left such an Instinct and Inclination upon her which doth sufficiently excite her to do it 2. The near Preparation is called Promptitude and Readiness for every good Work or a ready Obedience to every good Work Tit. 3. 1. So 1 Tim. 6. 18. Ready to distribute Heb. 13. 16. Ready to communicate So Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 21. 13. This is beyond Inclination The Fire hath an Inclination to ascend upwards yet something may violently keep it down so a Christian may have a Will to Good a strong not a remiss Will but yet there are some Impediments Rom. 7. 18. Inclination implieth a remote Power but Readiness the next and immediate Power therefore a Christian ought to keep himself in a readiness or fitness of Disposition for his Duty whether it concerneth God our selves or others This is seen in Zeal that beareth down all Impediments All Graces are operative and Zeal is that earnest Impulsion and Activity of every Grace where it is in strength and vigour Faith worketh Gal. 5. 6. Love constraineth 2 Cor. 5. 14. Hope quickneth 1 Pet. 1. 3. A lively Hope This proceedeth from the new Nature when it is in right Frame and Strength We need not only make Conscience of our Duty or have some mind to it but our Hearts will not let us have any Quiet and Rest without it 2 Pet. 1. 8. They make you that you shall be neither barren nor unfruitful in the Knowledg of our Lord Iesus Christ. Christians must be zealous of good Works Tit. 2. 14. Paul was pressed in Spirit Acts 17. 10. Acts 18. 5. The Benefits that come by it are 1. We do good Works more easily as being inclined thereunto Exod. 35. 29. The Children of Israel brought a willing Offering unto the Lord. Psal. 110. 3. Thy People shall be willing in the Day of thy Power There is a great deal of Difference between doing things by Compulsion and doing things from an Inclination between Israel's making Brick in Egypt and building the Wall in Nehemiah's Time Neh. 4. 6. 2. With more Delight and Alacrity 1 Iohn 5. 3. His Commandments are not grievous Psal. 112. 1. Blessed is the Man that feareth the Lord that delighteth greatly in his Commandments It is a Pleasure to them to do a good Work to others a Toil. 3. With Constancy That which is forced lasts not long Upon the first occasion we break out cast off the Burden which pincheth and galleth us A Man is never constant to his Duty till he be held to it by his Heart and the Byass of the Heart is not Fear but Love You cannot easily perswade him against his Love and Inclination though you may overcome his Fears Cant. 8. 6 7. Set me as a Seal upon thine Arm for Love is strong as Death Iealousy is cruel as the Grave Many Waters cannot quench Love neither can the Floods drown it If a Man would give all the Substance of his House for Love it would utterly be contemned The Uses are 1. For Reproof of many professing Christians who are not more prepared for the Lord and made ready for every good Work Alas some are to every good Work reprobate Tit. 1. 16. unfit for any Christian Practice In others all their Holiness standeth in being less vitious or wicked than others If they avoid the greater Crimes though they freely practise the less they are accounted good Men. Some talk but do nothing like Cypress-Trees tall and beautiful but unfruitful or the Carbuncle afar off seeming all on fire but the Touch discovers it to be key-cold their Zeal is more in their Tongues than their Actions Others are very unready arguing for a Mediocrity disputing every inch with God beating down the price of Religion as low as they can as little Worship and Charity as may be and will do no more than needeth and it is well if they do that True Goodness like live-Honey droppeth of its own accord 2 Cor. 8. 2. and is always desirous to do more for God Psal. 71. 14. I will praise thee more and more Phil. 1. 9. I pray that your Love may abound yet more and more in Knowledg and in all Iudgment 1 Thess. 4. 1. Furthermore we exhort you Brethren That as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God so ye would abound more and more But little of this Temper is to be found 2d Use of Information First Observe the Deduction of good Works from their proper Causes viz. The Will of God requiring our Regeneration fitting the one determineth our Duty the other maketh us ready to perform it While carnal that which we do is but the Image of a good Work not really and spiritually good 2dly The Necessity of good Works 1. Necessitate Consequentis as the Fruit and End of Regeneration All things are valued by their use What doth the new Creature serve for but that we may walk in newness of Life otherwise it is but a Notion It is not given us to lie hid in the Heart as a sluggish idle quality but that we may act by it and improve it for God The Lord made no Creature in vain Inded all that we have from God both in Nature and Grace was that we might be fruitful in Holiness In Nature we have Life Health and Parts for nothing else but that by our present Duty we may prepare our selves for everlasting Joys All God's Mercies bind us to Diligence all his Ordinances are Means to help us all his Graces are Power to enable us and there is over and above the holy Spirit to excite and quicken that Power Ioh. 4. 10. Ezek. 36. 27. 2. Necessitate Praecepti God hath required them at our hands Now we must make Conscience of what God hath required especially when all his Commandments are holy just and good If some greater thing were required ought we not to have done it 2 Kin. 5. 13. But when he hath required such noble Work shall we refuse There is nothing in his Law but what becometh his Nature preserveth and makes happy ours 3. Necessitate Medii as the Way to Heaven Good Works are indispensibly required of grown Persons if they mean to be saved Heb. 12. 14. Follow Peace with all Men and Holiness without which no Man shall see God A Christian shall be judged at the last day by what he hath done Rev. 20. 12. I saw the Dead small and great stand before God and the Books were opened and another Book was opened which was the Book of Life and the Dead were judged out of those things that were written in the Books according to their Works 1 Pet. 1. 17. If ye call on the Father who without respect of Persons judgeth every Man according to his Work Profession will not carry it but our Works come into the Judgment So Rev. 14. 13. Their Works follow them that is They have the Fruit and Comfort of them in another World and without them we cannot be
abound and suffer need Heb. 13. 5. Let your Conversation be without Covetousness and be ye content with such things as ye have for he hath said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee 2. When your Delight in God Heaven and Holiness is still kept up Rom. 8. 5. For they that are after the Flesh do mind the things of the Flesh but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit 3. When the Heart is kept in a preparation for the Duties of your heavenly Calling SERMON XII JOB 19. 25. For I know that my Redeemer liveth THese words were spoken by Iob a Man for the present miserable and suspected by his Friends as one that neither feared God nor trusted in him Therefore to comfort himself in his Misery and to vindicate his Innocency he makes Confession of his Faith In this Confession you have the grand and most important Articles reckoned up 1. He doth solemnly declare and believe the promised Messiah to be his Saviour I know that my Redeemer liveth 2. His coming to Judgment and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the Earth 3. The Resurrection of the dead with application to himself for he saith ver 26. And though after my Skin Worms destroy this Body yet in my Flesh shall I see God 4. And Lastly the beatifical Vision ver 27. Whom I shall see for my self and mine Eyes shall behold and not another though my reins be consumed within me We have to do with the first Article his belief of Salvation by the promised Messiah For I know that my Redeemer liveth I am not ignorant that this whole Context is carried to another sense not only by the Iewish Doctors but by some Christian Interpreters of good account whose Reasons consisting wholly in Grammatications I list not now to examine The common and received Sense seemeth to be better 1. Because these Words are ushered in with a solemn Preface containing in them some notable Truth Oh that my Words were now written Oh that they were printed in a Book Oh that they were graven with an Iron Pen and Lead in the Rock for ever For I know c. Surely such a passionate Preface will become no other matter so well as the great Mystical Truths of the Christian Faith 2. The Word Goel or Kinsman Redeemer will suit with no Person so well as Christ. 3. The rest of the Passages do not run smoothly unless they be accommodated to this Sense and that I take to be the most obvious Sense which the Words will best bear 4. Iob as it is clear by many Passages in this Book had often disdained all Hopes of being restored to any Temporal Happiness in this Life affirming that all his hope was gone that he was worse than a Tree cut down This is the drift and current of all his former Discourses 5. When he saith that he should see God in his Flesh and with the same Eyes he now had I cannot imagine why these Passages should be so emphatically spoken if he only intended in this Paragraph an hope of being restored to his Temporal Happiness Having premised this In the words observe 1. The causal Particle for giving thereby a reason why he would have his words so marked because of the excellency of the matter 2. The Article of Faith my Redeemer liveth 3. The manner how this Article is asserted and professed by Iob. 1. With certainty of perswasion I know 2. With Application and Appropriation My Redeemer For I know my Redeemer liveth All put together will yeild this point Doct. That it is a great comfort to the Saints in all their Afflictions to know that they have a Redeemer living in Heaven This is the first thing whereby Iob comforteth himself I. I shall consider the matter of the Comfort II. Shew you how it is applicable to all Afflictions I. The matter of the Comfort consists in four things 1. That there is a Redeemer 2. That he is their Redeemer 3. That he liveth 4. That they know this upon certain and infallible Grounds 1. That there is a Redeemer for he doth not say I know that my Creaton liveth but my Redeemer The Word is Goel The Septuagint render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that will deliver me Theodotion better 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My near Kinsman liveth The Word properly signifies such an one as in regard of propinquity or neatness of Kindred had right to redeem a Mortgage or the like Engagement of Land or Livelyhood Lev. 25. 25 26. If thy Brother be waxen poor and hath sold away some of his Possession and if any of his Kin come to redeem it then shall he redeem that which his Brother sold. Or else to prosecute the Law against the Murderer of his Friend or Kinsman Numb 35. 19. 24. It is taken sometimes more largely for any Deliverer out of Thraldom or Avenger of wrong in general And so is in the old Testament applied to God or Christ to whom the term chiefly belongeth To God because of his powerful Providence and rescuing his People out of their Calamities Psal. 25. 22. Redeem Israel O God out of all his Troubles To Christ to whom it is most proper Isa. 59. 20. And the Redeemer shall come to Zion and to them that shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob which the Apostle applieth to Christ Rom. 11. 26. He then is the Redeemer and it implieth 1. That he is our Kinsman after the Flesh or by Incarnation 2. That he paid a price to God for us in his Passion 3. That he pursueth the Law against Satan and rescues us by his Power All which are notable grounds of Comfort For under the Law the Redemption of the Inheritance or the Person of the poor Brother sold was to be made by the next of Blood and that by the Male side not by the Mothers but by the Fathers side and he also was to be the Avenger of Blood 1. There is much comfort in this that Christ is our Kinsman Bone of our Bone and Flesh of our Flesh and therefore certainly will not be strange to his own Flesh. He did redeem us not only jure proprietatis by virtue of his Interest in us as our Creator but jure propinquitatis by virtue of his Kindred one of us of our Stock and Lineage the Son of Adam as well as the Son of God The Apostle tells us Heb. 2. 11. For he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one For which cause he is not ashamed to call them Brethren As the first Fruits offered to God were taken out of the same heap so he was of the same Mass with us Christ is not only Man but the Son of Man he might have been Man if God had created him out of nothing or he had brought his substance from Heaven But he is the Son of Man one descended of the Loins of Adam as we are even thus He that sanctifieth and they
one is infinite and he hath paid an infinite Price for thee purchased an infinite Happiness to thee His Love to thee was without measure and bounds so must thy Thankfulness be to him without stint and limit Though he died for others as well as thee yet thou art bound to love him no less than for thee alone he shed his whole Blood for thee and every Drop was poured out for thy sake 2. By a fiducial Owning and Appropriation challenging his Right in him So doth Thomas Joh. 20. 28. My Lord and my God Faith appropriates God to our own Use and Comfort The Devils know that there is a God and a Christ for they confessed Thou art Iesus the Son of the Living God But they can never say with Comfort My God and my Christ. This Application is the Ground of our Love to Christ and our Comfort in Christ. Our Love to Christ. Things that concern us affect us This is the quickning Motive to the spiritual Life Who loved me and gave himself for me Gal. 2. 20. And 1 Ioh. 4. 19. We love him because he loved us first A particular Sense and Experience of God's Love to our own Souls doth most quicken and awaken our Love to him again When we see that he hath thought of us and taken Care of our Salvation that our Names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life So for our Comfort in Christ. It is the Propriety a Man hath to any good thing that doth increase the Comfort of it It is a Misery to a Man to see others enjoy a Benefit which he hath as much need of as others and he can enjoy no part of it I may allude to that Prov. 5. 15. Drink Waters out of thine own Cistern and running Waters out of thine own Well The greater we know the Benefit the greater will be our Trouble to want it A poor Man that sees a large Dole given and Multitudes relieved and he can get nothing is the more troubled So here to see Christ ready to save Sinners and we have no Comfort by him is very afflicting Ephes. 1. 13. After ye heard the Word of Truth the Gospel of your Salvation It is not sufficient to know that the Gospel is a Doctrine of Salvation to others but every one should labour by a due Application of the Promises to their own Hearts to find it to be a Doctrine of Salvation to themselves in particular The seeing of Meat though never so wholesom doth not nourish but the eating of it The beholding of Christ revealed in the Word as a Saviour in general is not sufficient to give full Comfort without applying him to be my Christ my Saviour my Redeemer We must make sure of our Share in this universal Good We read of Blood shed and Blood sprinkled Atonement made and Atonement received But no Man hath satisfying Comfort by the Blood of Christ till it be sprinkled upon his Heart and applied to him by the Spirit of God and thereby assured that it was shed for him 3. The next Ground of Comfort is That our Redeemer liveth This is true of Christ whether you consider him as God or as Man 1. As God So he is Co-eternal with the Father the First and the Last the Beginning of all things and the End of them So he saith not he hath or shall live but he liveth In my Flesh shall I see God He speaks of the Redeemer's Life without any distinction of Time past present or to come So that he is altogether with the Father and the Spirit from everlasting to everlasting one living God 2. As Man after his Resurrection Rev. 1. 18. I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive for evermore Amen And have the Keys of Hell and of Death Now in this Sence I take it for his Life in Heaven after his Resurrection from the Dead and that is of great Comfort to us For the Apostle telleth us that If we were reconciled by the Death of Christ much more shall we be saved by his Life The Comfort is great that arises from the Life of the Redeemer 1. It is a visible Demonstration of the Truth of the Gospel in general and in particular of the Article of Eternal Life The Truth of the Gospel in general Acts 17. 31. Hath given Assurance that is a sufficient Evidence to induce a Belief of the Gospel in that he hath raised him from the Dead Christ came from Heaven as a faithful Witness to beget Faith as well as to give us Knowledge sealing his Testimony with unquestionable Proofs to make it the more sure and credible to us for he hath confirmed it by a Life of Miracles and chiefly by raising from the dead Himself and ascending visibly to Heaven His Resurrection from the dead is Proof enough to justify his Doctrine and to evidence the Certainty of his Testimony for God by his Divine Power would not countenance a Deceiver and raise him from the Dead and receive him into Glory with Himself Particularly it proves the State of unseen Glory Life and Immortality are more fully brought to light in the Gospel than by any other Means 2 Tim. 1. 10. By the Resurrection of Jesus Christ there is not only a clear Revelation of it but a full Confirmation because Christ is entred into the Glory that he spake of and promised to his Disciples He is gone before us into the other World that he may receive us unto himself and that we might with a more steady confidence wait for it in the midst of Fears and Uncertainties of the present Life 2. His Living after Death It was the solemn Acquittance of our Surety from the Sins imputed to him and a Token of the Acceptation of his Purchase when Christ rose again from the Dead our Surety was let out of Prison Isa. 53. 8. And it is a Ground of Confidence to us for when the Debtor sees the Surety walk abroad he may be sure the Debt is satisfied Therefore it is said Rom. 4. 25. Who was delivered for our Offences and raised again for our Iustification Christ is sometimes said to rise from the Dead and sometimes to be raised from the Dead His taking up his Life again argued his Divine Power but as Man he was raised So it is said Heb. 13. 20. The God of Peace who brought again from the Dead our Lord Iesus Christ. God the Father brought him again from the Dead as an Evidence of full Satisfaction Our Surety did not break Prison but was solemnly brought forth The Disciples said Acts 16. 37 38 39. Let them come themselves and fetch us An Angel was sent from Heaven to roll away the Stone to shew that Christ had a solemn Release and Discharge 3. His Living implies his Capacity to intercede for us and to relieve us in all our Necessities Heb. 7 24 25. But this Man because he continueth ever hath an unchangeable Priesthood Therefore he is able to save
nearer we draw to the one the more we avoid the other so that we have a double reason not to go back and much to engage us to go forward Application Use of Exhortation 1. Suffer us to discharge our Duty in this kind Heb. 13. 22. I beseech you Brethren suffer the Word of Exhortation It is but a small request we have to you that you will but suffer us to take pains to save your Souls it is irksome to carnal Men to have their sluggishness stirred up But what is there that should make it grievous and distastful Many can endure us when we treat of the Joys of Heaven but when we come to flash Hell Terrors in the Face of obstinate Sinners and tell them of Damnation and Wrath to come they think us harsh and severe and say as Ahab of Micaiah He prophesieth nothing but evil to me I but we must set both before you both Life and Death and it is better to hear of Hell than to feel it That is a cowardly Confidence that cannot endure the mention of our Danger There are others that like the offer of Heaven but would sever those things that are so aptly joined Life and Good Death and Evil that cannot indure this Doctrine in this Sense they say with those carnal Hearers Evermore give us the Bread of Life Joh. 6. 35. But they mistake the Terms upon which it may be had Oh! but we are not in the place of God and cannot make the way to Heaven easier than it is but we propound God's Covenant as we find it Life and Good the Conditions as well as the Offer Would you have us compound with you and deceive your Souls with a false hope which will leave you ashamed when you most need the comfort of it Men would live with the Carnal die with the Sincere therefore suffer us to be earnest with you 2. The next thing that we exhort you to is to believe the certainty consider the weight and importance of these Truths that there is a difference beetween Good and Evil that the fruit of the one is Death of the other Life and consider how irrational it is for a Man to love Death and refuse Life No Man in his right Wits can make a doubt which to choose In vain is the Snare laid in the sight of any Bird. Prov. 1. 17. You cannot drive a dull Ass into the Fire that is kindled before his Eyes It is true you hate Death and yet it is proper to say you choose it Prov. 8. 36. All they that hate me love Death Why refusing the Good do you so eagerly pursue the Evil How can ye hate the Wages and yet love the Work by which the Wages is to be earned and in requital of which it will be certainly paid If you detest Hell why not Sin if you love Heaven why do not you do good There is an inseparable Connection between these Who can pitty the Torment of that Man that thrusts his Hand into the Fire What should be the cause of this but Incredulity and Inconsideration 1. Unbelief and Atheism they do not think God will recompence Men according to their Works Now till Men believe it tell them of Hell or Heaven never so much it will not work upon them Who would lose that which is certain and present for the hope or fear of that which is to come and doubtful when they suspect or believe it not fully No wonder they go on still in the Paths that lead down to the Chambers of Death and are prejudiced against the Ways of Life But why are Men such Infidels as to future things 1. You cannot disprove what is declared in Scripture or by any sound Argument evince that there is no Heaven or Hell for all you say or know there are both really existing and if there were no more but that it were good to take the surer side especially when you part with nothing but a few base Pleasures and carnal Satisfactions Reason should make us very careful In a Lottery where there is but a possibility of gaining Men will venture a Shilling or a small matter for a Prize If there be either no Hell or Heaven you part with no more than the vain Pleasures of a fading perishing Life but if this Doctrine prove true you run the hazard of Eternal Torments and lose the Comfort of Eternal Joys therefore it is better to trust this Doctrine than try it it is Prudence to make provision for the worst 2. But doth not natural Reason and Conscience and the Presages of our Hearts shrewdly evidence that there is a World to come as before was proved an Heaven for the Good and an Hell for the wicked At present the Wicked flourish and the Good many times suffer what shall we conclude thence Mol. 2. 17. Every one that doth evil is good in the sight of the Lord and he delighteth in him or where is the God of Iudgment 3. If Nature be not so clear Scripture is full and positive If we do indeed believe the Scripture as we profess to do certainly we cannot so grosly go against the whole Current and Drift of it That Scripture which you profess to be the Book of God and take for the Rule of your Lives and Expectations that Scripture which your Consciences dread as owning the Voice of God therein that Scripture which is confirmed by God's Providence and frequent Experiments that Scripture which hath such a rational Evidence in it self 't is that assureth us of a World to come and bringeth it to light in the Word The very thoughts of such an Hell and Heaven as was invented by the ancient Heathens was enough to make them vertuous though as to the Manner and Circumstances of it the more understanding knew it to be a very Fable and Supposition yet the Thing it self being bottom'd and founded upon those natural apprehensions of the Immortality of the Soul and the Attributes of the Deity had powerful Effects upon them Now shall we talk of Christianity pretend a Reverence to the Scriptures and shall we tremble no more at the Certainty of an Hell than Gentiles at the possibility of it Shall their Suspicion work more than our Faith If they were so pliable to Poets discipline how should we be moulded and framed by the Doctrine of Christ what awe and holy trembling should it breed in our Hearts 2. Inconsideration We are so taken up with the Cares and Pleasures of the present Life that we are not at leisure to think of Death and Life Hell and Heaven or upon what Terms we stand with God Jer. 8. 6. Eccles. 11. 9. Remember that for all these things God will bring thee to Iudgment The young Man in the heat of his Lusts forgetteth that a time of reckoning will come Oh think of your ways and whither you are a going It is foolish to busy our selves about many things and neglect the main Luk. 10. 41 42. You