections and Intentions For my part I take converses Employments Ingenious Recreations and even sensitive Entertainments to be most delicious and grateful when they occasion or provoke me to those Observations of God in all which carry up my thoughts through and from them to him with
Sword of Justice into the hands of good and faithful men I do not go about to make parties in the Nation God forbid it is contrary to my principles there hath been too much of it in the Nation and in the world and oh that there may be no more Oh that God would in the greatness of his goodness heal all our breaches and compose all our unbrotherly dâ—fferences and grant that we may all serve him in the beauties of holiness with one shoulder and one consent Oh that I might see it done In the mean time I am verily perswaded that among every one of the different parties in the Land who hold the head and are sound in the vitals of Christianity the main Fundamental points of our Religion there are to be found persons fearing God And if I may have leave humbly to speak my thoughts I count it a great pity that any of them should be laid aside as Vessels in which there is no pleasure as persons altogether useless and unfit to be trusted and imployed meerly because they dissent from others of their Brethren in those things which are acknowledged to be indifferent but cannot be by them complyed with lest they should sin against God and wound their own Consciences so long as they are sound in the faith set for the glory of God and for the honour of the King and for the publick good Why Oh! Why may not such men be owned and incouraged and imployed in those things of which they are capable Are they fit for nothing because there is something that they cannot do I know and all men must yield it that there have been and will be as well as are diversity of Judgments and by consequence of practice No man hath his Judgment Faith and Reason at his Command and it is as possible to make all men of a Stature as of a mind But I must and do humbly submit this to our Superiours withal leaving particular persons to their several Sentiments and to walk accordingly to that light which they have received and begging of God the hastning of that day prophesied of in Zech. 14.9 Wherein the Lord shall be King over all the Earth and wherein there shall be one Lord and his name one Vna fides una Deum colendiratio One Faith and one Worship This I take for certain That ungodliness is very unlikely to be suppressed in a Nation when the ungodly and wicked men of that Nation are the men intrusted with and imployed about the supression thereof It is not probable that a Swearing and Cursing Magistrate will punish another for his Oaths or a Drunken Magistrate will inflict the Legal penalty upon another for the like brutishness Or an unclean Officer make another smart for his Whoredom While he is going about it an hundred to one there will be a bitter Reflection the man will find a sting within himself his own Conscience if it be not fear'd or in a profound sleep cannot forbear flying in his face and asking him in his ear this pinching question How canst thou punish that in this person which thou knowest to be thine own practice Rom. 2.22 23. Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery dost thou commit adultery Thou that abhorrest Idols dost thou commit Sacriledge Thou that makest thy boast of the Law through breaking the Law dishonourest thou God Upon this account it was that holy David resolved his eye should be upon the faithful of the Land Psal 101.6 He would express his special favour upon those that were of known integrity that would faithfully mind and perform the duty of their place and be true to their God and to their trust and saith he He that walketh in a perfect way he shall serve me viz. in governing the Nation and in seeing to it that good orders be kept And I look upon that as a good saying of one Melior est Respublica tutior c. That Common-wealth or Kingdom is safer and in a much better condition in which there is a bad Prince than that which hath in it bad Magistrates Officers and Ministers of State Sixthly In order to the effectual suppression of prophaneness it cannot but be owned as absolutely necessary to watch diligently and deal severely with the Nurseries of it For as our Lord Jesus who is the King of Sion Saints hath his Schools Nurseries for the instructing training up of persons in sound knowledge true holiness Such are the assemblies and congregrations of his people Isa 2.3 Come ye and let us go up to the Mountain of the Lord to the Mountain of the Lord to the house of the God of Jacob and he will teach us of his ways So Satan the Prince of the power of the air the Spirit that worketh in the Children of disobedience hath his Nurseries which he fills with cursed Temptations and his Instruments with Venomous examples in order to the alluring of men to flagitious courses and rendering them expert ready and compleat Artists in sin And do not all men see how our youths are tainted and corrupted there and how many of those that once were hopeful and thought to be plants of righteousness have been there blasted and turned into the degenerate plants of a strange Vine bringing forth the Grapes of Sodom and the Clusters of Gommorrah All that read these lines may easily understand my meaning what houses they are at which I now point And I would ask Are Stews and Brothel-houses fit to be suffered among us I have not at all wonder'd when I have read and heard how many of them are allowed in Rome that Mother of Harlots who holds in her hand a Cup of fornication we must expect the great Whore will not fall out with the little Ones specially when they are profitable to her Bonus odor lucri ex re qualibet In her Nostrils the money smells well come it from whence it will But it is an arrant shame that any of them should be found in a Land of Light in a Nation of Protestants in a City of righteousness in a place where that Religion is profest and established that condemns all such filthy practices And as for Ale-houses and Victualling houses though some of them possibly are useful yea and necessary yet is there need of such multitudes in which so many sit many hours together fuddling and drinking away their money their wits their health and their Souls while their poor Wives sit at home mourning and their Children crying and perhaps all of them wanting and ready to starve I am sure none ought to have Licenses for the keeping such houses who will suffer them to be places of licentiousness and not be careful to observe good hours and orders Seventhly Let all inferiour Officers be very careful and diligent in their places For their places are not dormitories places to idle and sleep in but to watch and work in Church-wardens Constables and others have
declining Old Age must be judged to come under the name of Evil Dayes No reason appears why all the periods of the contrary Age should not be put under the name of Youthful or Choice Dayes All young Gamesters are here called to God Children from their playing for Pins Boys from their playing for Pence Young Men from their playing for Mony and Land All from their several Games of equal folly The Games in which invaluable Souls be lost and the best that is got is but Yellow Dust These Spritful Sportive People are all called to play wiser parts and lay out their various degrees of Strength for the good that in weak Old Age in the last and worst Childhood they will be as unable as now they are unwilling to seek The Time wherein these Tribes are all of them commanded to Convert is the present Remember hath its Now expresly added Forbidding both your Delay until the Afternoon of your Life-day and your Delay unto any other Day Hour or Minute of your Forenoon Requiring that God's Tribute be paid as the Kings Tax is upon sight And that not the least distance of time be admitted between your discerning and your doing your Duty The Doctrine thus offers now it self Present Conversion is the Duty of Youths and Children even the very Youngest that are come to Vnderstanding Or thus It is not for Young Men and Maidens for School-Boyes and Girls or very Children in Hanging-sleeves to put off their Conversion to God so much as a Minute of an Hour This I shall competently demonstrate if I make good these two Assertions viz. 1. That these Young Folk are really bound to Convert presently 2. That they are singularly engaged and encouraged by God so to do and are advantaged more for it than Older People are and than they themselves can be when they are Older And this I essay by these following very Intelligible and Invincible Reasons Hear them as for your Lives O you Young ones to whom I direct them If you hear aright you live and Joy will be in Heaven by and by for your new Birth If not we despised Preachers shall shortly hear you accursing your closed Ears Exclaiming much like unto Joseph's Brethren Gen. 42.21 We are verily guilty concerning our Ministers in that we saw the anguish of their Souls when they besought us to convert presently and we would not hear therefore is distress and it may be remediless Damnation come upon us However in Duty unto all and in hope of gaining some in God's fear I tell you R. 1 You are Commanded as truly as the Oldest People Living to turn unto God presently Therefore 't is your Duty The King of Babylon would have Young Men stand before him So would the King of Heaven He calls you the Youngest of you And as expresly and frequently and more frequently than he calls Old People For he calls you conjunctly with them in most or all Texts in the Bible and he calls you apart here and in other Portions of Scripture by your selves Ezek. 33.11 Turn ye turn ye 'T is not turn ye O ye Old decrepit Folk But Turn ye Indefinitely that is Universally O ye of all Ages that hear the Word Psal 148.12 13. Young Men and Maidens and as Old Men Children are called to Praise the Lord. Nagnarim little Children the word indeed is put for Joseph in Egypt Gen. 41.12 and Gideons Son Judg. 8.20 But as the Etymology carryes it 't is most frequently used to signifie New-born Children just shaken out of the Womb And is very often put to signifie Children just able to speak and run up and down 2 Kings 2.23 You the Children of Believing Parents have an Holiness of Covenant-Relation before you are born 1 Cor. 7.14 You have an Holiness of Solemn Dedication by and by after you are born in Holy Baptism Col. 2.11 12. And God requires your Parents and Ministers to be dealing with you as soon as you come to Understanding for Holiness of Inhesion and Qualification He saith there is a way of Holiness in which every Nagnar little Child should go and commands us to Catechise and Train you up in it Prov. 22.6 Ephes 6.4 Nor doth he allow you to delay the little that you can do for your Souls any more than he allows the Oldest People to delay any thing that is in their Power to do Now now is his Word unto all Sinners 2 Cor. 6.2 And Now now is his Word unto you His Command for Duty and for Hast of Duty equally binds Children of tender Years and people of Fourscore Remember it Young People if you be not commanded to come unto God and to abide with him there is no Sinner in the World commanded to Convert nor any Saint in the Church commanded to Persevere Need I tell you what an Authority his is who doth so command And how infinitely obliging 'T is such an one as cannot be told you by Man or Angel Should God command you to cut off your Right hands or to run into the Fire it would be infinitely your Duty and Interest presently to do it For so Supream and Absolute is his Authority that he cannot Command beyond his Right And 't is an Authority so constantly governed by Infinite Goodness that he cannot command us against our Interest So that it is as perfectly impossible for us to Obey him and not benefit our selves as to disobey him and not hurt our selves In a word Could you see this Soveraign Commander but as Moses saw him Exod. 34 Or as Isaiah Isa 6. or as Job Job 42. Or as St. Paul Act. 9. Or as St. John Rev. 1. It would be no Question with you Whether he were to be obeyed or no Or to be obeyed presently or no. You would then think no Obedience great enough no Hast swift enough no Grief for Converting no sooner heavy enough O how late did I love thee St. Austin exclaimed Twenty years was I a bondslave to the Devil cryed Mr. Jo. Machin who was Converted in his Twentieth year Remember not the sins of my Youth saith the Man who knew God's Heart better than to imagine that Youth was Lawless Psal 25. But R. 2. You are threatned just as Old People be if you turn not unto God presently Therefore 't is your Duty Sirs as you are not Lawless so neither are you less under the Menaces and Threats of the Law-giver than other Folk be Psal 9.17 The Wicked shall be turned into Hell 'T is not said Old Sinners shall into the place of Devils No 't is unlimitedly the Wicked all of them Wicked Parents and wicked Children wicked Masters and wicked Scholars or Apprentices Every thing wicked every Minute that you delay your Conversion that Threat stands ready charged against your Breasts And who knows but God will shoot it off this very moment if you Convert not this very moment Rom. 1.18 The Wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all Sin 'T is not said
against all Old Folks Sin No but without any restriction against all peoples Sin And alas for you did you never with your own Eyes see God's Wrath cut off Young Sinners Did you never hear that in the Flood of Old Children and Young People were drowned with the Old And in Sodom the Young and Old Folk burned together And that Bears tore in pieces Two and Forty little Bodies for mocking an Holy Prophet 2 King 23 24. The Spirit of Christ in the Old Testament saith expresly that for all your unrepented follies â—od will bring you Young ones into Judgment of Condemnation Eccles 11.9 And in the New Testament he doth not tell you that except an Old Body be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God No but that except a Man any Man be born again he cannot Now in Scripture Language whatever is born of a Woman is a Man though he be but a Span long Vengeance must be taken on all that know not God and obey not the Gospel all such must be punished with Everlasting Destruction from the Presence of the Lord and from the Glory of his Power Nor hath Childhood or Youth any exemption 2 Thes 1.8 9. Come read ye then the terrible hand-Writings of God against you so shall your malepert Countenances fall your Marble Hâ—â—rts break the Joynts of your Loins be loosed your Knees smite one against another and your doubt be fully resolved whether present Conversion be your Duty or not The Threat of a fiery Furnace made by Nebuchadnezzar made all the Country save Three Children of God to bow to an Idol What would God's Threat of such a Furnace as Hell is do if it were but duly consider'd A Furnace of worse Fire Fire of Extremity and Eternity A Threat of it by a Mightier Power and more unchangeable Resolution Were these in your Eye you would have much to do to hold your backs turned on God Your Conversion must be hastned or your Unregeneracy imbittered You must be grievously tormented till changed You would soon for your ease crave Annihilation or a contrary posture to that your Souls now stand in toward God You are fain to wink hard and make your selves blind to be so bold as to put off your Conversion Divine Threats would bore through your Hearts if your Lusts did not first bore out your Eyes Rises now any thought within you that God is very hard thus to press upon you And to deny you the pleasures of Sin for such a moment as is your Childhood and Youth it self Besides what will follow to shame it I tell you here right I have heard of a Devout Soul that used to thank God for Hell The thoughts of it had done him so much good So much good Service against Sin 't was to him a Wall of Fire against Sin a worse Evil than Hell the worst thing in Hell No sooner shall your Eyes be opened to see what Sin is and what need you have of being by Fear driven from Sin and what need of God's Threats to make you fear it but you shall straightway think God infinitely kind in the earliness of his Calls and in the terribleness of his Threats I and your Hearts shall tell you that the worst and all that God threatens Omnis peccator citra condignum plectitur Sch. is vastly less than a minutes delay of Conversion doth deserve from him R. 3. You have the Promises of as good things as the Oldest People have if you do Convert presently Therefore 't is your Duty The very Command of God without a Threat would have made it your Duty And so would his Threats if no one Promise had been superadded But what think you that all do make it Consider ye here God promises you Spiritual Temporal and Eternal Blessings And the very same that he promises to Converts of the fullest Age. And also with as well confirmed Promises as well confirmed by his Oath and by outward visible Signs and Seals or Holy Sacraments as the Church hath long called them A Consideration enough to make the least Intelligent Babies sing Hosanna's With Reverence to the Father of Mercies I will say it He hath no better or greaâ—er Blessings to give than he doth this Morning offer to bestow on all that will Convert this Morning And on the very least of you all Neither will he think Eternity too long for your Reward if you will not think your Life-time too long for his Service A single Minutes aversion from it deserveth Hell But such is his Grace through our Redeemer that in the very Minute of your sincere Conversion he gives you a Title to Heaven Young People whatever is done by Old Adders pray do not you stop your Ears I would fain have this day to be your Coronation-day so it will be if it be your Conversion-day In Scripture dialect you are Kings and Queens the first Minute that ye be Converts Yea and more Glorious ones than any Unsanctified Heads that bear those Names If the greatest Earthly Kings and Queens knew the Vanity of their Thrones they would gladly part with them for one Evidence of Interest at the Heavenly one But wot it If any Convert upon the Earthly Globe did but know his Interest in Heaven he must presently live by Miracle or die for Joy So weighty is the Crown of Grace it self So overwhelming a Glory unto us in the Body You are ready to think this is too good to be true But hear ye then the most sure word of Prophesie Act. 2.39 The self-same Promise is to Fathers and Children The Covenant of Grace is but one for both Of the same Promises to them as of the same Demands from them And ask ye what in this Covenant is Promised I tell you 2 Cor. 6.16 God promises to be the God of every Convert 1 Cor. 3.21 That all things desirable shall be theirs Luke 15.31 It is his own Word and as large an one as Infinite Bounty it self can speak All that I have is thine Pardoning Grace and Purifying is promised Heb. 8.10 12. An Inheritance Incorruptible reserved in Heaven is promised 1 Pet. 1.4 The Necessaries of the Life that now is are promised enough to bear your Charge to Heaven 1 Tim. 4.8 An entail of Blessing on your dearest ones is promised Exod. 20.6 Rom. 11.28 The Promises of all these are by God confirmed unto you in your Baptism You have them Signed and Sealed by God's hand before you know your right hand from your left So very early God encourages you to Hope in him and Convert unto him By Signed Sealed Promise David sayes God did make him to hope when he was on his Mothers Breasts And was his God from his Mothers Belly I can understand him no otherwise Psal 22.9 10. God forestalled the World and Devil bound David so to him before they could come at him to entice him away Laid in that superabundant ground of Hope and Engagement unto all
or less angry with Men holds up Satan in a longer or shorter Chain Being less Angry with you Young People he suffers him not to fall upon you with such strength of Fraud or Force as upon Old Transgressors So much reach at you God doth allow him as maketh needful your Watching and Prayer and Wariness of his Devices But God allows him so very much less at you than at others that he may be repelled more easily by you than others And you have less reason to doubt of Victory when you fight against him than others have And may be certain that if you abide Unconvert in your sins and go on to incense God more against you you shall then have a much more powerful Enemy of him than now you have Now Would any General of an Army delay to Fight with his Enemy till he himself were Weaker and his Enemies stronger O do not any of you say practically I will not yet fight for my Translation out of the Kingdom of Darkness I will have the Prince of Darkness get an Hundred times more forces against me and more advantagious ground before I will encounter him How kind to Satan are Delaying Children C. 3. Your Hearts which are your Rulers under God be not yet so bad within you as Old Peoples be and as they will themselves be sure to be if you now Convert not Your Hearts the Lord shew it you are they that do most under God for your Conquering or your being Conquered by Sin Death and Hell These Hearts of yours be blind and foolish proud and perverse enough they be sufficiently Unteachable Untractable Unfaithful The Lord humble you deeply in the deepest sense of it But still they be not near so bad as Old Sinners Hearts be Believe it there is a sense in which Nicodemus his words be smart How can a Man be born when he is Old God has in his Offence departed farther from Old Men than you Satan in his long stay in them has hammered them into a greater hardness than he has yet brought you into Actual Sins have put more strength into their Habitual than into Yours And they have more Milstones about the neck of their Souls than yet are about yours Insomuch that you have as much the better of them as those who have in War a less unqualified Commanded have of them whose Leader is most blind most Lame and most Lunatick it self Your Work is more easie and your Encouragement to expect Victory is more ample than Old Sinners And both such as they will not continue unto you unless you now Convert unto God Which if you do not you do like Soldiers that should say We will have no Battel with our Enemy as yet The Leader whose Conduct and Action are our Life or Death will shortly be Stone-blind and under the Dead Palsie And we will stay till he be so before we employ him O plotted Self-Destruction O Chosen Ruine If this Consideration go for nothing with you ye are Blind against Sun-shine and Deaf unto Thunder C. 4. Your Bodies the Instruments of your Souls Action be not yet so sorry as Old Peoples be and as yours will be most certainly if you Convert not presently Sirs An Unsanctified Body is a Souls Unknown Enemy A Trojan Horse a Pandora's Box a Forge of Mischiefs Your Young ones are such that almost proverbially the Blood of Youth is Satan's Tinder and Match 'T is seen you have warm Bosom for all Snakes Legions of Devils are a less formidable Army than your own five Senses unhallowed Beware of the Flesh But withal know ye an Unruly Horse is more desirable than a Dead one He may be Bridled and made serviceable 'T is better with you than Old Folk if you will but well use that whereof they want the use Health and Strength in general reading Eyes and hearing Ears and walking Feet in particular Old Age is it self say some a Disease a very Hospital of all Many are deprived of the means of Grace by Blindness and Deafness Most do use them with much pain and great disadvantage None have so few Clogs about them as you So that great is your advantage for working out your Salvation Your Labour is less to read or hear an Hundred Sermons than theirs to hear or read one And to go Twenty Miles for Advice than theirs to go Twenty Steps Being that Sin and so Death came in at the Eye and Ear and it is God's Will to drive them out at the same and to transmit the Wisdom that saves our Souls through those Bodily Senses these are not inconsiderable things O that you had heard but what I have done of poor Old Creatures Outcryes Cursing the Courses and Companies that devoured their strength Wailing with sighs and tears their disability to Read difficulty of hearing and utterly lost faculty of Remembring The Memory ought to cut my Heart may the Notice sway yours If you will yet put off your Conversion this is the Language which that Delay utters I have a work given me to do that is for my Life Eternal I have yet Eyes and Ears and Hands and Feet I have Ease and Strength But these all have Wings and will shortly fly and be gone as others be When gone I cannot work or if I do it must be in the Fire as it were Nevertheless I will not set to my Work till my Sun and Moon and Stars be darkned I will not stir one Foot for Heaven till my other Foot is in the Grave If my Peace be ever made with God it shall be even at the Graves brink When I am just come to the Mouth of Hell and can scarce open my own Mouth to deprecate it I will bestow a wish for Heaven if that may possess me of it Sensless Creature that wantest nothing of a Bruit but Hair and two Feet more C. 5. The World another back friend of yours hath not yet lain so many Loads on your backs as upon Old Peoples and as it will lay on yours if you live longer and live under its Power and Vnsubjected and Vnconvert unto God This I speak to you especially of the Younger sort Children and next to Children I hope you have heard what an Enemy the World and the things of it do make to Conversion and Sanctification Read the Texts in the Margent Read Ecclesiastes 1 Jo. 2.15 16. Jam. 4.4 Matth. 6.24 a whole Book of Sacred Scripture took up in warning us against this said Enemy More or less Woe is to every Dweller in it because of the Avocations the Distractions and Interruptions of this Old Adam's World But here also you have the better ordinarily of Old People For themselves or their more Beloved Selfs their Children they are swallowed up of Designs Bargains c. Gains and Losses make their Souls a Sea of tempestuous Cares knowing little calm or quietness You are yet free comparatively and Unladen You may Contemplate and Act for next World without the
weights of this depressing you And go to Jesus Christ without Farms and Oxen and Wives haling you back Haling you as they do hale away multitudes before your Eyes and as they will ere long be haling your selves If now ye will not come unto him that ye may have Life if you will not now begin running your Race toward the Redeemer what do you do Truly just as a Man that is to run for his Life but cannot be perswaded to stir a foot till he has gotten many more Sheets of Lead upon his back and many more Fetters upon his feet Rise Sinner rise If not these Words shall be thy Souls Eternal Loads R. 6. The Providence of God lendeth you more Physicians and kinder ones than it doth lend Old Diseased Sinners and then it will lend you if you live much longer Especially if you live Vnconvert True it is Gods Love and Mercy unto all is wonderful God sends abundance of Helpers unto all poor sinful Creatures Every Baptized Professor is obliged to be his Brothers Keeper All Believers are bound to be Charitative Ministers unto each other Ministers of Reproof Counsel Comfort In Christ's Body no Member should be all for himself or for less than the good of all But a double Portion of Spiritual help is ordinarily vouchsafed unto you Young People Of Soul-Physicians you have more than two for Old Peoples one They have Ministers so have you or may have if you please They have Religious Friends so have you I hope But then you have Parents which they have not You have Masters and Tutors which they have not And be it considered the Aged People have few or none that will deal so boldly with them as almost all deal with you Ministers and Friends do mostly either fear to offend or despair and think impossible to benefit old Sinners with any Counsels They think it the same thing to give Advice to an Old Body and Physick to a dead one And if they give any 't is as cold as Elie's rebukes But both come more couragiously upon you They less fear your Displeasure and more hope your Reformation And therefore with more frequency and acrimonie deal with you Besides your Parents Love and your Masters and Tutors Interest and the Comfort and Credit of both do engage them to follow you close And to do more than Ministers and Friends are ordinarily capable of doing for the Conversion of your Souls Upon all hands 't is best with you You have the help of most Physicians in number and of all the number you have most of their help Incomparably more than Old Folk have and then you must look to have in your evil days approaching But you will still delay will you not I doubt many will And will as 't were in so many words shew us this is their mind Sick they think themselves Sinners they confess it they are A store of Spiritual Physicians now they have they own it But of these Physicians and Helpers some will by and by die others decay and none be so helpful hereafter as now Nevertheless Live Soul or Dye they will not till hereafter engage in any serious care of their Spiritual Cure and Recovery They will stay till they have Helpers fewer in Number more Chill in their Affection and Care and less capable of taking pains for their Salvation Sad Infatuation A wondrous Will to get out of Probability unto bare Possibility of Life if so much C. 7. You have special Encouragements to Convert now from all general Observation and Experience such as Old People are past and you will e're long be past I must remember my bounds and therefore will name but three One would think they should be enough to move any thing not twice dead And to pull out your Folly unless it be extraordinarily bound up in you Young People 1. God Regenerates the most of his chosen in Early Years If that Early Risers were mostly the Men that grew Rich and lived long in the World who of you would not leave lying late in Bed Truly They that rise in the Morning of their Days and turn unto God be mostly the Men that ever overcome the Devil They that continue in the Bed of their security late are in danger of having their Bed in Hell for ever A Young Saint and an Old Devil is a Proverb which was certainly hatched in Hell God and Men break Colts when they are Young 2. God doth Regenerate most easily those Souls whom he turneth early Know it Sirs Pain is necessary thank Sin for it Had not Sin entred never had we known Pain Grief Fear or Shame But now there is a very natural necessity for it Sin is a painful grievous fearful shameful thing Nor can I see how the Honour of God's Justice could possibly have excused Repentance Spiritually as well as Naturally we are born in Sorrow Both sorts of Children cry before they laugh All New Creatures be first Mourners But all are not in the same degree so Nor are all equally long sowing in Tears before they do reap in Joy Some Sinners are Launced more deeply than others and God keeps open the Wounds of some of his Children longer than others as he pleaseth But ordinarily we see young Timothies be not struck down like Sauls Or if they be they be not kept so many days in frightful darkness And is this a small thing Think of it and say If my Body had a Sore of easie and speedy cure if the Chirurgeon were applyed quickly unto I should not suffer a little matter to hold me from him My Soul and Body is all Spiritual Wounds God alone can heal them Those he doth heal easiest and soonest they be of first Comers most commonly Tardie and late Comers are healed rarely and so as by Fire when they be What should ail me Why should I not presently arise and go to my Father Why should I buy dearly God's hardest blows 3. God doth honour Singularly and Reward with Grace extraordinary his Early Converts If any they be those that have two Heavens Great Service and Sweet Assurance on Earth and greater degrees of Glory also than others above Most Divines think so Late Converts too much imitate the Indians that eat the Hony themselves and offer but the Wax unto their Deities They give God but the Bran of their Life when Satan has had the Flower as some have exprest themselves None so much honour God and none are so honoured by him as those who give Honour to him and accept it from him in your early days Infer you then my Young Folk You must Convert presently or delay with Loss Even with certain danger of Hell and certain loss of much of Heaven And may I not now suppose the Objections of your minds against my Doctrine in good measure removed O that the Oppositions of your Wills were but as much overpowred I conclude that your own Hearts do tell you by this time unless they be
feared in them is yet of some sense in you Parents and other Reprovers that have done long ago with them are still plying you And yet as they you say unto God Depart from us we desire no Communion with thee With more violence than they you take the Kingdom of Hell by force The path to Hell is harder unto your Feet than theirs Infer 9. It is your Duty to shame your Vnconvert Fathers and Mothers For observe you you shame them if you remember and they forget God If you come to Christ and they either come not or come behind after you God Angels and Men will pronounce you Wise and them Fools But what then Would God have you stay for them and not Convert until they do By no means He commands you to Convert just now and consequently to shame them if they have not and do not By so shaming them some Children have been the blessed Instruments of Converting their Parents Of Spiritually Begetting their Natural Fathers The only way this seems wherein a Child can requite a Parent For if a Beggers Child win a Kingdom and give it his Father his debt to him is too big to be so paid But if he Converts him he pays him in broad Gold methinks Parents think ye of this And Children this know ye 't is therefore I do not caution you against all sinful ways of shaming your Parents because well I know Becoming dutiful to God you cannot but honour and love your Parents next unto God himself That which I see of many Parents in City and Countrey hath extorted this Inference from me Infer 10. Your Present dayes are your precious and best So the Word in the Text and words following speak plainly Sirs your young Dayes be but Dayes and of Short Continuance yea and dubious Some are Old as we speak sooner then others Their Flowers sooner fade and their Grass more quickly withers But when ever your Evening falls you shall wish it again Morning with you If nothing else will do it Old Age will convince you of the Excellence of Youth It was wittily that by some Time was thus pictured of old Time to come had the head of a fawning Dog Time present the head of a stirring Lion Time past the head of a biting Wolf So teaching that though silly Souls fancy still that their best days are tâ—â—ome yet if they bestir not well themselves in their present ones they will be very miserably bitten and torn in their future I sadly remember sometimes the Tears and Words of a very ancient Gentleman to my self and my School-fellows in our Childhood Children said he Your Age is good for every thing that you can desire to get mine is good for nothing but to spend whatever one has got A thousand Worlds I would give for a few of your learning getting dayes again Of all things prize your time and of all time your young which is your Sowing-time 'T is upon Eternities account that any thing can be judged Excellent Nor doth ought make for our blessed Eternity but vital Piety And surely for that there is no season like to Lifes Morning Poets say 't is a friend to the Muses Divines must proclaim it the Friend of Graces For why as incongruous as Atheistic Vermin do conceit Youth and Religion 't is plain as Noon-day Light that Religion is specially framed for Youth and Youth for Religion Let Shame be their Portion who are ready to drop the Italian Proverb upon every Religious young head Tanto buon This Puritan Youth is so good that he is good for nothing Young people remember the seven Stars in your Firmament and tell me how fit they are for Religion and Religion for them Quick Wit and Fruitful Invention What are these for but Religion and what appearance makes Religion without these Age will make you Lame and Barren in Mind as in Body Tenacious and Prompt Memory What is this Treasury for but Religion and how Poor must Religion live if Live without it Age will dry your Brains and make Sieves of your Memories Lively and Stirring Affections VVhat are these Horses for but the Chariot of Religion and how heavily must the wheels move if move without them Age keeps no such Horses nor Travel old Souls but upon Crutches and the pace of Snails Flexibleness and Self-denial VVhat are these Spiritual Joints for but Religious bowings And how little can the most profoundly Religious Soul stoop to its Maker without them Old Age has stiff joints of Soul as well as Body Amatoriousness and Love of Love VVhat is this Soul of the Soul for but Religion And how is Religion her self if her Soul has lost it self Love is all the Religion that I know of But Old Age layes your Souls in Frost and Snow Alacrity and Cheerfulness What is this Godlike quality for but Religion toward God and what likeness has Religion to it self without it For God taketh all things not cheerfully given as forced Spoils rather than free Gifts Now Old Age's Clouds do so return after the Rain that it admit's little of this Sunshine Rarely 't is that old Sanahs bear Isaac's Vigor and Strength of Body What is this for but Religious Service to him whose the Body is as well as the Soul And how little can the Soul while 't is in this Body do without it But where 's the Old Body that can let the Wind blow on it at least where is the Head of Gray Hairs that has a Body of Brass for a Soul of Gold Sirs in a word The Truth I beg deepest engravement of upon your Hearts is this of the Matchless Excellence of your present days Verily so fit is Youth the best of Life for Religion the best of Employment and so Useless yea Harmful are the endowments of Youth without Religion and so poor and unlovely an aspect has Religion without the use of Youths Endowments that it is a pity but Youth and Religion should Marry and Unite All time is too good for Satan but if he must have any let him not have the best which is your Youth But Cynthius aurem I was minded to wave all partâ—â—ular Exhortation and remit you unto my Call unto Sinners in which I have said the things which you do most of all need and with more Plainess and Brevity then I have discerned any where else But second thoughts bid me give you these Directions to improve my Doctrine And the rather because they are of experienced Usefulness Direction 1. Chuse each of you a Spiritual Guide in the affairs of your Souls There are Men ordained by God to be Eyes unto the Blind and Feet to the Lame and Fathers to all that would be Gods Children Refuse not Eyes and Feet for your Souls nor live you Orphans when you may have Fathers Go unto some one or another of them tell him you hear that Christ's Ministers are his Representatives And that Christ's Word without his appointed Ministry of it
may not be expected to cleanse a Young Mans way nor any others Get a Promise from him to lend you his best Direction to thorough Conversion A Youth without a Pastor is a Child without a Nurse Direct 2. Vse him whom you chuse your Guide for your Soul and follow him as far as he follows Jesus Christ Hear him ordinarily a Child 's own Parents Milk is commonly best for it Write after him the Heads of his Sermon I mean and his Chief Notes Incomparable King Edward the Sixth used to write Sermon Notes Go often to his House and always to ask things worth his time and your own Little rest give him till Grace has blest his labors to fit you for the Lords Table Plainly tell him you shall count small good gotten by the Word till you are qualified for the Sacrament And that it is to you a dolorous thing to have but a Place in Gods House and no Room at his Table It looks as if you were but a Dog and not a Child Direct 3. Look alway and adhere closely unto God's Son and Spirit Without these the Holy Bible can no more make you wise unto Salvation than the Fables of Aesop that Papists dare compare it to The Word of Life is a Word of Death to you without these to make it beneficial These without whom you can expect no more Edification from the best Minister than from a blind Harper In all things ye want Jesus Christ for Acceptance in all you want the Holy Ghost for Assistance in all things and at all times Without right use of them no Soul can fetch a Breath of Divine Life or take a Step of Holy Walk Nature indeed shews you an Heavenly Father and ties all of you unto him But 't is only special Revelation Jupiter q. Juvani Pater reveals a Redeeming Son of God and an Holy Sanctifying Spirit of God And 't is much Grace and that much used too that can keep you close unto these VVithout which you may be great Socinians but no Christians Direct 4. Beware of setting against each other Gods Mercy Christs Merits Holy Faith and Good Works VVe cannot say to either of them we have no need of thee All are truly necessary and unspeakably But in the Countrey I saw it and in this City I see it most people do fix on some one of them and cry it up to the Exclusion of the rest To the virtual Exclusion Of so Epidemical and fatal a hindrance of Conversion beware you The Mercy of God! All the Rhetorick of Heaven cannot praise enough but wo be to you if you expect the Pardon of the least Sin by it otherwise than through Christs Merits The Merits of Christ These without question are infinite But you are undone if you dream you shall have the saving benefit of them Living and Dying without Marriage unto him by Faith Holy Faith Is a Grace most Precious by God most highly honoured and of all most honouring God Honouring him in some respects more than Adam's personal Obedience did before the Fall But mortally you erre if you look to put off God with it without Obedience And slight good VVorks as Supererogations Good Works Are the blessed Fruit of God's indwelling Spirit and the very end of our Election Redemption and Conversion But what then they be neither acceptable to God nor profitable to us but through the Gift of the Mercy the Purchase of the Merits and the Means of the Faith aforesaid If you rest on VVorks and imagine them otherwise good your Eternal Lodging will be among Evil-workers Young people make your Pastor set you well at rights about these things And let the Excellency Connexion Order and Necessity of them be judged worthy of your frequent and serious thoughts Direct 5. Be very Critical in the Choice of your Company Be sowre and unkind unto none Affable to all but pleased with Few to wit the Best Which are those that will either best teach you or best learn from you Companions of Fools are doomed to destruction But where ere you are walking with wise Men you are on your way to Heaven Prov. 13.20 Souls the most thoughtful of Eternity are still the most careful of their Company And it is certain the Company of your Choice in this World is both that which you would have and shall have in the next Direct 6. Besides the Holy Scriptures read ye such good Books as shall be commended to you by your Pastors 'T is not every good Book that is for you good Nor every one that will hereafter be good for you that is good Now. Your Pastors can judge best which are most sutable I think it Soul-Felony for you to be without the Westminster Assemblies Catechisms And I should think it as little needful to commend Mr. Baxter's Call or Mr. Alleyn's or Mr. How 's very Jewel of Yielding unto God or Mr. F. Fuller's Words to give Wisdom with his piece of Repentance and Faith or Mr. Lawson's Magna Charta England is blest with the best in this World and I do not light upon any that excel or equal them in England You must search farther than I have done young people if you find things better worth your most careful reading Books be dead things but God makes them oftentimes Lively Preachers These several last years many have acknowledged to me that they have been blessed Stars to lead them unto Christ Yet do not for your Lives ever neglect reading the Scriptures Take some portion of God's Word as daily as you eat of his Bread 'T is very honourably that I do remember a poor Soul who sometimes burned the Thatch of her House to read her Bible by the Light of it And no less a Saint than Mr. Richard Fairclough told me she died a glorious one It was Luther's saying The reading of the Scriptures is the terror of Devils Direct 7. Examine often the state of your Souls Scrupulousness it self is as much more safe as 't is less sweet than Audaciousness But humble and careful Inquisitiveness is sine naevo Venus as unspotted a Virtue as the state of Grace is adorned with Humility one calls the Violet of Graces of sweetest scent though lowest place And Care is the commanded Fear of falling short of Gods rest Heb. 4.1 The Exertion of humble Care in heart-searches doth answer many Gospel-precepts And when it is much and often it is not the least Evidence of truest grace For Bankrupts can no more endure much looking into their Count-books than sore Eyes can bear long beholding of Sun-shine And as impatient be Hypocrites of very much conning the Scriptures and their Hearts But I conclude Young people Mahomet gat the Turkish Empire by making extraordinary hast And Alexander Conquered the World by the same Policy Never Delaying Go you and out-do them Conquer VVorld Flesh and Devil And take by violence the Kingdom of Heaven by your hasting to Remember and Convert just now VVith great
been tryed Am. 4. and prove unsuccessful Security and Impenitency is added to Rebellion before God proceeds against a People The Lords Goodness displays it self in his Calls and Patience waiteth an Answer ere he takes the advantage against a Land Isa 3.9 Oft besides the grosness of sins there is boldness and shamefulness they declare their sin as Sodom I shall not mention antecedent aggravations as Light Convictions Covenant bonds c. which add a weight to sin whiles committing You see what National Sins are in the Question and when they become such as hazard the ruine of a People Quest What are National Mercies in the Case before us Answ Such Blessings as truly and considerably affect the good of a Community They must be Blessings in their nature and National in their extent they must have an aptitude to the Common Weale the more they conduce to make a Land happy the greater the Mercy is Neither is the gracious design of God to bless a Land thereby to be disregarded for sometimes he rains Snares Psal 78.29 31. and gives Quails in judgment These Mercies regard our Souls or our Bodies or both I shall ennumerate some of them * By pardon I mean an exemption from Tempâ—ral Puniâ—hments for those sins The pardon of past sins and help against the like offences the pretence of God as effective of Spiritual and Temporal good Gospel Ordinances a Holy Judicious Faithful Ministry a pure Worship the Spirits energie in the Gospel to the Conversion of many Sinners and real Edification of Saints whereby the estate of Believers may be flourishing a Godly Discipline and Communion of Saints founded on plain Gospel Terms Love and Peace among Churches grounded on essential not disputable Notions and expressed in all the fruits of Christian Love freedom from Persecution and Malignity a Godly Magistracy using its Power to restrain Sin and promote Godliness Peace in our Borders Justice in our Courts Learning in the Schools Wisdom and sincere designs for publick good among Counsellours Plenty by a Blessing on ouâ— Trades and Labours Health in our Streets Credit and Influence among Neighbouring Countries freedom from such Judgments as waste and debate a Land These and the like constitute a happy Nation They are Mercies which National Sins forfeit and without which the aspect of a Land is mournful Greater or less degrees of all or any of these are within the Question as the object of our expectations and the sorts and degrees are oft proportioned to a Nations Repentance and determined by it Thirdly The Case stated and distinguished from what seems like it It is not what Repentance God requireth of particular persons in order to Eternal Life nor what Repentance God requireth of a sinful Nation as its duty nor what 's that Repentance without which a Nation shall never enjoy National Mercies nor what Repentance is that on which every Nation in all cases shall partake of National Mercies nor what shall limit our Prayers nor yet altogether our Hopes as to the state of a Land much less what is that Repentance which will best secure National Mercies But the Question connects our Repentance and warrantable expectations The scope of it is What is the lowest sort or degree of Repentance for National Sins which is requisite to warrant and ordiâ—arily direct our expectations of National Mercies The Reason why I add ordinarily will appear after the indefiniteness of the term National Mercies whether of this kind or of that to this or that degree I insist not upon Supposing that it imports at least so much and many Mercies as render a Nation tolerably happy and exempted from what it esteems calamitous Fourthly The Difficulties of the Case It s not only hard to determine it as the minimum quod sic in any qualification for Mercy nor yet as a thing depending on Multitudes and relating to the Providence of God as to what 's future but there are these other things that make it difficult 1. Other Nations are not under such express Rules with respect to Gods outward dealings as the Jewish Nation was That people was under a Theocracy God was their King 1 Sam. 12.12 on this account the Lord chargeth them when they were for a King 1 Sam. 8.7 that they rejected me that I should not reign over them Idolatry also was High Treason in that State they were Gods peculiar Nation and thereby to live in a more immediate dependance on him even in Civil respects Isa 51.4 than other People The Rules of their External Priviledges both Church and National were express in that Covenant of peculiarity whereinto they were admitted This Covenant easily determined mens Expectations of Gods dealings with them But I think we cannot always conclude from Gods Methods towards them how he will deal with other Nations that are not under the same Law 2. There have been alwayes great displays of Soveraignty in Gods Dispensation of Judgments and Mercy towards Nations He waites longer on some people than on others though no more guilty Sometimes he granteth favour to a Nation though its Sins be many and punisheth it when its provocations appear less Josh 7.1 The Sins of multitudes are connived at sometimes and at other times he afflicteth for the Offences of a few as in the case of Achan He hath diverted Judgments at the Prayer of one Moses Exo. 32.11 14. Ez. 14.14 Jer. 7.16 but sometimes though Noah Daniel and Job be there they shall deliver no more than themselves Yea he hath forbid his Servants to pray for a people as a thing to no purpose God hath sorely rebuked small Sins in particular Persons as Moses Vzzah c. to let men see its Patience in God not Innocency in Men that he still destroys not There is exact Wisdom and Righteousness in all this variety which the light of a higher State will discover though now by reason of darkness his wayes seem perplexed to us However this Soveraign unaccountableness must abate our positiveness in judging what will be the way of God towards a people though it hinders not the determining our ordinary Expectations 3. There are prophetick periods wherein National Mercies shall not be obstructed by impenitence but Repentance shall follow them Israel was not remarkably penitent when the time of Redemption from Egypt was come yet God keeps his day Ezek. 16.62 Hag. 2.14 16 17 18. Rev. 19 1 7 8. Their Release from Babylon found them in the like unfit posture yet God is pacified and brings them to Repentance by their return This people is unclean and what they offer is unclean yet he makes them prosper and build the Temple even though they had not turned to him And it seems to be not much otherwise with the Church when it sings the Praises of God for the consummating stroak against Antichrist Rev. 19.1 7 8. she is not ready nor cloathed with eminent Holiness 4. The Desolation of a