Delight who will either in sloth and ignorance on the one hand or in vain speculations and strains of frothy wit on the other Surely those Preachers shall only be approved in the great day who have constantly endeavoured in their measure to speak the best and fittest they could for their Masters advantage and happy these Christians of what estate soever that in all estates make Christ their glory and in all Actions have their eye fixed upon his glory who is their Light and the Glory of the Lord. Now to those that are strangers to him would to God none that are to be spoken to were such To them I say notice would be given both of the excellency and necessity of Christ. Though it were possibly to grop the way to happiness in the dark yea none will deny but to be conducted thither by a constant Light is both more safe and more delightful But were there any possibility to attain that end without this Light the neglect of it were not altogether so strange The wonder of all is this That Christ alone being both that Life and the way to it and the Truth or Light that guides in that way yet Christians so called should esteem and look after him as little as if he were wholly needless What meanest thou O besotted sinner is it so light a thing to die in thy sins and eternally for them that thou wilt not so much as open and admit the Light of Salvation what shalt thou pretend in that terrible day Though all other kind of people should offer some excuse thou who hast heard the Gospel shall be speechless For not only shall the rigour of justice condemn thee but Mercy it self shalt plead against thee for thou hast despised it That Light did come and was not embraced shall be the main condemnation How many thousands that make no doubt of Heaven yet shall then fall short of it It is not a superficial profession that will then pass current It is not some publick sighs and groans from an unsanctified heart which either come from custom or some present touch of the Word nor yet is it some sudden risings of inward affection towards Christ upon the report of his worth that shall then serve the turn The intellective knowledge of Christ the distinct understanding yea the Orthodox Preaching of his Gospel the maintaining of his publick cause and suffering for it shall not then be found sufficient only that peculiar apprehension of Christ those constant flames of spiritual love that even course of holy walking in his Light shall be these Characters whereby Christ shall own his Children and admit them into the inheritance of perfect Light One of the speakers in the Book of Job discoursing of the prosperity of the ungodly calls it but his Candle and tells how long it can last His Candle says he shall be put out with him and that 's the longest term of it if it last his life time it shall convey him no further he goes into eternity in the dark and therefore as St. John says he knows not whither he goeth Quo nunc abibis said that Emperor to his Soul is it not a sad thing when the Soul that knows no other but worldly Light must take leave of it and enter into eternal darkness there to be uncessantly tormented with present anguish and the frightful expectation of the last Judgment where it must take again that Body which was the complice of its wickedness to be partaker of its punishment where it shall have a double misery to behold Crowns of Immortality distributed to the godly after the short combates of this Life and it self thrust out among the Devils then shall all Men be some way sensible what is the worth of this now contemned light the Lord Jesus Christ the greatest number too late for they shall be banisht from it for ever but the Righteous shall then most perfectly know and for ever enjoy this Light and Glory of the Lord To whom with the Father of Lights and Spirit of Grace be eternity of Praise and Honour SERMON VI. PREFACE WHat shall it profit a Man if he gain the whole World and lose his own Soul said our Saviour who was to lay down a ransom for it and knew well that it would cost infinitely more than the World was worth yet the most of Men value their own Souls at a far lower rate than the whole World losing them for broken morsels of it yea many times for vain hopes that are never accomplished And as these Men make a miserable bargain so by the contrary they that lose the World or any thing Worldly yea though it were the whole to save their Souls make a profitable loss of it Nature teaches Men to hazard and lose all for the life of the Body rather than lose it Although it prove many times very uncomfortable by the lose of these outward things and yet the most part of Men pass their whole life-time without one serious thought of the exellency and importance of their Souls whose life and Happiness is of a higher nature and neither consists in nor depends upon any thing here below Hence it is that while they use the helps of this present life and the defences of it when it is in danger and use them with so much diligence and attention The means of that better life of their better part their Souls they either use not at all or so slightly and coldly that they never find Salvation in them You may find it some way in your selves the threatnings and preparations of Men against you have awakened and rowsed you more to think upon means of your temporal safety but how few are sensible and afraid of the wrath of God who as our Saviour tells us can kill both Body and Soul and cast them into Hell you want not freequent advertisement from the Word of God so plentifully Preacht that many are perishing one part in gross Ignorance of God another in Profane and Licentious living and the greatest part in a formal and lifeless profession of Religion without the power of it and yet where are they that lay it to heart and bestir themselves to rescue their Souls from destruction Certainly whatsoever Men profess it is unbelief that is the cause of Impenitence Men are not convinced of the purity of Gods nature nor sensible of the impurity of their own therefore they apply not themselves in good earnest to the work of Repentance and Reformation the liveliest part of it Labour then for a more active and practical knowledge of God and Divine truths such as may humble and renew your Souls not only that you may be delivered from outward troubles that threaten you but much more that you may escape the wrath to come And because neither the Word Preached nor Judgments nor Mercies that are set before you are sufficient to quicken a dead Soul or soften a hard Heart without the effectual concourse of
is used inâ—â— ver 27. conform to that of Moses Gen. 6. Every imagination of the thoughts of mans heart is only evil continually The word indeed signifies the wise thoughts so then take the full latitude of it thus The carnal mind in its best and wisest thoughts is direct enmity against God Carnal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What meant by the flesh here It is the whole corrupt Nature of man and that we may know by its opposition to the Spirit not to the Spirit or Soul of a man for so it hath no thoughts nor minding these being proper to the Soul but opposed to the Spirit of God Now the Corruption of Nature is called the Flesh not without very good reason not only to signifie the baseness of it the Flesh being the more ignoble and meaner part of a Man but because the greatest part of the sins of mens lives are about sensitive objects and things that concern the Flesh or the Body it lets in temptation of sin to the Soul by the doors of the Senses and it gives the last perfection or accomplishment to sin by external acting of it The very first sin that brought in Death and Misery with it upon Mankind the pleasure of the eye and of the taste were sharers in the guiltiness of it The carnal mind Man in regard of his composure is as it were the tie and band of Heaven and Earth they meet and are married in him A Body he has taken out of the Dust but a Soul breathed from Heaven the Father of Spirits a House of Clay but a Guest of most noble Extraction But the pity is it hath forgot its Original and is so drowned in flesh that it deserves no other but to go under the Name of Flesh. It is become the Slave and Drudge of the Body and as the Israelites in Egypt made perpetually to moyl in Clay What is all your Merchandise your Trades and Manufactures your Tillage and Husbandry but all for the Body in its behalf for Food and Raiment In all these the Mind must be careful and thoughtful and yet properly they reach it not for it self hath no interest in them It is true the necessity of the Body requires much of these things and superfluous custom far more but it is lamentable that men force their Souls to forget it self and its proper business to attend these things only and be busie in them They spend all their time and their choicest pains upon perishing things and which is worse engage their affections to them They mind earthly things whose end is destruction Philip. 3. 19. The same word that 's here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Will you consider seriously that your Souls run the hazard of perishing because you consider not their Spiritual Nature When that earthly Tabernacle of yours shall fall to the ground and e're long it must your Souls must then enter Eternity and though you had as large a share of earthly things as your earthly hearts now would wish they all lose their use in that moment they are not a proper good for the Soul at any time and least at that time If you keep it all your life long busie about the interest and benefit of the flesh the Body how poor will be when thy part having provided nothing at all for it self but the guiltiness of a sinful life which will sink it into that bottomless Pit Be forewarned then for to be carnally minded is death verse 6. precedeing the Text. The carnal mind Now as Sin hath abased and degenerated the Soul of Man making it Carnal so the Son of God by taking on our Nature hath sublimated it again and made it Spiritual The Souls that received him are Spiritualized yea as Sin made the Soul Carnal Grace makes the very Body to become Spiritual making it partaker and co-worker in spiritual things together with the Soul in doing and suffering and participant of the hopes too of an everlasting reward This is the main Christian Character our Apostle gives here that they are spiritually minded and that their actions suit their minds They walk not after the flesh but after the spirit whereas before with the rest of the World they were eager in the pursuit of Honours and Profits and Worldly Pleasures Now the stream of their desires run in another channel they seek after Honour and are very ambitious of it but it is such Honour as the Apostle speaks of in this Epistle Rom. 2. 7. By patient continuance in well doing they seek for glory and honour and immortality Their mind is upon profit and gain but it is with the same Apostle Philip. 3. that they may win Christ and they account all other things loss in comparison And their desires are after pleasure too but not Carnal Pleasures those are both base and of short continuance but the pleasures they aim at are those that are at Gods right hand and for evermore Psal. 16. 11. And that path of life he there speaks of that way of holiness that leads thither is their delight Spiritual Excercises they go to not as their task only but more as their joy and refreshment And this change the Spirit of God works in the Soul making it yea and the body wherein it dwells of Carnal to become Spiritual as the fire to which the Holy Ghost is compared refines Sand and Ashes and makes of them the purest Glass which is so neat and transparent Enmity against God Sin hath not only made us unlike God by defacing his beautiful Image in us not only strangers by making us wander far off from him but enemies nor enemies only but Enmity in the abstract for that is emphatical The carnal mind is Enmity nothing else but Enmity Now this Enmity is described in the latter clause of the Text by an Antipathy so to call it or Not-compliance with the Law of God it is not subject to the Law of God neither can it be to wit while it remains such There is an absolute impossibility in it to suit with the Law of God and consequently with God himself the reason lies in their opposits qualities God is spiritual and holy and so is the law as our Apostle hath it in the preceeding Chapter and the opposition he there makes betwixt his Unregenerate part and the Law is wholly true of the Unregenerate man The law is holy says he ver 12. And ver 14. It is spiritual to which too he opposes but I am carnal sold under sin Where are now those that so vilifie Grace and magnifie Nature Or shall I rather say Nullifie Grace and Deifie Nature Here is the best Elogy the Apostle will bestow upon the best of Natures Enmity against God Nay all the sparkles of Virtue and Moral Goodness in Civil Men and Ancient Heathens is no better besides many other things to be said to the Vertues of those Philosophers as ignorance of Christ by whom alone this enmity is removed I
should easily confess nor I think can any deny it but that there is in the very ruines of our Nature some Character left of a tendency to God as our chief and only satisfying good which we may call a kind of love and when we hear him spoken of find it flutter and stir and hence men so abhor the imputation of hating God and being enemies Yet this is so smothered under sensuality and flesh that until we be made spiritual nothing appears but practical and as they call it Interpretative Enmity There is one thing stains them enough they were all as that Father speaks Animalia Gloriae They aimed not in their study of Vertue at God's glory but at their own and is not that quarrel enough and matter of enmity Says not he My glory I will not give unto another c. But that is most useful for you to convince you of that too good conceit men have of their natural condition you would take it hardly the most prophane of you all if any should come to you in particular and tell you you are an enemy to God But I answer there is none of you if you believe the Scriptures but will confess that all men are naturally such and therefore except we find in our selves a notable alteration from the condition of Nature we must take with it that we are Enemies yea Enmity to God Of strangers to become acquainted with him yea which is more of enemies to become friends is a greater and more remarkable change than to be incident to a man without any evidence and sign of it I know there is very great variety in the way and manner of Conversion and to some especially if it be in their tender years Grace may be instilled and dropt in as it were insensibly But this I may confidently say that whatsoever be the way of working it there will be a wide and apparent difference betwixt friendship with God and the condition of Nature which is Enmity against him Do not flatter your selves so long as your minds remain Carnal ardent in love to the World and cold in love to God Lovers of pleasures more then of God as the Apostle speaks You are his Enemies for with him there is no neutrality That which they say taxing it as a weakness in the Sex Aut amat aut odit nihil est tertium is in this case necessarily true of all And this is Gods peculiar that he can judge Infallibly of the inside those shadows of friendship men use one with another will not pass with him deceived he cannot be but men may easily and alas too many do deceive themselves in this matter to their own ruin We may learn hence how deep Sin goes in our Nature and consequently that the cure and remedy of it must go as deep That all the parts of our Bodies and powers of our Souls are polluted originally our very mind and conscience as the Apostle speaks for it is immersed in flesh and inslaved to flesh naturally and therefore goes under its name We are become all flesh That is the spring of our mischiefs we have lost our likeness with our Father the Father of Spirits the purest and most Spiritual Spirit till renewed by participation of his Spirit on our Flesh. And it is the Errour not only of Natural Men but somewhat of the Godly too that in Self-reformation they set themselves against actual sin but they lay not the Ax to the root of the Tree this root of bitterness this our inbred and natural enmity against God And till this be done the lopping off of some branches will do no good while the root is in vigour those will grow again and possibly faster than before Bewail every known act of sin as much as you can for the least of them deserves it but withal let the consideration of them lead you into thoughts of this seed of Rebellion the wickedness of our Nature that takes life with us in the Womb and springs and grows up with us and this will humble us exceedingly and raise our Godly sorrow to a higher tide We find David taketh this course Psal. 51. 5. where he is lamenting his particular sin of Adultery and Murder it leads him to the sinfulness of his Nature I was shapen in Iniquity and in sin did my Mother conceive me or warm me which he mentions not to extenuate and diminish his sin no he is there very far from that strain but adds it as a main aggravation Indeed the power of Original Sin in the Regenerate is laid very low yet not altogether extinct which they find often to their grief and makes them cry out with our Apostle in the former Chapter O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death The Converted are already delivered as he adds from the Dominion of it but not from the Molestation and Trouble of it though it is not a quiet and uncontroulled Master as it was before yet it is in the House still as an unruly Servant or Slave ever vexing and annoying them And this Body of Death they shall have still cause to bewail till Death release them This Leprosie hath taken so deep in the Walls of this House that it cannot perfectly be cleansed till it be taken down and it is this more than any other sorrows or afflictions of life that makes the Godly man not only content to die but desirous longing with our Apostle To be dissolved and be with Christ which is far better As this teaches us the misery of Mans Nature so it sets off and commends exceedingly the riches of Gods Grace Are men naturally his Enemies Why then admire his patience and bounty a little and then we will speak of his Saving-Grace Could not he very easily ease himself of his Adversaries as he says by the Prophet Wants he power in his right hand to find out and cut off all his Enemies Surely no not only he hath power to destroy them all in a moment but the very withdrawing of his hand that upholds their being though they consider it not would make them fall to nothing yet is he pleased not only to spare Transgressours but to give them many outward blessings rain and fruitful seasons as the Apostle speaks Act. 14. And the Earth that is so full of mans Rebellion is yet more full of his Goodness The earth is full of thy goodness It is remarkable that that same reason which is given Gen. 6. 5. of the Justice of God in drowning the World is Chapter 8. 21. rendred as the reason of Gods resolved patience ever since His Grace in finding a way of Reconcilement and not sparing his own Son his only begotten Son to accomplish it nor did he spare himself O matchless Love to lay down his life not for Friends but for Strangers Not only so but Enemies for Unrighteous and Ungodly Persons such as be at enmity against him Rom. 5. 7 8
hath died and that stands for the Believer Whosoever flies to him and lays hold on him for life he cannot die again nor canst thou die for whom he died once or rather is risen that raises the assurance higher and sets it firmer for this evidences that in his death all was payed when he being the Surety and seized on for the Debt and once Deaths Prisoner yet was set free This clears the matter that there is no more to be said and yet further in sign that all is done he is raised to the height of Honour above all Principalities and Powers is set at the right hand of the Father and there he sits and lives to make Intercession to sue out the fulfilling of all for Believers the bringing of them home lives to see all made good that he Died and Covenanted for so now his righteousness is thine that believest any challenge must meet with Christ first and if it seize not on him it cannot light on thee for thou art in him married to him And the same triumph that he speaks Isaiah 50. 8. whence these words are borrowed that is made thine and thou mayest now speak it in him I know not what can cast him down that hath this word to rest upon and to comfort himself in SERMON XVII Rom. VIII 35 c. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or â—amine or nakâ—dness or peril or sword c. IS this he that so lately cry'd out O wretched Man that I am Who shall deliver me That now triumphs O happy Man Who shall separate us from the love of Christ Yes t is the same Pained then with the thoughts of that miserable conjunction with a Body of Death and so crying out who will deliver Who will separate me from that now Now he hath found a Deliverer to do that for him to whom he is for ever united and he glories now in his inseparable Union and unalterable Love that none can divide him from yea it is through him that presently after that word of complaint he praises God and now in him he triumphs So vast a difference is there betwixt a Christian taken in himself and in Christ when he views himself in himself then nothing but wretched and wretched a polluted perishing Wretch but then he looks again and sees himself in Christ and there he 's rich and safe and happy he triumphs and he glories in it above all the painted Prosperities and against all the horâ—id Adversities of the World he lives in his Christ content and happy and laughs at all Enemies And he extends his triumph he makes a common good of it to all Believers speaks it in their name who shall separate us and would have them partake of the same confidence and speak in the same stile with him It is vain that men fancy these to be expressions of Revelations or some singularly priviledg'd Assurances then they would not suit their end which is clearly and undoubtedly the encouragement of all the Children of God upon grounds that are peculiar to them from all the rest of the World but common to them all in all Ages and all varieties of condition It is true all of them have not a like clear and firm apprehension of their happy and sure estate and scarce any of them are alike at all times yet they have all and always the same right to this estate and to the comfort of it and when they stand in a right light to view it they do see it so and rejoice in it There be indeed some kind of assurances that are more rare and extraordinary some immediate glances or coâ—uscations of the love of God upon the Soul of a Believer a smile of his Countenance and this doth exceedingly refresh yea ravish the Soul and enables it mightily for Duties and Sufferings These he dispenses arbitrarily and freely where and when he will some weaker Christians sometimes have them while stronger are strangers to them the Lord training them to live more contentedly by Faith till the day of Vision come And that is the other the less exâ—atical but the more constant and fixed kind of assurance the proper assurance of Faith the Soul by believing cleaves unto God in Christ as he offers himself in the Gospel and thence is possest with a sweet and calm perswasion of his love that being the proper work to appropriate him to make Christ and in him Eternal Life ours so 't is the proper result and fruit of that its acting especially when it acts any thing strongly to quiet the Soul in him Then being Justified by Faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ and from that Peace Joy yea even glorying in Tribulation as there follows And these springing not from an extraordinary sense or view but from the very innate Vertue of Faith working kindly and according to its own Nature Therefore many Christians do prejudice their own Comfort and darken their Spirits by not giving freedom to Faith to act according to its Nature and proper Principles they will not believe till they find some evidence or assurance which is quite to invert the order of the thing and to look for Fruit without settling a Root for it to grow from Would you take Christ upon the absolute word of promise tendring him to you and rest on him so this would ingraft you into life it self for that he is and so those Fruits of the Holy Ghost would bud and flourish in your hearts from that very believing on him would arise this perswasion yea even to a gloriation and an humble boasting in his love who shall accuse who shall condemn who shall separate The undivided Companion and undoubted Helper and Preserver of this confidence of Faith is an active love to Christ a constant study of Holiness and strife against Sin which is the grand enemy of Faith that obstructs the very Vital Spirits of Faith that makes it sickly and heavy in its actings and causes the Palsie in the hand of Faith that it cannot lay so fast hold Therefore this you would be careful of yea know that of necessity it attends Faith and as Faith grows Holiness will grow and Holiness growing will mutually strengthen and establish Faith the Comforts of the Holy Ghost are holy purifying Comforts and the more the Soul is purify'd and made holy the more is it cleared and enlarged to receive much of these Comforts Blessed are the pure heart they shall see God Unholiness is as damps and filthy mists in the Soul it darkens all Hence it is evident in what way Christians may and ought to aspire to this Assurance it is their Portion and in this way they are to aspire to it and shall find it if not presently yet let them wait and go on in this way they shall not miscarry Again it appears that this assurance is no enemy to Holy Diligence nor friend of Carnal