conscience speak as before the Lord that sees your hearts and will shortly judg you Have you had such a sight of your naturall and actuall sin and misery of your neglect of God your contempt of Heaven your loss of precious hasty time your worldly fleshly sensuall lives and your omission of the great and holy works which you were made for have you had such a sight and sense of these as hath filled your souls with shame and sorrow and caused you in tears or hearty grief to lament your sinfull careless lives before the Lord Do you loath your selves for all this as being vile in your own eyes and each man say What a wretch was I what an unreasonable self-hating wretch to do all this against my self what an unnaturall wretch what a monster of rebellion and ingratitude to do all this against the Lord of love and mercy what a deceived foolish wretch to preferre the pleasing of my lust and senses a pleasure that perisheth in the fruition and is past as soon as it s received before the manly pleasures of the Saints and before the souls delight in God and before the unspeakable everlasting pleasures was there any comparison between the bruitish pleasures of the flesh and the spirituall delights of a believing soul in looking to the endles pleasure which we shall have with all the Saints and Angels in the glorious presence of the Lord Was God and glory worth no more then to be cast aside for satiating of an unsatisfiable flesh and fancie and to be sold for a harlot for a forbidden cup for a little aire of popular applause or for a burdensome load of wealth and power for so short a time where 's now the gain and pleasure of all my former sins what have they left but a sting behind them How neer is the time when my departing soul must look back on all the pleasures and profits that ever I enjoyed as a dream when one awaketh as delusory vanities that have done all for me that ever they will doe and all is but to bring my flesh unto corruption Gal. 6. 8. and my soul to this distressing grief and fear Add then I must sing and laugh no more I must brave it out in pride no more I must know the pleasures of the flesh no more but be levelled with the poorest and my body laid in loathsome darkness and my soul appear before that God whom I so wilfully refused to obey and honour O wretch that I am where was my understanding when I plaid so boldly with the flames of hell the wrath of God the poison of sin when God stood by and yet I sinned when conscience did rebuke me and yet I sinned when Heaven or hell were hard at hand and yet I sinned when to please my God and save my soul I would not forbear a filthy lust or a forbidden vanity of no worth when I would not be perswaded to a holy heavenly watchfull life though all my hopes of Heaven lay on it I am ashamed of my self I am confounded in the remembrance of my wilfall self-destroying folly I loath my self for all these abhominations O that I had lived in beggery and rags when I lived in sin and O that I had lived with God in a prison or in a wilderness when I refused a holy heavenly life for the love of a deceitfull world Will the Lord but pardon what is past I am resolved through his grace to do so no more but to loath that filth that I took for pleasure and to abhorre the sin that I made my sport and to die to the glory and riches of the world which I made my idoll and to live entirely to that God that I did so long and so unworthily neglect and to seek that treasure that Kingdome that delight that will fully satisfie my expectation and answer all my care and labour with such infinite advantage Holiness or nothing shall be my work and life and Heaven or nothing shall be my portion and felicity These are the thoughts the affections the breathing of every regenerate gracious soul For your souls sake enquire now Is it thus with you or have you thus returned with self-loathing to the Lord and firmly engaged your souls to him at your enterance into a holy life I must be plain with you Gentlemen or I shall be unfaithfull and I must deal closely with you or I cannot deal honestly and truly with you As sure as you live yea as sure as the word of God is true you must all be such converted men and loath your selves for your iniquities or be condemned as impenitent to everlasting fire To hide this from you is but to deceive you and that in a matter of a thousand times greater moment then your lives Perhaps I could have made shift instead of such serious admonitions to have wasted this hour in flashy oratory and neat expressions and ornaments of reading and other things that are the too common matter of ostentation with men that preach Gods word in jeast and believe not what they are perswading others to believe Or if you think I could not I am indifferent as not much affecting the honour of being able to offend the Lord and wrong your souls by dallying with holy things Flattery in these things of soul concernment is a selfish vilany that hath but a very short reward and those that are pleased with it to day may curse the flatterer for ever Again therefore let me tell you that which I think you will confess that it is not your greatness nor your high looks nor the gallantry of your spirits that scorns to be thus humbled that will serve your turn when God shall deal with you or save your carcasses from rottenness and dust or your guilty souls from the wrath of the Almighty Nor is it your contempt of the threatnings of the Lord and your stupid neglect or scorning at the message that will endure when the sudden unresistible light shall come in upon you and convince you or you shall see and feel what now you refused to believe Nor is it your outside hypocriticall Religion made up of meer words or ceremonies and giving your souls but the leavings of the flesh and making God an underling to the world that will do any more to save your souls then the picture of a feast to feed your bodies Nor is it the stiffest conceits that you shall be saved in an unconverted state or that you are sanctified when you are not that will do any more to keep you from damnation then a conceit that you shall never die will do to keep you here for ever Gentlemen though you are all here in health and dignity and honour to day how little a while is it alas how little till you shall be every man in Heaven or hell unless you are Infidels you dare not deny it And it is only Christ and a holy life that is your way to Heaven
change will it make upon the most stout or stubborn of the sons of men What a difference will there then be between that trembling self-tormenting soul and the same that now in his gallantry can make light of all these things and call the messenger of Christ that warneth him a Puritane or a doting fool Your memories now are somewhat subject to your wills and if you will not think of your own your chief your everlasting concernments you may choose If you will choose rather to employ your noble souls on beastly lusts and waste your thoughts on things of nought you may take your course and chase a feather with the childish world till overtaking it you see you have lost your labour But when Justice takes the work in hand your Thoughts shall be no more subject to your Wills You shall then Remember that which you are full loth to remember and would give a world that you could forget Oh then one cup of the waters of oblivion would be of unestimable value to the damned O what would they not give that they could but forget the time they lost the mercy they abused the grace which they refused the holy servants of Christ whom they despised the wilful sins which they committed and the many duties which they wilfully omitted I have oft thought of their case when I have dealt with melancholy or despairing persons If I advise them to cast away such thoughts and turn their minds to other things they tell me they cannot it is not in their power and I have long found that I may almost as well perswade a broken head to give over aking But when the holy God shall purposely pour out the vials of his wrath on the consciences of the ungodly and open the books and shew them all that ever they have done with all the aggravations how then shall these worms be able to resist And now I beseech you all consider is it not better to Remember your sins on earth then in hell before your Physitian then before your Judge for your cure then for your torment Give me leave then before I go any further to address my self to you as the Messenger of the Lord with this importunate request both as you stand here in your private and in your publick capacities In the name of the God of Heaven I charge you Remember the lives that you have led Remember what you have been doing in the world Remember how you have spent your time and whether indeed it is God that you have been serving and Heaven that you have been seeking and Holiness and Righteousness that you have been practising in the world till now Are your sins so small so venial so few that you can find no employment on them for your memories Or is the offending of the Eternal God so slight and safe a thing as not to need your consideration God forbid you should have such atheistical conceits Surely God made not his Laws for nought nor doth he make such a stir by his Word and Messengers and Providences against an harmless thing Nor doth he threaten Hell to men for small indifferent matters Nor did Christ need to have dyed and done all that he hath done to cure a small and safe disease Surely that which the God of heaven is pleased to threaten with everlasting punishment the greatest of you all should vouchsafe to think on and with greatest fear and soberness to remember It is a pittiful thing that with men with Gentlemen with professed Christians Gods matters and their own matters their greatest matters should seem unworthy to be thought on when they have thoughts for their honours and their lands and friends and thoughts for their children their servants and provision and thoughts for their horses and their dogs and sports Is God and Heaven less worth then these Are death and Judgement matters of less moment Gentlemen you would take it ill to have your wisdom undervalued and your reason questioned For your Honour sake do not make it contemptible your selves in the eyes of all that are truly wise It is the nobleness of objects that must ennoble your faculties and the baseness of objects doth debase them If brutish objects be your employment and delight do I need to tell you what you make your selves If you would be noble indeed let God and everlasting Glory be the object of your faculties If you would be Great then dwell on Greatest things If you would be High then seek the things that are above and not the sordid things of earth Col. 3. 1 2 3. And if you would be safe look after the enemies of your peace and as you had Thoughts of sin that led you to commit it entertain the Thoughts that would lead you to abhorr it O that I might have now but the grant of this reasonable request from you that among all your Thoughts you would bestow now and then an hour in the serious Thoughts of your misdoings and soberly in your retirement between God and your souls Remember the paths that you have trod and whether you have lived for the work for which you were created One sober hour of such employment might be the happyest hour that ever you spent and give you more comfort at your final hour then all the former hours of your life and might lead you into that new and holy life which you may review with everlasting comfort Truly Gentlemen I have long observed that Satans advantage lyeth so much on the brutish side and that the work of mans Conversion and holy Conversation is so much carryed on by Gods exciting of our Reason and that the misery of the ungodly is that they have Reason in faculty and not in use in the greatest things that I perswade you to this duty with the greater hopes If the Lord will now perswade you but to retire from vanity and soberly exercise your Reason and Consider your wayes and say What have we done and What is it that God would have us do and What shall we wish we had done at last I say could you now but be prevailed with to bestow as many hours on this work as you have cast away in idleness or worse I should not doubt but I should shortly see the faces of many of you in Heaven that have been recovered by the use of this advice It is a thousand pitties that men that are thought wise enough to be entrusted with the publick safety and to be the Physitians of a broken State should have any among them that are untrusty to their God and have not the Reason to Remember their misdoings and prevent the danger of their immortal souls Will you sit all day here to find out the remedy of a diseased Land and will you not be intreated by God or man to sit down one hour and find out the disease of and remedy for your own souls Are those men likely to take care of the happiness of so many
and to have been cast into the bottom of the Sea Matth. 18. 6. It is a sure and grievous condemnation that waiteth for all that are themselves unholy but to the haters or despisers of the holy Laws and Servants of the Lord how much more grievous a punishment is reserved 3. Enquire also Whether there be none among you that let loose your passions on your inferiours and oppress your poor Tenants and make them groan under the task or at least do little to relieve the needy nor study not to serve the Lord with your estates but sacrifice all to the pleasing of your flesh unless it be some inconsiderable pittance or fruitless drops that are unproportionable to your receivings If there be any such let them Remember their iniquities and cry for mercy before the cry of the poor to heaven do bring down vengeance from him that hath promised to hear their cry and speedily to avenge them Luk. 18. 7 8. 4. Enquire Whether there be none that live the life of Sodom in Pride fulness of bread and idleness Ezek. 16. 49. and that are not pust up with their estates and dignities and are strangers to the humility meekness patience and self-denyal of the Saints That ruffle in bravery and contend more zealously for their honour and preheminence then for the honour and interest of the Lord For pride of apparel it was wont to be taken for a childish or a womanish kind of vice below a man but it s now observed among the gallants that except in spots the notes of vanity are more legibly written on the hair and dress of a multitude of effeminate males then on the females proclaiming to the world that pride which one would think even pride it self should have concealed and calling by these signs to the beholders to observe the emptyness of their minds and how void they are of that inward worth which is the honour of a Christian and of a man It being a marvel to see a man of Learning gravity wisdom and the fear of God appear in such an antick dress I have done with the first part the Remembring of your own evil wayes and doings I beseech you practically go along with me to the next The loathing of your selves in your own eyes for all your iniquities and abominations Every true Convert doth thus loath himself for his iniquities and When God will restore a punished people upon their Repentance he bringeth them to this loathing of themselves 1. A converted soul hath a new and heavenly Light to help him to see those matters of humbling use which others see not 2. More particularly he hath the knowledge of sin and of himself He seeth the odious face of sin and seeth how much his heart and life in his sinful dayes abounded with it and how great a measure yet remains 3. He hath seen by Faith the Lord himself The Majesty the holiness the jealousie the goodness of the eternal God whom he hath offended and therefore must needs abhorr himself John 42. 6. 4. He hath tasted of Gods displeasure against him for his sin already God himself hath set it home and awakened his conscience and held it on till he hath made him understand that the consuming fire is not to be jested with 5. He hath seen Christ Crucified and mourned over him This is the glass that doth most clearly shew the ugliness of sin And here he hath learned to abhor himself 6. He hath foreseen by Faith the End of sin and the doleful recompence of the ungodly His faith beholdeth the misery of damned souls and the Glory which sinners cast away He heareth them before-hand repenting and lamenting and crying out of their former folly and wishing in vain that all this were to do again and that they might once more be tryed with another life and resolving then how holily how self-denyingly they would live He knows if sin had had its way he had been plunged into this hellish misery himself and therefore he must needs loath himself for his iniquities 7. Moreover the true Convert hath had the liveliest tast of mercy of the blood of Christ of the offers and Covenant of grace of reprieving mercy of pardoning mercy of healing and preserving mercy and of the unspeakable mercy contained in the promise of everlasting life And to find that he hath sinned against all this mercy doth constrain him to abhorre himself 8. And it is only the true Convert that hath a new and holy nature contrary to sin and therefore as a man that hath the Leprosie doth loath himself because his nature is contrary to his disease so is it though operating in a freer way with a converted soul as to the Leprosie of sin Oh how he loaths the remnants of his pride and passion his excessive cares desires and fears the backwardness of his soul to God and Heaven Sin is to the new nature of every true Believer as the food of a Swine to the stomack of a man if he have eaten it he hath no rest till he hath vomited it up and then when he looketh on his vomit he loatheth himself to think how long he kept such filth within him and that yet in the bottome there is some remains 9. The true Covert is one that is much at home his heart is the Vineyard which he is daily dressing his work is ordinarily about it and therefore he is acquainted with those secret sins and daily failings which ungodly men that are strangers to themselves do not observe though they have them in dominion 10. Lastly A serious Christian is a workman of the Lords and daily busie at the exercise of his graces and therefore hath occasion to observe his weaknesses and failings and from sad experience is forced to abhorre himself But with careless unrenewed souls it is not so some of them may have a mild ingenuous disposition and the knowledge of their unworthiness and customarily they will confess such sins as are small disgrace to them or cannot be hid or under the terrible gripes of conscience in the hour of distress and at the approach of death they will do more and abhorre themselves perhaps as Judas did or make a constrained confession through the power of fear But so far are they from this loathing of themselves for all their iniquities that sin is to them as their element their food their nature and their friend And now Honourable Worthy and beloved auditors it is my duty to enquire and to provoke you to enquire whether the Representative body of the Commons of England and each man of you in particular be thus affected to your selves or not It concerns you to enquire of it as you love your souls and love not to see the death-marks of impenitencie on them It concerneth us to enquire of it as we love you and the Nation and would fain see the marks of Gods return in mercy to us in your self-loathing and return to God Let
away their sins The fire that consumed the Sodomites did not consume their sins Hell it self can never end it and therefore shall have no end it self It dieth not with you when you die Though Churchyards are the guiltiest spots of ground they do not bury and hide our sin 4. The Church must loath it and must cast out the sinner as loathsome if he remain impenitent and none of the servants of the Lord must have any friendship with the unfruitfull works of darkness 5. God himself doth loath the creature for sin and for nothing else but sin Zech. 11. 8. My soul loathed them Deut. 32. 19. When the Lord saw it he abhorred them because of the provoking of his sons and daughters Lev. 26. 30. My soul shall abhorre you Psal. 78. 59. When God heard this he was wroth and greatly abhorred Israel Lam. 2. 7. He abhorred his very Sanctuary For he is of purer eyes then to behold iniquity Hab. 1. 13. In a word it is the sentence of God himself that a wicked man is loathsome and cometh to shame Prov. 13. 5. so that you see what abundant cause of self-abhorrence is among us But we are much afraid of Gods departure when we see how common self-love is in the world and how rare this penitent self-loathing is 1. Do they loath themselves that on every occasion are contending for their honour and exalting themselves and venturing their very souls to be highest in the world for a little while 2. Do they loath themselves that are readier to justifie all their sins or at least extenuate them then humbly confess them 3. Do they loath themselves for all their sins that cannot endure to be reproved but loath their friends and the Ministers of Christ that tell them of their loathsomness 4. Do they loath themselves that take their pride it self for manhood and Christian humility for baseness and brokenness of heart for whining hypocrisie or folly and call them a company of Priest-ridden fools that lament their sin and ease their souls by free confession Is the ruffling bravery of this City and the strange attyre the haughty carriage the feasting idleness and pomp the marks of such as loath themselves for all their abhominations why then was fasting and sack cloth and ashes the badg of such in ancient times 5. Do they loath themselves for all their sins who loath those that will not do as they and speak reproachfully of such as run not with them to the same excess of ryot 1 Pet. 4. 4. and count them precisians that dare not spit in the face of Christ by wilfull sinning as venturously and madly as themselves 6. Or do they loath themselves for all their sins that love their sins even better then their God and will not by all the obtestations and commands and intreaties of the Lord be perswaded to forsake them How farre all these are from this self-loathing and how farre that Nation is from happiness where the Rulers or inhabitants are such is easie to conjecture I should have minded you what sins of the Land must be remembred and loathed if we would have peace and healing But as the glass forbids me so alas as the sins of Sodom they declare themselves Though through the great mercy of the Lord the body of this Nation and the sober part have not been guilty of that Covenant-breaking perfidiousness treason sedition disobedience self-exalting and turbulencie as some have been and as ignorant forreigners through the calumnies of malicious adversaries may possibly believe yet must it be for a lamentation through all generations that any of those that went out from us have contracted the guilt of such abhominations and occasioned the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme and that any in the pride or simplicity of their hearts have followed the conduct of Jesuiticall seducers they knew not whither nor to what That Profaness aboundeth on the other side and drunkenness swearing fornication lasciviousness idleness pride and covetousness do still survive the Ministers that have wasted themselves against them and the labours of faithfull Magistrates to this day And that the two extreams of Heresie and Profaneness do increase each other and while they talk against each other they harden one another and both afflict the Church of Christ But especially woe to England for that crying sin the scorning of a holy life if a wonder of mercy do not save us That people professing the Christian Religion should scorn the diligent practise of that Religion which themselves profess That obedience to the God of Heaven that imitation of the example of our Saviour who came from Heaven to teach us Holiness should not only be neglected unreasonably and impiously neglected but also by a transcendent impious madness should be made a matter of reproach That the holy Ghost into whose name as the sanctifier these men were themselves baptized should not only be resisted but his sanctifying work be made a scorn That it should be made a matter of derision for a man to preferre his soul before his body and Heaven before earth and God before a transitory world and to use his reason in that for which it was principally given him and not to be wilfully mad in a case where madness will undo him unto all eternity judg as you are men whether hell it self is like much to exceed such horrid wickedness and whether it be not an astonishing wonder that ever a reasonable soul should be brought to such a height of abhomination That they that profess to believe the holy Catholike Church and the Communion of Saints should deride the holiness of the Church and the Saints and their communion that they that pray for the hallowing of Gods Name the coming of his Kingdom and the doing of his will even as it s done in Heaven should make a mock at all this that they pray for How much further think you is it possible for wicked souls to go in sinning Is it not the God of Heaven himself that they make a scorn of Is not Holiness his image Did not he make the Law that doth command it professing that none shall see his face without it Heb. 12. 14. O sinfull Nation O people laden with iniquity Repent Repent speedily and with self-loathing Repent of this inhumane crime lest God should take away your glory and enter himself into judgment with you and plead against you the scorn that you have cast upon the Creator the Saviour the sanctifier to whom you were engaged in your baptismall vows Lest when he plagueth and condemneth you he say Why persecuted you me Acts 9. 4. Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren ye did it unto me Read Prov. 1. 20. to the end When Israel mocked the messengers of the Lord and despised his words and misused his Prophets his wrath arose against his people till there was no remedy 2 Chron. 26. 16. And O that you that are the
Physicions of this diseased Land would specially call them to Repentance for this and help them against it for the time to come Having called you first to Remember your misdoings and secondly to loath your selves in your own eyes for them I must add a third That you stop not here but proceed to Reformation or else all the rest is but hypocrisie And here it is that I most earnestly intreat this Honourable Assembly for their best assistance O make not the forementioned sins your own lest you hear from God quod minus crimine quam absolutione peccatum est Though England hath been used to cry loud for liberty let them not have liberty to abuse their Maker and to damn their souls if you can hinder it Optimus est reipublicae status ubi nulla libertas deest nisi licentia pereundi as Nero once was told by his unsuccessfull Tutor Use not men to a liberty of scorning the Laws of God lest you teach them to scorn yours For can you expect to be better used then God And cui plus licet quam par est plus vult quam licet Gell. l. 17. c. 14. We have all seen the evils of Liberty to be wanton in Religion Is it not worse to have Liberty to deride Religion If men shall have leave to go quietly to hell themselves let them not have leave to mock poor souls from Heaven The suffering to the sound in faith is as nothing for what is the foaming rage of mad men to be regarded But that in England God should be so provoked and souls so hindered from the pathes of life that whoever will be converted and saved must be made a laughing stock which carnall mindes cannot endure this is the mischief which we deprecate The eyes of the Nation and of the Christian world are much upon you some high in hopes some deep in fears some waiting in dubious expectations for the issue of your counsels Great expectations in deep necessities should awake you to the greatest care and diligence Though I would not by omitting any necessary directions or admonitions to you invite the world to think that I speak to such as cannot endure to hear and that so Honourable an Assembly doth call the Ministers of Christ to do those works of their proper office which yet they will be offended if they do yet had I rather erre in the defective part then by excess and therefore shall not presume to be too particular Only in generall in the Name of Christ and on the behalf of a trembling yet hoping Nation I most earnestly beseech and warn you that you own and promote the power and practise of Godliness in the Land and that as God whose Ministers you are Rom. 13. 4. is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him Heb. 11. 6. and hath made this a principall Article of our Faith so you would imitate your absolute Lord and honour them that fear the Lord and encourage them that diligently seek him And may I not freely tell you that God should have the precedencie and that you must first seek his Kingdom and the Righteousness thereof and he will facilitate all the rest of your work Surely no Powers on earth should be offended that the God from whom and for whom and through whom they have what they have is preferred before them when they should own no interest but his and what is subservient to it I have long thought that pretences of a necessity of beginning with our own affairs hath frustrated our hopes from many Parliaments already and I am sure that by delayes the enemies of our peace have got advantage to cross our ends and attain their own Our calamities begun in differences about Religion and still that 's the wound that most needs closing and if that were done how easily I dare confidently speak it would the generality of sober godly people be agreed in things civill and become the strength and glory of the Soveraign under God And though with grief and shame we see this work so long undone may we hope that God hath reserved it to this season Yet I have the confidence to profess that as the exalting of one party by the ejection and persecuting of the rest is the sinfull way to your dishonour and our ruine so the termes on which the differing parties most considerable among us may safely easily and suddenly unite are very obvious and our concord a very easie thing if the prudent and moderate might be the guides and selfish interests and passion did not set us at a further distance then our principles have done And to shew you the facility of such an agreement were it not that such personall matters are much liable to misinterpretations I should tell you that the late Reverend Primate of Ireland consented in less than half an hoursdebate to five or six Propositions which I offered him as sufficient for the Concord of the moderate Episcopall and Presbyterians without forsaking the Principles of their Parties O that the Lord would yet shew so much mercy to a sinfull Nation as to put it into your hearts to promote but the practise of those Christian principles which we are all agreed in I hope there is no controversie among us whether God should be obeyed and hell avoided and Heaven first sought and Scripture be the rule and test of our Religion and sin abhorred and cast out O that you would but further the practise of this with all your might We crave not of you any Lordship or dominion nor riches nor interest in your temporall affairs we had rather see a Law to exclude all Ecclesiasticks from all power of force The God of Heaven that will judg you and us will be a righteous Judg betwixt us whether we crave any thing unreasonable at your hands These are the summe of our requests 1. That Holiness may be encouraged and the overspreading prophaneness of this Nation effectually kept down 2. That an able diligent Ministry may be encouraged and not corrupted by temporall power 3. That Discipline may be seriously promoted and Ministers no more hindred by Magistrates in the exercise of their office then Physicions and Schoolmasters are in theirs seeing it is but a Government like theirs consisting in the liberty of conscionable managing the works of our own office that we expect Give us but leave to labour in Christs Vineyard with such encouragement as the necessity of obstinate souls requireth and we will ask no more You have less cause to restrain us from discipline then from preaching for it is a more flesh-displeasing work that we are hardlier brought to I foretell you that you shut out me and all that are of my minde if you would force us to administer Sacraments without Discipline and without the conduct of our own discretion to whom the Magistrate appoints it as if a Physicion must give no Physick but by your prescript The antidisciplinarian Magistrate I could as resolutely