he had reproved us for breach of Commands for Omission and Neglect of Sacrifices we would have taken with it But what means this reproof for well doing The Lord is a hard Master if we neglect Sacrifices and offer up the worst of the Flock he is angry If we have a care of them and offer them punctually and keep appoynted days precisely he is angry what shall we do to please him I think many of you are put to as great a Non-plus when your prayers and repentance and fasting is quarreled Do ye not say in your hearts we know not what to do Ministers are angry at us if we pray not and ouâ— praying they cry out against They command us to Repent and Fast and yet say that God will abhore both these This is a Mystery and we shall endeavour to unfold it to you from the World It concerns us to know how God is pleased with our publick Services and Fastings For the most part of people have no more Religion Ye all I know desire to know what True Religion is Consult the Scriptures and search them for there ye shall find Eternal Life We frame to our self a wrong Patern and Coppy of it and so we judge our selves wrong Our narrow Spirits do not take in the Latitude of the Scriptures Religion but taking in one part it excludes another and thinks God rigid if it be not taken of our hand so But I pray consider these three things which seem to make up the good Old Way the Religion of the Old and New Testament First Religion takes in all the Commands it is universal hath respect to all the Commandments Psal 119. 6. It carries the two Tables in both-hands the first Table in the right hand and the second in the left These are so intirely conjoyned that if ye receive not both ye cannot receive any truely Secondly it takes in all the man his Soul and Spirit al 's well as his Body Nay it principally includes that which is principal in the man his Soul and Spirit his Mind and Affections If ye divide these ye have not a man present but a body And what fellowship can bodies have with him who in a Spirit If ye divide these among themselves ye have not a Spirit indeed present If the mind be not present surely the heart cannot but if the mind be and the heart away Religion is not Religion but some empty Speculation The mind cannot serve but by the heart Where the heart is there a man is reckoned to be Thirdly it takes in Jesus Christ as all and excludes altogether a mans self He worships God in the Spirit but he rejoyces not in himself and in his spirit but in Jesus Christ and hath no confidence in himself or the flesh phil 3. 3 8. It includes the Soul and Spirit and all the Commands but it denyes them all and embraces Jesus Christ by Faith as the only Object of glorying into and trusting into All a mans self becomes dross in this Consideration Now the first of these is drawn from the last therefore it appears first I say an indeavour in walking in every thing Commanded of conforming our way to the present rule and patern is a stream flowing from the pure heart within A mans Soul and Affections must once be purified or it send out such Streams in Conversation And from whence doth that pure heart come Is it the Fountain and Original No certainly The heart is desperately wicked above all things and how will it cleanse it self But this purity proceeds from another Fountain from Faith in Jesus Christ And it is this that lies nearest the uncreated Fountain Christ himself it is the most immediat Conduit the Mouth of the Fountain or the Bucket to draw out of the deep Wells of Salvation All these are conjoyned in this order 1 Tim. 1. 5. The end of the Command is love Ye know Love is said elsewhere to be the fulfilling of the Law And when we say Love we mean all Duties to God and man which Love ought immediately to principle Now this Love proceeds from a pure Heart cleansed and sanctified which pure heart proceeds from Faith unfeigned So then we must go up in our searching from external obedience all alongs till we arrive at the inward Fountain of Christ dwelling in us by Faith And then have ye found true Religion indeed Now ye may think possibly we have used too much circumlocution What is all this to the present purpose Yes very much Ye shall find the Lord rejecting this peoples publick Worship and solemn Ordinances upon these three grounds either they did not joyn with them the observation of weightier Commands or they did not worship him in them with their Spirits had not Souls present or they knew not the end and use for which God had appoynted these Sacrifices and Ceremonies they did not see to the end of all which was Jesus Christ First then I say the people was much in exâ—ernal Sacrifices and Ceremonies Commanded of God but they were ignorant of the end of â—is Commands and of the use of them Ye now in themselves they had no goodness but â—nly in relation to such an end as he pleased they â—ould lead to But they stayed upon the Ceâ—emony and shadow and were not led to use it â—s a means for such an end And so though â—ey fancied that they obeyed and pleased God â—et really they wholly perverted his meaning and intention in the Command Therefore doth the Lord plead wâ—th them in this place for their Sacrificeing as if it had been Murther They used to object his Commands What sayes the Lord did I command these things Who required them Meaning eertainly who required them for such an end to take away your sin who required them but as a shadow of the substance to come Who required them but as signes of that Lamb and Sacrifice to be offered up in the fullnesse of time And for asmuch as ye passe over all these and think to please me with the external Ceremony was that ever my intent or meaning Certainly ye have fancied a new Law of your own I never gave such a Law Therefore it is said Psal 50. 13. God pleads just after this manner Will I eat the flesh of Bulls or drink the blood of Goats c. And Micah 6. 7. Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rammes or with ten thousands of rivers of oyl He who hath no pleasure in sinful men what pleasure can he have in beasts Therefore it was to signify to them who thought God would be pleased with them for their offering that he could not endure them it was worse to him to offer him such a recompense then if they had done none at all Hâ— is only well pleased in his well beloved Son And when they separat a Lamb or a Bullocâ— from the well bâ—loved what was it to him morâ— nor a dogs neck or swines flesh It was
purpose by Gods Grace to take more hold of God There is little minding of Duty and that maketh little doing of it Once ingage your hearts to a love and desire of more of this come to a point of resolution I must know him more and trust more in him be more acquant with him And Secondly Put your self in the way of Duty It is God that only can stirr you up or apply your hearts to the using of violence to God But ye would be found in the outward means much and in these ways God will meet with you if you wait on him in them For thou hast bid thy face from us Here is the greatest plague a spiritual plague The last Verse was but the beginning of sorrows We all do fade c. But lo here the accomplishnent of Misery God hiding his face and consuming them in the hand of their sins First The Lords hiding of his Face and giving up a people to melt away in their sins punishing with judicial blindness and security is the worst Judgment it filleth the Cup full This complaint goeth on still worse And certainly it is worse nor their fading as a leaf and exile out of their Land It is not without reason that great troubles and afflictions are so expressed thou hid thy face As David said thou hidst thy face and I was troubled importing as much as it â— not trouble that doth trouble but Gods hideing of his Face that maketh trouble troublâ— It is in so far trouble as it is a sign of his displeasure and as the frowns of his Countenance are upon it Therefore the Sainâ— aggravating their Affliction say thou hideâ— thy face You know the face is the placâ— wherinto either kindness or unkindness appeareth The Lords Countenance or Face is a refreshful sweet manifestation of himself to a Soul It is the Lord using familiarity with a spirit and this made David more glad nor Corn and Wine Now the hideing of the Face the withdrawing of his Countenance is when the Lord in his Dispensation and dealing doth withhold the manifestation of himself either in life or consolation When he covereth himself with Clouds round about that neither can a soul see in to the backside of it into his own warm heart nor can the Sun-beames shine thorow to quicken and refresh the soul The Lord draweth over his Face a Vail of a crossing dispensation or such like There is a desertion of the soul in the point of life and spiritual action and there is a desertion in regard of consolation The varieties of the Lords desertions run upon these two As a Christians life is action or consolation and the Lords influence is either quickening or comforting so his withdrawing is either a prejudice to the one or the other Sometimes he goeth mourning all the day nay but he is sick of love Sometime he is a bottle dryed in the smoak and his moisture dried up The Christians consolation may be substracted and his life abide but he cannot have spiritual consolation if he be not lively This life is more substantial comfort is more refreshful life is more solid comfort sweet that is true growing â—olid meat â—his but sawce to eat it with The hiding here meant is certainly a spiritual punishment The Lord denying unto this people grace to understand the voice of the rod he appearing as a party against them leaving them to their own carnal and lazie temper and thus they lay still under Gods displeasure Now there is nothing like this first because it is a spiritual punishment and estates are not to be valued and laid in the ballance with the soul Albeit men are become so brutish as to abase their souls and prostitute them to any thing yet all a man hath is not considerable to it Secondly It is a more excellent thing is removed by it In his favour is life all felicity and happiness is in Gods countenance If a man have not this what hath he else Losses are according as the thing is Nay but here is more My Lord is taken from me my God hath forgotten me And indeed if mans true happiness be in communion with God certainly any interruption coming in must be sad and make a man more miserable then the world knoweth There is a greater emphasis in that word Thou hast bid thy face then if he had said All the world hideth their face and maketh a scorn oâ— us Therefore first know what is the worsâ— thing of the times Many of you think sword and pestilence and the burdens of the time the worst things and if you were now to complain the saddest complaint would be Affliction is laid on our loins But know this if your Cities were desolate if your Land were made a wilderness and we captives in another Land there is yet a worse thing then all these and think you not this strange Nay I say there is something worse already in us that we know not of and it is this Make the hearts of this people hard A spirit of slumber and deadness from the Lord upon the Land There are multitudes he will never shew his face unto it is still vailed from them and they know him not Ye that think all were well if ye had peace and prosperity and know no hiding of Gods countenance no anger but when he striketh certainly you know not what his countenance is by all these things men neither know love nor hatred Secondly Whatever calamity come upon you outwardly deprecat most spiritual plagues and Gods deserting If you have Gods countenance it may make you glad in much sadness You would be most careful lest any partition-wall come in lest his countenance change on you if you grieve his spirit and break his heart Seek to have his face to shine and this shall be a Sun with healing under his wings O but Christs countenance is comely when it is seen without clouds but ofteâ— it is overclouded with much provocation Secondly The Lords hiding of his face hath influence on the temper of spirits and disposition in duties The truth is in general In him we live and move and â—ave our beeing And more especially in many things that is spiritual we are of our selves able to do nothing The creatures holiness and especially our life is but as the rayes that the Sun of Righteousness sendeth forth round about him and if any thing come between it evanisheth As the Marigold that openeth itâ— leaves when the Sun riseth and closeth when it goeth down again so exactly doth our spiritual constitution follow the motions of his countenance and depend wholly on them Thou hides thy face and they are troubled Psal 104. 9. The Lord needeth no more but discountenance us and we are gone Alwayes first be more dependent creatures we use to act as from habits within without any subordination to the Lords grace without us but we find that our sufficiency is not of our self How often doth your spiritual condition change on you in an hour You cannot command one thought of God or act from any habit of grace even then when you can bring forth other gifts in exercise Ye find that grace findeth more difficulties moe interruptions therefore learn to attend the changes and motions of his countenance Secondly When you find your heart dead and you concluded under an impossibility of taking hold on God in a lively manner then I pray you look unto the Lords suspending of his influence and let your whole endeavours be at the Throne of Grace to help it It will not be vour own provoking of your self to your duty but you must put your self upon God that he may cause his face to shine Thirdly Though the Lords hiding his face be often a cause of our deadness and his desertion maketh all to wither yet we have often a culpable hand in it And he hides his â—â—ce being provoked so to do One thing we may mention Grieving of the Holy Ghost whereby we are sealed quenching the motions of the Spirit maketh the Spirit cover his face with a vail and hide it There is here ordinarily a reciprocal or mutual influence Our grieving him makes him withdraw his countenance and his withdrawing his countenance maketh us to wither and grow barren Fourthly The most sure and infallible token of the Lords hiding his face is security and a spirit of deadness and laziness when folk go about duties dreaming and do all as it were thorow their sleep Therefore we may conclude sad things on this Land that the Lord hideth his face from us And therefore arise and do not settle and quiet your selves in such a condition The Lord is angry needeth any more be said No more needeth to kind children but the rod must follow this to make anger sensible FINIS
into it thaâ— if none of the world should be of that mind he would not change it Though all should walk in other ways he would choose to be rather alone in this then in the greatest croud of company in any other Now I say when we have such a Coppy cast us a man of excellenâ— parts in sobriety and sadnesse choosing that way which all in words confesse to be the best should not this awake us out of our dreams and raise us up to some more attention and consideration of what we are doing The words you see are the holy resolution of a holy heart concerning that which is the chiefest Good You see the way to happinesse and you find the particular application of that to Davids Soul or of his Soul to it We shall speak a word of the thing it self then of the commendation of it then of the application of it For the thing it self drawing near to God it gives us some ground to take a view of the posture in which men are found by nature far off from God Our condition by nature I cannot so fitly expresse as in the Apostles words Epâ— 2. 12. Without Christ Aliens from the commoâ— wealth of Israel strangers from the Covenant of Promise having no hope and without God in the World A deplorable estate indeed hopelessâ— and helplesse No hope in it that is the extremity of misery the refuse of all conditions Without Christ and without God O! these are words of infinite weight Without those without whom iâ— is simply impossible to be happy and without whom it is not possible but to be miserable without the Fountain of Light Life and Consolation without which there is nothing but pure darknesse without any beam of light Nothing but death without the least breathing of life Nothing but vexation without the least drop of consolation In a word without these and wanting these whom if you want it were good to be spoyled of all beeing to be nothing if that could be or never to have been any thing Men will seek death and cannot find it O! what a losse and deprivement is the losse of God which makes death more desireable then life and not to be at all infinitly preferable to any beeing Now it is true that the bringing in of multitudes within the pale of the Visible Church is some degree of accesse and nearnesse to God for then they bâ—come Citizens as to external right in the Common-wealth of the Church and have the offers of the Promises made to them in respect of which visible standing the Apostle speaks of the whole Church of Ephesus But now ye are made near who were far off v. 13. notwithstanding that many of them were found afterwards to have left their first Love Rev. 2. But yet Beloved to speak more inwardly and as your Souls stand in the sight of God The generality of those who are near hand in outward Ordinances are yet far off from God in reality without God and without Christ as really as touching any Soul feeling as those who are altogether without The bond of Peace and Union was broken in Paradise sin dissolved it and broke off that nearnesse and friendship with God and from that day to this day there hath been an infinite distance and separation betwixt Man and God The steps and degrees of it are many There is darknesse and blindnesse in mens minds Such ignorance naturally possesseth the multitude so that it wholly Alienats them from the Life of God Eph. 4. 18. For what fellowship can Light that pure Light have with such grosse Darknesse as is among us This certainly is the removal of that Sun of Righteousnesse from our Souls or the imposition of the Clouds of transgression that makes it so dark a night in the Souls of Men. And then there is nothing but enmity and desperate wickednesse in the heart of man and this keeps the strong hold of the Affections Rom. 8. Jer. 17. There cannot be a further elongation or separation of the Soul from God then to turn so opposite in all inclinations and dispositions to his Holy Will For the distance between God and us is not local in the point of place For whither shall we go from him who is every where And thus he is near hand every one of us but it is also real in the difformity and repugnancy of our Natures to his Holy Will But add unto this that being thus separated in Affection and disjoyned as it were in natural Dispositions we cannot draw near to God in any Ordinance as the Word Prayer c Though we may as that People draw near with out lips and ask of him our duty and seem to delight to know him Yet there is this natural incapacity and crookednesse in the heart of man that it cannot truely approach unto the Father of Spirits with any Soul desire and delight But their hearts are removed far from me Isa 6. 9. Mat. 4. 12. I think men might observe that their Souls act not in Religious businesse as they should but that they remove their Souls many Myles distant from their Bodies and they cannot keep any constancy in this approach of Prayer to God cannot walk with him in their Conversation or carry him along in their Meditation But there is one point of estrangement and separation superadded to all that there is no man can come near to God without an Oblation and Offering of Peace That there is no approaching to him but as to a consuming Fire except we can bring a Sacrifice to appease and a Present to please him for our infinite offences There the difference stands we cannot draw near to walk together till we be agreed And truely this unto man is impossible for we have nothing so precious as the Redemption of our Souls nothing can compense infinite Wrongs or satisfie infinite Justice Now this seems to make our nearnesse again desperate and to put men furthest off from Hope Notwithstanding this is the very purpose of the Gospel Preached from the beginning of the World to remove that distance and to take impediments of meeting out of the way For that great obstruction the want of a Sacrifice and Ransome the Lord hath supplied it he himself hath furnished it And it was the great designe carried on from the beginning of the World But as the Sun the nearer he is the more the Earth is Enlightened so here first some dawning of Light appears as a Messenger of Hope to tell that the Redeemer shall come that the True Sacrifice shall be slain then still the nearer his own appearing the clearer are the Manifestations of him and the great designe is more opened up till at length he breaks out in Glory from under a Cloud and shews himself to the World to be that Lamb of God that should take away the sins of the World And now as the Apostle to the Hebrewes speaks Chap. 7. 19. The Law made nothing perfect but
he answers roughly Pro. 18. 23. As Solomon gives the Character of him How many vain and empty Gloriations are there about the point of Birth and Place and what foolish contentions about those as if it were Children strugling among themselves about the order and rank There is no worth in these things but what fancy and custom impose upon them and yet poor Creatures boast in these empty things The Gentle Men despise Citizens the Citizens contemn the poor Countrey Men and yet their Bloods in a Bason have no different Colours For all this hot contention about Blood and Birth Boast not of thy self Nay to speak properly this is not thy self Qui genus laudat suum aliena jactat Such Parents and such a House is nothing of thy own these are meer extrinsick things which neither be a honour to unworthy men nor a disgrace to one who is worthy You see Beloved in the Lord what is now the natural posture or inclination of our Souls in this degenerat and fallen Estate as the Rivers of Paradise have changed their Channels and Course since the fall so hath mans Affections and so hath his Gloriation so that it may be truely said that our Glory is our Shame and not our Glory Many glory in Iniquity and Sin Psal â—0 3. And 94 4. But that shall undoubtedly be their shame and confusion before Men and Angels How many godless persons will Glory in swearing heinous and deep Oaths and some have contended about the victory in it you accompt it a point of gallentry but this Triumph is like the Devils in Hell upon the devouring of Souls Some boast of drinking and being able to drink others under the Table But we should be humbled and mourn for such Abominations Certain I am that many boast of wicked designs and malâ—tious projects against their Neighbours If they can accomplish them They accompt their Glory not to take a wrong without giving a greater Nor to suffer an evil word without twenty worse in recompense Alas this Boasting will one day be turned into gnashing of Teeth and this Gloriation into that gnawing and ever-tormenting Worm of Conscience And what will ye do in the day of that visitation and where shall be your glory But the most part Glory and boast in things that profit not and will become their shame because they glory in them that is these Gifts of God outward or inward Temporal or Spiritual wherein there is any advancement above others Unto whom I would seriously commend this Sentence to be pondered duely Boast not of thy self Whatsoever thou art or whatsoever thou hast boast not of thy self for it think not much of thy self because of it Though there be a difference in Gods Donation yet let there be none in thy self-estimation Hath thou more Wisdome and Pregnancy of Wit or more Learning then another Think not more of thy self for that then thou thinkest of the Ignorant and Unlearned who want it Have that same reflection upon thine own unworthinesse that thou would think reasonable another that wants these Endowments should have Is there a greater measure of Grace in thee boast not reckon of thy self as abstracted and denuded of that And let it not add to thy value or accompt it thy self put not add to thy value or accompt it thy self put not in that to make it down-weight and to make thee prefer thy self secretly to another Whither it be some larger Fortune in the World or some higher Place and Station among Men or some Abilities and Perfections of Body or Mind which may intice the secretly to kisse thy â—and and bow down to thy self yet remember that thou boast not glory not in any thing but in the Lord Let nothing of that kind conciliat more affection to thy self or more contempt towards others Let not any thing of that kind be the rule of thy self-judgeing but rather intertain the view of the other side of thy self that is the worst and keep that most in thy Eye that thou may only glory in God If thou be a Gentlâ— Man labour to be al 's humble in Heart as thou thinkest a Countrey Man or poor Tenant should be If thou be a Scholar be al 's low in thy own sight as the unlearned should be If Rich count not thy self any whit better then the poor Yea the higher God set the in place or parts the lower thou ought to set thy self Boast not of thy self for any thing in thy self or belonging to thy self for the property of all Good is taken from us since the fall and it is fallen in Gods Hand since we forefeited it and there is nothing now properly ours but evil that is our self SERMON VII Prov. 27. 1. Boast not thy self of to morrow for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth AS man is naturally given to Boasting and Gloriation in something for the Heart cannot want some Object to rest upon and take complacency into it is framed with such a capacity of employing other things so there is a strong inclination in man towards the time to come he hath an Immortal appetite and an appetite of Immortality and therefore his desires usually stretch farther then the present Hoâ—â— And the more Knowledge he hath above other Creatures the more Providence he hath and foresight of the time to come And so he often anticipats future things by present Joy and Rejoycing in them as he accelerats in a manner by his earnest desires and endeavours after them Now if the Soul of man were in the Primitive Integrity and had as clear and pearcing an Eye of Understanding as once it had this Providence of the Soul would reach to the furthest period in Time that is to Eternity which is the only just measure of the endurance of any Immortal Spirit But since the Eye of mans Understanding is darknesse and his Soul disordered he cannot see afar off nor so clearly by far He is now as you say Sand-blind can see nothing at such a distance as beyond the bounds of Time can see nothing but at hand to morrow this is the narrow Sphere of poor mans comprehension All he can attain unto is to be provident for the present Time I call it all present even that which is to come of our Time because in regard of Eternity it hath no part it hath no flux or succession it is so soon cut off as a moment as the twinckling of an Eye And so though a man could see the end of it it is but a short and dim sight it is as if a man could only behold that which is almost contiguous with his Eye These then are the two great ruines and decayes of the Nature of man He is degenerated from God to created things and seeks his Joy and Rest in them in which there is nothing but the contrair that is vexation And then he is fallen from apprehension of Eternity and the poor Soul is confined within the
his Creature as these are and no more Isai 66. 3. Noâ— that they looked never beyond the Ceremonies it is evident because they boasted in them theâ— used to find out these as a remedy of their sins and a mean to pacifie Gods Wrath Micah 6. 6. Paul bears witnesse of it 2 Cor. 13. 14. Moses had a Vail of Ceremonies over his Face and the Children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that Mystery Christ Jesus but their minds were blinded and is so to this day in the reading of the Scriptures And this Vail of hardness of heart shall be done away when Christ returnes them again Now I say it is just so with us there was never a people liker other nor we are like the Jews We have many external Ordinances Preaching Hearing Baptism Communion Reading Singing Praying in publick Extraordinary Solemnities of Fasting and Thanksgiving Works of Discipline and Government publick Reproof to sinners Confessions and Absolutions What would ye think if we should change the terms of Sacrifices and new Moons and speak all this to you To what purpose is the multitude of your Fasts and Feasts of your Preachings and Communions of your Praying in secret and in your Families of Conference and Prayer with others of running to and fro to hear Preaching â—o partake of the Lords Table I am full of them â— delight not in them When ye come here on â—he Sabbath who required at your hand to read my Courts Come no more to hear the Word run no more after Communions seek â—o more Baptism to your Children call no â—ore Solemn Assemblies it is all iniquity Oh â—ay ye that is a strange Preaching indeed must â—e Pray no more Hear no more Sing no more Did not God command these Why do ye discharge them We do not mean so that these should not be but they should be in another way All these want the Soul and Life of them which is Jesus Christ in them Do ye not think your selves religious because ye frequent these The multitude of the people think that these please God and pacifie his Wrath Ye have no other thing in your mind but these If ye can attain any sorrow or grief for sin or any tears to signify it presently you absolve your selves for your repentance The scandalous who appear in publick thinks the paying of a penalty to the Judge and bowing the knee before the Congregation satisfies God Ye miss nothing when ye have these I speak to the professors of Religion also who pretend to more knowledge then others when ye have gone about so many Duties ye are well satisfied if ye get liberty in them If ye can satisfy your self ye doubt not of Gods satisfaction And if ye do not satisfy your selves in your Duties ye cannot believe his satisfaction Ye get the Ordinance and misses nothing Now I say in all this ye do not reacâ— to the end of this Ministry Jesâ—s Christ ye dâ— not stedfastly behold him to empty your selveâ— in his bosom to turn over all the unrighteousness of your holy things upon him who bearâ— it That which pleaseth you is not he in whom the Father is well pleased but the measure oâ— your own Duty O! the Establishing of ouâ— own Righteousness is the ruine of the Visiblâ— Church This is the grand Idol and all Sacrifice to it Know therefore that the most part of your performances are abomination and iniquity because ye have so much confidence in them and puts them not upon Christ as filthy raggs or do not cover them with his Righteousness as well as your wickedness I know ye will say that ye are not satisfied with them and that is still the matter of your Exercise Well I affirm in the Lords Name from that ground that ye have confidence in them for if your diffidence and disquietness arise from it your confidence and peace must come from it also Is there any almost that maintains Faith except when their own conditions please them well And that Faith I may call no Faith at least not pure and cleanly entire Faith As for the multitude of you you must know this that God is not pleased with your prayers and fasting and hearing c. Because ye have such an esteem of them because ye can settle your selves against all Threatnings and never once remember of Jesus Christ or consider the end of his coming into the world Because ye find no necessity of pardon for your prayers and righteousness but stretches the garment of these over the uncleanness of your practices What delight hath the Lord in them when they are put in his Sons place Will he not be jealous that his Sons Glory be not given to another In the second place the Lord rejects their performances because there was nothing but a meer shadow of service and no worshipping of God in the Spirit Ye know what Christ saith God is a Spirit and he that worships him must do it in spirit and truth Jo. 4. 24. It is thâ— Heart and Soul that God delights into Mâ— son give me thy heart for if thou give not hy heart I care for nothing else The heart iâ— the whole man What a mans Affection is that he is Light is not so it brings not thâ— man alongs with it Christ Jesus hath giveâ— himself for us and he requires that we offer ouâ— selves to him If we offer a Body to frequenâ— his House our Feet to tread in his Courts ouâ— Ears to hear his Word what cares he for it aâ— long as the Soul doth not offer it self up in Prayer or Hearing And this was the sin of thiâ— people Isai 29. 13. They draw near with thâ— lips and their heart is far from the Lord. Now are not we their Children and have succeeded to this Is there any thing almost in our publick Services but what is publick Is therâ— any thing but what is seen of men Ye comâ— to hear ye sit and hear and is there any more The most part have their minds wandering no thoughts present for your thoughtâ— are removed about your Barns and Corns oâ— some business in your head And if any havâ— their Thoughts present yet where are Affections Which are the Soul and Spirit of Religion without which it is no true fire but wildâ— fire if it be not both burning and shinning Are ye serious in these Ordinances Or ratheâ— are ye not more serious in any thing beside And now especially when Gods Providencâ— calls you to earnest thoughts when it crys to alâ— men to enter into consideration of their owâ— ways I pray you is there any Soul-affliction in your Fasts even for a day Is there any real grief or token of it Not a Fast in Scripture without weeping We have kept many and have never advanced so far Shall the Lord then be pacified Will not his Soul abhore them How shall they appease him for your other provocations when they are as Oyl to
his hope he hath no reason to change his hope The Lord hath often done things we looked not for but we never looked for any thing according to the grounds of the word but it was done or a better then it He doth not always answer our limitations but if he give Gold when we sought Silver are we not answered Are we disappoynted There are three things that use most to disquiet and toss mens spirits sin and wrath future events and present calamities Faith establisheth the Soul on God in all these and suffereth it not to be driven to and fro with these winds It finds a harbour and refuge in God from all these If he be pursued by the avenger of blood Gods Wrath and Justice here is an open City of Refuge that he may run to and be safe If iniquities compass me about yet I will not fear but oppose unto that great company the many sufferings and obedience of Jesus Christ My coâ—science challengeth and writteth bitter things against me yet I have an answer in that blood that speaketh better things nor Abels If sinns prevail he will purge them away His Mercy is above all my â—â—n and his Vertue and Power is above my sin He hath promised and will he not do it Oftimes mens Souls are perplexed and tossed about future Events careful for to morrow this is a great torment of spirit it cutteth and divideth it putteth a man to his own providence as if there were no God But he that trusteth in God is established in this his heart is fixed trusting in the Lord he hath commited his Soul to him and why may he not his body He hath nothing but his promise for eternal Salvation and may not that same suffice for temporal He careth for me saith Faith why then should we both care about one thing He hath given his Son for me the most precious gift which the world cannot match and will he not with him give all these lesser things And thus the Believer incloseth himself within the fathers love and providence and iâ— fixed not fearing evil tidings For what tydings can be evil seing our Father hath the Soveraign disposing of all Affairs and knoweth what is best for us Present dispensations often shake men and driveth them to and fro their feet slip and are not established thou bid thy face and I was troubled But if you trusted in God and considered what is in him to oppose to all difficulties and calamities you would say I shall not be moved though the floods lift up their voice If you believed his love would not this sweetten all his dealing He maketh all work together for good Soveraignty Righteousness and Mercy are sure and firm ground to stand upon in all storms You may cast Anchor at any of those and ly secure It is the Lord let him do what be pleaseth This was enough to quiet the saints in old times Should he give account of his matters to us Sball the clay say to the potter why is it thus His absolute right by Creation maketh him beyond all exception do what he please But beside this he is pleased and condescendeth to reason with us and give account of his matters to testify to our Conscience that he is righteous in all his ways It was the ground of Jeremiahs setling Lam. 3. It is of the Lords mercy that we are not consumed It should have allayed and stayed Job know this thou art punished lesse then thy iniquities deserve who will set a time to plead with him Shall any be found righteous before him And this might stop all mens mouths and put them in the dust to keep silence seing he hath Law to do infinitely more then he doth why should not we rather proclaim his Clemency then argue him so very hard If to both those you shall add the consideration of his Mercy that all his pathâ— are Mercy and Truth unto you even when he correcteth most severely so that you may blesse him as well for Rods as for Meat and Cloathing and count your self blessed when you are taught by the Rod and the Word the one speaking to the other aâ— the other sealing its instruction If you believâ— that it were a fruit of his Love He chasteneth â—very son whom he loveth that because he will nâ— let you depart from him will not let you settâ— upon a present world and forget your Countreâ— above therefore he compasseth you about witâ— Hedges of Thorns to keep in your way And therefore he maketh this world bitter and unpleasant that you may have no continuing City If all this were believed would not the soul triumph with Paul What can separat me from thâ— love of God not past things for all my sins are blotted out and shall be remembered no more not present things for they work to good and are a fruit of his Love not things to come for that is to come which shall more declare his love then what is past Would not a Soul sleep securely within the compass of this Power this Love and Faithfulness of God without fear of dashing or sinking Now judge whither a perfect peace may not flow from all this may it not be a perfect calm when the Mountains that inviron go up to Heaven Not only doth the Soul trust in God but God keepeth the trusting Soul in peace He is the creator of peace and the preservator of it I creat peace I keep him in peace The same power and vertue is required to the preserving of a thing and the first beeing of it Our Faith and Hope in God is too weak an Anchor to abide all storms Our cords would break our hands faint and weary but he is the everlasting God who failâ—â—â— not and â—â—arieth not he holdeth an invisible grip of us we are kept by his power to salvation and we are kept by his power in peace Thy right band holdeth me saith David and this helpeth me to pursue thee What maketh believers inexpugnable impregnable is it their strength No indeed but salvation will God appoynt for walls and bulwarks Almighty Power is a strong wall though invisible this power worketh in us and about us Now Believers pity the world about you that knoweth not this peace when they ly secure and cry peace peace Alas they are a City open without walls as the plain field there is no keeper there nothing to hold off destruction Entertain your own peace do not grieve the Spirit who hath sealed it If you return to folly after he hath spoken peace to you I perswade you you shall not maintain this peace there may be peace with God but no peace in thy Conscience as long as the whoredoms of thy heart are to the fore Thou may be secure but security is worse then fear Know this that continuing in a course of sin entertaining any known sin shall trouble thy peace If God have spoken peace to thee thou shalt not lodge that enemy
unto them this ground of their slacknesse and negligence in all spiritual Duties None stirreth up himself to take bold one thee Here is the want of the exercise of Faith Faith is the Souls hand and grip Jo. 1. 12. Heb. 6. 18. 1 Tim. 6. 12. Isai 27. 5. No body a waketh themselves out of their deadnesse and security to lay hold on thee Lord thou art going away and taking goodnight of the Land and no body is like to hold thee by the Garment No Jacobs here who will not let thee go till thou bless them None to prevail with thy Majesty every one is like to give Christ a free Pasport and Testimonial to go abroad and are almost Gadarens to pray him to depart out of their Coasts There is a strange lousnesse and indifferency in mens spirits concerning the one thing necessary Men ly by and dream over their days and never putteth the Souls Estate out of question None will give so much pains as to clear their interest in thee to lay hold on thee so as they may make peace with thee Now can there be a more ample and lively Description of our Estate both of the Land and of particular persons of it Since this must not be limited to the Nation of the Jews though the Prophet spake of the generality of them Yet no doubt all mankind is included in the first six-Verses And any secure people may be included in the seventh Verse for Paul applyeth even-such like speeches Rom. 13. that were spoken as you would think of Davids enemies only Yet the Spirit of God knowing the mind of the Spirit maketh a more general use of their condition to hold out the Natural Estate of all men out of Christ Jesus But there are in these two Verses other two things beside the acknowledgment of sin First the acknowledgment of Gods Righteousness in punishing them for now they need not quarrel God they find the cause of their sading in their own bosome they now joyn sin and punishment together wheras in the time of their prosperity they separated punishment from sin and in the time of their security in adversity they separated sin from punishment at one time making bare confession of sin without fear of Gods Justice at another time fretting and murmuring at his Judgments without the sense of their sin But now they joyn both these and the sight and sense of Gods displeasure maketh sin more bitter and to abound more and to appear in the loathsome and provocking nature of it so that their acknowledgement hath an edge upon it And again the sight and sense of sin maketh the Judgment appear most righteous and stoppeth their mouth from murmuring In the time of their impenitency under the Rod their language was very indifferent Ezek. 18. 2. The fathers have eaten sour graps and the childrens teeth are set on edge They have sinned and we suffer they have done the wrong and we pay for it But it is not so now verse 5. The Fathers have done righteousness in respect of us and thou was good unto them but we are all unclean and have sinned and so we are punished Secondly they find some cause and ground in God of their general defection not that he is the cause of their sin but in a righteous way he punished sin with sin God hid his Face denyed special Grace and Influence and so they ly still in their security and their sin became a spiritual plague Or this may be so read none calleth on thy Name when thou hid thy Face from us and when thou consumed us because of our iniquities And so it serveth to aggravat their deep security that though the Lord was departing from them yet none would keep him and hold him Though he did strike yet they prayed not Affliction did not awake them out of security and so the last words Thou hast consumed us c. Are differently exponed and read Some make it thus as it is in the Translation Thou hast hid thy face and left us in a spiritual deadness that so there might be no impediment to bring on deserved Judgment If we had called on thee and laid hold on thee it might have been prevented we might have prevailed with God but now our defence is removed thou hast given us up to a spirit of slumber and so we have no shield to hold of the stroak thou hast now good leave to consume us for our sins Another sense may be Thou hast suffered us to consume in our iniquity thou hast given us up to the hand of our sins And this is also a consequent of his hiding his Face because thou hid thy Face thou letteth us perish in our sins There needeth no more for our Consumption but only help us not out of them for we can soon destroy our selves First sin is in its own nature Ioathsome and maketh one unclean before God Sins nature is filthiness vileness so doth Isaiah speak of himself Chap. 6. 5. when he saw Gods Holiness So doth Job abhore himself which is the Affection which turneth a mans face off â— loathsome object when he saw God Job 40. 4. and 42 6. Look how loathsome our natural condition is holden out by God himself Ezek. 16. You cannot imagine any deformity in the Creature any filthiness but it is there The filthiness and vileness of sin shall appear if we consider first Sin is a transgression of the holy and spiritual Command and so a vile thing The Command is holy and good Rom. 7. And sin violateth and goeth flat contrary to the Command 1 Job 3 When so just and so equitable a Law is given God might have exacted other rigorous duties from us but when it is so framed that the Conscience must cry out all is equity all is righteous and more then righteous thou might command more and reward none It is Justice to Command but it is Mercy to Promise Life to obedience which I owe What then must the offence be against such a Just Command and so Holy If Holiness be the Beauty of the Creation sin must be the Deformity of it the only spot in its Face Secondly look upon sin in the sight of Gods Holiness and Infinit Majesty and O how hainous will it appear And therefore no man hath seen sin in the vileness of it but in the Light of Gods Countenance As Isai 6. 5. Job 40. and 42. God is of purer eyes then to behold iniquity he cannot look on it Hab. 1. 13. All other things beside sin God looketh on them as bearing some mark of his own Image all was very good and God saw it Gen. 1. and 2. Even the basest Creatures God looketh on them and seeth himself in them But sin is only Gods Eye-sore that his Holiness cannot away with it is most contrary unto him And as to his Soveraignty it is an high contempt and rebellion done to Gods Majesty it putteth God off the Throne will take no
your prayers a delight be upright in the thing you seek and see that you intertain no known sin give it no heart allowance Thirdly There are many prayers not heard not known because the mouth outcryeth the heart It is the sacrifice of the contrite heart that God despiseth not The prayers of this people were such Isai 29. 13. They drew near with the mouth but the heaâ—t was far away It is worship in spirit and truth that God loveth Joh 4. 23. Since Prayer is a communion of God with the Creature a meeting of one with God and speaking face to face God who is a Spirit and immortal must have a spirit to meet with a soul to speak to him Now do you not find your hearts gading abroad even in duty Is it not most about your Corns and Lands in the time of solemn worship Therefore God getteth no more but a carcasse to keep communion with He may have as much fellowship with the stones of the wall and timber of the house as he can have with your ears and mouths while you remove your hearts to attend other things And I would say more if your mind be present yet your heart is gone sometimes yea often both are gone abroad Sometimes the mind and thought stayeth but the affection and heart is not with it and so the minds residence is not constant Your thought may come in as a wayfaring man but tarrieth not all night dwelleth not Now speak to it even Christians may not your Prayers often have a contrary interpretation to what they pretend You pray so coldrifely and formally as God will interpret you have no mind to it we ask as we seemed indifferent whether our petition be granted or not Should the Lord be affected with your petitions when you your selves are not affected much Should his bowels of zeal sound within him when yours are silent It is fervent prayer availeth much Isai 5. 16. A heart sent out with the petition and gone up to Heaven cannot but bring back an answer If Prayer carry not the seal of the heart and soul in it God cannot own it or send it back with his seal of acceptation Fourthly Many Prayers are not calling on Gods Name And no wonder that when people pray yet the Spirit say None calleth on thy Name for Prayer is made as to an unknown God and God is not taken up according to his Name which are his glorious Attributes whereby he manifesteth himself in his Word To call on Gods Name is so to pray to God as to take him up as he hath revealed himself And what is the Lords Name Hear himself speak to Moses Exod. 33. 19. and 34. 6 7. The Lord the Lord God merciful and gracious long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin and that will by no means clear the guilty Now to call on this Name is for the soul in Prayer to have a suitable stamp on it every Attribute of God taking deep impression in the heart And so Gods Name to be written on the very petitions And shortly we may say the Spirit should have the impression of Gods greatnesse and Majesty of his goodnesse and mercy of his terriblenesse and justice This is the order that God proclaimeth his Name into In the entry the supplicant should behold the glorious Soveraignty and infinite distance between God and the Creature that he may have the stamp of reverence and abasement upon his spirit and may speak out of the dust as it becometh the dust of the ballance and footstool to do to him who sitteth on the circle of the Heaven as his Throne And this I must say there is little Religion and Godlinesse among us because every man is ignorant of God Even Gods children do more study themselves and their condition then Gods greatnesse and absolutenesse Who searches Gods infinitnesse in his Word and Works till he behold a wonder and be drowned in a mystery O but the Saints of old did take up God at a greater distance from the Creatures they waded far into this boundlesse Ocean of Gods Majesty till they were over head and ears and werâ— forced to cry out Who can find out the Almighty to perfection All these are but parts of him his back-parts There is more real Divinity and knowledge of God in one of Jobs friends discourses one of Davids prayerâ— then now in twenty Sermons of gracious men or many prayers or conferences of Saints But withal you must study his goodnesse and mercy and this maketh up the most part of his Name The definition of God hath most of this so that it may be said truly that mercy is his delight mercy as it were swelleth over the rest God were not accessible unlesse mercy did temper it Behold then greatnesse to humble and goodness to make bold that you may have accesse As greatness should leave the stamp of reverence on your petitions so should mercy and goodnesse imprint them with faith and confidence And that the rather because as Christ is said to be the Fathers Face and tâ— image of his Person 2 Cor. 4. 6. and Heb. 1. â— So may he be called the Fathers Name and â— doth God himself call him Exod. 23. 20 21. Tâ— Angel that went before them in the wilderness wâ—â— voice they ought to obey his Name is in him aâ— this Angel is Christ Jesus Acts 7. 37 38. â— then Christ Jesus is Gods Name God as â— revealeth himself in the Word is God in Châ— reconciling the world unto himself 2 Cor. 5. â— And therefore Christians you ought to prâ— alwayes in Christs Name and this is to call â— his Name Not only encourage your selves â— come to God because of a Mediator becaâ— he is God in Christ but also offer up all yoâ— prayers in Jesus his Name that his Name caâ—led on them may sanctifie them otherwise yoâ— affection at prayers cannot be acceptable â— God for he loveth nothing but what comâ— thorow the Son Prayer must have an evil sâ—vour when it is not put in the Golden Censâ— that this Angel hath to offâ—r up incense with tâ— prayers of the Saints And likewise you woâ— know Gods justice and wrath that you mâ— serve in fear and trembling And when treâ—bling is joyned with the rejoycing of faith thâ— is acceptable service You ought to fear to â—fend his holiness while you are before him Lâ— Gods terribleness have a deep impression â— your spirit both to make sin bitter and to maâ— mercy more sweet Thus should Prayer asceâ— with the seal of Gods Attributes and then is a calling on his Name Now is there any câ—ling on his Name among us Who maketh â—udy to take up God in his glorious Names â—herefore you call not on a known God and â—nnot name him Now all of you take this â—le to judge your prayers by Think you not â—at you make many prayers You both think and
Binnings Miscellany Sermons August 23. 1670. IT is Ordered by the Lords of His Majesties most Honourable Privy Council That none shall Re-print or Import this Book of Miscellany Sermons by Mr. Hugh Binning nor any other of the said Authors Books for the space of 19. years to come without licence of the Printers hereof A. G. HEART-HUMILIATION OR Miscellany Sermons Preached upon some choice Texts at several Solemn occasions Never before Printed By that eminent Preacher of the Gospel Mr. Hugh Binning late Minister at Govan Jer. 4. 14. O Jerusalem wash thine heart from wickedness that thou mayest be saved c. EDINBURGH Printed by James Glen Anno DOM. 1676. Christian Reader THis holy Preacher of the Gospel had so many convictions upon his spirit of the necessity of the duties of humiliation and mourning and of peoples securing the eternal interest of their souls for the life to come by fleeing in to Jesus Christ for remission of sins in his blood that he made these the very scope of his Sermons in many publick Humiliations as if it had been the one thing which he conceived the Lord was calling for in his dayes A clear evidence whereof thou shalt find manifested in these following Sermons upon choice Texts wherein the Author endeavoureth not only to lay before thee the necessity of these duties of soul-humiliation but also sheweth thee the Gospel-manner of performing them the many soul-advantages flowing from the serious exercise of them and the many soul-destroying prejudices following upon the neglect of them But above all thou shalt find him so fully setting forth the sinfulness of sin and the utter emptiness of self as may convince the most Pharisaically elated spirits and make them cry out with Ezra Chap. 9. 6. O my God I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee my God for our iniquities are increased over our head and our trespass is grown up unto the Heavens Here thou mayst read such pregnant demonstrations of the righteousness and equity of the Lords dealing even in his severest punishments inflicted upon the children of men as may silence every whisperer against providence and make them say as Lam. 3. 22. It is of the Lords mercies we are not consumed even because his compassions sail not And lastly thou shalt perceive the inconceivable fitness and fulness of Christ as a Saviour and his never enough to be admired tenderness and condescending willingness to accept of humble heart-broken and heart-panting sinners after him with such plainness of speech demonstrat as may enable the most bruised reed to quench all the fiery darts of the devil whereby he laboureth to affright them from making application to Jesus for salvation Now that the Lord would make those and such like labours of his faithful servants useful and advantagious to thy soul Christian Reader is the prayer of Thy Servant in the Gospel of our dearest Lord and Saviour A. S. At a publick Fast in July first Sabbath 1650. SERMON I. Deut. 32. 4 5 6 7. He is the Rock his Work is perfect for all his wayes are judgement c. THere are two things may comprehend all Religion the knowledge of God and of our selves these are the principles of Religion and are so nearly conjoyned together that the one cannot be truely without the other much lesse savingly It is no wonder that Moses crave attention and to the end he may attain it from an hard hearted deaf People that he turns to the Heavens and to the Earth as it were to make them the more inexcuseable The matter of his Song is both divine and necessary throughout it all he insists upon these two to discover what they were to themselves and what God was to them he paralels their way with his way that they finding the infinite distance might have other thoughts of themselves and of him both It is a Song it is true but a sad Song The people of Gods mourning should be of this nature mixed not pure sorrow It s hard to determine whither there be more matter of Consolation or Lamentation when such a comparison is made to the life when God's goodness and our evils are set before our eyes which may most work the heart to such affections Nay I think it is possible they may both contribute to both these Is there any more abasing and humbling principle then Love How shall the sinner loath it self in his glorious presence will not so much kindnesse and mercy so often repeated as oft as it is mentioned wound the heart in which there is any tendernesse And again when a soul beholds its own ingratitude and evil requital of the Lords kindness how vile and how perverse it is how must it loath it self in dust and ashes yet is not all ground of hope removed such a sad fight may make mixed affections if we be so perverse and evil then he is infinitely good and his mercy and goodnesse is above our evils if we have dealt so with him yet is he the Rock that changes not he is a God of Truth and will not fail in his Promise Nay though it be sad to be so evil void of all goodness yet may the soul blesse him for evermore that hath chosen this way to glorifie his Name to build up his praise upon our ruine May not a soul thus glory in sad infirmities because his strength is perfected iâ— them and made manifest May not a souâ— choose emptinesse in it self that it may be behold en to his Fulnesse How refreshing a view might the sadest look on our misery and emptiness be if we did behold his purpose of manifesting his Glory in it Ye see here a comparisâ— instituted between two very unequal partieâ— God and Man there is no likenesse let be equality in it yet there is almost an equality in unliknesse The one is infinitely good and perfect well what shall we compare to him who is like thee O God among the gods Angels goodnesse their perfection and innocency hath not such a name and appearance in his sight so then there can be no comparison made this way let no flesh glory in his sight in any thing but let him that glorieth glory in the Lord for in the sight of the glorious Lord all things do disappear and evanish But surely nothing though most perfect can once come within termes of reckoning beside him for any worth Moses sees nothing to set beside God that will appear in its own greatnesse and native colours but the Creatures evil and sin and if this be not infinite absolutely or equal to his goodnesse yet it comes nearest the borders of infinitenesse so then is God most perfect is he infinite in Goodness in Truth in Righteousnesse c And so infinite that before him nothing appeares good none good save one that is God Yet we may find another infinite and it is in evil sinful man and these two contraries set beside other do much
strange how untoward and froward we are a perverse generation we do not believe his Threatnings but fancie we receive his Promises or else believeing his Threatnings we question his Promises But know this for a truth his last Word is more weighty and the unbelief of it is most dangerous Ye have not keeped his Commands and so the curse is come upon you do ye believe that If ye do then the Gospel speakes unto you The God of Truth hath one word more He that believes shall be saved notwithstanding of all his breaking of the Law if ye do not set your Seal to this also then ye say he is not a God of Truth ye say he is a liar And as for you who have committed your Souls to him as to a faithful keeper and acquiesced unto his Word of Promise for Salvation think how unsutable it is for you to distrust him in other lesser things Ye have the promise of this life whoever hath the Promises of the life to come Therefore do not make him a liar in these He is a God of Truth and will let you want no good thing Say to the righteous it shall he well with him what ever be Let Heaven and Earth mix through other yet ye may be as Mount Sion unmoved in the midst of many floods because of the Promises Without iniquity who doubts of that say ye What needs this be added who charges him with iniquity or sin Nay but stay and consider and you shall find great weight in this It is true none dare charge him openly or speak in expresse terms against his Holinesse yet if we judge of our own and others practices and dispositions as the Lord useth to construct of them if we resolve our murmurings impatience self-absolutions and excuses to hold off convictions into plain language if we would translate them into a Scripture-style certainly it will be found that the most part of men if not all use to impute iniquity to God and accuse him rather then take with accusations laid against themselves And therefore the Lord useth to go to Law with his people he who is the Judge of the world that cannot do unrighteously he who is the potter and we all the clay yet he so far condescends to us for convincing us as sometimes to refer the controversie between him and his people to other creatures as Micah 6. 12. He calls the mountains and the foundations of the earth to judge between him and his people and sometimes he appeals unto their own consciences and is content though judge to stand and be judged by these who were guilty as vers 3 and Jer. 2. vers 5 and 31. All this supposes that when the Lord would endeavour to convince them of iniquity they did rather recriminat and took not with their own faults This is a truth generally acknowledged by all He who is the judge of the world doth no iniquity But O! that ye considered it till the meditation of it were engraven on your Spirits the seal of Gods holinesse that ye might fear before him and never call him to accompt for his matters Who can say I have purged my heart from iniquity Among men the holiest are defiled with it and so are all their actions But here is one that ye may give him an implicit faith so to speak he is a God of truth and can speak no lie be does no iniquity and cannot do wrong to any man Would there be so much impatience amongst you and fretting against his dispensations if ye believed this solidly Would ye repine against his holy and just wayes were it not to charge God with iniquity Your murmuring and grudging at his dispensations is with child of blasphemies and he who can search the reins sees it and constructs so of it You say by interpretation that if ye had the government of your own matters or of Kingdoms ye would order them better then he doth how difficult a thing is it to perswade men to take with their own iniquity O how many excuses and pretences how many extenuations are used that this conviction may not pierce deeply But all this speaks so much blasphemy that iniquity is in God Ye cannot take with your own iniquities but ye charge his Majesty with iniquity Just and right is he Is this any new thing was it not said already that he is without iniquity and his wayes judgement But alas how ignorant are we of God and slow of heart to conceive him as he is therefore is there line upon line and precept upon precept and name upon name if it be possible that at length we may apprehend God as he is Alas our knowledge is but ignorance our light darknesse while it is shut up in the corner of our mind and shines not into the heart and hath no influence on our practice And the truth is the belief of divine truths is almost no more but a not contradicting them we do not seriously think of them as either to consent to them or deny them Is there any consideration amongst us now of Gods justice and righteousnesse though it be frequently spoken of And what advantage shall ye have if ye do not consider them O how hard is it to perswade mens hearts of this that God is just and will by no means acquit the guilty there are so many delusions drunk in in mens hearts contrary to his truth Let no man deceive you be not deceived with vain words know ye not saith our Apostle these are strange prefaces would ye not think the point of truth subtile that there needed so much prefacing unto and yet what is it even that which all men grant Gods wrath comes on the children of disobedience but alas few men consider but deceive themselves with dreams of escaping it though men know it yet they know it not for they walk as if they knew no such thing Alwayes however this is of little moment to affect our spirits now yet in the day that God shall set your iniquities before your face and set his justice also before your eyes O how sad and serious a thing will it be then If these two verses were ingraven on our hearts Gods justice and holinesse our corruption and vilenesse I think there would be other thoughts among us then there are SERMON IV. Deut. 32. 5. They have corrupted themselves their spot is not the spot of his Children c. WE doubt this people would take well with such a description of themselves as Moses gives It might seem strange to us that God should have chosen such a people out of all the nations of the earth and they to be so rebellious and perverse if our own experience did not teach us how free his choise is and how long-suffering he is and constant in his choise His people are called to a conformity with himself Be ye holy for I am holy Lev. ch 19. and 20. and to a difformity and separation from
but fall into the Lake that is below us if we were to aim so high But the Lord hath been pleased to descend to us in our mean capacity in the Flesh and fill up that immensurable gulfe of Justice by the infinite merits and sufferrings of his Son in our Flesh And now he invites us be requests us to come to him in his Son and have life VVe are not come to Mount Sinai that might not be touched that burnt with Fire and Tempest where there were terrible sights and intollerable noises I say such a God we might have had to do with â— consuming fire instead of instructing light A devouring fire instead of a healing Sun of Righteousnesse considering that there is nothing in us which is not fit and prepared fuel for everlasting burnings But we are come and that is the eternal wonder of Angels unto Mounâ— Sion to be Citizens in the City of God and fellow citizens with blessed Angels and glorified Spirits to Peace and Reconciliation with him who was our Judge And if you ask how this may be I answer because we have one Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant tâ— come to whose Blood cryeth louder for pardon of sinners then all mens transgression can cry for punishment of sinners Heb. 12. 18 19. 20. c. Let us then Consider the first step and deareâ— of Union with God it consists in Faith in Jesus Christ This is the first motion of the Souâ— in drawing near to God For as there is nâ— remission without Blood So no accesse to Goâ— without a Mediator For if you consider whaâ— is in Jesus Christ you will find that which wilâ— engage the desire of the heart as also thaâ— which will give boldnesse and confidence to acâ— that desire Eternal Life is promised and proposed in him he offers rest to weary souls anâ— hath it to give That which we ignorantly anâ—vainly seek elswhere here it is to be found For Personal Excellencies he is the chief infinitely beyond comparison And for Sutablenesse to us and our necessities all the Gospel an expression of it So that he is presented the most attractive drawing manner that can be imagined And then when the desires are inflamed yet if there be no Oyl of hope to feed it it will soon cool again Therefore take a view again and you may have boldnesse to enter into the Holiest by the Blood of Jesus There was some kind of distance kept in the Old Testament none but the High Priest might enter into the Holiest Place But the entry of our High Priest into it that is into Heaven hath made it patent to all that come to him and apply his Blood There is a new and living way by the holy flesh of Christ consecrated and made of infinite value and use by the Divinity of his Person And therefore having such a one of our kindred so great with God we may draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith having our consciences sprinkled c. Heb. 10 18. 19 20. c. Now since the way is made plain to you and the entry is opened up in the Gospel Do you not find your hearts stir with in you to draw near to him Do you not find a necessity of making peace by such a Mediator O! that you knew the great distance between God and your Natures and what the hazard is Loe they that are far from thee shall perish Then certainly you would take hold of this invitation and be easily drawn unto Jesus Christ But unto you who have adventured to draw near for pardon of sin in Christ I would recommend unto you that you would draw yet nearer to God After that the partition wall of wrath and condemnation is removed yet there is much darknesse in your minds and corruption in our natures that separats from him I mean intercepts and disturbs that blessed communion you are called unto Therefore I would exhort you as James draw near to God and he will draw near to you ch 4. 8. And that wherein this most consists is in studying that purification of our natures that cleansing of our hearts from guile and our hands from offences by which our Souls may draw towards a resemblance of God This accesse and drawing near to God in assimilation and conformity of nature is the great designe of the Gospel Be ye holy for I am holy Now ye are agreed walk with him Amos 3. 3. As Enoch walked with God Gen. 5. 24. That is labour in all your conversation to set him before your eyes and to study to be well pleased with him in all things and to please him in all to conform your selves to his pleasure in every thing And this Communion in walking especially consists in that Communication of the Spirit with God in prayer This is the nearest and sweatest approach when the Soul is lifted up to God and is almost out of it self in him And this being the ordinary exercise and motion of the Soul it exceedingly advances in the first point of nearnesse that is in conformity with God Drawing often near in Communion with him in prayer makes the Souldraw towards his likenesse even as much converse of men together will make them like one another Now for the commendation of this It is good What greater evil can be imagined then separation from the greatest Good And what greater good then accession to the greatest Good Every thing is in so far happy and well as it is joyned with and enjoyeth that which is convenient for it Light is the perfection of the Earth remove it and what a disconsolat and unpleasant thing is it Now truely there is nothing suitable to the immortal Spirit of man but God And therefore all its happinesse or misery must be measured by the accesse or recesse Nearnesse or distance of that infinite Goodnesse Therefore is it any wonder that all they that go a whoring from him perish as every mans heart doeth For we are infinitly bound by Creation by many other bonds stronger then wedlock to consecrat and devote our selves wholly to God but this is treacherously broken Every man turns aside to vanity and lies and is guilty of heart whoredome from God and spiritual idolatry because the Affection that should be preserved chast for him is prostitute to every base object So then this divorcement of the Soul from God cannot but follow thereupon even an eternal ecclipse of true and real life and comfort And whoever draw back from the Fountain of Life and Salvation cannot but find elsewhere perdition and destruction Heb. 10. ult My beloved let us set this aside all other things which are the pursuites and endeavours of the most part of men Mens natural desires are carried towards Health Food Raiment Life and Liberty Peace and such like But the more rational sort of men seek after some shadow of Wisdom and Virtue Yet the generality of men both high and low have extravagant
the bringing in of a better hope did by the which we draw nigh to God All the Sacrifices and Shadows that were under the Law did but point at this perfect Ransom and the way of accesse to God through a Mediator was not so clear but now the matter is made as hopeful as is possible the partition wall of the Lawes curses the hand-writting against us is removed one the Crosse the enmity slain the distance removed by the Blood of the Crosse being partly filled up by his descent into our Nature partly by his lower descent in our Nature to suffer Death And this is the savoury Oblation that we have to present to God and may have boldness to come nigh because of it And when once our accesse is made by the Blood of Jesus Christ then we are called and allowed to come still nigher to cleave and adhere to him as our Father to pray unto him to walk with him Then we should converse as Friends and Familiars together then draw nigh to his Light for Illumination and to him as the Fountain of Life for quickening to place our delight and desire in him to forsake all other things even our Wills and Pleasures and to lose them that they may be found in his to converse much in his Company and be often in Communication with him and Meditation upon him This is the very designe and substance of the Gospel it holds forth the way of making up the breach between Man and God of bringing you nigh who are yet afar off and nearer who are near hand Oh let us hearken to it SERMON VI. Prov. 27. 1. Boast not thy self of to morrow for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth THere are some peculiar Gifts that God hath given to man in his first Creation and endued his Nâ—ture with beyond other living Creatures which being rightly ordered and improved towards the right Objects do advance the Soul of man to a wonderful height of Happinesse that no other sublunary Creature is capable of But by reason of mans fall into sin these are quite disordered and turned out of the right Channel And therefore as the right improvement of them would make man happy so the wrong imployment of them loadens him with more real misery then any other creature I mean God hath given to man two notable Capacities beyond other things one is to know and reflect upon himself and to consider what conveniency is in any thing towards himself what goodnesse or advantage redounds to himself from them and in that reflection and comparison to enjoy what he hath Another is to look forward beyond the present time and as it were to anticipat and prevent the slow motions of time by a kind of foresight and providence In a word he is a Creature framed unto more understanding then others and so capable of more joy in present things and more foresight of the time to come He is made mortal yet with an immortal Spirit of an immortal capacity that hath its eye upon the morrow upon eternity Now herein consists either mans Happinesse or Misery how he reflâ—cts upon himself and what he chooseth fâ—r the matter of his Joy and Gloriation and what providence he hath for the time to come If those be rightly ordered all is well but if not then woe unto him there is more hope of a beast then of him Mans Nature inclines to boasting to glorying in something and this ariseth from some apprehended excellency or advantage and so is originated in the understanding power of man which is far above beasts Beasts find the things themselves but they do not they cannot reflect upon their own enjoyment of them And therefore they are not capable of such pleasure for the more distinct knowledge of things in relation to our selves the more delight ensueth upon it Many Creatures have singular qualities and vertues but they are nothing the happier For they know them not and have no use of them but are wholly destinated to the use of man who therefore is only said to enjoy them because he only is capable of joy from them And this I suppose may give us a hint at the absolute incomprehensible Blessedness self-complacency and delight of God It cannot but be immeasurably great seing the knowledge of himself and all creatures is infinite he comprehends all his own Power and Vertue and Goodness And therefore his Delight and Rejoycing is answerable There is a glorying and boasting then that is good which man is naturally framed unto And this is that which David expresses Psa 34. 2. My Soul shall make her boast in God And Psal 44. 8. In God we boast all the day long and praise thy name for ever When the Soul apprehends that All-sufficiency and self-sufficient fulnesse of God What infinite Treasures of Goodnesse and Wisdom and Power are in him and so how sutable and covenient he is to the condition of the Soul What a sweet correspondence there is between his fulnesse and our emptinesse His Mercy and our Misery His Infinitenesse and our unsutablenesse that there is in him to fill and overflow the Soul The apprehension of this cannot but in a manner perfume the Soul with delight You find how the senses are refreshed when they meet with their sutable Object How a pleasant smell refresheth the â—ent How lively and beautifull colours are delightful to the eye But much more here God is the proportioned Object of the immortal Spirit he corresponds to all its capacities and fills it with unconceivable sweetness But my beloved boasting and glorying in him ariseth not only from the proportionableness and conveniency of him to our Spirits but this must be superadded propriety in him Things are loved because excellent in themselves or because they are our own But we boast in nothing we glory in nothing but because it is both excellent in it self and ours besides It is the apprehended interest in any thing makes the Soul rise and lift up it self after this manner to have such a one to be ours such a Lord to be our God one so high and sublime one so universally full to be made over to thee Here is the immediate rise of the Souls Gloriation And truely as there is nothing can be so sutable a portion so there is nothing that can be so truely made ours as God Of all things a believer hath there is nothing so much his own as God nothing so indissolubly tyed unto him nothing so inseparably joyned See Pauls Triumph upon that account Rom. 8. Nothing can truely be said to be the Souls own but that which is not only Coaetaneous with it that survives mortality and the changes of the Body But likewise is inseparable from it What a poor empty sound is all that can be spoken of him till your Souls be once possessed of him It cannot make your hearts leap within you but it cannot but excite and stirre up a Believers heart Now there
the ruines of other mens disadvantages as if it were any point of praise in us that they are worse like men that stand upon a height and measure their own Altitude not from their just intrinsick quantity but taking the advantage of the bottom whereby we deceive our own selveâ— I remember a word of Solomons that impoâ— how dangerous a thing it is for a man to refleâ— upon or search into his own Glory Prov. 2â— 27. It is not good to eat much honey So for me to search their own glory is not glory To suâ—fet in the excesse of Honey or Sweet thingâ— drives to vomite and cloyes the Stomach verâ— 16. Though it be sweet there is great need yea the more need of Caution and Moderation about it So for a man either to searcâ— into his own breast and reflect upon hiâ— owâ— excellencies to find matter of Gloriation or studiously to affect it among other and enquire into other mens accompt and steem of him it is no Glory it is a dangâ—rous and shamful Folly Now this is not only incident to Natural Spirits upon their coâ—siderations of their own advantages but â—ven to the most gracious upon the review â—â— Spirituall Endowments and Prerogatives It is such a subtil and insinuating Poyson thâ—â— it spreads universally and infects the moâ—â— Precious Oyntments of the Soul and as were Poysons the very Antidot and Couâ—terpoyson So forcible is this that was first dropped into mans Nature by Satans envy that it diffuses it self even into Humility and Humiliation it self and makes a man proud because of Humility The Apostle found need to caveat this Rom. 11. 18 19 20. Boast not be not high minded but fear thou standest by faith And Chap. 12. 16. Mind not high things Be not wise in your own conceits And 1. Cor. 8. 2. If any man think that he knoweth any thing he knoweth nothing as he ought to know All which gives us a plain demonstration of this that self gloriation and complacency in reflection upon our selves is both the greatest Ignorance and the worst Sacriledge It is an Argument of greater ignorance for a man to think he knows then not to know indeed It is the worst and most dangerous Ignorance to have such an opinion of our Knowledge Gifts and Graces For that puffes up swells with empty Wind and makes a vain tumor And then it is great Sacriledge a robbing of the Honour that is due to God For what hast thou that thou hast not received That appropriating of these things to our selves as ours is an impropriating of them from their right Owner that is God 1 Cor. 4. 7. For if thou did apprehend that thou receivedst it where then is glorying I would desire then that whenever you happen to reflect upon your selves and observe any advantage either natural or spiritual in your selves that you may think this word sounds from Heaven Let him that glorieth glory in the Lord. Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom And so not the Learned man in his Learning nor the Eloquent man in his Speaking nor the Ingenious man in his Quicknesse nor the Good man in his Goodnesse All these things though sweet yet will surfeit Gloriation in them is neither Glory nor Gain neither Honourable nor Profitable Then the Stream of Gloriation flows in the Channel of Bodily Gifts as Might Strength of Body Beauty and Comlinesse of Parts and other such Endowments which besides that it is as Irrational as the former in Sacrilegious Impropriation of the most free and Arbitrary Gifts of God to our selves It is with all absurd in that it is not so truely our selves These bodily Ornaments and Indowments do not perfite or better a man as a man They are but the alterable qualities of the Vessel or Tabernacle of a man in which other-baser Creatures may far excell him How many comely and beautiful Souls are lodged within obscure and ugly Cottages of Bodies of Clay which will be taken down And the great advantage is that the Soul of a man which is a man cannot be defiled from without that is from the Body though never so loathsome or deformed The vilest Body cannot marre the Soules beauty But then on the other hand the most beautiful Body is defiled and deformed by the filthinesse of sin in the Soul And O! how many deformed and ugly Souls dwell into beautiful and comely Bodies which truely is no other thing then a Divel in an Image well carved and painted Christians you had need to correct this within you even a self-complacency joyned with despiseing of others in the consideration of these external Gifts God hath given you What an abominable thing is it to cast up in reproach or in your hearts to despise any other for natural Imperfections Such as Blindnesse Lamenesse Deformity or such like Let that word sound alwayes in your Eares Who made thee to differ from another Boast not thy self c. But there is as strong a Stream runs in the third Channel as in any Gloriation arising from these outward and extrinsick differences that the Providence of God makes among men such as Riches Honour Gain c. You find such men Psal 49. 6. Prov. 18. 11. And 10. 15. That which a godly man makes the Name of the Lord that is the ground and foundation of his confidence for present and future times that the most part of men make their Riches That is their strong City and their high Wall their Hope and Expectation is reposed within it This is the Tower or Wall of Defence against the Injuries and Calamities of the Times which most part of men are building and if it go up quickly if they can get these several Stones or peeces of gain scraped together into a heap they straight way imagine themselves safe as under a high Wall But there is no truth in it it is all but in their imagination and therefore it comes often down about their Eares and offends them instead of being a Defence Let a man câ—eep as it were from of the ground where the poor lie and get some advantage of ground above them or be exalted to some Dignity or Office and so set by the shoulders higher then the rest of the People or â—et grow in some more aboundance of the things of this life and strange it is what a vanity or tumour of mind instantly follows He presently thinks himself some body and forgeting either who is above him to whom all are Worms creeping and crauling on the Foot-stool Or what a sandy Foundation he stands upon himself He begins to take some secret complacency in himself and to look down upon others below him He applauds as it were unto himself and takes it in evil part to want the approbation and plaudite of others Then he cannot so well endure effronts and injuries as before He is not so Meek and condescending to his Equals or Inferiours While he was poor he used intreaties but now
things themselves Inconstancy and Independency on us But this is alâ— pressing as any our ignorance of them They are wholly in the dark to us as it were in the lower parts of the Earth As there is no more in our power but the present hour for to yester-day we are dead already for it is past and cannot return it is as it were buried in the Grave of Oblivion And to morrow we are not yet born for it is not come to the Light and we know not if ever it will come So there is no more in our knowledge but the present hour The time past though we remember it yet it is without our practical knowledge it admits of no Reformation by it And the time to come it is not born to us and its all one as if we were not born to it And indeed in the Lords disposing of all Affairs under the Sun after this Method there is infinite Wisdom and Goodnesse both though at the first view men would think it better that all things went on after an uniform manner And that men knew what were to befal them Yet I say God hath herein provided for his own Glory and the Good of men His own Glory while he hath reserved to himself the absolute Dominion and perfect knowledge of his Works and exercises them in so great variety that they may be seen to proceed from him And for our good for what place were there for the exercise of many Christian Vertues and Graces if it were not so What place for Patience if there were no crosse Dispensations what place for Moderation if there were no Prosperity Iâ— there were not such Variety and Vicissitude how should the evennesse and constancy of the Spirit be known Where should Contentment and Tranquillity of Mind have place For it is a Calme in a Storm properly not a Calm in a Calm that is no Vertue If the several Accidents of Providence were foreseen by us what a marvelous Perturbation and disorder would it make in our Duty Who would do his Duty out of Conscience to Gods Command to commit Events to him Now there is the tryal of Obedience to make us go by a way we know not and Resigne our selves to All-seeing Providence whose Eyes run too and fro throughout the earth Therefore that no Grace may want matter and occasion of exercise that no Vertue may die out for want of Fewel or rust for lack of Exercise God hath thus Ordered and Disposed the World There is no Condition no Posture of Affairs in which he hath not left a fair Opportunity for the exercising of some Grace Hath he shut up and precluded the Acting of one or many through Affliction then surely he hath opened a wide Door and given large matter for Self denyal Humility Patience Moderation And these are al 's precious as any that look fairest In a word I think the very Frame and Method of the disposing of this Material World speaks aloud to this purpose You see when you look below there is nothing seen but the outside of the Earth the very Surface of it only appears and there your sight is terminated But look above and there is no termination no bounding of the Sight there are infinite spaces all are Transparant and Clear without and within Now what may this represent unto us One sayes it shews us that our Affections should be set upon things above and not on things below seeing below there is nothing but an outward appearance and Surface of things the Glory and Beauty of the Earth is but skin deep But Heavenly things are alike throughout all Transparent nothing to set bounds to the Affections they are infinite and you may enlarge infinitly towards them I add this other Consideration that God hath made all things in Time Dark and Opake like the Earth look to them you see only the outside of them the present hour and what is beyond it you know no more then you see the Bowels of the Earth But Eternity is both Transparent and Conspicuous throughout and infinite too Therefore God hath made us blind to the one that we should not set our heart nor terminat our eyes upon any thing here But he hath opened and spread Eternity before us in the Scriptures so that you may read and understand your Fortune your everlasting Estate in it He hath shut up Temporal things and Sealed them and wills us to live implicitly and give him the Trust of them without anxious foresight But Eternity he hath unvailed and opened unto us Certain it is that no man till he be fully possessed of God who is an All-sufficient Good Psal 4. Can find any satisfaction in any present Enjoyment without the addition of some hope for the future Great things without it will not content for what is it all to a man if he have no assurance for the time to come and mean things with it will content Great things with little hope and expectation fill with more Vexation instead of Joy and the greater they be this is the more increased Again mean and low things with great hopes and large expectations will give more satisfaction Therefore all mankind have a look toward the morrow and labour to supply their present defects and wants with hope or confidence of that I would exhort you who would indeed have solid matter of Gloriation and would not be befooled into a golden Dream of vain expectations of vain things that ye would labour to fill up the Vacuities of present things with that great Hope the Hope of Salvation which will be as an Helmet to keep your head safe in all difficulties 1 Pet. 1. 3. Heb. 6. 18 19. Rom. 5. 5. It is true other mens expectations of Gain and Credit and such things Do in some measure abait the torment and pain of present wants and indigencies But certain it is that such hope is not so Soveraign a Cordial to the heart as to expell all grief but leaves much vexation within But then also the frequent disappointment of such projects and designs of Gain Honour and Pleasure and the extreme unanswerablenesse of these to the Desires and Hopes of the Soul even when attained musts needs breed infinite more anxiety and vexation in the Spirit then the hope of them could give of satisfaction Yea the more the expectation was it cannot choose but the greater shame and confusion must be Therefore if you would have your Souls truely established and not hanging upon the morrow uncertainly as the most part of men are get a look beyond the morrow unto that everlasting Day of Eternity that hath no morrow after it And see what foundation you can lay up for that time to come as Paul bids Timothy counsel the Rich Men in the World who thought their Riches and Revenues their Offices and Dignities a Foundation and VVell-spring of Contentment to them and their Children and are ready to say with that man in the Parable Soul
the Flame to increase his Indignation The most part of Christians are guilty here We come to the Ordinances as it were to discharge a Custome and perform a Ceremony that we may have it to say to our Conscience that it is done and there is no more intent and purpose We do not seek to have Soul communion with God We come to Sermon to hear some new thing or new truth or new fashion of it To learn a Notional Experience of Cases But alas this is not the great purpose and use of these things It is to have some new sense of these things we know We know already but we should come to get the Truth mâ—re received in our Love to serve God in our Spirits and to return to him our selves in a Sacrifice acceptable This is the greater half if not the whole of Religion Love to Jesus Christ who loved us and living to him because he died for us and livihg to him because we love him Now all our Ordinances and Duties should be Channels to cary our Love to him and occasions of venting our Affections Thirdly the Lord rejected this peoples services because they were exact and punctual in them and neglected other parts of his Commandments And this is clearly expressed here I will not hear your prayers though there be many of them Why Your hands are full of blood Ye come to worship me and pray to me and yet there are many Abominations in your Conversation which you continue in and do not challenge in your selves Ye have unclean hands and shall your prayer be accepted which should come up with pure Hands They took his Covenant in their mouth and offered many Sacrifices but what have ye to do with these things sayeth the Lord since ye hate to be reformed since ye hate personal Reformation of your Lives and in your Families what have ye to do to profess to be my people Psal 50 19 17 The Lord requires an universality if ye would prove sincerity If ye have respect to any of his Commands as his Commands then will ye respect all If ye be partial and choose one Duty that is easy and refuse another harder ye will come to the Church and hear but ye will not pray at home Ye will fast in publck but not in private Then sayes the Lord ye do not at all obey me but your own humour ye do not at all fast unto me but unto your selves As much as your interest lyes in a Duty so much are ye carried to it And I take this to be the reason why many are so Eager in pursuing publick Ordinances following Communions and Conferences with Gods people ready to Pray in publick rather then alone If ye would follow them into their secret Chamber how much indifferency is there how great infrequency how little fervency VVell sayes the Lord did ye pray to me when ye prayed among others No ye prayed either to your selves or the company or both Did ye seek me in a Communion No sayeth the Lord ye sought not me but your selves If ye sought me indeed with others ye would be al 's earnest if not more to seek me alone Zech. 7. 6. And again the Lord especially requires the weightier matters of the Law to be considered As it was among the Jews their Ceremonies were commanded and so good but they were not so much good in themselves as because they were means appointed for another end and use But the Moral Law was binding in it self and good in it self without relation to another thing And therefore Christ lays this heavy Charge to the Pharisees Ye tithe mint and anise Mat. 23. 23. Woe unto you for ye neglect the weightier matters of the Law Judgement Mercy and Faith these ye ought to have done and not left the other undone Are there not many who would think it a great fault to stay away from the Church on the Sabbath or Week day and yet will not stick to swear to drink often VVoe unto you for ye strain at a gnat and swallow a camel Therefore are the Prophets full of these Expostulations The people seemed to make Conscience of Ceremonies and External Ordinances but they did not order their Conversation aright They did not execute Judgment and relieve the oppressed did not walk soberly did not mortify sinful lusts c. Alas we deceive our selves with the noise of a Covenant and a Cause of God we cry it up as an Antidot against all evils use it as a charm even as the Jews did their Temple and in the mean time we do not care how we walk before God or with our Neighbours Well thus saith the Lord Trust ye not in lying words Jer. 7. 4 5 6. If drunkenness reign among you if filthiness swearing oppression cruelty reign among you your Covenant is but a ly all your professions are but lying words and shall never keep you in your Inheritances and Dwellings The Lord tells you what he requires of you Is it not to do justly and walk humbly with God Mic. 6. 7. This is that which the grace of God teaches To deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly righteously and godly towards your God your neighbour and your self Tit. 2. 11 12. And this he prefers to your publick Ordinances your Fasting Covenanting Preaching and such like Is not this to know me saith the Lord Jer. 22. 15. 16. You think you know God when you can discourse well of Religion and intertain conferences of practical Cases You think it is knowledge to understand Preachings and Scripture But thus saith the Lord To do justly to all men to walk humbly towards God to walk soberly in your selves is more real knowledge of God then all the Volumes of Doctors contain or the heads of Professors Is this knowledge of God to have a long flowrishing discourse containing much Religion in it Alas no to do justly to oppress none to pray more in secret to walk humbly and soberly this is to know the Lord practice is real knowledge indeed it argues that what a man knows he receives in love that the Truth hath a deep impression on the heart that the Light shines into the heart to inflame it What is knowledge before God As much as principles Affection and Action as much as hath Influence on your Conversations If you do not and love not what you know is that to know the Lord Shall not your knowledge be a Testimony against your practice and no more SERMON X. Isai 1. 16. Wash ye make you clean put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil c. IF we would have a sum of pure and undefiled Religion here it is set down in opposition to this peopleâ— shadow of Religion that consisted in External Ordinances and Rites We think that God should be al 's well pleased with our service as we our selves therefore we choose his commands which our humour hath no
Angels could not reach this This Redemption and Cleansing was precious and would have ceased for ever But this Blood is the Ransome this Blood cleanseth and so perfectly that it shall not appear not only to mens eyes but also Gods peircing Eye Sinners quite your own righteousness why defile ye your selves more When your eyes are opened ye will find it so here is washing apply your selves to this Fountain And if ye do indeed so if ye expect cleansing from Jesus Christ I pray you return not to the puddle Ye are not washen from sin to sin more and defile your self more If ye think ye have liberty to do so ye have no part in this Blood SERMON XI Isai 1. 16. Wash ye make you clean put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil c. THere are two evils in sin one is the Nature of it another the Fruit and sad Effect of it In it self it is filthiness and contrair to Gods Holiness and abasing of the immortal soul a spot in the face of the Lord of the Creatures that hath far debased him under them all Though it be so unnatural to us yet it is now in our fallen estate become as it were natural so that men agree with it as if it were sunk and drunk into the very soul of man The other is the guilt and desert of punishment and obligation to it All man hate this but they cannot hold it off They eat the Tree and Fruit of Death they must eat Death also They must have the wages of sin who have wrought for it Now the Gospel hath found a remedy for lost man in Jesus Christ He comes in the Gospel with a twofold blessing a twofold vertue a pardoning vertue and a sanctifying vertue VVater and Blood 1 Jo. 5. 6. He comes to forgive sin and to subdue sin To remove the guilt of it and then the self of it Gods appointment had inseparably joyned them And Christ came not to dissolve the Law but to establish it If he had taken away the punishment and left the sin in its being he had weakened the Law and the Prophets That conjunction of sin and wrath which is both by divine appointment and suitable also unto their own natures must stand that Divine Justice may be intire And therefore he that comes to redeem us from the curse of the Law hath also this Commission to redeem from sin and all transgressions of the Law Rom. 11. 26. and Gal. 3. 13. He that turns away the wrath of God from men turns also ungodliness from them which provoked his wrath And so he is a compleat Redeemer and a compleat Redeemer he had not been otherwayes If he had removed Wrath only and left us under the bondage of sin it had not been half redemption he that commits sin is the servant of sin But this is perfect freedom and liberty to be made free from sin for it was sin that subjected us to wrath and so was the first Tyrant and the greatest The Gospel then comes with a joyful sound unto you but many of you mistake it and apprehends it to be a Doctrine of Liberty and Peace and that unto sin But if it were so it were no joyful sound If there were proclaimed a liberty to all men to do as they list no punishment no wrath to be feared I would think that Doctrine no glade news it were but the perpetuating of the bondage of a reasonable soul But this is glade news a delivery and freedom proclaimed in the Gospel but what Not unto sin but from sin and this is to be free indeed We ought more to Jesus Christ for this then for redemption from Wrath because sin is a greater evil then wrath Yea wrath were not so if sin were not Therefore he exhorts to wash and wash so that they may make clean Take Jesus Christ for Justification and Sanctification imploy both the Water and the Blood that he hath come with But because all men pretend a willingness to have Christ their Saviour and their sins pardoned through his Blood who notwithstanding hate to be reformed and would seek no more of Christ Therefore he branches out that part of the Exhortation in several particulars All men have a general likeing of remission of sins but renouncing of it is to many a hard Doctrine they would be glade that God put their evils out of his sight by passing them by and forgetting them But they will not be at the pains of putting away their evils from his sight And therefore the Gospel which comprehends these two united is not really received by many who pretend to be followers of it This is his Command that ye believe Some pretend to obey this and yet hath no regard of that other part of his Will even their Sanctification And therefore their Faith is dead it is a fancy If ye did indeed believe and receive Christ for pardon of sin it were noâ— possible but your Souls would be ingaged and constrained to indeavour to walk in all well-pleasing But it is an evident token of one that is not washed from his sin and believes not in Christ if he conceive within his heart a greater latitude and liberty to walk after the flesh and be imboldened to continue in sin because of his Grace and Mercy And yet such are the most part of you Upon what ground do ye delay repentance Upon what presumption do ye continue in your sins and puts over the serious study of holiness till a more fit time Is it not from an apprehension of the Grace and Mercy of God that ye think ye may return any time and be accepted and so ye may in the mean time take as much pleasure in sin as ye can seing ye may get leave also for Gods Mercy I pray you consider that you have never apprehended Gods Mercy aright ye are yet in your sins and certainly as yet are not washed from them Put away the evil c. When the Spirit convinces a Soul he convinces a man not only of evil doings but of the evil of his doings Not only of sin but of the sinfulness of sin And not only of those actions which are in themselves sinful but also of the iniquity of Holy things I think no man will come to wash in Christs Blood till this be discovered If he see much wickedness many evil doings yet he will labour to wash away these by his own tears and repentance and well doing As long as he hath any good Actions as Prayers Fasting and such like he will cover his evil doings by them He will spread the skirts of such righteousness over his uncleannesse and when he hath hid it from his own eyes he apprehends that he hath hid it from Gods also He will wash his bloody hands with many Prayers and thinks they may be clean enough We see blasphemers of Gods Name use to joyn a prayer for forgivenesse
shining into the Soul that hath cleared them but their perpetual darknesse that blindeth them I say then in the Name of Jesus Christ that ye never knew the peace of God who knew not warr with God Ye know not love who have not known anger But this is the Souls true peace and tranquillity when it is once awakened to see its misery and danger How many Clouds overspread it what Tempests blow what Waves of Displeasure go over its head But when that peace which is made in the High Places breaketh thorow the Cloud with a Voice Son be of good comfort thy sins be forgiven thee when that Voice of the Spirit is uttered presently at its command the Wind and Waves obey the Soul is calmed as the Sea after a Storm It is not only untroubled but it is peaceable upon solid grounds because of the word which speaks peace in Christ The peace of the most of you is such as ye were born and Educated withal It is not a created peace a spoken peace the fruit of the lips and so no true peace Ye had not your peace from the word but ye brought it to the word Yâ— have no peace after trouble and so it is not the Lords peace The Christian may have peace in regard of his own Salvation and eternal things and in regard of all things that befalleth in â—ime The first is when the Conscience is sprinkled with the Blood of Jesus Christ and getteth a good answer to all the challenges and accusations of Conscience and of the Law and Justice 1 Pet. 3. 21. when the Spirit of God shines into the Soul with a new Light to discover these things that are freely given 1 Cor. 2. 12. And this is the Sealing of the Spirit after believing Eph. 1. 13. When a Soul hath put to its Seal by believing Gods word and hath acknowledged Gods Truth and Faithfulnesse in his word the Spirit Sealeth mutually the Believers Faith both by more Holinesse and the knowledge of it And how great peace is this when a Soul can look upon all its iniquities when they compasse about a man and outward trouble sharpeneth and setteth on edge inward challenges and yet the Soul will not fear it hath answers to them all in Christs Blood Psal 49. 5. This is a greater word then all the world can say Many mens fearlesnesse proceedeth from ignorance of sin their iniquities were never set in order before them but if once they compassed them about and wrath like a fiery wall compasse them about also so that there were no escaping Oh it would be more terrible then all the Armies of the world Ye would account little of a Kingdom ye would exchange it for such a word as David hath upon good grounds Now I say again the Soul that hath thus committed it self to him as a faithful keeper may have peace in all Estates and Conditions And this peace floweth from that other peace There is a peace which guards the heart and mind Phil. 4. 6 7. Opposed to carefulnesse and anxiety and this Paul is Examplar for I have learned in every estate therewith to be content to want and abound c. vers 11. The Soul of a Believer may be in an equal even Tenur and Disposition in all conditions It may possesse it self in patience Impatience and Anxiety makes a man not his own man he is not himself he injoys not himself he is a burden to himself and is his own tormenter But if Souls were stayed upon God certainly they would possesse themselves dwell securely within their own breasts We may find that the most part of men are exposed to all the floods and waves of the times They move inwardly as things are troubled outwardly Every thing addeth moment to their grief or joy Any Dispensation casteth the Ballance and either weights them down with discouragement or lifteth them up with vanity and lightnesse of mind But the Believers priviledge is to be unmoved in the midst of all the Tossings and Confusions of the times Psal 128. 1 2. Ye would be as Mount Zion if ye trusted in God No Dispensation should enter into the Soul to cast the Ballance upon you Ye might stand upon your Rock Jesus Christ and look about the Estates Persons Affairs and Minds of men as a troubled Sea fleeting tossed up and down and ye stand and not be moved or not greatly moved Ps 62. 2. And this is to be wise indeed If I would describe a wise man I would say he is one man beside him no man is one with himself but various inconstant changeable He is unwise who is unlike himself who changeth Persons according to Dispensations Wisdom is the stability of thy times and Faith is Wisdom it Establisheth as Mount Zion so as a man cometh out still one in prosperity not exalted in adversity not cast down in every Estate content and this is the man who is blessed indeed This werâ— wisdom to will the same thing and nill the same thing Semper idem velle atque idem nolle I need not saith Seneca add that exception that it be right which you desire for no one thing can universally and always please if it be not good and right So I say he were both wise and happy who had but one grief and one joy Should not a Believers mind be calm and â—erene seing the true Light hath shined it should be as the upper world where no blasts no storms or clouds are to ecclips the Sun or cloud it while our peace and tranquillity is borrowed from outward things certainly it must change But a Belâ—evers peace and tranquillity of mind having its rise from above from the unchangeable word of the Lord it needeth not to change according to the vicissitudes of Providence He needeth not to care before hand because there is one who careth for him And what needeth both to care He needeth not be disquieted or troubled after because it shall turn about to his good All things shall do so Rom. 8. 28. He needeth not be Anxious about future Events because he hath all his burden cast upon another by prayer and supplication VVhat needeth he then take a needlesse burden Prayer will do that which Care pretends and cannot do and that without trouble He needeth not be troubled when things are present for he cannot by his thought either add or diminish take away or prevent There is one good and necessary thing that his heart is upon and that cannot be taken from him And therefore all things else are indifferent and of small concernment to him Now what wanteth such a man of perfect peace who is reconciled to God and at peace within himself VVhen peace guardeth the Heart and Mind within compasseth it as a Castle or Garison to hold out all the vain Alarms of External things May not all the world be troubled about him VVhat though the Floods lift up their Voice if they come not into the
ingageth both to give a shelter and refuge to the poor sinner Would a Soul be any more tossed would there be any place for wavering and doubting if Souls considered his excellent loveing kindness and great goodness laid up and treasured with him for these that trust in him Psal 36. 7. Who would not put their trust under the shadow of his wings and think themselves safe Again if his eternal power were pondered how he is able to effectuat whatever he pleaseth what everlasting Armes he hath that by a word supports the frame of the world what he can do if he stretch out his Arm And then if these two immutable things Heb. 6. 18. His Promise and his Oath were looked upon how he hath ingaged himself in his Truth and sworn in his Holiness Would not a Soul ly safely between these three what strong consolation would such a threefold consideration yield Would any wind or tempest blow within these Walls mounted up to Heaven Stayedness on God is nothing else but the fixedness of believing and trusting Psal 112. 7 8. His heart is fixed trusting in God hiâ—â—eart is established It is even the mature and ripe age of Faith Fâ—ith while it is yet in infancy in its tender years it neither can endure storms nor can it confirm us in them But when it hath sprung up and grown in that root of Jesse wheâ— it is rooted and established in Jesus Christ then it establisheth the Soul Faith abiding in him and taking root groweth confirmed as a Tree that cannot easily be moved and if you establish Faith you shall be established There are two particulars which I conceive the trusting Soul is stayed on First in the meditation of God Secondly in expectation from him of all good things When I say the Meditation of God I take in both Contemplation and Affection The most part of men have but few thoughts of God at all even those who trust in him do not consider sufficiently what a One he is in whom they believe If Faith were vigorous and lively it would put men to often thinking on him seeking to know him in his glorious Names the mind would be stayed upon this glorious object as the most Mysterious and Wonderful One How throng are mens minds with their vanities When they awake they are not still with God The Meditation of him is a burden to them Any other thing geteth more time and thoughts But Meditation addeth Affection to Contemplation Men may think long upon the Heavens and their Course but their Affections are not ravished with them But this is the Soul stayed on God when the Souls desires are towards the remembrance of his Name then Affection stayeth the mind upon what it pitcheth one And certainly the mind giveth but passing looks constrained thoughts where the heart is not Here is Davids Meditation Psal 1. My delight is in the law of the Lord. The Soul of a Believer should be constant and fixed in the consideration of God till he be wholly ingaged to admiration and wondering O Lord how excellent is thy Name Ps 8. 1. And who is like unto thee You all say that you believe in God and know his Power you know he is Good he is Merciful Just Long suffering Faithful c. But what is all this knowledge but ignorance and your light darkness when it doth not press you to put your trust in his Name You know Nay but you consider not what you know This is trusting when the mind is stayed on what it knoweth when all the scattered thoughts and affections are called home and united in one to be exercised about this comprehensive Object The Lord our God It is not want of knowledge destroyeth you but want of consideration of what you know and this is brutishness Mens hearts do not carry Seal and Stamp of their knowledge because thoughts of God and his word are but as passengers that go thorow a Land as lightning going thorow the mind but warms it not And so their practice carrieth no impression of it either How base is it for those who have God for their God to be so ignorant of him Would not any man willingly travel about his own possessions Have you such a large portion Believers and should you be taken up with other vanities Should your hearts minds be stayed on them more then the living God There is a great vanity and levity in mens minds The Lord knoweth the thoughts of men that they are vanity There is aâ— unsetledness of Spirit we cannot pitch upon that on which we may be stayed And so all the spirits of men are in a continual motion from one thing to another for nothing giveth compleat satisfaction and therefore it must go and try one after another to see if it can find in it what iâ— found not in the former And such is the inconstancy of the Spirit that it licketh up its vomit and what thing it refused it eateth it up as itâ— meat The time is spent in choosing and refusing rejecting one thing and taking another and again returning to what you have rejected Thus are men tossed up and down and unstablâ— in all their ways as a Ship without ballasting Now Faith and trusting in God is the ballasâ— and weight of this inconstant Ship It is the Anchor to stay it from being driven to and fro once men would pitch upon this one Lord wiâ— hath in himself eminently all the scattered perfections of Creatures and infinitely more if you would consider him and meditate on him till your Souls loved him would you not be ravished with him Would you not build your house beside him and dwell in the meditation of his Name This would fix and establish you in duties when I awake I am still with thee A little searching and experience discovereth emptiness in all beside and therefore is it that the Soul removeth sooner from such a particular Creature then it expected but here is one that is past finding out The more I search and find I find him the more above what I can search and find The Creatures are but painted and fair in mens apprehension and at a distance but the near injoyment of them discovereth the delusion and sendeth a man away ashamed because he trusted But the Lord God is and there is no other he is not as waters that fail no liar he is an everlasting Fountain the more you dig and draw it runs the faster he will never send any away ashamed that trust in him because they shall find more then they expected Therefore the Soul that is stayed on meditation of God and knoweth him certainly will be fixed in expectation from him Our expectation from the Creatures changeth because it is oft frustrat disappoyntment meets it it is above what is in the Creature and so it must meet with disappoyntment But as he is above our meditation so is he far above our expectation And if a mans experience answer
of Israel by this Redeemer But now we are surrounded with Consolation before and behind Christ already come so that we may in joy say lo this is our God we have waited for him others waited and longed and we see him and Christ shortly to come again without sin to our Salvation And what could be able to take our Joy from us if we had one Eye always back to his first coming and another always forward to his comeing again SERMON XV. Isai 64. 6 7. But we are all as an unclean thing and all our righteousnesses as filthy raggs c. THis peoples condition aggreeth well with ours though the Lords dealing be very different The Confessory part of this Prayer belongeth to us now And strange it is that there is such odds of the Lords Dispensations when there is no difference in our Cohditions Always we know not how soon the complaint may be ours also This Prayer was prayed long before the Judgment and Captivity came one so that it had a Prophesy in the bosome of it Nay it was the most kindly and affectionat way of warning the people could get for Isaiah to pour forth such a prayer as if he beheld with his Eyes the Calamity as already come And indeed it becometh us so to look on the Word as if it gave a present beeing to things al 's certain and sensible as if they were really What strange stupidity must be in us when present things inflicted Judgments committed sins do not so much affect us as the forefight of them did move Isaiah Always as this was registrat for the peoples use to cause them still look on Judgements threatned as performed and present and anticipat the day of Affliction by repentance and also to be a Patern to them how to deal with God and plead with him from such grounds of Mercy and Covenant Interest So it may be to us a warning especially when sin is come to the Maturity and our secure backsliding Condition is with Child of sad Judgements when the harvest seemeth ripe to put the sickle in to it There is in these two Verses a confession of their own sinfulness from which grounds they justify Gods proceeding with them They take the cause upon themselves and justify him in his Judging whither Temporal or Spiritual Plagues were inflicted In this Verse they take a general survey of their sinful Estate concluding themselves unclean and all their performances and commanded Duties which they counted once their righteousness And from this ground they clear Gods dealing with them and put their mouth in the Dust and so from the Lords Judgment they are forced to enter into a search of the Cause so much sin and from discovered sin they pronounce God righteous in his Judgment perceiving a great difference in the Lords manner of dealing with them and their fathers they do not refound it upon God who is righteous in all his ways but retort it upon themselves and find a vast discrepance between themselves and their fathers Verse 5. And so it was no wonder that Gods Dispensation changed upon them God was wont to meet others to shew himself gracious even to prevent stroaks But now he was wroth with them Nay but there is good cause for it They rejoyced and wrought righteousness but we have sinned And this may be said in the general never one needeth to quarrel God for severe dealing If he deal worse with one then with another let every man look into his own bosome and see reason sufficient yea more provocation in themselves then others Always in this Verse they come to a more distinct veiw of their loathsome condition Any body may wrap up their repentance in a general notion of sin but they declare themselves to be more touched with it and condescend on particulars yet such particulars as comprehend many others And in this Confession you may look on the Spirits work having some Characters of the spirit in it First they take a general view of their uncleannesse and loathsome Estate by sin Not only do they see sin but sin in the sinfulnesse of it and uncleannesse of it Secondly They not only conclude so of the Natural Estate they were born into and the loathsomnesse of their many foul scandals among them But they go a further length to passe al 's severe a sentence on their Duties and Ordinances as God hath done Isai 1. and 66. The spirit convinceth according to Scriptures Light and not according to the dark spark of Natures Light and so that which Nature would have busked it self with as its Ornament that which they had covered themselves with as their Garment had spread their Duties as robs of Righteousnesse over their sins to hide them all this now goeth under the name of filthinesse and sin They see themselves wrapt up in as vile raggs as they covered and hid Commanded Duties and manifest Breaches come in one Category And not only is it some of them which their own Conscience could challenge in the time but all of them and all kinds of them Moral and Ceremohial Duties that were most sincere had most Affection in them all of them are filthy raggs now which but of late were their righteousnesle Thirdly there is an universality not only of the Actions but of Persons not only all the Peoples or Multitudes performances are abomination but all of them Isaiah and one and other the holiest of them come in in this Category and Rank we are all unclean c. Though the people it may be could not joyn Holy Isaiah with themselves yet humble Isaiah will joyn himself with the people and come in in one prayer And no doubt he was al 's sensible of sin now as when he began to prophecy and growing in holinesse he must grow also in sense of sinfulnesse Seing at the first sight of Gods Holinesse and Glory he cryed unclean c. Isai 6. 5. Certainly he doth so now from such a principle of accesse to Gods Holinesse which maketh him abhore himself in Dust and Ashes Fourthly They are not content with such a general but condescend to two special things two spiritual sins to wit Omission or shifting of spiritual Duties which contained the substance of Worship None calleth one thee few or none none to count upon calleth on thee that is careth for immediat accesse and approaching unto God in prayer and meditation c. Albeit External and Temple Duties be frequent yet who prayeth in secret or if any pray that cannot come in compt the Lord knoweth them not because they want the Spirits stamp on them This must be some other thing nor the general conviction of sin which the world hath who think they pray all their days Here people who though they make many prayers Isai 1. Yet they see them no prayers and no calling on Gods Name now But Fifthly to make the challenge the more and the confession more spiritual and compleat there is discovered
tree yet behold the wind of the Lord may arise that shall drive you away take your soul from these things and then whose shall they be If you will not fear temporal judgements yet I pray you fear eternal fear hell May not the Lord shake you off this tree of time and take you out of the land of the living to receive your portion There is not only an universal deadness of spirit on the land but a prophane spirit Iniquities abominable sins abound Every Congregation is overgrown with scandals and for you None may more justly complain we are all unclean sin is not in corners but men declare their sin as Sodom sin is come to the Maturity Defection and Apostacy is the temper of all Spirits and above all the general contempt and slighting of this glorious gospel is the iniquity of Scotland so that we wonder that the withered leaves yet stick to that the storm is not yet raised and we blown away Now you are like stones your hearts as Adamants and cannot be moved with his threatnings the voice of the Lords word doth not once move you you sin and are not afraid Nay but when Gods anger shall joyn with iniquity and the voice of his rod and displeasure roar this shall make the mountains to tremble the rocks to move and how much more shall it drive away a leaf You seem now mountains but when God shall plead you shall be like the chaff driven too and fro O how easy a matter shall it be to God to blow a man out of his dwelling place sin hath prepared you for it he needeth no more but blow by his Spirit or look upon you and you will not be You who now are lofty and proud and maintain your self against the word when you come to reckon with God and he entereth in judgement you shall not stand you will consume as before the moth your hearts will fail you Who may abide the day of his coming It will be so terrible and so much the more terrible that you never dreamed of it If the example of this people will not move you do but cast your eyes on Ireland who all do fade as a leaf and their iniquities have taken them away out of their own Land Shall not the seeing of the eye nor the hearing of the ear teach you What security do you promise to your selves Have not we sinned as much as they Were not they his people as we Certainly since God waiteth longer on you the stroak must be the greater provoked patience must turn fury If you would then prevent this peoples complaint go about such a serious acknowledgement of your sins search your wayes and turn again to the Lord. And let not every man sit down in a general notion of sin but unbowel it until you see uncleanness go up to the fountain head Original corruption go down to all the streams even the iniquity of holy things let every man be particular in the search of his own provocations personal and every one be publick in the general sins of the Land that you may confesse out of knowledge and sense we are all unclean c. SERMON XVIII Isai 64. 7. And there is none that calleth upon thy Name that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee c. THey go on in the Confession of their sins Many a man hath soon done with that A general notion of sin is the highest advancement in repentance that many attain to You may see here Sin and Judgement mixed in thorow other in their complaint They do not so fix their eyes upon their desolat estate of captivity as to forget their provocations Many a man would spend more affection and be more pathetick in the expression of his misery when it is pungent nor he can do when he speaketh of his sins We would observe from the nature of this confession something to be a patern of your repentance And it is this When the spirit convinceth and men are serious in repentance then the soul is more searching more universal more particular in acknowledgement of sins These are characters of the Spirits work First The Spirit discovereth unto men not only sin but the loathsomeness of sin its hainous nature how offensive it is to Gods holy eye Many of you know abundance of evil deeds and call them sins but you have never taken up sins ugly face never seen it in the glasse of the holy Law uncleannesse it self because you do not abhore your selves poor and low thoughts of God maketh mean and shallow thoughts of sin You would be as Job vile ch 40. 4. And abhore your selves in dust and ashes ch 42. 6. As Gods holiness grew great in your eyes Sins uncleanness would grow proportionably Is 6. 3. 5. And here your repentance halteth in the very entry But Secondly The Spirit discovereth not only the uncleanness of mens natures and leadeth them up to original corruption but the Spirit also leadeth men alongs all the streams not only these that break out but those who go under ground and have a more secret and subtil conveyance It concludeth not only open breaches of the command under filthiness but also all a mans own righteousness though never so refined it concludeth it also a defiled garment so that the Soul can look no where but see sin and uncleanness in its ornaments and duties And thus it appeareth before God without such a covering openeth up its Soul hideth not sin with the covering of duties but seeth a necessity of another covering for all Now therefore let the most part of you conclude that you have never yet gotteh your eyes open to see sin or confesse it because when you sit down to compt your sins there are many things that you call not sin you use not to reckon your praying and repentance among sins Nay because you have so much confidence in your repentance and confession you have never repented you must see a necessity of a covering of Christs righteousness above all Faith in Jesus must cover repentance and it self both with the glorious object of it But alas how soon are many at an end of confession some particular grosse actions may come in remembrance but no more Sum up al your confessions they have never yet pitched on the thousand part of your guiltiness no not in kinds let be in number But thirdly The Spirit convinceth spiritually and particularly both it convinceth of Spiritual sins as we said last of the iniquity of holy things and especially of the most substantial duties faith and prayer John 16. 8 9. there are not many of you have come this length to see your want of prayer No your own words do witness against you for you use to say I pray day and night I believe in God with all my heart Now therefore out of your own mouth shall you be condemned when the spirit convinceth you of Sin you will see no faith no prayer at the first
outward Dispensation can fall on that can affect this generation We know not what the Lord can have behind that can work on us Judgement hath had as much terror Mercies as much sweetness and as much of God in the one and the other as readily hath been since the beginning of the world Only this we know all things are possible to him which are impossible to us And if the Spirit work to sanctifie the Rod a more gentle Rod shall work more effectually his Word shall do as much as his Rod. The case we are now into is just this None calleth on thee It is a terrible one whither our condition be good or bad outwardly our peace hath put us asleep and the Word cannot put men to prayers Now the Lord hath begun to threaten as you have been still in fear of new troubles and a revolution of affairs again yet I challenge your own Consciences and appeal to them whom hath the Word prevailed with to put to prayer Whom hath the rumour of approaching trouble put to their prayers Whose spirit hath been affected with Goâ— fâ—ouning on the Land And this yet more aâ— gravateth your laziness In the time that Goâ— doth shew terrible things to his people in Irelaâ— giveth them a cup of wormwood and to drink â— wine of astonishment Are not you yet at eâ—â— when your brethren and fellow saints are scaâ—tered among you as strangers yet your heaâ— bleed not Well behold the end of it you case is a sad prognostick of the Lords hideing hiâ— Face and consuming us Nay it is a sure token that his Face is hid already When Jâ— friends would aggravate his misery they sumâ— it up in this thou restrainest prayer from God Iâ— is more wrath to be kept from much praying nor to be scattered from your own house Therefore if you would have the cloud of Godâ— anger that covereth the Land with blackneâ— go over you and pour out it self on others you would prevent the Rod hearken to thâ— Word and stirr up your selves to much prayeâ— that you may be called his remembrancers Oâ— how long shall prayer be banished this Kingdom The Lords controversie must be greaâ— with us for since the days of our first love therâ— hath been great decay of the spirit of prayer The Children of God should be so much in it as they might be one with it David was so much in prayer as he in a manner defined himself by it Psal 109. 4. I gave my self unto prayer In the original there is no more but â— prayer I was all prayer It was my Work my Element my Affection my Action Nay to speak the truth it is the decay of prayer that hath made all this defection in the Land Would you know the original of many a publick mans Apostacy and backsliding in the cause of God what maketh them so soon forget their solemn ingagements and grow particular seeking their own things untender in seeking the things of God Would you trace back the Desertion up to the Fountain head Then come and see Look upon such a mans walking with God in private such a mans praying and you shall find matters have been first wrong there Alienation and estrangement from God himself in immediat Duties and secret approaches hath made mâ—ns Affections cooll to his interest in publick Duties And believe it the reason why so few great men or none are so cordial constant and through in Gods Matters is this they pray not in secret They come to Parliament or Council where publick Matters concerning the Honour of God are to be debated as any Stas-man of Venice would come to the Senate They have no dependence on God to be guided in these Matters They are much in publick Duties but little in secret with God Believe it any mans private walking with God shall be read upon his publick carriage whither he be Minister or Ruler There is yet another thing we would have you consider to endear this Duty unto you and bind upon your Consciences an absolute necessity of being much in it and it is this Prayer and calling on his Name is often put for all immediat Worship of God especially the more substantial and moral part of Service This people was much in Ceremonials and they made these their righteousness Nay but there was little secret conversing with God walking humbly with him loving him believing in him Well then prayer is as it were a compend and summ of all Duties It contains in it Faith Love Repentance all these should breath out in prayer In a word if we say to you be much in prayer we have said all and it is more then all the rest because it is a more near and immediat approach to God having more solid Religion in it If you be lively in this you are thriving Christians if you wither here all must decay for prayer sappeth and watereth all othes Duties with the influence of Heaven That stirreth up himself to take hold on thee This expresseth more of their condition under the Rod and while God was threatning to depart and leave them none took so much notice of it as to awake out of his dream to take a fast hold of God It was but like the grip a man taketh in his slumbering that he soon quiteth in his sleep None awaketh himself as a bird stirreth up it self with its wings to flight None do so spread out their sails to meet the wind This importeth a great security and negligence a careless stupidity To take hold to grip strongly and violently importeth both Faith acted on God and Communion with God so that the sense is no body careth whither thou go there is none that stirreth up himself to take violent hold of thee Men ly louse in their interest and indifferent in the one thing necessary do not strongly grip to it No body keepeth thee by prayer and intercession so that there is no diligence added to diligence there is no stirring up of our selves in security First when the Lord seemeth to withdraw and when he is angry it is our duty to take hold the more on him and not only to act Faith and call on him by prayer but to add to ordinary diligence it should be extraordinary First then I say when the Lord is withdrawing and seemeth angry we ought not to withdraw from him by unbelief but to draw near and take hold on him And the Lord giveth a reason of this himself Isai 26. 4 5. because fury is not in me It is but a moments anger it is not hatred of your persons but sins it is not fury that hath no discretion in it to difference between a friend and an enemy It is but at least a fathers anger that is not for destruction but correction The Lord is not implacable come to him and win him let bim take hold of me and let him make peace with me if he will make peace He is a God whose
in God in the worst case and then ye might lay hold on him though he seemed a consuming fire It is then a time that calleth most for secureing your interest in him a time when there is no external advantage to beguile you a time when the only happiness is to be one with God Therefore the man who in such Calamities and Judgements is not a waked to put his eternal Estate out of question he is in a dangerous case For do not most part drive over their dayes and have no assurance of Salvation they dare not say either pro or contra It may be and it may not be And this is the length that the most part come a negative Peace No positive Confidence No clear concluding on sure grounds an Interest Alwayes ye are most called to this when God afflicteth the Land or you If ye do not then make Peace it is most dangerous 3. The Lord loveth Faith in a difficulty best it is the singlest and the cleanliest it is that which most honoureth him and glorifieth his Truth and Faithfulnesse and Sufficiency and Mercy for then it is most purely Elevated above Creatures and pitcheth most on God And therefore bringeth men to this No help for my soul but thou art my portion And this commendeth God most when he is set alone Prosperity bringeth him down among Creatures and secure Faith maketh little distinction But awakening Faith grippeth strongly and singly puteth God alone Secondly Oftentimes when God is departing none stirreth up himself to lay hold on him Although there may be praying and doing of many duties yet there is nothing beyond ordinary The varieties and accessions of new grounds of supplications doth neither make greater frequency nor more fervency This our experience may clear unto us both in duties and faith First There is very little diligence in seeking of God in the way and means appointed even when God seemeth to bid farewel to the Land and go away No body cometh in as an intercessor Men keep on their old way of praying and never addeth to it come what like Who is it that riseth above his ordinary as the Tide of Gods dispensation is There ought to be such an impression made by the changes of Gods countenance as might be read on the duties of his people There should be such a distance between your ordinary and such times as between a sleeping man and a waking man that whatever your attainment of access to God be ye might stir up and go beyond it according as matters call Will God count your publick Fasts a performance of this duty Alas we fast sleeping and none stirreth up himself to these things Is there any difference betwixt your solemn Humiliation and another Sabbath And is there any difference between a Sabbath and a week day save the external duty Is not this palpably our case Is there any wakening among us No security is both the universal disease and complaint And it is become an incurable disease since it became a complaint Doth any of you pray more in private then ye used Or what edge is on your prayers Alas the Lord will get good leave to go from us It feareth me that we would give Christ a Testimonial to go over Seas Hold him hold him Nay the multitude would be gladly quite of him they cannot abide his yoke his work is a burden his word is a torment his discipline is bands and cords And what heart can ye then have to keep Christ What violence can ye offer to him to hold him still All your intreaties may be fair complements but they would never rent his garment Secondly There is no up-stirring to faith among us and laying hold on Jesus Christ albeit all his dispensations warn us that it is now high time There are not many who are about this point effectually to stir up their faith or to secure their interest Think ye that conjectures will carry you thorow difficulties The multitude think they believe much but any temptation proveth their mistake The most part of Scotland would deny God and his Son Jesus Christ if they were put to it Alwayes it is a time ye would not ly out from your strong hold faith only uniteth you to Christ and if ye would be kept in any trial stir up faitâ— Thirdly Prayer and Faith diligence and laying hold on God must go together and help one another Not calling on his Name and not laying hold on him go together and have influence oâ—e upon another First Faith hath influence on Prayer Laying hold on God in Christ will make right calling on his Name it learneth men how to call God to call him Abba Father Faith useth to vent iâ— self in Prayer I say much consideration of God and claiming in to him and to the grounds of confidence in him must both make Prayer acceptable and carry the stamp and impression of Gods Name or Christâ— Nâ—mâ— oâ— it and also make much prayer for when a soul hath pitched on God as its only felicity and thus made choice of him it findeth in him all-sufficiency all things for all things There is no necessiâ—y but it findeth a supply in his fulness for it And therefore it applyeth a man to the fountain to draw out of the wells of salvation There is nothing can be so sweet and refreshing as for such a soul to pour out it sâ—lf every day in him to talk with him face to face Faith ingageth the heart to come to God with all things whereas many difficulties would have been and the secure or unsettled heart would have gone as many different wayes to help them Faith laying hold on God knoweth but one and bringeth all here And therefore access to God is a fruit of it access unto the grace wherein we stand by faith And again how can Prayer be acceptable as long as Faith doth not principle it It is but like a beasts groaning under a burden Laying hold on God himself makes a mans duties acceptable because he speaks and asks believing that he shall receive he trusteth God and doth not tempt him Where lively faith is not intertained there cannot be much affection which is the oyl of the wheels There may be in some bitterness of spirit much vehemency but that is not a pure flame of divine love that burneth upward to him and it is soon extinguished and lasteth no longer nor present sense and then the soul groweth harder as iron that had been in the fire Secondly when there is not much prayer and calling faith cannot be strong and violent for prayer is even the exercise of faith if you wear out of that faith rusteth There may be much quietness with little prayer but there cannot be much and strong and lively faith for where it getteth not continual imployment it faggs And indeed prayer is a special point of holding God fast and keeping him Therefore joyn these if ye would thrive in any one of
them Your unbelieving complaints are not prayers and calling on his Name because they are not mixed with faith As the Apostle said of the Word so may it be said of Prayer your prayers are not profitable are not heardâ— because not mixed with faith Ye use to doubt that ye may be fervent to question your interest that ye may stir up your spirits to prayer But alas what a simple grosse mistake is that Poor soul though thou get more liberty shall it be counted access to God Though you have more grief and your bitterness doth indite more eloquence shall God be moved with it Know ye not that you should ask without wavering and lift up pure hands without wrath and doubting and yet both are there Fourthly The duty we are called to in such a time when God is angry is to lay hold on him We would speak a word more of it And first we ought to hold a departing Lord by wrestling with him in supplication not to let bim depart till he bless Hos 12. 3 4. The application of Jacobs victory over the Angel is thus Turn ye to the Lord and wait on him c. How had Jacob power over the Angel By supplication and weeping So that prayer is a victory over God even the Lord God of Hosts We ought as it were to strive against outward dispensation when it saith He is gone when our condition saith He is gone or going we ought to wrestle with it No submission to such a departing I mean no submission that sitteth down with it and is not careful how it be Now this time calleth you to such an exercise The Lord seemeth to be angry with us there is a strong cloud over the Land and like to pour down upon us the Lord is drawing a sword again and beginning now to lay on Many threatnings would not put us to supplication Now what will the laying on of the rod do If the former dayes be returning wherein ye saw much sorrow Is it not then high time for the Lords remembrancers and for the Lords children to wrestle with God As Esau was coming on Jacob so hath God armed men and such desperate men as he hath made a rod to us before If we be twice beaten with it it is very just for before we did not seek in to him who smote us You would know this that the Lord is but seeking imployment and if ye would deal with him ye may make advantage of the present and future calamities And look to this laying hold on him This is the chief thing ye should now heed It is God himself that should be your principal object Praying should be a laying hold on God it should meet with himself For the most part in the time of prosperity we cannot meet with God singlely we have so much to do with creatures we keep trysts so punctually with them so that we cannot keep with God We have so many things in our affections and thoughts that God cannot get place he cannot get us at leisure for the throng of our business we loss God by catching at shadows Well then we are called in such a time of difficulty to come in to God himself to draw by the vail of Ordinances that we may have Communion with God himself And this is right praying when the soul getteth such immediate access to God as it were to handle him and see him and taste him to exercise its senses on him Ordinances have been of a long time a covering of his face and he useth not now to unvail himself in the Sanctuary and let us see his glory God is departed from preaching and praying and the solemn meeting so that we meet not with God we lay hold on a shadow of an outward Ordinance but not on God himself Therefore Christians make advantage of this time you may be brought to want Ordinances then lay hold on himself who is the substance and marrow of them you may be denuded of outward comforts and accommodation here then lay hold on himself in much prayer If affliction would blow away the cloud on his face or would scatter our idols from us and make us single alone with God as Jacob was it were well sent Secondly Your exercise should be to take hold on God by faith And first ye would make peace with God be much in direct acts of apprehending God himself in Jesus Christ And this is according as ye take up your selves in your own misery and nâ—câ—ssity Do but travel continually between your own misery and something answerable in God The first thing we would have you do now when God frowns upon us find out your own lost condition and how great strangers you have beâ—n to him even when ye have appâ—oached in many Oâ—dinances And find a necessity of making peace with God and atonement Now from this lay hold on Christ as the hope set before you look upon that in him which will answer all your necâ—ssities and be suitable to them It is not matters of outward lot that should go nearest your heart Let the world go where it will that which concerneth you most in such a time is the securing your soul for if ye loss it what gain you What keep you Your houses and lands and lives may be in hazard Nay but one thing is more worth then all these and in more hazard Begin at spiritual things and ask how matters stand between God and thee Secondly Not only would ye be much in immediat application unto Jesus Christ but ye would so take hold of him as ye may be sure ye have him Make peace and know that ye have made it and then shall ye be kept in perfect peace You would never rest until you can on solid grounds answer the question And this duty is called for from you at such a time for the just shall live by faith in a troublesome time Hab. 2. 4. And as ye ought to keep and hold fast confidence and not cast it away in such a time so should ye all seek after it Do not only rest in this I know not but I may belong to Christ I dar not say against it O no Christians you should have positive clear grounds of assurance I am his and he is mine I know that my Redeemer liveth God is my portion And if ye conclude this solidly I defy all the world to shake and trouble your peace this is perfect peace peace peace double peace How can you choose but be shaken at every blast of temptation when you are not thus solidly grounded when you hold not at your Anchor And Thirdly Having thus laid hold on Christ as your own lay hold on all in him as yours and for your use Whatever difficulty the present time or your own condition afford search but as much in God as may counterballance it Answer all objections from his Mercy Goodnesse Power Wisdom Unchangableness And this shall be more nor the trouble
God himself laid hold upon and made ours is more nor removing a temporal Calamitv It is an eternal weight to weigh down all Crosses and Disapointments For what can present things be Is there not in the favour of his countenance that which may drown them in Oblivion Are ye like to sink here Is not God a sure Anchor to hold by And if you do not this your trouble is nothing in respect of the danger of your Soul Secure and loose lying out of God not putting this matter to a full poynt is worse nor all your outward fading Therefore we exhort you in the Lords Name to fly in to this Name of the Lord as a strong tower to run to and be safe When the Lord seemeth now to be angry with us run not away from him though he should yet cloath himself with vengeance as a Garment But First O ye poor people who have never asked this Question whether have I any Interest in Jesus Ask it now and resolve it in time If trouble come on if scattering and desolation come on and our Land fade as a Leaf certainly the Lords anger will drive you away What will ye do in the time of his Indignation All of you put this to the tryal how matters stand between God and you And Secondly if ye find all wrong do not sink in discouragement All may be amended while it is seen wrong in time Nay God taketh away outward Accomodation to make you more serious in this And it is the very voice of Rods every one fly in to your hold every one make peace with me You may take hold and do it feckfully Thirdly You who have fled to Jesus take more hold of him you are called also to renew your Faith and begin again Make peace with God let your confidence be kept fast and thus shall ye be immoveable because he changeth not God will not go from you if ye believe hold him by Faith Christ could not do great things in Galilee because of their unbelief and so be departed from them As unbelief maketh an evil heart to depart from the God of all Life and Consolation So doth it make Goâ— depart from us But Faith casteth a knot upoâ— him to speak with reverence it fasteneth hiâ— by his own Word and Promise and he cannot go by it It is a violent hand laid oâ— God I will not let thee go till thou blesâ— me Fourthly Faith and Prayer or holding oâ— God by believing in him and much imploying him needeth much stirring up unto and awaking That stirreth up himself to take hold oâ— thee Security is the moth of both these and eateth out the life of Faith and Supplication It maketh Prayer so coldrife that it it cannoâ— prevail and Faith so weake that it cannot usâ— violence Fâ—â—st security apprehendeth no evil no need A secure condition is a dream that one is eating and yet his Soul is empty Looâ— how the people of Laish were quiet and secure apprehending no evil Destruction cometh then on as an armed man Always it is much necessity that administers fewel to a mans Faith and Supplication David Psal 30. 7. I saiâ— in my prosperity I shall not be moved Nay but many say in adversity and cry peace peace where no peace is Security pleadeth innocency and then believeth immunity I am innocent therefore shall his anger turn away Jer. 2. 35. Security applyeth not sin and so refuseth the curse of sin and wages of it And thus is a man in his own eyes a lord and then he will come no more to God Jer. 2. 31. It is almost impossible to awake men by general Judgments â—o apprehend personal danger and men never stirr out of their nest till it be on fire We can behold or hear of our neighbours spoyling and violence done to them but till the voice of a cry be heard in our own Streets and Fields no body will take the Judgement to themselves It is well said that which is spoken to all is spoken to none so what is done to all in generall is done to hone The voice of a general Rod speaketh not particularly and maketh not men apprehensive of sad things and thus men are not pressed unto prayer are not put out of themselves It is onely necessity that sapps the roots of it and makes it green Secondly Security is lazy and not active putteth not forth its hand to work and so dieth a beggar for onely the hand of the diligent maketh rich Laying hold on God is a duty that requireth much spirit in it Men do not grip things well in their slumbering There is no Duty that needeth so spiritual and lively Principles If a man do not put on such a peece of resolution and edge upon him he cannot come to the wrestling of Prayer and violence of Faith Although the exercise and acting of Grace dependeth more upon the Spirit of God his present Influence then upon the Soul of man yet this is the way the Lord communicateth his Influence by stirring up and exciting the Creature to its duty as if it could do it alone Grace is one thing and the stirring up of it is another thing For when we ly by and sleep over our time and go not about tâ— matter so seriously as it were life aâ— death it is but a weak hold we can takeâ— God According to the measure of a mâ— apprehending necessity and according the measure of his seriousness in these thinâ— so will the hand of Faith grip and lay hoâ— with more or lesse violence As a mâ— drowning will be put from sleeping aâ— when one is in extreem hazard all his strengâ— will unite together in one to do that whiâ— at any ordinary time it could not do so ougâ— it to be here A Christian assaulted wiâ— many temptations should unite his strengâ— and try the yondmost O but your whoâ— spirits would run together to the saving â— your self if ye were very apprehensive of necessity The exercise of Faith is a dead griâ— that cannot part with what it grippetâ— Therefore first we must say to you it is 〈◊〉 so easy a thing as you believe to lay hold â— God there must be stirring up to it Aâ— when the Lord speaketh of our stirring our selves certainly he meaneth this like wayeâ— that he must stirr us ere we stirr our selveâ— Secondly above all be afraid of a secure condition It is the enemy of Communioâ— with God and spiritual Life therefore look about you and apprehend more your necessity and then give no rest and quietness to your self till you have imployed and engaged him Be as men flying to lay hold on the refuge set before you Thirdly It must be a time of little accesse to God and little Faith when we are all secure and no body goeth about Religion as their work and business We allow our self in it Therefore we do exhort you first to purpose this as your end to aim at and