guilt bondage reign service of thy sin go and cry to God offer him up the blood of his own eternal Son tell him thou seest he may let out justice upon thee to destroy thee and damn thee for ever of thy self thou hast no plea against it But ask the blessed God if it may not be more glory to him and his grace and mercy glorified by it if he will accept of satisfaction by his own Son Jesus Christ plead to him that thou hearest he died in the room of guilty condemned sinnners such as thou art ungodly Rom. 5.6 yea tell him with an humble adoration of his mercy and love in it that thou hearest in his blessed Gospel that 't is offered to any sinner that will come and accept it and that 't is proclamed from Heaven and there 's satisfaction made by the blood of a Jesus for the greatest Sinner such as thou art Oh! cry unto him that therefore thou comest and begg'st to be heard in thy plea and that it may be entred in Heaven that thou comest for all the ends of his death thou art weary of the service of thy lusts and the pollution of thy nature and therefore thou wouldst have thy nature cleansed thy conscience purged all which thou findest the blood of Jesus Christ is able to do yea tell him and plead it with some humble boldness that thou art acquainted that Jesus Christ prays in Heaven for such sinners that come and plead his blood to thee and that he is heard in what he prays and that therefore forgiveness must be had yea say thou wilt hold on thy plea thou hast no other and art resolved against any other If thou shalt to Hell pleading the blood of a Saviour be it so but I am resolved to plead it to the utmost yea tell him and cry to him that it cannot repent him that he hath ordained the sacrifice of the blood of his own Son and therefore why should'st thou be rejected Yea Come to this Issue through the Spirit of Faith upon thee that if it can be that a Sinner crying out for pardon upon the account of the death and blood of Jesus Christ and for sanctification may go to Hell then thou wilt willingly lay thy hand upon thy mouth and open it no more but sink under Divine Vengeance to Eternity Oh! That every poor sinner might go home with this plea in his heart written there by the Holy Ghost and peirce Heaven with his or her crys and groans and put the blood of Jesus Christ before him and plead for mercy and holiness to be pardoned and sanctified till God say Go in peace thou art pardoned redeemed and blessed for ever Yet a little to excite a poor drowsie sinner to this eternal Concernment 1. Consider thou art under the guilt of thousands of Sins one whereof is enough to sink thee to Hell Guilt if continued is Hell begun and wants nothing but the execution of Vengeance upon thee Oh what should a guilty sinner do but close with a Saviour and get an interest in Redemption from it 2. Especially considering that all the Duties and Obedience thou hast performed towards God or ever shall have not made nor ever will the least payment to God for thy sins thou art as much in debt to God as ever thou wast as much behind with him All the Items for the sin of thy Nature thy thoughts words and actual Wickedness and thy sinful neglects stand uncancelled all ready to be charged upon thee and nought will be accepted for payment but the Death of Jesus Christ the only price that God will hearken to Nothing will cancel the Book where all thy sins are recorded Nothing will blot out the Hand-writing that is against thee but the Blood of Jesus Christ Col. 2.13 14. 3. God is resolved never to forgive you the Debt till you have put in this Plea and it be recorded in Heaven and you have it in a Gospel-way No forgiveness of Sins but by Redemption pleaded claimed possessed and sealed by the Holy Spirit Ephes 1.7 14. 4. Thou art yet under the Bondage and Reign of thy sin and therefore under condemnation the Law is gone out against thee thy Sentence pronounced Cursed is every one that transgresseth c. saith the Law and thou art in bondage yet and hast not procured actual deliverance from it If a Prisoner be condemned and lye in Fetters in a Dungeon and hears of a Ransom paid for him what 's this to him till he have Liberty So for a Sinner to be in the Fetters of his Lusts held fast by them a Bond-man to the Devil and hear of a Christ laying down a Ransom what is this to him unless he sue it out and get actual deliverance and liberty the liberty of the Sons and Daughters of God and have a Spirit of Adoption to cry Abba Father Gal. 4.4 5. That being made free from sin the Reign and Power of it by the Power of the Lord Jesus revealed in him you may become servants to God and have your fruit unto Holiness and the end everlasting Life Rom. 6. 5. Consider as thou standest in thy filth and uncleanness of thy Sins thou art unfit for God either to please him in any thing thou doest or to be with him in Heaven hereafter thy person and services are loathsom to the Soul of God therefore get washed and purified in the blood of Jesus Christ Go on to cry and wait and beg a heart to do it and that in Faith till thou shalt feel Peace coming in by thy constant Plea of the blood of Christ till thou shalt feel cleansing vertue of it upon thy Soul till thou shalt experience the power of his death destroying Sin in thee and so shalt find thou hast fellowship with him and so a part in this blessed Redemption we have been treating of 6. Now to encourage a poor Sinner to this coming to God with the Plea of Christ's blood in his heart and mouth and to draw forth the Faith of a poor humbled doubting Soul Consider the All-sufficiency and worth of the price of the Death of Jesus Christ to satisfie the justice of God and procure Pardon and Sanctification for a poor Sinner which may appear from such like Scriptures The Apostle in the 7th of the Hebrews having been opening the excellency of Christ's Priesthood which is chiefly conversant in this Work of Redemption in the offering up of himself a Sacrifice concludes ver 25. of that Chapter Wherefore he is able to save them to the utmost that come to God by him To the utmost that is with a perfect Salvation that nothing more can be desired to it So in the 9th Chap. ver 11 c. The Apostle reasoning from the Levitical Sacrifices to this of the blood of Christ argueth the full perfection of it By his own blood he entred in once into the holy place namely into Heaven having obtained eternal Redemption for us
thou hast Christ and Grace than with them But say canst thou canst thou well be without the pardon of thy sins Canst thou well live and dye hated by the great and righteous God Canst thou well be where the fire it never quenched and the worm never dyes Say canst thou well miss the presence of the ever blessed God to all eternity Are damned screeking Spirits good company for ever and ever Away away sinner to the blessed God betake thy self put it not off an hour longer to crying repenting mourning to God for free pardon for Christ for the Spirit and look up to the Lord to give thee a heart to do it wait humbly and carefully on the Gospel of Grace preached and yet though thou hast hitherto been idle thou mayest attain unto this blessedness as well as the blessedst Saint in the world if thou wilt be serious diligent earnest as so weighty a matter requires about it The good Lord give thee a heart to do it 2. Do not rest in false Evidences false hopes of pardon Many sinners might seem to have got pardon and gone well to Heaven if they had not vainly and foolishly hoped so Oh rest in nothing and never rest without it as I have pressed thee in love till thou canst say from a well grounded Gospel-evidence wrought forth with fear and trembling Now I have the blessedness that accompanies pardoned souls Now oh now rejoyce with me blessed souls I am I am a Child of God I have access to the blessed God and my soul pleads with him every day Ah now God my God doth love me Now I am justified in a state of Justification from which my God will never let me fall Ah my sins though great shall be remembred no more no more I shall be kept safely kept in all my ways if I fall the Lord will take me up and I shall not utterly fall however it is or may be with me as to the world and the things of it I am rich though poor worthless nothing in my self with all the riches unsearchable riches of my Christ I am an Heir of God I need nothing Oh the sweetness peace joy contentment Heaven of such a blest and for ever blest condition Now tell me sinner and let it stick with thee till thou art got well to Heaven is not is not the pardon of thy sins the work of the greatest weight before thee on this side the grave which is that I first promised thee to prove to thy Conscience from the first Observation 3. I might hence insist to stir up poor souls who have been awake for Heaven and have been and are crying and waiting for the pardon of your sins to be in this matter with all your might because you see 't is wonderfully weighty and concernable to you beyond all imaginations get your doubts and fears and misgivings of heart well removed see from whence your doubts do arise and follow them home to your hearts and then be with the Lord much and in his Word and Ordinances till the Lord make it clear day in thy Soul and thou walk in a sweet spirit of Adoption before him 4. Let pardoned ones whom it doth cost much as to means to get it made good to you make much of your comfort and do not Trisse it nor sin it away and keep the sense of a pardoned condition warm and lively upon your spirits and then you will love the Lord much Luke 7.47 Lord thou hast forgiven much as much as to any Oh let me let me love love much very much Conviction of sin and self-emptiness THe second Consideration we observed from the words and proposed to be opened was this Obs 2. Such who come to God to have their sins pardoned they look upon them as great sins Pardon mine iniquity for it is great c. The Original word as well signifies Many as Great my sins are great and many many great sins lye upon me pardon Oh pardon them Oh Lord c. Thus you have this blessed man David in several Psalms aggravating his sin Psal 38.4 Mine iniquities are gone over my head and are a burden too heavy for me to bear against thee only have I sinned Psal 51. So blessed Paul Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners whereof I am the chief that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful Rom. 7.13 So Peter at the first Glimpse of Christ and a word from him falls upon his knees crys out Depart from me for I am a sinful man c. Luke 5.8 So the Publican God be merciful to me a sinner agreat vile sinner nothing else but a sinner So the Prodigal Father I have sinned against Heaven and in thy sight c. Luke 18.13 15.21 In the opening of this Point first I would shew Why such as come in a right way for pardon do look upon their sins as great sins 1. How they come to see them so 2. When a sinner may be said to have seen his sins so great as a pardoned soul should do 1. Sinners that come to God for pardon and find it do look upon their sins as great sins because against a great God great in power great in justice great in holiness I am a worm and yet sin and that boldly against a God so great for a worm to lift up himself against a great and infinite God Oh this makes every little sin great and calls for great vengeance from so great a God 2. Because they have sinned against great patience despising the goodness forbearance and long-suffering of God which is call'd treasuring up of wrath Rom. 2.4 5. Oh saith a poor abased sinner at Gods feet How have I wearied the patience of God! I have not wearied thee saith God but thou hast been weary of me and hast made me to serve with thy sins and wearied me with thine iniquities Isa 43.23 24. Oh this is an humbling and heart-breaking word to a poor soul before the Lord this makes his sin appear great indeed I have wearied the blessed God with my sin and yet he calls upon me that he may pardon me ver 25. of the same Chapter This greatens sin to purpose to a poor soul that hath abused much patience 3. Sins do appear great because against great mercies Oh against how many mercies and kindnesses do sinners sin against and turn all the mercies of God into sin Oh saith a poor soul drawing near to God I turned all the mercies of the Lord against him took his mercies and fought against him with them and served the Devil and my lusts with them if God will come and account with me for them how shall I answer him 4. That which greatens sin in the eyes of poor sinners that cry for pardon is that they have sinned against great light light in the Conscience this heightens sin exceedingly especially to such as are under Gospel-means and is indeed the sin of all in this Nation
acknowledge utter Condemnation nothing but sin upon him and so stoop to free mercy 5. The sinner stands off from Free-grace because he will make his own terms He will condition for his carnal case his self-interest his bosom lust the love of the World and hopes God will allow him his terms which he proposeth to himself and herein he is ruined Now God hath drawn up the tenour of his free-grace in the way of a Covenant and though there are no conditions left to the creature to make good on his part by his own power for that will easily imply a self-sufficiency in him and is absolutely derogatory from the grace of God in the Gospel-Covenant yet God hath drawn up as I may so speak what other good things he will bestow on the subjects of his free-grace Namely The Law to be new written in their hearts the gift of the Spirit Newness of heart with the making good of all those promises in a degree that hold forth Holiness and new Obedience which must accompany the free pardon of sins and make indeed the free grace of God more glorious Inasmuch as when he pardons them he will save them from the service of sin work his Image upon them bring them to a blessed conformity to himself which consider'd aright sweetens and heightens the free-grace of God and makes the terms of it more blessed In a word Mercy and Holiness must go together a Saviour and Sanctifier which a sinner from the cursed love of ease and satisfaction to his lust sticks at and so comes not up to Gods terms which are blessed and holy and so misseth of grace and mercy for ever because he chooseth Sin rather than Holiness 6. Yea a sinner and I speak all this while of such as pretend to an interest in free mercy misseth of this grace because he takes up the terms of God in his Covenant-grace in his own strength will repent and come up to new obedience before he comes to the promise to the free grace of God for it which is also a dangerous snare A Sinners first work being convinced as we have opened is to throw himself upon the free grace of God for all to give all to work all and to follow God by vertue of Promises of such good and Grace as the tenour of the Covenant holds forth 'T is an usual thing for poor Souls first to think to convert themselves make themselves holy and then come to God and Jesus Christ this is an indirect course Oh! a poor Soul must begin at the Foundation of Gods free Grace for Christ for Pardon for the Spirit for Conversion for Holiness for all as held out in Promises and then the work will be sure and prosper and nought shall hinder it 7. Sinners fail of this free Grace of God from a neglect and a sleighting of it Heb. 2.3 How shall you escape if you neglect so great salvation Sinners do hear that though they are sinners and condemned in a damnable estate yet Jesus Christ will save them if they will come unto him sit them for Heaven and do it himself for them and in them yet through a desperate folly security and careless temper the heart being in a dead sleep they wretchedly neglect it 8. From the power of Unbelief which they are under and see it not Thus have I shewed those special hindrances that cause poor Souls that hear of Gospel-grace to withstand it and for ever to miss of it Oh that this word of the Lord might find you out and might be as a glass to shew you your own hearts you who by a wilful obstinacy have withstood the Gospel-calls hitherto Oh now fall down before the Lord and cry I yield I yield thou blessed God thy Patience thy freest Grace hath overcome me Lord take away a rebellious obstinate heart from me Ah Lord Thou hast waited to be gracious and Christ and Mercy and Heaven have been offered to so vile a Wretch freely Now Lord I throw my self at thy feet a thousand Hells are too good for me But if grace infinite grace be free there 's yet hope for me If there be not grace enough in Heaven for me let me go to the depth of Hell But Lord I take hold of thee I desire to do it Oh do thou take hold of me and I shall not perish You who have stood upon your terms and hoped you had righteousness enough to cover you and God would look upon that and not upon your sin you are the most abominable in God's sight You who secretly in your hearts think your sorrowing and reforming makes God amends You who have wrapt your selves in these Cobwebs and through pride of heart will not lay them down Oh if thou wilt have mercy thou must have all in a way of mercy and grace all freely or nothing at all see all thy righteousness made void by one sin against the Law and therefore cursed and condemned by it therefore thou hast no Plea but free mercy and grace Oh lay down all thy other Pleas they will never be heard in Heaven and now cry out Oh 't is of grace Proud selfish Wretch that I have been 't is all of free grace if ever I am saved If God cannot pardon freely bestow Jesus Christ freely I am undone for ever Oh the wicked castings of my heart this way and that way Oh there 's nothing nothing but infinite misery to move mercy All my goodness is an accursed thing as from my self There 's an infinite Fountain of sin and self-righteousness in men Oh could I come to an infinite Fountain of grace Thus thou wilt come to God when he shall smite thy heart which now look up unto him to do You who have been making your own terms of ease and lusts and world Oh render up your hearts to the gracious blessed holy terms that God proposeth Why shouldst thou not be willing to be made holy Why should not the Lord rather rule thee than sin and the Devil What more beautiful and glorious than the Image of God Oh accept of Holiness with Mercy through the Lord Jesus Christ Come unto him for both be willing to be set apart for God a Vessel purged and sanctified for his use and thou shalt behold the face of God shining upon thee and whatever is laid up in Christ in Promises in Heaven and Glory shall be thine You who have thought to make your selves holy and then come to Christ to be justified be convinced of your great Error and now come as sinners to Jesus Christ to be justified and sanctified in him and see all grace laid up in Jesus Christ for such as come unto him Say Oh blessed Lord Jesus I cannot fit my self for thee If thou canst not accept me as a poor undone helpless sinner coming unto thee I never expect a blessing from thee And you who have sleighted this free rich and glorious grace see what you have done and be abased
an infinite unchangeable love upon thee Rom. 5.5 which love he bore thee from Eternity but will now manifest it to thee and estate thee in it for ever 3. Thou shalt have boldness of access to God Rom. 5.2 even into his intimate presence to speak with God face to face and ask of God what thou wilt according to his will Heb. 10. 4. All the Promises of Mercy Grace and all blessings here and for ever shall be thine made over sealed in the blood of Christ 5. Thou shalt rejoyce in the hope of the Glory of God Rom. 5.2 with all Saints and see thy self an heir of Heaven 6. Thou shalt be still a washing and purifying and fating for Heaven till thou shalt be taken up unto God and live in the Ocean of his Love to all Eternity Now if ease in thy sin and the world can do better for thee than this that I have named then keep in but if not as most certain it cannot Arise and come to this blessed Redemption and get thy part and portion in it and thou shalt say Blessed be thy counsel and advice for evermore But now upon this Redemption of Jesus Christ how is a sinner said to be justified that is to be put into an actual Possession of the Redemption of Jesus Christ through the Free-Grace of God 1. When the compact was made between God the Father and Jesus Christ as to the Salvation of those that the Father gave to Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ undertook the fulfilling of the Condition of the Covenant God did purpose in himself to justifie them from Eternity and look'd upon them as in Christ 2 Tim. 1.9 Ephes 1.4 So they were justified as to the purpose of God from all Eternity 2. When Jesus Christ performed the Condition of Obedience in his dying and paid unto God what he required at his hands for the sinners redemption then did God as in the Court of Heaven discharge the sinner though not in the Court of Conscience and when Christ arose and came to Heaven the Father gave him in an absolution of them all from the guilt of sin and obligation to death and so at the death of Christ all the Elect were meritoriously justified inasmuch as the price was paid and accepted of the Father Rom. 5.10 3. When according to the purpose of God through the purchase of Jesus Christ a Sinner is called by grace hath Faith given him as purchased also for him to embrace Jesus Christ in the Promise to receive him as offer'd in the Gospel and with him all spiritual blessings then is the Soul put into the actual possession of what God in his purpose and love determined to give him and Jesus Christ by the purchase of his blood gave him a right to before and so there is an Act of God's pardoning Mercy passeth upon the sinnner he hath an actual discharge given in unto his Conscience hath the Obedience of Jesus Christ imputed to him and so is look'd upon by God not as a Sinner under guilt but as righteous in the Righteousness of Christ which bespeaks him justified that is made just and righteous before God by the imputation and making over Christs Righteousness to him as if righteous in his own person Upon which Act of God there is a full Remission of sin as in the Text and the believer is put into another State a State of justification unto life through Jesus Christ Rom. 8.1 who before was in a State of Death and Condemnation Before I speak of that Faith which through Grace puts a Soul in his pardoned and justified State I will briefly apply this to the capacity of the weak 1. It may inform and instruct you in this great Mystery that any sinner that is saved must be thus justified made righteous by the Obedience of Jesus Christ he must come to see the justice of God made up a price paid unto God and this to be actually made over to him As we shall presently shew most of sinners 't is to be feared do not consider this that speak of mercy and pretend they hope in mercy but are never convinc'd of the Righteousness of Jesus Christ and what it is to pass from a state of guilt to a state of righteousness by Jesus Christ from a state of condemnation to a state of justification without which there can be no Salvation Oh be convinced sinners of this great matter of the necessity of the righteousness of Christ his obedience in fulfilling the Law to be made over to you to be brought into a justified state or you can never have pardon of sin and be accepted with God you can never stand before God but in the righteousness of Jesus Christ Say If I do not get the righteousness of Christ made mine If I do not get thus justified I must never expect pardon of my sin and acceptance of my poor soul at the great day of the Lord. This is the Work of the Spirit to be savingly convinced of this John 16.8 Oh look up to the Father for the Spirit thus to convince you not only of sin and the damnableness and sinfulness thereof but of your infinite need to get not only some general hope of Mercy and Pardon but the righteousness of the Son of God to bring you into a state of Pardon Reconciliation Peace with God 2. It may further clear unto you that your justification before God is not within you but without you wrought forth by Jesus Christ for such as are or shall be called by grace and imputed to them not inherent or wrought in them 'T is not grace in you that doth or can justifie you though renewing grace shall be wrought in all that are so pardoned and justified Therefore though thou must be changed in thy self pray and be holy and obey God in all things yet thou canst not be hereby justified but still thy justifying righteousness is in Christ and not in thy self as the only procuring meritorious cause of Pardon and Peace with God Jeremiah 33.16 Isaiah 54. last 3. The great question therefore that should come upon thy heart is Whether thou art in a state of condemnation or justification If not justified thou art still as I have shewed under the condemnation of the whole Law Nothing thou hast yet done or shalt ever be able to do will stand between Wrath and Hell and thy poor soul till thou comest to be justified in the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ Oh sinners ponder of this great thing that is now laid before you Can you say from a Testimony within you Oh! I was thus and thus once under the reign power guilt condemnation of sin but now now blessed be rich and free grace I am washed justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ See that Word 1 Cor. 6.10 11. And such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus
and by the Spirit of our God Or at least that I may speak to poor weak willing trembling souls Is this it that your souls are restless after Oh that I were that I were in such a blessed state Oh that I could but believingly say the righteousness of Jesus Christ were mine and that now I am I am justified Oh what peace and sweetness and joy would fill my heart Why Soul If this be indeed the breathing of thy Soul Jesus Christ is thine and thou art justified and pardoned and God will at last give in unto thee if thou continue to follow him the sense and comfort of it in thy poor Soul Only by the way take a Discovery or two of the reality of thy Heart in this matter 1. If thou Soul from a Spiritual Conviction be under a real making out after justification by Jesus Christ then thou wouldst also be as really sanctified be made holy 'T was as much in the purpose of God to call thee out of a state of sin and to sanctifie thee as to pardon and justifie thee 1 Ep. John 5.6 2. If thou art brought into a justified state thy soul making out after it thou art made alive in the Spirit Rom. 8.1 Thou art in Jesus Christ and wouldst walk no more after the flesh and the lusts thereof but after the Spirit Gal. 5.18 If ye are led by the Spirit ye are not under the Law namely to condemn you but are free from the curse of it And verse 23. Against such there is no Law that is such as would walk after the Spirit be led by the Spirit and shew forth the fruit of the Spirit And this is that which the Apostle intimateth 1 Ep. John 5.10 He that believeth on the Son of God hath the Witness in himself namely of the Spirit So that every justified person hath the Spirit of Christ according to the measure of the grace of God dwelling in him is quickened in the Spirit being once dead prays in the Spirit mortifies sin through the Spirit is taught by the Spirit and so in all other saving and sanctifying vertues of it If it be not thus with thee thou as yet hast no part in this blessedness but art under condemnation unto death And therefore sinner come before God in the sence of thy condemned estate and give up thy self to Jesus Christ to be washed justified sanctified and then blessed for ever 3. Let called and sanctified Believers labour to live in the sense of a pardoned justified state that God is not off and on with them in the matter of justification though it may be sometimes darkned and clouded as to the evidence of it Oh! do you labour to preserve the sense and sweet and blessed peace of it in your souls and give glory to the riches of grace for now there is No No condemnation to you you are passed from Death to Life and the Blessed God imputes no sin unto you Let this be the highest and strongest Argument to Holiness and love to the glory that possibly may be and if indeed you walk in the comfort of it it will be so unto you Only let me give caution here to young Converts whose hearts at the first discovery of the free and glorious grace of the Gospel and of Jesus Christ are wonderfully taken and affected with it but after a time are apt to wanton with it unless the first humiliation be the deeper and to wax sleight in Duties and so their Lusts recover strength again and return upon them and either they fall or are near unto it to the fresh wounding of their Souls This hath been the condition of many therefore be well caution'd in it and walk with fear in the midst of your joyous apprehensions of the sweetness of grace and the endearing love of the Lord Jesus to you Having briefly shewed what the nature of justification is what it is to be in a justified state before God I now come to open more particularly how a Soul comes to be partaker of this justification through the Redemption of Jesus Christ namely Through Eaith in his blood ver 25. of this 3d. of Rom. Observ As God through Free-grace hath set forth Jesus Christ to work forth Redemption for sinners so there must be a special believing on and applying the blood of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins by every one that is saved Therefore justification is attributed to Faith Rom. 5.1 Therefore being justified by Faith we have peace with God by our Lord Jesus Christ So Gal. 2.16 and 3.11 In all which places Faith is put in opposition to the works of the Law And so the righteousness of Christ is called the Righteousness of Faith Rom. 9.30 and 10.6 in opposition to the righteousness by Works Not as if Faith were the matter of our justification that it did as an Act or Work in the Soul justifie before God but that God doth thus make over the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ to a Soul by enabling the Soul to come unto to take hold of to apply to it self to appropriate the merit of the blood of Jesus Christ for its own Redemption and Salvation which may afford us a plain Description of justifying Faith precisely considered Namely Faith is a Work of the Holy Ghost in the Soul enabling it to appropriate or apply to it self the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ for the Remission of sin and its justification unto eternal Life So it is called the work of Faith with power 2 Thes 1.11 and 't is expressed by receiving of Jesus Christ Joh. 1. and believing on his Name coming unto him resting upon him So that plainly Faith is a going out to believing in trusting on another namely the Lord Jesus Christ For what it can never be able to find or bring about in or by it self which may lead us to the more particular way of the Holy Ghost's working this power in the Soul in the saved ones of God 1. In the working of Faith in the Soul it is first brought to see an impossibility of coming to God as in its self or by its self concluded under an utter unability to pacifie God or make up a righteousness in it self to get access to God The soul is emptied from vessel to vessel till all the things that it counted gain before become loss for Jesus Christ this is the first work of the Spirit it empties a poor sinful Creature of all its refuges all its dependencies all its sufficiencies and so becomes naked in its guilt before God and therefore is brought to this that its acceptance to God if ever it be accepted must be out of its self what ever become of him he must perish as in himself 2. In the work of Faith the Soul is brought to see that this was the end of the Revelation of Jesus Christ of God's setting him forth to be a propitiation that he might work forth Redemption and Righteousness
eyes now I have heard the Lord himself speak to my soul now I have seen the Lord and my heart is taken with him Now I savour the Word of Grace and the Ministration of the Gospel is a sweet savour in Christ to me the Name of Jesus Christ is as good Ointment to me Now I feel a body of sin and groan under it and press after the destroying and crucifying of it Souls If this be not your Experience you are dead your are without the Life of God and Christ in you Oh! Go to God Sinner as you have been exhorted and cry to him to open your ear to hear and your eye to see Be convinced that as yet your Ear hath been stopt as to hearing the Lord himself speak to you Oh say Wo is me that I am where the Lord useth to speak under the Ministration of his Gospel and yet he never spake to my Soul Doth the Lord love me and never speak to me Pity Lord Pity a poor deaf blind stupid unsavoury Wretch and breath life into me and then wait for the Lords Voice in his Word Now let the Spirit himself speak unto me and unveil my heart that I may see into the Mysteries of Jesus Christ and may savour them upon my poor Soul 2. Let living Souls in Christ exercise their Spiritual Senses keep the Ear open to and waiting for the Spirits Voice be prying into the Mystery of God in Christ and all Gospel-Truth get a clearer sight of Jesus Christ till you shall be infinitely taken with him and love him for himself And keep the heart savoury and the precious scent of Gospel-grace upon your Spirits and labour so to feel the weight of the body of sin how it poiseth polluteth cloudeth the Soul that you may come to that frame to cry out to be delivered from it And let it be abundant matter of Praise to the Riches of Grace that God hath given life and senses to your Souls which he might have left under the death of sin to all Eternity 5. The next Discovery of our Gospel-New-Creature is this namely He hath a new heart So Ezek Chap. 18.31 Make you a new heart and a new spirit which the Lord hath in Free-grace promised in the New-Covenant Chap. 36.26 A new heart will I give you Which I shall precisely consider and shew particularly wherein the heart is made new 1. The heart naturally in its old corrupt frame is a Rebellious heart Jer. 5.23 This people have a rebellious heart The usual complaint of the Prophets Now when the Lord makes the heart new he begins to take away the Rebellion of heart as it naturally opposeth the Word Power and Spirit of God and the heart is made obedient and pliable to the Power of the Word the Spirit 's Teachings Isa 1.19 If ye be willing and obedient you shall eat the good of the Land but if you refuse and rebel ye shall be devoured c. My people shall be willing in the day of my power Psal 110. The heart of it self is stubborn obstinate unwilling to stoop to the power of Truth to yield to Jesus Christ but when it is made new it becomes of a yieldable frame to the practical Obedience of Gospel-Truths 2. The heart as an effect of the former is naturally hard and impenitent Rom. 2.5 cannot mourn for sin But when 't is made new God makes it soft Ezek. 36.27 I will take away the stoney heart out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh which is a soft and tender heart whereby a Soul can pour out its complaints to God Yea the heart will pour out it self like water to the Lord Lam. 2.19 The heart receives impressions of truth as by its softness 't is more and more wrought to a new frame as in the hand of the Lord. 3. The Heart is naturally proud and makes the sinner self-conceited and well opinioned of his own condition and will not suffer the sinner to abase himself to God and to take shame to himself But when a new work of God is upon it the sinner humbles himself under the mighty hand of God bears his reproach before him and crys out Oh! What shall I do for an humble heart Lord take away subdue pride in a wretched Creature James 4.10 Now he becomes a poor self-emptied Creature undone helpless and to a full Christ he at last goes 4. The Heart is naturally Hypocritical The Hypocrite in heart heaps up wrath Job 36.13 Now when God makes the Heart new then it begins to be sincere in some good measure for God before the poor deceived sinner thought he did all with a good heart that he did bear much upon that he did all with a good heart but when God shews him his heart by the Candle of his Word and Spirit then the poor Creature sees what a Hell of Hypocrisie was and is within him that he acted in all his Duties as from himself so to himself and not uprightly unto God But when the Lord new frames the heart then the Soul is after new sincere holy aims for God in all it does is most abased for selfish and hypocritical mixtures and would account nothing well done but as God is designed in it and labours to walk in simplicity of heart and godly sincerity as of God and in the sight of God c. 2 Cor. 1.12 5. The old heart is full of all uncleanness and impurity and cares not to be cleansed So saith Christ to the Jews Matth. 23.27 Within you are full of dead mens bones rottenness and of all uncleanness But now when the New-Creature is forming up then the heart is after purifying Purifie your hearts ye double minded James 4.8 Then what a blessedness would a pure heart be saith a poor creature Oh! that my heart were cleansed Wash thine heart saith God Jer. 4.14 Oh! that it were washed saith the New-Creature And this is one of the most special works a New-Creature will be after as he is more formed up in Holiness to keep the heart pure as a Temple for God 6. The Heart naturally is dead as already hinted and feels not its own deadness but when renewed then the heart doth live that seeks God Psalm 22.26 It feels and mourns over its own deadness and crys out Quicken Oh quicken me Oh God! No Duty is well performed then but as the Heart lives in some measure in that Duty Now it feels its own burdens pollutions lusts corruptions carnality earthiness and bewails it before the Lord. 7. The Heart is naturally divided between Christ and the World Christ and Lusts Hosea 10.2 Their heart is divided But under its renewings the heart as to the main bent of it makes a whole close with Christ the great business of a Soul then is to give the whole heart up to Christ and fears he can never do it fully and singly enough and when the heart lusteth after other things so far as
it is renewed it is fetcht in again to Jesus Christ 8. The heart of it self is unbelieving Take heed lest there be in you an heart of unbelief Hebr. 3. Now when the heart is made New there is a Work of Faith with power 2 Thess 1.11 And then the soul is made sensible of that bitter root of Unbelief that is naturally in their hearts and they find it the hardest work in the world to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of sins to fix on Promises and that a believing heart is a special gift of God and a work of the Spirit which while a poor sinner was shut up under Unbelief he felt not Vse 1. To unchanged persons who are the same in heart as ever they were Oh learn by what hath been opened what is the natural make and frame of them There is in you a Rebellious heart against the Lord and wilful obstidacy against his Word and Spirit and therefore 't is that you cast the Word of the Lord from you and in your hearts despise it and say This is not the Word of the Lord and we will not obey it You have hard and impenitent hearts and therefore you do not mourn for sin you have proud hearts and are well-conceited of your condition though damnable and therefore you do not humble your selves to God you have Hypocritical Hearts and see it not full of Hell of Uncleanness dead in sin and without feeling a heart divided between Christ and the World unbelieving and yet say you have Faith If thou canst not make out a Newness upon thy heart as we have shewed thou hast still thine old heart with its lusts and thy estate is as yet damnable let thy Knowledge Profession Outward-blamelessness be what it will 2. Oh therefore let this Word be yet for further Tryal of your Estate Can you say to the praise of free and rich Grace that God hath in some measure taken away your Rebellious Heart from you and you can stoop and yield to the power of Truth and rejoyce in it that God hath made your heart soft in some measure and the Pride of your hearts in the false conceit you had of your selves hath a stroak from God upon it that God hath shewed you your deep and cursed Hypocrisie and how your heart was divided and was wholly unbelieving and that the Remnants of these wickednesses in you of heart rebellion hardness pride hypocrisie pollution unbelief are your greatest burden and you mourn over them daily If this be not your Experience let that man or woman know he or she is a Hypocrite and Unbeliever and sees it not c. 3. Therefore let it convince you and exhort you to go and fall down before the Lord and beg him to open your hearts which naturally are shut up in Darkness and to abase you in the sense of your Rebellion and that he would even do this for you in much Mercy to take away a rebellious hard proud heart from you and would make your hearts pliable to the Word and make them soft and humble before him and to close with the whole heart with Jesus Christ through a work of Faith upon you Do this in the fear of the Lord and through his Grace coming upon you and see what God will do for you and you will be your own wonders that ever such abominations should lye hid in your hearts and yet you not be confounded in your selves in the sense of them 4. Let Souls that are through infinite grace under some heart-renewings know that they have never done with this Work till they come to Glory Yea Soul thou hast depths of rebellion pride hypocrisie pollution unbelief which yet thou hast not reach'd to and therefore as thou must ascribe all to Grace for what the Lord hath done upon thee and remember to thy greater humbling how much adoe the Lord had with thee to bring thy heart under so much as it is so to consider that the Candle of the Lord must more and more search thy dark and deep heart and 't is to be thy daily work or else all these evils will again much prevail upon thee Love therefore a searching Word from the Servants of Christ that are over you 6. The next Discovery of the Gospel New-Creature is this namely The Gospel New-Creature hath New Affections Briefly to instance in some of the chief 1. The New-Creature hath new fear The fear of an eternal Condition that first usually seizeth upon a convinced sinner the fear of a just and angry God against sin and at last upon its renewing a holy awful fear of God as great and holy and good a fear of sinning against him and that because he is gracious Naturally this affection of fear in a carnal heart is conversant about the loss of outward things about shame in the World and the like and so far as it respects God his Soul 't is a slavish fear of breaking out of some grosser sins only lest God should damn him but not fearing the Lord with a gracious Son-like fear a fear that purifies the Heart a fear that is mixt with a blessed love of God and delight in his ways 2. The Heart is exercised with new Sorrow A godly sorrowing for sin such sins which were once the delight of the Heart such a sorrowing that works an Indignation against the Darling sins a taking of a kind of Revenge of our selves for it a vehement desire after pleasing of God and Holiness 2 Cor. 7.11 There is a sorrowing over a crucified Christ and a sorrowing after him and well is a poor soul when it can go in secret and have this affection most exercised with sighs and groans and tears and sad complaints against it self 3. There is a new joy by degrees instilled in the Soul of which though there are various measures to the Children of God yet every New-Creature can go thus far though not in that vigour of Spirit he would do that when the Spirit is free from great distempers it can say he hath some joy that he is deliver'd from the dominion and thraldom of lusts that 't is its joy to go before God I will go unto God my exceeding joy Psal 43.4 Even when under some disquietness of Spirit as verse 2. Why dost thou cast me off Yea will a poor soul say God and Communion with him could I see his face would be my greatest joy And the carnal joy of the heart when it breaks forth leaves the soul but more in heaviness and the New-Creature would have his joy run spiritual 4. Upon this the New-Creature hath New delights The Word of God becomes his delight seeking the face of God and the People of God Delight thy self in God Psal 37. And his chief delight is in the Saints Psal 16.3 The heart cannot as it could formerly delight it self in folly and in vanity and in vain carnal ways and people but is rather burthened with
lost sinner to be washed from my sins in his blood and to be justified by him Rev. 1.5 Acts 13.38 39. Q. How doth God justifie a sinner A. God in his free Grace forgives a poor sinner for Christs sake and imputes Christs Righteousness to a Believer Rom. 3.24 25. Rom. 4.6 Q. How may you come to believe on Jesus Christ A. God works faith in dead sinners by his Spirit in hearing of the Gospel Preached Rom. 10.17 1 Thess 2.13 Q. In what manner doth God work faith in the Soul A. 1. By convincing me of sin and revealing Christ in the promise Luk. 7.37 Joh. 6.37 2. I must pray unto God to work faith in me and to reveal Christ to my poor soul 2 Thes 1.11 Ephes 1.17 18. Q. How may you come to pray A. I must beg of God to give me his holy Spirit to help me to Pray Luk. 11.13 Rom. 8.26 Q. How may you know the Spirit helpeth you in Prayer A. When I confess my sins and humble my self to the Mercy and Grace of God by Jesus Christ and beg all Mercy and Grace for Christs sake 1 Ep. Joh. 1.9 Joh. 14.13 Q. How must you be found a Praying Child of God A. 1. I must Pray to my Heavenly Father every Morning and Evening in secret Mat. 6.6 Psal 45.17 2. I must also read some part of the Word of God and pray that God will teach me by it Prov. 6.21 22. 2 Tim. 3.15 Q. What is the work of the Spirit of God A. I must be born again of the Spirit or never enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Joh. 3.3 1 Pet. 1.13 Q. What is the fruit of being born again A. 1. I must be in Christ and a new Creature in him 2 Cor. 5.17 Ephes 2.10 2. I must press after all holiness in Christ Jesus in heart and life 1 Thes 5.14 1 Pet. 1.15 Q. What is required of souls that thirst after more of Christ A. It is the duty of such as would have more of Christ to join themselves to a particular Church of Christ Acts 2. last 2 Cor. 8.5 Q. What is a Church of Christ A. A Church of Christ is a Congregation of Saints by profession gathered by the Gospel and joyned together to enjoy all Ordinances and to Edifie one another in forbearance and love 1 Cor. 1.2 1 Thes 5.11 Q. What is the Covenant of Grace A. The Covenant of Grace is Gods taking us to be his peculiar people and our giving up our selves to him that he may be our God for ever by Jesus Christ Gen. 17.7 Isa 56.6 Q. What be the Ordinances of the Covenant A. Baptism and the Lords Supper Q. What is Baptism A. In Baptism by the washing with Water we are delivered up to the Name and Profession of Jesus Christ Mat. 28. last Gal. 3.27 Q. What is the Lords Supper A. The Lords Supper is the shewing forth of the Death of Jesus Christ and our Communion with his Body and Blood by Faith in which forgiveness of sins is sealed to Believers 1 Cor. 11.36 1 Cor. 10.16 Q. When are you fit to pattake of the Lords Supper A. When I can give up my self to Christ and my heart is drawn after him though I am weak in Faith Rom. 14.1 Rev. 22.17 Q. What priviledg is there more in being of a Church of Christ A. When I am in a Church I am in a special manner in the Prayers of Saints and to partake of all help and comfort from them Isa 5.15 16. Rom. 15.1 2. Q. What is the further comfort of new-born Souls A. 1. If I am new born of the Spirit I am a Child of God and Heir of Heaven John 1.12 13. Rom. 8.16 17. 2. I shall be kept by the power of God unto Salvation 1 Pet. 5. 1 Thes 5.23 Q. What further great priviledge have you if you be a Child of God A. If I become a Child of God God will love me for ever and is my Father and will hear my poor Prayers to him 2 Cor. 13 14. 1 Joh. 5 15. Q. What is the further duty of a Child of God A. 1. I am to grow in Grace and the Knowledge of Jesus Christ under the Word and Ordinances Mat. 25.30 2 Pet. 3.18 2. I ought to love all Saints as Saints though they differ from me in Judgment 1 Ep. Joh. 3.14 Col. 3.12 Q. What is the great Work God will do in the World A. To encrease the Kingdom of his Son Jesus Christ and to subdue the Nations unto him Isa 9.7 Revel 11.15 Q. Shall there be a Resurrection of the Bodies of all from the dead A. When Christ comes to Judgment all shall be raised from the dead and shall stand before his Judgment-Seat Heb. 6.2 2 Cor. 5.10 Q. What shall the reward of all be at the last Judgment A. They who be in Christ and have done good shall have Everlasting Life but such as have done evil Everlasting Damnation Mat. 24. last Joh. 5.29 FINIS
Divine Characters OR The True Christian Discovered AND The Hypocrite Detected In Three Treatises The first Treatise shewing That both Saints and Unconverted Sinners ought daily to go to God in Jesus Christ for Pardon of their sins because they are many and great The Second Treatise shewing How we are to expect Salvation not from any Righteousness of our own but by the Righteousness of the alone Mediator JESUS CHRIST how we shall be made Partakers thereof and Evidences of the Truth of it The Third Treatise shewing The Gospel-Evidences of a True Christian as they are experienced by those who are truly Believers and the false Appearances thereof plainly refuted To which is added The Summe and Substance of the Christian Religion in a SHORT CATECHISE LONDON Printed in the Year 1695. Divine Characters In Three Treatises The First Treatise Shewing that both Saints and Unconverted Sinners ought daily to go to God in Jesus Christ for Pardon of their Sins because they are many and great PSAL. XXV 11. For thy Names sake O Lord pardon mine Iniquity for it is great IN this Psalm you have David's sins laid in with weight upon his Conscience and in the deep sense of their guilt pleading with God about mercy and pardon The sense of that one great sin in the matter of Vriah meant especially in the Text brought in the sense of other sins of his youth upon him as is usually Gods way in humbling a sinner and at ver 7. you have him at the feet of God begging as for his life as to the remission of them all Remember not the sins of my youth nor my transgressions According to thy mercy remember thou me for thy Goodness O Lord And here at the Text for thy Names sake O Lord c That which I design to lay before you from the words is to open to you and press upon you the weight and blessedness of a pardoned condition that you may be awakened to it while the day of mercy lasts and may indeed be in very good earnest about it till through infinite grace you may obtain it and live and dye in the sweet and blessed peace and comfort of it through our Lord Jesus Christ That which I intend to give out from hence through the spirit of grace assisting is but as previous and preparatory to the opening of a justified estate and the New Creature in Christ that if God will your consciences may be brought to a thorough a wakening a spiritual sight and conviction of sin and a self-emptyness which is the good and safe way of a Soul to Jesus Christ which from this Scripture take in these plain Observations Obs 1. That great and weighty concernment that should most of all take up the thoughts of the hearts of poor sinners is that their sins may be pardoned 2. Such who come to God by Jesus Christ to have their sins pardoned they look upon them as great sins for it is Great 3. The great reason of Gods pardoning a sinner and the Plea that a poor sinner hath with God is that God will pardon for his own Names sake 1. To begin with the first proposition viz. That great and weighty thing that should most of all take up the thoughts of the hearts of all the Children of men is that their sins may be pardoned This may be evinced from the frame of blessed David's spirit and other the pardoned ones of the Lord up and down the holy Scriptures exercised with such a violence and importunity with the Lord in this matter of the Pardon of their sins as if they had no other thing besides what conduced thereunto to beg of God in the world and all that God gave them in the world as indeed it is not were nothing without it therefore you have them thus wrestling with God about it According to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my trangressions Psal 51.1 If there be any mercy in Heaven let a poor guilty soul have a drop of it yea David layeth a kind of violence upon God Psal 65.2 As for our transgressions thou shalt purge them away thou shalt do it I cannot must not will not be denyed this thou shalt do it for me So Moses interceding for the people Exod. 39.9 If I have found grace in thy sight O Lord let my Lord I pray thee go amongst us for it is a stiff-necked people and pardon our iniquity and our sin and take us for thine Inheritance with what vehemency of heart doth Moses cry if I have any favour with thee let it be laid out this way Oh Lord let my Lord c. Otherwhiles when the blessed sense of a pardoned condition is upon their hearts Blessed is he whose trangressions is forgiven Blessed man or woman as ever he was born Blessed He and only blessed and fully blessed and for ever blessed whose sins are pardoned And then admiring the blessed God in such riches of Grace as to pardon sinners Who is like to thee a God pardoning iniquity Mic. 7.18 Thou art a God ready to pardon gracious and merciful c. Neh. 9.17 Psal 103.1 2 3 10. Bless the Lord oh my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name why what had the Lord done see verse 3. Oh who forgiveth all thine iniquities who forgiveth and forgiveth All great sins a well as less sins of nature as well as life sins before conversion and sins since conversion sins of knowlege as well as of ignorance for David was under all these yet All All All forgiven and that freely too only because the Lord is gracious verse 8. and so forgiven them as never to come before him any more As far as the East is from the West so far hath he removed our trangressions from us verse 12. I shall hint some Reasons of the Truth why it is that the pardon of sins doth or should so greatly take up the hearts of sinful creatures Reason 1. The pardon of sin should thus greatly take up the hearts of all that indeed expect pardon because 't was the greatest thing if I may so speak that ever took up Gods heart how a sinner might be pardoned He laid forth more of his wisdom and goodness about it than in the making of the Heavens and the Earth The framing of the New Covenant the giving out of his eternal Son Jesus Christ God manifested in the flesh such a Glorious way of reconciling justice and mercy through the death of Christ the choicest piece of divine Wisdom that ever was brought forth they were all conversant about and their proper tendency was about this great and weighty concernment how and that a sinner might be pardoned when Moses had that blessed enterview and parley with the Lord Exod. 33. 34. and Moses getting nearer and nearer to God who was glimpsing out a ray of glory upon him breaks out Show me thy glory I will saith God I will shew thee what way of Glory I
on this side the grave yet at the great Judgment it will not be so No nothing but upbraiding of Devils for neglecting Gospel-Grace and refusing the terms of pardon and for gross security this will be the portion of every unpardoned sinner that neglects the day of his salvation therefore the pardon of sins requires the deepest thoughts of heart and can never be made too sure to a poor sinful Creature Vse 1. Is the pardon of sin be of so great and infinite weight how doth this meet with the wretched deplorable carelesnefs of a world of souls in this day that think of nothing less than whether their sins are pardoned that will hear of nothing that may call this great matter into question or may awaken them to it Oh how many poor souls I fear too many of you though so often and earnestly prest to it that were never before the Lord mourning after the pardon of your sins What a light matter would it be to be pardoned if there should be no more in it nor care about it than most sinners that call themselves Christians make about it Ah sinners why do you make no more adoe no more matter of it why so sensless of that which is alone worthy all the thoughts of thy heart if thou shouldst live a million of years to dispatch this one thing to get thy sins all pardoned You that are Elderly people have a large reckoning especially upon your account of sinning against Gospel-light and grace make haste what you do do quickly lay hold on eternal life the sun is ready to set upon you and wo with you as ever you were men and women if you fail of a good and sure dispatch of this one concernable thing that your sins are pardoned And you that are younger take heed least the day of grace set upon you and you be given up to your own hearts lusts and no word that is spoken from God or Man shall ever reach you Oh tremble at trifling with convictions and light but begin to honour the Lord Jesus and bow unto him and wait for the promised effusion of his spirit and the joy of the Lord shall be the joy of your youth and the Love of the Lord will be very sweet and precious to you 2d Exhort Oh then let every soul of us be deeply affected with this weighty matter let your souls say within you Oh the dreadfulness of an unpardoned condition what tongue can express it to have all my store little or much house corn cattle trade all under a curse and enjoy it as a curse and only to further my eternal damnation to be hated of the great God and not loved to be under all the condemnation of the Law wherever I read of wrath and wo it belongs to me to have not one of my prayers nor any thing else accepted of the Lord to be in a condition of expecting nothing from Jesus Christ at his coming but go go ye cursed when I shall see so many blessed souls that took pains for Heaven enter into the Kingdom and my self shut out Wo is me if I speak peace to my soul in such an estate one moment more Awake my soul Awake Away in to the blessed God for mercy pardon grace Christ his blood spirit holiness eternal life I will go the Lord helping me and cry in the bitterness of my soul for them all and if 't were possibe to weary the Lord with the cryes of my poor soul I will do it till he have mercy upon me and bid me go in peace the Gracious God shall as hardly deny me as ever he did any poor sinner that lay bleeding at his feet for mercy and grace from Heaven to heal a poor condemned soul Oh what have I been doing in the world all this while get a little something and my sins unpardoned in daily danger of dying in them and so be lost without all remedy for ever Oh! such will be the great thoughts of heart about the pardon of sins when the Lord shall speak to a poor sinner and the Conscience shall be throughly awake about it Oh! let me yet in the name of the Lord argue out this matter with thee Be serious for once and ponder it in thy heart what is health or wealth what is it to have something about thee in the world and lay up yearly and thou go deeper in debt with the just God every day What if all the world be at Peace with thee and God thy enemy and hate thee as thou hast been shewed What if all the world say of thee Blessed if God and his holy Word of truth pronounce thee Cursed because thy sins lye upon thy soul and the Spirit of grace is not upon thee Ah! poor Creature do not do not let thy sins lye upon thy precious soul any longer do not be contented to be a child of Gods wrath any longer Oh! do not thou poor careless soul if there be a spark of pity in thee Do not as the Devil flatters rest in this and say I hope better and I hope 't is better with me and I hope I am or shall be pardoned and so fall asleep till thou drop into Hell You that think it an easie common matter to be pardoned know not what it is you have yet no part in this blessedness Saith a poor convicted soul 1. 'T is a great matter that any sinner in the world is pardoned much more such a one as I if ever I attain to it 2. Souls that get pardon do make it their greatest care to be assured of it they do not leave the matter at sixes and sevens and put it off with bidding the heart hope well but they labour after a Gospel assurance of it 3. Such Souls will labour to see that nothing be wanting that must accompany pardon of sin and a state of salvation Heb. 6.9 4. They try all their pretenees to pardon and grace over and over and will take nothing upon trust from their hearts or the Devils flatteries or the flatteries of carnal Ministers but search and prove and lay their hearts under the Word and Spirit till it be sealed by the Holy Ghost and that they are wrought of God for this self same thing and that he hath given them the Earnest of the Spirit 2 Cor. 5.5 Well therefore say in thy heart in good earnest Oh! it hath not been so with me I have been careless I thought well of my self I ne're questioned this weighty matter to purpose Oh! the Lord give me grace to take pains in the use of means to be violent for Heaven Oh! I will not rest Oh! let me not till I am assured indeed that my my sins are done away and Christ is mine Go and say and do it and the God of all grace and might be with thee in it But yet further to press the weight of this matter upon thy Conscience that thou mayest go off thoroughly convinced and
there 's nothing more abaseth a soul than this nothing makes it more difficult to believe pardon when humbled for it therefore 't is that many poor souls fear that they have sinn'd the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost because they have sinned against knowledge and light which though while they are humbled before the Lord it cannot be that they have so sinned unpardonably yet in as much as 't is the sin that borders next upon the sin against the Holy Ghost it much greatens sin to a poor soul under the sense of it Such a sinner is said to reproach the Lord Numb 15.30 31. Therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doth it not to him it is sin James 4. last To him it is sin that is great sin of which God will take the severest account Therefore such as have the Profession of Christianity and the knowledge of the Word in some measure and yet go on impenitently in sin they are the greatest sinners in the world and will have the greatest damnation and this circumstance in sin makes or should do so such souls that never lived in notorious sins be under deep abasement because though their Sins were not so gross as many others yet they were against great light and knowledge which makes every little sin continued in great in the account of God and great in the account of the sinner when he comes before the Lord in the sense of it Oh I pleased my self in sins that I knew to be sins and was convinced by the Word of God of them yet I went on and loved them 5. Continuance in sin much greatens sin to a poor soul that is after pardon especially such as are not very early converted God will wound the hairy scalp of such a one that goeth on still in his trespasses Psal 68.21 Oh I added sin unto sin saith a poor soul spending the choice time of my youth in sin when I might have been getting the knowledge of Jesus Christ and honouring of God This lay close upon David's spirit as appears in this 25th Psal 7. Oh remember not the sins of youth c. Yet we do not find that David's youth was notoriously sinful but in as much as he spent not his youth to get knowledge and to serve the Lord fully 't was his burden and complaint before the Lord much more such whose youth was spent in nothing but vanity prophaneness lying swearing prophaning of the Sabbath sports past-times excess of riot and the like when God lays it in upon their Consciences must be greivous and abominable to their souls 6. Multitudes of sins do make sin appear great this made David cry out for multitude of mercies Psal 51. and Psal 40.12 Innumerable evils have compassed me about mine iniquities have taken hold upon me so that I am not able to look they are more than the hairs of my head therefore my heart faileth me One sin but a sinful thought is worthy of a thousand Hells much more multiplyed numberless infinite sins in thought words walkings calling worship in all I have done I did nothing else but sin Therefore the least sinner in the world is a great sinner when God lays his account before him 7. Another thing that greatens sin is that it was against purposes and resolutions of forsaking such and such sins and yet all broken sometimes against solemn vows against prayers This consideration upon many a poor soul sticks hard and lays low and makes his sin grievous indeed that against purposes vows prayers he should return to his sin this makes him cry out Oh my sin is great great indeed Doth will the Lord pardon such a Wretch c. 8. Sin appears great when seen by a poor soul because it was reigning sin Rom. 5. 6. Sin reigned to death c. Oh saith a poor humbled sinner I did not only commit sin but I was the servant and slave of sin I obey'd sin as a Lord and that willingly I obey'd it in the lusts thereof where God Christ his Spirit Word Law should have dwelt and reigned there sin and lusts bore sway and had the command of my soul A little sin when a reigning sin is a great sin All that sin can do is but to rule the sinner and so it doth the least sinner that is under it though it break not forth into gross notorious actings against the Lord and this doth much greaten it 9. Sin in the fountain makes it great As it may be said there is more water in the fountain than in the pools and streams it makes because there is a continual issuing and flowing out of it which is able to make far greater streams So in the nature in the heart is there as in the fountain and therefore 't is more there than in the breakings forth of it in the outward man so that though a sinner in his youth hath been restrained from many great sins yet in as much as sin in the fountain was as full as in any sinner in the world though restrained and pent in which the sinner was not beholding to his own heart for it renders him a great sinner before the Lord when savingly enlightned The want of this consideration makes outwardly righteous persons not look upon themselves as great sinners they see and feel not sin infinite in the fountain of it which mostly greatens it above all the actings of it in this life 10. A sinner drawing nigh to God for pardon sees his sin as great because thereby he was led captive by the Devil at his will He that committeth sin is of the Devil 1 John 3.8 committeth sin so as in a state of sin under the power of sin and not born of God why such a one is of the Devil under the power of the Devil of the Devil and not of God and this because of sin which gives this dominion to the Devil Oh saith a poor Creature I that was the creature of God and should have lived to him lived to the Devil and the service of him and took part with him against Christ his Word his Saints and was an enemy to them This greatens my sin before the Lord. 11. Sin appears great because great is the wrath of God against sin sinners are said to heap up wrath Rom. 2. and they are called the Children of wrath God to manifest his displeasure against sin pours out everlasting wrath upon an unpardoned sinner to leave the sinner under endless torment of soul and body God hates nothing but sin and for sin and so hates it that infinite endless wrath must be the vengeance of it Oh when God gives a sinner a glimpse of this Oh the greatness of every little sin to deserve such wrath How shall I flee from and escape the wrath to come who can stand before such wrath who can bear it 12. The way of any sinner's deliverance from such wrath shews sin to be exceeding great in the price
and ransom that is paid for the salvation of him from his sins the price of the blood of the eternal Son of God How great was sin how sinful and damnable the nature of it in the eye of the righteous God when justice could not be satisfied but by such a way Oh saith a poor soul that comes for pardon what a damnable thing is sin which was once nothing to me that redemption from it is at such a rate God had no greater a price to give than what he laid down to save a wretched sinner from his sin Oh 't was great sin that must crucifie the Lord of life and glory therefore doth my soul hate it 13. Lastly This consideration also greatens sin in as much as a poor creature hath drawn and tempted others to sin with him especially such as have lived more vainly and loosly and it lies hard upon many a poor soul after thorough conviction Oh how many have I drawn to sin not only by my example but encouragement and perswasion that may be now in Hell for such sins or are under a state of impenitency and hardened by me Oh this is an abasing consideration to a poor convinced humbled sinner when God smites his heart with it Vse 1. Before we go further let us labour to apply this to the consciences of all I have shewed you the matter we are upon is the weightiest that ever took up God's heart the pardoning of a sinner and therefore how should it swallow up the hearts of poor undone souls that are so infinitely concern'd in it I beseech you therefore lay to your hearts what hath been spoken as to the greatness of sin and consider If souls that come to God by Christ for pardon see their sins as great sins and 't is their great trouble they cannot see them greater First then This may serve to take off that woful deceit of heart and delusion of the Devil of poor careless souls that dream of pardon and yet never in any measure thus saw their sins as great this shews the heart was never touched of God never smitten for sin as yet this is the way indeed of unpardoned sinners they are lessening their sins to God and themselves finding out circumstances to lessen them of others tempting them and the Devil and the like and many or most of Men or Women allow themselves in the same or they were overtaken or the like they think they can easily pacifie God again and that God makes not so great a matter of it thus a deceitful heart and a cheating Devil juggle together and sooth Conscience in a damnable peace And such souls call their great reigning sins their infirmity and God will not be so exact as some of the Preachers make him here 's a sinner rivetted in a cursed estate But now take a Soul whom God as I shall shew hath made sensible of sin and the weight of pardon and comes to the feet of the Lord for it 't is quite otherwise Oh my sins Wretch that I was and am were little sins to me before but now they are great sins I called it my infirmity to lye swear prophane the Sabbath allow my self in any excess but now I see 't was reigning sin soul-damning sin great oh great sin Oh that I am out of Hell Oh the patience of God! Is there mercy for such a wretch What a wonder will it be if I get to Heaven How great will that mercy be that pardons me 2. Therefore in the second place Examine how it is with you and whether you have had some such workings of heart Have you been before the Lord in David's posture Oh mine iniquity is great Oh I I have sinned against a great God wearied great patience turned great mercies into sin Oh I have sinned against great light How shall I be pardoned Sins continued in and multiplied from my youth up and these against serious purposes under the reign of it there 's an infinite fountain of all evil within me If I have been any way restrained no thanks to my own heart for it Oh saith a poor soul I was led by the Devil befool'd by the Devil served the Devil against God and now what can I challenge at the Hands of God What belongs to me but wrath great wrath everlasting wrath infinite Wrath If one sin deserves a thousand Hells what do innumerable transgressions do If Mercy be not infinite How shall I look up to God or how shall God look down upon me Oh I say let your Conscience answer hath it been thus in some good and real measure though not so deep as your soul desires I know there are degrees and I also know till God come to let out himself in such a way as ☞ this that sin is great and greater in mine eye then ever we make but slight work of it in our spirits want of this makes many in these days run away with pleasant notions of Grace Christ Light though blessed be the Lord for ever for the more glorious Revelation of all these but I speak of abuses but sin was never great by the appearance of God and so they wanton with such Notions which at last wear off and so they come to nothing but a reproach to the Gospel 3. In the third place therefore let it serve to exhort sinners to look back upon your lives even from your youth up You may find one more of the discoveries mentioned of the greatness of sin that you will fall under especially such as have been given to the prophaness and vanities of the age you live in lying swearing prophaning of the Sabbath to riot ungodly pastimes and sports reviling the Godly or other more secret wickednesses and pollutions any of which may bespeak thee in a state of sin and wrath joyned with thy living in the neglect of known duties upon which neglect God hath pronounced a curse as the neglect of secret or Family-prayer Jer. 10. ult Or if thou hast not been engaged in gross sins but hast been sober and well carriaged from thy youth up yet thou mayst be still in a state of sin but go a little more soberly to Hell and in more danger of being damned in thy civil sober carriage than great sinners with which thou art apt to compare thy self and seeing thy self not so bad as them thinkest all is well but remember well what hath been proved that sin is greater in the Fountain than the streams though it make a greater noise or shew to others in the stream of ones life thou hast a Hell in thy nature an infinite fountain of any wickedness that ever any of the Sons or Daughters of men did commit an Idolater an Adulterer a Murderer a Sodomite a Devil in thy Heart and whole frame of thy Nature In a word one sin which thou callest little reigning but in thy heart and cherished there is enough to send thee to Hell as if thou wert the veriest
Reprobate living Remember the same Paul that thought himself a blameless man Philip. 3.6 afterwards cries out of exceeding sinfulness Rom. 7.13 yea the greatest the chief of sinners 1 Tim. 1.15 But I hope to meet with thee and with thy conscience as to this conviction more hereafter The next inquiry will be when a poor soul may be said to be under such a discovery of the greatness of sin as may lead him to get pardon through Jesus Christ 1. One discovery I have named already which is such a soul doth not go about to lessen his sin but greeaten it to his greater abasement 't is his fear he doth not see his sins great enough to lay him low enough before the Lord. 2. When such a sight and discovery of sin it begets trouble upon the spirit In Psal 28. you have David under a great discovery of sin and he cries out there is no rest in my bones because of my sin I am troubled I am bowed down I go mourning all the day such a trouble that will not admit of peace and healing but from Jesus Christ till it can take hold of Jesus Christ in a promise of Grace and Pardon and come to him and close with him to be justified and Sanctified by him and in him as I am at large to shew if God will I speak this because there is a trouble for sin that often ends in a more dangerous peace Many poor creatures have for a time been troubled for sin and they have made one shift or other to quiet themselves it may be leave their sins and do a little something more but never come in a Gospel-way to Christ which I am also through grace to evidence in the discovery of a false Conversion However so it is that every soul that is unbottomed from a false peace a peace in sin or resting in his duties he comes under trouble more or less in and for his sin as he gets to pardon 3. God smites a soul for some special particular sin Jer. 3.13 Only acknowledge thine iniquity that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God and hast scattered thy ways under every green tree c. General acknowledgment of Sins comes to nothing 't is the note of a Hypocrite but particular Sins lying upon the soul speak forth spiritual convictions when joyned I mean with other workings of heart we are now setting forth So Christ dealt with the woman of Samaria Joh. 4.16.29 Found her at and smote her in her particular Sin 4. As God smites so the sinner is in particular confession before the Lord loads his heart with Sin till it breaks Object But who will not confess himself a Sinner you will say Answ Truly few in a Scripture saving sense A word or two more to this That confession of sin before the Lord is a duty and such as hath the promise of forgiveness of Sin such places of Scripture will clear Psal 32. I acknowledge my sin unto thee and mine iniquity have I not hid I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin Prov. 28.13 He that covereth his sins shall not prosper but he that confesseth and forsaketh them shall find mercy If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins 1 John 1.9 This being a duty to which so blessed promises are annexed 't is of much concernment to souls that are very serious about forgiveness to have it stated aright according to Scripture and saving Experience There is a confession of sin that doth not entitle to the promise which a hypocrite may reach to so Pharaoh Exod. 9.27 I have sinned this time the Lord is righteous and I and my people are wicked here 's confession but no pardon so Judas Matth. 27.3 4. I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood so Saul 1 Sam. 15.29 I have sinned for I have transgressed the Commandment of the Lord Here are verbal inforced confessions when the hand of God was upon them and yet did not end in mercy The confession of a Hypocrite proceeds only from judgment felt or feared but that which is sincere and ends in mercy and pardon goes upon better grounds 1. As first Confession that hath the promise of pardon is accompanied with hatred of sin So in that blessed draught of the New Covenant Ezek. 36. I will save you from your uncleannesses c. verse 29. and verse 31. Then shall you remember your own evil ways and your doings that were not good and shall loath your selves in your own sight for your iniquities and for you abominations Then when God comes in a way of mercy and pardon then God will make them remember their wickednesses that they had even forgotten and had thought that God had forgotten them also They thought they were good ways before but now the Lord shews them they were not good and they loath themselves Sin is not only a terror but a loathsom thing to them hateful to the soul that is under this conviction 2. Whence secondly Saving confession respects the pollution of sin They shall loath themselves c. That thou mayest remember and be confounded and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame when I am pacified toward thee In that 38th Psal David is in self-loathing this doth arise as presently I shall shew from a glimpse of Gods holiness which I humbly conceive no reprobate in the World doth reach to to loath sin because it makes him an unholy Creature 3. It follows therefore that such confession follows sin to the root to the fountain there sees it most abominable odious infinite So David Psal 51.5 I was shapen in iniquity c. A Hypocrites confession ends in outward gross sins from terror only and reacheth not to heart-sin pollution of nature and if he can reach to reform such outward gross sins he hath done as he thinks the utmost but never comes to loath and so to mortifie through the spirit sin at the root But sincere souls touched by the Holy Ghost with a saving sense of sin do drive sin home to its original to its root in the universal corruption of heart and nature and there the severest edge and indignation against it is let forth 4. Brokenness of heart for sin is an effect of such confession Psal 51.17 Isa 61.1 57.15 And this ariseth upon sense of Gods patience goodness love as hatred of the pollution of sin ariseth from a sight of Gods Holiness Pharaoh crys out he had sinned when he smarted with punishment but was still under the plague of his hard heart Ex. 9.27 34. There is indeed a kind of brokenness that the hammerings of terrour by punishments or by the Word may work which may a little wear and rough-hew the heart and yet go no further but yet leave the heart under its natural hardness but now that which is the Spirits saving work kindly melts
through grace to forsake Sin every Sin in heart and life He that confesseth and forsaketh his sins shall find mercy Prov. 28. as before Mark well that famous promise Isa 55.7 Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon Here 's forsaking ways and thoughts Sins of Heart and Life and not a forsaking or leaving of some great Sins but forsaking and warring against a sinful disposition sinful thoughts and not only a meer leaving of sin but a returning to the Lord which he cannot do if held under the love of but one Sin and a turning to God only upon the account of free mercy and then God abundantly pardons A good word suited to a poor soul under the sense of sinning abundantly therefore need of abundance of mercy and pardon Vse 4. Therefore the next Use will be of Examination Have you been under such a trouble as before opened about Sin and the pardon of it Such a trouble that would not be quietted but by clasping about Jesus Christ hath the Lord smitten you with the deep sense of a particular Sin your bosome Sin and thereby been brought to a deep sense of the evil of all Sin Have you been upon your knees your faces in as peculiar a confession as you could hating loathing Sin and your selves in it Oh have you driven Sin to the root the fountain Oh there 's a Hell of it within Say do you know what it is to gave broken hearts under the weight of Sin and the sense of the Patience Grace and Love of God held forth to you in Jesus Christ Do you know what soul-abasement is acknowledging in confusion of face that you are worthy of nothing from the Lord for ever not so much as a glimpse of mercy a good look from him because you have so sinned against him Have you glorified God though he never pardon you and is he holy and blessed though you are banished from him for ever Have you been so reduced to see that there 's not the least attom of good to commend you to the Lord and so lain down as nothing else but a Sinner before him thousands of Sins to damn thee but not a drop of righteousness to cover thee and so creep to the seat of mercy infinite free mercy yea hast thou seen and felt the difficulty of such a self-emptiness that thou wouldst rather part with all thy Sin than thy self-righteousness ☞ A poor soul would take up from Sin upon conviction of the damnableness of it and be more righteous and holy but to be reduced first to nothing nothing else but a poor vile unrighteous weak empty creature and so to Christ here the pride of heart sticks Now soul be narrow and close in the search of this for fail here and fail in all Vse 5. Let it exhort you that have never been under any trouble about your Sin and the pardon of it that you do not ward off and get from under such convincing searching words that may trouble you Many poor sinful Creatures resolve they will never hearken to such a word as shall trouble them and cannot bear such preaching as would trouble their Consciences One word with you Why soul Hast thou been dishonouring God abusing his patience and mercy transgressing his Holy Commands slighting his Grace and yet thou must not be troubled for it Wilt thou have thousands of Sins upon thy Soul unpardoned and tread upon the brink of Hell every step thou goest and not be troubled about it It seems then thou resolvest not to trouble thy self much about that petty business as thou makest it of being damned for ever or saved for ever No nothing about Sin Guilt Pardon Heaven and Hell must trouble thee Alas poor deluded creature what care it there to get to Hell peaceably for never any one got to Heaven so that was never troubled about getting his Sins pardoned Away away with such a cursed peace and let it now trouble thee that thou hast put off this work so long that Sin and thy Soul have been at such a peace so long Be now at a professed war against it and take part with the Lord and his word that it teaching thee how yet to arive at the blessed Haven of Peace not with Sin but with the blessed God against whom thou hast so greatly Sinned Oh look unto him to smite a hard secure heart to strike a Bosome Hellish Lust for whose peace thou hast so long and so foolishly contended yea go in secret and fall down before the great God parcitularly confessing and shaming thy self hating loathing humbling till thou cry out as David here Oh pardon what a great matter 't is for any poor soul to be pardoned Now great mercy for a great Sinner or I am lost for ever Out-sinned pardon thou hast not if thou comest in this posture to God for it But you may further enquire how doth God bring a poor Soul to this pass to such a deep sense of Sin such a fight of himself so as to be thus before the Lord in self loathing and abasement Only now a Word 1. When a Soul is brought to this pass God lets out an appearance of himself in measure upon a poor creature such a glimpse of light and purity that makes the creature fall down and cry out Oh I am vile vile as the dust I tread on 2. God gives out the Spirit in the word which convinceth and searchech the soul shews its condition state sin the damnableness and pollution of it the greatness of it as was shewed The spirit opens the holiness and spirituallity of the Law Rom. 7.9 and shews the Sinner as in a glass what he is The spirit gives a Sight of Jesus Christ pierced with the Sins of such as come unto him Zach. 12.10 These do cause loathing and bitterness upon the Soul of a poor Sinner drawing near to the Lord for pardon Therefore 't is great wisdom to be where God speaks where God appears where God gives out his spirit which is usually in the word preached powerfully and setting thy self in secret to muse and ponder about an eternal condition or when the afflicting Hand of God is upon thee do not say I am not so great a Sinner as to make so much ado about Pardon or Heaven if that be thy temper thou art the most likely to be in the road-way to Hell in peace that will end in woes and sorrows of any Soul in the world Oh wait for Gods appearance and every little Sin will be great a Hell of Sin within thee though outwardly civil and sober wait for the Spirit in the Word and go and pray for it 'T is one thing to know Sin by the Letter of the Law which commands this and forbids that and another thing to know see feel Sin and the infinite
evil of it the exceeding Sinfulness and Pollution of it by the conviction of the Spirit so as to see it most in the fountain in thy nature and there loath and bewail it because it makes thee unclean and unholy and unlike God and unfit for God or holy communion with him Which is the way and most certain evidence of the Spirits saving conviction of Sin as distinguishing from that which a hypocrite may have and carries a soul to the fountain opened Zach. 13.1 that its iniquity may be throughly cleansed Vse 6. If Sinners that come to God for mercy and pardon see their Sin as great then it will follow that great Sinners may be pardoned and saved You that are great Sinners old Sinners Oh hearken to this you that are yet within the reach of Grace and Mercy and Pardon if you will come to Jesus Christ for it the greatness of your Sin is no bar to you but if you fail of pardon 't is because you will not come to Christ for it and accept it upon Gospel-terms you will not have pardon with a new heart and new life or you make a slight matter of pardon or you think 't will come of course or you are afraid to enter into a serious review and debate with your selves because your Sins are so great they will terrifie you or take you off your pleasure and peace of your minds and joy in the world Away away with any of these pleas though thou hast sinned much greatly long with all thy might come to Jesus Christ and those great Sins are no more before his blood to wash them away than the least Sin if any be little that ever was committed and pardoned Isa 1.18 Do not hence say securely Oh 't is well that great Sinners may be pardoned I ever thought so what need so much ado Do not thus harden thy self and make such a cursed use of so Blessed a Truth but therefore come in lay down thy weapons with which thou hast been fighting against God wilt thou hold up rebellion and yet cry pardon Is it equitable thou shouldst expect it No fall down at the feet of that God against whom thou hast so greatly sinned in the posture hath been shewed thee and then though sin hath abounded yet grace doth much more abound Rom. 5. last Great Sinners have become great Saints 1 Cor. 6.11 Such were some of you Who were they Idolaters Adulterers Revilers Sodomites c. and such like You that have been such like God may have as much Glory in your pardon as he hath had dishonour by your Sin Only be not such a Devil to thy self as to turn thy back upon it and when thou hast thus long rebelled to tell God he must stay thy leisure for thy acceptance of his pardon thy Sins are too sweet to leave as yet I tell thee Soul and I have shew'd it that Gods pardons cost him dear and are precious and if thou deal thus they may be lockt up in Heaven from thy wretched Soul to all Eternity Who but a desperate wretch but would take mercy and grace from Heaven that may make him blessed for ever when God offers it by his dear Son let thy Sins be never so great why wretched Man or Woman Hast thou not done God wrong enough already but must thou stay yet longer in thy cursed Sin and wrong him yet more Hast not done enough already to damn a thousand Souls but wouldst do more and make as sure of Hell as thou canst I beseech thee Sinner great Sinner young or old do not put me off nay do not put the Lord off with a pardon in his hand a promise of Grace ready to be sealed by the Holy Ghost if thou wilt now from thy Soul readily say why then be it so Lord Jesus I come to thee if the terms be leaving all this deceitful Sin and to be made like unto thee be it so I accept of it tear my lusts from my heart I have served them long enough too long Oh now if there be any mercy in Heaven let me have it save me not in but from my Sins Oh Lord for they are great great indeed I will saith the Lord and he speaks it in Ezek. 36.29 I will save you from all your uncleannesses 't is as much as if the Lord should have now spoken it from Heaven Mark every tittle in such a promise Now thou cryest Oh will will the Lord save I will saith the Lord Oh but will he save me from such uncleannesses yea from uncleannesses what from All yea from All thy uncleannesses fall down and Adore and cry out Oh grace free rich infinite glorious grace admire Angels Saints Sinners Behold one of Gods wonders A great sinner saved Vse 7. And so seventhly it may serve to exhort blessed souls brought into a state of peace and pardon still to keep an eye upon the greatness of mercy If mercy were not great how could any Sin be forgiven Thus this blessed man David is breathing forth Blessed is he whose iniquities are forgiven Oh bless the Lord Oh my soul who forgiveth all thine iniquities Oh how great is thy mercy towards me and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell So should pardoned called redeemed souls see themselves call'd and taken out of Hell it self Out of a Hell of abominations pollutions wrath under which they were fast held by the power of darkness Say did ever such a soul get to Heaven shall I not be the wonder of Heaven and Hell how I got to Heaven and escaped that wrath into which thousands that were better than I are now plunged there 's no other reason but because mercy is great greater than the greatnesses of Sin with which I shall conclude the second Point namely When Sinners come on to find pardon they see their Sins great Obs 3. The great reason of Gods pardoning a sinner and the plea that a poor convinced sinner hath with God is that he will pardon for his own Names sake For thy Names sake Oh Lord pardon c. That is not for any worth that is in a poor creature not for my sake but for thy own glories sake thy mercy sake grace and mercy will be hereby glorified God gets himself a Name by the pardoning of a poor Sinner that Name which he proclaims to Moses Exod. 34.6 The Lord merciful and gracious c. Now God hath given forth the ground of this plea in the New Covenant where his Name is thus made most glorious And when he had given forth a brief and blessed draught of the tenor of the New Covenant Ezek. 36.21 The Lord gives out this as the great reason often mentioned why he would take such a way of making another Covenant wherein he wills all undertakes all does all works all as resolved it should be a Covenant and a way of grace that surely should hold He gives out this I say as the ground of all I had
and by the same power doth uphold them to which first Being all the creatures must owe their homage and conformity Now though such a glimmering of light can never suffice to lead a soul to the true worshipping of God as the Apostle there argues yet it leaves the creature without excuse which is that I am proving from it 6. All the Children of men do sin presumptuously wilfully and obstinately against the Law of God mans sin being not so much from his weakness to obey the law though weak he is but from the rebellion of his will against God and his law as it is in the case of disobeying the call of the Gospel also Now whatsoever a man doth presumptuously and wilfully it leaves him without all excuse and this is it that is charged upon the Children of men by the holy Ghost in the word that their sin was obstinate rebellion against the great God From all these the truth of the Assertion doth appear that every Transgressor of the Law is without all excuse before God 7. As the Creature hath no excuse for his sin so it follows he hath no pretence against the righteous judgment of God We are sure the judgment of God is according to truth Rom. 2.2 and Chap. 3.4 That thou may'st be justified in thy savings and clear when thou art judged that is whatever any sinner may dispute to the contrary God is righteous when he judgeth if the Law be just and holy and good once written in his his heart and had a power to have kept it that God hath given out this law again to him the remnants of it in his heart so much to be known of God in the Creatures and that he sins presumptuously and wilfully against God and so blessed a law made for his own good certainly must every sinner conclude the Lord is righteous when he judgeth and every mouth must be stopped Vse 1. If it be so that no sinner in the world hath any justifiable excuse for his sin then let this truth come in into your consciences and strike off all vain pretences and wretched excuses when you have sinned against the Lord which usually are such as these when sinners break forth into this or that rebellious way they cry Oh! 't is my nature my natural disposition and then they think that excuseth or allayeth the matter whereas it aggravates for we our selves corrupted our natures Saith another I have been so accustomed to such a way to drink to excess sometimes to swear to use the Lords name vainly and as a by-word whereas the custom of sinning is the greatest and most grievous aggravation of it Saith another 't is my company that draws me or the example of others or 't is my temptation when they are under the Spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience Or that they do keep the Law as well as they can and think this will excuse Whereas nothing no plea that ever a sinful deceitful heart put up or that the Devil suggests can before God excuse any sinner in the world rich or poor knowing or ignorant from the exact and perfect keeeping of the Law if they are under the Law but upon one transgression of it the law doth most justly condemn and curse them Nothing is more natural to fallen man under sin than when having sinned to devise an excuse and thinks and surmiseth that because such an excuse will be taken by his own blinded Conscience therefore God will also accept of it and so flatters himself in his own eyes till his iniquity be found to be hateful Psal 36.2 Thus Adam as soon as he had sinn'd he thought how to excuse the matter puts it off to the woman and the woman to the Devil which trade sinners have well learnt and have driven it on ever since to their own damnation Observe this if every sinner yet under the law and the power of sin had not some vain pretence and excuse to ensilence conscience and foolishly thinks to insinuate unto God he or she must needs fall down before the Lord see all their pretences and coverts to be damnable flatteries and soul-cheatings and so Judge themselves and pronounce God most righteous if he damn them for ever Oh therefore Sinners Away with all your pretences no more excusing but judging and go to the great God and fall down at his feet crying out Oh I am a Transgressor the Law condemns me no excuse will be taken my mouth is now stopped whatever God do with me he is most holy and righteous If I were going to Hell I must justifie God and cannot say unto him why doest thou thus Thus 't is with a poor soul when the Lord by his word and spirit discovers sin reveals the law lays it in upon the conscience discovers the Holiness and Exactness of his Justice that the law shews no mercy but crys out for fulfilling or pronounceth absolute condemnation then I say a sinner crys out Oh I am cast by the Law I am gone by the Law All my Pleas are found too light All my endeavours to keep it is worth nothing if guilty in the least while I am under the law I must find out a righteousness elsewhere another way or Condemnation just condemnation is my portion for ever Here 's the first stroak of a convinced sinner when God is outing him from himself and all his Coverts or Excuses and brings him naked to put on the righteousness of his Son Jesus Christ freely held out in the Gospel which is the work in hand 2. If no excuse can be heard or taken for the the transgression of the Law for but one breach of it but every mouth is stopped how much less will any excuse be taken for withstanding the Gospel of grace by Jesus Christ Saith our blessed Lord If I had not come and spoken unto them they had not had sin that is not so great sin and comdemnation but now they have no cloak nor excuse for their sin If a righteous law leave all the world without excuse much more a Gospel that offers free grace and pardon and righteousness by Jesus Christ to any sinner condemned by the Law that will come in as so condemn'd and accept of the free gift of Righteousness by him But that I may yet a little further labour to bring in the sense of Guilt upon the soul I shall prove every soul guilty before God of the transgression of the Law and shew what the sense of guilt is which few there are that have in a saving way Observ 3. Every soul in the world is guilty before God of the transgression of the Law And all the world may become guilty before God This hath been proved where we have shew'd that All have sinned and come short of the glory of God This guilt is threefold which is set home upon every sinners heart when convinc'd of sin by the spirit 1. The guilt of Adams sin which stands charg'd
rather do a thing himself than be beholding to another therefore upon Conviction of guilt he sets himself to make up the breach to satisfie God by some attonement or other that his own heart can contrive his sorrowing and repenting he hopes may pacifie God or some new sacrifice of more performances or being better for the time to come Thus the heart works secretly and upon his own account God letting forth some mercy as he thinks where he fails he hopes to make up any breach that sin hath made between God and his soul and thus he is still upon the Old Covenant under the law 3. A Sinner is more apt to keep to the Law than go to Christ from a secret pride of heart he would not be found at a total loss with God to be wholly undone and unable to do any thing towards his own peace and salvation A soul naturally had rather part with all sin and have his nature made perfectly holy than be quite undone in himself and come to have all his righteousness in another in Jesus Christ And here it is that most souls stick in the coming off their own bottoms to be justified in Jesus Christ In a word Man had rather do any thing than come a poor destitute sinner to Jesus Christ for all 4. Because 't is not suitable to the Light of natural reason that a soul should satisfie God or become righteous any other way than by his own endeavour to be righteous in another is of Divine Revelation which till a Soul hath he cannot let go the principle of self-justification The next thing to be considered will be this if all men are under the Law and the curse of it under the guilt of the whole law without all excuse before God under an impossibility of attaining righteousness or acceptance with God by the best keeping of the Law and yet a natural and strong aptitude to rest upon the law and that a soul may reform and take up be strict in obedience and yet still be under the law how then may a soul know whether in the way of his Obedience he be yet under the Law and not under Grace Some Discoveries I shall lay down at present resolving a fuller discussion of this And by the way know and consider that though thou art under the the profession of the Name of Jesus Christ and pretendest Salvation by him yet practically and really thou may'st be still under the Law 1. If thou hast never been convinc'd of this close evil in thy heart of resting on thy praying and repenting and endeavouring to keep the Law as well as thou canst I say if the Spirit of the Lord hath not convinced thee of it and of the great danger of it and so humbled thee and brought thee off it thou art certainly under the Law as yet 2. If thou dost not watch against this evil and dost not find a great difficulty not to rest upon a performance of any duty to God thou dost then certainly rest upon it 3. If thou art well satisfied that thou art kept from outward gross sins and the sin of thy 〈◊〉 is not thy greatest burthen mourning under the weight of it then thou must know that thou art yet under the law 4. If thou thinkest God will accept of the will for the deed if thou dost as well as thou canst in every duty so as to accept thee thereby as if it had been done perfectly this also bespeaks thee under the Law 5. If thou canst not experience how the Lord by the light and working of his word and spirit hath brought thee off thy legal foundation thou wast building upon and shew'd thee that such things as thou didst account gain became but loss unto thee for Jesus Christ Phil. 3.7 6. If thou art not troubled about the Hypocrisie of thy heart and not abased for it even in thy best performances then thou art yet upon the bottom of the Law and restest in it 7. If thou art not mostly troubled about believing and dost not find it the most difficult work of thy soul if no complaint to God of an unbelieving heart then thou art indeed a Hypocrite and under the Law 8. If thou art not humbled to God for the sinful mixtures of thy duties the deadness distraction of them and so seest thy acceptance cannot be in them but in Jesus Christ then thou restest in them 9. If thou dost not give up thy self to the leadings of the Spirit and doest not find that in the main of thy course thou art led by the Spirit then thou art under the Law Gal. 3.18 But if ye are led by the spirit ye are not under the Law 10. If thou art not troubled about thy inward growth in mortification of all sin and more holy Communion with God then thou art also under the Law One under the Law that is somewhat strict and conscientious may grow in the bulk of outward Duties but not in inward Holiness 11. If thy care be not to live in the sense of thy Justification by grace through Jesus Christ and to preserve the light and peace of a justified state which thou hast been called to by grace then thou livest in self-justification 12. If thy great care be not if thou findest it not thy greatest difficulty to be kept a poor empty creature in thy self and live in the fulness of Christ if self-fulness self-exaltation be not the great evils thou watchest against at least in some measure thou art sensible of the roots of them then thou art yet under all I have been proving the law guilt and a curse and all thy duties and doings as I have shew'd abhorred of God Examine thy heart by these particulars over and over and if by these thou canst not make out that thou hast been through rich grace brought off from thy own foundation upon the law and so come with much difficulty to the Gospel-grace and righteousness by Jesus Christ and that if thou hadst been let alone in peace in thy former state thou hadst been certainly damned sure thou art then as yet void of any interest in the Gospel saving righteousness thy pretended faith and hope and duties and works and conscience all 's in vain Now the soul that hath the blessed experience of all these and can say I have through infinite mercy been brought off my own foundation and I have found the difficulty of it I find my heart apt to settle upon my own performances and 't is that I would watch against and I can experience the sin of my Nature the greatest burthen and cry out of it daily before the Lord the Hypocrisie of my heart is an abhorring to me I do find believing the hardest work of my soul I do mourn under the sinful mixture of my duties I do give up my self to the spirits leadings I am troubled about my inward growth and humbled for the shortness of it I would learn more and
Reasons of the Design of the Blessed God in this may be gathered from the Scriptures The Free-grace of God is the Fountain of all in any sinners salvation 1. Because There is nothing in the Creature that may move God to save him Nothing at all all we know or do could not move God to mercy Deut. 7.7 8. The Lord did not set his love upon you because you were more in number than any people but because he freely loved you c. Not for your sake do I do this c. Ezek. 36.32 2. As God saw nothing in him so the sinner is able to bring nothing to God to draw out mercy of his own therefore saith the Lord Isa 55.1 let him come without his price As the sinner lost all his good so he can procure none anew to bring to God that may in the least move the heart of God to give out more to him 3. If it were not all of Grace then the Creature would have occasion of boasting but the Lord in infinite wisdom so laid the Project of a sinners Salvation that no Creature should have the least ground of boasting So the Apostle having given out the Doctrine of Grace in this Scripture we are upon draws this conclusion ver 27. Where is boasting then It is excluded c. So in the 1 Cor. 1.29 the Holy Ghost lays down this as the main scope of God in the Gospel That No flesh should glory in his presence Therefore Salvation is all of Grace of Free-grace 4. If it were not so The glory of God would not be so great in the Salvation of a sinner 'T is now so laid that all might be to the praise of the glory of his Grace Ephes 1.6 It being the highest piece of glory that the Wise and Blessed God did ever design unto himself that his free rich abundant infinite grace might be made known in the Salvation of a Sinner That he might make known the riches of his glory on the Vessels of Mercy which he had afore prepared unto glory Rom. 9.23 Vse 1. If God's Free-grace be the Fountain of all in a poor Sinners Salvation then let it establish our judgments in this Doctrine Therefore God had no respect to any fore-sight of Faith or Works in the Creature God had no respect to the freeness of his Will for he knew he had none God had no respect to any conditions to be wrought in us but all he did and doth was from absolute Independing Grace Nothing moved him but his own Free-grace The same Free-grace that pardons gives and works all in us all from the same Fountain 2. If all be of Free-grace then there is no meritorious procuring Cause in us that moves the Lord to mercy Now the contrary is naturally rooted in our hearts poor Souls are most apt to conceive that if they can grieve for their sins repent and reform this will sure move God to mercy and pardon A most dangerous snare from which a Soul after much conviction is hardly wrought off Now though God in the way of a sinners Salvation hath promised to give Repentance Act. 5.31 and a Spirit of mourning for sin Yet a poor soul must take heed that he make not this a procuring cause of Pardon Many a Soul sticks here before emptied of himself even of his very repenting and so come for grace and mercy upon the account of the Free-promise only How many a Sinner might have been saved if he would have been saved freely 3. If God hath so laid the Design to save a Sinner freely then how great how just is the Condemnation of guilty sinners that will not hasten in unto it how could the Lord have laid it more freely than he hath Oh that any sinner for ever condemned to Hell without it should withstand it Why sinner Shall the blessed God that might have much glory in condemning thee to all Eternity be willing to save thee freely and wilt thou not come and bow unto him and accept of it All the contempt of God in all his holy Commands is not like this to turn the back upon Free-Mercy Free-Salvation This will be the Worm that never dies to any of your Souls that shall not come into and rightly accept of Gospel-Salvation that you might have been saved freely have had grace remission of sins Jesus Christ the Spirit Eternal Life freely and yet turned your backs upon it But you may demand How is it that any sinner doth so What is it that causeth any Soul to forego Free-grace and Mercy when held out unto him that we may beware of such hinderances I will therefore shew you such Hinderances that keep Souls from accepting of God's Free-grace in Jesus Christ when held out unto them 1. Wilful Obstinacy Joh. 5.40 Ye will not come unto me that you might have life Ye will not such is the stubborness and rebellion of the heart of a sinner that he will not as we speak because he will not to such a height hath sin raised the heart of the rebellious children of men for every natural man till made sensible of unbelief thinks he hath power of himself though he hath not but his Rebellion lies in his Will I would have gathered you and you would not Mat. 33. last 2. A sinner doth not accept of Free-grace because he stands upon his self-justification he will not be perswaded he hath so much need of all Free-grace as the Gospel discovers as hath been shewed at large though he hath sinned yet also he hath obeyed and so he puts one against the other his obedience against his sin and so hopes to get that mercy he hath need of And upon this ground more sinners even that profess the Name of God do miss of Heaven than any other in the World 'T is not so easie a matter to submit to God's Free-grace alone as many do imagine Upon this Snare many of the Jewish Professors of Christ fell short as 't is clear from the Epistle to the Galathians and did frustrate the grace of God 3. A Sinner hath a secret thought of making God satisfaction by his sorrow and amendment and so makes void the Free-grace of God 'T is the easiest thing in the World to put up legal sorrow and amendment of life to God as that which may make God amends yea to make an attonement of every Duty which is the closest and most desperate evil of the heart So did the Jew by his sacrifices and obedience which caused the Lord to pronounce them That his soul loathed them Isa 1. 4. A Sinner doth not savingly close with free grace from secret pride of heart he would not be found so poor and helpless so unrighteous and ungracious as to be beholden to free mercy for all many persons will rather starve than beg than live upon another mans mercy 'T is so between a sinner and the Lord till God humble him he 'd rather venture Hell than come and
for it see how you cast back mercy upon the face of God who would freely be reconciled with you pass by all the grievous injuries you have done him enter into a Covenant with you bestow his Christ upon you fit you for communion with himself here and for ever And all this you have sleighted and yet must unavoidably be for ever damned without it Sinner who can plead for thee when thou shalt go on to despise neglect slight such grace To Hell without pity of God Angels or Men when freest mercy and grace shall be slighted I do therefore stand this day in the Name of Jesus Christ to acquaint you that he will save you freely if you will come unto him be your sins what they will so you come not as righteous but as sinners to him so you take his Righteousness to cover you and his Spirit of grace to unite you to him and make you holy and will give up your selves unto him All which he will help if you will come and cry to him yea if you cannot come he will draw you if you are unwilling he will make you willing if you have no heart he will give you heart What more Wretched man or woman that shall stand off one moment longer Is not Hell too good for thee if thou shalâ— now turn thy back upon such grace Let me have your Answers this day Let me know that sinner that will go home resolved to be as careless as he formerly hath been as well-opinioned of himself as much resolved against Holiness as thoughtless of being damned if he withstand the Lord in his Free-grace one day more Oh! Will not your hearts stir dead stupid Souls Shall God's Free-grace his Christ go a begging this day and will not a sinner come up to his terms Old sinners that are going into the grave and Hell too will not you accept of Free-grace of Christ the Spirit this day that are upon the brink of the grave and everlasting burnings and have many a thousand sins yet unpardoned Is all this nothing to you but rest in a blind hope of mercy without coming to Jesus Christ without care of being made holy and fit for Heaven Oh you have been fast asleep in sin deceived by your own hearts abused by the Devil forty fifty sixty years Is' t not time for you to bethink your selves to go and cry to the Blessed God Oh Grace Pardon Christ Heaven upon any Terms My righteousness I have trusted in are poor Cobwebs my Confidences vain Oh for a drop of Free-mercy and grace from that Ocean that is in God and 't were better than all I have done for Heaven yet Oh Lord Now now I come to thee Is there free-mercy and grace for one that hath slighted it Yea though thou hast gone on frowardly in thy own heart yet he can heal thee Isa 57.17 18. And you that are younger 't is a desperate thing now in times of Gospel-Light when it glares upon your faces to shut your eyes to go on in the way of your own hearts to slight Gospel-Grace to harden your selves and cry hereafter hereafter Alas thou knowest not what shall be on the morrow the Thread of thy life is quickly cut with a stroak from God Beside to go on long from year to year against the loud and frequent Call of Jesus Christ against Convictions that thou shouldst do otherwise is the way to be given up to utter hardness and the Lord to move upon thy heart no more There 's a day of grace to every Soul which if he suffer to set and go down upon him he is irrecoverably lost for ever Look to it you younger men and maidens that have yet no work upon you that are the same you were under the means you have lived that have not the Spirit of grace and mourning upon you when others are praying and wrestling with the Lord and taking the Kingdom of Heaven by violence Oh up and be stirring the day of grace hath shined long upon you Hold out no longer Come Come Come you careless Sons and Daughters and the way is open to you The door of Free-grace is open Christs Arms are open you may be saved and blessed for ever if you come in now you are invited I can take no excuse Come or say I am resolved for Hell and to venture the utmost in the condition I am in Oh bold and fearless Atheism What shall I say to thee if that be thy Resolution But I cannot be so answered Say you Sinners as if I should name you are you for Heaven or Hell for Free-grace or your own patch'd-up righteousness for carnal ease or any Pains for Heaven for your Lusts or for Holiness for Jesus Christ or the Devil let thy heart answer in good earnest this day Now shall I at least have this Answer Hold I am resolved for the Free-grace of God for the Lord Jesus Christ If all the sinners in the Congregation yea in the World should turn their backs upon him The Word of the Lord hath overcome Oh Lord Jesus may I come such a Wretch as I come Yea saith the Lord Jesus Rev. 22.17 Whosoever will let him come Grace is as free as ever it was Say then Oh Lord I come draw me and I will come Into the Arms of Free-grace I throw my self my Righteousness is an abominable thing Ah! a Christ upon any terms Oh let let me creep unto thy Blessed Feet let me have the lowest Room in thy Heart Take what way thou wilt to purge me so I may but get well unto thee Now Lord as much Holiness as thou wilt let thy precious blood wash me all over Well go thus and acquaint the Lord Jesus with it from day to day wait he will speak to thee love to hear more from him and of him in his Gospel and thou biddest fair for Heaven yea there will presently be joy in Heaven for thee In a word I protest against you in the Name and Authority of God and the Lord Jesus Christ who hath sent me if you shall withstand the grace of God in Jesus Christ freely most freely offered you I shall be a Witness against you And if any sinners in the World shall be certainly damned you are they who neglect this great Salvation 'T is come to this I would saith Jesus Christ and ye will not What ado to have a sinner that 's sinking to Hell to come to the Lord Jesus Christ to be freely saved What should a guilty sinner do but come to a free Saviour to be saved and accept of his terms which are so blessed with a thousand hearts if he had them Now say how am I straightned till I get to him I would go and weep my heart out to him had I a heart to do it Now I leave what hath been spoken to the good pleasure of God and the work of his Power who is able to send away every Soul trembling and resigning
and thence concludeth ver 14. How much more shall the blood of Christ purge the Conscience c. A much more upon that above all the Sacrifices that were offered up to God which will appear 1. Because of the eternal Godhead of Christ's Person by which he offer'd up his blood unto his Father Heb. 9.14 Who through the eternal Spirit offered up himself without spot to God Which put an infinite value and efficacy upon the offering of his blood inasmuch as Jesus Christ was God as well as Man though he could only dye in his humane nature yet the efficacy of his Godhead had an influence upon the price of his dying which put an infinite worth upon it and so renders it full and perfect Redemption 2. The price of the blood of Jesus Christ did not only give a bare Satisfaction to the justice of God but it had an infinite Merit in it a redundancy of Merit whereby it deserved at the hands of God that Sinners that are interessed in it should have remission of Sins grace the love of God and glory to come spiritual blessings which the death of Christ purchased for the elect which being also by the free purpose and compact of God there must necessarily arise an infinite Merit in it 3. The All-sufficiency of the price of Christ's blood is evidenced by his Resurrection and Ascension into Glory implying that he wrought forth full and perfect Redemption by his Death therefore he is said to rise again for our Justification Rom. 4. last and to be justified in the spirit 1 Tim. 3. last that is God by raising him from the dead justified him in the attonement he had made by his Death and that he did chearfully accept of satisfaction by it 4. The Blood of Christ procures boldness of access to God therefore there is an infinite worth in the price of it Heb. 10.19 Having therefore Brethren Boldness to enter into the Holiest by the blood of Jesus which boldness doth arise from the full satisfaction that is made to Divine Justice in as much as God upon the Acceptance of it hath nothing to charge upon the Sinner himself no quarrel against him having charged his sins upon Christ and therefore the poor sinner may come with an humble boldness into the Presence of God and this is that which puts boldness into the Conscience of a Believer when he appears before God 5. From the Experience of it the soulest Sinners that have come unto it have been washed from their sins by it as 1 Cor. 6.11 Idolaters Adulterers Sodomites Drunkards Revilers have been washed and justified and sanctified by it The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth from all sin 1 John 1.7 6. It cleanseth and perfects them for ever therefore called eternal Redemption once for all and for ever Heb. 10.10 19. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified once justified and for ever Now from this Satisfaction Merit All-sufficiency of the Sacrifice of the blood of Jesus to cleanse a sinner to commend him to God how safely may a sinner venture his Soul upon it which is the first act of Faith A poor sinner when under conviction and the terror of the Lord hath taken hold of him lies trembling before the Lord whether God will let out Justice or Mercy upon him he is ready to give glory to the justice of the Lord if he reject him for ever But now if a poor soul get a sight of the blood of Christ how it deals with the justice of God what full and all-sufficient Satisfaction it hath made to God for the sins of such as plead it to him how God more delights in it than in the condemning of the sinner what a stay is this to the wavering doubtful spirit of a poor sinner when he can come to see justice to have its due and so God can freely let out Remission to a poor Soul upon the very first Act of a poor sinners closing with it though not presently evidenced in his Conscience Oh sinner venture the Issue of all upon this price of the Blood of Jesus thou may'st see thou hast the greatest reason in the world to do so thou wilt never come to have a safe bottom for thy Soul till thou comest thus to deal with the justice of God as fully satisfied by the blood of Jesus Christ thou wilt still be off and on about Free-Mercy till thou come to fix here and be in some good measure established in it Be daily in exercising thy Soul in such ventures and castings upon it and the Spirit will at last witness Peace and Reconciliation to thy Conscience In a word Sinners you that have had no stay to your spirits for the forgiveness of your sins but a blind hope of Mercy look up look up to the justice of God and see this way of access to God for you by the blood of Jesus Oh! let not any prophane sinner trample it under foot cast it back upon the blessed face of God say not in thy heart Let God take the blood of his Son to himself I 'le not be washed from my Sins I 'le not be sanctified I 'le rest as I am Desperate Sinner of how much sorer punishment shalt thou be thought worthy than any Sinner under Heaven who rejectest the only worthy price of a Sinners Salvation Know the great God will let out all his justice upon thee to the utmost and Oceans of his Wrath shall fall upon thee if thou thus abuse the blood of his Son a greater guilt than all thy Ungodliness thou hast hitherto been wallowing in from thy youth up Oh! come thou despiser and cast thy soul under the droppings of this blood and it shall cleanse thee though thy soul were as black as Hell Zach. 13.1 And thou poor formal out-side Professor who never didst feel the vertue healing life and warmth of the blood of Christ upon thy heart Oh rest not in good thoughts of it only but come believingly to it as thou hast been exhorted Say and that with thy heart Now Lord I would know the power and efficacy of this Redemption upon my poor soul Wash me Lord wash me I renounce all but the blood of this Christ as to making way to God for me Oh! let it pacifie my Conscience and purge my Conscience and I shall be clean If the Spirit of the Lord shall work thy heart to come as a guilty helpless unholy sinner in thy self to this blood of Jesus and make thy approaches to God daily and argue for Grace and Remission upon it and purging thy Soul these inestimable blessings will be the issue of it which I will but name to thee 1. Thou shalt certainly find forgiveness of thy sins In whom we have Redemption through his blood the forgiveness of our sins Ephes 1.7 God will remember them no more against thee and thou shalt have peace with thy God for ever 2. God will let forth
it by fulfilling it whereby the righteousness of the Law is fufilled upon us Rom. 8.4 Jesus Christ perfectly fulfilled the Law and kept it and so makes over the righteousness of it to Believers as hath been shewed and so the Law stands establisht Secondly The Law stands establisht as a means through the Spirit to convince of sin and of our shortness of the righteousness of it as ver 20. And so Christ often made use of it for such ends Thirdly The Law stands establisht as an Everlasting Rule of righteousness and holiness promised in the New Covenant to be written in the Heart Heb. 8. So that through Jesus Christ in justifying by his blood hath quit the sinner from all guilt and condemnation by the Law yet he hath not given the Believer a discharge from all obedience of it And therefore to evince this I shall lay down this Position that Observ Though all a Believer hath done or can do cannot justifie him before God yet there are other blessed ends why he should obey God and delight in his Law 1. Obedience to God is placed as the great End of our redemption Luke 1.74 75. That we might serve him without fear a sear of bondage in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life God hath not only in his purpose the remission and salvation of the Sinner but that thereby he would have all that are called into this grace to serve him in Holiness And this end is to be upon the heart of the Believer when justified by Faith The purpose of God in this is that I should serve him in holiness 1 Tim. 1.9 That I should live to God Rom. 6.11 as hath been shewed 2. From the Sovereign Command of God who saith Be ye holy 1 Pet. 1.15 16. This is enough to a Believer that God hath commanded it though there should be no other end in it 3. Holiness and Righteousness is the Soul's conformity unto God it is a Beam of God an Image of God which he designs to be renewed upon all that shall be saved as shall be further shewed 4. Justified Believers do see an equity goodness and blessedness in the Law of God in all his holy and righteous Precepts though they were not commanded The Law is holy just and good Rom. 7. saith Paul speaking after the regenerate part So David Psal 119. often Thy Commandmeats which I have loved They give God his due and the Creature his due and therefore to be walkt in though not thereby justified 5. There is a principle of love to God shed abroad in the heart of every justified Believer from the sense of his rich pardoning grace the freeness of his love which acts and constrains a Soul to take delight so far as it is regenerated in every Command of God Rom. 5.5 2 Cor. 5.14 15. For the Love of Christ constraineth us because we thus judge that if one died for all then were all dead and that he died for all that they which live should not live to themselves but to him that died for them 6. Called and justified Believers have blessed sights of Jesus Christ that wonderfully take their hearts They have glimpses of the Beauty of his Holiness and would therefore be made like unto him 1 John 3.2 3. They would obey the Will of the Father as Jesus Christ did They would be holy and righteous and wise and patient and Heavenly as Jesus Christ was 7. Believers in the way of their Duty and Obedience have blessed Fellowship and Communion with God Saith God of his Ordinances Exod. 25.22 There will I meet thee and commune with thee And Exod. 20.24 In all places where I record my Name there will I come unto thee and bless thee They are everlasting Promises to all the ways of obedience wherein the people of God do walk before him in They pray they read hear they partake of the Supper in Christs way and there they have life and blessing to their Souls and many a sweet intimation of love and mercy they have whispered into them they set themselves to walk with God in his fear and counsel and God walks with them and their lives if they keep close to God are sweet and comfortable to them And this is even as much to them as if they were thereby justified They would not miss the sweetness they meet with in such ways of Duty for all the World 8. By their Sanctification and Obedience their justification is comfortably evidenced to them Rom. 6.16 Know ye not that to whom ye yield your selves servants to obey his servants ye are to whom ye obey whether of sin unto Death or of obedience unto Righteousness And Ye know that every one that doth righteousness is born of him 1 John 2.29 We know that we have passed from Death to Life because we love the Brethren So that no doubt Believers may come to a sweet and blessed Evidence of their good estate and of their justification by the work of Sanctification in them and their willing obedience to God though a Believer doth not always and at all times fetch in his evidence of Believing and of comfort this way but sometimes from the Promise and from the more immediate Testimony of the Spirit But though a Believer doth not and it may be cannot always fetch in his consolation and peace from Sanctification and Obedience Yet that soul that wholly neglects it and slights Evidences from Humiliation Sanctification and Obedience had best timely look to it that the Witness in himself he pretends to be not from imagination of his own heart from the wicked ones delusion and from some overly notions of grace that may affect his heart but leave him on this side Regeneration 9. Believers do perform their Duties as returns to God Every called Believer saith in his heart as David Psal 116.12 Oh! What shall I render to thee How gracious hath God been and now how holy should I be Who shall love the Lord and fear before him and praise him If I shall not To whom shall his Name Laws Ordinances be precious if not unto me Who is more bound to love the blessed God than I and how shall I love him but by obeying him Thus doth a Believer perform his obedience as a Testimony of a thankful return to God though I do not say that this is all his motive 10. By the Obedience and Holiness of Believers God is much glorified in the World 't is the greatest glory that God designs to himself in the World even by the holiness and willing gracious obedience of his people to him When the World lies in wickedness and makes war against the great and Holy God this is that which honours God that he hath a people called by his grace that set forth the glory of holiness in the world that are witnesses to the holiness of God the holiness of his Worship and all his ways and profess and endeavour to walk
1. From the tenour of the New Covenant in which way God hath obliged himself to give out mercy and in no other Now thus runs the New-Covenant this is the great Article of it Make you a new heart and a new Spirit Ezek. 11.31 Which God promiseth to give to all he takes into a Covenant of mercy and peace with himself I will put a new Spirit within you and a new heart will I give unto you Ezek. 11.19 And to the same purpose Ezek. 36.26 Wherein as we shall shew lies the special part of the New-Creature 2. Because the Old man all that is of the First Adam the whole frame thereof is corrupted and polluted therefore it must be repaired renewed be made new if ever it enter into glory Ephes 4.22 That ye put off concerning the Former Conversation the Old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful Lusts and be renewed in the spirit of your mind and that ye put on the New man that after God is created in Righteousness and true Holiness 3. Whosoever shall be saved shall be a New-Creature from the great design of God in giving out his Son Jesus Christ which was that all the Elect should be made conformable to the Image of his Son Rom. 8.29 For whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed to the Image of his Son that he might be the first born among many Brethren Jesus Christ is called the express Image of the Father Heb. 1. And to that Image all Believers shall be conformed Jesus Christ the first-born and all his Brethren to be made conformable unto him God was infinitely pleased with such a Pattern and resolved all that he gave to him and designed for glory should be conformed to his likeness 4. All the services that a sinner offers to God are not accepted till a New Creature till a Soul shall act from a new living holy principle towards God Pray and hear and give Alms God regards it not till a New-Creature So the Word of the Lord often casts back the services of unregenerate men upon their faces as loathsom to the Lord because they proceed from the old corrupt Adam from unchanged Natures Isa 1.15 When you cry I will not hear you Why You are in your uncleanness therefore Wash you make you clean Vse Oh let this make for your Instruction and Conviction that if ever you come to God in glory you must first be New-Creatures If you will have mercy you must have it in the way of the New-Covenant and if so you must be made new While you have nothing but the Old Adam you are corrupt and polluted and abominable If you shall become the Brethren of the first-born Jesus Christ you must bear his Image and have it renewed upon you Oh you that are yet in your old sins and walk after your Old Lusts you are not New Creatures You will not think so thefore sit down with this conviction That as yet you have no part in this blessedness Oh! All of you who are the same that ever you were whether living in gross sins or sober and civil from your youth up you are yet of the Old Adam nothing but corrupt nature upon you Your hope is vain and you are blinded in your sins and the Grace of God is not in you 2. Oh! Let me before I go further put this to tryal and suffer the word of the Lord which shall one day judge you can you say in good earnest Old things are past away and all things are become new in me Now I am a Vessel in the hand of God wrought by his Spirit and there is through infinite grace a new workmanship upon my Soul I shall lay down rules for the particular discovery of this only at present yield up your conscience to the power of the Word do not slink from under it if it find you out in your sin in nature the same that ever you were give glory to God and say the word of the Lord is quick and powerful and go off with this conviction in power upon thy soul I never expect to go to Heaven and glory if I become not through Grace a New Creature But before I go further I would open that every soul that is a New Creature must be in Christ and why So saith the Apostle to these Corinths in this Epistle 13. Chap. 5. Examine your selves prove your own selves know you not that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be reprobates ye are created into Christ Jesus Ephes 2.10 If a man abide not in me he is cast out as a Branch and is withered John 15.6 Now herein lies the great Mystery of Godliness unto which all our Evidences for Heaven are resolved and therefore this is a weighty enquiry I am to speak of it especially as it relates to the making and forming the New-Creature This being in Christ is expressed by being rooted into Christ Col. 2.7 Planted into him Rom. 6. Built up in him Col. 2. All which bespeaks a real union with him that this is not a meer imaginary thing but as true and real as the union between the root and the branches John 15. and the foundation and the building Ephes 2. which is wrought by the Spirit of the Lord Jesus drawing and uniting true believers unto him the same Spirit dwelling in them Rom. 8.9 10 11. By his Spirit that dwelleth in you Now to consider Why all that are New Creatures according to the Gospel must be so in Christ 1. Such as are Gospel New Creatures must be in Christ because if they be New Creatures they must be Living Creatures Now God hath laid up all life that shall be dispenced forth in his Son Jesus Christ John 5.21 26. The Son quickneth whom he will for as the Father hath life in himself So he hath given to the Son to have Life in himself Because I live ye shall live also John 14.19 Now naturally all sinners are dead in the old Adam and utterly unable to beget life in themselves Who can make alive his own soul but when they were New-born as new Creatures they are said to be quickned in Christ Ephes 2.5 As God breathed life into man at first and so he became a living soul so in the new Creation the soul is said to be created into Christ Ephes 2.10 and to be made Alive in him Rom. 6.11 2. If there were not a real union of the soul with Christ life if it should be given without it would not be preserved in the soul Thou holdest our Soul in life Psal 66.9 As the branch though it was once quickned cannot preserve its life if cut off from the root and therefore a continued supply of life from Jesus Christ to the soul is necessary as to all its spiritual actings as a new Creature 3. By being in Christ the Soul is made partaker of the divine nature 2 Pet. 1.4 by which the regenerate part all gracious
God with good Josiah This is that most poor sinful Creatures do bolster up themselves with in their Ignorance and Security that they do all to God and Men with good hearts whereas a renewed Soul doubts of the goodness of his heart and hath matter of humbling for it in every duty 2. Another mistake of poor souls is as to the Gospel-New-Creature from a misprision of sins of infirmities for such as are indeed reigning damning sins As to instance to lye for advantage to swear petty Oaths sometimes by Faith and Troth by the Mass to mention God's Name frequently as a by-word crying Oh Lord Oh God slightly vainly or sometimes to drink to excess or the like evils 'T is common to hear wretched Souls when convinc'd of them to excuse the matter Why 't is their infirmity whereas it proceeds from a heart wholly unregenerate and under the power and reign of sin Infirmities of the Children of God are not allowed by them but humbled mourned for every day watch'd against the root of them they endeavour to mortifie through the Spirit which the common professor that calls all his sins his infirmities doth not Oh! Souls there 's a vast difference between the infirmities of such as are indeed New-Creatures and between the reigning sins of natural men sin reigns in its peace power habit in the heart no subduing crucifying purging which a New-Creature doth and hath 3. This mistake of the New-Creature doth arise from a misconcieving of the reluctancy of a natural conscience before or in the committing of sin taking it for the Conflict that is in a truly regenerate Soul between the Regenerate and Carnal part which mistake usually is bottomed upon a misunderstanding of that place of Paul Rom. 7.15 For that which I do I allow not c. Hence say many unregenerate graceless persons Why though they do break out into such and such things and omit such and such duties yet they do not allow themselves in it that is their Conscience is not wholly seared and so make some resistance and this they take to be saving grace a gross and most dangerous mistake now take such a person and he hath not a delight in the Law of God in the inward man as Paul had verse 22. doth not cry out as inwardly burthen'd wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death No such daily complaints and groanings under the weight of it No eying God through Jesus Christ for deliverance from it No serving the Law of God with a Renewed inward Man No walking after the Spirit so that unless it be so with you that no allowance in the conscience and yet do it it comes to nothing and an Hypocrite may and doth as much till given up to a seared conscience past feeling 4. From a mistake of Faith taking that for sound and saving which is common to a Reprobate such as James describes in his Epistle speaking of Men who say they have faith and have not really a Faith that believes God is the Scriptures the dying and rising of Jesus Christ and all other Gospel truths as it pretends yea that he believes on Jesus Christ and hopes to be saved by him as well as the holiest and upon this they have a kind of peace I have spoken before of justifying Faith only a word as to the New-Creature know therefore that Faith that doth not teach a soul to deny it self that doth not purifie the heart that doth not live upon Jesus Christ and so created into him is not the faith of the New-Creature but a common dead putrifying faith that suffers the soul to putrifie in sin and works not to the cleansing of it 5. To instance in some other graces as namely Repentance which souls do take to be only a wishing the sin had not been committed with a little fear and sorrow after it and this they think to be true repentance which when true is accompanied with loathing of the sin and our selves and our corrupt natures brokenness of heart for it and from it and turning to God by Jesus Christ and eyes the honour patience holiness love of God in its sorrowing more than his wrath and hath for its effects carefulness indignation against it self vehement desire after more holiness by Jesus Christ 2 Cor. 7.11 6. A false and carnal hope of Heaven mistaken for a gracious saving hope deceives the soul in this matter Many poor souls yea it may be feared the most think they shall go to Heaven because they hope so and think they ought to hope Now a saving hope of pardon and Heaven is rightly bottom'd namely upon the riches of Gods Grace Titus 3.7 Upon the righteousness of Jesus Christ Gal. 5.5 Upon some special promise of God Upon experience of God Rom. 5. And purifying the soul 1 John 3.3 as I may have occasion more at large to speak Oh! this false and carnal cursed hope that is not thus bottom'd serves only to shut up the heart against the power of the Word and a saving closing with Jesus Christ till a Soul is dasht in this hope it will never get a better 7. A form of knowledge especially if increas'd under the Ministry of the Word may much deceive a soul in this great and weighty concernment so Paul speaks of the Jews Rom. 2.20 having a form of knowledge and of the truth of the law Many have a Catechistical form of Knowledge they can describe what Faith and Repentance and Regeneration is and then think they have it themselves because they can tell what it is and do believe it to be such There may be much knowledge in the head and yet no renewing grace in the heart That knowledge that is saving brings with it a power upon the Soul to love delight in to experience the goodness vertue sweetness of what it knows It transforms the soul into the image of what is known 2 Cor. 3. last It is spiritual and it makes the heart the affections spiritual 8. A Misconceit of the grace of love is also a false ground in this matter As that a poor soul will think that he loves God when he hath no knowledge of him nor delight in him nor communion with him nor doth love his Image which is holiness and that he loves all every one whereas much envy and malice reigns in the heart if but a little provoked and for the people of God truly so called they hate them for Hypocrites Schismaticks and what not or if a little better thoughts of them 't is not love to Christ and his Image in them that acts them which is the nature of the grace of love But yet are justified in their conscience to be the people of God 9. So is patience humility meekness mistaken some natural dispositions are most patient and meek and these poor Creatures are apt to mistake for grace when 't is nothing but meer nature and more candid disposition and such Souls
that sleepest Ephes 5. The voice of the Spirit doth awake that Conscience that before was asleep in sinful security 4. A good Conscience is convinced that all the keepings of the Law and keeping a Conscience to men cannot justifie the soul before God cannot commend it to God which a Second Table-Conscience imagines it will and so in peace Paul kept a Conscience as to many things Acts 23.1 I have lived in all good Conscience before God unto this day meaning I conceive from his youth up when he was a Pharisee but when his Conscience was convinced and awakened and came to see Jesus Christ he saw that all his keeping a Conscience as to many sins and Duties could not in the least commend him to God A good Conscience is sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ Heb. 10.22 Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of Faith having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience How much more shall the blood of Christ who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself to God purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God Heb. 9.14 So that this is the efficacy of the blood of Jesus Christ upon the Conscience of a Believer it pacifies it in the sense of the forgiveness of sins towards God so as it can draw near to God and it purgeth it from dead works sin and pollution to serve God acceptably This is a good Conscience indeed 6. A good Conscience respects all the Precepts of God as well of Holiness to God as Goodness to Men which the Conscience we have been speaking of doth not Such a one makes not conscience of this great and absolute Precept Be ye holy 1 Pet. 1. It makes not conscience of purging the heart of secret mourning to God of the purity of God's Worship It makes no Conscience of lesser sins as we have shewed not of all sin as Herod heard the Word gladly but made no conscience of persecuting John to death when he stood in the way of his Lusts Now I say a good Conscience respects Precepts of Holiness secret as well as publick Duties inward as well as outward Sins lesser sins as well as greater 7. A Scripture good Conscience is much taken up about godly sincerity So Paul 2 Cor. 1.12 For our rejoycing is this the Testimony of our Conscience that with simplicity and godly sincerity not with fleshly wisdom but with the grace of God we have had our Conversation in the world c. Thus a soul that walks with a good Conscience towards God labours to approve it self in all things with a godly sincerity to do all as unto God Lastly a good Conscience labours to keep it self pure and undefiled it is accompanied with a pure heart 1 Tim. 1.5 Now the end of the Commandment is love out of a pure heart and of a good Conscience and of Faith unfeigned A Soul that would keep the Conscience good would keep it pure and the whole inward man pure as a Temple unto God Vse Now see how many ingredients go to make up a good Conscience in a Scripttre-sense and what a great mistake is in this weighty matter and how far abundance of people that make conscience of their dealings with men conclude thence they have a Scripture-good-Conscience to God when they are not savingly enlightned their Conscience never search'd by the power of the Word and throughly awakened out of a natural condition never humbled for resting in themselves and their Duties not having their Conscience sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ and purged thereby not having a tender respect to all the Precepts of God not to walk before him in godly sincerity nor with a pure heart You then that are short of these things you are wholly to seek in that which you so much pretend to and speak peace to your selves in the having or keeping a good Conscience you have as yet no part in this matter 2. What hath been spoken of a good Cnnscience may be for instruction and direction to the Called Ones of Christ how to preserve the Conscience good and peaceable and so to live and dye in the peace and comfort of it through Jesus Christ our Lord. Get it sprinkled with the Blood of Jesus Christ every day and under the searching of the Word and awake unto God and pure and undefiled respecting all the Holy Precepts of God as binding to your conscience so will the conscience be tender and peaceable and God will witness in your conences your acceptance with him in his Son Jesus Christ I would give out further some Notes of Tryal Whether you rest in false common grace or not as to what we have already spoken in so weighty a matter 1. By your never suspecting the truth of your grace but taking all upon trust never doubting but you have Faith and do repent and so of all the rest that soul that never suspected his grace may well fear that his pretended grace is no more than what a Hypocrite may reach unto The poor called children of God are exceedingly jealous their Faith is not sound that they are short in every grace because of the woful mixtures that they find more Unbelief than Faith more hardness of heart than softness more Pride than Humiliation and so of all Now that soul that goes away with an unsuspected confidence of every Grace sure flatters himself and his way will be found to be deceitful 2. That Soul that draws back his conscience from the searching power of the Word when it gives out ways of trial of Sincerity and truth of grace and puts it off as if not concerned in it this may well be speak a false heart A gracious heart would bring the Work over and over to the Touch-stone of the Word delivers up it self unto it yea is much with God to search him in point of a firm Work upon his Spirit as to any prevailing Iniquity in his heart as David Psal 139. When he was before the Lord appealing to him and opening his heart to him speaks thus ver 1. Oh Lord thou hast searched me c. thou hast And yet ver 23.24 begs of God yet further to search him Search me O God and know my heart try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me into the way everlasting 3. False Grace is discovered by its easie acting When you can easily believe easily repent easily be humble and so of all others Certainly 't is all naught There is great contradiction within and from the Tempter as to act Grace begun in a soul yea a daily supply from Jesus Christ must be to act any Grace livelily which the common pretending easie Believers are not sensible of It cannot be but every act of Grace must find more or less resistance from flesh and blood which is so vigorously opposite to the nature and acting of real grace in the Soul 4. Such as are
never humbled for the spiritual wickednesses of their hearts I call them so in opposition to the more gross and fleshly wickednesses now these are Hypocrisie selfishness spiritual pride vain-glory unbelief many that have had trouble for some gross sins and will withstand some gross corrupttions through common grace never come to be abased for these depths of the heart which are more hardly discerned I may well enough call that soul as yet a Hypocrite that is never humbled for the Hypocrisie of his heart for selfishness and the rest 5. Common-grace measures the soul chiefly by Negatives what it is not rather than what really it is as the Pharisee Luke 18. I am not as other men are pleaseth himself rather in what he is not than what he is I am not thus and thus as abundance of debaucht persons are but whether he be called of God emptied of his own righteousness sanctified in Christ Jesus a New Creature in him he puts off the Examination 6. Common grace doth at best respect a mans self in all it does and not the glory of God which it sees not let others be as wicked as they will it is not much to such a soul let every one look to himself such a soul doth not avoid sin as sin but only for fear it should damn him whereas the proper nature of Grace is to respect God his Holiness Name and Glory Thus have I laid down some plain Discoveries of the pretended New-Creature that which I have stiled a Legal New-Creature I shall now proceed a little further to make discovery of a more seeming Gospel New-Creature yet but seeming That which hath the nearest resemblance of the New-Creature is when from some common enlightnings of the Gospel of Grace and some overly tastings of the good Word the affections being something stirred therewith there is some affection expressed to the Gospel and some outward Reformation upon it and a Profession above the common formal rate taken up joyned also with common gifts of Praying or Prophesying knowledge c. Now all this may make so great a blaze and flourish that it shall be hardly discerned by such a Professor himself or others that are spiritual that all this may be 't is clear from several Scriptures Heb. 6.4 5. where mention is made of enlightning tasting gifts of the Holy Ghost and yet such to fall away and never to renew themselves again and to be nigh unto cursing verse 8. and verse 9. Beloved we are perswaded better things of you and things that accompany Salvation c. Implying that these things may be but do not always accompany Salvation So the Apostle Peter 2 Pet. 2.20 speaks of such who had escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of Jesus Christ and yet again entangled therein and overcome and their latter end worse than the beginning They shall escape many gross pollutions and that through a kind of knowledge of Jesus Christ and yet be again overcome and return wholly to them So Matth. 12.45 Our Lord Jesus speaks of the house swept and garnished the unclean spirit cast out for a time some outward reformation a damp upon the lusts of the heart and knowledge and common gifts and yet the unclean spirit returning again Examples might be produced of such Professors in the Gospel as that of Judas an eminent Professor a forward follower of Christ suffered some persecution and gifted and yet proves a Reprobate Simon Magus baptized by Philip renounced his Sorceries took upon him a forward Profession of Christ accompanied Philip and yet his heart not right in the sight of God Acts 8.13 21. It may be more than feared this age to the high scandal of Sinners and Saints hath produced many such that have been much taken with the glorious grace of the Gospel their Consciences something awakened for Heaven the affections stirr'd have attained to flourishing gifts and yet returned to their first nothing turn'd blasphemers and professed Atheists And no doubt there is such a Majesty Excellency Sweetness in the Gospel of Jesus Christ that may for a time much affect a carnal heart and may be recieved with joy Matth. 13.20 The very History of Jesus Christ dying for sinners may much affect that he will freely save Sinners the glory he hath provided for his own these and the like things may much take the affections for a time make a soul ashamed of gross pollutions and yet no New-Creature all this while And of such as these it is that Christ doth prophesie of Mat. 25. who shall have Lamps Light and Profession go along with the wise Virgins wise and truly gracious Professors not be discovered many of them till the Lords appearing and yet kept out of the Kingdom of Heaven Now of all others these have the most resemblance of a real New-Creature and yet fall short and perish for ever I should prevent my self should I at large discover wherein such Professors are short only a word or two 1. Such Souls are never emptied of themselves and humbled and so come poor and nothing to Jesus Christ though happily they may be able to speak of it as many Souls have a form of Gospel-Knowledge and can say We are nothing and yet never had the saving experience of it upon their own hearts 2. Such Souls have no true brokenness of heart for sin they much slight it yea say many 't is Legal brokenness for sin is a low dispensation as they will stile it without which in some measure no saving repentance which is as necessary to Salvation as believing on Jesus Christ and Free-Grace 3. Though such souls may reform many things yet there is some unsubdued lust in the heart that at last breaks out and carries an end the heart as with Simon Magus and Demas 4. Under all such enlightnings and tastings which may for a time affect the heart the heart still remains unchanged and so no New-Creature 5. They are not rooted into Jesus Christ which we have shewed is the root of the New-creature not rooted and built up in him Col. 2.7 Therefore 't is said of the Hearers with joy for a time that they had no root Mat. 13. What hath been spoken as to this may put the more forward Professors upon a close and diligent search and to see if their Attainments in enlightning tasting knowledge gifts reformation be no more than what a Reprobate may attain to and to lay their hearts under the searching Power of the Word and to open their hearts to God and cry unto him and keep a godly jealousie over their spirits And rest not till you get poor and emptied and humble your selves your hearts broken for sin every lust subdued and crucified the heart changed and your Souls rooted into Jesus Christ by a saving union with him yea to give up your hearts to what we shall further say through grace as to the plain opening the real Gospel-New-Creature The Gospel New-Creature positively
will not hide his Ear from the breathings of his poor Children Only let crying panting Souls take heed that this breath be not stopt nor intermitted 't is a most dangerous thing to intermit the breath of Prayer that it grows weaker and fainter it will be a sign unto you and a sad one too that the New-Creature is rather decaying than encreasing in you Be not contented with no more praying than will just as we say hold Life and Soul togerher that is to live at a very low rate but just to live if that As breathing takes in the Air revives enlargeth the Natural Spirits renders the whole man lively and lightsom and vigorous so doth this constant Spiritual breathing with God and after God it enlargeth the Heart revives the Soul keeps freshness and vigour of Spirit in the way of God when God comes in with a full gale upon the soul how sweetly is it refreshed how doth faintness weariness indisposition go off and the Spirit of a poor Creature is chearful with God and blessedly delights it self in him Oh delight to be every where in every way where God breaths upon the hearts of his people and where they breath after him And let new living Souls take heed by the way how their hearts do pant after the Earth and World and the contentments of it This will as much damp Spiritual Life and breath in the Soul as any evil whatsoever Lay your hearts to the fulness and sweetness of the Lord Jesus Christ and breath strongly for them and those things will be but wind and vanity 1. But I must proceed I come now to speak of the next discovery of the New-Creature and that is it hath new senses That you may see how fully it answers the frame of man as a Living Creature and what a New-Creation this is As the New-Creature hath a New-Nature a new inward life and hath a new breathing so it hath new Spiritual Senses So the Apostle Heb. 5.14 speaks of the Exercise of Spiritual Senses And as the Natural Life is exercised and preserved by Senses so is also this new Spiritual Life of the New Creature which I shall mention particularly First There is a New Ear given to this New-Creature This Jesus Christ hath frequently promised that he would open the deaf Ear So Job 36.10 He openeth also their Ear to Discipline and commandeth that they return from iniquity The hearing Ear and the seeing Eye the Lord hath made even both of them Prov. 20.12 By this opening the Ear is meant the opening of the Heart as 't is said of Lydia Act. 16. Whose heart the Lord opened The heart is shut up naturally and naturally cannot hear the voice of the Spirit till the Lord himself open it A natural man hears no more than the voice of a man and the Letter of the Word but when this New-Creature is formed he is ennabled to hear the voice of Jesus Christ himself the voice of the Spirit Joh. 10.27 My sheep hear my voiee A Soul can then say This the Lord speaks to me in special This is the voice of Christ that calls me to come to him and that Soul comes Jesus Christ speaks with a convincing particular powerful Word and the Heart being opened to receive it obeys it as his voice And so in every Ordinance 't is the voice of the Spirit of Christ the New-Creature waits for He that hath an ear to hear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches Rev. 3. last Secondly The New-Creature hath a new seeing eye The eyes of the Understanding opened to see into the blessed and hidden mysteries of the Gospel of Jesus Christ saith the Apostle of the Natural man Eye hath not seen 1 Cor. 2.9 And seeing they see not Matth. 13. But Christ speaking of called Disciples saith Blessed are your eyes for they see c. They have a new sight of God in Jesus Christ which sight doth abase them and also draw them to Jesus Christ The Vail being in part taken away they can look into the things of God which they saw not before the Scriptures begin to be unveiled and they see beyond the Letter of them into the Life and Spirituality of them And thus the Lord Jesus promised of old especially as to New-Testament-days I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not I will lead them in paths that they have not known I will make darkness light before them and crooked things straight c. Isa 42.16 Thirdly There is a new power of tasting given to the Soul as another Spiritual Sense which before the Soul had to no purpose A new and blessed tasting of the good Word of Life Thy word is sweeter than the Honey-Comb Psal 19. How sweet are thy words unto my mouth Psal 119.103 If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious 1 Pet. 2.2 there is a new tast of the bitterness of sin The heart knows its own bitterness saith the Wise-man A Tasting of the special free and precious love of Christ A tasting of the goodness of God in mercies And thus there is a savoury spirit given to the New-Creature whereby he doth delightfully savour the things of Jesus Christ and can speak savourly of them to others Fourthly Add to this a new smelling to which the Spouse of Christ often alludes in Solomon's Songs Because of the savour of thy good Ointments Chap. 1.3 speaking of Jesus Christ who is a new and precious Perfume to the Soul Who is this that cometh out of the Wilderness perfumed with Myrrh and Frankincense Chap. 3.6 so saith the word of the promise Chap. 4.6 His smell shall be as Lebanon And when Jesus Christ breaths in his Ordinances upon blessed Souls it is as sweet and delightsom Perfume to them Fifthly There is a new feeling wrought as an effect of this new life which the Soul hath in Christ when a new Creature is in him The natural man is without feeling as a dead man is let never so great a weight lie on a dead man and he feels not but now take a Soul created into Christ and he feels a new weight within him Heb. 12.1 Sin is not only a burden as to the weight of Guilt but every corruption even when the sense of guilt is removed by Jesus Christ is a Weight to the Soul under which the Soul crys out mourns groans to be delivered Rom. 7.24 Oh wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death Sin hangs like a dead body about him Vse If the Gospel-New-Creature is a living new-Creature and doth exercise Spiritual Life and hath new spiritual senses Let this then be a word of Tryal to discover the state of your Souls Can you say I that was dead am alive I was once spiritually dead without feeling did neither see nor hear nor tast in a spiritual way but now the Lord in rich grace hath opened my deaf ear and my blind
them 5. The Soul is raised and engaged in a new Love The Heart is taken with Jesus Christ above all things and loves him most and loves God because he is Holy loves his Word and loves those that love him most Every New-Creature can say as David I love the Lord Psalm 18.1 and 116.1 Yea the soul is brought to love Jesus Christ for himself He is the beloved of the Soul and not only the grace and peace and blessing and Heaven that he gives And to Love Jesus Christ and to express it to the utmost is the frame of soul that a Convert presseth most after and he would get the heart more purged mortified spirituallized that it might go forth in Love to Christ more strongly and sweetly and enjoy the precious perfumes of his Love more constantly 6. The Soul is raised to a New hope a new hope of Heaven and Glory which before was feigned and deceitful Now the Soul is after a well-bottom'd real lively hope of Heaven Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again to a lively hope c. Oh! the new and blessed hopes that a soul doth more and more reach to when distempers and darkness is not upon it of seeing Jesus Christ as he is living with him for ever of being perfectly sinless and holy of Joys that shall be endless of being swallowed up with divine Glory when the Spirit of the Father doth breath most sweetly and mostly raises the heart to glimpses of Heaven Vse As we go along we would put things to tryal therefore say in good earnest Soul Hast thou had new fears upon thy Soul as to an eternal condition and is the fear of sin and of the living God upon thy heart and doth this fear keep thy Heart awful and watchful say hast thou had new sorrows for sin and 't is thy Trouble they are no more abundant Can'st thou joy in going to God and in the Word of his grace and are spiritual things thy delight Doest thou find a heart-closing Love to Jesus Christ above all and canst thou love God because he is Holy and thou wouldst be like unto him and hast thou new experienc'd hopes of Heaven Say soul Do all thy affections run in a new Channel and the stream of them in the main turned from world and vanity to the Ocean of God in Christ his fulness goodness love grace and glory and that when thy affections or any one of them are diverted and turned aside thou canst and doest go to God to have them fetcht in again and thou wouldst have all the affections of thy Soul run freely clearly spiritually fully strongly upon Jesus Christ and thou art humbled that they are carnal and worldly in any measure If this be not thy case but the affections of thy heart are wholly fleshly and worldly thy fears thy sorrows are about worldly things thy joys thy delights about carnal pleasures and worldly increase thy love goeth after the world in an uninterrupted unmortified course thy hopes going forth about great things for thy self and thy hopes for Heaven lye at all uncertainty and thou dost suffer it to be so verily thou art unchanged and hast no part as yet in New-Creature-blessedness Only let me add this Caution that in this matter of the New creature you take the whole frame together and therefore do not rest only in this that you have had your affections something stirred in hearing the Gospel some fears and sometimes the heart a little melted and some joy for a time in the Word which affections may sometime stir in a soul whose heart is not subdued and changed and so it wears off again but carry your selves back to what I have said that you mainly look to the Rebellion Pollution Hypocrisie Unbelief of the heart that these be in good earnest still a subduing you 3. And so also for real Converts though you should labour to preserve your affections lively savoury yet look mostly to the sincerity and spirituality of them or else when they wax faint again as that may be you be at a great loss of your Consolation neither do you always measure your selves by the stirring and overflowing of affections but rather by the abasement of your spirits hearts purity and sincerity and the holiness of your affections and your acting faith in all your duties which will procure a more lasting way of peace and comfort though when thus rectified the going out of strong and tender affections is exceeding sweet and precious and most desirable by all Saints 7. The next discovery of the New-Creature is this which I may consider with some distinction from the former The Gospel New-Creature hath new thoughts By the Thoughts I understand the pondering musing part of the Mind that I may speak plainly to all the imaginations fancies purposes meditatings musings of the Mind of man which are very much altered where there is a new and divine work and power in the Soul To this the Prophet speaks as to saving conversion Isa 55.7 Let the wicked man forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to the Lord c. So that a Soul returning to the Lord forsakes his vile thoughts and doth not give way to them and feed them as before So Jer. 4.14 How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee And Psalm 119.113 I hate vain thoughts but thy Law do I love To shew a little why the thoughts of the heart shall be changed and then more particularly how In a natural heart All the imaginations of it are evil continually Gen. 5.6 They became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkned Rom. 1.21 Where the thoughts as issues of the lusts do rove to and fro at full liberty without any effectual controul 1. As first Atheistical thoughts secretly denying God his Justice Holiness Word or that God will not judge sinners according to the rigour of his Word Thou thoughtest saith God I was altogether such a one as thy self and Psalm 50.21 The Fool hath said in his heart there is no God Psalm 14.1 For when he sins against him presumptuously he doth strike at his very Being Justice and Holiness and either saith in his heart There is no God to judge him or secretly wisheth there were none 2. Prophane thoughts according to the most predominant lustings of the heart do act a natural heart as vain unclean proud worldly thoughts which are in contrivance to make provision for the lusts of it the heart even continually exercis'd with unclean proud wrathful revengful or covetous practices therefore saith the Wisdom of God Prov. 15.26 The thoughts of the wicked are an abomination to the Lord Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts Adulteries Murders Thefts c. Matth. 15.19 The evil thoughts get up and act over wickedness and then they purpose and contrive for the acting of it and
ways of God and People of God Oh such say they have the Spirit that they be Holy and they are so strict that they will not do such and such things as others do This is a degree of Blasphemy and borders upon the brink of the unpardonable Sin These are stiled by the Apostle Revilers 1 Cor. 5.11 6.11 and they as such shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven The giving out of the Spirit upon plain meaning people in the measure it now is is a new thing but not therefore to be despised and reviled Every Town and Family almost doth abound with this wickedness and dreadful provocation and 't is the saddest sign upon the generality of people whatsoever only 't is to be hoped they do it through Ignorance as Paul did 1 Tim. 1.13 and God as he hath done may humble and convert many of them to the praise of his Grace only let sinners that have been frequently shewed the desperate wickedness of such speeches of scoffing at the Spirit and Holiness and call it Hypocrisie tremble lest God give them up when they sin against Conviction and the clear light of the word in this matter Had I time to reason a little in the power of the Lord with such souls why Consider seriously and in good earnest Can you be so sottish and so wilfully blinded that have heard or read the Scriptures to imagine that you are God's and Christ's and have not the Spirit and are not made Holy nor crying to God that you may be holy He that hath not the Spirit of Christ is none of his And without Holiness you shall not see the Lord How dare you then in the Atheism and devilish wickedness of your hearts scoff at the very Name of the Spirit and Holiness The lowest place in Hell will be yours that have been so often admonished of this unless God smite you to the Earth for it True Converts have the saddest Humiliation for this sin as they have been more or less guilty of it 2. Or you that are not so desperately carried forth in this open ungodliness of speaking evil of what you know not but yet make little Conscience of lying for your profit or in excusing a matter so you may do it covertly and count it a venial small sin or you that when provoked swear prophanely and desperately tearing the Name of the great and dreadful God wreaking your anger and wrath upon the Name of God and the blood of Christ your Tongues are set on fire on Hell and the Spirit of Disobedience the Devil worketh in you not a drop of the Grace of God in you 3. Or you who have your petty Oaths by your Faith by your Lady and by Creatures or make mention of the Name of God and Lord in your ordinary Discourse vainly and as a by-word crying Oh Lord upon every slight occasion and for God's sake and Christ's sake do this and this in poor trivial matters verily there is nothing of the New-Creature in you And yet these great Prophanesses you call your infirmities and 't is your infirmity to swear when angry and provoked and you say you forget your selves when you mention the Name of the Lord God sleightly or through Ignorance plead for it that you may do so I tell you Souls they are your reigning damning sins who are frequent in them And in carnal prayerless families as most are how oft in a day may these ungodly speeches be heard by men women and children If the fear of God were upon you or any work of Grace you durst not do it nor indeed could do Therefore do but observe your selves a day and see how often you are here guilty and tremble before God and go and humble your selves at his feet that you may find mercy and have another heart and mouth given unto you Pray and cry and wait for the good treasure of the Word of Grace in your hearts and 't will be otherwise with you 4. Yea you who are engaged in worldly Discourses on the Sabbath-day in your families at your doors in the streets in idle and vain jesting you are not of God born again by his Spirit you take no delight in the Word of God the meditation of your heart is not in it you speak little of it because you savour it not Tremble you Worldlings who shew it this way at that Word 1 John 5.5 They are of the world therefore speak they of the world and the world heareth them If ye are of the world you are not as yet of Jesus Christ the power love of this present World ruleth in you and that may damn you for ever Know sinners you that make little Conscience of vain prophane words though you pretend to make some conscience of your word of promise to Men for your credits sake and so think you have grace all which a Turk will do that by your words you shall be judged and of idle words you shalt give an account at the day of Judgment and by thy words thou shall be condemned Mat. 12.36 37. Such words as we have opened to be damning sins And therefore do not put off this guilt from you in saying 't is your infirmity and so make light of it but know 't is guilt which will send you to Hell if the Lord humble you not and change you 'T is a certain Rule a prophane heart and a prophane mouth a carnal heart a carnal tongue a worldly heart a worldly yea Sabbath-days tongue Therefore you are not New-Creatures in the least and therefore begin with the heart that the heart may be smitten of God for this sin and changed and seasoned with the word and grace of Christ upon you and it will be better with you and you will have a tongue to speak well of the Spirit and the things of God and his People and to speak for God and reverently of his Name and delight your selves in it 2. Let this be a word to such as through grace are become New-Creatures in Christ that you would shew it in this discovery in a new Tongue that you give not your selves that liberty of vain carnal much less prophane Discourses as formerly as indeed you will not if you be new Creatures Men's Converse do either lye among such as are wholly carnal and worldly or such as savour that which is good As to the former as in all our carriage so especially in our Words there is great caution to be had 1. Not to mix our selves with them unnecessarily unless we find we have strength enough through a dependency on the Lord to avoid their snares and do it with a purpose of heart to do them good by reproving or counselling them Many a good soul hath been sadly worsted by mixing unnecessarily with vain prophane or frothy company 2. If Providence cast thee amongst them sometimes it may be the Wisdom of a Child of God to keep silence as David Psal 39.1 I said I