his bosom then Christ doth the helping of poor wretched burdened sinners the binding up and mollifying their maladies Some are bound fast enough to a business by their word but not at all by their affection and these though they keep their word yet it is in such a rough churlish way as is much discouraging but it is not so with Christ because he is under the bond of his bowels and affections as well as under the bond of his word and therefore trust in him that your case shall be helped and very carefully and compassionately helped Finally Confider the danger of not believing in this able One. You become debtors to the Law to fulfill it and debtors to your own desperate wretched condition as not self murderers to deliver your selves from the body of death in which you are and from the wrath of God to which this obligeth you You frustrate the Ordinance of God which he hath anointed and appointed for your good You cast your selves under the Covenant of works as that young Man which said to Christ What shall I do to be saved As if he could have saved himself and so made himself a debtor to fulfill the Law and Christ put him upon it seeing he would that way be saved and so he will serve you and them Confider whether you be able to keep the Law in every point and so restore your own state some are at the Doctrin of Perfection but they make void the Gospel and Christ and will as the young Man miâ—s perfection in one thing at least one thing will be wanting and he that fails in one Point is guilty of all and will bring the curse of the breach of the whole Law upon him Confider that by nature you are the Children of wrath and Transgressors from the Womb and how soon may the curse of this state be executed Wherefore I conclude all with the repetition of the promise again to you Isa 25.6 7 8. And I beseech you heed it well and take hold of it for your good And in this Mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make a Feast to all People a Feast of fat things a Feast of Wine on the Lees of fat things full of marrow and he will destroy in this Mountain the face of the covering cast over all People and the Vail that is spread over all Nations and he will swallow up death in victory and the Lord God will wipe all teares from all Faces and the rebuke of his People shall he take from all the Earth for the Lord hath spoken it and let me add his heart and soul is in it Jer. 3â— 41 What is the Vail that covereth all Nations Ans The Vail of natural corruption the Body of Death as the Apostle here calleth it and as this Prophet in this place calls it Death and saith it shall be swallowed up in victory yea he hath engaged to wipe all teares from all Mourners eyes who sigh and take on as this Apostle because of their wretched condition and to give them victory over the body of this death and the triumphs of this great victory in this World or in the World to come Comfort your selves all ye that groan under the Body of Death with these words FINIS SERIOUS CONSIDERATIONS OF DEATH Being A SERMON ON Isaiah 57.1 The righteous Man perisheth and no Man layeth it to heart and merciful Men are taken away none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come Isaiah 57.1 The righteous Man perisheth and no Man layeth it to heart and merciful Men are taken away none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come THe general Mortality of Man-kind and the Holy Use that should be made thereof by all the living are the two principal things of this verse Death takes away the wicked and doubtless the wicked and others too should lay this to heart for Death is no partial Visitor if it fetch off one wicked Man and send him to his place it will fetch down another nothing is more naturally the wages of wickedness than death and yet no worse enemy to any wicked Man than death therefore one wicked Man should be startled much at the death of another But Death sometimes taketh away all Men and then all Men bad and good should be much moved then all should lay to heart this i.e. should be sensible of their sin and the displeasure of God and speedily make peace with him by repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ that so present evils and also future presaged by present strokes may be turned away which thing this People could not be stirred up unto which was the reason of the complaint of this Prophet he preached the Funerals of the dead the best dead to the living good and bad but no man laid it to heart that is not held themselves deeply concerned to look about them to search their Souls to set House and Heart in order to die but kept on every one in his wonted pace of sin and wickedness and formality in Religion and so fell most of them in the common calamity The Doctrines which may be observed in these words are these First That God sometimes by common calamity taketh away the good as well as the bad Moses and Aaron as well as the mixed Multitude which murmured Did the Lord take off and would not let them come in to the good Land The righteous Man perisheth as if the Prophet had said the Lord strikes more mortally than any one is well aware he plucks up the stakes in the Hedg he pulls down the Pillars of the whole Nation and yet Men do not fear that all will fall about their Ears Hence it is that another Prophet calls upon the best People to look about them and to labour to be much better yet gives them but a may be for their safety Seek meekness all ye meek of the Earth ye which have wrought his judgments seek meekness seek righteousness it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord's wrath As if the Prophet had said I cannot ensure the life of the best Man because God sometimes destroyeth the righteous with the wicked for ends best known to himself This should make us all fear and tremble much in this dying Day and to give all diligence to make our Calling and Election sure and to be getting Oyl into our Lamps yea and to keep them trim'd and to stand guirt and ready to go in with the Bride-groom if call'd at Mid-night by the destroying Angel that is now abroad A Second Doctrin that may be observed in these words is this That gracious Men and merciful are the likeliest to scape best in times of common calamity The Prophet seems to note it in these words of my Text as very severe Justice that gracious and merciful Men should not be distinguished from others in the Day of evil The righteous Man perisheth and
our Death of Souls by the Famine of the Word of hearing the Word of the Lord in City and Country A great deal of do seems to be about the death of Bodies but ah Lord how many Thousand Thousand Souls have perished in this City and in these Nations in a few years past for want of hearing the Word of the Lord that is able to save the Soul Be not wrath very soar see behold we are thy People Zion is a Wilderness Jerusalem a Desolation and all our pleasant things are scattered Will the Lord refrain for these things Herein the Prophet seems to be toucht to the quick that Zion and Jerusalem was desolate and all these Soul-pleasant things were spoiled whereby Souls starved and perished and Soul-Famine and Pestilence was made a Famine of hearing the Word of the Lord that whither soever they went from one City to another from one Sea to another 't was all alike This this the Prophet laid deeply to heart and so should we I urge it by way of proportion if we should deeply lay to heart bodily death then much more Soul-death and destruction A fide exorbitans puniendus saith the Civilian such as play the wanton from the truth must be punished answerably We have been and yet still are a fide exorbitantes such as play the unruly Persons from the truth Children of Belial which cannot bear Christ's Yoke full of Soul-itch for another Gospel and being thus lewd in spirituals answerably in spiritual liberties and enjoyments hath God punished us it is not a little peril unto us that we meet now although the hand of God affright such as would be looking after us This this we should deeply lay to heart that the Bread for our Souls fails from the House of our God The strokes of God and the strokes of Men together affright away the Pastors and so the Pastures of your Souls and yet all this but the just punishment of much spiritual wantonness and exorbitancy Secondly If temporal strokes which refer to the death of the body should be laid much to heart then Eternal strokes which make the everlasting destruction of the Soul should be deeply laid to heart much more Such a stroke as that Isai 63.17 O Lord Why hast thou made us to erre from thy ways and hardened our hearts from thy fear and such as that Prov. 17.10 A reproof entereth more into a wise Man than an hundred stripes into a Fool. Some Mens hearts are by the inward strokes of GOD made Judgment-proof that Plague Famine and Sword all the Ten Plagues that were inflicted on Pharaoh and Ten more to them will not stir them nor turn them no more than they stopped or turned him nor yet so much And what do you see in this day done on the hearts of Men by the hand of God abroad now of Sword Famine and Pestilence Do these enter the hearts of Men This speaks that Eternal strokes judicial wrath upon the Soul is abroad fiting Men for Eternal death much of which I fear the most of us are little aware O Juresalem Jerusalem how oft would I have gathered thee as a Hen her Chicken and thou wouldst not but now they are hid from thine Eyes This was a Soul-mortal and an Eternal stroke and how Christ laid it to heart how he sighed and wept O Jerusalem And if our Gospel be hid it is hid unto them that perish saith the Apostle and how long hath thâ—s stroke been upon the Souls of most Assemblies in these Nations and else where the Power of the Gospel hid and a spurious efficacy gone forth in the place thereof faithful Labourers fishing all night and can catch nothing scarce covert a Soul and unfaithful Labourers such as come not in by the Door but come in their own name these pervert many yea though they come with never so damnable Doctrines if denying the Lord that bought them yet flockt after O give me leave to tell you in this day of God's sore Visitation Hinc illae lachrymae these are Soul-Plagues which have brought our Bodily-Plagues these are Soul mortal and eternal strokes because we have not received the truth in the love of it and no Man of us have laid these to heart as we should Spiritual Plagues and Judgments have swept away Souls by thousands all the Nations over many years together and who of us have laid this Mortality to heart as we should See how the Prophet Isaiah layeth to heart spiritual strokes Isa 24.16 17. My leanness my leanness the treacherous dealer hath dealt treacherously yea the treacherous dealer hath dealt very treacherously fear and the snare and the Pit are upon thee Treachery swearing for swearing thus in spiritual matters as Judas who betrayed Christ and as much as in him lay the Bodies and Souls of all Man-kind such treacherous dealers were the Jews which the Prophets much bewailed as great spiritual and eternal strokes and so should we as we see these on any Nation for these things are written for our learning that we should follow the foot-steps of the Flock It were well we that live in these last and worst times of the World could with the Prophet for like things sigh and say My leanness that we could sigh our selves lean this day before the Lord because of hypocrisie treachery and all Soul-villany and spiritual wickedness and the hypocrisie and treachery of our own hearts greatest of all and O how should we sigh and lament our selves lean for this ere the Plague sweep us away The next Use of this Point may be for Reproof and it may reprove two sorts 1. Such as are sensible of nothing 2. Such as are sensible of nothing to purpose First This may reprove such as are sensible of nothing or nothing sensible Temporal strokes are thick God and Man upon us Pestilence at home War abroad God and Man killing and slaughtering us one at Sea 'tother at land Is not this general Mortality God shoots his Arrows every where and how great is his dread fallen upon us In what Street of this poor City can one walk but dead Corps and Ghosts walk In what Fields about this City can one walk where death also doth not walk and as God's Bailiff seize and arrest and carry away to the great Bar above and to the Judge of all the World to receive all that they have done here in the Body good or bad At what corner of this City can we that live abroad creep in and not be met and saluted with trains of dead Corps carrying to the Grave to new Church-yards and New-exchanges old Burying-places being over-fatted and glutted and Corps inhumanely crowding one another out of their Places before the time and among all these sad salutations some righteous Men and merciful Men and Women taken away and we can tell their names and where they lived and so ends the story till the next Bill of Mortality come out with more taken away and then they
give him a stone This is reason But much more can faith help it self by experience I am a man in authority and I say to one man go and he goeth and I say to another come and he cometh c. This is experience and faith is wonderful weak indeed when it cannot thus help up it self experiences are such sensible and such impressive things upon all powers within and without O ye of little faith do ye not remember the five loaves and how many Baskets ye took up Mat. 16. Christ takes it for granted that faith is very little and very weak indeed when it cannot help it self by experiences things which the Man hath had done for him in his wants He delivered me from the Lyon and the Bear and he will deliver me from this uncircumcised Philistim The Lord even Jesus who appeared to thee in the way he hath sent that thou mightest receive thy sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost Act. 9.17 Doubtless that experience which he had of such an escape going to Damascus advantaged his faith all his days to look thorow and to run thorow all the storms and perils which afterward he met withall Some great sickness the Apostle Paul had by the ill usage of Men who oppressed him and yet God preserved and how he raised faith by experience to look thorow all evils present and to come see 2 Cor. 1.9 10. We would not have you ignorant of the troubles which happen'd unto us in Asia how that we were pressed out of measure above strength insomuch that we despaired ever of life but we had the sentence of death in our selves that we should not trust in our selves but in God that raiseth the dead who deliver'd us from so great a death and doth deliver in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us Mordecai is called Pethakia because saith the Jews he opened and expounded all matters and understood 70 Languages Experience may be called Pethakiah it doth so interpret all Ridles and dark matters both of the word and works of God it explains and interprets 70 and 70 Languages if there be so many worth the interpreting it makes a Man with ease and triumph to look thorow and over all before it though never so dark and difficult as David over Goliah and Zerubabel over that great Mountain which was before him and Joshuah the High Priest over sin and Satans occasions Is not this a brand pluckt out of the Fire Fourthly By Prayer doth a believer come to this good eye-sight to look thorow all dark and difficult matters When I cry to thee then shall mine enemies turn back this I know for God is for me Psal 56.9 David had cryed to God as one once did a little before an engagement and he knew he should have the day and that his enemies would turn their backs great clearing of fight is made by prayer and tears in dark days to see thorow matters A little wind overthrows not only Houses but States and Kingdoms saith Seneca A little of this wind I mean the pantings and prayings of God's People to Heaven overthrows Persons and Nations indeed and is a sure prognostick of good to whom a praying spirit is given and makes in the heart an assurance of good coming My soul followeth hard after thee thy right hand upholdeth me then observe what he saw Those that seek my soul to destroy it shall go into the lower parts of the Earth Psal 63.8 9. Whether that were Hell or the Grave or both 't was well the Church and David were rid of them Prayer is an Ordinance by which the Soul goeth to Heaven and then gets a new life and strength before it comes down again Christ found the blessing of this Ordinance oft and hath surely sanctified it to all his for the same end to lift up their heads and hearts above all troubles He shall cry unto me thou art my Father my God the Rock of my Salvation and I will make him my first born higher than the Kings of the Earth Psal 89.26 The whole course of Nature began with the motion of the Heavens and continues still vigorous according to the continued motion of them Now as the motion of the Heavens is to the whole course of Nature so is Prayer to all the graces of the Soul and to the whole course and state of the new World it is this that sets all graces a going and going true and strong let weather be what it will Hence are those pertinent words of David Trust in the Lord at all times ye People pour out your hearts before him God is a refuge for us Selah Psal 62.8 He maketh these subservient one to another faith to prayer and prayer to faith as indeed they are Would you trust in the Lord at all times then pour out your souls to God Would you pour out your souls to God and pray alway then trust in the Lord at all times Hence it is that the Apostle Paul when he had spoken at a great height of faith Who hath delivered and doth deliver in whom we trust that he will yet deliver c. You also helping together for us by Prayer 2 Cor. 1.11 Prayer mounts faith upon its high places and faith mounts prayer and makes one pray in his praying Unbelief is soul-fainting and prayer is a fetching fresh life from the Fountain of Life Have mercy upon me O Lord consider my troubles which I suffer of them that hate me thou that liftest me up from the gates of death Psal 13. that is Soul and Body Vse 1 Learn from hence that if faith looketh through the most dark and difficult things then where faith is not troubled People and distressed People must needs be at a great loss especially in great distresses yea the truth is in every little distress every little tryal will sinck them in whom is no faith I cannot well give the reason of it some things contemptible are very vertual to cure great diseases of which none are able to give a reason Unless this that faith twines it self with God to do for Man and all other natural abilities bear up little because they lead not the sinner out of himself but to trust in some thing of the Creature and very little burdens will break the back of a meer Man though his reason and parts and outward helps may be many Saul was bid to stay till Samuel came to him and Samuel stayed but a little beyond his time consequently his tryal was but little and he falls upon things and ways unlawful to his ruine He that believes not will make hast because he cannot see through any strait The Philistines were neer and thou didst not come and therefore 't was in vain for me to wait so Saul reasoned within himself and so will every Man that is destitute of faith Achan having no faith could not forbear but would be providing for himself when as God was before them and
this glory a defence will make States and Nations blessed Surely if we the Lord's People were but as zealous to use liberty and priviledge well as we are to have it it would come faster than it doth Let us look more into our selves and more up to God as the readiest way to all good These are the thoughts desires and prayers of Him who is Yours ever in the Lord. N. L. Rom. vii xxiv O wretched Man that I am Who shall deliver me from the body of this Death THe great weight of sin and misery and the want of one to remove well both is the cause of this dolefull complaint O wretched man that I am Who shall deliver me from the body of this death or from this body of death as it is put in the Margent The weight of sin is groaned under in this terme of my Text body which is a word of quantity nomen quanâ—itatis and means the corruption of our nature to be a very extensive thing that the whole state of man in all the powers of his Soul and Body is depraved and vitiated and made utterly unfit to serve God and most fit to serve sin and Satan with all Organs and Instruments within and without Secondly This terme in my Text body is also Nomen qualitatis a word of quality that means the naturalness of this general pravity to us it lay with us as Mr. Rutherford saith in our Mothers Womb as Twins as one body lieth with another It took us fast by the heel in the Womb and we could never kick it off since And Thirdly For as much as there is this Epethite given to this Body calling it a Body of Death and a Body of this Death it notes not only the weight of sin but also of misery death being here put to signifie guilt and punishment Our depraved condition casteth us under all guilt and under all punishment that is actually under much misery and lyable every moment to all misery in Soul and Body in this World and in the World to come not only liable to death as 't is a dissolution of Soul and Body and all the sicknesses and diseases which prepare unto it but liable to this death that is a separation of both Soul and Body from God for ever Now to deliver us from the Body of this death a Body of corruption which exposeth us to such a death as this There no Man nor Angel is able no all the Angels did they joyn to do us service in this thing to change our natures to take off guilt to rectifie the Image of God which we have lost they cannot stir this Body as to any of these in the least nor any member of it they are not able to remove one sin or satisfie for the guilt of it nor draw one line an eye or an eye-brow or one finger of the new man This great weight of sin and misery and this utter impotency of all created strength to help out of it maketh the Apostle to cry out thus O wretched man that I am Who shall deliver me c. There be several things very profitable to be observed in these words as First this That every one is in a wretched and miserable condition by nature Depraved in all powers of Soul and Body and exposed in both to the utmost displeasure of God O wretched man that I am c. He doth not mean himself alone but speaketh as personating the best of men and so consequently all men for that he did thus complain of a corrupt state who was so holy who else but hath cause much more to complain For this death which my Text speaketh of hath passed over all Men for as much as all Men have finned in Adam And this Apostle which speaketh but of himself in this case in my Text speaketh generally elsewhere That by nature we are the Children of wrath as well as others Eph. 2.3 Secondly This may be learned from these words That our state by nature is not a safe state to be rested in That our state as we come into this World is not such as we should be contented with but a state much to be complain'd of by the best and much cryed out upon and much strugled under to be freed from O wretched man that I am Who shall deliver me c. Flesh and blood cannot enter into the Kingdome of God They which rest in their state as they come into this World and think that they attain to be moral and civil just and righteous to men and little or nothing complain of that which the Apostle doth here in my Text a Body of Death do not know their own danger Thirdly We may here learn That the best are not so good as they should be That the best in this World are much burdened and much endangered with natural corruption The Apostle Paul though regenerated found much of the rebellion of an evil nature of which he knew not how to get rid carrying him Captive to what he would not and so exposing him continually to the displeasure of God I know that in me that is in my Flesh dwelleth no good thing for to will is present with me but how to perform that which is good I finde not for the good I would I do not but the evil I would not that I do Corrupt nature as it easily besets us so it as easily overcomes us for any strength that we have of our own Such as so feelingly complain as Paul here doth will not easily be brought to drink in the Popish Doctrin of Perfection Fourthly We may here learn That our state in this World at best is but a wretched state for though a little grace be given unto us it is so over-matched with a great body of sin that we rather undo than do any thing that is good Is it not a wretched state to be so hampered with an ill Inmate Night and Day that when one pulls one way 'tother pulls stronger still the wrong way To see two Dogs coupled a little one and a great one What a woful condition is the little one in how he is pulled and haled up and down this way and that way not which way he would go but which way the great one will go or else he grins his teeth on the little one and bites him and abuseth him much just so is the condition of the most regenerate in this World And therefore he that is best and hath best in this World can say no better of it than he findes and daily feels that his condition is but a wretched condition O wretched man that I am c. The Point which I would stand on Doct. is this That we all ought to be deeply sensible of natural corruption Or we all ought much to lay to heart our fallen state by nature The Apostle Paul was a holy Man yet very sensible of much unholiness a body of it of which he was
both as to God and as to his Son but of none as to him I thank God all is in a good way of cure now through Jesus Christ Donatum ob causam non est donatum sed potius permutatio A gift given for some cause is not a gift but rather an exchange of one thing for another but when very costly in it self and yet of no cost to us then it sparkles in the eyes of the receiver such a gift is Christ in this great work of the cure of our carnal state And doth the freeness of this love sparkle in your eyes and lay bonds upon you and make you go bound with holy affection and admiration No man that was ever cured of a desperate disease wherein he gave himself up for death but it was much obliging to him as to the instruments used for his Cure Naaman the Syrian thought himself bound to choose the God of Israel for his God that had cured him of his Leprosie If you be cured of your filthy Leprosie which is Christ's Priestly work and Kingly work too your Cure is between them both Do you choose him and own him for your Jesus and Lord as the Apostle here doth I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Christ by kindness conquers as Jeptha did If I do thus and thus for you slay your Enemies deliver you from slavery Shall I be your King And will ye chuse me to rule over you and they consented willingly If Christ hath cured your Soul diseases then are you under the Law of this great kindness and willing that he should be your Lord and to Rule you in all things according to his Word Secondly The Apostle was taken as with the love of Christ so with the love of the Father in this matter I thank God he hath found out a way to do me good a new and living way through his Son So the Apostle Peter Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Christ from the dead to an Inheritance incorruptible 1 Pet. 1.3 He saw an abundant mercy in the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ as well as in the Son our Lord Jesus Christ That having no more Sons should part with him out of his Bosom in Heaven to lodge Him in a Manger yea worse to lodg Him in Hell nay in a Place worse than that the filthy heart of the fallen Sons of Adam So the Apostle Paul again writing to the Ephesians saith But God who is rich in mercy for the great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sin and trespasses hath he quickned us together with Christ that in the Ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus Ephes 2.4 5 6. He saw rich mercy and great love exceeding riches of grace in God that by his own Son and not by any lower hand he should quicken Men dead in trespasses and sins And surely some thing of this is where this great Work is wrought a confessing that Jesus is the Lord To the glory of God the Father Vse 3 The last Use is for Exhortation seeing Christ is the proper remedy of our fallen state let this draw us to him to attend his Word and Ordinances and to attend the Angels stirring of these Waters Christ doth open Prison doors and deliver Captives but he doth it according to his Commission Now well observe the termes of his Commission Is 61 The Lord God hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek To which agrees 1 Pet. 3.19 By the which also he went to preach to the Spirits in Prison which were disobedient in the Days of Noah Preaching how lightly soever esteemed and how much soever opposed and suppressed is the great Ordinance by which Christ frees Captives and Prisoners and therefore this Ordinance which is the most general Ordinance to convince and convert should carefully and tremblingly be attended upon They that make light of preaching make light of their own depraved state of their Captivity to sin and Satan these groan not with this Apostle under the body of death Christ did create every day orderly by his Word he could have done it without but he did all as his Father appointed him and did not Movere per saltum make hast and pursue his own will or his own infinite and absolute Power so he doth in the new Creation and therefore wait upon wisdomes Posts Whoso is simple let him turn in hither where he will have Line upon Line now a little and then a little to touch and turn his heart Presently after the Creation was finished the Creator takes to himself the Title of Jehova Gen. 2.4 These are the Generations of the Heaven and of the Earth when they were created in the Day that Jehova Eloim made the Heaven and the Earth When you do approach to the Preaching of the Word Remember this Name of Christ that he is Jehova and able to give Being to his Word That what he bids you to be that he makes you to be Be exhorted when you attend Ordinances to pant for this thing that Christ as Jehova would Preach to you as one giving Being in your heart to every Word which he speaketh in your Ear That Christ would so speak that you might hear and believe all that he saâ—th as they at Iconium Act. 14.1 Take an Harp go about the City thou Harlot that hast been forgotten make sweet melody sing many Songs that thou mayest be remembred Isa 23.16 This spake the Lord to Tyrus a filthy sinful City and their punishment fore-told and the time for Seventy Years and then counselled to bemoan her self that she might be remembred and it is observable how holy bemoaning our selves is called and holy panting for deliverance from the slavery of sin and wrath it is called sweet melody and singing many Songs So indeed is such panting under the body of death and to be delivered from it as here the Apostle doth The mourning Doves note under the sense of our wretched state with a panting after Christ to cure it no Musick is such melody in the Ears of God to make him to remember us Thus crie and be ye all pained to be delivered Thirdly Take to you words and tell your great Physician how it is with you And if you want words help your selves with those Ephes 4.18 This I say and testifie in the Lord that ye walk not as other Gentiles in the vanity of your minds having your understandings darkned being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in you because of the blindness of their heart being past feeling c. Take up these words and apply them to your own depraved condition saying O wretched man that I am what a vain mind I have and how I walk in the vanity
Famine then I conclude that general Mortality should be generally laid to heart for the Prophet did thus complain to God to affect all Men that they might so complain to God as he did how sadly matters went amongst them Take one Scripture more Lam. 1.6 And from the Daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed her Princes are become like Harts that can finde no pasture and they are gone without strength before the Pursuer This Prophet layeth to heart particularly the distresses of Princes and great Men and alass what are all these to the distresses and death of the righteous and holy and merciful Men which proves that we should lay to heart the common strokes of God as the Sword and Pestilence take away one as well as another bad and good high and low I will prove this Point more particularly and distinctly to you First We are to lay to heart Mortality by the Pestilence I have sent among you the Pestilence after the manner of Aegypt your Horses have I taken away and have made the stink of your Camps to come up into your Nosthrils and so killed you with Plagues and Diseases attending the Sword and yet ye have not returned to me Amos 4.10 that is you have not laid things to heart throughly to be ashamed of your evil ways and to turn from them The death of Men nay the death of Horses as such deaths not long since were amongst them we are to lay to heart and so to lay to heart as to prepare to meet God then the death of good Men by the Pestilence we are surely to lay to heart From above hath he sent a Fire into my Bones and it prevailed against them he hath made me desolate and faint all the day Lam. 1.13 The Prophet in these words as in all the rest personateth the state of the People generally and much laid to heart GOD's immediate strokes upon the Persons of Men by many mortal fierce Diseases without sparing any From above hath he sent Fire into my Bones and it hath prevailed c. Secondly Mortality by Famine is to be laid to heart The Prophet Joel speaketh of this stroke which indeed is great The Land is as the Garden of Eden before them and behind them a desolate Wilderness and nothing shall escape them speaking of Vermin so devouring all Man's Provision Joel 2.3 at the 12th vers of this Chapter the Prophet telleth us what effect this should have Therefore now also saith the Lord turn ye to me with all your heart and with fasting weeping and with mourning rent your hearts and not your Garments for he is gracious who knoweth if he will return and repent By which of these strokes either Pestilence or Famine the godly were taken away no Man can say for by Pestilence Famine and Sword did the Lord contend with that People That he contended with them by Famine the Prophet Joel and also the Prophet Jeremiah testifieth They have sowen Wheat and shall reap Thorns they have put themselves to pain but shall not profit thus doth the Prophet poscere aciem bid battel and ye shall be ashamed of your revenue because of the fierce anger of the Lord Jer. 12. 13. But most plain in Ezek. c. 4. 5. Where the Prophet is commanded to make Bread with Beans and Fitches and to eat this by weight and to mix dung with it And must this be laid to heart Yes much How can any do otherwise Thus saith the Lord smite with the Hand and stamp with the Foot and say alass for all the evil abominations of the House of Israel for they shall fall by the Sword by the Famine and by the Pestilence Ezek. 6.11 Then they fell by all these and then it is probable that the righteous fell by all these as others then we should lay to heart Mortality by all these we should smite with the Hand and stamp with the Foot and say alass What great abom nations have caused all these great Judgments God's temporal strokes and judgments which kill and slaughter all sorts should much be laid to heart by all sorts But you will say Q. What is it to lay to heart the mortal strokes of GOD in a Nation I answer A. It is to be deeply sensible of the cause as it may be in our selves or in the Nation wherein we live Observe how the Lord counselleth Ezekiel to carry it in the day of their dreadful misery Thus saith the Lord smite with thine Hand and stamp with thy Foot and say alass for all the evil abominations of the Land of Israel He doth not barely bid him to say alass for all the evil punishments of the Land as Sword Pestilence and Famine but alass for all the wickedness of the Land which hath caused these He that is far off shall fall by the Pestilence and he that is neer shall fall by the Sword and he that remains and is besieged shall die by Famine Ezek. 6.11.12 So that to lay to heart mortal strokes in a Nation is to be deeply affected with the cause of them in our selves or in others If you ask me further where we have found out causes in our selves and in others quos accidam as Salust saith To whom shall I turn and prostrate my self and say I have sinn'd Q. and done this evil abomination Answ To God in the Name of Christ A. Therefore thus saith the Lord turn you even unto me with all your heart and with fasting and with weeping and with mourning Joel 2.12 And to do this forth-with presently without all delay or else to be sure it is not turning to the Lord with all the heart To lay to heart God's willing Discipline is to be full of deep sorrow for sin in our selves and others as the proper causes of all sorts of deaths and deaths of all sorts of Persons good and bad and to turn from these to the Lord and to believe on Christ that the Lord for his sake will be pacified and turn away all his displeasure and not make us a reproach unto the Heathen as it is in that Chapter Joel 2.17 Having thus proved and opened the Doctrin I will shew you in the next Place Vses what Use may be made of it First This Point is profitable to teach If we are to be deeply sensible of temporal strokes such as refer to the death of our bodies then much more are we to be sensible of spiritual strokes and eternal strokes which refer to the death of our Souls I will send a Famine not of Bread but of hearing the Word of the Lord. And they shall wander from Sea to Sea and from the North to the East they shall run to and fro to seek the Word of the Lord and shall not finde it Amos 8.11 12. How diligently we get the Bills of Mortality now and being come up to Thousands O how we lift up our hands but who brings in Weekly Bills of
little other than the Soul and this he groans and sighs under O wretched man that I am c. And this written for our Example Take another instance in this Apostle as soon as converted And Saul arose from the Earth and when his Eyes were opened he saw no man but they led him by the Hand and he was three Days without sight and did neither eat nor drink Act. 9.9 Why did he neither eat nor drink for three Days Doubtless he was in a deep sense of his lost condition as one in the gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity both by nature and practice That his natural corruption was so great a weight upon him afterward as we here see it was by my Text it was much more heavy upon him at first view when this bottomly gulf was first opened to this self-conceited Pharisee what I say is very likely by the three Days horror and astonishment wherein he lay starving himself Doubtless he thought himself as unworthy to eat or drink so unworthy to live as the poor Publican which smote his breast and would not look up to Heaven as not judging himself worthy to go upon the Earth The eating of the Pass-over with sower Herbs might point at this for their coming out of Egypt snadowed their coming out of spiritual bondage and misery in which they were And so the miseries of natural bondage by sin and our fall and then their sower Herbs might well teach them as to keep a sense of their bodily slavery and misery so especially to keep a deep sense of their soul-slavery and misery and all the sower things and conflicts of their inward condition The poor Jaylor may be a further authority for this Doctrine which I have observed His eyes being some thing opened to see what a wretched Man he was by his nature and practice trembled and would have made away himself and came and fell at the Apostles Feet with a great out-cry What must I do to be saved Act. 16.30 And whereas I make the Proposition Universal saying That we all ought to be deeply sensible of natural corruption I ground it upon my Text and the Example that is given to follow in such an eminent Man as the Apostle Paul was That the Apostle Paul was not exempted from natural corruption nor from this duty of deep-laying it to heart neither are others But then the Question will be by what Rule the Apostle Paul did this for he himself saith that we should follow him no otherwise than as he followed Christ By what Rule then did the Apostle thus lay to heart his fallen state And was his Rule universal that is for all the fallen Sons of Adam For this see 1 King 8.38 When the House for communion between God and Man was made and consecrated this is the great Law of fellowship and communion between God and Man That even every one should know the Plague of his heart Now by the Plague of the heart is meant saith Interpreters principally our fallen and corrupt state of Soul by nature and then such particular special ebullitions thereof in act to open scandal and provocation And this one Law is for Jew and stranger And by knowing this Plague of the heart which every one was to do means that they should be well acquainted with their natural corruption and actual transgressions and deeply bewail them and truly as having to do with an All-seeing and All-searching God who searcheth the heart so it follows in the next words Vers 39. What Prayer or Supplication soever be made by any Man or by all the People of Israel which shall know every Man the Plague of his own heart and spread forth his hands towards this house then hear thou in Heaven thy dwelling-place and forgive and do and give to every one according to his ways whose heart thou knowest for thou even thou knowest all the hearts of the Children of Men. The New Testament concurreth to this in as much as John the Baptist thus began the Gospel by calling upon all to repent and so Christ himself called upon all his hearers to repent Mat. 4.17 The other of John the Baptist is Mat. 3.2 From that time Jesus began to preach and to say Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand This is the Power of God by the Word to change your hearts and to open the everlasting Doors By repenting he means what he saith further in his Sermon Mat. 5 3 4 5. Poor in spirit mourning for sin attended with a desire of relief a hungering and thirsting for a better state That is Repentance is that sinners be throughly convinced of their lost condition by nature and of their utter inability to make their own relief and escape from the displeasure of God due unto them by it and therefore hunger and thirst that is earnestly desire relief from God in that way which he hath appointed in Christ through the Gospel for the Salvation of sinners Thus and in this Path the Publican was taught to come begging mercy for a sinner He smote his breast as that where he felt the Plague lay and said God be merciful to me a sinner I purpose to say no more to prove the truth of the Point For the Explication of this Doctrin these things may be said wherein the further confirmation of the Point will arise First We should be deeply sensible of natural corruption in its being simply considered Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my Mother conceive me Psal 51.5 David had fallen into great actual transgressions of Murther and Whoredom and he that he might practice repentance according to the rule thereof took to heart how he came into the World Behold I am an old sinner so born shaped in iniquity in the Womb and out of this shape I cannot change my self and therefore I complain to thee O God Do thou wash me throughly and cleanse me throughly that is justifie and sanctifie me with the Blood and Spirit of thine anointed one on whom thou hast laid my help So in Psal 8. What is sorry man Enosh or wretched man as the Apostles Epithet is in my Text that thou art mindful of such a forlorne Creature which words also shew that we should be sensible of our natural state in the Being yea in the first being of it in us Our Saviour in his Sermon to the Woman of Canaan confirmeth this that I am upon that we should all Jew and Gentile be sensible of corrupt nature in the being of it But he answered I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the House of Israel by these words he names the Jews state by nature to make this Gentile reflect upon her own state as also such and lost Then came she and worshiped saying Lord help me As if she had said with much sorrow of heart if there be any lost Creature in the World surely I am one Then Christ replies again It is not
matter Thus we are by nature of no more reason than a wilde Ass and yet as unturnable as that Creature The old Man is proud and wilful yea presumptuous yea of enmity and despight if resisted as Lions and Dragons are spitting their some and poison as Cats in the face of all that contradict 'T is said of Judas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he became head-long Act. 1.18 He was so in his life for he would on in his work of betraying Christ though convinced by Christ's own preaching and told to his Face that he should betray him And so are the ways of corrupt nature carried head-long He taketh the wise in their own craftiness and the counsels of the froward are carried head-long Joh. 5.13 And all this continually as the Blackamore that cannot change his skin No place better sets out the bad property of natural corruption then that Gen. 6.5 God saw that the wickedness of man was great and that every imagination of the thought of his heart was evil and only evil and that continually For such a visible as well as audible Sermon as Noah preached of 120 Years long would surely have turned them from their sins had they not been desperately obstinate and so continually of which God was sensible and complain'd and was grieved at his heart that he made man And shall God so much lay to heart the depraved state of a man and man himself not lay it to heart at all Fourthly We should be deeply sensible of natural corruption in the consequence of it It is a body of death a body of this death that is it disposeth us to all the wrath of God both in this World and in the World to come And therefore doth the Apostle cry out here in my Text as one utterly loft O wretched man that I am Who shall deliver me c. And they likewise who were prickt at heart by the Apostle Peter's preaching with the sense of their sinful state Cryed out Men and Brethren What shall we do to be saved Which are Scriptures of purpose to shew that we should be deeply sensible of the evil consequence of corrupt nature as it will destroy Soul and Body Judas is called a Childe of Perdition and so are we called Children of wrath by nature that is such as are not under mercy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not pitied as the expression is rightly rendered in the Queens translation 1 Pet. 2.10 Now how are Malefactors affected with the consequence of their evil way when they are going to the Gallows especially when they have no hope of mercy when they be not under talk of mercy and pardon Now our natural state is death without all mercy that is the sentence pronounced upon it if the state so abide a carnal state it is death without all mercy and every carnal man should speak of himself as the Apostle Peter doth as one not under mercy or as one that hath not yet obtained mercy but lies lyable as a Prisoner condemned every hour to Execution I take it that their attonement day spokeâ— of Levit. 23.27 Wherein they were to afflict their Souls upon pain of death had principal reference to their state of sin by nature that body of sin which they brought into the World with them which exposed them and us all unto death and all misery in this World and that to come and if it be so then you have the Point in hand proved and the reason of it why we should be deeply sensible of corrupt nature as well as of all that flowes from it because God commands it and commands it upon great penalty We die for it else unless we afflict our Souls under the sense of our fallen state and Gods displeasure belonging thereunto that Soul which doth not so well die for it their afflicting day was a day to go to the Root and to cast salt and brine upon the springs of wickedness which if they did not the wrath of God seized on their Roots Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord we perswade Men saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 5.11 We perswade Men. To what Answ To look well about them that they be not found in their carnal state when Christ cometh to Judgment So that the deepest sense of this thing should be upon us that can possibly be as if we were now going before the Judgment of quick and dead and all in our sins or as if we were going to the Wedding of a great Prince and had not one rag on our backs to cover our nakedness Vse I Learn from hence that if we should be sensible of natural corruption then of all actual transgressions which are but as streams from this Fountain If we should mourn over the evil Womb then over all the evils which this VVomb brings forth And yet what twins and what tens and what great man-sins and provocations doth this evil VVomb bring forth every where at this day and yet who lays to heart either Mother or Children I hearkned and heard but they spake not aright no Man repented him of his wickedness saying What have I done every one turns to his course as the Horse rusheth into the Battel Jer. 8.6 Vse 2 Woe and alas how much are the most liberal reproved who are past feeling as to both natural corruption and all actual transgressions yea even the fowlest and greatest Giving themselves over to lasciviousness to work all iniquity with greediness and drink in all abominations as the Fish doth Water So far from sense of all sin either in the heart or in the life that all such frame of spirit is scoffed at If a man do but cast the least discountenance on the greatest sin What you are a Phanatick and ready as Swine to turn and tear and rent such as cast such Pearls before them as wholesome and seasonable reproofs and are as the wilde Ass that snuffeth up the wind and in the heat of her lust cannot be turned away Febris accedit the mad Feavour will and must have its course though Heaven or Hell bear upon breaking off or going on They say in the pride and stoutness of their hearts to morrow shall be as this day and much more abundant To talk of a body of death Lord what strange language would this be now adays and if a Man should chance to sigh as the Apostle O wretcheà man that I am What will become of me that Hellish cordial I doubt would be readily administred God dam-me thou wilt do well enough Never was it such a God-daring time for wickedness If it be such a God-damning time as persons pâ—ay Hell will be full of Souls indâ—ed for many Ages surely as this Men have made their hearts as an Adamant that they may not repent and seared their Consciences with a hot Iron that they may be sin-proof and not fall before the greatest wickedness nor the greatest judgment of God That capital curse I fear is inflicted
Fountain open for sin and for uncleanness is very precious to that Leper which indeed and from his heart cryeth out unclean Vse 4 The last Use of this Doctrin is for Exhortation Be at this practise with this Apostle of panting and groaning under the Body of Death when the poor Woman with the Bloody Issue saw that she was not hid she came trembling to Christ Luk. 8.47 and confessed her condition and how long it had been so with her and what ineffectual means she had used and yet wasted all on them Though your corrupt nature be hid from the eyes of men and from your own eyes much to much yet not in the least hid from the eyes of Christ and therefore come trembling to him and confess all your vileness to him as far as you are able but alas what a hard task do I mention 〈◊〉 and how long you have layne in this forlorne state and do as Beggars by the High-ways sides pull off all Plaisters from every soar and take heed of hiding any sin with Fig-leaves as your Father Adam let the great Physician see and know all every putrefied soar that is not bound up nor mollified with oyntment and who knoweth but his eye may move his heart towards you to pity you and to play the good Samaritan and to dress your filthy souls and soars and to anoint them and mollifie them This I think is the meaning of the Prophet Isa 42.18 Hear ye deaf and look ye blinde that ye may see This is a proper work for every sinner to be at to bleed and mourn inwardly for the Fountain of sin that is in him and to bewail the many springs of wickedness which boil up bad matters Night and Day in his Soul to the grieving of the Holy Spirit Hearken to me ye that follow after righteousness ye that seek the Lord look to the roots whence ye were hewen Isa 51.1 to the hole of the Pit whence ye are digged meaning Abraham who was an Idolater and dead in trespasses and sins as well as others The Body of Death is the hole of the Pit out of which cometh all the Frogs and Locusts which crawle and swarm in your lives Many Professors not bewailing this well and throughly as they should build a brave House to look on but on the Sand which with storms falleth and the fall thereof is great The time of loss is to be lookt into and considered Damni dati tempus inspicitur And how old is our loss of God's Image How inveterate is our wound How old is the old Man as old as Methusalah The old man came into the World with you and a Miracle it is that it had not with its great weight like a Mill-stone about your Necks pressed you to your place long ago yea the old man came into the World with this world that now is and with the other world that is drowned and it will bring this to the Fire at last and from burning to burning it is very proper work to be casting tears upon such sparks as will burn to the lowest Hill Secondly 'T is needful work this to know every Man the Plague of his own heart To know it that is to sigh and groan under it as here the Apostle Paul doth When Daniel had received that sad Vision of Nebuchadnezar's ruin the lopping down of that tall Tree which reached to Heaven and the sad condition of a beast which he was to be cast into Daniel remained speechless for one hour and his thoughts troubled him and he was not able to say a word to the King but sighed and lookt sad Dan. 4.19 And an hour more it may be he would have stood sad and sighing before the King and silent if the King had not forced matter from him And this carriage was very needful to set home things upon the King's heart and to make him look about him well And would I could so preach to all you this Day and in this place who are in your natural condition If I were silent now for one hour more and did only sigh over all you carnal and unregenerate Men and Women and look sad and sometimes mourn would it not be very needful as hearts are now heardened well and deeply to affect you Certainly it would so make you look about you well before the great Lopper death come 'T is very needful work for you and me to be at this oft-bewailing our fallen state and the body of this death because we are become as Nebuchadnezar by his fall Beasts that perish even we that were in honour in higher honour than Nebuchadnezar was before his fall We are become as Beasts in some respects and much worse than Beasts in other respects We are in this state without Christ aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel strangers from the Covenant of Promise having no hope and without God in the World which he calls upon every one to remember Ephes 2.11 12. Wherefore remember that ye in times past were thus and thus c. Thirdly This is to go to the Root of our Disease to lay an Axe to the Root The Apostle was wise when he fell upon the main body of wickedness in him Son of man cause Jerusalem to know her abominations and say Thus saith the Lord God unto all Jerusalem thy Birth and thy Nativity is of the Land of Canaan thy Father was an Amorite and thy Mother an Hittite and thy Navel was not cut nor salted c. Ezek. 16.2 3. You cannot know your abominations as you should that is be affected with them as you should unless you look to the Root from whence they all spring and fix your eyes and your hearts there well according to this wholesome instruction of the Lord. We are by nature Amorites and Hittites as wilde as any Children of wrath as well as others and in us i.e. In our nature dwelleth no good but the seeds of all wickedness and until we thus go to the bottom we do in our humiliations but skin over soares and not search and cleanse them well This this Apostle calleth for 1 Cor. 5.7 Purge out therefore the old leaven what a deal a-do there was to search out leaven and to get totally rid of it among the Jews much is said of it the Apostle would have us as industrious about corrupt nature which he calleth old leaven in all our humiliations wherein there should be soul-examinations that we should fall close upon our evil hearts and state within and smite upon them and cry out much upon them Damni dans causam damnum ipsum dedisse videtur The old leaven is the cause of all the sins and miseries we daily fall into This this therefore we should especially bewail and labour about to pluck up the root of bitterness Fourthly There is no dealing with any actual sin without effectual dealing with the body of sin To go to lave a Pool and not first to deal with the
of my mind all the Day I know not at Night where my mind hath been all the Day it hath been at this and at that at the end of the Earth but not in Heaven all the Day Children run not more from one toy to another in their action than I do in my thoughts and affections and dwell upon nothing that is good scarce a moment My understanding is darkned I know not God I know not his Son I know not the Fathers Name nor the Sons I know not the Scriptures both Testaments are a sealed Book to me I know not the Volume that is always open to me in my own Closet I know not my self nor the deceit and guile that desperately stirs in my heart continually A vail is on my heart always as to all these necessary things to be known And as my Eyes be boared out like Samson's as I have no knowledge so I have less affection I am wholly alienated from the Life of God no spiritual life and heat in my heart but as dead as Nabal yea not only a dead heart but a stony heart twice dead ten times dead nothing will make sense neither words nor blows as if I were utterly past all capacity of feeling as a Stone is This is the poor and needy seeking Water and finding none Fourthly Then when you have thus told out your broken story to your Physician then cast your selves upon Him and tell him you do so Honour his ability and all sufficiency to do as great Cures as yours is though you have not faith enough to honour his willingness to undertake your case So did the poor Leper Lord if thou wilt I know thou art able to make me whole Me though a Leper God thy Father hath highly exalted thee and given thee a Name above every name Power and ability above all to open Prisons to lead Captivity Captive to relieve the Poor to bind up broken hearted Thou canst whip out all the Worldly lusts which swarm in my heart all the mony-changing thoughts and affections which make my Soul common and lean and ill favoured There be many great and precious Promises which God hath made and the scope of them is that I should be cleansed from all filthiness of Flesh and Spirit and have a Divine and holy nature given me and thou O Christ art to make all these Promises yea and Amen unto me and art able to do it if thou wilt yea even in my very filthy Soul Why then is it not done Touching Christ's ability see Gen. 2.5 And every Plant before it was in the Earth and every Herb before it grew for the Lord had not made it to rain and there was not a Man to Till the ground The meaning is that Christ the Creator of all things the Eternal Word by which the Father commanded all things to be was not beholding to Nature or Art to make any thing that was made or to preserve it when made he made the Plants and Herbs before they were in the Earth that is he gave the Earth such a formative Vertue to shape such Plants and Flowers in her Womb and then without Rain or Man's Tillage and dressing did he preserve these for Man nor Rain were not yet created when these Plants and Herbs were actually in Beeing by his bare Word did he both make all Plants and Herbs and by the same bare Word without Rain or Tillage of Man did he make them grow and subsist Such is the Power of Christ's Word as to any distress of the Soul to raise the dead to cure the lame and blind Then in the next Place trust that it shall be done unto thee as thou needest and according to the ability of this All-sufficient Agent that he will say to thee as to the Leper I will be thou clean Adam and his Wife perceived that they were naked and were ashamed and hid themselves there Gen. 3.7 and this shame was a blessed forerunner of the great good which immediately follow the revelation of Christ to them and the Promise and the enabling of them to take hold of them For blessed are the poor in Spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of God If God hath opened your eyes to perceive that you are naked wretched and miserable and to groan under it as the Apostle Paul and to be ashamed of your nakedness as our first Parents and that this maketh you tremble and at an utter loss crying out Who shall deliver you 't is a sure sign that God is at hand to reveal Christ to you as he did to Adam and as he did to Paul therefore excite faith even from thy despair by and by some or other will hear thee say I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord am I escaped Motives particularly to press you to deceive and follow these Exhortations are these three First You who groan and sigh with this Apostle O wretched Man and Woman that I am c. You are particularly and specially invited as it were by name to come to Christ and to trust that he is both able and willing yea and cannot do otherwise but relieve you who ever he passeth by Come unto me all ye that are wearied and heavy loaded and ye shall finde rest to your Souls The Promise expresses to all such as you that ye shall finde relief full relief rest to your restless Souls Luk. 11.28 In this Promise observe the universality of the Invitement Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy loaded i. e. which cry out as the Apostle in my Text as lost and undone O wretched man c. All you by name are invited and therefore it will be your sin and shame not to come to Christ that is to trust that he will undertake your case and do you good Therefore as the Apostle saith as to his sufficiency so say I as to his will Having such a High Priest let us draw nigh with a true heart in full assurance of faith So say I having such a merciful High Priest yea and having such a high and precious Promise let all burdened and heart-loaded sinners draw nigh to Christ with full assurance of faith that he will give them rest Where promises are so particularly directed it is much indulgence and as a stretching out the Hand and Scepter to Esther to welcome and embolden the trembling doubting sinner yea it is as the Father of the Prodigals beholding him afar off and running to meet him Secondly Consider that Christ is not meerly under the Bond of his Promise to relieve such though this he cannot break as he cannot lie but he is under the bond of much affection in this work Husbands love your Wives as Christ loved his Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctifie and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word that he might present it to himself spotless Ephes 5.26 No Husband can with more natural affection tender and succour the Wife of
all good to the great good Christ and to the embracing of him Some are well and yet still offering their hand to the Physician saith Seneca their hearts being like a Pond after a storm a long while trembling Some are not Soul well the Plague of a hard heart being on them and their sores and swellings daily to be seen without searching for and yet never offer their Pulse to any to feel them but judge themselves well and their state good which confidence is carnal and an evident token of an impenitent and insensible heart If ye say that ye have no calamity in your Families nor Death in your Houses yet Death is much in the dwellings of many others How do ye lay this to heart God doth whip some upon others backs and this is tender mercy and should be the more melting and abasing and drawing to Christ as Cords of great love Is it thus with you How the Prophet Jeremiah was affected with the calamity of others especially as he saw it did no good upon their Souls which was an evident token how well it wrought upon his Soul though others smarted yet he laid to heart and profited My bowels my bowels I am pained at my very heart my heart maketh a noise in me I cannot hold my peace because thou hast heard O my Soul the sound of the trumpet and the alarum of War Destruction upon destruction is cryed for the whole Land is spoiled suddenly are my Tents spoiled and my Curtains in a moment How long shall I see the Standard and hear the sound of the Trumpet for my People is foolish they have not known me they are sottish Children they have no understanding they are wise to do evil but to do good they have no knowledge Jer. 4.19 20. Let us apply these words to our selves do not we lie in such an ill frame of Spirit Are not our hearts though God's hand be so heavy still sottish and sensless of all that whereby we have provoked God to do all this against us Very wise and quick to see the Moat in others Eyes and to lay the blame at others doors You will say so did Jeremiah in this Scripture which you have quoted I answer That the Prophet did see provocations abroad it is true but that it was not without looking well to his own heart see Jer. 12.1 2 3. Righteous art thou O Lord when I plead with thee yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper Wherefore are all they happy which deal very treacherously Thou hast planted them yea they have taken root they grow yea they bring forth fruit thou art neer in their mouths and far from their Reins but thou O Lord knowest me and seen me and tryed my heart towards thee pull them out like Sheep for the slaughter and prepare them for the Day of slaughter As if he had said thou knowest right well that I have frailties and infirmities many yet thou also knowest that I bewail them and in all things I endeavour to approve my self to thee by thy help and would do nothing to provoke thee in this Day Can we thus approve our selves to GOD now Vse 4 Let the last Use of this Doctrine be for Exhortation Be sensible and lay to heart this mortal time and this dying day the many thousands of all sorts good and bad which now are swept away Let it not be said that the Graves are wide open Hell is wide open but our hearts are still fast shut Righteous and merciful Men as well as profane drunken covetous Nabals are taken away but none lay to heart one or the other If the Prophets charge in my Text should be found a true charge against us alass for us we are all dead Men and Women and no escaping Wherefore stir up your selves weep not for the dead but weep for your selves saying alass alass what have I done How do I live that so many die where I dwell Do not I infect the Parish my Family this City And be close home in these Queries and in these Heart-smitings for surely if we did judge our selves as we should every one in truth we should not thus continually be judged of the Lord. The Bells tole and ring in your ears every Morning and Evening but is there nothing else sounds in your Ears No Achan no accursed thing that yet your hearts hide and cleave so fast to And will not yet though thus affrighted part with A dreadful sound is in his ears Job 15.21 in prosperity the Destroyer shall come upon him said Eliphaz to Job he speaks to Job as to a worldly Man catcht in his worldly ways You have had worldly ways and tumblings all over the World you Citizens and now you are at leisure and quiet Do you not hear some dreadful sound in your ears of sin in this and in that you have complained for want of leisure now you have leisure pray lissen well now to your consciences what dreadful reports they are ready to make at the great Bat above against you O lay these to heart well for these have slain you and us now in all that is dear and will slay yet all the remnant unless we all repent The Prophet Elija by killing two Captains and their Fifties brought the third Captain upon his knees and to humble himself whether in truth I know not but he saved his life by it and the lives of his Fifty men O that Christ by killing so many Thousands so many Eight Thousands and so many Five Thousands might bring the rest upon their knees indeed to him he got his life and we should get our lives and our Souls and so would the Plague as a Plague not come nigh our dwelling Secondly Let me exhort you to lay to heart the import of these general strokes that one and all are so cut off wicked and righteous These kind of general strokes do import that we all have sinn'd and have much provoked God one as well as another Righteous Men and merciful Men have not been so holy and righteous and so merciful as we should Behold the Days come saith the Lord That I will punish the circumcised with the uncircumcised Aegypt and Juda and so puts them together and then Edom and Ammon and Moab and Israel with them which are in the uttermost parts of the Earth For all these Nations are uncircumcised in Flesh and all the House of Israel are uncircumcised in heart Jer. 9.25.26 Some Men are outwardly and openly stark naught and the best of us it seems are not so good at heart as we should be this let us lay to heart all of us Or else the import of this general mortality is that God means to harden the hearts of some much by slaying the good as well as the bad that they who have no mind to repent and change their courses may be confirmed and encouraged in them in as much as
they see that they escape as well as others and live as long as others The World is drawing on apace to Atheisme and the providence of God seems to rock the Cradle The Idolater and the sincere worshiper the superstitious and the truly tender conscience Nabal and the merciful Abigail all die promiscuously Why who can tell now which to prefer to follow That one may think his Religion as good as the other the the Papist and Protestant both die of the Plague and that the ceremoneist may think as well of his way as the strict Non-conformist they both die of the Plague and this is a Plague indeed to some this is raining snares upon Men which are willing to slumber in their own ways Some are afraid to be over-righteous and over-strict and the judgments of God falling so promiscuously will make such very temperate in their Religion If this be the import of God's destroying righteous and wicked to harden slight and loose Professors we had need look well to it who profess the Gospel that we be very substantial and real and that we be not catcht with this snare of judging by outward appearance but look to the Word what that requires This snare the Prophet Malachy speaks of Mal. 2.17 Ye have wearied the Lord with your words and yet ye say wherein have we wearied him When ye say that every one that doth evil is good in the sight of the Lord or Where is the God of judgment Surely the Lord likes our good fellowship and all the latitudes we use and carnal contents and pleasures as well as their rigid strict self-denying conversation or else he would not spare us as much or more than he doth them lay to heart this import of GOD's promiscuous dealing above all how God hardens sinners in their sins by such dealings Or Thirdly and Lastly This promiscuous dealing of God imports that which my Text here tells us that there are greater evils to come which God takes the righteous from and this should be much laid to heart indeed according to the very letter of my Text. So was Josia by a less judgment taken from a greater A praesenti praesumitur circa futura saith the Civilian From present things we may presume concerning future If Lot be warned and pulled out of Sodom there is surely some great and fearful storm a coming If God snatch his People as he did Josia in hast as it were to Heaven we may say with this Prophet in my Text they are taken from the evil to come Lay to heart therefore the hand of God that it slayes so generally one and all and lay to heart the import of it that it boads some greater evil to come There be Serpents which have heads in their tails called Amphisbaenae This stroke of God taking away righteous and wicked hath a head in the tail of it that will make worse work than this head which is now fore-most and yet how many doth this fore-most head now smite and slay and how mortal and tremendous is this fore-head Thirdly Be exhorted to lay to heart this that you may be the next cut off who ever you be seeing the slaughter men in this day spare none young nor old rich nor poor close Lanes nor open Streets righteous nor wicked What should we all then say to our selves but this surely I may be next the mark which God will hit What a trade the Coffin-makers and Grave-makers now have And Hell answerably doubly inlargeth it self as you do now seek out for new Church Yards and should not we smite on our breasts and say O the wonderful mercy and power and patience of the Lord that none of all these have been employed about me yet That so many thousands should be gone before and so many thousands more drawing on and drawing after and I yet not one of these O magnified be the rich and Soveraign mercy of God! Am I more righteous more merciful more useful with my Talent than such and such that are gone O no not worthy to be named in the Day with them and yet that I should be left and they taken that they should have their turn their over-turn before me When I say lay to heart that you may be next I mean more than one thing the admiring of GOD's mercy that you are yet spared I mean this also lay to heart your state whether you be ready I was wroth with my People I have polluted mine Inheritance and given them into thine hand thou didst shew them no mercy upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid the yoke And thou saidst I shall be a Lady for ever so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart neither didst remember the latter end of it Isa 47.6 7. Many parts of the Christian World are given into the hands of Men and they do with them at their pleasure and yet are secure and consider not the end of such ways that it will be bitterness at last I have nothing to do with such but with you Are not you yet in some ways which are not good and yet promise peace to your selves in them yea though GOD's slaughter-men and Fellers be come up to London The Plague was first at South-hampton and at other Countrey-Towns before it came to London yea come up to your Doors and not say rather to your selves I had need look about me I am likely to be next And what if the Fellers fell me Whither will the Tree fall when it falleth Will not the fall of it be very great If the righteous scarcely escape now if the merciful Man scarcely escape now Am I likely to escape Motives to press you thus to lay to heart these things are these First Is this in my Text How few do lay matters to heart now either the matters of his works or words rods or escapes righteous Men merciful Men rich Men and poor Men the Judge and the honourable c. are taken away and yet none lay this to heart If the Prophet had said few lay things to heart I would have kept his phrase but because he saith none I am but too justly lead to say so too Mortality and deadness of Bodies is not yet so general as mortality and deadness of Souls Zion stretcheth forth her hands and there is none to comfort the Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob that his adversaries should be round about him Jerusalem is as a menstruous Woman amongst them Lam. 1.17 We the Lord's People as in every Age have adversaries round about the righteous Man and the merciful Man hath adversaries enough But who of the World nay who of our selves lay this to heart A Second Motive to press you to lay to heart these times is also in the Text. Lay to heart present Rods or it will be an ill presage upon us that worse things Seven times worse are at Door If we be yet senseless and walk contrary surely we shall be
punished Seven times more 't is an ill presage as to the whole Nation that God may be laying an Axe to the Root of all My heritage is to me as a speckled Bird the Birds round about are against her assemble all ye Beasts of the Field come to devour they have made it desolate and it being desolate mourneth to me the whole Land is made desolate because no man layeth it to heart Jer. 12.9 10 11. This Text sheweth us the evil to come which my Text speaks but darkly of General insensibility foretelleth general ruine A poor speckled People are most Protestant Churches at this Day and greater spots me-thinks we get still by gadding to change our way which I fear are not the spots of his People For these things Plague and Sword and Famine have desolated much the Protestant Countreys Cities and Nations and we seem now to be drawing after For these things these Nations mourn that is the welfare of many mournes but Persons are still insensible The City being desolate it mourns and the Land being desolate it mourneth but we are jovial and drink Wine in Bowls and stretch our selves on our Beds of Ivory and chant to the sound of the Viol c. which presageth worse still to come than yet we feel You have by your insensible sottish carriage under all the dealings of God made great Graves for a great many good Men and good things and you will make a greater for all the rest that remain and rowl a stone upon the mouth of it that the whole City may be desolate the whole Land be desolate and no remedy If ye do not lay things to heart A Third Motive is this lay to heart present mortal strokes or else you will be surprised with those that are to come else the evils approaching will justly overtake you unawares You will as the fool be singing a requiem to your souls Soul take thine ease and be quiet thou hast got a good Air to dwell in and all Neighbours about us be well yet there is not one sick of the Plague in all the Parish and thou hast got an excellent receit against the Plague such and such used it all the last great Plague and were all well on some such Lees will you settle and so be surprised with God's Visitation I will visit them that are setled upon their Lees saith the Lord and a Visitation when People are thus secure will be a Plague with a vengeance to Soul and Body an Eternal Plague that by dying you will die This Plague is spoken of Isa 29.9 Stay your selves and wonder cry ye out and cry they are druncken but not with Wine they stagger but not with strong drink for the Lord hath poured cut upon the Spirit of deep sleep and hath closed your eyes your Prophets and Rulers the Seers hath he covered and the vision of all is become unto you as the wonder of a Book that is sealed I am afraid that this is the Plague of the Plague that is upon us A spirit of deep sleep is poured upon all ranks wherefore cry out and cry if ye can ye handful which are here this day yet in the Land of the living that ye with all the rest be not surprised with the Evil that is yet to come Fourthly You are the Men and Women which have seen afflictions as the Prophet Jeremy said I am the Man that have seen affliction by the Rod of his wrath Lam. 3.1 You have not only read the Bills but you have been at the Burials you have been of the Mourners that have gone about the Streets You have seen the black trains of dead Corses going by Sixes and Tens to their long home therefore your eyes should affect and afflict your hearts Alass if we here in the midst of so many Thousand deaths be Soul-dead and lay nothing to heart how is it likely that they in the Country which see none of these Sermons should be deeply affected They have scarcely the Word to quicken them in many places and you have the Word and the Rod and the Marks of the Rod upon your Bodies and upon the Bodies of yours the Marks of the Lord Jesus wrath you that have such feeling Sermons and not feel how will this be cryed out upon GOD that is come so neer to judge you that have been so neer the Grave if not Hell that have dwelt in Golgotha among nothing but Tombes Graves Sculs and lean walking Ghostes for so many Moneths this Year when others have been out of the sight and hearing of all these things if you weep not to them 't is very unlikely that they will weep unto you Finally This duty of laying to heart the promiscuous mortal strokes of God is a duty wherein God will help you and succeed you therefore up and be at it God hath promised to take away the heart of stone and to give a heart of Flesh and that with weeping and supplication he will lead us And therefore we should wait upon the Word in these his ways because he will meet us and assist us in the work of this day And God will not only assist but accept and prosper this work of humiliation I have heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus since I spake against him I do earnestly remember him still God doth surely hear all bemoaning penitent sinners and makes a book of remembrance They which go forth weeping sowing precious seed shall doubtless return with rejoycing bringing their sheaves with them And then will you be called the repairers of breaches and the restorers of Pathes to dwell in I conclude all with the saying of one Vt valet quisque accipiat Let every one weigh well what hath been said and receive these things as he seeth good and live in this dying day as he should or as he will FINIS THE DESCRIPTION OF A FRIEND Being A SERMON ON Prov. 17.17 A Friend loveth at all times and a Brother is born for adversity Prov. xvii Vers xvii A friend loveth at all times and a brother is born for adversity THe condition of the Lords People is very necessitous and yet like to be much more it may not be therfore now unseasonable to Preach unto you the Doctrine of neighbourly love that we may be stirred up to become helpsul one to another as the state of times doth or shall call for at our hands The nature of friendâ—hip and the use thereof in distressed conditions are the two main things of this Verse to be lookt into The nature of friendship is to love A friend loveth c. Love is as much the formality of a friend as rationality of a Man Humane nature begets a kind of Kindred between all Man-kind which state supposeth love Cum natura quandam cognationem inter homines constituat alterum alteri insidiari nefas est saith the Civilian Whereas nature makes a certain Kindred between Men for one to betray another is most wicked Now if
nature make a kind of Kindred and so consequently love much more friendship makes a kind of Kindred yea neer Kindred a brother A friend is as my Text saith a brother as a very neer Kinsman or as a neerest Kinsman And you may as well say a brother is a brother without love as say a friend is a friend without love A friend loveth c. that is purely Pure love is that which springeth from pure Principles which are two love to GOD and love to Man as some way or other bearing his Image either by Creation or Regeneration and so not upon any self-account Thus David loved Saul and was much pleased with the Men of Jabesh Gilead that buried Saul and much offended with the Amalechite that killed him although he was his great and implacable Enemy And thus Jonathan loved David although David dethroned him Jonathan was grieved that his Father had done David shame so Jonathan arose from the Table in fierce anger and did eat no meat the second day of the Moneth for he was grieved for David because his Father had done him shame I Sam. 20.34 A friend loveth a friend upon his honour as he would be found answering the will of God and the Creatures true good and for no bribe of applause or profit The Men of Israel were angry with the Men of Judah for stealing David home from his exile without them And the Men of Juda made this ingenuous reply The King is neer of Kin to us Wherefore then be ye angry for this matter Have we eaten at all of the King's cost Or hath he given us any gift 2 Sam. 19.42 Have we as if they had said any self-end in our kindness to David but shewing pure love as such a neer Relation requires The love of sympathy is pure love The Iron moveth to the Load-stone not from knowledge consequently not from design but from some hidden similitude in property between them which is as love in rational Creatures and from the hand of the first mover which inclines this Creature to that as pleaseth him and no more else can be said of the matters of friendship no gifts nor this nor that make it We love not yours but you saith the Apostle Secondly A friend loveth c. that is really not in word only but in deed as the Apostle saith And David said to Abiathar I knew how it would be when Doeg the Edomite was there I have occasioned the death of all these Persons of thy Fathers house abide thou with me fear not for he that seeketh thy life seeketh my life but with me thou shalt be in safety I Sam. 22.23 I will take care of thy life and livelihood as of my own as of he had said A friend is alter ego another self Hushai is called David's friend and he made David's case and condition his own and adventured himself far as far as his life and laid down his life for his friend Beasts love one another and will fight for one another to the death whose friendship is but a love of sympathy There are in England 9725 Parishes how many thousand Souls may be in these Parishes If I should be asked by Men in Place what is true friendship to all these Souls I would answer To love them really What is that I answer To love them in words and in deeds to do as he we read of in the Acts of the Apostles He loved our Nation and built us a Synagogue to provide able and faithful Preachers for every Parish through these Kingdomes that is to love their Souls and to feed them and so to love their Bodies who are in want and to feed them and to cloath them my meaning is to set good Ministers and good Magistrates over them this were to love really and so to be a true friend to the Nation and to all in it To give titles of honour and complements this is not that which filleth up the definition of friendship Cannot a City and all Places study plaucibility of carriage and must this by and by be called friendship But as Absalom said to Hushai that stuck not to him in his distress Is this thy kindness to thy friend to talk and to give goodly complements Why wentest thou not-with thy friend 2 Sam. 16.7 A poor Widdow a Ministers poor Widdow of which there be many now complained to the Prophet Elisha and he became a friend to her what was that Answ He loved her really And Elisha said to the Widdow of the Prophet What shall I do for thee 2 Kings 4.2 and did do for her to purpose as much as her condition needed Set her out of debt and gave her and hers wherewith to live upon Pliny tells us of a Sea that doth Accipere amnem in rotam sed non recipit That is takes in such a River but doth not connaturalise it self with it doth not incorporate it as with other waters but as it goeth in so it goes out And just so do we open our Doors and Gates of our Houses and Towns and accipere take in poor Ministers and poor People but do not recipere receive them i. e. welcome in with What shall I do for you and for yours and make their wants as our own and mingle tears and sighs and cares and travels and spirits and purses with them Thirdly A friend loveth c. that is strongly or unexpressibly I am distressed for thee my brother Jonathan very pleasant hast thou been unto me thy love to me was wonderful passing the love of Women 2 Sam. 1.26 Niphla from Pala it signifies saith the Critick high and hidden such as Man's power cannot reach nor perform nor reason attain unto Used Exod. 33.16 For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy People have found favour in thy sight Is it not in that thou goest with us So shall we be separated I and thy People from all the People that are upon the Face of the Earth Separated this is the word that is so shall we be a People above all expression admired and beloved and honoured c. So did Jonathan honour and esteem David beyond all expression And such is the love of a friend it should seem as set forth to us by the Word There is a Hauke which they call accipiter humipeta because it lies hovering over Mice and little Vermin on the Earth and petty small Birds as they peep in Hedges and Furrowes and useth not to soar and seek any noble and great Game as some other kind of stately Hawkes do So there is a love of Man to Man attended with some small realities of action giving some small Mony as one goeth the Streets and broken meat from the Table and such like little low things of kindnesses and love which may well be spared and no prejudice but this kind of love though it hath a reality in it and doth good and would there were more of this in these times
slight cheap cold business and so think that the World is full of friends and friendships till we come to want a Friend We think they are friends which serve us as the Welsh Witch served Teolin the Second Prince of North-Wales who told him that he should ride through London with a Crown upon his Head and this was to comfort him whereupon he 〈◊〉 â—o be vexatious to the borderers of England till at last he was in Battel overthrown and his Head cut off and fixed on a stake and adorned with a Paper Crown and was by a Horse man carried triumphantly through London And if People do but put some pleasing foolish things in our Heads and flatter us this is for your honour and 'tother thing much for your interest though never so destructive these are friends and embraced and prefered And so do this and do that and ye shall have a living and any thing that I can do for you and so the friendship hath some ill condition in it which to be embraced might outwardly advance peradventure but inwardly cast down certainly yet these which put these Paper-crowns upon our Heads would be accounted great friends and so they are to an ill Interest Learn that the Providence of GOD is much to be reverenced for he makes friends and most an end of strangers and others fail us on whom our expectation most is that we may the more reverence GOD and his Providence Jeremiah's Kindred failed him and God raised up Ebedmelech and Ahikam and both at such times that surely Jeremiah had otherwise lost his life he had been starved to death had it not been for Ebedmelech My Lord the King these Men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the Prophet whom they have cast into the Dungeon and he is like to die for hunger in the place where he is for there is no more bread in the City Jer. 38.9 which kindness of his God will reward see Jer. 39.16 By which it is evident he had starved had it not been for the friendship of this stranger And he had been hanged or beheaded or some sudden violent death done to him by Jehojakim had not the hand of Ahikam been with and for Jeremiah For the King at the same time had fetcht Vriah out of Aegypt a Prophet who prophesied the same that Jeremiah did and slew him with the Sword Nevertheless the hand of Ahikam was with Jeremiah to save him Jer. 26.24 It is brought in with a nevertheless to shew the admirable Providence of God who did raise up this friend to stick so close to a poor helpless Man And the poor Criple which had lain at the Pool long of a Disease of 38 Years and then he had lain till he had perished in likelihood but that Christ came there and became a friend to him to shew us that the Providence of God is much to be reverenced for he brings forth Brethren for adversity he creates a Brother for the day of adversity David was a stranger to his Brethren and an alien unto his Mothers Children Psal 69.8 And yet well known to Gittai a stranger that would live when he did and die when he did and this questionless that David might see the Man of God's providence and special care and remember it For had we our reliefs still from such as are some way engaged to be helpful either as some way related or as some way by our kindness to them obliged to us it would make us take our escapes in danger our supplies and helps in straits more slightly and forgetfully Course usually are the kindnesses of neer relations sometimes as Reeds they run into our hands and so far from being merciful that they are unjust As Joseph's Brethren to him and God had a Soveraign hand in all that that he might raise Brethren to Joseph himself yea that he might make Joseph a better Brother in adversity to them than they had been to him The last Use of this Point is for Exhortation Do you become such friends Brethren for this Day of Adversity Be pittiful be kindly affectioned be tender-hearted be cloathed with humility and bowels stoop and wash the Saints Feet yea to pull thine Enemies Oxe out of the Ditch and to lift up his Beast if fallen down under his burden though thy cruel heart would pass him by But as for me when they were sick my cloathing was Sackcloath I humbled my soul with fasting and my Prayer returned into mine own bosom I behaved my self as though he had been my friend or brother I bowed down heavily as one that mourneth for his Mother I was rewarded evil for all this good Psal 35.12 13 14. If ye be friends to friends What singular thing do ye Be friends to strangers yea to the poor and friendless such as whose Persons you do not know only their cases are well known yea be friends to enemies yea though illy requited So was David so was and so is Christ to Thousands and Millions every Day among which it may be you are some They lacked not any thing in the first Church of the Gospel Act. 4.34 They fulfilled the Law of brotherhood If you become friends you become brethren upon such brethren born for such extremities And if ye take the name of friend remember that you are created Brethren in the day of adversity and fulfill the Law of your adopted and chosen relation Let not the distressed want if you can help them I cannot exhort you yet to sell to be merciful but I would I could first exhort you to buy some thing here and there that you might be substantial friends to many in distress Ministers and others Ministers Widows and others the Widows and the Fatherless and the oppressed and the oppressed and ruined in many Towns and Places who are eaten up with Vermin and have no helper no friend But one saith he will help and he will be a friend and he eats the flesh and another he saith give him but a good Fee and he will help and he will be a friend and he takes the poor Carcase that is best and he picks the bones and of these friends there are great store but few such as my Text describeth for which I fear the Land mourneth and much more will Be friends to the distressed be so simply Is there any of the House of Saul that I may shew the kindness of God to him 2 Sam. 9.3 And Ziba that Wretch said Jonathan hath yet a Son that is lame of his Feet and would not so much as give his Name nor put the least word of respect as if he would have insinuated to David that this Criple was not worth the looking after by such a Man of honour as David And such self-seeking Wretches great Men have at their elbows which keep them from becoming simple and sincere friends For simple friendship is to look after Criples and beggers blind and lame and halt as Christ
doth To invite them to our Table which have scarce nothing to eat at their own Table who to be sure cannot invite us again and to be Legs to the lame and Eyes to the blind c. But these are so unthankful that who can have any heart to do any thing for them I answer Such whose hearts are simple and who as David shew simple friendship they will look upon Criples as Criples and blind as blind lame and blind in their Souls as well as in their Bodies and if you would have People be thankful be simple in your kindness let them see that you do not seek theirs in the least but them every way the relief of them Mephibosheth was never like to make a Man of use to attend upon David to honour his Table this had been rather to have sought a friendship than to have shewed one It is a Custome amongst the Turkes not to believe a Christian's or a Jew's complaint against a Turk without a Turk's witness too and that is the reason why in such Cases Justice is much corrupted and so little to be had I only allude to this The cases and conditions of many oppressed poor and mean ones is such that unless they can get such and such as are great to witness to their cause and own them and stick to them their own complaints will not be believed nor heard not indeed will any take it in hand unless they see that which may be good self-encouragement and advantage so that falleth out to be true which that great Statesman observed in his Days The rich have many friends not only one friend of which the poor would be glad but many friends and the Poor is hated of his own Neighbour Prov. 14.20 And Prov. 19.4 Wealth maketh many friends but the poor is separated from his neighbour When ye see a gold Ring on a Man's Finger there you take him up and his cause is good as Absalom said and ye do but want one well to plead it and I will do it and I will do it and what a many friends the wealthy Man and the Man with the Gold Ring and long Hair hath but a poor Man that hath but one Ewe Lamb as Nathan's Parables is but a little estate left and that in danger to be all taken away too who strives to plead this Persons case and to own and to cleave to such a helpless one Wherefore I exhort be simple in your friendship as purely born for adversity Secondly Be tender and strong friends that is not in word only but in deed and in the greatest actions and labours and deeds which distresses need to relieve them What a friend Barzillai was to David in his distress against Absalom beyond Jordan How brought he him all Provisions for Himself and Followers which David much remembred because it was so seasonable And what a friend was Obadia to the Lord's Prophets when the violence of Ahab and Jessabel was great who hid them by Fifties in a Cave when it must needs be with the peril of his life And our Saviour seems to grant such a strength in friendship as to lay down the life for a friend Joh. 15.13 Greater love hath no Man than this that a Man lay down his life for his friends Our Saviour seems to grant such a height in the love of friendship And the Apostle saith we ought to lay down our life for a brother And a friend is a created Brother of our own Creation and created of purpose for a plunge Therefore it will be lovely to get all the heights of true friendship in this evil Day because distresses and plunges are so high and hard and great Nothing less almost will relieve some poor distressed People unless we do much expose our selves as Obadia and the Brethren which rescued Paul out of the Tumult when he was knockt down and all thought he was dead And Rizpah the Daughter of Aiah took Sack-cloth and spread it for her upon the Rock from the begining of Harvest till Water dropped upon them and suffered neither the Birds of the Air to rest on them by Day nor the Beasts of the Field by Night 2 Sam. 21.10 Rizpah made a covering over her of this Sack-cloth and sate under it day and night with those dead Corpses of Saul's Family which friendship was very strong and tender and painful and David took it wonderful well at her hands And if she did so watch with the dead that no violence might be done by Birds or Beasts It was strong friendship in him which said come and let us go and die with him 'T were well if we could watch with the living and that we could play the friends so to many in Prisons and bonds and extremities which are not dead Corpse yet but almost so and many of them worse than so that is worse than if they were dead my meaning is that where distress is great we would become great friends Our Rule is to covet the best gifts to be most eminent and excellent in every Grace and be you in this of friendship Be thus always And Hyram King of Tyre sent his Servants unto Solomon for he had heard that they had anointed Him King c. for Hiram was ever a lover of David 1 Kings 5.1 This is the Property made of friendship in my Text A friend loveth at all times Had Hiram been a lover of David only sometimes and when David had no need of him doubtless David would have been cautious of him and not have put him among the number of his friends but he was always a lover of David And it fell on a day that Elisha passed to Shunem where was a great Woman and she constrained him to eat Bread And so it was that as oft as he passed by he returned in thither to eat bread Not once or twice coldly invited but she constrained him and as oft as he passed by and that she might be sure of him always when he went that way She said to her Husband behold now I perceive that this is an holy Man of God which passeth by us continually let us make a little Chamber in the Wall and let us set for him there a Bed a Table a Stool and a Candlestick and it shall be when he cometh to us that he turn in thither 2 Kings 4.10 Friendship is a natural thing and what is natural is durable I have none that doth so naturally care for me saith the Apostle Paul of Timothy A friend becomes a Brother that is naturally affected as if flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone and 't is supposed in nature that natural relations are natural always as hand and the foot to the head and the head to the hand and foot are tenderly and strongly careful and affectionate always Jonathan went to David in the Cave and strengthned his hand in God as well as when David was in favour with Saul and that their friendship
which God inflicts sometimes upon the Sons of Men yea upon his own Children Secondly This Metaphor is to set forth the numbers and troops of trials wherewith God punisheth his sometimes and the number can as well be numbered as the nature be fathomed you can as well fathom the bottomless Ocean as number the Waves and Billowes which beat up and down in it Thirdly This Metaphor fetcht forth the continuedness of afflâ—ction Deep calleth upon deep or calleth for deep That is one Wave beateth up and beateth on another * Undam undaque pellit or unda sequax as Virgil saith through the Tempests which God raiseth Afflictions unfathomable innumerable and very durable fall sometimes upon the People of God The next thing this Text sheweth to us is the greatness and invincibleness of faith which is set forth unto us by the Person faith taketh hold on in distress and that is God Faith leans on no Creature high nor low for in great distress What can the greatest Man do but God Yet the Lord shall c. Secondly The potency and invincibleness of faith is shewed unto us by that attribute in God on which faith fastens and that is his Soveraignty which commands all other wheels to go The Lord will command his loving kindness c. Thirdly Faith in the potency and invincibleness of it is shewed us by its excellent issues and effect which it doth produce which are two Prayer and Praise and in every dark state And in the Night his Song shall be with me and my Prayer to the God of my life in which is involved peace and joy and all good Doct. The Doctrin which I observe from these words is this That God sometimes maketh all his Waves and Billowes to go over Men yea good Men. The Psalmist thus complaineth not once in my Text but in Psal 69.1 2. Save me O God for the Waters are come into my Soul I sink in deep Mire where there is no standing I am come into deep Waters where the Floods overflow me I am weary of my crying my throat is dried mine eyes fail whilst I wait for my God David was a Man after God's own heart and yet saith he The waters are come into my Soul and I am come into deep Waters which overflow me and I cry to God and he lets me cry till my throat be dryed and can obtain no answer Elsewhere he speaks of himself and others Thâ—u sellest thy People for naught and dost not increase thy wealth by their price alluding to Slaves thou makest us a reproach to our Neighbours a scorn and derision to them that are round about us my confusion is still before me and the shame of my face hath covered me Psal 44 12 13 14. There is a great distance between the Planets they cannot dart one to another saith Seneca But it is not so with afflictions these will dart and reach one to another when pain is on the body it will reach unto the Soul All afflictions for kind and qualities and all for degree and quantity doth God sometimes bring upon Man First All afflictions for kind and quality that is spiritual and temporal Spiritual afflictions GOD brings upon Men yea upon the best Men. The loss of Ordinances When I remember these things I pour out my Soul for I had gone with the Multitude to the House of God Psal 42.4 As the loss of Ordinances So 2. The loss of God in Ordinances Why are thou cast down O my Soul c. O my God my Soul is cast down within me therefore will I remember thee from the Land of Jordan So Job complaineth of the loss of God The Arrows of the Lord are within me and the poison of them drink up my Spirit Job 6. And what a Man was he for integrity I acknowledge my sin and yet mine iniquity is ever before me Psal 51.3 Mine iniquities are gone over my head they are a heavy buâ—den too heavy for me to bear my wounds stink and are corrupt through my own foolishness Psal 38.4 5. A storm cannot raise it self above the Moon much less as far as the Stars saith the Philosopher and yet spiritual storms raise themselves in the Soul above all Sun Moon and Stars above all the graces gifts and endowments the Soul hath and eclipse and darken all My heart is sore pained within me and the terrors of death are fallen upon me fearfulness and trembling are come upon me and horrour hath overwhelmed me Psal 55.4 So Haman whilst I suffer thy terrors I am distracted And then God is gone indeed and Sun Moon and Stars overwhelmed Secondly Temporal afflictions doth God bring upon Men yea upon the best of Men. How our Saviour was afflicted in Spirit we read his Soul was heavy to death how he cried out and roared because of God hideing himself and as to all outward miseries and injuries what was not inflicted on him that Man or Devil yea or the Justice of God could inflict His visage was marred more than any Man's He had no House nor home He was in the Wilderness worried by Devils and wild Beasts He had no Bread no Bed no Friends forsaken of all even of all his Disciples So Haman how he complaineth of Bodily afflictions I am afflicted and ready to die from my Youth Psal 88.14 He had not a well day in all his life as we say and yet lived in an ill time to be sick namely when our Fathers were in their conflicts in Egypt under Pharaoh And yet mark what he saith then Thou hast laid me in the lowest Pit in darkness in the deep thy wrath lieth hard upon me Ps 88.7 and thou hast afflicted me with all thy Waves Sela. As if he had said that it should be done thus to and poor Creatures such a season as this when under the tiranny of a Foreign Enemy let it be wonder'd at by all the Creation Angels and Men. So Hezekiah how afflicted outwardly with a great Army of merciless Men insulting and besieging him and no sooner that over but sick unto death of the Plague and other infirmities as you may read by his complaints Mine Age is departed like a Shepheards Tent it is removed I have cut off like a Weaver my life he will cut me off with pining sickness which is many thousand deaths from Day even to Night he will make an end of me I reckoned that as a Lion so he will break all my bones Isa 38.12 Comets appear in the calmest Ayr and yet are very prodigious things So corporal calamities break out upon Men when in the greatest calm of ease and content When David said his Mountain was strong and that he should never be removed by and by you hear him cry out I am troubled I am bowed down greatly I go mourning all the Day long for my loins are filâ—d with a loathsome disease and there is no soundness in my flesh I am feeble and sore broken I
have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart Psal 38.8 Secondly As God brings all afflictions for kind and quality on Men yea on good Men that is afflictions spiritual and temporal inward and outward on soul and body So he brings all afflictions for quantity and degree that is afflictions very great and of long continuance Were they not great and sore things done against Job Whilst he was yet speaking there came another and saith the Fire of God is fallen from Heaven i. e. A great Fire and hath burnt up the Sheep and the Servants and I only am escaped to tell thee Poor Job now indeed that Fire and Brimstone from the Lord out of Heaven should be rained upon him as upon Sidom that so he might judg himself to deserve no better than the wicked Sodomites did What a degree of high Trial and what a great Twig in the Rod was this Yea God saith of the Devil that he moved him against Job without cause to swallow him up Job 2.3 that is saith the Margent when the Devil had nought against him nor able to bring his own malicious designs to pass against him yet read Satans Second Commission So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his Foot to the crown of his Head and he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withall and sate down amongst the ashes and then his friends poured Gall and Vinegar into his Cup which altogether made his afflictions of the greatest magnitude indeed the greatest I think that ever meer Man had David tells us of the Lyon and the young Lyon upon him Psal 17.12 and of such as did set their mouths against the Heavens and bark and bite all good Persons and things and therefore the Lord's People returned hither that is when they could get no shelter from the wicked and Waters of a full Cup were wrung out to them Psal 73.10 And full Cups of misery speak the greatest punishments for degree and quantity Secondly God brings afflictions upon Men yea upon the best Men as great and sharp so of long continuance It hath been a sharp Winter this and of long continuance so doth God make in other matters some times Some Rivers * As Nilus that ancient River had their beginning with the World and so it may be will have their end not till the World ends And some afflictions have their beginning as soon as we and will have no end till we have yea some Rods extraordinary begin with some good People as soon almost as they begin to be and end not till they end their lives It is God's threat that if all his Laws be not observed and his glorious and fearful Name The Lord thy God be feared and reverenced And who can call God his God but God's Children that then he will inflict upon his People great Plagues and of long continuance and such he did inflict and such he hath said in the new Testament also will fall out great troubles and of long continuance so long as if he heard no Prayers that every ones faith and patience shall faint and fail When the Son of Man shall come shall he finde saith upon the Earth Like a Crane or a Swallow so did I chatter I did mourn as a Dove that is always so the next words expound it Mine eyes fail with looking upward GOD gave no answer that his faith was quite spent O Lord I am oppressed and bear all the burden alone Vndertake for me lend me a hand What shall I say he hath spoken unto me and himself hath done it and therefore it will never be undone I shall go softly all my Years in the bitterness of my soul Isa 38.14 15. That God inflicts punishments great punishments and of long continuance upon good People read 1 Kings 22.27 And the King of Israel said put this fellow in the Prison and feed him with the bread of affliction and the water of affliction until I come in peace His warrant you see had a long date Thus God sometime let loose wicked Men upon the best of his to fasten their teeth and scarce ever let go their hold till they have pluckt out their throats to lay them fast in all extremities like Joseph and there let them lie long till even their skin and bones rot And as God lets Men deal thus with their body so he lets the Devil sometimes deal thus with their Soul worry them and worrry them long even all their days 'T is but GOD's Commission given to the Devil and he will do it as 't is God's Commission given to wicked Men to torment and then they do it and without his Commission a Dog could not bark or shew his teeth against any child of God The Plowers plowed upon my back and they made long their Furrows Psal 129.3 And woe is me that I remain in Meshech and dwell in the Tents of Kedar my soul hath too long dwelt with him that hateth peace Psal 120.5 6. God excommunicated Nebuchadnezar Seven Years and made him a Companion for Beasts and so sometimes he excommunicates his own People and makes them companions as David in Arabia with Black mores with Devils those black Fiends of the lowest Hell and so long The Reasons of this Point are these First That God may shew his Soveraignty I will not say hâ—s Justice We have all sin'd even the best Men and therefore God may bring all afflictions and miseries upon the best But I rather choose to say that God may shew what an absolute Lord of all He is and can set up what Man he will to be his mark to shoot at and then take him down and set up another Mine iniquities are more than the hairs of my head saith David Psal 40.12 Usually less than this number are our afflictions when most and therfore where God shews soveraignty he also sheweth justice Israel would none of me Psal 81.11 Therefore where God pronounced to Ammi I will have none of this People he was just as well as absolute and peremptory in his will Sometimes God smites a sinner as Joab smote Amasia under the fist Rib so as that he smites him not again maketh an utter end at a blow and no cause visible no more than in other of the Sons and Daughters of Men and of his People This properly we call soveraignty Thus may be smite any one for we have not any one of us all the priviledge of Antwarp who have two marts lasting six weeks apiece during which time no Man in his Person or Goods can be arrested No man hath such priviledge for a day in order to God he can arrest Person Goods and Life when he pleaseth and yet in all so that none can charge him with injustice Secondly Doth thus bring all afflictions upon Men yea upon the best Men to try integrity The Sea pulleth up from its bottom all excrements as
no other way to do it so doth God imbitter our conditions in this World that so all the sweets which we have here we may use them as if we did not and possess them and they not possess us and our hearts David had many bitten upon his condition before he could say I have behaved my self as a weaned Child When the World was first crucified to Paul then at length he became crucified to the World when God whips us in this and whips us in that takes away this and takes away that then by degrees he takes away our hearts too and sets them upon better things but usually good things first die from us before we become so good as to die from them There is no labourer in Egypt that lifts up his eyes to Heaven they are almost angry with the Sun it doth so scorch them Few labourers in and after this World do lift up their eyes to Heaven much whilst the Sun-shine of prosperity is hot upon them but rather angry and vexed and cumbred with one thing or other that the World doth not tumble in fast enough Few in health and wealth are heavenly In those days was Hezekia sick unto death Isa 38.1 In those days When was that see the Chapter foregoing Assoon as he had obtain'd that great deliverance from the Assyrian by Prayer and all quiet now least he should grow as David when his War was ended sensual and wanton God smites him with the Plague and bids him set his house in order for he must die David being hunted up and down as a Partridge and poured from Vessel to Vessel what a Heavenly Man is he and when this is over what a carnal Man is he I am tossed to and fro as the Locust mark what follows My Knees are weak through fasting Psal 109.23 When we are tossed much then we fast and pray and go to Heaven much upon our Knees We read in History of an Emperor strangled putting on his Royal Robes nothing more choak the seeds of Grace and Heavenly life than the prosperity of this World and therefore usually one way or other God kills all things here to kill us throughly to all here The Apostle bids us endure hardness as good Souldiers In hard states and conditions grace best thrives and the most noble things and souls to be found Vse 1 Learn from hence what a great God we have to do with who can flat our conditions with all miseries in a moment as the Sea sometimes makes breaches upon the Land and swallows up Towns and Cities no more to be recovered I will have mercy upon the House of Juda and save them by the Lord their God and will not save them by bow nor by sword nor by battel by Horse nor by Horse man Hos 5.7 As God saves without bow or sword so he can destroy without bow or sword even with his own hand from Heaven many ways Of which I will say as one doth of Mary's being with child by the Holy Ghost Mirari licet rimari non licet Such dealings of God may be wondred at but curiously search'd into they may not It may be said of God and the Engins he useth against Men as Hushai saith of David and his followers Thou knowest that David and thy Father be mighty Men and they be chaffed in their minds as a Beat robbed of her Whelps in the Field 2 Sam. 17.8 God sometimes when he sets upon the Sons of Men is as fierce Creatures chased and chafed and robbed of their young very fierce and so are all the Engins which he useth How fierce was Shimei against David and threw Stones and cursed him God hath set him on saith David We are made a spectacle or Theater saith the Margent to Angels and to Men and I think God hath sent us forth last for this sad service as appointed to death and slaughter in all that is dear 1 Cor. 4.9 It may be God hath appointed the best of Men in these last Days to the worst of deaths and calamities to close up a long and evil Day and that the Pit should as it were shut its mouth upon the Christians of these last times as the Whale upon Jonah Which should make us tremble and stand in awe daily to consider what a great and holy God we have to do with Secondly Learn what need we have of grace who are lyable to such floods of Evils yea of much grace Noah moved with fear being warned of God prepared an Ark and went into it and where else could he have lived in those great storms and floods which came upon the World Surely Gods storms and waves will beat much in these last Days If all of them may come over any Man then all of us need an Ark and to hast unto it that we be in a state of favour with God by Jesus Christ All our estates may fail us a Fire of God from Heaven may consume them All our Friends may fail us yea all our hearts may fail us Mens hearts failing them for fear What then will be a Cordial to keep us but the favour of God and a state of grace that the Lord Jesus Christ be with our Spirits Nine several times in the Ten first Verses of Pauls first Epistle to the Corinthians is Jesus Christ named saith one that hath well observed to note who it is that is all in all in storms for a Saviour yea indeed in all conditions It is Jesus as the same Observator saith that is made Mel in ore Bernard melos in aure Jubilum in Corde Jesus Christ in all conflicts is hony in the mouth Something like that terrible Monarchy of the Greeks 〈◊〉 bâ—fore Christ's coming in the Flesh will be before his coming again harmony in our ear a Jubile or great joy in our hearts when all the waves and billows of afflictions beat upon us yea when these Waters come into our Souls when Prophesie and prosperity failed the state of the Jews they had nothing to live upon but that promise that the desire of all Nations should come The Echo and the Pool of Bethesda under the great Tirannies of Antiochus and the Greek Monarchy these were the stays of their hearts that Christ would come and so by faith did bear up and he did come Floods may yea red Seas may break out and we may flote in our own blood therefore an Ark is very needful and that we be in it well in it by faith nothing but Christ can be a Jesus a Saviour to us all other things will but rather hasten and heighten the Floods upon us as the more riches and honour and the things of this World we have the more shall we be a fit prey for evil times and Persons What got the Caesars by their high advances Nisi ut citius interficerentur Grace therefore is necessary and speedily necessary The Flood which swallowed up the first World is called a Dart. Methusalah the
quiet place above where he is at the right hand of his Father and we are great gainers by all our losses and troubles if they produce a Heavenly spirit Servus perâ—se non est persona sed res possessio Domini sui saith the Civilian A Servant that is under all considerations servant ceaseth to be a Person in a sort and is a Mans goods and the possession of his Master We are under all considerations the servants of God and therefore we should be as his House and as his good and possession our Souls should be swalloâ—â—d up in Him and in Heaven we should not be our own in any thing but his altogether and attending still upon Him with all our thoughts words and actions as Servants which are not their own Let us make a vertue of necessity Where can we be quiet in this world or how long and therefore let us be much in Heaven with Christ which is best of all FINIS GOD'S Troops Invading MAN Being A SERMON ON Psal 42.7 8. 7. Deep calleth upon deep at the noise of thy Water spouts all thy Waves and thy Billows are gone over me 8. Yet the Lord will command his loving kindness in the Day time and in the Night his Song shall be with me and my Prayer to the God of my Life Psal 42.7 8. Deep calleth upon deep at the noise of thy Water spouts all thy Waves and thy Billowes are gone over me Yet the Lord will command his loving kindness in the Day time and in the Night his Song shall be with me and my Prayer to the God of my Life I Have been already on these words and have given their sense and have made one Observation upon them and pursued it to an end Another Observation I purpose to make at this time which is that I especially aim at which is this That Faith looketh thorough the darkest and most dismal and difficult things All troubles saith this Prophet do as the Sea swallow me up and yet the Lord maketh an escape for me I shall have opportunity to praise him and pray to him as the God of my life That is he who hath saved my life the life of my Soul and Body David was as much disappointed from Men of all help as exercised by God with straits and difficulties Surely Men of lowe degree are Vanity and Men of high degree are a lie Psal 62 9. And yet observe how he speaks viz. How long will you imagine mischief against a Man You shall be slain all of you as a tottering fence and as a bowing wall shall ye be When he was left in the lurch by every one high and low yet he saw by faith the downfall of all his enemies yea he saw that it was neer and that as a swell'd rotten wall they would soon throw down themselves though none should touch them nor thrust them Before your Pots can feel the thorns he shall take them away as with a Whirl-wind both living and in his wrath the righteous shall joy when he seeth the vengeance he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked so that a man shall say verily there is a reward for the righteous verily there is a God that judgeth in the Earth Psal 58.10 What a great fear the whole Host was in when Goliah came forth daily and insulted and blasphemed and yet then David by faith saw over him yea saw his speedy down-fall Then said David thou comest to me with a Sword and with a Shield but I come to thee in the Name of the Lord of Hosts the God of the Armies of Israel whom thou hast defied this day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand and I will smite thee and take thine Head from thee and will give the Carcases of the Hosts of the Philistins this day to the Fowls of the Air and to the wild Beasts of the Earth that ye may know that there is a God in Israel 1 Sam. 17.45 Moses saw all the fin and misery that Israel would plunge themselves into after his death how they would wax fat and kick and run to new gods and that all manner of miseries would come in upon them at this Door and that they would bring themselves into an utter lost condition as to all outward appearance and yet then saith he the Lord will do like himself The Lord will judg his People and repent himself for his Servant when he seeth that their power is gone and none shut up nor left Deut. 32.36 This great and free goodness of the Lord shall shame them for trusting in Idols and abusing such a gracious and mighty God which is the sense of the following words Holy Mr. Ainsworth upon Psal 1â—0 4 observes that Coles of Fire may be kept under Juniper ashes a whole Year together and surely there be things if we could skill them by which soul-heat and life and so all the senses which belong to it might be preferred long and very strong not only for a Year but always and able to encounter all cases and conditions though never so dark and difficult I will open this Point particularly to you and shew you the truth Per Partes by Parts Faith can look through matters temporal though of the darkest and most difficult nature 'T was a great Flood which drowned all the VVorld all Gods waves then passed over Man-kind indeed And yet Noah by faith stem'd that Tide and saw another VVorld and his safe landing in it 'T was a great strait and temptation to Abraham when called to leave his Country and Kindred and to go to a Country so remote and so wicked as Canaan was and to live alone in the midst of such a People and yet by faith he saw his way and God before him and that he should live then more safe than in hâ—s own Country Likewise a great Temptation it was when God called him to offer up his only Son and yet by faith he saw through that thick Cloud and that God was able to raise him from the dead It was a dark Day with David when Absalom was up against him an Ahitophel his VVives Grand-father Bathshebas Grand-father and yet turned against David to the Conspirators by which the conspiracy grew strong yet by faith he saw thorough this and was quiet in the midst of this great tempest as you may see Psal 3 5 6. which was Penn'd upon that occasion I laid me down and slept I awakened for thou Lord sustainedst me I will not be afraid of ten thousands of People that have set themselves against me round about Arise O God and save me for thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the Cheek bone thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly By which it is evident that he saw the ruine of that great Army and his own safety in the midst of all that danger and this by faith The Waters of the Flood abated but one Cubit in Four Days when they began to
only to roar and cry out when we are beaten and over-burden'd he teacheth us to believe and to expect Songs to be given in the darkest Night Job 35.9 The true state and life of man is not to be shaken with tumults and distresses nor be lifted up with prosperity and ease said the Heathen and what can poise and even the Soul thus in all conditions but faith by which we know how to abound and how to want how to be high when low and how to be low when high if faith have its perfect work so will patience and then the Soul is entire and wanteth nothing no though all the things of this World he wanting Likewise we may learn from hence that we are never gone and quite undone till faith be gone For loe they lie in wait for my Soul the mighty are gathered against me they return at Evening they make a noise like a Dog and go round about the City behold they belch out with their mouth Swords are in their Lips for who saith he doth hear But thou O Lord shalt laugh at them thou shalt have all the Heathen in derision because of his strength will I wait upon thee for God is my defence Psal 59.9 The God of my mercy shall prevent me he shall let me see my desire upon mine enemies Things were very bad indeed when the wicked were at this height that they could belch out any thing and run every where as Dogs and tear God and Man and yet David was not quite ruined Because of thy strength I will wait upon thee A believer is strong enough as long as God is strong and wise enough as long as God is wise and rich enough as long as God is rich and lively enough as long as God lives Hanibal offered himself to make War with the Romans without an Army saith Seneca And truly a believer will himself make War with all enemies in the World and without any Army only by the strength of God and is never at a loss for an Army nor Counsel nor Provisions but saith as that Father of believers God will provide God will fight for you and ye shall hold your peace said Moses in a great strait Cain was not utterly lost when he had committed murder for so had David done But when he rejected the offer of grace and desired death as a despairing Creature He had a most glorious offer of grace Gen. 4.7 And if thou dâ—st well shalt thou not be accepted or certainly accepted and though thou dost not well yet a sin-offering lieth at the door so it should be read saith a great Scholar in the Languages of the Scripture Dr. Lightfoot And this great offer of grace he despised and so forsook his own Mercy and desired Death through a proud dogged spirit having lost the honour which was given to Abel Now therefore let it be that any one that fudeth me may kill me So should these words be read saith the same Author And now and not till now was Cain quite undone Use 2 This Doctrine in the next place may be for reproof and it may be for reproof of unbelief upon any account whatsoever seeing faith looks through all matters whatever As for the Jebusite the Inhabitants of Jerusalem the Children of Israel could not drive them out but they dwell there to this day Judg. 15.63 David along while after drove them out And why could not these lame and blind be driven out It was their unbelief The enemy had gotten a strong Fort and the advantage of that City Jerusalem and yet had they had faith they might have lookt thorow these Forts and Rocks of Jerusalem and have conquer'd it as they did Jerico and other places as strong by faith Their sin was the same with Rubens Dan and Asher Sisaâ—'s Host was great and therefore they could not see through them and over them For the divisions of Ruben there were great thoughts of heart Gilead abode beyond Jordan and why did Dan abide in Ships Ashar continued on the Sea shore and abode in his breaches Judg. 5.16 17. Distresses are of several magnitudes but yet how great soever they be faith should be such as to master them and look thorow them but when it is not so then men betake them to their self ish shifts and every one is but for one Why did Ashar abide in his breacher 'T is a grand evil of this time every Man seeks his own and stands with all he hath to make up his own breaches but as to the publick and the common calamity of others Who hath a Heart or a Purse or a Hand which speaks plainly our unbelief and that we do not see through the dark Clouds which are come upon us but say in our hearts as David I shall one time or other surely perish by this and that great tryal and these Sons of Anack are walled up to Heaven and no dealing with them Necessity saith one of the Heathen maketh us more violent than valorous There are amongst us through many necessities many violencies both inward and outward spiritual and corporal unto great hurt every way but little true valour that which flows from faith which is that that doth business as we have seen Secondly This Scripture reproveth giving way to unbelief We flatter our selves in our unbelief as Jona in his passion and in many cases very desperately we think we do well to be unbelievers whereas the greater the difficulties be the more our duty is to believe Curse ye Meros curse ye bitterly that they came not out in a plunge to help the Lord against the mighty Judg. 5.23 If thou think some great tryal shall encounter thee â—aith Seneca do not flinch but comfort thy self with this that surely thy death and suffering is of some great importance Great distress is no warrant for us to make great consult with flesh and blood but great consults with the promises and with our own experiâ—nces and to call much upon a cowardly and deceitful heart Why art thou cast down O my Soul hope in God for I shall yet see better things than these If unbelief were as profitable as it is self-pleasing and that it would further escapes out of distresses one might through self-love give way to it as Men do to many gainful sins but it doth not this but rather obstrucâ—e caâ—â—s as our Fathers unbelief in the Wilderness upon every occasion it caused God to swear against them that they should dye in the Wilderness It is not the giving way to unbelief but the exciting faith what ever the difficulty be that is the likely way to make escape As Caleb and Joshua said We be well able to deal with them for God is departed from them and they are bread for us and this is called following of God fully which God took well and honoured them with escapes from all dangers and they enjoyed the good Land To this agrees that Psal 37.40 And
the Lord shall help them and deliver them he shall deliver them from the wicked and save them because they trust in him If giving way to unbelief in the least had been pleasing to God he would not have made the promise first to our Parents before he came to pronounce the curse upon them Now giving way to unbelief consists in two things construing all things in the worst and hardest sense our own matters towards God and God's matters towards us I have been a stubborn rebellious â—retch and surely God will never have mercy upon me Observe Moses upon thâ—s theme Destroy not this People remember Abraham Isaac and Jacob look not on the stubbornness of this People nor to theiâ— wickedness nor to their sin Deut 9.27 Ne respicias ad dutitiem the hardness that is the â—mâ—eâ—â—tency of this People but thy Covenant with Abraham And this is the great thing only to be eyed by poor guilty wretches O sirs such and such sins were nothing if I could be humbled for them but I am of a very hard heart Be it so yet should you believe in the word of promise that is in that God which hath said he will give a heart of flesh This People hath finn'd and they cannot repent saith Moses do not therefore look upon them for there is no loveliness in them but look upon thy promise to Abraham to be a God to him and to his Seed and what cannot a God do to mend the heart of man Lamech having made himself guilty of Polygamie reflected upon the sin of Cain as is thought of which Loin he was and consters himself a far more guilty wretch than Cain for that Cain had only slain one and that only his body but Lamech had destroyed many soul and body both by his evil example which now so generally was followed in the World and a hastner of the worlds destruction so that if Cain was to be avenged seven-fold for his fin Lamech surely for his fin was to be avenged seventy times seven fold this is the sense of this Scripture as an able Expositor judgeth Sure I am that thus do poor guilty wretches please themselves to look upon all their sins in a very multiplying glass and to see them greater than any others and so conclude that if such and such despaired I have much more reason and this is no other but giving way to unbelief The Jews observe much how the providence of God complyed with the fire upon the Altar that it never went out they say that the Rain of Heaven though never so great never did put it out so we should much observe how the Lord by his Providence in his Word and Works complies with the weakness of our faith to strengthen and to preserve it that it go not out quite out and not be severely catching at every thing to weaken and to destroy our faith as if God's thoughts were as narrow as ours Secondly Way is given to unbelief when all wit and parts are used to argue down faith And the Angel of the Lord did wonderously and Manoah and his Wife looked on But the Angel of the Lord did no more appear to Manoah nor to his Wife then he knew it was an Angel of the Lord And Manoah said to his Wife we shall surely die because we have seen God Judg. 13.19 20. God sometimes doth wonderously own us in all our ways and holdeth up our hearts evâ—n by sense he is so for us in every thing Another while he seems to be as much against us and Manoah that did look on and see God do wonderously seeth him no more and now the improsperous Man concludes that he shall die And just thus do many when God upholds them not by sense but with draws and seems to be as much against them as for them then conclude surely God is our Enemy and will destroy us and all is naught Sineca saith that there is no universal thunder I may say so in morals When God doth most against wicked Men yet some things of kindness he doth as we see in the example of Pharaoh And so on the other hand there is no universal Sun shine when God doth most for any Child of his yet he shall have exercise and tryal enough one way or other and therefore to argue when things do not run so stilly and calmly as they did that therefore God doth not respect us is to give way to unbelief The people of Israel as they were espying out their way met with many difficulties And they turn'd and went up the way of Bashan and Og the King of Bashan went out against them and all his People And the Lord said to Moses fear not for I will deliver him into thine hand and all his People and thou shalt do to him as thou didst to Sihon King of the Amorites Num. 21.33 'T is just thus spiritually as a tempted Christian is spying out his way to Heaven out starts some Og some strong lust or Devil and then is he ready to fear and despair and mistrust all and conclude all is naught and will be worse and worse which is arguing down faith from sense and giving way to unbelief The High Priest was train'd up against the day of expiation to learn how to take up his handful of Incense and lay it one the Altar and so how to order himself in every thing and was kept in a Room of purpose separated with abstinence so should you rather conster that you are training up to your Priestly work by your tryals how to take up your handful of Incense I mean the Promises and lay them on the Altar Christ and so make a sweet Saviour of rest to God and to your Souls That you may not upon any account give way to unbelief know that you cannot do so and be innocent that is free from sin in so doing There are two things that are indispensable duties as long as we live and that is to wait on the Lord and to keep his way to which the blessing is certainly fixed and no difficulty shall make it void The wicked watcheth the righteous and seeketh to slay him the Lord will not leave him in his hand nor condemn him when he is judged What is the use to be made of this read the next words Wait on the Lord and keep his way and he shall exalt thee to inherit the Land when the wicked are cut off thou shalt see it Psal 37.32 33 34. There are two parts in Religion faith and obedience that we walk in all Gods ways and yet not rest in this but in Christ by faith and this we ought in all weathers to do and the good event of these is certain God will exalt us to inherit the Land flowing with Milk and Hony i.e. All good God will give us a lift to the possession of all that he hath promised And therefore it is to destroy all Religion and the recompence of reward too
Spring as it is foolish so it is an endless work How can a clean thing come out of an unclean If the heart remain still filthy How is it possible to make the life holy Hence it is that the heart is so much called for to be cleansed and that sinck to be well lookt after because there is the seat of natural pravity and the very Core of all corruption Cut off branches as you would lop a Tree cut them off all and leave the roots through the sent of mud they will grow as Job saith every occasion and temptation so long as the nature remains unrenewed and unlookt to will make sin break out afresh and the Dog will return to his own vomit The Queens Daughter is therefore called upon to forget her Father's House or else she would be hankering to be there again They which came out of Egypt in body and did not come out spiritually as to their souls how unsteadfast were they and their righteousness as the morning dew and in their hearts went back again to Egypt If any Israelite having taken in War a Heathen Woman and beautiful that he had a desire to marry he was first to bring her home to his House and shave her Head and pare her Nails and was to put off the raiment of her captivity and then she was to bewail her Father and her Mother a full Moneth c. That is her Heathenish state wherein born and bred she was to bewail and taught by this paring of her Nails and changing the Raiment of her Captivity to look after deliverance from her inward captivity and for a new state a new Father and Mother and all new her hands yea her very Nails and all this but little enough to make her forget her Father's House and to forsake old haunts and customs and ways Who knoweth not but that Nails and Hairs and such excrements are most apt and ready to grow again and yet not more apt and ready than sin is though pared and shaved if it be not dealt throughly with in the heart and in the root Finally Without this deep sense of our natural condition Christ will not be precious to us nor indeed desirable who is the only Physician for this great cure We shall be righteous in our own eyes as the Pharisee and not care for any righteousness else but our own though we may talk of faith and of the righteousness of Christ as many Christians do We shall be as Country-people which are whole as a Fish and laught at all Physicians Till the Apostle Paul was smitten down from Heaven and his eyes opened to see this body of death of which he complains in my Text he was alive and brisk and who but he for a holy and a happy man But when the Commandement came in Authority upon him which he thought he had perfectly kept sin revived and he died 'T is the poor and blind and wretched and naked that Christ counsels to come and buy of him Eye-salve and Garments to cover their nakedness Rev. 3.17 18. As we are Proselites i.e. Comers to Christ so we are cured of our spiritual Leprosie and such Proselites we will never be but as we see and feel our lost state by nature and our great necessity of him Who looks after the things which they do not need Ho he that thirsteth c. and such will prise Milk and Water I cannot get a House in this Town wherein to leave drink-silver in my Masters name saith Mr Rutherford There is no sale for Christ in the north meaning at Aberdeen he is like to lie long on my hand ere any accept him Thus it is with all unsensible and unheart-broken sinners though at the brink of Hell yet will not come unto Christ that they may be saved from their sins and from the wrath of God FINIS THE REMEDIE OF NATURAL Corruption Being A SERMON ON Rom. vii xxv I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Rom. vii xxv I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. THese words are an Answer to a sad Question the Question is in the words foregoing Who shall deliver me from the body of this death v. 24. That is from natural corruption the guilt and the dominion and Power of it This Apostle was at an utter loss in himself and as to all others and then God revealed an able Physician to him as these words of my Text tell us I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Christ is revealed to Sinners which dispair of all help in themselves or in any other Creature Such will thank God for him as here this wretched Man doth Mr. Rutherford speaketh of a sorrow that hath no eyes This Apostle's sorrow was such for a time Wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death He knew not of any deliveâ—er and then God became eyes to the blind and helped the sorrowful sinner and the blind sinner to eyes to see a Saviour and an All-sufficient one I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. When Isaac was at a loss for an offering and Abraham also when the sorrow of both had no eyes God was sight and help to them both Here is the wood but where is the Sacrifice i. e. One to die My Son God will provide And he did so Donatum non petitum gratius est saith the Civilian A gift not asked is the most free So did God provide that offering for Isaac and so did he provide this offering for this Apostle and wretched Man and so he doth for every wretched Man which hath the benefit of him he is Donatum non petitum to every fallen Son of Adam that is raised by him He was found of him that asked not after him Secondly This may be further observed in these words That God doth not barely shew us the means of our good the proper means of our Souls good but enable us to make effectual use of them to that end If I should paraphrase upon this Text it would be to this effect Wretched man I am burdened much with a body of sin and death which is so heavy that I think oft it will one time or other sink me to the lowest Hell and I am as helpless as to all â—thers as impotent and miserable in my self O doubly wretched man that I am and am like to be who will who can deliver me Yet I have some help shewed to me I thank God but no body else he hath in my blinde and wretched conditiâ—n shewed me an able Physician by name Jesus Christ our Lord anointed and allowed under his own hand to help all such wretched Creatures as I am and he doth enable me to make use of him to my burdened Souls ease and rest This Scripture and such like shew that there is full and effectual relief for all burdened sinners who are ready to sink under the burden of their sin and misery Doct. The Doctrin
which I observe to prosecute from these words is this That Christ is the proper remedy of natural corruption I thank God through Jesus Christ c. He whom God the Father hath sealed sanctified and sent into this World for this end to Cure natural corrupâ—ion is Jesus Christ our Lord as the Apostle here calls him The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted to proclaim liberty unto the Captives and the opening of the Prison to them that are bound Isa 61.1 By Captives and such as are in Prison is meant sinners in their unregenerated condition who are under the power and slavery of sin and carried Captive by the evil one at his will and by broken hearted and poor he means such as are deeply affected and afflicted with the body of death natural corruption in the guilt and pollution of it these is Christ anointed with the Spirit of the Lord to relieve and help to bind them up and all their wounds and putrified soares and to heal them and to preach liberty to them and to bring them into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God and such as are shut up under the power of sin and Satan as in a Prison to break down these strong holds and to open the everlasting Doors to himself the King of Glory to make a Prison a Palace a Slave a Son and Heir with him of all with this compare Isa 32.2 And a man shall be a hiding place from the wind and a covert from the tempest as Rivers of Water in a dry place as the shadow of a great Rock in a weary Land and the eyes of them that see shall not be dim and the eares of them that hear shall hearken the heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge and the Tongue of the stammerer shall be ready to speak plainly Men in their natural condition may be in a calm as long as the strong Man ruleth all is at peace but these will be in a tempest and a terrible one first or last when their Consciences come to be convinced as the Apostles here was And then who is able and who is appointed to allay these storms To this the Prophet answers A man shall be a hiding place and a covert from wind and rain but so a Man that he is also God or else he could do nothing at these winds and storms That these things are thus spiritually to be understood appears by the next words v. 3 4. And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim c. So that it means heart-storms and tempest and heart-help and Christ God-Man that is to be the helper and the great Covert in these storms and tempests and the great Rock for shade where the poor Soul is so scorched with the heat of God's wrath that he is ready to faint and die Blindness and deafness and rashness they all speak one thing the ill state we are in by nature blind deaf dumb and yet rash and mad and confident enough and the Man Christ Jesus who is called Emanuel God with us he is the appointed curer of all these Maladies This is a proof of the Point in hand in general I will descend to particulars of our fallen state and shew you that Christ is the appointed and proper remedy of all the diseases of our Souls There are three things complain'd of and supposed in the Apostles complaint in my Text one is a body of death that is our natural depraved state which is the filth of sin Secondly He complains of the Body of this Death that is the obligation of sin to the wrath of God temporal and eternal which we call the guilt of sin These two are expressed in his complaint Now there is a third thing supposed in these complaints of a bad state which is that he would fain have a better or else he would not have complained of this no more than other unregenerated Sinners do Now as to all these three Christ is the proper and appointed remedy and relief of miserable and wretched Man First As to the Body of Death i e. as to the fiâ—th of sin the depravation of our nature of which I spake in the other Sermon Christ is the remedy of this root and branch see Isa 51.9 10 11. Awake awake put on strength O Arm of the Lord Awake as in the ancient days in the Generations of old Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab and wounded the Dragon Art thou not it which hast dryed up the Sea and the Waters of the great deep that hast made the depths of the Sea a way for the ransomed to pass over Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return and come with singing unto Zion and everlasting joy shall be upon their head and they shall obtain gladness and joy and sorrow and mourning shall flee away Now put all these borrowed words into plain English and what deep must this mean the drying up of which maketh the way to Zion where everlasting joy is obtained This deep must necessarily mean the bottomless Gulf of natural corruption shadowed fitly by the deep that hath in many parts no bottom and as Christ was he that went before our Fathers and dryed up that deep Sea and made it a way to go through to Zion and to the holy Land So it is he that dryeth up the deep Sea of sin in our nature and so maketh way to the holy state and the holy Church the true Zion in which is everlasting joy Now forasmuch as corrupt nature puts forth under some chief head and grand lust which is as King to all the Châ—ldren of pride as Pharaoh and his Princes to all the Body of Egypt Who fighteth against these Ans Christ He is remedy for root and branch of the Body of Death Art not thou it which hath cut Rahab and wounded the head of the Dragon The Prophet speaketh still in allusion to Pharaoh and his Princes which he calls Crokâ—dile or Dragon that is a Sea-Dragon wherewith Egypt abounded This Sea of natural corruption hath some Sea-Dragons great Soul-devouring Monsters swimming and playing in it And who deals with these Ans He that dries up the deep that is Christ Art not thou he that hath cut Rahab and wounded the head of the Dragon This Text leadeth us by the hand to that first promise made to Adam The Seed of the Woman shall break the Serpents head which means our state of sin as headed and organised by Satan through any particular prevailing lust whatsoever our state of sin is there spoken of as headed by Satan who organiseth the old man as Christ doth the new And this surely is that great slaughter and the Towers falling which the Prophet especially pointeth at upon the fall of which the light of the Moon becometh as the light of the Sun and the light of