practice of every true penitent True Repentance begins at the heart but it ends in the life It rests not in thoughts and purposes but proceeds to practice Hence DOCT. True Repentance is practical Repentance In the work of Conversion there are not only deliberate purposes but real acts In order of nature there must be first resolving before doing yet where true grace is when men are resolved they will do Although the will be the first mover yet it is not the sole mover it rests not in Elicite but proceeds to Imperate acts Of the nature of rising and going I have before spoken that which we have now to enquire into is the inseparable connexion between grace in the heart and grace in the life We saw before the Prodigal's resolution was gracious and the Reason given was because it was the root and spring of practice it was the beginning of the work in the superiour faculties which was to influence the whole man And the sincerity of it herein discovers it self because as he said so he did as he resolved so he acted It gives us a note of difference between false and true Repentance Here then we may consider 1. The evidence of the truth of the Doctrine 2. What is this practice of Repentance 1. For the evidence of the truth of the Doctrine take these Conclusions 1. There may be some kind of deliberations and purposes in the heart of a sinner that is unconverted about repenting and returning to God Every purpose is not an evidence of sincerity A man held under the sting and lashes of an awakened accusing Conscience may be made to vomit up his morsels and in a fright to make forced promises of leaving off his sinful wayes and upon the hearing of the Gospel may resolve as John's Generation of Vipers te flee from the wrath to come distressed Consciences are often hurried to it rashly to throw themselves upon such resolutions and some visible practise and that violent for the while 2. That which discovers the falshood of these resolutions is that they are very short-lived they soon expire many of them do not live long enough to make any visible shew in practice but die in the womb many a sick man in horror promiseth Reformation if God will spare him but he recovers not so fast as his resolutions decay and die Others that have had a more forcible impulse do a little seemingly but are like the stony ground Mat. 13. they are often too violent to be permanent and by this discover that they are acted by external force and not an inward principle 3. The whole man is gone away from God by sin and therefore the whole must return by repentance Not only the heart is defiled but the life is polluted not the inward man alone but the outward too is gone away from God and must return to him now true Repentance is not a partial but a whole turning we ow God the whole man Soul Body and Spirit 1 Thess 5. 23. 4. The declarative glory of God is the great thing which all our doings should aim at In Conversion therefore we are not only to praise him but to shew forth his praise and how is this done but in life Repentance God only sees the heart men observe and judge of our lives 5. The Will being commandress over the whole man is not only to resolve for it self but for the whole man Purposing or resolving is properly an act of the will but it is for the whole it being representative of all and being able to indent for all thus the young man promiseth for himself I will arise true purposes are an obligation laid on the whole man for the performance of them 6. Hence if the Will be indeed sincere in purposing practice will follow This is unquestionable to him who knows what power it hath in man You shall find in Scripture that impenitence or unconversion is charged here Ezek. 33. 11. Joh. 5. 40. Psal 81. 12. and why but because where the Will leads the whole man naturally and necessarily follows at least in true and real endeavours A Believer may indeed fail in the manner of performance when his Will is intense but yet where purposes have been taken and promises made of Repentance and not put forth in endeavour but men sit still where they were those promises were made with a deceitful heart Isai 44. 90. and this hinders thorough repentance Psal 78. 37. their heart was not right where the heart is truly given to God such an one will not sit still but be up and doing 2. What is the practise of Repentance which is requisite Ans It is a speedy constant and industrious endeavour in the mortifying of Sin and quickening of Grace by the help of Gods Holy Spirit When the Spirit of God hath wrought the habits of Grace in the heart he alwayes adds the bringing of them forth into act which is their end and use He that works the Will works the Deed too Phil. 2. 13. so that the Soul no sooner is furnished for its work but it sets about it when Christ raised any or healed them they rose and walked so that practical Repentance is nothing else but improvement of Grace 1. The business of this Grace or that about which it is conversant is the mortifying of Sin and quickening of Grace rising out of Sin is a rejecting relinquishing casting it off which is done in mortification Sin claims the power of a Prince in a natural man commands him Reigns over him Rom. 6. 12. It must therefore be vanquished its dominion cast off by such as rise out of it Sin so dwells in us that it is no more left than it is mortified returning to God is an exciting of Grace a quickening of it it is an exerting of faith in him and love to him in these Repentance consists Rom. 6. 11. 2. That which is to be done in this business is 1. To be using all means to strengthen hatred of Sin the more we hate Sin the more we are gone from it he whose heart most abhors it is gotten furthest off from it Hence there is an using such helps as may make it loathsome which are a viewing the evil nature of it as discovered in the Word of God viz. its pollution its contrariety to God the wrong it doth the Soul and also the cross of Christ on which we should crucifie the World and its Lusts Gal. 6. 14. 2. To be by all wayes engaging our hearts to God to love and fear him and hence to get more and more perswaded of his goodness of the riches of Grace in Christ of the great happiness of those whom he admits into favour with himself the better we are acquainted with and perswaded of God the more intense will be the actings of our Grace Psal 9. 10. 3. The qualities of this act are these three 1. It is a speedy work if repentance be begun in the heart it cannot rest
look upon him but he knew him to be kind and that put him foreward so it should do thee hence God hath written his Name in letters of goodness Exod. 34. 6 7. And to help here 1. Consider how much God doth for such as never return to him nor ask mercy of him God's general goodness should lead sinners to repentance Rom. 2. 4. When you see how God spares prophane and wretched sinners and suffers them to live yea provides liberally for them fills them with hid treasures gives them more than heart can wish and the waters of an overflowing cup are wrung out unto them so that their hearts are filled with food and gladness they crown their heads with Rose-buds and spend their dayes in wealth and leave the residue to their babes Argue from hence what goodness hath he then in store for them that humble themselves forsake their sins repent and return to him with their whole hearts 2. Consider how many repenting Prodigals have upon their return been entertained and made welcome by him who once did as thou hast done run themselves out spent all and were ready to famish but betaking themselves to him they were fed and saved alive and this may give you hopes to find the like favour at his hand Consider therefore 1. They were such who as little deserved this favour as thou they had nothing of merit for which they should be bid welcome and relieved in their distress for all mankind stand guilty before God Rom. 3. 19. 2. They had gone away from him and wasted all in riot as thou hast done What a Prodigal was Manasseh how miserably had he run himself out yet he obtained favour What a great sinner had Paul been yet he was accepted 3. They were such as had as little to plead for themselves as thou hast They had nothing to plead but mercy condescending mercy undeserved mercy they had no more to say for themselves than the poor publican had Lord have mercy on me a sinner For themselves or of themselves all they could say was only to make this poor Prodigal 's acknowledgment vers 19. and yet were not rejected but found mercy 3. Consider what relentings there are in the hearts of men especiall of Parents towards their Children for that is the scope of the Parable to argue from the less to the greater q. d. If a father can have so much mercy a poor man that hath but a little kindness a little pitty with him what may we hope then that God will do Can a Prodigal so argue from his fathers bounty and encourage himself by it how much more a poor guilty sinner from the bounty of God with whom are everlasting mercies 4. Consider how richly God hath entertained returning sinners The poorest meanest Believer hath enough and to spare no Believer in Christs family wants for any thing that promise is fulfilled Ps 34. 10. God hath done for them more than they can express and though they sometimes seem to complain yet it is their infirmity and infidelity What can a Believer want which he hath not Pardon of sin title of inheritance to all good things favour with God grace to serve him a fatherly care for him yea and to spare he hath joyes consolations ravishing of soul he may not only feed but feast it by faith on Jesus Christ If you say what is all this to me who have no lot or share in this matter I answer it is this to thee it should encourage thee to hope and not utterly to despare of finding mercy and from hence to animate thy soul to go to God and wait upon him for it to seek him diligently in the use of means and to resolve not to sit still dy of the famine silently but to make thy moan to God and pour out thy complaint before him to arise and leave this far country where there is nothing but famine and death and with the Prodigal take up a resolution to return to God and ask gracious entertainment with him for a poor dying perishing sinner who is he alone with whom the fatherless findeth mercy SERMON XIV Vers 18. I will arise and go to my Father and will say unto him Father I have sinned against heaven and before thee Vers 19. And am no more worthy to be called thy son make me as one of thy hyred servants IN the former verse we had the Prodigal quickning and encouraging himself to return to his father which is the first part of his deliberation 2. In these words is set down his deliberate conclusion or consultation and determination what improvment to make of these arguments which is in summe to make proof of his fathers love in the most penitent and humble manner More particularly he resolves upon two things 1. That he will return to his father I will arise and go to my father 2. How he will demean himself when he comes to him viz. in the most submissive and self abasing manner that is possible and this appears both in his confession and petition 1. In his confession in which he acknowledgeth 1. His sin aggravated in two things 1. The object against whom against heaven 2. The presence in which before thee 2. The merit or desert of his sin I am no more worthy to be called thy son 2. His petition submitting to his fathers disposal Make me as one of thy hyred servants Before I enter upon particulars it will be needful to enquire to what head in Divinity this is to be referred whither to a preparatory or to a saving work and I suppose it may be made evident that it refers to a saving work and that true conversion is here deciphered and set forth in these and the following words verse 20. begin It is true we have in these words only his deliberate purpose expressed but we must remember that the will is the first subject of Religion and when that is truly turned to God there is a saving work wrought and the whole man will follow and so it did in this vers 20 he hath now renounced his far Country and made choice of God The work here described is Repentance but not a separate from but joyned with flowing from saving faith for it was the spirit of Grace working faith in him and acting of it who made him to draw this conclusion from the premises that enabled him to adventure his soul upon God and withal taught him how to do it in a penitent manner Hence those that place true Repentance in order before Faith mistake Though Faith usually first discovers it self to us in act of Repentance and the comforts of it are sensibly felt after Repentance yea the greatest and noblest actings of faith are those that are exerted in Repentance leading the soul in deepest sense of sin and unworthiness to adventure it self upon the mercy and power of a justly offended God in returning to him Furthermore we are not to think that because
all this and still wait If mercy seem like that unjust Judge to stop its ears anger to sit in the countenance of the the most high he will submit and yet throw self upon the mercy of an angry and offended God Mic. 7. 9. 4. He is resolved that if God will accept him witness his love to him and acknowledge him in Christ his free mercy shall have the full and whole Glory of it and he will engage his heart to magnifie mercy by degrading himself and keeping in mind his own unworthiness God shall have the praise of all his heart shall eccho grace grace through all his life and heaven shall ring with these glorious acclamations to all eternity This is the true Gospel humility which the spirit of God worketh in every soul whom he draws home to himself This is a true qualification of Repentance of Faith and the modification of it in respect of the term to which the sinner returnes viz. God and those that so come shall find mercy For the Reasons why God brings the soul thus to his foot they are such as these Reas 1. To take away all boasting from the creature that the soul may have nothing at all before it to confide in man is emptied of himself as long as there is any self-soveraignty remaining in him he doth not cannot acknowledge all to come from God till he utterly relinquish the disposal of himself He cannot see that his Salvation is wholly out of himself as long as he thinkshe may capitulate with God about it Now God will hide pride from man 2. That his glorious Soveraignty may be fully subscribed to Hence God will save none till they do yield that he might damn them and hath no obligation from them to do otherwise God will be seen in his royalty to dispense grace from a throne or not at all hence we are to go to a throne of grace Heb. 4. 16. God's Soveraignty is a most precious pearl in his Royal Diadem and he will not suffer it to be pluckt out Job shall be convinced of this before he returnes his captivity 3. That the grace of God may not lift them up but keep them low and humble That they may not despise others nor think of themselves beyond what is meet that they may not be high minded but fear that they may always remember who hath made them to differ from others and may dwel upon that that it is by Grace they are saved and not of themselves USE Give me leave here to improve the former and present Doctrine in a serious word of Exhortation as you would prove your selves true penitents to get and keep humble before God Ply this work of humiliation and exercise the grace of humility get humble walk humbly before the Lord Renounce self-sufficiency and cast off self-soveraignty For Motive 1. Consider how acceptable an humble soul is to God and how displeasing pride is to him God takes great delight in those that are humble he dwels with them Isa 57. 15. If any are like to have more of Gods refreshing and comforting presence than others it is those that are humble where this grace is in exercise God will give more grace Their services are highly esteemed by God Psal 51. 17. he hath a peculiar respect to them Isa 66. 2. 2. Consider how much reason and how many causes you have to be humble to see and count your selves vile creatures and to ly low before God 1. Your sins should make and keep you humble The sin of your heart the leprosie of your nature the body of death that heart-ful of filthiness and corruption your daily sins of act in omission of duty in transgressing the command especially your particular enormities Psal 51. 1. This evil It will be a truth for ever that you have committed things worthy of death and are not worthy to be called sons and daughters of God an hyred servants place is too good for you 2. Your duties should humble you Hast thou done any thing for God it was not thou didst it of thy self but the spirit in thee And in all your duties you may see humbling confiderations how cold your affections how little impression had they on your hearts of how little continuance even as the morning dew How little sincerity how much hypocrisie How little grace how much corruption 3. All your afflictions should humble you God hath hung many weights on thy heart to crush thee and thou shouldest be ashamed that they have brought thee no lower All personal all publick rebukes of God's Providence all Wilderness Tryals are to humble the people of God Deut. 8. 15 16. 4. All God's mercies should humble you you have not deserved them but the contrary The mercies of your being preservation special deliverances above all those saving mercies the grace of God in Christ and the promise of eternal life In a word whoever thou art whether Believer or unbeliever thou hast abundant cause to be alwayes affecting thy heart unto a low frame and to bring thee down to the foot of the great God and ly there as a poor despicable nothing resigning thy self up to and placing all thy hope upon his meer love mercy in Christ and endeavouring that that may have the praise and glory of all SERMON XVIII THe Directions may be 1. To the awakened sinner to come humbly to and wait humbly upon God for his grace 2. To the believer to carry humbly all his dayes 1. Art thou one who finding thine own misery and hearing of God's plenty art thinking to make proof of it Wouldest thou speed â— then in a deep sense of thy own unworthiness Throw thy self down at his feet would you find God merciful be you sure to be humble And for help 1. Remember how much you have done to provoke God to reject you and hide his face from you Think what manner of lives you have led and in special how you have slighted the Gospel despised the Calls counsels reproofs encouragements that have been given you how often you have refused to accept of tendered Grace and Salvation and therefore well may God refuse to hear you when you cry unto him and bid you go to the Gods that you have served Jer. 2. 28. 2. Think how useless and unprofitable creacures you are in your selves no wayes fit to be active in glorifying of him The whole world is become unprofitable Rom. 3. 12. Have neither will nor power of their own to glorifie God till he restore it Philip. 2. 13. What can you do for him till your enmity be taken away your rebellion subdued Nothing but his grace can fit you to do him any the least service 3. See that you have nothing by which you can challenge the least favour from him It is true the Gospel saith If you believe you shall be saved but it also tells you this believing is not of your selves Eph. 2. 9. Till you believe you are under
Esau Gen. 33. 4. Each doth now as it were breath himself into the others bosom they exchange souls manifesting by dumb signs that love which is too great for words to express so that by this expression we are taught 1. That God gives himself to the sinner to be his and takes him to himself makes himself to be his portion and bequeaths himself to him and receives him into arms of mercy making him his peculiar treasure and jewel 2. That he now infuseth his grace into his soul by breathing spiritual life into him He falls upon him with his spirit and grace and layes the foundation of spiritual life in him by putting a principle of it into his soul quickening him who was dead 3. He kissed him this is the last thing in the act and here is great favour indeed that when he might have killed him he kisseth him this word hath divorse expressions of love contained under it 1. God now opens and reveals that secret and everlasting love of his to his soul kissing was an outward act to intimate an inward affection Men often did it dissemblingly but God alwayes doth it really Now God begins to give the soul to perceive what was his purpose of good will to him from eternity what were his ancient thoughts about him this is a visible confirmation of that secret love 2. God now reveals that he is fully reconciled to and at peace with him that all former distances and alienations of heart are wholly taken away he is no more angry nor will any more condemn him David kissed Absolom to let him understand he was now reconciled God never kisseth and killeth as Joah dealt with Amasa his heart alwayes goes out with his promise It is a justifying kiss intimating that this soul shall never more have any more cause to fear the suffering the punishment of his sins or being exposed to condemnation 3. The father by this manifestly takes his son into the state of a son It is a kiss of Adoption David thus acknowledged Absolom The sinner had made himself an abject God now restores him again to that inheritance which he had rooted himself out of he is thus taken again into his fathers house and made to enjoy the priviledge of a Child 4. God by this draws out the love of the soul to him breaks his heart and wins him to himself By this testification of his love he attracts a reciprocal love from the sinner makes him now to chuse God and give himself up to him put himself into his hands and devote himself to his service for all this presently follows vers 21. Thus it is a sanctifying kiss 5. All this is done to restore comfort to the soul Sense of his sin and the great wrong that he had done to his father by so vilely leaving him and profusely spending his estate had filled him with sorrow and bitterness his Father now kisseth him to comfort him They are called the kisses of the mouth Can. 1. 2. which are given in the application of the promises to the soul and enabling of him to close with them suck the sweet out of them and draw to his consolation the good that is in them and thus it is also a glorifying kiss Put altogether and it telleth us what a wonderful declaration of God's love it is that comes into the soul at the hour of Conversion USE 1. For Information 1. We hence learn that the soul is passive in vocation I do not mean as it is a Rational but as it is a spiritual Agent If God had not come to the sinner he had never come to God nor could he have done it As well might the widows son lying upon the bier and carrying to the grave have fetcht back his departed soul as a sinner dead in trespasses and sins recover the lost Image of God Hither every Regenerate man ows his spiritual original viz. Not to the strength of his nature or flexibility of his will but to God who came to him there where he lay a dying and whence he was not able so much as to lift up his eyes towards heaven without God put the ability into him by reviving Grace And this proclaims the wonderful concescendency of the great God to undone men and women in that he is not only ready and willing to receive them when they come to him but he runs forth to meet them and to do them good The condition that all men are lying in at such time as he speaks that happy word to them live tends mightily to enhaunce or illustrate the unspeakable kindness of God and hence deserves an ingemitiation Ezek. 16. 5 6. None eye pitied thee thou wast cast into the open field I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood live yea I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood live 2. Here we see that in Regeneration the whole body of graces are brought into the soul at once and together In effectual vocation the soul receives Christ himself and that not only relatively by receiving his person into such relations wherby he becomes his Redeemer and Saviour applyes his righteousness to him for Justification and by marrying him admits him among the Adopted Children of God but also really by the communication of his graces and filling him with his spirit He falls upon his neck and kisseth him all grace is communicated in this act and there is great reason for it for Christ in giving of himself to the soul becomes its life Gal. 2. 20. Christ lives in me And Christ thus becomes his spiritual life not only by changing his relative state from what it was but especially life being a principle of operation by putting this new principle into him in which are contained all such habits and dispositions as are requisite to fit him to live spiritually i. e. the habits of all graces for all flow from one and the same principle viz. spiritual life 3. As a consectary from the former we hence see that at the instant of effectual vocation the soul is made partaker in every grace Justification and Adoption fully Sanctification and Glorification inchoatively and in their degrees these come all together and inseparable and are made over to the soul in the instant in which God converts him For when God gives Christ he gives all things with him Rom. 8. 32. Yea he gives him to be all to us 1 Cor. 1. 30. He is made of God to us Wisdom Righteousness Sanctification and Redemption There is a succession of these Graces 1. Doctrinally they are to be handled orderly methodically and distinctly in the opening of the Doctrines of the Gospel 2. In the apprehension of a Believer who doth not immediatly discern all of them 3. In order of nature and consequence But in time they are contemporary and the reason is because the whole Covenant is sealed up in Conversion and all that is contained in it i. e. all grace 4. We here see the
this resolution is ascribed to the Prodigal as his act therefore our Repentance prevents the Grace of God Our Saviours design being not to describe conversion by its Author but by its subject and by the effects on the subject If it be enquired whence Repentance comes there are other Scriptures which point us to the Author but if we ask how Repentance works here we have it But I come to look more particularly into the words and here if we consider when and how the Prodigal came to draw up this conclusion by referring it to the vers foregoing we shall find that it ariseth from the discoveries made of his fathers fulness of benignity whence we might observe this DOCT. I. The goodness of God is the great motive to true Repentance Rom. 2. 4. God wins the soul to himself nextly not by terrours but his benignity It is true God prepares them to entertain his kindness by terrible discoveries that so he may make it the more welcome but still these do but terrifie amaze make afraid but this is that which wins the soul breaks the heart encourageth hope and by this way the spirit worketh the soul to Repentance Hence that Job 13. 20 21. USE Thus may teach us that for Ministers to preach nothing but terrours or for poor awakened souls to look upon nothing but terrours is not the way to promote the work of the Gospel or conversion of Souls This drives only to despair All our Doctrines and all our hopes must center in the free Grace of God But I come to the words themselves 1. The first part of his resolution is general viz. that he will return to his father I will arise and go to my father In this the work of Repentance is generally and comprehensively intimated in which there is 1. The terminus â quo the place from whence he came viz. his farr Country where he was though not locally yet spiritually distant from God far from him in heart and life this is it he will leave 2. The terminus ad quem or whether he will go to his father How God may be said to be his father who is an unregenerate profligate sinner I here intend not to make particular enquiry though it may possibly be intimated to us by this words being so often used in the parable that by vertue of the Everlasting Covenant of Redemption every Elect Person in his greatest degeneracy and Prodigality is looked upon as a Child chosen in Christ to the Adoption of Children But it here mainly intends his going to God as a Father of Mercies 3. The form of Repentance it self I will arise and go Where is the beginning of that motion I will arise and the progress and go or the respect that it bears to both the termes to the far country I will arise i. e. I will sit or tarry no longer here I will leave it to his father I will go to him In the Greek it is rising I will go And the word rise properly signifies rising again q. d. after some fall and hence the nown is used for a resurrection either from sin or from the grave and because this Anastasie presumes a former Apostasie hence DOCT. I. If ever the perishing sinner hopes to be saved he must rise again and go to God As he formerly went away from him so now he must return to him Hence God in the proclamation of his Grace thus invites Jer. 3. 12 13. 4. 1. Hos 14. 1. In the Explication we may consider 1. The import of this rising and going to his father 2. Thereasons of the Doctrine 1. The import of this rising and going we heard in general that it denotes the act of Repentance not as separated from but as the first fruit of saving Faith and therefore both implying and including of it Faith and Repentance are propounded in the Gospel as conjunct Mark 1. 15. Repent and believe the Gospel Because they are practically inseparable Now this Repentance of Faith is sutably expressed by these two phrases and if they be well pondered they will give light to the nature of it Repentance is of two sorts Legal and Evangelical it is the latter of these we are now speaking of which is a saving turning from sin to God Of the motives and means of it I shall not here speak only of the act resembled by these allusions of rising an going 1. Rising implyes these things 1. Rising being an Anastasie implyes the sinner before conversion to be in a state of Apostasie or a fallen state it speakes that man was once in a good state but now hath Iost it God therefore useth this as an argument to quicken them to Repentance Hos 14. 1. Thou hast fallen by thine iniquity A man that never was up may rise but he was once standing that riseth again God made man upright in our first Parents we once had a standing in God's favour but have lost it by Sin and now the whole race of mankind till Grace raiseth them ly groveling in iniquity nay they are dead in Sin for this rising is a resurrection Eph. 2. 1. And this shews that it is not a man 's own strength but the Almighty power of God that giveth Repentance 2. It implyes that in order to true Repentance the soul must be furnished with a new principle of spiritual life Self-motion such as rising is is a life act and supposeth a life habit It is the property of dead things to ly still and move no further then they are forcibly moved they are only living things that move by a power implanted in them It therefore presumes that the Spirit of God hath been at work moving upon the dead soul and breathing into it the breath of life our Saviour saith it is the spirit that quickeneth He gives life to dry bones and then they rise and walk else they had never forgone their Graves A dead carcass cannot so much as will to arise 3. It implyes that in true Repentance there must be a forsaking of all Sin we must not ly in Sin if we will return to God those are directly opposite terms Sin and God are contraties the farr Country in which the Prodigal was is the Kingdom of Sin which he must leave else he can never come to his father nor can a sinner ever come to God till he hath rejected and abandoned his sinful life and way Hence that counsel Isa 55. 7. Let the wicked forsake his way There is no salvation to be had by sitting still 2. Going to his father implyes these things 1. That every natural man in his unconverted state is at a great distance from God Sin is therefore said to make a separation Isa 59. 2. This means not a local distance for Gods Omnipresence fills all places and is with the sinner to eye and observe diligently all his wayes but it intends a distance in heart and affection an alienation that God and the sinner are enemies he
hates his Children and as there is war betwixt Christ and the Devil so also there is opposition betwixt their seed There is a spirit of envy in the nature of fallen man Jam 4. 5. It hath for its objects persons and things The persons whom it most expresseth it self against are the People of God because they are not of them Joh. 15. 19. And the things are all their prosperity so far as they apprehend it Sorrow and misery is not envied at that they can rejoyce and say Aha! so would we have it But their prosperity the singular favours of God their comfort their hopes their professed assurance these they cannot bear and hence they are spitefully enraged and gnash their teeth Psal 112. 8. 9 10. 2. Where this spirit is found ruling in a professor it is a certain note of an Hypocrite I know there is no sin but hath its motions in a Believer but it doth not there reign but where it so doth let a mans profession be what it will it proves it vain and dissembling and the reason is plain because it contradicts this property of a Believers grace which is to rejoyce both in the glory of God and in our neighbours good both of which are herein so eminently manifested that if there be any grace stirring it will be raised by it God most prizeth the glory of his grace which that more appears the more vile and unworthy the subject hath been And the joy of Conversion is the realest and best joy that a soul can have that of glory differs from it but in degree and he that envyes God's Glory and his neighbours good he breakes the whole Law at once USE 1. Here we see a Reason why the faithful People of God meet with so much opposition in the world not only from the professed enemies of Godliness but also from many pretenders to it they cannot bear the prosperity of the righteous the more God favours them the more they envy them alas all are not Israel that are of Israel There are many that profess God and yet hate godliness and then no wonder if they cannot endure that God should bless the Godly they therefore persecute them and do all they can to disturb them in their quiet and tranquility Let not these things amuse us bet let it satisfie us if God love us though men hate us if God give us joy in himself peace in our consciences though others seek to trouble us be not discontent nor let us seek mens favour but God's yea let that alwayes be our prayer Psal 109. 28. Though they curse do thou bless USE 2. For Examination here we have one Rule for the tryal of our sincerity i. e. How are we affected when we see and hear that this or that poor Prodigal that was lying in sin and had dishonoured God is converted and brought home and made partake in his grace and rich benefits Do we truely rejoyce with them and bless God for them or do we envy them and grow angry that any thing should be done for them do we hate them and the more because we think God loves them this is a dangerous note of hypocrisie and truly if men would search their own hearts they might find too much of this spirit Gods people are hated for their liberties priviledges their communion with God and acquaintance with him Men pretend other reasons but this is the true reason But let me expostulate with such spirits as God did with Cain If you do well if you also are converted there is enough for you God can fill all souls with joy there can be nothing wanting if you are not converted you have more need to mourn than envy The fault is your own not theirs do as they have done return and humble your selves before God and you may fare as they do USE 3. To Exhort Believers to shew a spirit contrary to the envious spirit of wicked men do you therefore pray for and by all means in your compass endeavour the Conversion of Prodigals long and travel for the regeneration of sinners and when you see it rejoyce in it and glorifie God for it so shall you approve your selves to be the People of God and not only so but you shall also share in their joy and it shall be a complement of your happiness to be fellow commoners with them in the blessed things which God prepared for those that love him SERMON XXVII Vers 28. And he was angry and would not go in therefore came his father out and entreated him Vers 29. And he answering said to his father Lo those many years I do serve thee neither at any time transgressed I thy commandment yet thou never gavest me a kid that I might make merry with my friends Vers 30. But as soon as this thy son was come which had devoured thy living with harlots thou hast killed for him the fatted calf IT follows now to consider the offence it self and that which we have here principally to take notice of is the plea which his son useth to justifie his anger In particular we may observe 1. Wherein he discovered his anger he would not go in 2 His fathers meekness and condescendency to him he went out and entreated him 3. His resolute refusal grounded upon a pretended plea of just offence where he chargeth his father for a double partiality 1. In neglecting of him and not rewarding of his faithful service wherein he accuseth him of great unkindness vers 29. 2. In shewing such extraordinary favour to his younger brother who deserved ill at his hands hence 1. He reviseth his former wicked carriage 2. Adds his fathers kind entertainment to it to make it look odious vers 30. as if his father had by this approved of his prodigality he therefore takes no notice of his repentance and return Hence DOCT. 1. It is the Hypocrites own fault that he doth not partake with the People of God in their joyes The father did not shut the elder son out but he would not come in yea though his father entreated him he still refused Object But he was not invited how then should he come Ans But if he had had an ingenious and brotherly spirit he might have come when he heard of it The word tacitly insinuate that the servant did entreat him but he would not hear him But to give a closer decision of the case unregenerate men are not and yet they are invited There is not the inward spiritual powerful invitation which compels them and by particular application of grace draws them But there is a general doctrinal conditional invitation presented to all where the Gospel comes in which God by his Servants speaks seriously pleads earnestly expostulates industriously waits patiently as one that is willing and desirous that they should come in this is the invitation which they reject and of such it is that our Saviour useth those expressions Joh. 3. 29. Men chuse darkness Chap.