and before God who feedeth them with Christ the Bread of Life especially every Sabbath day Were this or some such course taken from week to week would not this hook into your practice all the great Duties of Religion And so you would give a good account of your hearing but 3. My third Direction is this Do not only satisfie your selves but carry on your enquiry that it may thrô grace satisfie Christ My Text is a question proposed by Christ and to him must we give our answer You may give a plausible account to Ministers but 'pray ' remember you must give an account to Christ You may by leading questions mislead Ministers as persons that go to Law do their Lawyers and they lose their Cause by it but when by studied Hypocrisie you mislead Ministers to gratifie you with a mistaken judgment you lose your Souls by it 'T is Christ that asks the question not to be informed by you for he knows what is in man better than they themselves Christ would have you to be plain-hearted and ingenuous that wherein you see cause to complain he may help you When the trembling Soul after the hearing of such Ministers as would undeceive them is like Jeremy for his peoples being deceived by false Prophets (u) Jer. 23. ◠My heart within me is broken because of the Prophets all my bones shake I am like a drunken man and like a man whom wine hath overcome because of the Lord and because of the words of his Holiness q. d. Fear and trembling takes hold of me I am ashamed I am at my Wits end the word of God calls for so much Holiness and I have so little Thou enquirest Lord what I hear for I dare not say that my intentions and ends are so serious as they should be I am afraid to own any thing that is good Christ in a way of compassion is ready to encourage such a Soul Canst thou but sincerely say thou comest to meet Christ and to learn of Christ Jesus Christ welcomes such to him and they may answer him with comfort Under this head consider 1. Christ asks thee here in this World that thou mayst now be able to give such an answer as thou mayst stand by at the last day when there will be neither Hopes nor Time to rectifie it if it be insufficient 'T is in this something like our Pleadings in Courts of Judicature we must put in our Plea and stand to it Thou knowest Lord there is through Grace something of sincerity but for any thing else do thou Lord answe◠for me 'Pray ' mark this when once the Soul can bring the question back again to Christ thus Thou askest me what I come for Lord I come for thee to answer for me I can't satisfie my own Conscience 't is ready to fly in my Face much less can I satisfie my Jealous Master unless tho◠compassionately answer for me Lord thou usest to answer for thine own May we then suppose Christ thus to enquire Who shall lay any thing to the charge of any one who sincerely comes to wait for me in mine Ordinances Can we suppose any one to be so daring as to perk up and say I charge all these to be a company of proud conceited Hypocrites they 'll needs be wiser than their Neighbours they spend their time in running up and down to hear Sermons Christ doth as it were answer Dost thou make this a Crime What he did 't was out of Love to me and Obedience to me He hath chosen that good (w) Luk. 10.42 part which shall not be taken away from him and for you who are so ready to accuse others and excuse your selves for slighting or ill managing all the means offered for your Salvation (x) Mat. 22.13 Bind him hand and foot that he may make no resistance take him away that he may neither make an escape nor have any hopes of Mercy and cast him into outer darkness where shall be weeping and gnashing of Teeth 2. If you do not give Christ an answer which he will accept of 't is in vain to expect relief from any other If the Father be offended Christ interposeth himself bears the wrath of God and prevents it from us Christ is the days-man between God and us If the Spirit be grieved by our quenching his motions and striving against his striving with us to hear and obey the Lord Jesus provided that rise not to THE Sin against the Holy Ghost which the greatest part of trembling Christians often fear they have committed though by the way let me tell them that their fear they have committed it yields them sufficient assurance they have not committed it for this sin is always attended with such hardness of Heart that they sin without remorse So that while the Spirit overcomes their resistances and prevails with them to comply with Christ through Christ their sins against the Spirit shall be pardoned But (y) Exod. 23.20 21. when the Angel of the Covenant Jesus Christ was promised to be sent before the Israelites in the Wilderness to keep them in the way and to bring them into the place prepared for them they are expresly charged to beware of him and obey his voice provoke him not for he will not pardon your Transgressions but severely punish them Not that sins against Christ shall never be pardoned though repented of but to keep us from adventuring upon sin as if it should easily be pardoned whereas the Apostle tells us (z) Heb. 10.26 If we sin wilfully there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin i. e. Those that reject and renounce Christs Sacrifice for sin there 's no other Sacrifice can atone God for them I grant that this Text chiefly concerns the unpardonable sin But I pray you consider those that do not make it the main business of their Lives to give Christ such an account as he will accept of what improvement they have made of his Word if they live and dye in that neglect they shall as certainly perish as they who commit the sin against the Holy Ghost There are but very few can commit that sin but an incredible number commit this without considering the danger of it Now Christians is your time to make up such an account as you must stand or fall by to Eternity Oh that I had but one Minutes such conception of Eternity as 't is possible to be had in this World I reckon 't would influence my whole Life Christs Sentence at last will be according to 〈◊〉 account we give him here and if his Sentence ben't as you would have it there will be no altering of it Your Repentance then will be no small part of your Torment Object I can't think that Christ will be so sharp and severe This affrights me more than any thing This is the most terrible Consideration that ever I heard I expected relief from Christ at last and that Christ should hear me at my
in its essential Malignity which implies no less than that God was neither wise nor good in making his Law and that he is not just and powerful to vindicate it And when tempted to any pleasant Sin to consider the due Aggravations of it as Joseph did which will controle the Efficacy of the Temptation I shall only add that when a Man has mortified the lusts of the flesh he has overcom the main part of the infernal Army that Wars against the Soul Sensual objects do powerfully and pleasantly insinuate into carnal Men and the affections are very unwillingly restrain'd from them To undertake the cure of those whose Disease is their pleasure is almost a vain attempt for they do not judge it an evil to be regarded and will not accept distastful remedies 3. Fly all tempting occasions of sin Joseph would not be alone with his Mistriss There is no vertue so confirmed and in that degree of eminence but if one be frequently ingaged in vicious Society 't is in danger of being eclipst and controul'd by the opposite vice If the Ermins will associate with the Swine they must lie in the mire if the Sheep with Wolves they must learn to bite and devour if Doves with Vultures they must learn to live on the prey Our surest guard is to keep at a distance from all engaging snares He that from carelessness or confidence ventures into temptations makes himself an easie prey to the tempter And let us dayly pray for the Divine Assistance to keep us from the evil of the World without which all our resolutions will be as ineffectual as ropes of sand to bind us to our duty 5. The consideration of the evil of sin is a powerful motive to our solemn and speedy Repentance The remembrance of our original and actual sins will convince us that we are born for repentance There are innumerable silent sins that are unobserved and do not Alarm the Conscience and altho a true Saint will neither hide any sin nor suffer sin to hide it self in his brest yet the most holy Men in the World have great reason with the Psalmist to say with melting affections who can understand his errors O clense me from my secret sins discover them to me by the light of the Word and cover them in the blood of the Redeemer There are sins of infirmity and dayly incursion from which none can be perfectly freed in this mortal state these should excite our watchfulness and be lamented with true tears There are crying sins of a crimson guilt which are to be confest with heart-breaking sorrow confounding shame and implacable antipathy against them and to be forsaken for ever Of these some are of a deep die in their nature and some from the circumstances in committing them some are of a heynous nature and more directly and expresly renounce our duty and more immediately obstruct our Communion with God As a mud-wall intercepts the light of the Sun from shining upon us 2. Some derive a greater guilt from the circumstances in the commission Such are 1. Sins against knowledge for according to the ingrediency of the will in sin the guilt arises Now when Conscience interposes between the carnal Heart and the temptation and represents the evil of sin and deters from compliance and yet Men will venture to break the Divine Law this exceedingly aggravates the offence for such sins are committed with a fuller consent atd are justly called rebellion against the light And the clearer the light is the more it will increase the disconsolate fearful darkness in Hell 2. Sins committed against the Love as well as the Law of God are exceedingly aggravated To pervert the benefits we receive from God to his dishonour to turn them into occasions of sin which were designed to endear obedience to us to sin licentiously and securely in hopes of an easie pardon at last is intensive of our guilt in a high degree This is to poison the antidote and make it deadly There is a Sacrifice to reconcile offended Justice but if Men obstinately continue in sin and abuse the Grace of the Gospel there is no Sacrifice to appease exasperated Mercy 3. Sins committed against solemn promises and engagements to forsake them have a deeper die for perfidiousness is joyn'd with this disobedience The Divine Law strictly binds us to our duty antecedently to our consent but when we promise to obey it we increase our obligations and by sinning break double chains In short any habitual allowed sin induces a heavy guilt for it argues a deeper root and foundation of sin in the Heart a stronger inclination to it from whence the repeated acts proceed which are new provocations to the pure Eyes of God Accordingly in repenting reflections our sorrow should be most afflicting our humiliation deeper our self-condemnation most severe for those sins which have been most dishonourable to God and defiling to us Not that we can make any satisfaction for our sins tho we should fill the Air with our sighs and Heaven with our tears but it becomes us to have our sorrows inlarged in some proportion to our unworthiness And this mournful disposition prepares us for the grace of God The Law does not allow repentance but exacts entire obedience 't is the privilege of the Gospel that repenting sinners are assur'd of forgiveness without this qualification 't is inconsistent with the Majesty Purity and Justice of God to extend pardoning Mercy to Sinners for they will never value nor humbly and ardently seek for Mercy till they feel the woful effects of sin in their Conscience only the stung Israelite would look to the brazen Serpent and this is requisite to prevent our relapsing into sin for the dominion of sin being founded in the love of pleasure the proper means to extinguish it is by a bitter repentance the Heart is first broken for sin and then from it To Conclude Let us renew our repentance every-day let not the wounds of our Spirits putrifie let not the Sun go down upon Gods wrath let us always renew the applications of Christs blood that alone can cleanse us from Sin The Case or Question which comes to be spoken unto this morning is Quest How may Private Christians be most helpful to promote the entertainment of the Gospel SERMON XII Colossians IV. 5. Walk in wisdom toward them that are without YE have heard the Question And as I conceive a due attendance unto the words read may lead us far toward the Resolution of it And for that reason was this Text chosen I design not therefore to frame a set Discourse upon it but only to lay it as a ground-work to support that which I have to offer toward the Answering of the Question propounded We have before us then a serious Exhortation Walk in wisdom toward them that are without And therein we may observe 1. The Persons to whom the Apostle doth direct it And they are private Christians This is apparent
the Spirit of God that he may be a Spirit of Adoption to you as well as of Regeneration pray in the Spirit for the Spirit that you may have the frame of a Child filled with Zeal for the Fathers Name and Interest 'T is the Spirit of Adoption that teaches us to cry Abba Father Rom. 8.15 'T is the Spirit of God that gives us an inward freedom and liberty 2 Cor. 3.17 Whâ—â—e the Spirit of the Lord is there 's Liberty This Spirit will not give you a liberty unto sin but from it nor from God but with him This Spirit will not break the Bonds of the Commandment but tye up your hearts to it and give you liberty and chearfulness in it We read that the Son makes us free John 8.36 If the Son shall make you free then are you free indeed We read also that the Spirit makes us free too but in different respects The Son makes us free from the Curse of the Law from the guilt of Sin from the Wrath of God but the Spirit makes us free too from the reigning power of sin from the bondage that is in the Conscience The Authority of God has made his Precepts necessary what is necessary in the precept the Spirit makes voluntary in the principle God charges the Conscience with Duty and the Spirit enlarges the heart to obedience Psal 119.32 I will run the way of thy Commandment when thou shalt enlarge my heart 3. Pray for the Spirit that he would perform his whole Office to you that you may not partake only of the work of the Spirit in some one or some few of his operations but in all that are common to Believers And especially that he that has been an anointing Spirit to you would be a sealing Spirit to you also that he that has sealed you may be a witnessing Spirit to his own work and that he would be the earnest of your inheritance a pledge of what God has further promised and purposed for you 2 Cor. 1.21 22. Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ and hath anointed you is God Who hath also sealed us and given the earnest of the Spirit into our hearts 2. To speak a little more particularly what the Apostle prays for his Ephesians in more general Terms he prays for the Colossians more particularly Col. 1.9 10. We do not cease to pray for you and to desire that you might be fill'd with the knowledge of his Will in all Wisdom and Spiritual Vnderstanding that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing being fruitful in every good work and encreasing in the knowledge of God And when I have opened the particulars of this Scripture I shall not need to seek elsewhere for an answer to this Inquiry What is the matter of the fulness of God which we ought to pray and strive to be filled with I. Let us pray and strive and strive and pray again adding endeavours § 1 to prayers and prayers to endeavours that we may be filled with the knowledge of Gods will And we have need to make this an essential part of our prayer for first We may happily do the will of God Materially when we do it not Formally not under that formal and precise consideration that what we do is the will of God and that we do it under that consideration because it is the will of God A Man may perhaps stumble upon some practices that are commanded by the Moral Law and yet in all this not do Gods will but his own that which in all our obedience we are to eye and regard is the Authority the will of God we cannot be said to observe a Commandment unless we observe Gods Authority in that Commandment nor to keep Gods Statutes unless we keep God in our eye as the great Legislator and Statute maker A blind obedience even to God is no more acceptable than a blind obedience to Men is justifiable Secondly We ought to pray that we may be filled with the knowledge of Gods will that there may be more employment for the powers and faculties of the Soul which in every heart wherein the grace of God radically is are in the general inclined to do the will of God There are some well disposed Christians of strong affections and good inclinations to do Gods will who are but slenderly furnisht with knowledge what that will of God is which he would have them do And thus those warm propensions of Spirit either lye like dead stocks upon their hands or else they laid out the zeal of their Souls upon that which is not the will of God and when they have spent their vigour and strength of Soul upon it they come to God for a reward who asks them who required this at your hand And thus even holy Davids zeal was mislaid upon this account that God had not spoken a word nor revealed his will in the Case 2 Sam. 7.7 Thirdly It s our great concern that we may know the will of God and be filled with that knowledge that the knowledge of Gods will may be an operative principle of obedience thus David prays Psal 143.10 Teach me to do thy will O God We are to pray that God would teach us to know and then teach us to do his will knowledge without obedience is lame obedience without knowledge is blind and we must never hope for acceptance if we offer the blind and the lame to God Luke 12.47 That Servant which knew his Lords will and prepared not himself neither did according to his will shall be beaten with many stripes As therefore all our practice must be guided by knowledge so must all our knowledge be referred to practice Fourthly and lastly We ought to pray that we may be filled with the knowledge of God's will that this knowledge being rooted and grounded in our Souls it may render that obedience easie and delightful which is so necessary to its acceptation when Satan had entred Judas his heart he would not stick at any of the Devils commands and when he had filled the heart of Ananias and Saphira Acts 5.3 how ready were they to lie unto God If our hearts were more filled with the knowledge of Gods will that this Divine Law were written there duty would be our delight obedience our meat and drink nor would there be room left for those corruptions which hang upon us like dead weight always incumbring us in our obedience § 2 II. Let us pray again that we be filled with all wisdom in the doing of the will of God we want knowledge much we want wisdom more we need more light into the will of God and more judgment how to perform it For first It 's one great instance of wisdom to know the seasons of duty and what every day calls for As the providence of God disposes us under various circumstances so it calls for the exercise of various duties one circumstance calls for mourning another for
Had he had none himself he would not have been so much concerned for the others want of it 5. He makes a publick profession of his faith in Christ and owns him to the very teeth of his Enemies and that too when Peter had denied him the other Disciples forsaken him and those that had rallied after their rout and were now come to be the Spectators of the most doleful Object had ever been presented before their eyes were so far from making any such publick confession of him that their Faith was ready to expire with him ch 24.21 II. Repentance being Gods gift and God being a Sovereign Agent he may give it where and when he pleaseth as to whom he will to one and not to another so at what time he will to one sooner to another later He may give it to one early in the morning of his days to another late and when his Sun is Setting And if the great Master of the Vineyard shall call some into it not only at the sixth or ninth hour but even at the last minute of the eleventh hour what is that to any who shall call him to an account for it 3. God being not only a Sovereign Agent but an Almighty one can by his Power and that in an instant remove all hindrances on the Creatures part and whatever might obstruct his work and so with one turn of an Omnipotent hand bring about the heart of the most obdurate Sinner work repentance in the most unlikely Subject and where there is most within to make head against him and resist his Grace suppose the most obstinate and rooted habits of sin Grace is an infused and supernatural habit and the power that works it a supernatural and creating Power and we are not to confine God in his working Grace to those methods whereby men acquire natural or moral habits In these I grant there may need time to unlearn and extirpate those vitious habits they have so long been contracting and to acquire new ones by a long series of and accustoming themselves to better actions Custom in Men may be strong and like another Nature and they may not be able presently to overcome it nor on the sudden to bring themselves to a readiness and easiness in doing those things which tho their reason approves yet their boysterous appetites strengthned too by custom hurry them against But let the habit of sin be never so deeply radicated in the Soul and the Heart of Man never so averse to holy actions yet God can soon make a change soon remove the sinful disposition and enable and encline the Soul to what it was most averse and impotent He can even in a moment overcome that love of sin and hatred of holiness which is either natural to a Man or contracted by him and both abate lessen weaken the power of sin in the Soul whereby it was wont to resist the workings of his Spirit and restrain and suspend any actual resistance it might make Let the mind of a Man be as dark as darkness it self yet he that caused light to shine out of darkness can enlighten that mind when he pleases 2 Cor. 4.6 Let the Soul be never so dead in sin and destitute of all Spiritual Life yet he that quickens the dead and calls things that are not as tho they were Rom. 4.17 can quicken it and breathe the Breath of Spiritual Life into it and whatever there be in the Soul to oppose him in his working yet the same power can at once quell the opposition and produce the Grace 4. God having infused the habit can as easily enliven it and draw it out into act in those that are capable of exercising grace wrought in them as I suppose dying sinners to be at least when they are capable of exercising their rational faculties For there is less to make opposition against God than in the former case the prevailing power of sin being broken and something in the Soul to take Gods part in the work viz. grace now begun and some habitual promptness and disposedness of the heart to spiritual good and compliance with the will of God It doth not require more power to awaken a vital principle tho dormant than to infuse it where there was none before 5. It may be for Gods honour sometimes to give Repentance to dying sinners the honour of his Sovereignty and free Grace in shewing that he hath mercy on whom he will Rom. 3.18 and that the deepest guilt even of an old hardned sinner cannot hinder the outgoings of his grace and mercy and the honour of his power when it prevails over the most setled habits of corruption Should God work only upon lesser sinners and who are not so confirmed in evil Man might be apt to think that he could not do it and that Mens lusts might be too hard for his power and so reflect on his Omnipotence or to think he could not find in his heart to do it and so reflect upon his Mercy II. By way of Position or Assertion It is a very dangerous thing to run the hazard of a death-bed Repentance or defer Repentance till the approach of death that is to neglect the doing a Mans own part in order to the obtaining this grace as was above premised viz. the seeking it of God and using all those means by which he ordinarily works it The danger of this neglect may appear by the following considerations 1. That no Man knows the time of his death any more than the manner of it or means by which it shall be brought about Our breath is in Gods hands Dan. 5.23 No Man hath a lease of his earthly Tabernacle but is Tenant at will to his great Landlord Who knows when he shall die or how Whether a natural death or a violent one To how many thousand unforeseen accidents are Men subject Not only Swords and Axes may dispatch them but God can commission Insects and Vermin to be the executioners of his justice upon them Hatto Archbishop of Mentz A great Prelate may be eaten up of Mice and a potent Prince devoured by Worms Acts 12.23 And who doth not carry the principles of his own dissolution perpetually within him Death lies in ambush in every vain in every member and none know when it may assault them It doth not always warn before it strikes If some Diseases are Cronical others are Acute and less lingring and some are as quick as lightning kill in an instant Men may be well in one moment and dead in the next God shoots his arrows at them they are suddenly wounded Psal 64.7 How many are taken away not only in the midst of their days but in the midst of their sins The lusting Israelites with the flesh between their teeth Numb 11.33 Julian if Historians speak truth with blasphemy in his mouth and how many frequently with the Wine in their heads In such cases what place what time for repentance for seeking it
and Provisions to bring and keep our God and us together in order to all the Solaces and Satisfactions of Steady Full Eternal Friendship the eminent importance of his Gospel Interest and Kingdom in and to the world the Church and us the loveliness and vigours of his Interest and Image in us as formed fixt and actuated and possessed by his eternal Spirit to his eternal praise by Jesus Christ the solid pleasures peace and usefulness of regular zeal for God Christ Christianity and all that are near and dear to God with all the comforts and renown which this well fixt and ordered zeal prepares us for All that we are saved from by to through the effectual cure of this disease All the solemnities of Christs approaching day and our great concerns therein All the good that is in that attends upon and that issues from the prosperous Successes of the Gospel the holiness and and peace of the Church and the health the usefulness the possession the Conflicts and Conquests of a well cured Soul and all the Honours Ease and Blessings that attend our glorious Gospel All this and much more deserves deep thoughts and all the fervours and acknowledgments and Services of love And the plain truth is this We are both constituted of and surrounded with enflaming objects of this love And the great object and attractive shines even most gloriously in all Nature in all its Harmonies Stores and Beauties Providence in all its illustrations of its excellencies and exactness suiting it self in all the Articles thereof to every thing and being and concern in Heaven and Earth The sacred Scriptures every way entertaining us with what may exercise and enrich the mind of man heal and compose his Conscience enthroning it as Gods vicegerent to inspect the principles designs and practices and State of men to make and keep them orderly safe and easy and so to affect the heart and life as that we may be lovely in the sight of God the blessings of our Stations in our generations and a most comfortable entertainment to our selves Our very selves are most provoking objects unto love So many faculties in our Souls So many passions and affections to be ordered and exercised aright So many sences for reception So many Organs and Instruments for the commodious promoting and securing of our own Good So many Objects Employments and Acquests to be engaged vigorously about and orderly conversant with all continually And God in all this eminently beaming forth those perfections which are so fit and worthy to take endearingly with us How inexcuseable is cold heartedness whenas it may so easily be cured by serious Contemplations of these objects Light and Colours and beautiful proportions to the eye Words and Melodies to the Ears Food to the tast and all the objects exercises and entertainments of every sense afford our very minds and hearts their delicacies to feed on and urge us to love God and Man And let me add this also the beauties and delightfulness of holiness and practical Religion as exemplified in holy persons those excellent ones in whom is my delight saith David Psal xvi 3. O to observe them in all their curious imitations and resemblances of their God in the Wisdom of their Conduct the fervours of their Spirits the steadiness of their purposes the evenness of their tempers the usefulness and blamelessness of their lives the loftiness of their aims the placed gravity of their Looks the savour and obligingness of their Speeches the generous largeness of their Hearts the openness of their Hands the impartiality of their Thoughts the tenderness of their Bowels and all the sweetnesses of their Deportments towards all Such things are really where Christian Godliness obtains indeed Tho meer pretenders or real Christians in their decays and swoons may represent Religion under its eclipses to it's great disadvantage and reproach When therefore we contemplate all these excellencies and many more not mentioned will not our Hearts take fire and burn with love of Complacency where these things are visible and with the Love of benevolence and beneficence to that degree towards those that are receptive of but want them which shall enrage Desires and Prayers and quicken us to diligent endeavours after what by such may be attained unto were they but closely and warmly followed by us and brought to the diligent pursuits thereof Thus you see deep thoughts about lovely Objects will get up love and cure luke-warmness in us to the purpose Let this then be done 3. Heart-awakening and Love-quickning Truths are to be duly and intimately considered And this is indeed in part to truthifie in Love if I may make an English Word to express the valor of the Greek Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eph. iv 15. The existence and excellence of the great Jehovah the Trine-Vne Holy one the care which he hath taken and the expensive cost he hath been at to cure this Malady by the fore-mentioned means and helps The critical Inspections of his Eye into the Heart of Man and his making this the test and balance of the Sanctuary to try us by counting and judging us more or less fit for Mercies and Judgments Heaven or Hell Service or to be thrown aside as refuse as our Hearts stand affected No exact soundness in our Spirits no safety in our State no real ease and chearfulness in our Souls no evidence of our acceptance with our God no Duty well performed towards God or Man no Sins subdued no Trial bravely managed and resulted no Talents used fully to the Masters Satisfaction and Advantage nothing profest performed endured or obtained without this Love And according to it's Ebbs and Flows it's Inflammations and Abatements so doth it fare and go with all our Christianity and Concerns The Truth is all the concerns of Souls and Persons in Life Death Judgment Heaven and Hell are hereupon depending These Articles of Truth considered well will make us serious fervent resolute and industrious in the things of God 4. Heart-warming Duties are to be performed throughly in Publick Private and in Secret Eccl. ix 10. Rom. xii 11 12. Pray hard read frequently and seriously hear diligently and impartially meditate closely and concernedly upon all you read or hear relating to the great concern Be much in Christian conference in the due Spirit and to the genuine design and purposes thereof be much in Praise Thanks Self-observation Government and Discipline Look up to Heaven for help and improve faithfully what you thence obtain And I do take the Supreme Essentially Infinite Good to be dishonoured and degraded by us in our Thoughts and Walk if any Creature Interests or Excellencies do ultimately terminate our Affections and Intentions For my part I take converses Employments Ingenious Recreations and even sensitive Entertainments to be most delicious and grateful when they occasion or provoke me to those Observations of God in all which carry up my thoughts through and from them to him with
at him (e) Psal 8.2 Out of the mouths of very unlikely persons hast thou ordained strength that thou mightest still the Enemy and the Avenger q. d. God doth by the Spiritual Skill and Strength which he gives even to young weak Converts unfit to grapple with an Enemy God enables even such to silence confound and conquer the Enemies of God and his People and the Devil in the head of them whose Kingdom and Power is broken by this means and those that fight under his Banner against God and Christ And pray observe the Title here given him viz. the Avenger he being Sentenced by God to Eternal Torments makes it his business to revenge himself what he can upon God and Christ upon his Children and Servants Christians if you can through Grace make Satan himself against his will help you to profit by the Word this will raise your Souls beyond what is ordinary both for Grace and Comfort Or if God in his Wisdom suspend such manifestations of himself yet such exercise of Grace shall certainly tend to the multiplying of Praises in the other World And now though I have in my pitiful manner answered the Case my work is not yet done till I have answered a Complaint upon the Case and 't is the Complaint of those who have least cause of those who give Christ that Answer to his Question which satisfies him but yet can't give an Answer will satisfie themselves Their Hearts ake from the very proposing of the Question and their Hearts misgive them under all that 's said in Answer to it Complaint We have more Cause to complain than we are able to express Oh the Sermons that we have lost of which we can give no account at all and of those that are not utterly lost we have made no suitable improvement We are convinced that we should be as impartial now in examining whether we have got saving Faith by hearing of the Word We should be as strict now as if we were upon our Dying Bed We know not whether ever we shall have a Death-bed many more likely to live than our selves dye suddenly and why not we Nay rather now for we have not now wearisome Sickness to disable us We have now those helps that we can't have then Freedom of Ordinances in publick Capacities for Duties in secret We may now bring things to an issue which is then next to impossible These and a Thousand such Considerations even fright me when I sit down to think my Thoughts even overwhelm me to reflect what a sorry account I can give of all that I have heard These and more doleful Complaints are the usual entertainments of their most serious Christian Friends To all which I shall offer these Answers Answ 1. The Word of God which they apply to their Sorrow they ought as well to apply to their Comfort for those who are really grieved that they can't satisfie themselves much less as they think Christ They are mistaken for Christ is ordinarily best satisfied with that which the gracious Soul is least satisfied e. g. That Prayer which he is most ashamed of Christ most approves of (f) Cant. 2.12 The Flowers appear on the Earth the time of the Singing of Birds is come and the Voice of the Turtle is heard in our Land 'T is Spring-time in the Soul When the Groans of a contrite Heart sound harsh to others they are Musick in Christs Ears not that Christ delights in his peoples Sorrows but as they are Evidences of his Graces in them and of his Spirit 's abiding with them It is only the gracious Soul that is grieved at Heart that he can't give Christ a better account of his profiting (g) Ezr. 9.6 10. ch 10.2 O my God I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee my God What shall I say after this There 's hope in Israel concerning this thing The Apostle expresly assures us that (h) 1 Cor. 11.31 32. those that judge themselves shall not be judged with a Judgment of Condemnation Chear up therefore poor dropping Soul and to thy comfort consider whether this be not the only thing wherein Christ and you Believers be not of the same mind Christ puts a better interpretation of his actings than he himself dares many a time Christ owns that as Grace which he condemns for Hypocrisie Christ forgives him that which he can never forgive himself Christ says Well done good and faithful Servant for that which he ever finds fault with But the complaining Soul saith I mistake him I speak to the rong person Propose comfort to those that are grieved they can't give Christ a satisfying account whereas I am not troubled enough nor grieved enough a serious reflection upon such returns as mine to Christs kindness would certainly break any Heart but mine But alas I am next to nothing affected with it 2. I therefore further answer Thy complaining for want of sensible complaining entitles thee to Comfort Darest thou own so much as this that thou art troubled thou can'st be no more troubled at the shameful account thou givest to Christ Thou art afraid that Word has overtaken thee (i) Isa 6.9 10. Hear ye indeed but understand not and see ye indeed but perceive not make the Heart of this People fat and make their Ears heavy and shut their Eyes least they see with their Eyes and hear with their Ears and understand with their Heart c. Surely thou canst not think worse of thy self than this Let me tell thee the more thou thinkest of this the less cause thou hast to apply this to thy self for those who God gives up to judicial hardness never think or speak of such things but in scorn and to make a mock of them and that thou darest not do there 's another word for thee to think of (k) Isa 66.1 2 Thus saith the Lord The Heaven is my Throne and the Earth is my Footstool where 's the place of my rest To this Man will I look even to him that is poor and of a contrite Spirit and that trembleth at my Word If God hath any place upon Earth for his Repose it is in that Soul that stands in awe of his Word and with due Reverence receives it What! Dost thou complain thou art not troubled enough Nor contrite enough Not humbled enough How do many Souls bring their Complaints to Ministers and bring their Bills to Congregations for brokeness of Heart and a deep sense of Sin when they are so much broken already that their other Duties are almost justled out by it Don't therefore overlook that Text (l) Rom. 14.17 The Kingdom of God is Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost We should make it our business to live in a ferious course of Holiness towards God and Righteousness towards Men in the love and practice of Peace with all and in the joyful sense of the love of God and hopes of Glory
Contempt is abominable Man can better bear to have his Power or Authority or Wisdom contemned than his Goodness Ingratitude is justly reputed among the worst of Vices and the Contempt of Goodness is the highest act of ingratitude And the higher the Goodness is that is Contemned the higher still is the Ingratitude and the more provoking 3. An higher Contempt of God's Threatnings God's Threatnings under the Law were for the most part of Temporal Evils but now under the Gospel the Threats rise higher and are more dreadful It is the damnation of Hell everlasting Fire utter darkness where there is weeping wailing and gnashing of teeth Everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power c. And great Men cannot well bear to have their Anger slighted and their Threats despised or derided But though the Lion roar and God's Threats are denounced and his Wrath revealed from Heaven against all unrighteousness of Men more than ever before yet the impenitent Sinner trembles not but goes on in his sin and saith he shall have Peace and so casts Contempt upon the severest Threatnings of God 4. This Impenitency is a disappointing God in his End It is a frustrating of his great design which is to recover lost Man to himself by Jesus Christ And Man is not recovered and brought back to God but by true repentance And it is his great End in sending his Gospel to a People to bring them to Repentance And this End of God is now made void when sinners repent not Men are sometimes grieved and sometimes angried when they are disappointed in their End so is God said to be He complains often of this in the Scriptures when he is disappointed in the End of his Corrections he complains Jer. 2.30 In vain have I smitten your Children they received no Correction And in the End of his shewing favour Isai 1.2 I have nourished and brought up Children and they have rebelled against me And complains of his Vineyard disappointing the End of his care and cost about it When I looked for Grapes it brought forth wild Grapes Isai 5.4 Our Saviour is said to rejoyce when Sinners were brought to repentance he now enjoy'd the End of his Coming Luke 10.21 But then at another time he grieved because of the hardness of mens hearts Mark 3.5 And there is still joy in Heaven when sinners repent And Christ's faithful Ministers rejoyce also when sinners repent for they now attain their End which they com◠upon and will give up their account with joy concerning such as they will do with grief concerning others Whereupon the Apostle as a Co-worker with God Heb. 13.17 beseecheth the Corinthians that they receive not the grace of God in vain 2 Cor. 6.1 That neither God nor himself may be disappointed in the end of their work being Co-workers And Grace is bestow'd in vain when it brings not Sinners to repentance and when men accept not of the reconciliation mention'd in the foregoing Chapter which Grace hath provided for them It was a sad complaint of the Prophet when he saith I have laboured in vain Isai 49.4 Much more for an Apostle and a Minister of the New Testament thus to complain And much more for Christ to complain thus as sometimes he did And most of all for God himself to complain as he doth in the case of Sinners impenitency So that Impenitency under the Gospel must needs be very sinful 5. This Impenitency hath much folly in it as well as sin For men to run themselves into the destruction which they might avoid and refuse the offers of God's mercy and grace in the Gospel is not this folly He is call'd a fool that hath a price in his hand and hath not an heart to use it Prov. 17.16 And the Virgins in the Parable that lost their Season of entring in with the Bridegroom are styled foolish Virgins Matth. 25. And are not Sinners that continue in their sin and impenitency under the Gospel thus foolish For they have set before them the fairest price and the richest seasons The Prodigal in the Parable when he came home to his Father is said to come to himself Luke 1◠So when a Sinner repents and comes home to God he now comes to himself as if his former life was folly and madness 6. Impenitency under the Gospel shews greater Wilfulness in sin As it argues great folly in the Mind so perverseness in the Will And the more there is of the Will in sin the more sinful it is As the Schoolmen say Bonitas malitia moralis sunt potissimùm in voluntate Paul could say it was not he that sinn'd when he did sin because his Will was against it Rom. 7.20 The Evil that I would not that I do And this God chiefly looks at in Actions both good and evil There seems to be more wilfulness in Impenitency under the Gospel than ever before The more Light and Knowledge men sin against the more Will there is in sin And the fairer offers are made to men of Heaven and Salvation the more wilful is the refusal And this is the case of Sinners under the Gospel They do not repent and they will not repent they do not hear and they will not hear they do not leave their sin and they will not leave it 7. Lastly Impenitency under the Gospel is attended with the greatest resistance of the Spirit Greater than in former time There is more of the Spirit goes along with the Gospel-ministration than with any before it And there cannot be a disobedience to the Gospel without resisting that Spirit that goes along with it Upon some the Spirit prevails and brings them to repentance and in others he is resisted And some resist to that degree that they are said to offer despight to the Spirit of Grace Heb. 10.29 And the sin that is accounted unpardonable is committed against the Holy Ghost and it 's Thought cannot be committed but under the Gospel whereby Sinners are brought by a sinful to a judicial Impenitency Heb. 6.6 So that by this time you may see the great sinfulness of Impenitency under the Gospel beyond what was or could be in Sodom whereby mens damnation will be more intolerable Now I come to the last Particular to shew wherein the greater intolerableness will consist 1. Such will suffer greater Torments from their own Consciences The worm of Conscience will gnaw them with greater pain The reflections of it upon the sinner will be with greater force and fury By how much Men have sinn'd against greater Light and Mercy by so much the remembrance of this will be the more afflictive It was some aggravation of Dives his Torments in Hell the remembrance of former good things enjoy'd Much more will the remembrance of a day of Salvation lost and of the refusal or neglect of Gospel-grace and mercy be afflictive to sinners in a state of Damnation The Light they have sinn'd
nor value them Sayes the other These men are all either blinded with preferment or hunting after it their Parts are either utterly abus'd or quite blasted Thus the Ball of Contention is toss'd from one to another by the hands of Pride and Scorn Whereas Humility makes a Man think meanly of himself moderately of his own Notions and Apprehensions highly of those that deserve it and respectfully of all It was this which taught excellent Bishop Ridley when he was in Prison thus to accost honest Bishop Hooper However in some by-matters and circumstances of Religion your wisdom and my simplicity I grant hath a little jarr'd yet now c. More comfort to them if they had been on these terms in the time of their Liberty and Prosperity Humility is a great step to Unity Ephes 4.2 I beseech you that ye walk with all lowliness and meekness with long-suffering forbearing one another in love Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace Pray behold how these Graces are here link't together lowliness meekness unity and peace The humble man will not indure that his Reputation shall outweigh the Peace of the Church and therefore is more willing that Truth should be victorious than Himself Hee 'l go two miles for one to meet his Adversary in an honest way of Accommodation and when he cannot make his Judgment to bend yet his Heart shall stoop to you with all sincerity This Vertue made Aristippus come to Eschines when they were at fewd with this greeting Eschines Shall we be friends And this dictated his answer Yes Sir with all my heart But remember saith Aristippus That I being elder than you do make the first motion Yea said the other and therefore I conclude you to be the worthier man for I began the strife and you began the peace Let us all then be cloathed with Humility assume not in regard of your Learning Wit or Parts consider you are but Sharers in our Common Benefactor neither let your Riches or Dignities make you to speak or write otherwise than you would do without them and this will go a great way to prevent our biting and devouring one another 5. Apply your selves to the Practice of Real Piety By this I mean that we should imploy our chief care to procure and increase a lively Faith to exercise daily Repentance to strengthen our Hope to inflame our Love to God and to our Neighbour to grow in Humility Zeal Patience and Self-denyal To be diligent in Watchfulness over our Thoughts Words and Wayes in Mortification of our sinfull Passions and Affections in the Examination of our Spiritual Estate in Meditation in secret and fervent Prayer and in universal and steady Obedience In these things do run the vital spirits of Religion And whoso is seriously imployed in these will have but little time and less mind for unnecessary Contentions These will keep that heat about the Heart which evaporating degenerates into airy and fiery exhalations and leaves the Soul as cold as Ice to any holy desires It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace not with meats which have not profited them that have been occupied therein Hebr. 13.9 It is manifest what a sad decay of these hath followed our multiplied quarrels and how hard it is to be fervent in Spirit and withall to be fiery in Controversies He that walks with God and whose Conversation is in Heaven will be quickly weary of windy disputes with men and will be apt to conclude with one of the Ancients Lassus sum dum cum sermone atque invidia cum hostibus cum nostris pugno Which hath occasioned divers great Divines the more earnestly to long for Heaven that they might be out of the noise of endless and perverse disputations The serious Practice of Godliness hath the Promise of Divine Direction in all material points The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him and he will shew them his Covenant Psal 25.14 If any man will do his Will he shall know of the Doctrine whether it be of God John 7.17 And likewise he that lives in the Spirit and walks in the Spirit dares not bite or devour his Neighbour Let not us saith the Apostle that so walk be desirous of vain-glory provoking one another envying one another Gal. 5.25 26. 6. Follow after Charity Knowedge puffeth up but Charity edifieth This is the healing Grace and if this be not applyed to our bleeding wounds they will never be cured This suffereth long and is kind Charity envieth not Charity vaunteth not it self is not puffed up Pray read on and mark all these passages Charity doth not behave it self unseemly seeketh not her own is not easily provoked thinketh no evil Rejoyceth not in iniquity but rejoyceth in the Truth Beareth all things tolerable believeth all things credible hopeth all things possible indureth all things and as it follows indureth after all things 1 Corinth 13. That whole Chapter most fit to be read and often studied by all that love peace Charitas dicit aliorum bona certa meliora certa mala minora bona dubia certa dubia mala nulla An excellent Conclusion of Charity That it reckons the good parts qualities or actions that are certainly in others to be rather better than they are indeed and the ills to be less than they are indeed the doubtfull good things in them to be certain and the doubtfull evil to be none And how far would this Temper and Practice go to the promoting of Unity and Concord And how directly contrary do most of them proceed that make the greatest noise in our irreligious quarrels Not only putting the most invidious fence upon one anothers words and actions but also the most uncharitable judgment upon their persons upon their Spiritual and Eternal Estate We must know that as Faith unites us to the Head so Love unites us to all the Members and as we can have no Faith nor Hope without Charity so as any Man increaseth in Faith so he is inlarged in his Charity The more true Piety any man hath doubtless the more Charity still that man hath We that did hate one another saith Jâ—stin Martyr of the Christians do now live most friendly and familiarly together and pray for our Enemies If we must err one way as who is infallible it is safer for you to err by too much mildness than by overmuch rigour for Almighty God though he be Wise and Just yet he is most emphatically called Love 1 John 4.8 Beloved let us love one another for Love is of God and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God He that loveth not knoweth not God for God is Love And for you to reply That you do heartily love those that are every way Orthodox that is that agree with you in Opinion is nothing thank-worthy do not even the Publicans the same That may be nothing but Self-love but your Religion
injoyns you to love your Enemies and it is but a sorry expression of this Love to bite and devour one another for unnecessary matters It were better as One sayes that Caesar should break all Pollio's curious Glasses than they should break the bond of Charity or that the breach of them should be the occasion of so much inhumanity of Brethren one against another Let Charity therefore guide the Magistrate in making and executing Civil Laws let Charity accompany Christ's Ministers in their Studies Pulpits and Behaviour to their People Let Charity be maintained by all the Laity towards one another Then shall we have that Vnity Peace and Concorâ—â— which we solemnly pray for this Dove will bring back the Olive-branch into the Ark of the Church 7. Avoid Extreams Do not labour to screw up one another to the utmost It is observed that every Peace that is concluded upon rigorous or disadvantageous terms endures but a while the aggrieved party will take the first opportunity of relief as an over-rented Tenant to throw up his Lease Conscience must be wary but it would be easie in matters of Religion and therefore should be directed but may not indeed cannot be forced contrary to it's Sentiments When a late French King had earnestly solicited a great States-man that was retiring from the Court to leave with him some of his most Politick Observations and to that end had lockt him up in his Closset only with Pen Ink and Paper It is said that he only took several sheets of Paper and wrote in the top of the sheet Modus in the middle Modus and in the bottom again Moduâ— advertising his Master thereby that the summ of all Prudence in Government was to observe a Mean in his Administrations Indeed if one Party have all the Truth on their side it is most fit the others should yield themselves to be their Prisoners But if that be not evident as it is scarce probable it is most equal that each do move toward the other as far as they can or else they will never come together If the things in question be any way necessary God forbid that ye should refuse them if they be not God forbid that ye should urge them It was King James his â—ence to Cardinal Peron Quare existimat ejus Majestas nullam ad incundam concordiam breviorem viam sore quam si diligenter separentur necessaria à non necessariis ut de necessariis conveniat omnis opera insumatur in non necessariis libertati Christiana locus detur That is The next way to Concord is to distinguish between things that are necessary and to endeavour a full Agreement in those and things that are not necessary and to allow a Christian Liberty in these Not that in disswading you from extreams I would commend Lukewarmness or halting in the course that men have chosen but that they so govern their Resolution by Wisdom and Charity that they may not unnecessarily provoke grieve or exasperate others who perhaps have as sound hearts if not as clear heads as themselves It was a Great and a Wise Mans Motto Mediocria firma and a true Proverb among the Vulgar Too-too will break in two 8. Mind every one his own business The Apostle gives this Rule 1 Thes 4.11 That ye study to be quiet and to do your own business as we have commanded you It is not a thing Arbitrary but Commanded And that upon good Reason for when men want imployment or have Imployments too mean for their spirits or having good Callings do neglect them they are fit Instruments to stir up Contention these permit their Tongues to walk through the Earth and will exercise themselves in things too high for them these collect and disperse all the invidious Narrations they can meet with and make no Conscience of wounding every man's Reputation that is on the other side By all which they greatly contribute to the heightning and exasperating the Differences that are among us and in short they are the seventh sort of People that are abomination to the Lord namely such as sow Discord among brethren Prov. 6.19 If therefore men would mind first and chiefly the business of their own Souls and exercise themselves in this to have alwayes a Conscience void of offence towards God and towards men if they would keep their own Vineyards weed up those tares which spring up in their own Hearts and stir up the Graces of God's Holy Spirit in them and then travel in birth with earnest endeavours for the Conversion and Salvation of their own poor Children and Servants and then be diligent in their temporal Callings they would have neither list nor leisure to wander about from house to house from Ale-house to Tavern from Tavern to Coffee-house as they do and are not only idle but busie-bodies speaking things they ought not like those Women which are reproved 1 Tim. 5.13 Every Man hath his particular Post and Province to attend and I grant besides his Domestick Concerns he is bound in Conscience to promote the good of the Town Parish City and Nation whereunto he belongs and in consequence thereto wisely and resolutely to asseâ— and preserve all the Priviledges belonging to any of them and conscionably to discharge the respective Duties incumbent upon him but this intitles no private Person to be correcting their Governours instructing their â—â—nisters turning the World upside down disquieting themselves and others and leaving bad impressions upon those they converse withall whereas our great business should be to have the Salt of Grace and Truth in our selves and to have and further peace with one another 9. Observe that good Old Rule Of doing to others as you would be done to You would have others to bear with you and why will not you bear with others you would have the best sense put upon your words actions and carriages and why will not you put the best sense on their words actions and carriages you would not be imposed on censur'd reproach'd back-bitten slander'd no more should you impose upon others or censure them or reproach or back-bite or slander them I may say to you as Chrysostom on that Mat. 7.12 Let thy own Will here be thy Law Let not this Rule which was reverenc'd by Heathens be trampled on by Christians It 's true Error cannot reasonably expect the same regard from Truth as the Truth may from Error yet erroneous Persons whose errors are not mortal should no more be devoured by the servants of Truth than those who have right on their side by those that are in the wrong Those who have not otherwise forfeited the repute of sobriety piety and honesty save only that they cannot be of your mind let them still be so esteemed and treated as you your selves desire to be esteemed and treated if any contrary Party should ever have Wind and Sun with them Remember how this melted Sesostris a Pagan into Compassion when he observed one of
in vain and he will not hold thee guiltless for thy Prayers will be turned into sin unto thee Psal 109.12 And yet Pray thou must or thou runnest into a greater Iniquity by neglecting to acknowledge thy dependence upon God thou wilt at least border upon Atheism Oh what a miserable Dilemma does thy wickedness betray thee unto If thou hadst a design to dishonour God thou couldst not more effectually execute it than by saying That thou art his Servant or Child and by sin to disparage him thy Father or Lord and Master As he must needs provoke any great and noble Person who in the Livery of his Servant or Garb of his Child acts filthiness and abominations And as for laying hold on Christ and shrouding of thy self amongst his Retinue calling him thy Husband or professing him to be thy Head what a Monster pardon the expression I tremble to mention it wouldst make him As if he were a Dagon whose head was like a Man but his lower parts like stinking Fish The truth is the pretensions of such unto Salvation would make Scripture a Lye and Christ the Minister of unrighteousness Gal. 2.17 ult which God forbid Dost thou think it will serve thy turn well enough if thou canst but with Stephen say at last Acts 7.59 Lord Jesus receive my Spirit Unless thy Spirit be sanctified and sins washed away in his Blood thou wilt now soon hear him say unto thee Depart thou Cursed into everlasting fire Men Brethren and Fathers hear our Apology If we be taxed because we maintain free Grace and Free Justification that we make a way for free sinning and free living and doing what we please and yet geting thus into Heaven at last and that we may be assured of it in the mean while we justly abomnate such Inferences and think they can least of all be inferr'd from such premises May we all agree to stand up for God and to oppose sin to our outmost which is the last and only Use that remains and the best and suitablest to the Text that can be made It is foretold concerning the times of the Gospel Exhortation To Depart from Iniquity Hos 3.5 That in the latter dayes they should fear the Lord and his goodness Oh that these words might be now fulfilled That men would fear to abuse the Goodness of God which is design'd to lead them to Repentance Rom. 2.4 The richest and sweetest Wines they say make the sharpest Vinegar I am sure sweetest Promises when neglected or abused issue in the severest Torments Wo to thee Chorazin wo to thee Bethsaida why is so sad a wo denounc'd beyond that on Tyâ—e and Sidon Mat. 11.21.23 And Capernaum too is threatned with a more terrible destruction than that of Sodom and Gomorrah because those miserable ones perished without having had the Means of Salvation declared in the Gospel amongst them these refused to come to be saved though invited by Christ himself The hotter the Sun-beams are the more they harden the Clay that will not be softned by it If you keep your Sins now you do despite unto the Spirit of Grace that in the Gospel Heb. 10.29 invites perswades and offers to enable you to forsake them You trample under foot the precious Blood of the Son of God which should wash you from all your Impurities you count it as a common thing and let it be spilt in vain as water on the ground One brings in Satan upbraiding our Saviour with the fewness of his Followers and true Disciples he Satan did never any good for Man he is Mans Enemy on all accounts and yet upon the offer of any foolish Toy Profit or Pleasure he is obeyed and men yield themselves up to his service tho so hard and tyrannical a Master Our Blessed Lord became Man liv'd meanly dyed miserably that he might gain Obedience to such just Precepts and Commandments that are for our good and yet hath so very few that will serve and obey him Jerem. 2.12 Rom. 14.9 1 Cor. 15.27 Eph. 1.22 Psal 66.7 Be astonished O ye Heavens Therefore Christ dyed and rose and revived that he might be Lord of the living and of the dead All things are put under his feet and by his Power he ruleth over all whether they will or no But Christ died and fuffered that he might obtain a willing People Psal 110.3 such as out of choice and love would obey him And do any of you pretend to be bought with a Price even with the precious Blood of the Son of God 1 Cor. 6.20.7.23 then you ought to glorifie him with those Bodies and Spirits which are his 'T is now Sacriledge indeed to rob God and he will bring thee into Judgment and indite thee ay and condemn thee too without serious and timely Repentance for it And Oh how hot is that Hell which is especially prepar'd for Hypocrites and Unbelievers Thy Obligation is as strict and as you heard stricter too under the Gospel than it was to any under the Law and yet the Transgressors of the Law deserv'd then to perish without mercy Heb. 10.28 and how shall we escape One difference there is indeed betwixt the Law and the Gospel The Law required the full tale of Brick but afforded no Straw It required Obedience but the Law as such afforded no means to perform it The Means how thou mayest be enabled to do the Will of God and to depart from Iniquity is manifested in the Gospel here thou art shewn a fulness in Christ Colos 1.19 out of which thou mayest have Grace for Grace Thou art invited to come thou art assured to be welcome bring never so many empty Vessels thou mayest fill them freely 't is in vain to say Thou canst not Isa 55.1 but thou wilt not be holy Did any now in a sense of their weakness and inability beg Strength and Power from him to do his Will and walk in his Commandments there would be Joy in Heaven for such a Petition Luke 15.7 10. so readily would it be heard and granted You have heard that every one that calls himself a Christian does it therefore because he pretends to be married to Jesus Christ but in good earnest to use the words of Rebecka's Friends Wilt thou go with this Man Wilt thou go with Christ and be a Follower of him Say and do it Gen. 24.58 and God speed thee well I cannot wish thee more Joy than thou wilt find And Oh what Advantages would this bring would Christians be what they profess and would seem to be were the Precepts of Christ obeyed and his Life copyed out by them this would mend the World indeed Pagans and Mahometans Papists and Jews would not be able to stand out against the power of Godliness when it once appear in the lives of Men Not only Ministers may Convert 1. Pet. 3.1 but even Women too thus the Husband the Apostle
Fulness in God viz. his essential self-fulness which is infinite inexhaustible undiminishable and therefore incommunicable 2. A second thing we must suppose is That there is a fulness of God with which we may and therefore ought to pray and labour that we may be filled We cannot reach the original fulness but we may a borrowed derivative fulness tho' we cannot attain the fulness of the Fountain we may receive a fulness of the Vessel from that Fountain and if we cannot partake any thing of Gods Essence we may partake of his Influence we cannot be filled with the formal holiness of God for that holiness is God yet may we derive holiness from him as an efficient cause who works all things according to the counsel of his Will Eph. 1.11 The Wisdom of God there 's Principium dirigens the Will of God there 's Principium imperans and he works according to these there 's the Principium exequens His Will commands his Wisdom guides his Power executes the Decrees and Purposes of his wise Counsel and holy Will Having thus cleared the way we proceed to the direct Solution of the Question What is that fulness of God which every true Christian ought to pray and strive to be filled with For seeing we have supposed that there is a fulness of God which we cannot be filled with we must lay aside all ambitions and vain aspirings after that fulness and seeing we have supposed that there is a fulness of God wherewith we may be filled and the very Prayer of the Apostle supposes it We therefore are to take up this holy and humble ambition to be filled with it Now this Question can be no sooner proposed but our thoughts will suggest to us these two things First What is the matter of that Fulness and what is the measure of that Fulness with what of God and with how much of God ought we to pray and strive that we may be filled And therefore of necessity we must divide the Question into these two Branches First Branch of the Question What is the matter of that Fulness of God which we are to pray and strive to be filled with When we speak of Filling we conceive immediately that under that Metaphor there must be comprized these three things A Fountain from whence that Fulness is communicated A Recipient a Vessel a Cistern into which that Fulness is derived And then of something Analogous to the matter which from that Fountain is communicated and by that Vessel received Now in the Case before us This Fountain must needs be God the Author of every good and perfect Gift Jam. 1.17 Souls are the Vessel into which the Fulness is received but what we are to conceive and understand by the matter or the quasi materia with which these Vessels from that Fountain are filled is the Subject of our present Enquiry And to this branch of the main Inquiry I shall answer First more generally Secondly more particularly 1. To speak generally That which we are to pray and strive to be filled with is the Spirit of God Eph. 5.18 Be not drunk with Wine wherein is excess but be ye filled with the Spirit where first the Apostle dehorts against Intemperance we may have too much of the best outward things It 's easie to run into excess in these matters The Psalmist assures us Psal 104.15 That Wine makes glad the heart of man And the Prophet Hos 4.11 assures us too that Wine takes away the Heart It 's no more but this the Use is good the Abuse is sinful and the danger is lest from the lawfulness of the Use we slide insensibly into the Abuse Be not therefore filled with wine wherein is excess but then he exhorts too But be ye filled with the Spirit No fear of excess or Intemperance in this case when God fills the Souls of his People with his Spirit he fills them with all the Spiritual good things that their hearts can fill their Prayers with Compare but these two places Matth. 7.11 How much more shall your Father which is in Heaven give good things to them that ask him Luke 11.13 How much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him The comparing of these two Scriptures evidently proves that in praying for the Holy Spirit we pray virtually for all good things and that when God is graciously pleased to communicate his Spirit he communicates all good things when the Father gives his Son he gives all things So the Apostle has taught us to believe and argue Rom. 8 32. He that spared not his Son but delivered him up for us All how shall he not with him freely give us all things And we have equal reason to believe that he that spared his Spirit and gave him to us will in him and with him freely give us all things But these all things are to be taken in suo genere The Gift of Christ comprehends all things that are to be done for us the gift of the Spirit includes all things to be wrought in us Christ is all things for Justification the Spirit is all things for Sanctification and Consolation I shall touch at present upon some few things 1. Do you find an emptiness of Grace and do you long to have your Souls replenisht with it You go to the God of all Grace 1 Pet. 5.10 That he would give you more Faith more Love more Patience more Self-denyal more Heavenly-mindedness c. you do well but the compendious way is to pray that God would fulfil that Promise and so fill your Souls with his Spirit Zech. 12.10 I will pour out upon the House of David and Inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of Grace and Supplication First the Spirit of Grace that we may pray and then the Spirit of Prayer that we may be filled with more Grace Can we be content with a few drops when God has promised to pour out his Spirit John 7.38 He that believes in me out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water this spake he of the Spirit Can we satifie our selves that we have so much Grace as just keeps us alive when if we would pray and strive for the Spirit we might be more lively and vigorous Christians Can we be content with a Taste when God has provided a Feast Some of the Ancients who were anointed with material Oyl were anointed with the Cruise others with the Horn O let us not be satified that we have a few drops from the Cruise when God is ready to pour out his Grace more abundantly John 10.10 2. Would you answer the glorious Title of a Child of God with a more glorious and suitable Spirit that you may pray as Children walk as dear Children come to God not as Slaves but as Children and walk before God not under the resemblance of the Spirit of Bondage but with an ingenuous Liberty and Freedom as becomes the Heirs of Salvation Pray for
rejoycing and yet neither ought our mourning to exclude a humble rejoycing in God nor our rejoycing shut out a holy mourning The Men of Issachar are recorded as famous on this account 1 Chron. 12.32 That they had understanding of the time to know what Israel ought to do And herein we are oftentimes at a great loss like those children Matth. 11.17 that complained of their fellows they had piped unto them and yet not been answer'd with dancing that they had mourned to them but they had not lamented Holy Wisdom would teach us to accommodate the present frame of our hearts to Gods present dispensations Providence does not teach us new duties but how to single out those that God has made our duties Secondly We need wisdom that we be not deluded with shadows instead of substances that we take not appearances for realities for want of which O how often are we cheated out of our interests our real concerns our integrity of heart and peace of Conscience We account him a weak and foolish Man who is imposed upon by Copper for Gold that would warm his hands by painted fire or hope to satisfie his craving appetite with painted food yet such are we who spend our mony for that which is not bread and our labor for that which profits us not Isa 55.2 who set our affections on those things that are not Prov. 23.5 Thirdly Another point of wisdom which we need to be instructed in is the worth of Time and what a weight of eternity depends on these short and flitting moments but we weak and silly ones count a day for no more than it stands for in the Calender an hour no more than so much time measured by the hourglass when one hour to repent in a moment to make our Calling and Election sure in may come to be more worth than all the World can be to us Fourthly Wisdom would teach us the due order and method of all things what first what last ought to be our study and our concern wisdom would teach us to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness Matth. 6.33 And then if there be time to spare to bestow some small portion of it for those other things which God in his bounty will not deny and in his wisdom knows in what measure to bestow Fifthly Wisdom would teach us the true worth and value of all things to labour pray and strive for them proportionable to their true intrinsick dignities to think that Heaven cannot be too dear what-ever we pay for it nor Hell cheap how easily soever we come by it wisdom would instruct us that we cannot lay out too much of our time strength contrivance upon Eternals nor too little upon these perishing Temporals that Earth deserves very little of our Hand less of our Head and nothing at all of our Heart little of our pains less of our plotting and least of all of our love and affections III. Le ts pray and strive strive in the due and diligent use of § 3 means and pray for a blessing upon them that we may be filled with a spiritual understanding A carnal heart will carnalize the most spiritual Mercies and a carnal mind will debase the most spiritual Truths the Manna was design'd to feed the Souls as well as the Bodies of the Jews but they ate the spiritual meat and drank the spiritual drink 1 Cor. 10.23 with very carnal Heads and Hearts so that they needed the Spirit of God to instruct them in the right use of it Nehem. 9.10 Thou gavest thy good Spirit to instruct them and with-heldest not the Manna from their mouth They might then have eaten their own condemnation as well as we under the Gospel by that Symbol John 3.3 Christ had deliver'd a great and necessary Truth except a Man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of Heaven but Nicodemus tho' a great Rabbi turns it into a gross and carnal interpretation How can a Man be born when he is old Can he enter the second time into his Mothers womb and be born again And at the same pass were his rude and carnal hearers John 6.51 I am the living bread says Christ that came down from Heaven if any Man eat of this bread he shall live for ever and the bread that I will give is my flesh that I will give for the life of the world but his Capernatical hearers conceive of nothing but a literal and oral Manducation of his natural flesh vers 52. The Jews therefore strove among themselves saying How can this Man give us his flesh to eat And yet Christ had said enough to obviate that gross mistake vers 35. I am the bread of life he that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth on me shall never thirst One Man hears the great Duties of the Gospel pressed upon his Conscience and either sitting down despondeth at the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or else undertakes them in his own strength and the power of his free will not considering that there is Covenant grace to answer Covenant duties and Covenant pardon for those imperfections that attend them Another perhaps hears the curse thundred out against Every one that continues not in all things written in the Law to do them Gal. 3.10 he hears that the primitive end of the Law was to justifie a righteous person that had perfectly observed it and he falls upon the observation of that Law as the condition of the Covenant of works hoping to drudge out a righteousness thereby that shall present him blameless before God not knowing that Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth Rom. 10.4 Let us therefore pray for a spiritual understanding that we may know every Truth as it is in Jesus Ephes 4.21 that every line every letter of the Old and New Testament has its center in a Redeemer § 4 IV. Let 's pray again and strive that we may walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing knowing that all our services all our sacrifices are nothing unless our God smell a sweet savour in them nor can we fill the sails of our Souls with a more noble and generous ambition than to be accepted of God This was the height of the Apostles ambition 2 Cor. 5.9 We labour that whether present or absent we may be accepted of him which was the glorious frame of our blessed Saviours heart John 8.29 That he always did the things that pleased his Father It s a common delusion of Professors that if they can get the work of their hands not to regard whether ever it comes upon Gods heart or no But what are our Prayers if God receives them not Our Praises if God accepts them not Our Obedience if God regards it not Now that we may reach this great end we must walk worthy of the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There ought to be a suitableness between the frame of our hearts and
the tenor of our conversations to this God whom we serve If there be not that exact and punctual walking up to what God in strict justice may expect yet there must be that accuracy and circumspection which God in mercy will accept we must be holy as the Lord our God is holy Spiritual because we walk before him that is a Spirit sincere as being always under his omniscient Eye acting our faith upon him that is faithful and true casting our care and burden upon him that has undertaken to care for us and in all things proving what is the will of God and then approving that will and practising what we have thus approved § 5 V. Let us pray and strive let 's add holy endeavours to humble Prayers and second again those endeavours with our Prayers That we may be fruitful in every good work That there may be Grace in the root Grace in the fruit Grace in the habit strengthned Grace in the exercise multiplyed Let 's pray that our Faith may not be a dead Faith for want of the Grace of obedience that our obedience be not a dead obedience for want of a living Faith and a lively active Love that our Fruit may be of the right kind new obedience from a new heart that it may be right for its proportion for herein is our Father glorified that we bring forth much fruit John 15.8 that it be rightly directed that we may bring forth fruit to God and not to our selves And to all our Prayers we must add this that we may encrease in the knowledge of God That knowing God better we may love him better and loving him more we may serve and glorifie him more and be riper every day for the enjoyment of him And thus much in answer to the first Branch of the Question I proceed to the Second Second Branch of the Question What is the measure of that fulness of God with which every true Christian ought to pray and strive that he may be filled There is Plenitudo fontis Plenitudo Vasis the Fulness of the Fountain and the Fulness of the Vessel There is again Plenitudo Solis Stellae the fulness of Light in the Sun and the fulness of Light in a Star Again there is Plenitudo Capitis Membri the Fulness of the Head and the fulness of a Member A Fountain is full a Vessel may be full but with different measures Jesus Christ as Head of the Church has the Fulness of the Spirit without measure John 3.34 A gracious Soul may be also full but it is with the residue of the Spirit which Christ can spare for the use of those that are his Mal. 2.15 God is full of all Grace with the fulness of the Fountain he is full with his own fulness but not filled from another A Believer may be full too but he is filled from the fulness of God Thus John the Baptist is said to be filled with the Holy Ghost Luke 1.15 And so Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost v. 4. So was Zechariah v. 67. And thus were the Disciples all filled with the Holy Ghost Acts 2.4 All these were full but their fulness was borrowed they were filled It was of Christs fulness that they received grace for grace John 1.16 They were filled but they could not fill others from thelr fulness they had Grace but none to spare And every Believer must answer his Brother that would borrow of him as the wise Virgins did Matth. 25.9 Not so lest there be not enough for us and you There is an All-sufficiency of Grace in Christ it s well if Believers have a sufficiency according to Christs promise to the Apostle 2 Cor. 12.19 My grace is sufficient for thee And having premised this little I shall give the direct Answer to the Question in these following particulars 1. Every gracious Soul ought to pray and strive to be filled with such a measure of the fulness of God and of his Grace as the Holy Spirit who is the proper Judge of that measure shall see fit to communicate to us The Holy Spirit has these parts in this matter 1. He is the immediate Worker of Grace 2. He is the Distributer of all Grace 3. He is the Arbitrator of that Quota and proportion of Grace which every Believer has need of 1 Cor. 12.11 All these worketh one and the self-same Spirit dividing to every one severally as he will where you may observe the several parts that the Spirit of God hath in this matter 1. He works this Grace 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 't is by his Energy or powerful working that there is root or fruit habit in us or Act of Grace proceeding from us 2. He divides and distributes to every one severally 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is the great Steward of the Houshold of Christ and dispenses the measure of Grace to Individuals 3. This measure is distributed by his absolute power 't is according to his will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he pleases for the Grace being his own he may do with and dispose of his own Grace according to his own will And tho' he will be faithful in the discharge of his trust yet will he be sought unto to do it for us Thus when there was a promise Ezek. 36.25 that God would sprinkle clean water upon his people and cleanse them from all their filthiness and from all their Idols And v. 26. That he would give them a new heart and a new Spirit and take away the Heart of stone and give them a Heart of Flesh and put his Spirit within them v. 27. c. Yet still v. 37. I will yet for all this be enquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them 2. Every gracious Soul ought to pray for such a measure of Grace as may fit his Capacity none are so full but they may receive more We have so little of Grace because we ask no more Jam. 4.2 Ye have not because ye ask not We are but poor in our selves we might be enriched from Christ and if we were more poor in Spirit we should be more enriched with Grace from him John 16.24 Ask and ye shall receive that your joy may be full We should not satisfie our selves with the present measure of Grace received but pray and strive that we may have grace given according to the measure of the gift of Christ Eph. 4.7 3. We ought to pray and strive that our narrow Vessels may be widned our Capacities enlarged that we may be more capable of Grace The Vessels of Divine Grace are of different sizes as one Star differs from another in glory so one Saint differs from another in Grace And as the Spirit enlarges the Heart he will enlarge his own hand Psal 18.10 I am the Lord even thy God open thy mouth wide and I will fill it Our blessed Saviour may say to us as the Apostle to the Corinthians 2 Cor.
6.12 Ye are not straitned in me but ye are straitned in your own Bowels Our hearts are narrow towards Spiritual and Heavenly things because they are so enlarg'd towards earthly and visible things when the heart is enlarged as Hell and death that cannot be satisfied Hab. 2.5 For these perishing things no wonder if there be little room for the Graces of the Spirit This is therefore our great concern to pray that God would enlarge our desires that he may satisfie and fill them 4. We ought to pray and strive That all the Powers and Faculties of the whole man may be filled according to their measures There is much room in our Souls that is not furnish'd much waste ground there that is not cultivated and improved to its utmost We might have more light in the Understanding more tractableness in the Will more heat in our Love and a sharper edge set upon our Zeal And we have warrant to pray for this measure of the fulness of God 1 Thess 5.23 Now the God of peace sanctifie you wholly and I pray God your whole Spirit Soul and Body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ 5. Every gracious Soul ought to pray and strive for such a measure of Grace that he may be qualified for any Duty and Service that God shall call him to and engage him in The Hebrew word which we render Consecration or separation to an Office is Filling the hand Exod. 29.9 Consecrate ye Aaron and his Sons in the Hebrew Fill the hand of Aaron and his Sons Where God employs the hand he will fill the hand we have ground to believe that he will send us about no Errand but he will bear our Charges where-ever he gives a Commission he will bestow a competent qualification when we go about his Work we may expect his presence and assistance in the Work And Moses seems to stand upon these terms with God Exod. 33.15 If thy presence go not with me carry us not up hence As therefore there is great variety of Duties in our Christian Calling we may in Faith expect and from that believing expectation pray that we may be furnish'd with a suitable variety of Grace for the discharge of them 6. Every true Christian ought to pray strive for such a measure of Grace as may enable him to bear patiently chearfully and creditably those afflictions and sufferings which either God's good pleasure shall lay upon us or for his Names sake we may draw upon our selves We ought to pray that either he will lay no more upon us than our present strength can bear or if he encreases our trials he will encrease our Faith There 's no danger of excess in our Prayers when we confine them to the limits of his gracious promises Now here we have encouragement from his Word 1 Cor. 10.13 God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able but will with the temptation make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it 7. Every true Christian ought to pray and strive for such a measure of Grace as may bring the Soul to a settlement and stability that he be not soon shaken by the cross and adverse evils that he shall meet with in this Life And the Apostle Peter has gone before us in this Prayer 1 Pet. 5.10 The God of all grace who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus after that ye have suffered a while make you perfect stablish strengthen settle you And herein especially let us keep an eye upon these particulars § 1. Pray that God would so stablish you in the truth that ye may not be blown away with every wind of Doctrin A sorry trivial Error many times oversets and puzzles a weak Understanding Now 't is our great Interest to pray and strive that we may reach such a clear distinct coherent Light into the Doctrin of the Gospel that every small piece of Sophistry may not perplex and stagger our Belief of it So the Apostle Paul Eph. 4.14 would have Believers be no more Children tossed to and fro with every wind of Doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive § 2. Pray also that God would so stablish you in the truth of the promises that your Faith may not be shaken with every wind of Providence We are apt to have our hearts tossed by contrary Dispensations So upon a rumour Isa 7.2 The heart of Asa was moved and the heart of his people as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind It argues great weakness of Faith that we cannot maintain an equality of mind under various Providences the only remedy of which evil is to pray that God would encrease and strengthen our Faith that we may be so firmly built upon the unmoveable rock that we may not be afraid of evil tidings having our hearts fixed trusting in the Lord Psal 112.7 And this was the glory of Job's Faith Job 13.15 That tho' God should slay him yet would he trust in him § 3. Let us pray and strive that God would so settle and stablish us in Love to himself that no blast of Afflictions from his hand may cool the fire of Divine Love in our hearts We want exceedingly the Faith that God carries on a design of Love under all his various and seemingly contrary dealings with us he can love and correct why then cannot we love a correcting God Whether he wounds or heals his love is the same and why not ours Can we not love God upon the security of Faith that he will do us good as well as upon the experience that he has done us good § 4. Pray we and strive that God would so settle and stablish us in our inward peace that no wind of temptation may overthrow it 'T is a slender and ill-made peace which every assault of the Tempter dissolves The Psalmist stood upon a firmer bottom when the terrifying Onsets from without made him fly more confidently to his God Psal 56.3 What time I am afraid I will put my trust in thee And we have Gods own promise to answer our Faith Isa 26.3 Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is staid on thee because he trusteth in thee And thus I have return'd some Answer to the second Branch of the Question What is the measure of the fulness of God with which every true Christian ought to pray and strive to be filled There will still remain an enquiry How we may reach to such a measure of the Divine fulness as has been described To which tho' the limits of this discourse will not allow a full and just Answer yet the importance of the Question will oblige me to point at some few things upon which your own Meditations may find matter of enlargement 1. And first it is necessary that we be convinced that we are very far short
only give an uncertain sound till evidenc'd to be from Heaven as the Word is 3. For Conversion i. e. From all sin to God which imports a thorow change of Heart and Life and that it is indeed from God the Author by his Spirit 3 2 Thess 2.13 Tit. 3.5 above the creatures power and activity 4 John 1.13 yet God useth Christs Embassadors in the Ministry of Reconciliation 5 2 Cor. 5.19 20 Acts 26.18 and those who are Instructors in him 6 Job 22.21 that we may be acquainted with God receive forgiveness and be built up 6 even an habitation of God through the Spirit upon the foundation doctrinal of the Prophets and Apostles Christ personally being the chief Corner-stone 7 Eph. 2.20 Wherefore Paul urgeth Timothy to read the Divinely inspired Scriptures in that they were able as an Instrument in God's hands to make him wise to Salvation 8 2 Tim. 3.15 as they were a ground of hope and comfort to others 9 Rom. 15.4 by means of which we are begotten or born again 10 Jam. 1.18 1 Pet. 1.23 yea and from God's appointment and ordination or as it were Common Law we are not only first converted from Sin to God but are carried on in a state of grace till we in exercising our selves unto Godliness are afterwards brought unto glory It remains before I leave the Explication that I touch upon 4. The Persons whom the Rich Man is here represented to desire to come from Heaven or Hell to give an Information to his Relatives how things go in those unchangeable States of Happiness or Misery are only brought in ex hypothesi upon supposition or condition granting it were so Not that there is a ground for the expectation of any new Messengers from the other World we may yield the thing possible tho not probable we are not to limit the Holy One who is most perfect he is not bounded as to his Omnipotency any more than his Omnisciency He could if he would reveal himself now as he did to John in the Isle of Patmos 11 Rev. 1.9 He might if he would in the dispensation of his Grace and Providence use the Ministration of Angels 12 Heb. 1.14 without giving any account of his matters 13 Job 33.12 13 and put them upon Obedience extraordinarily for those Heavenly Spirits must be at his Service in the affairs of his Kingdom 14 Rev. 22.9 Indeed the great instance of their Ministry was about the Person of Christ yet he did use them afterwards to reveal his mind 15 Rev 1.1 19.10 How far he is pleased to do it at this day in any rare instance is not for me to determine but some have pretended to have Revelations from Angels which have prov'd Delusions There is it 's true a Ministry of them in this Chapter where my Text is vers 22. to carry holy Souls to Abraham's bosom which is ordinary But we will suppose there should be any extraordinary yet that would not be any more if so much regarded than the ordinary means and we should through the Grace given be careful not to be wise above that which is written 16 Rom. 12.3 Having thus explained the sense of the Answer to the Case before me I hope according to the Explication given you will come to conclude with me that it doth clearly result from my Text and is proved thence II. The Second General is to shew How or upon what grounds the ordinary means of Grace are more certainly succefsful for Conversion than if Persons from Heaven or Hell should tell us what is done there as hath been explained That I may do this as well as I can in a little room I shall be concern'd like Bezaleel and Aholiab 17 Exod. 36.7 tho' not with the like Wisdom to lay by much of the good stuff would offer it self to me in this case Somewhat methinks I should premise in the General and then proceed to particular grounds 1. Let me premise in the general these two or three things 1. From my Text and in a Christian Congregation I am not necessitated in shewing how this comes about which I have deduced from it to prove Moses and the Prophets or which is all one for substance more largely the Holy Scriptures to be the Word of God That being the Hypothesis or what is presupposed and not Question'd in this Dialogue between the Richman and the Father of the Faithful as we find vers 29th as well as in the words compared with vers 16th of this Chapter The Jews did acknowledge it and never denyed it when our Saviour and his Apostles did ever and anon shew them how the Scriptures were fulfilled manifested and accomplish'd So that not to grant this were to take away the substratum or foundation of the Case Which the Jews frankly yielded 17 John 9.29 We know that God spake unto Moses indeed it was evident enough when he refuted any objection against it 18 Exod. 3.2 6 14 4.1 2 c. 14.31 20.1 c. Numb 11.17 comforting of them by shewing them that God was with him We find they did readily agree to it that God was the Author of the Old Testament Apollos we read 19 Acts 18.24 28. did mightily convince many of the Jews from the Scriptures i. e. those Books which they did own to be of Divine inspiration And by consequence if people be not worse than Jews the New Testament should be owned to be so too being the Old directs to it When Christ was transfigur'd Moses and Elias appear'd talking with him 20 Mat. 17.2 3 and so gave their Testimonies to the main subject and substance of the Gospel sith In Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge 21 Col. 2.3 2. Man in his innocent state had an innate pure light consisting in the knowledge of God the Creator Lawgiver Governor and Rewarder presently enlarg'd by Revelation from without in the Sacramental precept of the Divine will under the first Covenant 22 Gen. 2.17 and from the consideration of Gods works which were all very good 23 Gen. 1.31 and this was necessary to that state But sith Man being mutable sought out many inventions 24 Eccles 7.27 and harken'd to the Serpents suggestion 1 Gen. 3.5 had obscur'd this light God of his infinite goodness pitying the vanity of faln Man as mortal not knowing how to deliver his Soul from the hand of the grave Ps2al. 89.47 48 2 did think it necessary to reveal himself and magnifie his grace in condescending to enter into a new Covenant with this faln creature giving his Word or first Promise that the seed of the Woman should bruise the Serpents head 3 Gen. 3.15 John 1.14 Herein Christ was promised and hence called the Word being He indeed concerning whom that saving Word of God or Word of Promise is made As we
for using means to attain it when they have not room for so much as a thought of it 2. Suppose Men have time and warning given them Death knocks at the door before it enters and besieges them before it storms them they lie by the brink of the grave before they fall into it yet they may want the Means of grace by which God ordinarily works when he brings Men to Repentance Publick Ordinances in such a case they cannot have and private ones they may not have They may have none with them that have the tongue of the Learned to speak a word in season to them Isa 50.4 they may lack oyl but have none that can tell them where they may buy it None that understand the nature of Repentance none that can instruct them in it or direct them how they may attain it Friends may be as carnal and ignorant and unacquainted with the things of God as themselves and so may Ministers be sometimes They may seek a vision of the Prophet but the Law may perish from the Priest and counsel from the Ancient Ezek. 7.26 True indeed God can work repentâ—nce in Man or any grace without means by his immediate power or by some extraordinary means but he never promiseth to do it and therefore it is a bold presuming and tempting of him to expect he should What if God once stopt a sinner in the midst of his carrear when not only running away from the means of Salvation but bidding defiance to them and converted him in a miraculous way by a glorious light shining about him and the immediate voice of Christ to him Acts 9. shall others hope for the like Live in sin all their days and look for conversion by miracle at last 3. If they have means when they come to die yet they may not have an heart to use them First By reason of bodily weakness failing of natural Spirits racking and tormenting pains which often afflict Men in such a casâ— These may blunt and dull Mens minds or distract them and draw away the intention of them from other things and hold them only to the consideration of their present anguish How unfit are Men for serious minding even of their Worldly affairs when under bodily indispositions and how much more than unfit for Spiritual work When the Soul is wholly taken up with helping the body with which it sympathizes to bear its present burden it is ill at leasure to think of any thing else The Israelites harkned not to Moses tho sent of God to deliver them for anguish of Spirit and cruel bondage Exod. 6.9 and is it any wonder if a Man groaning under a distemper scarce able to bear his pain or think of any thing but his pain be in an ill case to look into his Heart consider his ways listen to the best counsil joyn with the best prayers c. If Gods children that have grace in their Hearts yet in time of sickness may through present weakness find much indisposedness in themselves to the actings of grace so that they are fain to bring forth their old store and comfort themselves with their former experiences rather than with the present frame of their Hearts what wonder is it if they that are altogether graceless be alike indisposed to seek for grace Secondly By reason of contracted hardness Men are naturally backward to good but much more when habituated to evil for the more inclined they are to evil the more averse they are to good and the more accustomed they are to sin the more inclined they are to it The practice of sin hardens the Heart and strengthens the sinning disposition and still the longer Men continue in sin the stronger such dispositions grow Hence the Apostles advice to the Hebrews chap. 3.13 Exhort one another while it is called to day lest your Hearts be hardned through the deceitfulness of sin implying that that would follow upon their continuance in sin We see even in natural things that Mens being accustomed to one sort of actions unfits them for another When Men have lived in the practice of sin all their days and their natural disposition to sin is hightned into an habit it is not strange if they be much more averse to the contrary good Jer. 13.23 How can you that are accustomed to evil learn to do well If one gross sin in a believer may so debilitate and enfeeble those gracious dispositions that were before in him as to unfit him for and deaden him to spiritual duties to what a superlative hardness may a thousand and a thousand repeated acts of wilful sin bring the Heart of a carnal Man and to what not only aversness to any good but confirmedness against all 4. They cannot work repentance in themselves not make the means effectual for the enlightning of their minds the changing softning spiritualizing their Hearts or working a vital principle in them If they say they can either they must assume to themselves a Creating power a power of making themselves new Creatures or creating this grace in their own Hearts there being nothing of it in them by nature and antecedently to their making such a change Or they must say that there is some seed of grace in them beforehand some root or stock which being watered and cultivated by outward means diligence and industry may be made fruitful so that the working repentance in them is not the infusing a new principle into them but a correcting of the old one Conversion not the giving or creating in them a new nature but only a freeing the old one from its former impediments and setting it at liberty to its proper actions But this is 1. Contrary to the whole current of Scripture which affirms Mans will since the fall of Adam to be void of all saving good and impotent to it till renewed by grace John 15.5 Without me ye can do nothing Rom. 5.6 When we were without strength 2 Cor. 3.5 We are not sufficient of our selves to think any thing as of our selves And prone to evil Job 15.16 Man drinks iniquity like water Prov. 2.14 Rejoyceth to do evil Rom. 6.17 He is a servant of sin Gen. 6.5 All the imaginations of his Heart are only evil continually Eph. 2.1 He is dead in trespasses and sins This is broadly to charge a lie upon the God of truth 2. To deprive God of the glory of one of his chiefest works the new Creation in which he is said to put forth the same power which he did in creating the World at first 2 Cor. 4.6 and in raising up Christ from the dead Eph. 1.19 20. compared with chap. 2.1 They are said to be born of the Spirit John 3.5 And not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of Man but of God John 1.15 Whereas they that assert the contrary take Gods work out of his hands and grudge him the honour of it 3. To go contrary to the common
common assistances of Gods Spirit they sometimes had being wholly withdrawn from them and it 1. Partly as a punishment for their former wilful impenitency It is one of the most dreadful Judgments God ever executes upon any on this side Hell when he punishes one sin with another one hardness with another which yet sometimes he doth Prov. 81.11 12. Israel would none of me c. so I gave them up c. 2. As a terror to others and a warning too that they that hear it may fear and not dare to live impenitently lest they should die impenitently God not being bound to give them the Grace he denies to others who perhaps were not greater Sinners than themselves Obj. The great encouragement Men have to embolden them in sin and yet to hope for repentance at last is the instance of this poor Thief which they stretch beyond the intention of the Holy Ghost in leaving it upon Record when they use it as a means to strengthen their presumption which was designed only to prevent despair The Thief on the Cross repented at last saith a Sinner and why may not I Answ Why should not the example of the other Thief 's impenitency affright them and drive them to repentance as well as the example of the good Thief encourage them to sin It is but setting one against the other and if they argue God gave repentance to one and therefore may give it them Why may they not as well argue God denied it to one and therefore may deny it to them too 2. It is but a single instance against thousands on the other side And though one instance is sufficient to evert the generality of a Rule and therefore we cannot certainly conclude from Gods not giving repentance to thousands at the hour of Death that he will give it to none because we have the example of this Thief to the contrary yet with what reason can men expect that God should give that to them which he gave to one rather than that he should deny that to them which he hath denied to thousands If general Rules are to be drawn from particulars it is much more rational to ground them on a multitude of particulars than on any single one The most therefore any Men can infer from this example is only that it is not impossible but God may give them repentance 3. Some things seem to be singular in the case of this Thief which are not to be found in the case of others who therefore cannot reasonably argue from it 1. He was one so far as we can judge that had never formerly rejected Christ never saw him before his Sufferings never heard his Doctrin never was a Witness of his Miracles which might convince him of the truth of it He was one that had otherwise employed himself than in attending on Christs Ministry and might more likely have been found robbing on the Road than worshiping in the Temple or breaking up Houses than hearing of Sermons and therefore though he had sin enough in him for which God might have denied him Repentance and nothing in him which might move the Lord to give it him yet it is very probable this was the first of his being brought to the knowledge of a Saviour and so he was not guilty of the great Gospel-sin of Unbelief and refusing the offer of Christ and Salvation by him which doth so often provoke the Lord to leave men to themselves and deny them his Grace If it be said the same was the case of the other Thief I grant it But God being a Sovereign Agent and his gifts most free he might make use of his Prerogative in dispensing them and so grant repentance to the one and deny it to the other admit their circumstances were every way the same And why then may he not deny repentance to those now that are in some respect worse than either in that they have so many times resisted his Spirit stood out against his Calls and slighted the offers of his Grace made to them and where is the Sinner that lives under the means without repentance but as he hath daily repeated calls from God so he daily rejects them and thereby abundantly justifies the Lords refusing him that Grace at the last which he did before not only never seriously seek but wilfully reject I should have more charitable thoughts and better hopes of the veriest Varlets upon earth that were never called till the last hour than of those that are otherwise guilty of much less sin but have abused and resisted greater Grace 2. The instance of this Thief seems particularly designed by God for the honour of his suffering Son God would have a Witness even upon the Cross one to adore him when so many despised him He would have his Sons Death honoured by his giving Life to a poor Wretch even at the point of Death and make him known to be a Prince and a Saviour to give repentance and remission of sins Acts 5.31 by his giving both to such a Sinner and at such a time 3. Another end may be to render them that Crucified Christ inexcusable when this Malefactor made so honourable a confession of him to expose and shame the unbelief and hardness of the Rulers and Pharisees by the faith and repentance of a most flagitious Offender and therewithal confirm the Word of Christ spoken formerly to them that the Publicans and Harlots entred into the Kingdom of Heaven before them Matth. 21.31 6. Suppose God do give them repentance at the last yet they may have very little it may be no comfort in it I. They may be ready to question the sincerity of it and then they can have little comfort in it Admit their condition be safe yet comfortable it cannot be so long as the truth of their repentance from which their comfort should proceed is so uncertain and questionable To say nothing of their ignorance of the nature of repentance and the methods of the Spirit in working it having never found the like in themselves before nor been acquainted with what others have felt many things there are which sometimes may make them call what they find in themselves in question 1. The experience they have already had of the deceitfulness of their own hearts and perhaps of others in the like condition It may be they have known others upon a sick bed look as like Penitents as they now do who yet upon their recovery from their Diseases have relapsed into sin and by returning to their former Lusts have confuted their Profession and evidenc'd their repentance to have been unsound and hypocritical And this may make them fear lest things may be no better with themselves and their repentings no more real than their Neighbours Or it may be they themselves formerly when under a Sentence of Death have had strong convictions of sin been filled with horror of Conscience and dismal apprehensions of approaching damnation It may be they
of Scripture hath he revealed it where doth he promise you repentance and pardon at the last when you had never seriously sought either all your days 2. The wickedness and profaneness of them You resolve you will repent when you die and that implies you will not repent till then i. e. you do and resolve still to love sin as long as you live but you intend to leave it when you can live no longer in it you hate God now and resolve to hate him till you die and then you will begin to love him You will make work for repentance now and seek for repentance at last offend God and provoke him and make work for pardoning mercy all your days and then sue to him for it You will persevere to affront the grace of Christ and throw his blood back into his face and then expect to be washed in it from your sins and saved by it when you go out of the World It is to as little purpose to say Object You will then send for the Minister to instruct you to pray with you c. For what if you do your case may be such that all the good Men Ans good Ministers good Instructions good Counsels in the World may not help you not save you All may come too late and signifie no more to your Souls than Physitians and Physick at that time do to your Bodies Alas what can Ministers do for you Can their instructions enlighten your minds when God hath blinded them Can their counsels soften your hearts when he hath hardned them Can the breath of prayer waft your Souls to Heaven in the last moment of your life when you have been stearing towards Hell all your days What can your Spiritual Physitians do for the cure of your Souls when the great Physitian of all hath left you as incurable and will never any more visit you Do not tell me on the other side That repentance is Gods gift Object and you cannot have it till he give it you and therefore you must tarry till he do For 1. It is as much Gods gift at last as at first Ans and you can no more have it at your death if he do not give it you than you can have it now 2. Tho it be Gods gift and you cannot work it in your selves yet cannot you seek it of God desire him to work it in you And can you not use the means by which he ordinarily works it And are you not as capable of so doing when you live and are in health as when you are sick and dying When you are sick you cannot heal your selves health is Gods gift as well as grace is tho of another kind But do you then use to lie still and say you must wait till God restore you Or do you not rather send for your Physitian and betake your selves to the use of means by which God is wont to work it You cannot get an estate unless God give it you riches are his gift Prov. 10.22 Do you therefore sit still and fold your hands in your bosom and say you must tarry till God give you an estate Or do you not rather engage in some honest Calling or Trade as the ordinary way God is wont to bless to that end The diligent hand maketh rich vers 4. and why do you not do so here too If you will go on in sin and say you wait till God give you repentance you may wait long enough when every day you continue in sin so much the farther off from repentance you are and so much the more you provoke God to deny it you To conclude Take heed especially of those things which are the ordinary hinderances of a timely repentance I. Wrong notions of repentance 1. That it is an easie thing and so may be done at any time that it is but sorrowing for sin and crying God mercy for having offended him This prevails with too many that know not wherein the nature of it consists Remember therefore that it is no easie thing to get a through change wrought in your hearts to divorce your lusts to which you have been so long wedded to part with those sins you love best and engage in those ways of strict holiness which of all things in the World you hate most The old Man will fight hard ere he die The flesh will never yield and hardly be overcom And if ever God work repentance to you he will so work it as to make you work at it too and labour after it his grace using and employing your faculties And what can you ever do either in seeking repentance before the infusion of the grace or exercising it when infused but you will find sin opposing you in it and so creating difficulties in your work 2. That it is a sour and an unpleasant thing made up of sorrow and sadness and unquietness of Spirit They know no delights but sensual ones and think if they part with the pleasure of sin they part with the comfort of their lives Do not therefore look meerly on the dark side of repentance or what may make it seem uneasie to you look through it and you will find that which will make it more pleasant In the very sorrow you fear if it be right i. e. godly sorrow there will be such a mixture of Love as will make it in a good measure delightful to you If it seem painful to you to strive against sin and there be trouble in the combat yet when you prevail over it you will find comfort in the Victory You will be more pleased with having denied your selves than you could with having gratified your selves Our Saviours promise Matth. 5.4 Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted one would think should reconcile you not only to any seeming trouble in the work of repentance but to all the greatest difficulties and severities of the most strict and mortified life If indeed your repentance be meerly legal proceeding from fear of wrath or Popish for the expiation of your sins I grant it may be a sad and unpleasant thing but if it be a true Protestant repentance i. e. an Evangelical one mixed with Love to God and proceeding from the Faith of Free Grace and remission of sin through the Blood of Christ it need not be such a scare-crow to you as to make you hazard your Salvation by shifting your duty II. Presumptuous thoughts of Gods mercy that God may be merciful to them and give them repentance and pardon their sins at the very last Consider therefore 1. As merciful as God is yet his will sets bounds even to that infinite mercy as to the actings and outgoings of it and beyond those bounds it will never pass There is a time a day a now of grace which when it is once over no mercy will be shewn you Offers of mercy invitations made to sinners and the acceptation of them are but for a time the door is
open but for a time and when that is past it will be shut Matth. 25.10 and all your calling and knocking will never prevail with God for the opening of it again And what then shall you be the better the nearer repentance or nearer pardon for all that Ocean of mercy that is in God if you seek it too late and when he will not let out one drop of it to you 2. Gods justice is as great as his mercy All his Attributes are alike infinite one doth not overtop the other And then if you delay and put off repenting to your latter end why may you not as reasonably fear lest he should in justice punish you for your long impenitency as in mercy give you repentance Quest How doth Practical Godliness better rectifie the Judgment than doubtful Disputations SERMON X. Rom. XIV 1. Him that is weak in the Faith receive but not to doubtful Disputations THIS Epistle to the Romans is an Epitomy or Body of Divinity containing Faith and Love in Christ Jesus from which Rome degenerating hath separated from her self and the Scriptures of Truth the only grand Charter of all Christianity In the beginning of the Epistle the Apostle discourseth about Original Sin 〈◊〉 having infected the whole Nature of Man with its guilt and filth 〈◊〉 Jews and Gentiles all become abominable fallen short of the glory and image of God Chap. 3.23 For by one Man Sin entred upon all Chap. 5.12 and Death by Sin Whence he inferreth there is no possibility of our Justification by the Works either of the Ceremonial or Moral Law so that he concludeth a necessity of our being Justified by Faith without the Works of the Law Chap. 3.28 Through the Redemption of Jesus Christ But though we are justified freely by his Grace yet we are not to live freely and licentiously in Sin because Grace abounds God forbid Chap. 6.1 for holiness is inseparably entailed on our most holy Faith Jude 20. Then he proceedeth to shew the Privileges of the adopted Children of God that there is no condemnation due to them Chap. 8.1 For the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus hath made them free from the Law of Sin and Death and that they are heirs of God vers 17. which is more than all the World Till he arriveth at the Head-spring of all Grace and that is Eternal Election Chap. 9. without any foresight of Faith or Works But as in time he chose first the Jews rejecting them he chose the Gentiles without any view of Merit or Eligibility in either of them before others for the Jews were the smallest and meanest of all Nations Deut. 7.7 and the Gentiles all over-run with Idolatry and Profaneness Yet this Conversion of the Gentiles was foreknown and therefore forewilled of God from the beginning Acts 15.18 After these sublimer Doctrins he descends Chap. 12. to Practical Duties and he who will understand the eleven first Chapters of the Epistle to the Romans must practise the five last be acquainted with the mysterious Duties of Love and then you will better understand the mysteries of Faith Chap. 13.8 He exhorteth them to owe no body any thing but Love be in no bodies debt yet owe every one Love a debt always to be paying and yet always owing yet still abiding our proper treasure This 14th Chapter is a branch of some particular Duties of Love and this Verse is the sum of this whole Chapter of Charity which words are said to have occasioned the Conversion or Confirmation of Alipius as the foregoing words were of Augustines Such is the Autority and Energy of the naked Word of God upon the Consciences of Men in the day of Christs Power And the naked Sword cuts better than when it is sheathed in a gaudy scabbard of the inticing words of Mans wisdom 1 Cor. 2.4 The Apostles were frequently exercised with difficulties how to compose the differences among Christians the Jewish Converts were eager to bring their Circumcision with their observation of times and meats along with them into Christianity Gal. 4.10 The Gentiles were not accustomed to these things and therefore opposed them yet were as ready to bring a Tang of their own old Errors with them also as their Doctrin of Demons 1 Tim. 4.1 and their worshipping of Angels Col. 2.18 and probably some of their Heathenish Festivals and Customs So that both parties were in an error and neither of them fully understood that liberty Christ had brought to them from these beggerly Elements Rudiments and Ordinances to which they were in bondage For if God saw good to free his Church from those Ceremonies which were instituted by himself he would never allow them to be in a slavish subjection to the Superstitions and Ceremonies of worldly Mens inventions tho' never so Dogmatically and Magisterially imposed For as Learned Davenant on that Col. 2.18 observes such injunctions are apt to grow upon Men forbidding first not to touch or eat such and such meats then not to taste after not so much as to handle them Now to compose these differences the Apostles met at Jerusalem Acts 15.20 where they made no positive injunctions for the Christians to practise any Ceremonies or Observations of either party against their Consciences but limited the exercise of their liberty which they truly had by the Gospel but that they should abstain from Fornication which to explain is too great a digression Blood things Strangled and what was offered to Idols These they would have them to avoid that they may not offend those weak Jews who could not suddenly concoct these practices till Judgment should be brought to Victory over these feeble fancies And they laid this also as a burthen on them for a time till they could be brought to better understanding and all this by way of advice from the Apostles Elders and the whole Church vers 22. their Letter also was read to the whole multitude vers 30. So here the Apostle adviseth the Romans how to do in the like case with these weak ones Him that is weak receive c. 1. Here is the description of the person who is to be considered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not him that is weak and sick to death erring in the foundation of Faith one who doth not hold the Head Col. 2.19 Who denieth the Lord who bought him these are destructive Heresies which bring on Men swift damnation 2 Pet. 2.1 we are not to say to such God speed you 2 Epistle John 10. their very breath is blasting to Mens minds 2. Nor is it one who is sick about questions 1 Tim. 1.4 2 Tim. 3.23 foolish endless unlearned unedifying questions which only ingender contention such are idle busie-bodies seekers and disputatious quarrellers about some minute things which hypocritical and vain minds Trade in to keep themselves buzzing about the borders of Religion that they may keep off from the more serious duties and substantial parts thereof 3. But he is one
eateth up both Truth and Love For such contentions are rather for Victory than Truth Now passion doth nothing well which made one Emperor say over his Alphabet to get the Dominion over his anger Ahasuerus fann'd himself in his Garden Esth 7.7 and he in Plutarch would not smite his Servant because he was angry Passionated persecution makes only Hypocrites become Proselites and in their Breasts also lodge such a revenge as will be satisfied one time or another upon them who have made them offer violence to their Consciences Religion is a free choice upon judgment or 't is not Religion therefore it gets in by perswasion not persecution Yet 't is strangely true they who are so tender of their own Wills that God must not touch them unless by Argument yet laxate themselves to Club Law with their Brethren not content with a moral swasion 2. Loving converse taketh off those prejudices which hinder Mens minds from a true knowledge of others Principles and Practices which at a distance seem horrid and monstrous Opinions and Practices when as a little free converse with them breedeth quite other apprehensions The Papists picture the Protestants as bruits with Tails as Devils with Horns to terrifie the Vulgar but knowing Merchants dare trust them So some Protestants have represented the Puritans as Pestilent and Seditious persons as Mad and having a Devil as the Scribes and Pharisees did John Baptist and Christ but the plain hearted people saw thorough those pious frauds and tricks and were astonished at their Doctrin and Life when they healed Souls and Bodies on the Sabbath day 3. Sincere love and converse breedeth a good opinion of persons who differ from us they can taste humility meekness and kindness better than the more speculative Principles of Religion These get into Mens affections and so bore away into their judgments and cause them to alter their minds Two Heads like two Globes touch but in one point the whole Bodies at a distance but two Hearts touch in plano and fall in with each other in all points Love openeth the Heart and Ear to cooler consideration and second thoughts The Spirit of God directed Elijah 1 Kings 19.12 not in the strong Wind which rent Rocks and Mountains nor in the Earthquake or Fire but in the silent whisper or tranquil voice Vse of Instruction How to carry our selves towards them who are weak in the Faith in these days and doubtless it is a sickly season when there are so many feverish heats among us I will not say what once a Romanist said to me That these are the spuria vitulamina the Bastard frisks of our Reformation in Henry the Eighths days But I rather think the violent endeavours after External Uniformity without the Inward the smothering of the industrious Bees in one Hive was a great cause of their castling into several Swarms Threshing the Corn hath driven it out of the Floor and the grasping so hard the Granes all into the Hands and Power of some hath made them creep out through their Fingers Rigid Impositions and violent Prosecutions and Exactions of Conformity to things extra Scriptural and Divine Institution and without any manifest tendency to Edification have and will make fractions without end As D. W. said Till Men be Infallible and the World Immutable moderation becometh every Man who is in his senses and considereth himself 1. There are some who have all Faith believe incredibly as that Katharina Senensis praying for a new Heart she had her real Heart cut out of her Body and after some days had a new Heart formed by Christ put into her That making a cross on the Body with a Finger driveth the Devil away That a Priest by these words this is my Body transubstantiateth the Bread into the Body of Christ and so he offereth that Sacrifice to deliver Souls out of Prison and then by his Dirges conducteth them to Paradise 2. Others have no Faith at all as that Infallible one who said What vast Wealth hath this Fable of Christ acquired to the Church So when some had Disputed about the Immortality of the Soul most gravely determined in a Verse Et redit in nihilum quod fuit ante nihil That which is nothing must needs come to nothing And I fear there are more Atheists than Papists who seem to believe all on the Stage nothing in their retiring thoughts We are not bound to receive such into our Bosoms or Communion lest we sting our own Breasts out of charity to our Souls we must take heed of receiving such 3. But there are others who seem seriously to believe the Doctrin of the Gospel yet have a weakness in their judgments about little things These we must receive and instruct them Rom. 14.17 That the Kingdom of God is not in Meat or Drink but Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost Shew them all kindness pity them pray for them and let them see Col. 2.5 Nothing but your order and the stedfastness of your Faith in Christ 1. Stand fast and fix'd in the good Word of God which is setled for ever in Heaven Psal 119.89 as the Copy of the Divine Nature and Law Stand having your Loins girt about with Truth Ephes 6.14 and having on the Breastplate of Righteousness This is the grand and perfect rule of Faith Worship and Life Keep within these Trenches and you have an assurance of protection I know no other method possible to Peace but in an universal resolution to impose nothing upon others but what Christ himself hath imposed what Scripture commands Matth. 28.20 Teach Men to observe whatever I have commanded you and then I am with you to the end of the World This is a Minister of Christs Commission and he cannot look for Christ to be with him if he go either coâ—trary to beyond or not according to his instructions Let this be first done and then Men may consider whether any thing further be necessary or convenient Let us therefore in the Name of God beg his holy Spirit whom Christ hath promised and that he shall lead us into all Truth John 16.13 He is the only infallible Interpreter of Gods mind He shall take of mine says our Saviour and shew it unto you vers 14. Then read the Scriptures as Christ himself did Luke 4.16 his custom was he went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up for to read and when the Book of God was delivered to him he read the 61 of Isaiah a Prophesie of himself and so he closed the Book and gave it to the Minister then he expounded and applied it to the present circumstances That he came to preach to the poor heal the broken hearted give deliverance to the captives open the Eyes of the blind to set at liberty them that are bruised Oh blessed pattern for every Minister of Christ to follow And sing the Psalms or Hymns as we read he also did Matth. 26.30 and the Ancient Christians
and Earth a damned Spirit the most cursed part of the Creation It is most reasonable that the baseness of the Competitour should be a foil to reinforce the lustre of Gods authority yet Men reject God and comply with the tempter O prodigious perversness 2. Sin vilifies the ruling Wisdom of God that prescrib'd the Law to Men. Altho the dominion of God over us be Supreme and Absolute yet 't is exercis'd according to the councel of his Will by the best means 1 Tim. 1.17 for the best ends he is accordingly stiled by the Apostle The eternal King and only wise God 'T is the glorious Prerogative of his Sovereignty and Deity that he can do no wrong for he necessarily acts according to the excellencies of his Nature Particularly his Wisdom is so relucent in his Laws that the serious contemplation of it will ravish the sincere minds of Men into a compliance with them They are framed with exact congruity to the Nature of God and his relation to us and to the faculties of Man before he was corrupted From hence the Divine Law being the transcript not only of Gods Will but his Wisdom binds the understanding and will our leading faculties to esteem and approve to consent and choose all his precepts as best Now sin vilifies the infinite understanding of God with respect both to the precepts of the â—â—w the rule of our duty and the sanction annext to confirm its obligâ—â—â—on It does constructively tax the precepts as unequal too rigid â—â—d severe a confinement to our wills and actions Thus the impious Rebels complain The ways of the Lord are not equal as injurious to their liberty and not worthy of observance What St. James saith to correct the uncharitable censorious Humour of some in his time James 4.11 He that speaks evil of his brother and judges his brother speaks evil of the law and judges the law as an imperfect and rash rule is aplicable to Sinners in any other kind As an unskillful Hand by straining too high breaks the strings of an Instrument and spoils the Musick so the Strictness and Severity of the Precepts breaks the harmonious Agreement between the Wills of Men and the Law and casts an Imputation of Imprudence upon the Law-giver This is the implicit Blasphemy in Sin Besides the Law has Rewards and Punishments to secure our Respects and Obedience to it The wise God knows the Frame of the reasonable Creature what are the inward Springs of our Actions and has accordingly propounded such Motives to our Hope and Fear the most active Passions as may engage us to perform our Duty He promises his favour that is better then life to the Obedient and threatens his wrath that is worse then death to the rebellious Now Sin makes it evident that these Motives are not effectual in the Minds of Men And this reflects upon the Wisdom of the Law-giver as if defective in not binding his Subjects firmly to their Duty for if the Advantage or Pleasure that may be gain'd by Sin be greater than the Reward that is promised to Obedience and the Punishment that is threatned against the Transgression the Law is unable to restrain from Sin and the Ends of Government are not obtained Thus Sinners in venturing upon forbidden things reproach the Understanding of the Divine Law-giver 3. Sin is a Contrariety to the unspotted Holiness of God Of all the glorious and benign Constellation of the Divine Attributes that shine in the Law of God his Holiness has the brightest Lustre God is Holy in all his Works but the most venerable and precious Monument of his Holiness is the Law For the Holiness of God consists in the Correspondence of his Will and Actions with his moral Perfections Wisdom Goodness and Justice and the Law is the perfect Copy of his Nature and Will The Psalmist who had a purged Eye saw and admir'd its Purity and Perfection Psal 19. Psal 119.140 The Commandment of the Lord is pure inlightning the eyes The word is very pure therefore thy servant loves it 'T is the perspicuous and glorious Rule of our Duty without Blemish or Imperfection The Commandment is holy just and good It injoyns nothing but what is absolutely Good without the least Tincture of Evil. The Sum of it is set down by the Apostle to live soberly that is to abstain from any thing that may stain the Excellence of an understanding Creature To live righteously which respects the State and Scituation wherein God has disposed Men for his Glory It comprehends all the respective Duties to others to whom we are united by the Bands of Nature or of civil Society or of Spiritual Communion And to live godly which includes all the internal and outward Duties we owe to God who is the Sovereign of our Spirits whose Will must be the Rule and his Glory the End of our Actions In short The Law is so form'd that prescinding from the Authority of the Law-giver its Holiness and Goodness lays an eternal Obligation on us to obey it Now Sin is not only by Interpretation a Reproach to the Wisdom and other Perfections of God but directly and formally a Contrariety to his infinite Sanctity and Purity for it consists in a not doing what the Law commands Rom. 11. or doing what it forbids 'T is therefore said That the carnal mind is Enmity against God An active immediate and irreconcilable Contrariety to his holy Nature and Will From henee there is a reciprocal Hatred between God and Sinners God is of purer eyes then to behold iniquity without an infinite Displicence the Effects of which will fall upon Sinners and tho' 't is an Impiety hardly conceivable Rom. 1. yet the Scripture tells us that they are haters of God 'T is true God by the transcendent Excellence of his Nature is uncapable of suffering any Evil and there are few in the present State arrived to such Malice as to declare open Enmity and War against God In the Damned this Hatred is explicit and direct the Fever is hightned to a Frenzy the blessed God is the Object of their Curses and eternal Aversation If their Rage could extend to him and their Power were equal to their Desires they would Dethrone the most High And the Seeds of this are in the Breasts of Sinners here As the fearful Expectation of irresistible and fiery Vengeance increases their Aversation increases They endeavour to rase out the Inscription of God in their Souls and to extinguish the thoughts and sense of their Inspector and Judge They wish he were not All-seeing and Almighty but Blind and Impotent uncapable to vindicate the Honour of his despised Deity The Fool hath said in his heart there is no God The Heart is the Fountain of Desires and Actions interpret the Thoughts and Affections from whence the Inference is direct and conclusive that habitual Sinners who live without God in the world have secret Desires there was no Sovereign being
the Psalmist declaring their inward sentiments The Lord shall not see neither shall the God of Jacob regard it Lastly The sinner slights the power of God This attribute renders God a dreadful Judge He has a right to punish and power to revenge every transgression of his Law His judicial power is supreme his executive is irresistible He can with one stroke dispatch the Body to the Grave and the Soul to Hell and make Men as miserable as they are sinful Yet sinners as boldly provoke him as if there were no danger We read of the infatuated Syrians that they thought that God the Protector of Israel had only power on the Hills and not in the Vallies and renewed the War to their destruction Thus sinners enter into the lists with God and range an Army of lusts against the Armies of Heaven and blindly bold run upon their own destruction They neither believe his all-seeing Eye nor all-mighty Hand They change the glory of the living God into a dead Idol that has Eyes and sees not and Hands and handles not and accordingly his threatnings make no impression upon them Thus I have presented a true view of the evil of sin consider'd in it self but as Job saith of God how little a portion of him is known May be said of the evil of sin how little of it is known For in proportion as our apprehensions are defective and below the greatness of God so are they of the evil of sin that contradicts his Sovereign will and dishonours his excellent perfections 2. Sin relatively to us is the most pernicious and destructive Evil. If we compare it with temporal Evils it preponderates all that Men are liable to in the present World Diseases in our Bodies disasters in our Estates disgrace in our Reputation are in just esteem far less evil than the evil of sin for that corrupts and destroys our more excellent and immortal part The vile Body is of no account in comparison of the precious Soul Therefore the Apostle enforces his exhortation Dearly beloved brethren abstain from fleshly lusts that war against the Soul The issue of this War is infinitely more woful than of the most cruel against our Bodies and Goods our Liberties and Lives for our Estates and Freedom if lost may be recover'd if the present Life be lost for the cause of God it shall be restor'd in greater lustre and perfection but if the Soul be lost 't is lost for ever All temporal Evils are consistent with the love of God Job on the dunghil roughcast with Ulcers was most precious in Gods sight Lazarus in the lowest poverty and wasted with loathsom Sores was dear to his affections a guard of Angels was sent to convey his departing Soul to the Divine Presence But sin separates between God and us who is the fountain of felicity and the center of rest to the Soul Other evils God who is our wise and compassionate Father and Physitian makes use of as Medicinal preparations for the cure of sin and certainly the Disease which would be the death of the Soul is worse than the Remedy tho' never so bitter and afflicting to sense Sin is an evil of that malignity that the least degree of it is fatal If it be conceiv'd in the Soul tho' not actually finisht 't is deadly One sin corrupted in an instant angelical excellencies and turn'd the glorious Spirits of Heaven into Devils 'T is a poison so strong that the first taste of it shed a deadly taint and malignity into the veins of all mankind Sin is such an exceeding Evil that 't is the severest punishment Divine Justice inflicts on sinners on this side Hell The giving Men over to the power of their lusts is the most fearful judgment not only with respect to the cause Gods unrelenting and unquenchable anger and the issue everlasting destruction but in the quality of the judgment Nay did sin appear as odious in our Eyes as it does in Gods we should account it the worst part of Hell it self the pollutions of the damned to be an evil exceeding the torments superadded to them Sin is pregnant with all kinds of Evils the seeds of it are big with Judgments The evils that are obvious to sense or that are Spiritual and Inward Temporal and Eternal Evils all proceed from sin often as the Natural cause and always as the Meritorious And many times the same punishment is produc'd by the efficiency of sin as well as inflicted for its guilt Thus uncleanness without the miraculous waters of Jealousie rots the Body and the pleasure of sin is revenged by a loathsom consuming Disease the natural consequence of it Thus intemperance and luxury shorten the lives of Men and accelerate damnation Fierce desires and wild rage are fewel for the everlasting fire in Hell The same evils considered Physically are from the efficiency of sin consider'd legally are from the guilt of sin and the justice of God This being a point of great usefulness that I may be more instructive I will consider the evils that are consequential to sin under these two Heads 1. Such as proceed immediately from it by Emanation 2. Those evils and all other as the effects of Gods justice and sentence 1. The evils that proceed immediately by emanation from it and tho' some of them are not resented with feeling apprehensions by sinners yet they are of a fearful nature Sin has deprived Man of the purity nobility and peace of his innocent state 1. It has stain'd and tainted him with an universal intimate and permanent pollution Man in his first Creation was holy and righteous a beam of beauty derived from Heaven was shed upon his Soul in comparison of which sensitive beauty is but as the clearness of Glass to the lustre of a Diamond His understanding was light in the Lord his will and affections were regular and pure the Divine Image was imprest upon all his faculties that attracted the love and complacency of God himself Sin has blotted out all his aimiable excellencies and superinduc'd the most foul deformity the original of which was fetcht from Hell Sinners are the natural Children of Satan of a near resemblance to him The Scripture borrows comparisons to represent the defiling quality of sin from pollutions that are most loathsom to our senses from pestilential Vlcers putrifying Sores filthy Vomit and defiling Mire This pollution is universal through the whole Man Spirit Soul and Body It darkens the mind our supreme faculty with a cloud of Corruption it depraves the will and vitiates the affections 'T is a pollution so deep and permanent that the Deluge that swept away a World of sinners did not wash away their sins and the fire at the last day that shall devour the dross of the visible World and renew the Heavens and the Earth shall not purge away the sins of the guilty Inhabitants This pollution hath so defil'd and disfigur'd Man who was a fair and lovely type wherein
the skill and perfections of the Creator was conspicuous that it repented God that he made Man As an Artificer having form'd a surprizing piece either a Statue or Picture wherein Art almost equall'd the life and lustre of Nature if it be torn or broken throws it from his sight with sorrow impatient to see it so rudely defaced thus God is said to hide his face from sinners to express his displeasure as unwilling to behold the Disparagement of his Master-piece the excellent Product of his Wisdom and Power 2. Sin has degraded Man from his native State and Dignity Man by his Extraction and Descent was the Son of God a little lower than the Angels consecrated and crowned as a Priest for the Service and Communion with his glorious Maker and as King over the World But being in honour he understood not his dignity his duty and felicity and became like the beasts that perish By his Rebellion against his Creator he made a Forfeitute of his Dominion and lost the Obedience of sensible Creatures and the Service of Insensible which I only mention and shall restrain my Consideration to shew how he is become like the Beasts as an Effect resulting from his Sin He is devested of his White Robe of Innocence and his noblest Perfections Reason and Religion Sense and Imagination the leading Faculties in Brutes are his Rulers The rational governing Powers of Man have lost their superior Sway and the Carnal Passions rove without Reins to forbidden Objects The lower Appetites are predominant which is the most ignominious and cruel Servitude wherein humane Liberty can be intangled and fetter'd His Understanding and Will that were capable of taking a flight for the Discovery and Fruition of celestial and eternal things are debased and limited to sensual perishing things and derive vilifying Qualities from them He is earthly minded his Aims Contrivances Desires are fastened to the Earth the divine Spark within him is cover'd under Ashes He is carnally minded always studying and making provisions for the flesh This is a viler Debasement than if the Counsellors of State were employed in the sordid Offices of the Kitchin or Stable Nay 't is a Diminution below the Rank of Beasts for by nature they are uncapable of directing their Eyes and Desires towards Heaven but Man is Brutish by his voluntary Sin To see the Head of a rapacious Wolf or fierce Tyger or lustful Horse joyned to the Body of a Man how monstrous would it appear But 't is more unnatural and ignominious for Men in whom Reason and Religion should govern to resemble them in the brutish Appetites of Lust and Rage for there is a nearer Affinity between the Body of a Man and of a Beast that agree in the common sensible Nature than between the Immortal Spirit of a Man and the Beasts that perish In short Sin has enslaved Men to Satan an Infernal Fiend They are taken Captives by him at his pleasure And which is the lowest Degradation they are the Servants of Corruption 3. Sin has broke the sweet Peace and blessed Concord in the Soul the Felicity of our innocent State Peace is the Tranquility that results from Order and Unity In Man there was a regular Harmony of all his Faculties the Affections were Consonant with his Will his Will with his Understanding and his Understanding with the Law of God This was the inward State of his Soul in his Creation for having a derived being it was natural and necessary that he should be appointed to his End and receive his Rule for the obtaining it from the Understanding and Will of his Maker Now whilst there was a Correspondence in his Faculties and their Operations with his Rule and End the Will of God and the Glory of God the Result of it as well as the Reward of it was Spiritual Peace with God Internal Peace with himself External Peace with others Now Sin has dissolved this Unity violated this sacred Order And from hence 1. Peace with God that consisted in his Favour and Friendship to us and our filial dependence upon him which is the Spring of full and satisfying Joy is broke God appears a fearful Enemy against the Sinners the penal Effects of his Wrath I shall speak of distinctly under the second general And that Divine Calm in the Conscience that Peace joyn'd with the purest Pleasure that was the refleex of Gods Favour on the Soul is changed into anxious Apprehensions of his just Power to punish us Guilt generates Fear and Fear Hatred and both cause a woful flight from God 2. Internal Peace is broke by Sin Whilst the Passions were subordinate to the Empire of Reason and in accord among themselves there was perfect Peace but Sin has raised an intestine War in Man's Breast The Law of the Members rebels against the Law of the Mind for there is no Man so prodigiously Wicked and spoil'd of his primitive Endowments but still there remains some Principles of Morality in the Mind Pâ—â—â—â—a haeâ—â—â—t â—â—â—io quâ—â—â—â—e jâ—dâ—â—â— nemâ— nâ—câ—â—â— abâ—â—â—viâ— so that his Conscience discovers and condemns the Vices he allows and practises which makes the Sinner uneasie to himself and mixes Vinegar with his Wine Besides since the Passions are disbanded into what Confusion is Man fallen How Various how Violent are they and often repugnant to one another How often do we change their Habits and Scenes in a day Sometimes we are vainly Merry and then as vainly Sad sometimes Desirous and then Averse and with respect to our selves sometimes Pleased sometimes Vex'd sometimes Aimable and sometimes Odious we are more mutable than the Planet that is the Emblem of Inconstancy How often do Clouds of Melancholy darken the bright Serenity of the Spirit and cast a dreadful Gloom over it How often do Storms of Passion disturb its Tranquility The Breast of Man that was the Temple of Peace is become a Den of Dragons every exorbitant Affection tears and torments him 'T is true this is also a penal Effect from Divine Justice There is no peace saith my God to the Wicked With which that saying of St. Austin is Consonant Jussit Domine sic est omnis inordinatus affectus est sibi paena 3. Sin has broke our Agreement with one another Whâ—â— there was a regular Consent between the superior and lower Faculties in all Men they were in Unity among themselves for they were perfectly alike But the tumultuous and tyrannical Passions have engaged them in mortal Enmity 'T is the account St. James gives From whence come wars and fightings among you Come they not hence even of your Lusts that war in your Members Sin kindles and blows the fire of discord in Families Cities Kingdoms Sin is the fury that brings a smoking fireband from Hell and sets the World into combustion Ambition Avarice the greedy desires of Rule and Revenge have made the World a Stage of not feigned but the most bloody Tragedies In this Men are not
and terrifie the imagination that may work upon the Principles of Reason and Sense by which Men are naturally and strongly moved 1. Sinners shall be excluded from Communion with the blessed God in Heaven in whose presence is fulness of joy and at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore In the clear and transforming vision of his glory and the intimate and indissolvable union with him by love consists the perfection and satisfaction of the immortal Soul The felicity resulting from it is so entire and eternal as God is great and true who has so often promis'd it to his Saints Now sin separates lost Souls forever from the reviving presence of God Who can declare the extent and degrees of that evil For an evil rises in proportion to the good of which it deprives us it must therefore follow that Celestial blessedness being transcendent the exclusion from it is proportionably evil and as the felicity of the Saints results both from the direct possession of Heaven and from comparison with the contrary state so the misery of the damned arises both from the thoughts of lost happiness and from the lasting pain that torments them But it may be replied if this be the utmost evil that is consequent to sin the threatning of it is not likely to deter but few from pleasing their corrupt appetites for carnal Men have such gross apprehensions and vitated affections that they are careless of Spiritual glory and joy They cannot taste and see how good the Lord is nay the Divine Presence would be a torment to them for as light is the most pleasant quality in the World to the sound Eye so 't is very afflicting and painful to the Eye when corrupted by a suffusion of humors To this a clear answer may be given in the next state where the wicked shall for ever be without those sensual objects which here deceive and delight them their apprehensions will be changed they shall understand what a happiness the fruition of the blessed God is and what a misery to be uncapable of enjoying him and expell'd from the Celestial Paradise Luke 15.28 Our Saviour tells the infidel Jews There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth when ye shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the Prophets in the Kingdom of God and you your selves shut out How will they pine with envy at the sight of that triumphant felicity of which they shall never be partakers Depart from me will be as terrible a part of the judgment as eternal Fire 2. Gods justice is not satisfied in depriving them of Heaven but inflicts the most heavy punishment upon Sense and Conscience in the damned for as the Soul and Body in their state of union in this life were both guilty the one as the guide the other as the instrument of sin so 't is equal when reunited they should feel the penal effects of it The Scripture represents both to our capacity by the worm that never dies and the fire that never shall be quenched and by the destroying of Body and Soul in Hell fire Sinners shall then be tormented wherein they were most delighted they shall be invested with those objects that will cause the most dolorous perceptions in their sensitive faculties The lake of Fire and Brimstone the blackness of darkness are words of a terrible signification and intended to awaken sinners to fly from the wrath to come But no words can fully reveal the terrible ingredients of their misery the punishment will be in proportion to the glory of Gods Majesty that is dishonour'd and provok'd by sin and the extent of his power And as the Soul was the principal and the Body but an accessary in the works of sin so its capacious faculties will be far more tormented than the more limited faculties of the outward senses The fiery Attributes of God shall be transmitted through the glass of Conscience and concenter'd upon damned Spirits the fire without them is not so tormenting as this fire within them How will the tormenting passions be inflam'd What rancour reluctance and rage against the power above that sentenc'd them to Hell What impatience and indignation against themselves for their wilful sins the just cause of it How will they curse their Creation and wish their utter extinction as the final remedy of their misery But all their ardent wishes are in vain for the guilt of sin will never be expiated nor God so far reconcil'd as to annihilate them As long as there is justice in Heaven and fire in Hell as long as God and Eternity shall continue they must suffer these torments which the strength and patience of an Angel cannot bear one hour From hence we may infer what an inconceivable evil there is in sin and how hateful it is to the most High when God who is love who is stiled the Father of mercies has prepared and does inflict such Plagues for ever for the transgression of his holy Laws and such is the equity of his judgment that he never puniâ—â—es offenders above their desert I shall now apply this Doctrin by reflecting the light of it upon our minds and hearts 1. This discovers how perverse and depraved the minds and wills of Men are to chuse sin rather than affliction and break the Divine Law for the obtaining temporal things If one with an attentive Eye regards the generality of mankind what dominion present and sensible things have over them how securely and habitually they sin in prosecution of their carnal aims as if the Soul should not survive the Body as if there were no Tribunal above to examine no Judge to sentence and punish sinners if he has not marble bowels it will excite his compassion or indignation What comparison is there between the good things of this World and of the next in degrees or duration Aiery honour Sensual pleasures and Worldly riches are but the thin appearances of happiness shadows in masquerade that cannot afford solid content to an immortal Spirit the blessedness of Heaven replenishes with everlasting satisfaction What proportion is there between the light and momentary afflictions here and a vast eternity fill'd with indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish and desperate sorrow What stupid Beast what monster of a Man would prefer a superficial transient delight the pleasure of a short dream before ever-satisfying joys Or to avoid a slight evil venture upon destruction Yet this is the true case of sinners if they can obtain the World with the loss of Heaven they count it a valuable purchase if they can compound so as to escape temporal troubles tho involved under guilt that brings extream and eternal misery they think it a saving bargain Amazing solly Either they believe or do not the recompenses in the future state if they do not how unaccountable is their impiety If they do 't is more prodigious they do not feel the powers of the World to come so as to regulate their lives and
is God blessed for evermore Here study well these following Texts as shadowing forth that only holy One of whom comparatively the Universe how vast in it's Expansions how gloriously rich in Furniture and Treasures how variously replenished with Inhabitants and how accurately framed and governed who knows is but as one small hint See I say Exod. xv 11. xxxiv 6.7 i Chron. xxix 10 13. Job xi 7 9. Isa vi 3 i Tim. i. 17. and vi 15 16. i Joh. i. 5. To name no more save only One that pertinently tells us That God is love i Joh. iv 16. Here Love and Goodness are essentially in their incomprehensible and immense perfection from hence are all the Communications of derived goodness and all the issuings forth thereof that all the Creatures can any way receive and of this boundless Ocean are they all swallowed up Eternally at last 2. God in the sallyings forth of his communicative and endearing Name and in all those Mirrours and Testimonies of himself which he affords us Rom. i. 20. Act. xvii 24. 29. i Tim. iii. 16. Heb. i. 3. Eph. iv 6. 24. O what a Mirrour of Divine perfection is the vast fabriâ—k of the Universe How far doth it extend it self How richly hath it's Maker furnish'd it with glorious Luminaries vast in their bulk beautiful in their orderly Scituations constant and regular in their courses and highly useful and as liberal in their dispensings of those influences which serve more glorious and various purposes than any man can reach at present or perhaps in all the proficiencies of Eternity if such things may with modesty be supposed to be there O wonderful Power in its Production Wonderful Wisdom in it's harmonious contrivance and compagination and as great goodness in those stores and Magazines which are so generously provided for and accommodated to all the capacities and necessities and concerns of the whole frame and of every part thereof Is not Gods glorious Name here legible and his kind Heart and Hand as fully and even sensibly discernible herein We are hereby both rendred and constrained to be his Witnesses that he is God and the best Object of our Love Here therefore must our Love both look and fix Should I here speak of God-Redeemer in all the glorious appearances performances and dispensations of his Indwelling Deity in our Nature Or of what the Spirit is and doth of all the Scenes and Systems of common and special Providence of all the Constitutions and Administrations of the upper and lower World and of the Church Militant and Triumphant Or should I shew you Man in his natural State as the workmanship of the God of Nature Or in his Christian State as in his Renovation by the God of Grace Or in his Glorified State at last as the Eternal Temple of the Spirit of Grace Should I shew you the Angelical State or all the excellencies of the end and of the orderly Means and Instruments which relate thereto the Name Seed Things of God You would see with whom and what Love hath to do But to sum up all 1. God is the Object of this Love as considered in his essential Perfections Trinity of Persons 2. In his Creation of the Universe of Beings 3. In his Relations consequent upon Creation and avouchedly assumed by him 4. In those various Signatures and Explications of his Name that are upon the whole and every part of his Creation according to the various Habitudes and States thereof 5. And in his relative deportments towards them and Communications to them as they are capable of receiving them 2. Jesus Christ in all his Mediatorial Excellencies Dignities and Prerogatives in his Relations Offices Unction Performances and Acquests both for himself as one exalted now to his Fathers right hand And for us as our exalted and engaged Head in all his Sympathies and Endearments 3. The Holy Ghost as God our Sanctifier in all those Counsels Quicknings Comforts which he provideth for us offereth to us and succeedeth in us and upon us And 4. Those that are near and dear to God according to the various measures of their Unction Stations and Serviceableness unto God and here comes in the main design both of my Text and Case viz. That we Christians be so considered each by other as that Christian Excellencies be observed to mutual Inflammations of Endearments where they are that Christian Principles and Affections may be awakened invigorated and advanced where they are dormant idle or decayed and that accordingly those Gospel means and helps be valued duely and pertinently applyed and improved which may reduce us to and keep us in the fervours and vigours of our Christian love that so the love of our espousals may fix and center in the God of Love and have its orderly and kindly Circulations and Diffusions through the whole Body and every thing abhorred resisted and rejected that shall or would attempt a rape thereon For towards these glorious and lovely Objects there should be no indifference nor cold affections nor the least possibility of a divorce therefrom that we by any Diligence Providence or Resolution can prevent Whatever as to Things and Persons is really and evidently of God and for him be it in us with us or about us must not sit loosly on our Hearts for it is the Christian Religion as it imprinciples Souls for God and Christ and forms them after God and Christ and keeps them faithful and proficient in their practical devotedness to the Divine design upon us that fits us for and keeps us in the State and Spirit of endearment unto God ii Pet. i. 2. 11. and that must imprinciple and actuate our reciprocal affections and endearments each towards other See i Cor. vii 19. and Gal. vi 15. and v. 6. ii Cor. v. 16. 18. Parties and Persons no nor ecentrical Opinions nor Magisterial Impositions of dividing terms of Concord in pretence and shew nor multitudes of Proselytes to our novel darling self-conceited Notions such things as these cannot commend us unto God why should they then be thought luke-warm whose fervours draw not forth themselves upon such pitiful mean unworthy things Rom. xiv 17. 19. The Kingdom of God and Christ must be endeared to us with all the Subjects of that Kingdom in all their universally holding Principles and Interests And the great fervours vigours and effects of Love must be directed to and setled upon these objects proportionably to their excellencies and postures towards us and our concerns with them and Relations to them This for the Objects 2. The formal nature of this Love and here I shall premise that it is best understood and known by its own exercised and experienced vigour Sensation helps us to the clearest and most lively apprehensions the most accurate Definitions and Descriptions that can be given us by the most sagacious and exact Persons can never tell you to such degrees of satisfaction in your information what Health or Sickness Hunger or Thirst
The Vsefulness of the worshipping Assemblies of Saints and Christians to this great and needful provocation must quicken us unto and keep us in these Courts of God Psal .xcii. 13. 15. Exod. xx 24. There God commands the blessing even Life for evermore Psal cxxxiii 3. There you have the openings of the Gospel Teasury there are these golden Candlesticks which bear the burning shining Tapers whose light and heat diffuse themselves through all within their reach who are receptive of them The Gifts and Graces the Affections and Experiences of Gospel Ministers are in their Communicative Exercises there God the Father sets and keeps his Heart and Eye there the Lord Redeemer walks by and amongst his Commissionated Officers and Representatives dispensing warmth and vigour through their Ministry to Hearts presented to him at his Altar There doth the Holy Spirit fill Heads with Knowledge Hearts with Grace and all our Faculties and Christian Principles with Vigour There Mysteries are unfolded Precepts explained and enforced Promises fulfilled in Soul improvements Incense is offered up in golden Censers and foederal concernments are solemnly transacted and confirmed in open Court And there through the Angel of the Covenant his moving upon the Waters of the Sanctuary are Soul distempers and Consumptions healed And there you are informed acquainted with and confirmed in what may instruct you in and encourage you unto this Provocation to Love and to good works And there Prayer gets fuel and gives vent to Love drawing forth all the Energies of Souls and Thoughts towards God And thus fervent Prayers and love quickning returns thereto are like the Angels of God ascending and descending from and upon the Heart while the deserters hereof grow cold thereto and starve their Love and practical Godliness thereby All there is known obtained and exercised There you may fill your Heads with Knowledge your Hearts with Grace your Mouths with Arguments your Lives with Fruitfulness your Consciences with Consolations and your whole selves with those experiences of Divine regards to Soul concerns which may inflame your Hearts with Love to God and Christ to Holiness and Heaven and fit you both to kindle and increase this holy flame both in your selves and in each other And indeed what greater advantages can be derived into our Souls to make our Altars burn than what our Christian Assemblies duly managed will entertain us with What understanding do the Inspirations of the Almighty here afford Such curious Explications of the Name and Counsels of your God Such large and full accounts of all the endearing Grace of Christ Such Critical dissections and anatomizings of the state of Souls Such over-shâ—dowings of the Spirit of God Such clear and full descriptions and accounts of the Divine Life and Nature in all their Strength and Glory How are desires invigorated and twisted to make them more effectual to our selves and others This Sanctuary Love is like the best wine going down sweetly and causing the Lips even of those that are asleep to speak Keep then to these Assemblies that you may duly know whom what how and why to Love and how to suit your selves in spirit speech and practice towards God your selves and towards each other unto this generous and noble Principle Thus will you grow exceedingly both in the knowledge and savour of what is most considerable and most deservingly affecting both as to Things and Persons for Christianity is contrived for Love and Godliness in all its Doctrines Laws and Ordinances and in assemblies you have the Explications and Enforcements of those Truths which will compleat the Man of God as to his Principles Disposition and Behaviour Here you may know your most holy Faith as to it's matter evidences and designs upon you and it 's improvableness by you to it 's determined and declared ends and services That Faith which is to illuminate your Eyes to exercise your thoughts to fix your holy purposes to form and cherish expectations to raise desires to embolden prayer to fire your affections and regulate them as to their Objects Ends and Measures and Expressions And when you there attend you are in the way of Blessings How oft and evidently are Divine Truths there sensibly sharpened and succeeded by the God of Truth Rom. i. 16. Paul and Barnabas so spake as that a Multitude believed of Jews and Gentiles Act. xiv 1. And thither must you and I resort and there attend for Doctrine Exhortation and Instruction in Righteousness The Priests Lips must preserve Knowledge how to speak of God with him and for him there Gospel luminaries are to diffuse their Light and there must we receive it and know what is considerable eligible practicable and encouraging to love and to good Works Why then should we forsake that 3. But let us exhort each other â—or consideration and attendance on Assemblies are for our own and others good for personal and mutual quickenings to Love to good works I know that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and thence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is sometimes used more largely for any pleading of and pressing home a thing pursuant to it's import and design whether by Counsel Comfort or sometimes it imports Consolation or Encouragement This is too well seen and known to need its Scriptural Instances and Quotations That which is here intended I offer in this Paraphrase Draw forth all the Spirit and Strength of what you know and have advisedly considered as to your selves and others of what you have seen and heard in your Assembling of your selves together concerning your obligations to attend them their fitness to advantage you and all the benefit derived or deriveable therefrom Draw forth the vigour of all your received Discoveries Directions Assistances and Inducements to do and be what is required and expected from you professed by you and of eternal Consequence and Concernment to you Plead this throughly with your selves and one another that so your Christian love be not extinguisht or abated but wrought and kept up to its genuine and just pitch of fervour and effectual Operations and Eruptions in Good works Drive home upon your selves by deep and serious thoughts and pertinent applications of them to your selves and warm debates about them with your selves the things which God hath manifested and proposed to you as credible acceptable and practically Improveable He that expects this flame upon his heart must be a thoughtful man severely contemplative and sollicitous about the things of the Kingdom of God and the Name and Interest and Servants of the Lord Redeemer How can that man be warm and active or zealous of Good works whose knowledge is not actuated by self-awakening Meditations and whose furniture Principles and Spirit are commonly neglected by himself What! are divine Truths Laws Promises and Institutions only to be with us or in us as empty Speculations or thin Notions Have Divine Revelations and Endearings no Errand to our Hearts and Consciences and no business there and no practical Vigours to
of Christ in himself and in the world Such an one as valued carnal things above spiritual earthly above heavenly and a small fleshly enjoyment above so great and advantageous a priviledge as the Primogeniture Secondly Prophaneness is attributed to things Thus in 1 Tim. 4.7 Refuse prophane and old Wives Fables by which we are according to learned men to understand either the absurd Jewish stories or some superstitious persons forbidding to marry and the use of sundry sorts of meats or those idle and foolish Doctrines which place the worship of God in such low and pittiful things as external sapless Rites and Ceremonies Forms Modes and Gestures But further those things are plainly and notoriously prophane which are sinful and wicked Debauchery is prophaneness in Grain a wicked life is a prophane life To Lye and Swear and Curse and Whore are acts of prophaneness for people to drive on their worldly Trades to buy and sell in Houses Shops or Streets upon the Sabbath-day are acts of prophaneness This is a prophaning of that day which God hath separated from the rest of the days and sanctified and set apart for holy use his own worship and service and the good of Souls In short all that which is contrary to the Divine Law those excellent and blessed Rules which God hath been pleased in his Word to give out unto us for the right management of our selves and ordering of our Lives and Conversations in the World all that I say is prophaneness whether it be Impiety or Immorality Our second work is to enquire what we are to understand by the suppressing of prophaneness To this I answer in general the suppressing of it doth signify the keeping of it under If prophaneness be not carefully look'd to but let alone it will quickly grow to an head and soon over-spread and over-top all It must therefore be kept down and if through the negligence of some and the impudence of others it be got to an height it must be knockt down Such tough humours in the body Politick need and call for strong Purges and Civil Magistrates who are the State-Physicians cannot be better imployed than about such works as that More particularly I shall mention two things which the suppression of prophaneness doth carry in it A prevention of 1. The acts of prophaneness 2. The growth of it First There must be a prevention of the Acts of prophaneness Prophane principles in the heart of a man lying still and as it were dormant not breaking forth are out of the reach of others Neither the Magistrates Sword be it never so long nor the Ministers Word if alone and unaccompanied with the Divine Spirit can reach it or prevail against it That is the mighty and glorious work of the great Jehovah who alone knoweth the Heart and searcheth it and can change alter and mend it None but he that made the heart at first can mould it anew None but he can cast Salt into that Spring none but he can graft such holy principles as to make a corrupt tree good But wicked and prophane practices in the lives of men as are the wretched products fruits and issues of base and cursed principles may be curb'd restrain'd and prevented So that though the wickedness of the wicked will not depart from him yet it shall not be committed with that frequency and boldness and openness as it hath been and to this very day is With shame and sorrow be it spoken In the Heb 12.15 Look diligently lest any man fail of the Grace of God lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you You may understand it both of unsound doctrine abominable practices but I am now only to deal with the latter Sin lust corruption in the heart is a root of bitterness yielding that which is bitter to God his Soul hates and abhors it And it is bitter to man in the sad direful consequences and effects of it which when the foolish self-humouring sinner comes to tast he will certainly find worse than Gall. Sin is his dainties he rolls it as a delicious morsel under his tongue but it will prove the poison of Aspes within him Now it nearly concerns every one to endeavour the pulling up of this root in his own heart let him set both his hands to the work let him lay the axe to it and call God in to his assistance It is ten thousand thousand times more desireable to have in you that root of the matter which holy Job spake of than to have this root of bitterness in you But then it ought to be the care of all specially Governours both in Families Churches Kingdoms and Nations they should look diligently to it that this root do not pullulare spring up if at any time it begins to peep and shew its head oppose it with might and main trample upon it with the foot of just indignation never suffer it to shoot up bud and bring forth Though men will not be so good as they should do not give them leave to be as bad as they would It is not in your power to dry up the fountain but it is a part of your duty to dam up the streams and though you cannot eradicate mens vitious habits yet you must restrain their outward acts 1 Timothy 1.20 Of whom are Hymeneus and Alexander whom I have delivered unto Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme A strange way of cure to prevent sin by giving men up to the Devil yet such as God prescrib'd and prosper'd After the same manner let flagitious Persons be delivered up to punishment that so though they will not virtutis amore for the love of virtue yet formidine poenae for fear of punishment they may learn to bridle themselves and not to do any more so wickedly as they have done One great end of punishment being the reclaiming and amending the offender if he be not past hope Secondly There must be a suppression of the growth and spreading of prophaneness I shall hereafter shew you a little more fully how that sin is like some unhappy weeds that if once they get into a ground and be not timely dealt with will in a little while run far and near and overspread the whole they do not need any encouragement it is enough for them to be let alone Of all Weeds this wickedness is the worst and most diffusive of itself a prophane wretch is like one that hath the plague he is indeed a pest or common plague in the place where he is his very breath and touch his discourses and actions are infectious he goeth up and down tainting those with whom he doth converse who are not of healthful constitutions of Souls and well antidoted with the fear and awe of God And this was one reason that the Apostle Paul gives in the forementioned Heb. 12. why he would have such special care taken to prevent the springing up of any root of bitterness lest thereby many
Sword of Justice into the hands of good and faithful men I do not go about to make parties in the Nation God forbid it is contrary to my principles there hath been too much of it in the Nation and in the world and oh that there may be no more Oh that God would in the greatness of his goodness heal all our breaches and compose all our unbrotherly dâ—fferences and grant that we may all serve him in the beauties of holiness with one shoulder and one consent Oh that I might see it done In the mean time I am verily perswaded that among every one of the different parties in the Land who hold the head and are sound in the vitals of Christianity the main Fundamental points of our Religion there are to be found persons fearing God And if I may have leave humbly to speak my thoughts I count it a great pity that any of them should be laid aside as Vessels in which there is no pleasure as persons altogether useless and unfit to be trusted and imployed meerly because they dissent from others of their Brethren in those things which are acknowledged to be indifferent but cannot be by them complyed with lest they should sin against God and wound their own Consciences so long as they are sound in the faith set for the glory of God and for the honour of the King and for the publick good Why Oh! Why may not such men be owned and incouraged and imployed in those things of which they are capable Are they fit for nothing because there is something that they cannot do I know and all men must yield it that there have been and will be as well as are diversity of Judgments and by consequence of practice No man hath his Judgment Faith and Reason at his Command and it is as possible to make all men of a Stature as of a mind But I must and do humbly submit this to our Superiours withal leaving particular persons to their several Sentiments and to walk accordingly to that light which they have received and begging of God the hastning of that day prophesied of in Zech. 14.9 Wherein the Lord shall be King over all the Earth and wherein there shall be one Lord and his name one Vna fides una Deum colendiratio One Faith and one Worship This I take for certain That ungodliness is very unlikely to be suppressed in a Nation when the ungodly and wicked men of that Nation are the men intrusted with and imployed about the supression thereof It is not probable that a Swearing and Cursing Magistrate will punish another for his Oaths or a Drunken Magistrate will inflict the Legal penalty upon another for the like brutishness Or an unclean Officer make another smart for his Whoredom While he is going about it an hundred to one there will be a bitter Reflection the man will find a sting within himself his own Conscience if it be not fear'd or in a profound sleep cannot forbear flying in his face and asking him in his ear this pinching question How canst thou punish that in this person which thou knowest to be thine own practice Rom. 2.22 23. Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery dost thou commit adultery Thou that abhorrest Idols dost thou commit Sacriledge Thou that makest thy boast of the Law through breaking the Law dishonourest thou God Upon this account it was that holy David resolved his eye should be upon the faithful of the Land Psal 101.6 He would express his special favour upon those that were of known integrity that would faithfully mind and perform the duty of their place and be true to their God and to their trust and saith he He that walketh in a perfect way he shall serve me viz. in governing the Nation and in seeing to it that good orders be kept And I look upon that as a good saying of one Melior est Respublica tutior c. That Common-wealth or Kingdom is safer and in a much better condition in which there is a bad Prince than that which hath in it bad Magistrates Officers and Ministers of State Sixthly In order to the effectual suppression of prophaneness it cannot but be owned as absolutely necessary to watch diligently and deal severely with the Nurseries of it For as our Lord Jesus who is the King of Sion Saints hath his Schools Nurseries for the instructing training up of persons in sound knowledge true holiness Such are the assemblies and congregrations of his people Isa 2.3 Come ye and let us go up to the Mountain of the Lord to the Mountain of the Lord to the house of the God of Jacob and he will teach us of his ways So Satan the Prince of the power of the air the Spirit that worketh in the Children of disobedience hath his Nurseries which he fills with cursed Temptations and his Instruments with Venomous examples in order to the alluring of men to flagitious courses and rendering them expert ready and compleat Artists in sin And do not all men see how our youths are tainted and corrupted there and how many of those that once were hopeful and thought to be plants of righteousness have been there blasted and turned into the degenerate plants of a strange Vine bringing forth the Grapes of Sodom and the Clusters of Gommorrah All that read these lines may easily understand my meaning what houses they are at which I now point And I would ask Are Stews and Brothel-houses fit to be suffered among us I have not at all wonder'd when I have read and heard how many of them are allowed in Rome that Mother of Harlots who holds in her hand a Cup of fornication we must expect the great Whore will not fall out with the little Ones specially when they are profitable to her Bonus odor lucri ex re qualibet In her Nostrils the money smells well come it from whence it will But it is an arrant shame that any of them should be found in a Land of Light in a Nation of Protestants in a City of righteousness in a place where that Religion is profest and established that condemns all such filthy practices And as for Ale-houses and Victualling houses though some of them possibly are useful yea and necessary yet is there need of such multitudes in which so many sit many hours together fuddling and drinking away their money their wits their health and their Souls while their poor Wives sit at home mourning and their Children crying and perhaps all of them wanting and ready to starve I am sure none ought to have Licenses for the keeping such houses who will suffer them to be places of licentiousness and not be careful to observe good hours and orders Seventhly Let all inferiour Officers be very careful and diligent in their places For their places are not dormitories places to idle and sleep in but to watch and work in Church-wardens Constables and others have
Duty beforehand that as soon as he came to Capacity of Understanding he should not want for Attractives of his Affection to Convert and Cleave to God And no otherwise doth God deal with you You that know what your Baptism means do know so much Now no sooner do you Understand Consent unto and Profess the Imports of your Baptism but God calls you to his Holy Table There to confirm again and again with great frequency all the foresaid Promises O ye height length bredth and depth of the Divine Munificence and Kindness The Blessing of Abraham and every Iota of it comes on every sincere Convert Gal. 3.13 14. Speak Sirs is God so ill a Master that no offer can perswade you to return unto him Or What is there more than God has offered that you desire Or what further Confirmation and Ratification of his Promises than he gives do you crave Or which is that I listen after will you now straitway turn unto him And here right take on the Spiritual Robe the Ring and the Shoes And make Joy in Heaven and in this Congregation I do hope the Sun shall not go down before some of you are reconciled to God I have heard of a sinful Boy that offered to Convert presently if a Friend of his could make it out to him that he should fare the better for it in his Body and things of this Life Which being done he did Convert and lived and dyed an eminent Saint I am aware there is much of that Boys Spirit in all young People And it likes me to try whether I may so draw you with the Considerations that drew him Hear then what I say to evince that Conversion is a very Friend unto good Health Estate Mirth and Name that the state of Grace is in respect of these like the City Triocala one of Water-springs sweetest Vineyards choicest and Rocks most impregnable That when you once enter into Covenant with God your wants will be of nothing but things worse than nothing and wherever you are lodged the worst of your Wounds will be but Flea bites Or however ye are wounded ye can never be hurt Health is the Salt and sweetest Sawce of Life 'T is Sin Peoples own or their Ancestors or both that ordinarily is the working cause as well as deserving cause of sickness The Spirit and Grace and Service of God every way make for Health Particularly Temperance and good Conscience are the most benâ—gn of all things unto your Blood and Spirits And Converting Grace is not it self without them Go ask Physicians they will tell you Luxury and Lechery do make them an hundred Patients for every one that is made them by Fasting and Prayer No Precept of Christ is for any Duty Fasting it self unto Sickness if his precepts were observed they would prevent more than ever his Miracles healed If a good Man be at any time so weak as to hate his own Flesh he is not led to it by God's Spirit He ought indeed to beat it down and keep it in subjection to Gods Law and from the Usurpation of sinful Lusts But withal 't is those Lusts he is to mortifie and not his Body A Convert's Body is the Holy Ghost's Temple And if so be sure God will be kind unto it and his Servants ought to be duly careful of it An Estate is a very useful Hedge about you to keep off those many Proud that will be trampling upon all that is Poor And nothing raises or keeps up this Hedge like the Grace of God For it spirits you with Diligence which gets Riches with Humility which hates superfluity and saveth what is got with Charity which puts out all to Use and unto that Lord who never pays less than an hundred Fold in this Life it self Sin is this Hedge-breaker Rags are mostly Sins Livery When 't is otherwise and Sin makes you a Hedge it will be full of Snakes and Snares In the fullness of sinful sufficience you will be in straits And 't is odds but the Straits will be long and the Fullness a very little while On the other hand when a Converts Duty to God makes him poor it makes him rather a Martyr than a Beggar For he thereby testifies God's Truth and through the Truth of God to his Covenant he abounds in the middle of his wants For God doth but prune his Vines he burns up none but Thorns By Poverty he may undo Sinners but he still enricheth Saints Do but Convert you can never want what is truly good for you while God has it The first Minute that a great Estate begins to be good for you you shall have it And if you never have a Great one you shall still have a Good one Whereas Unconverts can have but one of these two a vexing Adversity or what is worse a slaying Prosperity One made of thick Clay and deeper Cares Mirth and Comfort are the Hony and Sweetness of your Beings Now Conversion makes exchange but no Robbery of these There is in Africa an Hony lusciously sweet but the Bees gather it from poysonous Weeds and it affects with madness and Frenzy all that eat of it He were no Thief that should take that sort of Hony from you and give the most wholesom to you Conversion deals no otherwise by you Only what it gives is more sweet as more wholsom And the quantity greater as well as the quality better For observe ye God forbids not any one Kind or Degree of pleasures but what is injurious And what your very Nature Reason and Interest do forbid you I deny it not Converts have Valleys of Troubles but then they have doors of Hope They are in Wildernesses but God prepares them Tables therein Dryest Rocks yield them Water and in darkest Dungeons they have shining Lights They receive here their Evil things and have their Hell upon Earth but then 't is a Heaven upon Earth to think this is all the Hell they shall ever endure And as for the Wayes he commandeth Converts to walk in they are all of Pleasantness Mysteriously yet most certainly Godly sorrow is made a sweet thing Every Week almost have I People crying for more of it than I think God allows them O Youth scies cum fies when thou art a Convert thou shalt feel what I tell thee No such Manna falls in Calabria none falls from Heaven like that which feasteth the Camps of sincere Converts The Convert state hath of the Joy as well as of the Purity of Heaven Unthought of Delights Such as don't Dye in the Enjoyment No but be stronger than Death as well as sweeter than Life Such as none of the Busie-bodies of this World ever found in the Mills of their Business or the Circles of their pleasure Gilboa's Mountains had not Rain or Dew Unconvert Youths have not Joy or Peace Madness is theirs Mirth they know not The three Hebrew Martyrs were merrier in the fiery Furnace than their Persecutor was in his
Well if thou couldest say plainly what is thy Will 'T is a Will not moved by Gods Threats or Promises to Fear or Love him If it were so thou wouldst Convert now And if it be not so what is thy Purpose for all thy fair Promise Dost intend hereafter to turn unto a God neither Feared nor Loved Surely thou dost not Thinkest thou that thou shalt hereafter Fear and Love him I ask what should make thee so think He will for ever be the same God that now he is Lay to thy Heart what I tell thee If God be not just now worthy of Fear and Love then he never was or will be so for he Changes not In a word VVhat if thou hadst both power to Convert when thou wouldest and hadst a real will to Convert hereafter to God where is the Reason for staying without and against God all the while Thou art Servant he is Lord thou the Child he the Father When Servants run away and will not return to their Masters and very Children run away and will not come back to their Fathers No though the Masters and Fathers call and send and promise and do not need them while they all the while need their Masters and Fathers All people conclude there is a cause of this and a fault must lie somewhere in one of the Parties Either the Fathers Unnatural and the Master Cruel or else the Child is a Viper and the Servant a Monster Speak Man and say now where is the fault what is the cause that thou canst not yet be prevailed with to return to thy Lord and Father Thou must charge Him or thy self with most black and bloody faults If thou lay'st it on God thou makest him worse than the Devil and proclaimest Satan the better Master and Father of the two If thou takest the blame on thy self I ask thee how thou canst endure to see hear or think of thy self A Creature hating it's God that is all Love and all Loveliness No words I think no words of mine I am sure can express how Blasphemous or how Self-condemned they are all that put off Conversion to another time Alas here is Life and all in the case Conversion is the Life of thy Soul Man 'T is Dying till it Convert 'T is in Hell till thou Convert And is this a fit word I will then Convert hereafter Thy darling Child drops into the Fire and thou promisest to come help it out to morrow A very Kind creature thou wilt be thought and as Wise an one Upon every account I may say of these Promises of Turning hereafter as was said of Judas It had been better they had never been born And they be Judasses indeed for though they Flatter and Kiss they Betray and Kill poor Souls R. 7. You as plainly as elder people do dare God to damn you all the while you delay your Conversion Therefore 't is your duty to convert presently I have heard of a Man much accustomed to cursing in his health that could not utter any word but a curse in his sickness Could not pronounce Yes or No but as oft as he spoke in several Months time he bid God to damn him A most frightful thing you will say And yet young people I take you to be in very like condition all that delay your Conversion For the Language of Practice is with God and Men as significant as any if not more If you practically bid God damn you you are of the same spirit with them who verbally bid him so do And if I know any thing Delayers do bid him in deeds as certainly as any sinners do in their words I appeal to your very own thoughts in the case You are corrupted with sin and condemned for it The grace of God calls you to come take your Pardon and your Cure But tells you Now is your Time Promises you no Breath of Life but what 's in your Nostrils nor any offer of Cure or Pardon after the first In every Precept requires present coming Your Delaying therefore is running the Venture And that adventuring is plain saying Lord if now just now be the time I shall not take hold of it Though I Burn I will not yet Turn Thou dost not promise to stay longer for me but if thou wilt not Damn and do thy worst with me I would rather thou wouldst change thy Word Blot now in the dayes of thy Youth out of the Bible Write Remember thy Creator when thou art old and bedridden But if this thou wilt not do I will live under thy Threatning VVrath And let its Vials fall on me if they must I am set against present Conversion for thy Peace Let me add but this Sirs There is but one way possible to Hell which is by Sin For nothing else can incense God against You. He cannot be in the least displeased for ought beside But sin is that which he cannot but Hate and Punish Now to go on wilfully delightfully and resolutely in sin is in effect as if you should kneel down on your knees and beg and pray with tears in your eyes that you may never be saved But may be assured of a place in the lowest Hell The former is interpretatively the latter O madness beyond compare though not Admired because so much Practised R. 8. You as well as Elder people do hate and rob God and imitate and obey Satan till you do Convert Therefore 't is your duty presently to Convert Young people it may be you know not what you do but knowingly or ignorantly these things you do do till you Convert You hate God Interpretatively you hate him By your actions no other can be judged of you If you desired to express hatred of him you could not take a more direct way for it then that you are in For you walk contrary unto him Comparatively you hate him If you have any love to him sure it 's nothing and less than nothing in comparison of that which you bear unto your idolized things and persons Yea Absolutely you hate him as an holy and just Ruler and Judge In his Government you hate him and wish you could dethrone him Deny it if you dare In his Children and Friends you hate him Their Company is an Eye-sore and Burthen unto you his Image on them you cannot bear If it were otherwise you could not but Convert unto him You Rob him yea and all his You rob him of a Child Christ of a Member the Holy Ghost of a Temple the Heavenly Host of a Joy the Church of a Star the World of a Pillar And in the mean time what do you VVhy Satan in the God of every unconvert Creature Him in your Spiritual impurities you Imitate in your bodily you Obey in both you Serve and Gratifie Horrid Servitude Unendurable by Souls and jod less senseless than Plants or less wild than Brutes R. 9. You as elder People do out-sin Satan himself till you do Convert Therefore
Text your State is one that God judges an ill one and calls you out of it and charges you to make all possible speed out of Many wish themselves in a State of God's Wrath when they say Oh that I were in but so good a Condition as this or that Child They know less than many Catechised little Children who know not this Such is an Vnconvert State that Christ himself cannot save a Soul in it The Lord maketh you all to feel the words that I can make you but hear My Father in all his Letters to me used to write O Child better never born than not New Born Infer 2. Your Miserable State is one Alterable Would God call you out of your damning forgetfulness if there were no return possible Would he call you to a saving Remembrance if there were a fixed gulf and unpassable between you and Blessedness 'T is sin and madness for the worst of Sinners to say they are Reprobates No Man alive can know himself to be so And the worst Man Living must make himself still worser by concluding so Young People your Unconversion hitherto has kept you unreconciled to God but hitherto You are not now Vnreconcileable if now ye be not Obstinate and Vnperswadable I praise him who when Satan tempted him to despair of Salvation thus answered For shame Satan say not there 's no hope of me thou mightest be saved thy self if thou could'st Repent Infer 3. God is willing your miserable State should be altered and that speedily too Would he otherwise call you and so call you as you have heard Or can you tell what should make him unwilling True he needs you not But you need him and he delights in Mercy if you will believe him Forget not this of God and his Son God swears by his Life he desires not a Sinners Death Consequently he must desire their Conversion And as for his Son your Blessed Redeemer as he shed his Blood to save Sinners so he sheds Tears over them when they refuse his Salvation 'T is Satan not God that is the Herod desirous to slay you Children And be confident of this if he now moves you to Duty he surely means you Mercy Infer 4. You your selves can do more towards your Conversion and perfective Alteration than all the World can do This is hence gathered from God's setting his Ministers and your Parents and Friends all upon your selves He bids us not go to any others and tell them they must go new form your hearts No but charges us to apply unto you and call on you to make you new Hearts and new Spirits and Convert unto him and Remember him to right purpose 'T is therefore certainly most in the power of your own hand next to Gods God has committed you more to your own keeping than unto any meer Creatures And given you more power over your selves than any other Creature hath Wherefore neither can best Angels benefit you or worst Devils injure you as you can benefit or injure your selves And it less concerns you dayly to enquire what all the World has done for you or against you Then what you your selves have done for or against your selves Would you know what is the just extent of this Power what it is you can do and what it is you cannot do toward your Conversion Others have answered more largely I say this briefly Try and you shall know Do all the good you can and you shall know what good you can do To lie idle and do nothing because you know not how much you can do were a folly like Ezekiels Infant wallowing in its own Blood Infer 5. Your Tempters from present Conversion are Hells black Legion I infer it thus It is only Hell that opposeth Heaven Divels that fight against the Command of God Black Devils that withstand his express Commands But 't is his Command and most express one that you now presently do Convert Wherefore as oft as any man disswades you from it tell him you find by his Lip he has a Cloven Foot And you see Satan is grown idle and impudent and leaves off the trouble of transforming himself into an Angel of Light Tempting Company is the openest Mouth of Hell in all this World Infer 6. Your way unto Salvation is one and the self-same with other folks If not why should it be prescribed in the self-same words that the way of all others is prescribed in Sc. Remembering God Deut. 8.18 Jer. 51.50 There be many about you that will shew you young people a shorter cut to Heaven And there is much within you that will catch at it greedily enough But the Lord give you to receive your sight you will then as easily believe there is one God for you and another for old people as that there is one Religion for you and another for them Verily there is but one narrow Gate for the Entrance and one strait Way for the Progress of both of you Blessed are both that find it Miserable both that miss it I know not how he himself shall be saved that prompts young people that they may be so without Understanding Owning and Living sincerely according unto their Baptismal Engagement May the weight of Mat. 5.19 never lye upon my Soul dear unto me Infer 7. Your greatest Danger is of delaying to Convert Why else are you twice warned thereof in the Text Why required to Convert in your Youth before you are Old and just Now before you are a minute Older Death stands before Old Mens Faces and one would think they should not venture to put it off It is somewhat farther out of your sight indeed but so swiftly it oft comes that it is of wonder you your selves should be so daring as to do it But alas both of you are daily seen full of your Delays Full often in my Pulpit I think what a number should I Convert this time but that my old Folk think they may as well Convert next Week and my young ones think they may Convert next Year both think they may Convert another time And what saâ—â—s my trembling Heart Plainly thus Oh Delay Delay thou bond of Iniquity thou bane of Piety thou bar of Conversion Satan's great Barge into the Lake of Fire and Brimstone be gone and destroy not this Congregation Sirs Remember it down-right denyal of Conversion is nothing near so like to ruine you as dallying Delay of it 'T is Delay is the Element of Unregeneracy as Unregeneracy is the Element of Hell Infer 8. Youthful Vnconverts are the worst of Demoniacks and break most bonds of God For as you have heard you have special Obligations on you Though God makes your days choice and good yet cleave you will unto the worst evil Though you have on you the Restraints which old sinners have long ago had took off from them you sin as they The Spirit of God that has done striving with many of them strives still with you Conscience that is
the Blessing Young Solomon's chusing Wisdom Young Obadiah's fearing the Lord Young John's lying in Christ's Bosom Yea Young Children crying Hosannah stilling or shaming at least and baulking God's Enemies and ours Origen's Father Leonides would sometimes uncover his Breast as he lay asleep and solemnly Kiss it blessing God that had given him to be a Father to so Excellent a Child And so shall many of us have warrant to do Upon our Houses Schools and Churches it shall be writ and read of all Jehova Shamma the Lord is there Amen and Amen Quest What Repentance of National Sins doth God require as ever we expect National Mercies SERMON XVIII HOSEA 10.12 Sow to your selves in Righteousness reap in Mercy breaks up your fallow ground for it is time to seek the Lord till he come and rain Righteousness upon you THE Prophet joyneth Counsel with Threatnings Amendment is that he calleth them to as a means to save them That he might induce them to this he represents their aggravated Sins and the dangers to which they were exposed by their Provocations Yet least this Call should still be uneffectual through an opinion that Repentance could avail little to a People so guilty he addeth that if they returned to God their Sins tho' great should not prevent Mercy and the threatned Judgments though near might be diverted By this Text God proclaims not only to particular Persons but to Nations how desireable it is to him to execute his Goodness and his extream backwardness to avenge himself on the most provoking Kingdoms unless they add Impenitency under solemn Warnings unto their Rebellion God seems to address himself to Ephraim to this purpose Thou are a very guilty People yet turn that I may forgive Thou art on the very brink of ruine thy obstinateness is so notorious that it will not consist with the Rules or Credit of my Government to spare thee longer Oh yet be perswaded to render thy self a Subject capable of my kindness I have long pleaded and thou seemest even unperswadable Yet I 'll make one further essay I 'll try thee once more Sow to your selves in Righteousness First The words containeth some of the Essentials of Repentance and suppose the rest Under a Metaphor from Tillage God applyeth himself in the description of this Duty q. d. 1. He that will repent must deal with his indisposed Heart Break up the fallow ground whatever pain or difficulty attends so barren or obstinate a frame of Soul you must strive with your selves pluck up those Weeds strike at the root of your Lusts which render the Fruits of Righteousness impossible This sence of that clause is more evident from those words of another Prophet Break up the fallow ground Jer. 4.3 sow not among Thornes 2. When the Heart is thus prepared we must proceed to proper acts of Reformation Sow to your selves in Righteousness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad justitiam Isa 61.3 Let the Rule of Righteousness be observed in your hearts and ways be just to God and Men return to God in sincerity be and do what may argue you to be Trees of Righteousness Do thus to your selves i. e. leave it not to others Or you shall reap the advantage of it your selves if you repent 3. You must also seek the Lord i. e. Worship God and not Idols as hath been your way Follow after him who is departed from you call upon him crave his Grace to help you but be not satisfied with faint and short attempts persist in this work till you find his favour in the blessed effects of it even till he come and rain c. These heads of Repentance this Text affords Secondly This Repentance is urged from variety of Arguments but principally from this That National Mercies would certainly follow this National Repentance Reap at the face of Mercy or immediately 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Reap in Mercy It 's promised more strongly then if it had been said Indicatively you shall reap in the Future Tense Being put thus Imperatively the import of it is this you have no more to do but possess your Mercies upon your Repentance Mercy will of it self grow from that Root God hath provided all antecedent Causes he hath ordained the connexion and it lies on him to make a Repenting People happy You may be assured of this for that which was meer Mercy in making the Promise is become an Act of Righteousness by the Promise You may now expect it from God as just in which sense I take that clause till he come and rain Righteousness upon you That which was Mercy in the first part of the Verse is Righteousness in the last part I know it 's true Doctrine to say till God bestow on you holy inclinations and ability to perform but that 's not the most designed Sense He further argues Ezek. 34.26 from the plenty of those Blessings which God would afford on their Repentance Till he come and rain Righteousness The returns of God to a Repenting People are in a fullness of Blessing and there shall be showers of Blessings There 's one Motive more viz. The seasonableness It 's time to seek the Lord. It 's high time and but barely so you cannot say there is no hope though you must repent soon or not at all The consideration of this Paraphrase must lead any one to the case that I am to handle Can any serious Spirit think it vain to ask What is that National Repentance which may give a sinful people hope of Mercy Which is the same with the Case as it is given me What Repentance of National Sins doth God require as ever we may expect National Mercies I have led you to it by this Text that it may not seem a melancholly fancy a mystery not to be handled or a needless inquiry It 's an awful case It 's not put to satisfie your Curiosity but to guide your Fears and Hopes It 's not only to direct your Minds to a right judgment of the matter but to excite your Hearts to that Repentance which may afford us hope in the midst of our dangers and guiltiness It 's the happiness or misery of Nations are concerned in it It 's the only remedy that a sinful Nation can use or turn to God is peremptory Luke 13.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 utterly be destroyed except you repent you shall all likewise perish My work is 1. To resolve the case in general 2. To apply the case resolved to our own Nation I shall use this method As to the first 1. Shew you what is supposed in the case as stated 2. Explain the tearms National Sins and Mercies 3. State the Case it self 4. Propose the difficulties that attend the resolution of it 5. Resolve the Case which the forementioned particulars will much conduce to I shall as proof to this resolution of the Case 1. Evidence that the Repentance expressed in the fifth head doth ordinarily afford ground
Land is sometimes absolutely determined When it s thus a blessing is withheld from means that tend to make a people penitent and what of Repentance there is becomes uneffectual to divert the Misery Manasseh repented Josiah and the People with some solemnity humble themselves 2 King 23.25 26 27. But notwithstanding this the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his wrath c. because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal c. When the utmost limits of the time of Gods Patience is over ruin is unavoidable God bemoaneth a Land in this condition Luk. 19.42 The figure Apostopâ—siâ— is twice used in this verse thou hadst been happy hadst thou known in thy day thou art now undone because they are hid from thy eyes Deut. 32.26 27 Josh 7.9 Isa 48.8 9. Ezek. 36.2 8.22 23. as our Saviour in his Tears over Jerusalem If thou hadst known at least in this thy day the things that belong to thy peace but now they are hid from thy eyes 5. God sometimes moderateth and refrains his Judgments from other Considerations besides Repentance If executing Judgments upon his People will occasion Blasphemy and reproach to his Name he oft forbeareth his People though impenitent I would scatter them into corners c. were it not that I feared the wrath of the Enemy and they should say Our hand is high the Lord hath not done all this Joshuah and others knew it was a strong Plea What wilt thou do for thy great Name Again when his People have been so obstinate under Judgments that if he preceded in his Wrath they must be utterly destroyed rather than do so he hath eased his hand If the sins of his Enemies be full he conniveth at his Church whiles he avengeth himself on his Adversaries especially if his Servants are to be Executioners of his Wrath. Sometimes God hath had respect to some Ancestor or some particular action of a People that hath been pleasing to him and on that account hath been favourable though they have been otherwise obnoxious to judgments 6. It s not very easie at all times to judge of National Judgments or Mercies God may afflict in order to Mercy he may take away lesser Mercies to make way for greater Blessings He oft layes a foundation of lasting good by delays and astonishing struggles On the other hand he may forbear Judgments and bestow good things whereby a Nation is ripened for sorer Plagues He may destroy the Gentry to save the Vulgar or level his stroak against evil Magistrates or Ministers and so shake the State to make the Body of a People or his own people at least prosperous Many such wayes are with him Each of these affect a community and yet the aspect of them are so intricate and clouded that deep thoughts are needful to determine when we see the Mercy we expect or the Judgment which we fear You may perceive that the Case before me though it seemeth so popular is not so easily decided But the greatest Difficulty is to adjust the Nature of Repentance as accommodated to our expectation of National Mercies Which will fall under the next Head Fifthly The Case resolved and somewhat concerning the Rule by which it is resolved The Rule by which we must determine this is hinted in the Case it self The Rule to decide the Case by under those Words what Repentance doth God require Some Expression of the Divine Will must guide us we must not judge by Second Causes or by vain Fancy as we are too apt to do Neither too rigid nor yet too compassionate Inclinations must decide the Matter or lead our Expectations The Directions of the Soveraign Ruler of Kingdoms must alone take place what Notices he hath vouchsafed must be regarded with Reverence natural Principles due Inferences from his Essential Perfections the Nature Order Ends and Methods of his Government well considered and an Observation of his Dealings with our selves in past times and also with other Countreys do all contribute some light in the Matter before us But our chiefest regard must be to the Scriptures especially to such parts of them as urge Repentance on a people with Promises of good in case of compliance and Threatnings of Ruin upon their Obstinacy Also such parts should be observed as contain instances of National Repentance which have been succeeded or accompanied with National Mercies By this rule we must determine what that Repentance for National Sins is whereupon we may expect National Mercies Here we must consider Repentance modified as a means to this proper end viz. National Mercies And it s to be considered as to that lowest degree which will support our expectations of those Mercies Having premised this I think it may thus be determined 1. A Repentance short of that which is injoyned in order to Eternal Salvation will suffice to warrant our expectations of National Mercies Eternal Issues are not determined by the same Rules as Temporal Blessings Unregenerate persons may repent so as to divert present Judgments and secure Mercies This is evident in Ahab and Nineveh 1 King 21.29 Jonah 3. If it were not so we could not expect National Mercies before the generality of a Land became true Converts yea active Converts For Regenerate Persons that shall possess Heaven may come short in that Repentance which secures Blessings to a Nation Saving Repentance is the Grace we calls sinners to by our Ministry the more of this prevaileth in a Land the more sure are the Mercies of that people Without it a Nation will soon run into new forfeitures and bring plagues on it self at last as Niniveh did Nah. ch 2. 3. This saving Repentance is a change of Heart as well as Practice it strikes at the root and excludeth the Dominion of all Sin as well as National Provocations It hath a mixture of Divine Love reigning in the Heart as well as Fear It s excited by a sence of pardoning Mercy through the Blood of Christ as well as Gods Wrathful displeasure it s an effect of the Spirit in-dwelling and not onely of its common Operations it s the fruit of the Divine Life and not meerly of Natural Principles excited by Forreign impressions In these and the like saving Repentance exceeds that Repentance of a Land which yet may afford expectations of National Mercies 2. The Repentance which yields us ground to expect National Mercies I shall describe in these following particulars 1. It hath several things wherein it partakes of the nature and sincerity of a true Repentance 2. It must be for National Sins 3. The Repentance must usually be National 4. It must be suited to the different condition and circumstances of such as make up a Nation 1. It must have so much of the nature and sincerity of a true Repentance as is included in these following heads 1. Clear Convictions of the guilt and offences of a Nation We must believe those things to be sins
there are many to whom the Interests of Christ were more valuable than to allow their Labors to serve any base Design But this of late was found the way of Church Preferments wherewith too many complied and made the Pulpit a Stage for a poor Oration rather than a place to testifie for God or bring Souls nigher to him Are Believers and serious Christians whom I confine not to any Sect or Party free from contributing to fill up the Measure of our Iniquity Oh that they were then should my Soul rejoyce in Hope but it s otherwise Alass how much have they made the vilest Abominations their own by not Mourning for them and by their Carnal Liberty contributing to them Our Gold is become dross How unedifying are their Discourses Isa 1.22 How unexemplary is their Walking Each one seeks himself and none the things of Christ Circumspectness is laid by as unfashionable The Virgins all slumber and sleep How few dare plead the Cause of God Matth. 25.5 or do express his Image What heartless Duties froward Passions notorious Pride and neglect of Education of Children Fast-days are kept without Humiliation Sacraments and Sermons are become Lifeless God is sensibly withdrawn and none bemoan it Religion is dying and none uphold it What a Chilness on the love of Saints to each others What sordid Divisions and Distances A new Standard of Godliness is erected viz. a Zeal for Parties and selfish Interests under pretence of Christs Interests Whiles what is essentially and undoubtedly his recommends men little How little do good men relish that Life Light and Love which is purely Divine Can I excuse Dissenters as such No To say nothing of some of them immersed in destructive Errors alass the more Orthodox have a share in polluting and exposing the Nation A vain Itch hath seized much of our Ministry we study to please rather than profit We envy one another run into Extreams because others come not up to Divine Institutions We overlook the Mercy of our Ease and Liberty because we abound not as others do Tremble Oh my Soul to think how many even of them persecute by Railing lying Reports Non-communion and censuring the state of Souls for Non-compliance with doubtful Notions Too many set up uninstituted Terms of Communion destroy the Pastoral Office promote little designs with base Tricks and grossest Lying under the covert of Equivocation and Surmizes Were it not that some breath another Spirit and more suitable to the Divine Nature and the Gospel of Christ I should sit down with Horror and give up the Land for lost The shadow hath sensibly eaten up the Substance we have fancied talked and disputed a Gospel Frame and practical Holiness almost out of the Land A dead form is that which most are content with and carnally plead for whiles they profess more purity and power than others Are these Evils in the Land or no Are they Sins Are they not General Arise O God! and Convince us embitter them to us Oh was there ever more need to crave the powrings out of thy Spirit now its recesses are so manifest How discernable will be its powrings out if thou bless us therewith 2. I do in the Name of God Call you to this true Repentance for these National Sins VVe have nothing else left to relieve us our begun Deliverance will be Abortive yea more destructive without Repentance VVhat Nation ever needed Repentance more whom hath God oftener Called and more expresly warned He hath long waited to be Gracious and must he destroy us at last when weary of Repenting The Ruins of all our Neighbours cry to us Repent or you will be more Miserable than we are God seems to be on his way to you with the Dregs of the Cup. Our Sins are of the grossest Nature the longest Continuance and sorest Aggravations Jer. 8.5 How oft has God punished this Land for them and yet we hold them fast What variety of Judgments hath he essayed our Reformation by but in Vain Thou Londons Plague and Flames shall not they Reform thee Will not former streams of Blood extinguish our Lusts and Divisions Shall we force God to repeat them VVe were lately on the brink of Ruin and yet the same Malignant Formal and Irreligious Temper revives God hath by a Train of Miracles respited our wo and begun our Deliverance Ezra 9.14 but what are any sort of men amended Methinks we should have past our own doom with Ezra Should we again break thy commandment c. Wouldst thou not be angry with us till thou hadst consumed us so that there should be no remnant nor escaping These Abominations are yet more odious by our Profession and Advantages To be acted by such a Notion wearing a Christian Name these Villanies were tollerable among Pagans in comparison of us but in a place of Light we have thus Transgressed in a Land of Uprightness we have been thus Vile Isa 26.10 Oh the Convictions Struggles and Helps we must have trampled on The many Vows we have broken in all these Transgressions Yet in the midst of our Rebellion God renews his Call repent Oh sinful Nation Let the Cry of Mourners be heard in our Streets Oh let shame cover our Face if you have any pity for your selves or Posterity truly repent at last View the National Mercies you may enjoy by Repenting and that you are sure to loose by hardening your Hearts against it Read them over again where I named them are they not valuable enough to excite your Reformation Oh that all would concur in their places to Reform VVhen will Magistrates restrain Sin disanul all bad Laws and state the terms of our Ministry and Communion so that all may be useful and not spoil their efficacy by guilt contracted at their admission nor perpetuate our divisions the consequences whereof have been so dismal and are like to be more so When will Ministers engage in the Reformation of the Land by faithful Warnings sharp Reproofs good Examples plain and importunate Pleadings Will the grosly scandalous Gentry and People abhor their enormities and put away their great provocations whose cry is gone up to the Heavens Shall Englands Mercy be secured by a revival of Strictness of Life more Love and Power among Professors Will you be your Country and Churches plagues That great good which Primitive Saints rejoyced in the hope of or overwhelming Judgments which Posterity will be astonished at do depend upon the return we shall make to Gods present Call Mercies of the most Glorious Nature are in the Birth and shall your even your impenitence stifle them Oh return and if you will return let it be to the Lord your God Jer. 4.1 All changes that amount not to this will avail us nothing Your Prayers your Fast-days are as water spilt on the ground without Reformation How can I cease till the generality be perswaded to do this Lam. 5.21 Hos 5.4 which is so
sence of the believing World Believers generally know as having found it by experience that they are naturally impotent to spiritual good They find much weakness in themselves after grace is wrought in them and nothing but weakness before God work it They acknowledge they cannot work any degree of grace in themselves when some already they have much less could they work it in themselves when they really had none And how come others to have more strength than they Did not they fall in Adam Or had his Apostasie a less malignant influence upon them than upon others How come they to have such a reserve of Spiritual strength when the rest of the World hath lost it 4. If they can work repentance in themselves why do they not do it sooner Why do they defer it so long when they cannot deny but one time or other it must be wrought Is it a fit return to God for the goodness he hath shewn them all their days to live in sin all their days and turn to him when they can live no longer in it Or will it be an acceptable answer to him when he calls them to a reckoning that they had not served sin long enough nor had their fill of their lusts or else they would have turned to him sooner 5. And how many be there who to encourage themselves in their present impenitency and the enjoyments of their sinful pleasures fancy they can turn themselves when they please yet if God open their eyes and awaken their Consciences and they begin in good earnest to set themselves to labour after repentance they are soon convinced of the hardness and deadness of their Hearts and their utter disabilities to such a work and are fain in spight of all their high thoughts and conceits of themselves to look up to God and implore his assistance and depend upon him for the working of that grace in them which they fondly imagined they could work in themselves 5. God may not give them grace to repent when they come to die Admit they have time and means yet God may not give a blessing to the means Let it be considered First To how few God ever gives repentance at the last even of those who have as good means and helps as their weak and dying condition will admit of It is one of the saddest parts of a Ministers work to visit dying sinners How few do they leave any better than they find them How few give any hopes of a through change wrought in them How few can they perswade to believe in Christ when they have an hundred times before rejected him How few can they bring to repentance then when they never minded it before Ministers even the best are but Men and not God flesh and not Spirit and means instructions exhortations are but means whose whole efficacy depends on Gods co-operation with them and when he with-holds his Blessing they are altogether ineffectual When they judge of man's eternal State though their judgment is not to be rash nor peremptory yet it should be reasonable some good grounds they should have for it But alas if they keep to Scripture-rules in how few of them that never repented before do they find when dying so much as a foundation for a charitable judgment of their Spiritual state 1. If we set aside those that die in gross ignorance of the things of God of the very first Principles of Religion the nature of God the Offices of Christ the ends of his Death the necessity of satisfaction for sin the nature and use of Faith the terms of the Covenant c. Ignorant indeed of those truths some knowledge of which is necessary to the very being of saving Grace How many such do we find and what hope can we have of the truth of their Repentance and so of their Salvation How can their Hearts be holy when their Minds are so blind What Heavenly heat can their be in there affections when there is such an hellish darkness in their understandings Such may read their doom Isa 27.11 2. Set aside those that die stupid without any awakenings of Conscience any sense or concernedness about their spiritual state and so die as much like Beasts as they lived 3. Those that die despairing fill'd with horror and void of hope overwhelmed with the sense of sin the thoughts of approaching vengeance and a fearful expectation of appearing before the Tribunal of that righteous God whom they cannot escape and dare not trust They have not hearts to pray to him hope in him or commit their Souls into his hands when they die having never loved nor served nor regarded him while they lived 4. Those that die presuming Such are the ignorant before mentioned such are Formalists Moralists proud Pharisees conceited self-justifiers The Innocency of their Conversation the Profession they make or the Duties they perform are the righteousness by which they expect to be justified Nay how many after a Life of sin hope to be saved meerly by the mercy of God without respect to any righteousness at all either of Justification or Sanctification either imputed to them or inherent in them either that whereby they may have a title to glory or meetness for it Sure I am such as these are void of repentance and when the greatest part of dying Sinners may be reduced to one or other of these sorts to how few doth God give repentance at the last of those who did not before seek it of him Secondly With how many is the day of Grace past and the time of God's patience run out and then we may be sure God will not give them repentance They have so many times rejected the counsel of God against themselves Luke 7.30 refused the Offers of Grace turned a deaf ear to the calls of the Gospel stiffned their necks and refused to return that now they are past it God that waited on them so long will wait no longer They had a time of acceptation a day of salvation 2 Cor. 6.2 but that being over they are to have no more God was nigh to them and might have been found of them Isa 55.7 but is now withdrawn from them and they may seek Christ and die in their sins John 8.21 the may seek and not find call and God give them no answer Prov. 1.28 Thirdly God may have judicially hardned their Hearts when they had sinfully hardened them before And this seems to be one great cause of that stupidness and insensibleness we so often find in Sinners at the time of death True God infuseth no sin into them yet he may wholly abandon them to the power of the hardness they have contracted and give them up into the Devils hands to delude and blind to act and manage them according to his pleasure and their own corrupt inclinations They may not have so much as an heart to desire to repent or pray to God for Grace to enable them to to it all those