a good look yet this is our disposition if the Saints do not observe us if one go by and do not observe us in the street and put not off his hat and speak and give us idle visitations when he knows not what to do he loves us not It is a great deal if a Saint do but come over the threshold or look upon me in the street This is that that breeds endless quarrels for they are here put together Strife and Vain glory and the like for thou wilt be alway like the Salamander feeding upon some quarrel for every man naturally hath some one thing that he feeds on principally children feed on one cate more then another and so do men some upon Husbandry some upon Navigation some upon Policy every one upon one thing or other All men have some one thing that carries the stream of their hearts some Professors the very stream of their spirits goes in quarrelling with others they no sooner end a quarrel with one Saint but they begin another they can no more live without jangling and quarrelling and strife then the Salamander can live without fire This is the reason a proud heart therefore can never close with the Saints it cannot be content with a little measure of love from the Saints A Saint if he be as he should be can love though he be not loved and can rejoyce wonderfully if he have the least measure of love from others The Lord make this short word spiritual and powerful to thee and me If this lesson were rightly learned a world of division among the Saints would cease Expositions and Observations on HEBREWES 12. 18 19 20 c. For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched and that burned with fire nor unto blackness and darkness and tempest And the sound of a trumpet and the voyce of words which voyce they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more For they could not endure that which was commanded and if so much as a beast touch the mountaine it shall be stoned or thrust through with a dart And so terrible was the sight that Moses said I exceedingly fear and quake But ye are come unto Mount Sion and unto the City of the living God the heavenly Ierusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels To the general assembly and Church of the first born which are written in heaven and to God the Judge of all and the spirits of just men made perfect And to Jesus the Mediator of the new Covenant and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things then that of Abel See that ye refuse not him that speaketh for if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven THe Apostle in these words doth compare The old and new Testament compared the old Testament the old Covenant with the new or if you will the estate of the Saints under the old Covenant of Sinai with the glorious estate of the Saints under the new Covenant Therefore he tells them Ye are not come to that mountaine that burned with fire that mountain that might be touched you are not set under the old Covenant that was terrible in which there was nothing but that that was terrible that brought horror upon all that feared God in it but ye are Come to mount Sion to the glorious state in the new Testament and there is nothing but what is amiable and what is beautiful for that is it that I mean to pitch on you shall observe in the description of the Saints in the old Testament under the old Covenant I mean not the Books of the old Testament I suppose you know what I mean in that Proposition I say there was nothing in all Gods administration with them but it was full of terror it was terrible it begat horror in them and there is nothing in the state of a Saint that is rightly setled in the Gospel but what is throughly amiable and beautiful and therefore you shall see how the Apostle reckons them First for the old he saith they were come but to a Mount that might be touched that is an earthly mountain a mountain or hill as one of our hills And that burned with fire that was terrible And there was blackness and darkness and storm and tempest covering the heavens and the hill this was terrible And there was the sound of a Trumpet you know that signifies war And there was a terrible voyce of words also and so terrible that they that heard it intreated that they might hear it no more And the Lord was so strict that if but a beast touch but the hill that was black and dark he was to be stoned or thrust through with a dart he was to be killed nay Moses himself that was to be the Mediator of the people in that Testament he did exceedingly fear and quake So that there is nothing in that old Covenant of works that God saith is done away Heb. 8. there was nothing in the old Testament but what was terrible and full of horror To come a little more particular there is nothing in the state of a Professor who is yet on Mount Sinai as many Professors are who are not yet dead but alive to the Law they are not free-men they are not sons and daughters they have not the principles of the Gospel clearly wrought in them I say those people take them in the bulk and frame of their profession there is nothing in their whole life in all the course of their profession but what is ful of horror and terror If they look upon God they see him more or less as an angry Iudg ready to stand at the catch to consume them If they look on grace in them that is so little that they continually conclude that they are hypocrites If they look on sin they look every moment when God will be avenged on them because of it If they look on affliction they say Now God hath found me out I knew it would be so that the wrath of God would be on me If they look on Christ saith he He doth not belong to me and the Promises are not mine A man that is a Professor on Mount Sinai as far as he walks in the Covenant of works or as it were by the Covenant of works so far of necessity his soul within is as Mount Sinai was without that is full of blackness and darkness and storms and tempest inevitably and unavoidably it will be so Therefore clearly this is the reason of all the troubles and horrors and terrors and uncomfortableness of your spirits because you have one foot on Mount Sinai you are not come up to Pauls pitch I through the Law am dead to the Law you are not dead to the Law you are not delivered from it I mean the Law as it is a Covenant of
from our littleness and weakness any thing he will draw arguments of his goodness from Yet many times we are of such a temper that we will not draw one argument to move us to do that which is pleasing in his eyes Well he is a glorious God and we are like our selves Let him lay hold on my strength Let the poor bramble go and lay hold upon the wall I have strength enough to destroy and devour them but I wish that they would lay hold of my strength There is a way that all the strength that is in God thou mayest make it for thee on thy side All the power and strength that is in God is against wicked men that receive not Christ but there is a way that thou mayest make that party on thy side thou mayest make God on thy side Take hold on him that is receive Christ and then thou art in the Covenant and all belongs to thee upon that and all the power whereby he made heaven and earth and rules the sea and every thing is thy power it is for thee And make peace with me and they shall make peace It is like the expression of some people that are wondrously given to love and peace and though other people desire to quarrell yet they will not quarrell but they will be freinds there is no neighbour so mischievous but they will be friends with them in spight of their heart so sayth God Let them make peace with me and they shall make peace It is like that expression of God I will put my spirit in their hearts and they shall keep my statutes That thy soul could creep along upon this blessed wall and make peace with him and lay hold of his promise and he saith thou shalt make peace He shall cause them that come of Iacob to take root c. You see how sweet God is in afflicting his Saints how he preserves them and hears them in whipping them Here he shewes three great differences between Three differences in the afflictions of the godly and wicked the afflictions of the godly and of the wicked The first is this saith he have I smitten him as I smote those that smote him Or is he slain according to the slaughter of them that are slain by him That is the Lord doth not lay such a weight of affliction upon his children as he doth upon wicked people that is one thing therefore he stays his rough wind in the day of the east wind No east wind blowes on the Saints for in Scripture language that is the wrath of God All the other winds are growing but the East wind is cutting and chilling Secondly it is said God will debate with them that is besotted carnall men as Pharaoh and others he layes afflictions upon afflictions upon them and they never know why it makes him a sot and he brayes him as a fool in a Morter but I will debate with him saith God I will reason the case As a father when he whips his childe will you do so again saith he And is this handsome The Lord never whips his childe but he debates with him Thirdly the issue and fruit of it All the fruit is he doth it to take away sin he will make all the stones of the Altar as Chalk-stones he will beat them to pieces that is they shall pull down their Groves and their Altars as you do Chalk-stones when you burne them and beat them in pieces This should make us sweeten our thoughts of God he is sweet in his providence in his Ordinances in his corrections we see what a good God he is how he draws water out of the Flint he draws arguments of grace and mercy and goodnesse to save wretched creatures any way in such a way that if we were Judges we would condemn our selves The Lord sweeten your hearts and raise up your souls to apprehend his mercy Expositions and Observations on ISAIAH 28 15. Because ye have said we have made a Covenant with death and with hell are we at agreement c. We have made agreement with hell NOt that they said so but God brings in their thoughts as in Iob Depart from us we desire not the knowledge of thy laws That is the difference between Gods book and mens books men write books according to the words of men but the word of God is according to their thoughts Here are four or five things noted of wicked men Four things observed of wicked men 1. Their v. in conceits First we have made say they a covenant with death and with hell we are at an agreement The meaning is not that they did draw writings between them and hell for hell will make no agreement but the meaning is they were assured in their conceits that they should be delivered from hell and death and misery As a man that hath made a Covenant for his land c. and hath got witnesses to it he hath made sure he hath it in black and white so there was a foolish confidence in them they assured themselves that they should escape as if death and hell had given them an acquittance and had sealed it and there had been Covenants drawn between them and the Devill That is one thing But saith God Your Covenant with death shall be disannulled and your agreement with hell shall not stand That is you shall see that all those conceits are but vaine Just as if a man should go and make a Covenant with his neighbour and buy his land and he should never tell his neighbour that he would sell it this agreement would be broken and the Covenant would not stand So you build Castles in the aire you make a Covenant and agreement in your conceits that you are safe and you hope the best and God is mercifull but the day will come when all this will be done away As Iob saith it is just as a Spiders web that is a fine thing that she hath been working all the week and then the Maide comes to make clean the house and all is taken away with one stroak of a brush Another thing is the Lord compares them here to Illustrated in two comparisons Compa ∣ rison 1 people that would hide themselves by the sea side where the tide comes up As you see sometimes when the tide is low there are green medows and bushes before it be high spring and there they hide themselves and the water comes and overflowes their hiding place If they stay there a while and it may be are asleep the tide comes and drowns them all Do ye not think a man were mad that should go and hide himself in a hole of a bridge and sleep when the tide was low and then the tide come in and overwhelm him So it will be with thee if thou receive not Iesus Christ We have made lies our refuge and under falshood have we hid our selves Mr. Calvin saith they may be compared to little
for your sakes or else I have one and none can alter it but foryour sakes I came down and made a Covenant like men and There are three that bear witness and that is enough among men therefore think my love will be constant to the end So when a Christian is at a dead lift this relieves him not that God can save him if he will but that God must he is bound to save him It is a pitifull thing when a man is in the hands of a thousand enemies and then can only say peradventure God will save me and rescue me but when the soul sees that God must rescue it and there is a Covenant made and sealed with the blood of Christ and it is not possible to be broken Gods Covenant is to save me and preserve me to his everlasting Kingdom Thus I have briefly shewed you that fondnesse that is between a Saint and God and the book of Canticles is as I told you nothing but a book of fondnesse as I may say between Christ and the Saints Therefore you should aime at the good of your souls and seeing there is such a condition that there are Saints that are so desire the Lord to make you such Expositions and Observations on DEUTER 4. Now therefore hearken O Israel unto the statutes and judgements which I teach you for to do them that ye may live and go in and possesse the land which the Lord God of your fathers giveth you Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you neither shall you diminish ought from it that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you Your eyes have seen what the Lord did because of Baal-peor for all the men that followed Baal-peor the Lord thy God hath destroyed them from among you But ye that did cleave unto the Lord your God are alive every one of you this day c. I Shall not go about to expound this whole Chapter unto you you see it is very long and therefore I will not abridge my self or you of time for that which is to follow but onely briefly take notice of a few things in this Chapter which I shall touch upon for they are sweet and very serious words that Moses speaks to the people of Israel One thing is in the fourth verse saith Moses Your eyes have seen what the Lord did because of Baal-peor for all the men that followed Baal-peor the Lord thy God hath destroyed them from among you But ye that did cleave unto the Lord your God are alive every one of you to this day You shall read in Num. 25. 4. and in Num. 30. 15. that by the counsell of Balaam the people of Israel were brought to commit Idolatry at Baal-peor Israel joyned himself to Baal-peor and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel They were brought first to whordom and then to Idolatry as we may see in that Chapter for which God cut off men and women about some twenty four thousand And yet in this great temptation some of them did cleave to the Lord and those the Lord kept alive and destroyed them not ye that did cleave to the Lord your God are alive every one of you this day So that It is a blessed and happy thing when people shall Observation cleave to the Lord. The word is taken sometimes to stick my belly cleaves or sticks to the dust And so truly the word should stick a little upon our thoughts Cleaving it implies or signifies two things It signifies first to glew to unite two things together into one and so you shall have it Gen. 2. 24. They Cleaving to implies two things 1. A neer conjunction two shall be joyned and made one flesh they shall be glewed as it were together So you have it in Ephes 5. And there is in that word as that reverend Doctor Preston I remember observes it signifies a greater union thâ—â— any other in the world Indeed there is a great union between two boards glewed together for I have heard Joyners say it is sometimes stronger then the board it self as a broken bone is stronger when it is knit then before ever it was broken It is an union more then marriage more then between man and wife yet that is the greatest in the whole creation Beloved such a union should be between our souls and Iesus Christ we should not hang loose upon Iesus Christ we should be united to him as a man to his wife yea something more then that And therefore saith David when he found a loosnes in his heart O knit my heart to thee that I may fear thy name Knit my heart as Ionathans heart was knit to David Will you learn this now For our work is as Moses said in another kind I have laid before you this day life and death and saith he at another time I have laid before you judgements and statutes so our work is to lay before you the will of the Lord now this is one part of it that there should be such a union between our souls and Iesus Christ And therefore learn this when thou goest home if thou finde a loosnesse between thee and Christ remember this word thou shouldest learn to cleave to the Lord and pray the Lord to knit thy heart to him When there is a loosnesse that is when many times other things run between thy heart and God sometimes thy husband sometimes thy wife sometimes thy money thy wealth thy cash hath thy heart O pray the Lord to knit thy heart more and more to him But cleaving also is taken more usually for sitting 2. A relative permanency with or abiding in the Lord when others do leave him It is a relative kinde of word it is not simply â—â—iting to God or knitting to him but when other things are in competition with God when it may be others follow other things and when both are laid before mine eyes that I may follow the one or the other then when I abide with God this is called cleaving to the Lord. As I could give you diverse instances Gen. 2. 24. A woman is to forsake her father and mother and to cleave to her husband that is a woman when she is married she hath two sweet objects before her eyes her fathers house her father and mother and sisters and brothers on the one side and her husband on the other side and his friends and relations now when a woman leaves the one and sticks to the other this is properly called cleaving You shall read also in 2 Sam. 20. 2. the people of Israel every man of Israel went up from after David The people of Israel there in a peevish humor left David their King and followed Sheba the son of Bichri but the men of Iudah did cleave to their King from Iordan to Ierusalem There the people were divided Israel followed Sheba but Iudah clave to David In stead of
them one by one by degrees He hath brought us from repetition of the word and from singing of Psalms and many from baptizing of the infants of the godly and divers from the supper of the Lord and from hearing the word of God preached and now he comes and begins to bring people from praying or calling upon the name of the Lord therefore let us do as Rehoboam did when he had lost Ten Tribes he went and strengthened the two that remained Beloved there are but a few ordinances that remaine and they are almost gone too therefore let us do our best to keep those One is praying or calling upon God which our Lord Christ divers ways by precept and example and parables c. doth exhort his Disciples to to pray alway and not to faint So that this is it that you should do well to consider that Prayer or calling upon the name of God in Christ is an ordinance and a perpetuall ordinance of God And though it may be many of you do not doubt of it and therefore you think why should I speak of it Truly no more did not I doubt of it yet I have had many thoughts of it and though we doubt not of it yet the considering of it out of the word may stir us up to do it more then we do for I am afraid though many of you doubt not of it yet many of you are slack and though you believe not what the others say yet you hearken so much to them as to slacken of what the old Saints did and of what your selves did before you do not set your selves so earnestly and so frequently and follow God so hard in prayer as you have done this I greatly fear For I find many times that the devill plays a double game that when he comes to take away an ordinance from people to cheat them of it he knowes that some are so giddy that he can gull and cheat them clearly and he knows this that those that he cannot cheat yet he can cast them into a kinde of remisnesse As for instance he hath taken away from many singing of Psalms prasing God according to that manner that the Saints have had for divers ages whereas there is no particular manner in the scriptures for the outward thing now as he hath brought many that they will not sing at all so there are many that are indifferent and so for baptising the infants of the godly and so for hearing the Word and so for praying The devil hath a dilemma if you will do so so it is or else do this so I say while some giddy heads or hearts are throwing away the Ordinance of prayer I am afraid there is a general remisness or carelesness growing upon your hearts therefore I shall shew these two things concerning prayer First I shall shew you that it is an Ordinance of God Prayer an Ordinance of God Prayer a perpetual duty that it is a duty that it is the duty of a Saint Secondly I shall shew you that it is a lasting duty a duty to be performed in all ages untill the coming of Christ and that briefly and plainly For the first That it is a duty consider any duty in the world and whatsoever you would have to prove it a duty I dare say it is clear in the Word concerning this duty of Prayer that and much more you cannot name any duty in the Book of God any external duty that is underpropped that hath such foundations such clear ground-works for it as the duty of Prayer There are four main grounds of duty and one of Four main grounds of dutie them many times is a sufficient ground for any one as First that it is a thing that the law of Nature hath 1. The 〈◊〉 of Nature written in the heart of man to call upon God it was written in the Creation There are many duties among us that are not so under the Gospel especially Now that you see in all ages all kinde of people call upon the name of their God As in the ship where Jonah was the Heathens by the dictates of Nature they awake Ionah to call on his God and they were calling on their god it is a thing in the law of Nature And by the By that is the reason why we may pray with carnal men though we may not receive the Lords Supper because the Supper of the Lord is an Ordinance by institution the other is a natural Ordinance or duty Now when a man doth a Natural duty it is supposed that it is in the heart of a wicked man and he doth but what he ought when he doth it A carnal man when he prays he sins not in that he prays much less do I sin in doing the duty with him in doing what he ought But wherein doth he sin In the maner that he prays without faith it is his fault and not mine and so an hypocrite that prayeth without faith when I do the duty I look that the thing be good but for the maner of his heart and spirit that is for him to look to So a man may pray with carnal people though he may not receive the Supper of the Lord because that is an Ordinance by institution and is onely for the Saints That by the by Secondly There is this ground for it for prayer 2. Command of the Word we have more precepts then for any other dutie Christ Jesus saith here Pray always And the Apostle 1 Thes 5. he bids us pray evermore pray alway I need not stand to prove this Then you have also presidents for it almost in every 3. President and Example Saint in the Book of God you seldom hear of a Saint but he was a praying Saint And let me tell you this that Saints and Churches or Assemblies for so the Greek word is indifferently and people that call on God with a pure heart they are Synonomies Sometimes Paul saith Grace mercy and peace to the Saints sometimes to the Churches and sometimes to those that pray and call on the name of the Lord Iesus 1 Cor. 1. 1. It is a thing so proper to a Saint that it is usually taken for the description of a Saint Therefore in Zech. 12. where there is a Prophesie concerning the conversion of the Iews saith God I will poure on them the Spirit of Grace and Supplication What is that That is they shall be converted To have a spirit of Supplication a praying heart is the same as conversion to convert the Iews is to give them a spirit of Grace and Supplication As soon as Paul was converted Act. 9. when Ananias inquired of him he was praying therefore you have examples enow 4. Promises entailed on it Psalm 50. And then you have Precepts for it and Promises to it all along in the Book of God Call upon me in the time of trouble and I will deliver thee So in the new Testament
we may die for them But when our Bibles have gone through the hands of Papists so many hundered yeers when a man shall come to die for it he is afraid that such a thing may be crept into the text a thousand such thoughts of Athiesme will come upon a man but when a man can say this is Christ crucified and Christ pouring out of his spirit let the particles and the words run as they will this is the maine that will hold As the Gospell was intended and designed for simple men more then others so with reverence the Gospell is a more simple plain thing then most men in the world conceive The Gospell needs not the thousand part of the distinctions and definitions that the schoolmen have and that men multiply It is a simple story concerning Christ crucified and how the Holy Ghost was poured upon men and this was preached by fishermen as God gave them utterance and it was prophesied of before If Religion be a simple thing taught by fisher-men with the pouring out of the Spirit then there need not all those disputes concerning the Arts c. For my part I think learning to be a very good thing to perfect a mans naturalls but I think on the other side that a man that savingly and clearly knows Christ crucified and the pouring out of the spirit he is the fittest man in the world to be a preacher We should know things a thousand fold better and clearer then we do if we would judg of things as God judgeth of them if we would use the language of the Scripture and the notions of the holy spirit in the Scripture If we would know a Saint from a sinner as I said a man that is the Lords and another that is not this is the maine way the chief essentiall difference the one hath the spirit the other hath not It is not so much whether yonder man pray or fast or preach or repeat or whether he doth many good outward morall things but whether he hath the spirit of God though it be now almost a ridiculous thing to name the spirit of God We should I say distinguish man from man by the spirit And labour in a speciall manner to assure our selves that we have the spirit of God We should not rest in this that I have left such sins or I do such duties but go on still till I come up to this that with all humility and thankfulnesse I may say God hath given to me of his holy spirit the spirit of Jesus Christ dwells in my heart Paul was humble and modest enough in his expressions yet he could boldly say he had the spirit We have the earnest of the spirit And Iohn could say so of other Saints Ye have an unction or an annointing 1 Iohn 2. and that was the blessed spirit Truly beloved it is a comfortable thing in respect of himself for a poor creature to see many stumble at the word of God whereas if we would resolve to be wise in the wisdom of God and to speak of things as the Scripture speaks to look on things as the Scripture looks on them to use those phrases and expressions and those notions we should understand many mysteries in godlinesse which now are little lesse then stumbling blocks to us because there is a kind of thwarting wisdom in us that is crosse to that God is now I told you about to exalt the spirit yet not in a way contrary to the Scripture but the spirit in the Scripture I mean Therefore learn this lesson to strive for this as the chief thing to finde the spirit of God in you dwelling and working in you because as in the Old Testament there was one great promise to wit of the Messias the Lord Jesus that was the great promise and all other promises belonged to that So in the New Testament there is but one great promise the promise of the father as Christ calls it and that is the pouring out of the Spirit Therefore as the Lord hath been teaching us of late yeers to know his Son Christ crucified the doctrine of justification where our righteousnesse lies c. So let us not think these speculations enough but take the other maine thing that is as great as this the doctrine of the spirit That I may as well finde the spirit working in me as to know without that Jesus Christ died for me If Religion were stated aright I mean Christianity Christian Religion under the New Testament not in books but the life of Christianty it would be to know Christ crucified and to enjoy the spirit of Christ that when we read the New Testament and cast up the bill of account when we have done there is the sum of all the two hinges that all goes on Therefore take heed of being deceived by notionall knowledge of things onely without you though it be never so glorious For if thou be a Saint thou hast the Spirit of God really dwelling in thee in its measure as truly as in the Lord Iesus Christ as it is in Ephes 1. the latter end the spirit that works in them that believe O the spirit of God is a glorious thing It is that that not only makes the grand difference between a Saint and a sinner but even in a godly man the spirit is all in all in Religion Let the spirit but stir in him though he be never so dark yet all is light before him Let the spirit come and comfort him though he be in chains of Iron though he be in the greatest misery in this world yet he can sing Psalms Let the spirit be given him and then not only faith and the promises but graces and common providences every thing speaks the love of God to his soul But let the spirit withdraw from him if the Lord take away his spirit but for a moment even from the best Saint his body and his soul are no better If I may speake it then a meer carrion I allude to that of Iames The body without the soul is dead So take the body and soul without the spirit of God it is dead Dead What is that Thus take a living body that I may follow the comparison a little there is no living body but he can do something though some can do more then others yet every living body can do something he can sit or walk or talk c. And as he can do some good so he can resist some evil If a man be dying almost if you go to poure water in his throat he can turn his head aside But let the soul be away he can neither do any good I speak now of naturall civill good or resist evil So it is with the soul let the Lord take away his spirit and we are quite flat Let the Lord propose any good work to do let any part of the will of God be presented there is no stirring at all in the soul