First The Petition Forgive us our Debts Secondly The Condition or Proportion or Plea and Argument call it which you will for the obtaining of this forgiveness as we forgive our Debtors In the Petition we may observe that the same which our Evangelist calls Debts is by St. Luke 11.4 called Sins Forgive us our Sins We stand indebted to God both as we are his Creatures and as we are Offenders By the one we owe him the Debt of Obedience and by the other the Debt of Punishment First As we are Creatures we owe the Debt of Obedience And to the payment of this Debt we stand bound both to the absolute Sovereignty of God who is the Supreme Lord of all his Creatures and therefore may oblige them to what he pleaseth and likewise by his manifold Favours and Mercies conferred upon us From him we have received our Beings and all our Comforts he maintains us at his own Cost and Charge he enlargeth us when we are in Streights relieves us when we are in Wants Counsels us when we are in Doubts Comforts us when we are in Sorrows Delivers us in our Dangers and besides the manifold Temporal Mercies we daily receive from him gives us the Means the Hopes and Promises of obtaining far better things at his Hands even Eternal Life and Glory And therefore certainly upon these Accounts we owe him all possible Service and Obedience And indeed it is but Reason we should employ all for him from whom we receive all and give up our selves to his Service who are what we are by his Bounty and hope to be infinitely better than now we are through his Mercy Now this Debt of Obedience is irremissible and we are eternally and indispensably bound unto it For it is altogether inconsistent with the Notion and Being of a Creature to be discharged from its Obligation to the Laws and Commands of its Creator for this would exempt it from the Dominion of God and make it Absolute and Independent that is it would make the Creature to be no longer a Creature but a Deity We do not therefore pray that God would forgive us this Debt no he cannot so far deny himself and it is our Happiness and Glory to pay it To this his Sovereignty obligeth our Subject Condition and his Mercy and Goodness our Ingenuity Secondly As we are Transgressors so we owe God a Debt of Punishment to be suffered by us to make God some reparation to his Honour and satisfaction to his Justice for our transgressing his Law which sentenceth all Offenders to Eternal Death and Damnation This Debt now is that which we pray God would forgive us a Debt which if we pay we are eternally ruined and undone and there is no way possible to escape the payment of it but by the free Grace and Mercy of God remitting of it unto us And thus Sin is called a Debt not indeed properly as if we owed it but by a Metonymy as it is the meritorious Cause of this punishment the suffering of which we owe to Divine Justice Hence by the way we may observe that every Sin makes us liable to Eternal Death for Death and Damnation is the Debt which we must pay to the Justice of God and Sin is that which exposeth us unto it by the Sentence of the Law which we have transgressed For as against other Debtors is brought forth some Bond or Obligation to exact payment from them So against us is produced the Hand-writing of the Law and we not having performed the Condition of the Bond stand liable to the Forfeiture and Penalty which is no less than Curses and Woes and Torments and Everlasting Death Cursed is every one that continues not in all things written in the Book of the Law to do them Gal. 3.10 And the Wages of Sin is Death Rom. 6.23 And the Soul that sinneth it shall Die Ezek. 18.4 Now here to excite thee to a fervency in praying for the forgiveness of thy Debts consider First The infinite multitudes of thy Debts God's Book is full of them and there they stand on account against us under every one of our Names We were born Debtors to God our Original Sin and Guilt obligeth us to punishment and although we did not personally contract the Debt yet as being the wretched Heirs and Executors of fallen Adam the Debt is legally devolved upon us and become ours And ever since we came into the World we have run upon the score with God our Debts are more than our Moments have been for whatsoever we have thought or done hath been Sin either in the matter or at least in the circumstances of it God sets all our Sins down in order in his Debt-book some as Talents and some as Pence Our flagitious Crimes and hainous Impieties our presumptuous Sins committed against Light Knowledge Conscience Convictions Mercies and Judgments each of these God sets down as a Talent And how many thousands of these may we have been guilty of Our Sins of Ignorance Surreption and daily Infirmity are much more innumerable and though they may be but as Pence in comparison with the other yet the unaccountable numbers of them will make the Debt desperate and the payment impossible And yet notwithstanding our Debts are so many and very many of them such great Sums too yet we daily run ourselves farther in Arrears not considering that a Day of Accounts will come when both our Talents and our Pence shall be punctually reckoned up against us not omitting the least Item when every vain Thought and foolish Passion that hath flushed up in us with every idle and superfluous Word that we have unadvisedly spoken as well as the more gross and scandalous Passages of our sinful Lives shall be then audited all which will make the Total Sum infinite and us desperate Secondly That God who is thy Creditor is strict and impartial his Patience hath trusted and forborn thee long but his Justice will at last demand the Debt severely and every particular shall be charged upon thee even to the utmost Farthing for he hath booked down all in his remembrance and will bring all to thine And therefore we have it expressed concerning the last Judgment that the Books were opened and the Dead were Judged out of those things which were written in the Books according to their Works Rev. 20.12 What now are these Books but the two great Volumes of God's remembrance and our own Consciences These are two Tallies evenly struck that shall justly represent the same Sum and Debt and God's strict Justice will not then abate thee any thing of its utmost due for he will by no means acquit the Guilty Indeed we are apt to think that because God so long forbears us he will never calls us to make up and adjust Accounts with him Our present impunity tempts us to question his Omniscience and to suspect his Threatnings and because he winks at us we are ready to conclude that he
of our Selves Man that busies himself in knowing all things else is of nothing more ignorant than of himself the Eye that beholds other things cannot see its own shape and so the Soul of Man whereby he understands other objects is usually ignorant of its own Concernments Now as the Eye that cannot see it self directly may see it self reflexively in a Glass so God hath given us his Scripture which St. James compares to a Glass James 1.23 and holds this before the Soul wherein is represented our true State and Idea There is a four-fold state of Man that we could never have attained to know but by the Scriptures His state of Integrity His state of Apostacy His state of Restitution His state of Glory The Scripture alone can reveal to us what we were in our Primitive Constitution Naturally Holy bearing the Image and Similitude of God and enjoying his Love free from all inward perturbations or outward Miseries having all the Creatures subject to us and what is much more our selves What we were in our state of Apostacy or Destitution despoiled of all our Primitive Excellencies dispossess'd of all the Happiness we enjoy'd and of all hopes of any for the future lyable every Moment to the revenge of Justice and certain once to feel it What we are in our state of Restitution through Grace begotten again to a lively hope Adopted into the Family of Heaven Redeem'd by the Blood of Christ Sanctified and Sealed by the Holy Spirit restored to the Favour and Friendship of God recovering the initials of his Image upon our Souls here on Earth and expecting the perfection of it in Heaven What we shall be in our final State of Glory cloathed with Light Crowned with Stars inebriated with pure spiritual Joys We shall see God as he is know him as we are known by him love him ardently converse with him eternally yea a state it will be so infinitely happy that 't will leave us nothing to hope for This Four-fold state of Man the Scripture doth evidently express Now these are such things as could never have entred into our Hearts to have imagined had not the word of God described them to us and thereby instructed us in the knowledge of our selves as well as of God and Christ Now let us put these six particulars together The Scripture instructs us in the knowledge of such things as are intelligible only by divine Revelation it teacheth us the most sublime and lofty Truths 't is a most inexhaustible Fountain of Knowledge the more we draw the more still springs up it teaches that Knowledge that is necessary to Salvation It is of undoubted certainty and perpetual Truth And Lastly it informs us in the knowledge of our Selves and certainly if there be any thirst in you after Knowledge there needs no more be spoken to perswade you to the diligent study of the Scripture which is a rich Store and Treasury of all Wisdom and Knowledge Thus we have seen how the Scriptures inform the Judgment Let us now briefly see how they reform the Life and what practical influence they have upon the Souls of Men. Now here the word of God hath a mighty Operation and that in sundry particulars First This is that word that convinceth and humbles the stoutest and proudest Sinners There are two sorts of secure Sinners Those who vaunt it in the Confidence of their own Righteousness and those who are secure through an insensibility of their own Wickedness Both these the word when it is set home with Power convinceth humbles and brings to the Dust It despoils the Self-Justitiary of all that false Righteousness he once boasted of and trusted to I was alive once without the Law saith St. Paul but when the Commandment came sin revived and I dyed Rom. 7.9 It awakens and alarms the senseless seared Sinner How many have there been that have scorned God and despised Religion whom yet one curse or threat of this word hath made to tremble and fall down before the convincing Majesty and Authority of it Secondly This is that word that sweetly comforts and raiseth them after their Dejections All other Applications to a wounded Spirit are improper and impertinent 'T is only Scripture Consolation that can ease it The leaves of this Book are like the leaves of that Tree Rev. 22. which were for the healing of the Nations The same Weapon that wounds must here work the cure Thirdly This is that word that works the mighty change upon the heart in Renovation Take a Man that runs on in vile and desperate Courses that sells himself to do Iniquity and commits all manner of Wickedness with Greediness and makes use of all the Arguments that reason can suggest these seldom reclaim any from their Debaucheries Or if in some few they do reform the Life yet they can never change the heart But now that which no other means can effect the Word of God can Psal 19.7 The Law of God is perfect converting the Soul Fourthly This is that word that strengthens and arms the People of God to endure the greatest temporal Evils only in hope of that future reward which it punisheth Fifthly This is that word that contains in it such a Collection of Rules and Duties that whosoever observes and obeys shall in the end infallibly obtain everlasting life Though I can but just mention these Heads unto you yet there is enough in them to perswade you to be diligent in the Scriptures In them saith our Saviour ye think to have Eternal Life We are all of us guilty Malefactors but God hath been pleased to afford us the Mercy of the Book And what shall we not so much as read for our Lives This is that Book according to which we must either stand or fall be acquitted or condemned Eternally The unalterable Sentence of the last day will pass upon us as it is here recorded in this Scripture Here we may before-hand know our Doom and what will become of us to all Eternity He that believeth shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned 'T is said Rev. 20.12 That when the dead stood before God to be Judged the Books were opened That is the Book of Conscience and the Book of the Scripture Be perswaded to open this Book and to judge your selves out of it before the last day 'T is not a sealed Book to you you may there read what your present State is and foretell what your future will be If it be a State of Sin and Wrath search farther there are Directions how you may change this wretched State for a better If it be a State of Grace and Favour there are Rules how to preserve you in it 'T is a word suited to all Persons all Occasions all Exigencies It informs the Ignorant strengthens the Weak comforts the Disconsolate supports the Afflicted relieves the Tempted resolves the Doubtful directs all to those ways which lead to endless Happiness where as the Word of God hath dwelt richly in us so we shall dwell for ever gloriously with God FINIS
Honour thy Glory lies bleeding and suffers through the Sins of Men Why commit thy care to God He will certainly so weild their Lusts as that they shall bring about and effect his own ends God is glorifying himself even by these things and why then should we be troubled This thought kept alive on our hearts would cause us to rest satisfied amidst all the tumults we observe and hear of in the World For though we know not how to unwind these ravelled dispensations to the bottom of his Glory yet he can and will There is an invisible and wise hand that moulds and fashions all and though the parts by themselves may appear rude and unpolish'd yet put the whole frame and series of Providence together and that will appear most admirable and glorious Now to the King Eternal Immortal Invisible the only wise God Father Son and Holy Ghost be honour and glory for ever and ever Amen The End of the first Sermon A Discourse concerning the use of the Holy Scriptures Colossians III. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all Wisdom THis Epistle if any other is a rich mine of Heavenly Treasure and abounds both in the discovery of Gospel Mysteries and the injunction of Christian Duties It is furnisht throughout with that which may either instruct us in Knowledge or direct us in Practice And the Apostle having already laid down many Excellent things in order to both these and seeing it would be an endless task to discourse unto them all the Truths or exhort them to all the Duties of Religion in particular he therefore speaks compendiously in the words of my Text and referrs them to the perfect Systeme in which is contained an account of what a Christian ought to know or do and that is the Holy Scriptures Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly The words of this Exhortation are very full and laden with weighty Sence We may resolve them into two parts First Here is the Nature and Substance of the Exhortation which is to a diligent Study and plentifull knowledge of the Holy Scriptures Secondly The manner how we ought to be Conversant in them So that it may dwell in us richly in all Wisdom In the former we may take notice that the Scripture is called the word of Christ and that upon a double account both because he is the Author that composed it and likewise he is the subject matter of which it principally treats Now though in both these respects the Scriptures of the New Testament be more especially the word of Christ yet also may the Scriptures of the Old Testament as truly and properly go under his Name For First He is the Author of them all He may well write this Title upon our Bibles The Works of Jesus Christ All the Prophets before his Incarnation were but his Amanuenses and wrote only what he by his Spirit dictated to them 2 Pet. 1.21 Prophecy came not in old time by the will of Man but holy Men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost and certainly the Holy Ghost inspired them by Christ's Authority and Commission and what he declared he took from him and shewed it unto them John 16.14 15. He shall receive of mine and shall shew it unto you Secondly Christ also is the principal subject and matter of the whole Scripture The sending Christ a Saviour into the World is that great Business which hath employed the Counsel of the Father the Admiration and Ministration of Angels the Tongues and Pens of Prophets Apostles and holy Men of all Ages before the Scriptures were Written when Revelation or Tradition were yet the only positive Rules for Faith and Practice The Patriarchs saw him by these Abraham saw my day and was glad Joh. 8.56 Afterwards the People of the Jews saw him by Types Promises and Prophecies recorded in the Scriptures He was that Excellent Theme that hath filled up many Chapters of the Old Testament as the first draught of a Picture represents the features and proportion of the Person but afterwards is added the complexion and life to it So is it here the Pens of the Prophets drew the first Lineaments and Proportion of Christ in the Old Testament and the Pens of the Apostles and Evangelists have added the Life and Sweetness to it in the New Yea Christ is so truly described in the Old Testament by his Life by his Death by all the greater Remarks of either that in his Contest with the Jews he appeals thither for a Testimony John 5.39 Search the Scriptures for they are they which testifie of me And St. Peter Acts 3.24 Affirms That all the Prophets as many as have spoken have foretold of these days And Acts 10.43 To him give all the Prophets Witness Christ who is the true Expositor being himself the true Author makes them all speak his Sence Luke 24.27 Beginning at Moses and all the Prophets he expounded to them in all the Scriptures the sayings concerning himself So that St. Chrysostom's Observation holds true that the Gospel was in the World before Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It took root in the writings of the Prophets but flowed forth in the preaching of the Apostles so that in both these respects the Holy Scripture may well be called the Word of Christ of Christ as the Author and as the Subject of it And in both these lies coucht a very cogent Argument that may inforce this exhortation of the Apostle and excite them to a diligent study of the Scriptures For First Is Christ the Author of them and shall we not with all care and diligence peruse these Books which he hath Composed The writings of Men are valued according to the Abilities of their Authors If they be of approved Integrity profound Knowledge solid Judgment their works are Esteemed and Studied And shall we not be much more Conversant in these which are set forth by the Author who is truth it self and the essential wisdom of the Father These that were dictated by the imediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost and writ as it were with a Quill of the Heavenly Dove Secondly Christ is the subject of the Scriptures And what is all other Learning and Knowledge but beggarly Elements if compared with this Here we have the Cabinet of God's Counsels unlockt the Eternal purposes of his Grace in sending his Son into the World publickly declared Here we have the Stupendous History of God's becoming Man of all the Miracles this God-man did upon Earth of all the Cruelties he Suffered Here we have the Description of his Victory in his Resurrection of his Triumph in his Ascention of his Glory in his Session at the right hand of the Majesty on High Surely great is the Mystery of Godliness God manifested in the Flesh justified in the Spirit seen of Angels preached unto the Gentiles believed on in the World received up into Glory as the Apostle with admiration recounts it
word is not only a light to discover what you ought to do but an help to inable you to do it It is the very means that God appointed to overcome your averseness and assist your weakness And if ever this be effected it must in an ordinary way be by conversing with the Scriptures That Sick Man hath lost his Reason as well as his Health who should refuse to take Physick because if it doth not work it will but make him the worse Why the way to make it work is by taking it So it is a distempered kind of arguing against the word of God the Physick of our Souls that it is mortal and deadly if it doth not work into practice The way to make it work into practice is to take it first into our knowledge 't is true it were a great discouragement if the Scripture only shewed you how much work you have to do what Temptations to resist what Corruptions to mortifie what Graces to exercise what duties to perform and left all that upon your own hands But the Leaves of the Bible are the Leaves of the Tree of Life as well as of the Tree of Knowledge they strengthen as well as inlighten and have not only a Commanding but an assisting Office And this the Scripture doth two ways First It directs where we may receive supplies of ability for the performance of whatsoever it requires It leads thee unto Christ who is able to furnish thee with supernatural strength for supernatural duties His treasury stands open for all concerns and his Almighty Power stands ingaged to assist those who relie upon it Be not discouraged therefore he that finds us work finds us strength and the same Scripture that injoyns us obedience exhibits God's promise of bestowing upon us the power of obeying Thou who workest all works in us and for us Isaiah 26.12 And work out your own Salvation for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do Phil. 2.12 13. Why then should we so complain of hard sayings and Grevious Commandments Have we not God's Omnipotence obliged by promise to assist in the same words wherein we are commanded to obey What saith the Apostle I am able to do all things through Christ strengthening me Phil. 4.13 When in reading the Scripture thou meetest with difficult and rigorous Duties the severity of Mortification the self cruelty of plucking out right Eyes and cutting off right Hands commend they self to these promises of aid and assistance that the same Scripture holds forth and lift up thy heart in that divine Meditation of St. Augustine Lord give what thou Commandest and command what thou pleasest Whilst thou thus duly dependest on Christ's strength and makest use of thine own it is as much his Honour and Office to inable thee as it is thy Duty to perform what he requires Secondly The Scripture as it directs us to rely on the strength of Christ so it is a means that God hath appointed to quicken and excite our own strength and Power to the discharge of those Duties it Discovers Wherefore are those pressing Exhortations and those dreadfull Threatnings every where so dispersed up and down in the Book of God but that when we are slow and dull and drowsie the Spirit may by these as by so many goads rowze us and make us start into Duty Such a spiritual sloath hath benumb'd us that without this quickening we should not be diligent in the Work of the Lord and therefore David prays Psalm 119.88 Quicken me so shall I keep the Testimonies of thy Mouth but yet it is also the word it self that quickens us to the Obedience of the word Psal 119.50 Thy word hath quickened me And indeed if you can come from reading the word that so abounds with Promises with Threatnings with rational Arguments with pathetick Expostulations winning Insinuations importunate Intreaties heroick Examples propounded to our Imitation with all the perswasive Art and Rhetorick that becometh the Majesty of the great God to use if you can read this word and yet find from it no warmth of Affection no quickening to Duty let me tell you you either read it without attending to it or else attend without believing it It is therefore no discouragement from searching and studying the Scriptures that its commands be many and difficult for it directs you whither to go for promised strength and the more you converse with it the more will you find your hearts quickened to a due Obedience of it That 's the first Answer But then secondly Whereas many think that it is better not to know than not to practise we must here distinguish of Ignorance which is of too kinds either invincible or else affected Invincible ignorance is such as is conjoyned with and proceeds from an utter impossibility of right information and it ariseth only from two things First Absolute want of necessary Instruction or Secondly Want of natural capacity to receive it Affected Ignorance is an ignorance under the means of Knowledge and always ariseth from the neglect or contempt of them Such is the ignorance of those who do or may live where the Gospel is preached and where by pains and industry they may arrive to the knowledge of the truth Now here for ever to answer this Objection and to shew you how necessary knowledge is I shall lay down these two particulars First I grant indeed that unpractis'd knowledge is a far greater sin than invincible Ignorance and exposeth to a much sorer Condemnation Hell Fire burns with Rage and meets with fuel fully prepared for it when God dooms unto it an head full of Light and an heart full of Lusts Those who know God's will but do it not do but carry a torch with them to Hell to fire that Pile that must for ever burn them We have a common Proverb That knowledge is no Burthen But believe it if your knowledge in the Scripture be merely Speculative and overborn by the violence of unruly Lusts this whole Word will be no otherwise to you than the burthen of the Law as the Prophets speak a Burthen that will lie insupportably heavy upon you for ever Better far you were born under Barbarism in some dark Corner of the Earth where the least gleame of Gospel-light never shone and where the name of Christ was never mentioned than to have this weighty Book a Book which you have read and known hung about you to sink you infinitly deeper in the Burning Lake than a Mill-stone hung about you can do in the midst of the Sea What St. Peter speaks of Apostates 2 Pet. 2.21 is but too well applicable to the knowing Sinner It had been better for them not to have known the way of Righteousness than after they have known it to turn aside from the Commandments delivered to them How Better not to have known it Why is there any possibility to escape the Condemnation of Hell without the knowledge of the way of