Vse 1. This condemns all such doctrines whether Popish or Lutheran as make either Christ but half a Saviour To condemn such Doctrine as makes or us so much 1. Christ but half a Saviour 1. The Popish sort make Christ but in part a Saviour first in part only a Prophet adding doctrines of men of the pretended Church and Traditions to his written word by which as by a rule he teacheth us and our teachers too yea by ascribing to their Popes a power of judging and determining of Controversies Secondly in part a Priest setting up a sacrificing Priesthood now in the New Testament whereby they really and effectually pretend to offer up Christ for the sins of the quick and dead which was his work alone who was once offered to bear the sins of many Heb. 9.28 and 10.14 and who by one offering of himself hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified which his work they make common to every Masse-priest yea by ascribing merit and satisfaction to the works and sufferings of men laid up in the supposed treasury of their Church and by dividing the work of Intercession between him and the Angels and Saints Thirdly in part a King making the Pope to have a plenitude of power and Soveraignty both spiritual over mens consciences and temporal over their persons also and over all the Kingdoms of the earth 2. Which makes us so much 2. Both Popish and Lutheran and Arminian doctrine make us Men half Saviours with Christ if not more whilst they teach that mans nature is not so sinful and disabled by sin as it is ascribing much to nature and to the power of mans will giving him the casting voice or the casting of the balance in this work of grace saying Christ gives us grace indeed and power but so none is yet converted it is a common grace given to all so the grace and power is onely grace to believe if we will to repent and convert if we will to be saved and persevere if we will and so ascribe merit indeed to him and to his death but efficacie and application to themselves derogating from Christ to give to man whereas it is God onely that works and gives both power and will Phil. 2.13 1 Cor. 4.7 and that effectually worketh in us both to will and to do and that onely of his good pleasure his grace onely makes the difference Where such doctrine as this is taught 2. Hence a Trial of Doctrines and of Religions That Religion truest which gives most glory to God and teacheth and practiseth self-denail there is little hope of any good to be done to mens souls That which hath been taught may also be a Rule of discerning of true Religion or Doctrine and the false It is a sure and infallible Rule That Religion which takes away from our selves not onely teaching but working self-denial making men go out of themselves and truely humbling them and which gives all glory to God is the true Religion But such is our Religion and such is not the Popish Religion no nor Lutheran so far Do they not teach beside what is said of them already that they have no original sin in them after they are washed by Baptism VVhich 1. Popery doth not That men are able to fulfil and keep the Law fully in this life yea more do more then God commands even such things as they call works of supererogation whereby they merit heaven for themselves and others Whereas we teach that even after Baptism men have cause to cry out not onely of actual but original sin and to say with Paul Wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death or from this body of death and to say as Christ saith to us When we have done all that we can do we are but unprofitable servants An Objection answered I know false Religions seem to teach self-denial but it is in word onely not in deed The Papists will humble the body by afflicting it many ways punishing and not sparing it Here is a shew of humility unlesse onely in shew and of self-denial yet it is but a shew being Will-worship and a voluntary humility arguing indeed much more pride then humility whilst they are as without command from God so puffed up thereby with an opinion of merit and of satisfaction whereby they derogate from Christ and arrogate to themselves whom therefore we justly charge as Paul did such Volunteers in humility as they imitate See Coloss 2 18-23 to be under such shews of humility vainly puft up by their fleshly mindes i. e. falsly humble truely proud humbled in body proud in minde and hearts which may call to them whilst they are whipping the body or macerating it in the words of King David when God sent a pestilence which destroyed seventy thousand of his people Lo I have sinned I have done wickedly 2 Sam. 24.17 but these sheep what have they done Let thine hand be against me and against my fathers house so we are still proud hearts wicked hearts c. what hath the body done without us Let thine hand be against us to humble us I say the like of Popish penance where in their confession to the Priest is a shew of humility and self-denial in shaming themselves yet in that their other work of penance or satisfaction is pride with a witnesse And though some other urge self-denial and humility and meeknesse in receiving the Word and in word seem to ascribe much to Gods grace 2. nor Arminianism yet what pride is this and errour to make this humility if not a cause yet a condition even of the grace of Gods election as it concerns particular persons at least a respect a point or term from which election flows and so no fruit or effect of it as yet true humily and all other graces are 3Vse to shew why so few are savingly pricked 3 Vse Here we see the true cause why few are savingly pricked in heart and truely humbled namely ignorance of the worth office excellency and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ and of our own vilenesse sinfulnesse and damned condition whereof we are not nay will not be convinced as yet these here now were The truth is The reason is their ignoronce till we see and acknowledge Christ not onely in his natures and offices but in his exaltation and glory and as Lord over all and Judge of quick and dead as also our own basenesse sinfulnesse guiltinesse impotency desperate and damned condition we shall never be truely humbled in our selves or have nay not so much as seek interest in him or salvation by him 1. Of Christ and his glory 1. Ignorance of Christ and his glory against whom we daily sin is one main cause why men reject him and why he rejects them We see it in the Jews who 1 Cor. 2.8 if they had known him to be
is of the Hand in and by works but because they explain themselves dangerously in these and because a reprobate may have them all as well as their converts for all three were in Judas I leave them The order noted which some others observe Others much better make the order this by reducing the whole work to these six heads 1. This trouble of minde and conscience upon sight of sin and misery 2. Consultation hereupon what in such case to do 3. To be broken-hearted humble and contrite 4. Secret desire of forgivenesse with confession of sin and hope 5. Forsaking of all and highly prizing the pearl of the Gospel 6. Application of Christ and his promise Thus that worthy Divine old Mr. Rogers See also who list Mr. John Rogers of Faith Seven Treatises Treat 1. Chap. 4. Treat of the Christians Apparelling by Christ part 3. Sect. 73. on 1 Cor. 1.30 pag. 117 c. Chap. 2. I have also my self endeavoured to shew how faith is wrought and from thence discovered many mens false faith Onely now I will briefly note thus much Before the grace of Conversion and Faith be fully wrought the Spirit works orderly by the word assisted as is said sometimes by Miracles Afflictions c. so that there is first a work of the Law then of the Gospel not but that the Gospel hath also some work on the soul like unto that of the Law which therefore so far I refer to the work of the Law if not of Moses There is a double orderly work of Gods power both of the Law and Gospel 1. By the precept Mark 11.15 yet of Christ The Law then yea and so the Gospel hath a work 1. In and by the Precepts of it as when it saith Thou shalt have no other gods besides Mee and so in the other Commandments Yea so also the Gospel Repent ye and beleeve the Gospel and so it works on the understanding 2. In the Sanction of it 2 By the Sanction Gal. 3.10 Deut. 27.26 whereby it is established and a curse annexed to the breakers of it Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the Law to do them So faith the Gospel Except ye repent ye shall all perish And Hee that beleeveth not the Son Luke 13.5 shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him Joh. 3.3 6. And thus it works on the Conscience By both which works men are brought under the spirit of bondage brought to self conviction and beat out of themselves despairing wholly of themselves or of any help or succour from their own wisdome righteousnesse holinesse power The distinct works of the Law The distinct and 〈◊〉 works of the 〈…〉 1 Revealing of sin 2 Increase of sin and orderly proceeding of it I take to be this whereby it makes way for the mercy of the â—â—â—â—â—el This it doth 1 by revealing sin which formerly lay hid Rom. 3.20 2 By increasing sin not but that the law is holy but this it doth accidentally through our corruption for the commandment once coming to the conscience and shewing its spiritual nature sin which lying in the heart as well as in the outward man was thought to be dead reviveth Rom. 7.9 and taking occasion by the commandment Vers 11. deceiveth us and thereby slayeth us and worketh in us all manner of lust when the commandment cometh sin aboundeth and appeareth to be sin yea out of measure sinfull This the law doth in and by the precepts of it 3 Causing of wrath 3 By causing wrath that is by revealing foreshowing and threatning of wrath convincing the soul thereof and shewing God to be truly angry Rom. 1.18 that his wrath is revealed from heaven against all ungodlinesse and unrighteousness of men and against theirs in particular 4 Horrour and fear 4 Hereupon follows horrour and amazement through fear of this wrath and of the Justice of God The soul is at a stand the hammer of the Law hath given it such a blow that it is dazzeled confounded and knows neither what to think of it self nor what to do as it was with Saul posting to Damascus yea it with Belshazzar see 's the vengeance written and the hand-writing of condemnation against it self apprehending nothing but some fearful and sudden wrath ready to befall it so that it begins to quake and tremble as he did in the midst of his jollitie in an expectation of some fiery indignation his life even that of his soul hanging in doubt before him fearing day and night as having no assurance of it and having nothing in his eye but his sin the cause of his fear and damnation and death as the wages and fruit of his sin which seeing God hath him in chase he knowes not how soon or suddainly it may befall him And this is that spirit of fear 2 Tim. 1.7 Rom. 8.15 and of bondage spoken of in scripture Heb. 2.14 5 Sorrow and griefe 5. Now with this or upon this apprehension of cause of fear there goeth or followeth sorrow wounding pricking of heart stinging of conscience and present feeling of hell torments lesse or more For what is painfull when it is present is not without pain in the certain expectation of it as on the contrary a man may and the true Christian doth even under affliction rejoyce in hope of glory so these I speake of do sorrow and feel sensible grief in the fear of hell the soul is wounded pierced and stabbed as with the point of a sword hell is already begun in the conscience which saith I have thus and so sinned against a just God and damnation is my portion and thus the curse of the Law particularly seizeth upon the soul 6. Self-despair 6. This is accompanied with self-Judging and through a sight of its own inability to help it self with self-despair also whereby the soul lies plunged as a bull in the net and by striving is more intangled seeing its own help-lesse and so hope-lesse condition lying in bondage under the fear of death and of eternall wrath Now this as the three former is as from the Sanction of the Law and curse annexed and denounced to the breach of it so especially it flowes from the conclusion of that practicall syllogisme spoken of which conscience makes where is both self-judging an act of conscience and affections sutable stirred up in the will and soul 7. Consultation and a driving of a man out of himself 7 Now this desperate condition of the soul makes it it may be but alwayes with those whom God will convert look about to see as it were if any help or meanes of help be neer and causeth a consultation and an inquiry after them if possibly there may be cure as in these here in Saul or Paul and in the Jaylour and this I make also a work of the Law and of natural conscience the law being
be humbled enough Sect. 5. The former exhortation further followed that our sorrow may be to repentance CHAP. XVII A Case shewing when a man is humbled enough Sect. 1. Directions what to do in case of a seeming defect in our sorrow Sect. 2. Signes of true sorrow 1. From the Antecedents of sorrow And 1. What sorrow is not sound scil That which is caused by envie anger natural causes whether outward or inward by melancholy and that which is grounded on any power of mens will CHAP. XVIII Signs of true sorrow from the true Grounds of it Sect. 1. And first If it be for sin and upon a true sight thereof more then for punishment Sect. 2. How to know whether our sorrow be for sin as it is sin And first If it be in our prosperity as well as adversity Sect. 3. If it be for all sin in our selves and others Sect. 4. True sorrow is occasioned by some hope and glimpse of mercy CHAP. XIX Other Trialls of a sufficient Humiliation from the Concomitants and Effects thereof Sect. 1. And first It is generally shewed what is sufficient Humiliation Sect. 2. The truth of sorrow shewed from two Properties seven Effects and six Concomitants of it Sect. 3. From other Concomitants gathered from the Text As 1. Confession of sin even to man Sect. 4. Detestation of sin an effect of true sorrow for sin Sect. 5. True Contrition in the heart fils the head with care and causeth Consultation about the Means of cure and is not cured but by spirituall means Sect. 6. Self-denyall accompanieth true Contrition Sect. 7. The contrite heart is an obedient heart CHAP. XX. AnVse of Comfort to the truly contrire CHAP. XXI Vses fourthly concerning All. 1. Instructing how to carry our selves towards such contrite ones 2. Reproving and censuring their censurers and persecuters Their doom CHAP. XXII An Exhortation to all of all sorts to get this mournfull disposition of soul for sin With moe Lets removed CHAP. XXIII Where is shew'd another effect of the word and what these yong Converts said And that the heart being once affected sheweth it self by words and thereby may be discovered CHAP. XXIIII Shewing that in trouble of conscience for sin Means should presently be used Why withVses CHAP. XXV Sect. 1. That comfort to our troubled consciences is to be sought onely of Gods faithful Ministers Why Sect. 2. False Means of cure are to be abandoned What they are Where the Libertines Objection against us is answered Sect. 3. With two other Vses shewing 1. That few are pricked 2. A difference between the sound and unsound in trouble of soul Sect. 4. Three Directions to be in such case followed which the Apostles being sought unto do give And no other in effect to be given by Ministers With three other Directions to be followed in case of wrongs done by us to other men to regain our peace CHAP. XXVI The Apostles considered also according to their 1. Order 2. Number And that Direction and Comfort is to be sought of others as well as of Peter and much more then of Peters pretended Successor the Pope CHAP. XXVII Gods Word cures as well as kils CHAP. XXVIII Shewing how Gods Ministers and people are and shall be sought to and honoured at one time or other by those that now disrespect them Why With doubleVse CHAP. XXIX Shewing what Titles were given to the Apostes and what now are usurped by the Pope and kindely taken by others CHAP. XXX God teacheth us by Men the ground and Reasons why with diversVses concerning both Ministers and their hearers CHAP. XXXI Sheweth that Ministers are Brethren one with another and with their people WithVses CHAP. XXXII Consultation of many about the good of their souls is no Conventicle CHAP. XXXIII That there is the same means of cure in like case for all distressed in conscience CHAP. XXXIIII The chief care of Christians should be how they may save their Souls CHAP. XXXV How such as God will save must be qualified And first That they must question their estate and shake off security WithVses CHAP. XXXVI Such as are converted and saved must seek salvation out of themselves Where largely of Self-denyall Sect. 1. But first That men by sin bring themselves into great straits Sect. 2. Why we are to deny our selves and all goodnesse in our selves in the matter of salvation Sect. 3. Use 1 of Instruction and Exhortation to denyall of our selves as in other things so particularly in duties concerning Conversion Sect. 4. Containing a more generall Exhortation to self-denyall And shewing first In what things wee are simply and absolutely to deny our selves Sect. 5. Shewing secondly in what things otherwise lawfull wee are to deny our selves And first In things naturall and these of three sorts Sect. 6. Secondly In things spiritual as in Duties Gifts c. Sect. 7. Thirdly In things eternall as first In some accidentals of glory as in the degree and time of it Sect. 8. Secondly In glory it self And first In the salvation of others Sect. 9. Secondly That in some case wee should be ready to deny our selves in our own salvation Sect. 10. Containing a second Use or a reproof of such as being convicted by the Word do yet oppose it and are all for themselves Sect. 11. A third Use Incouraging and Directing what to own and shewing for what we are to deny our selves And first for God in his Attributes and glory Sect. 12. Secondly for Christ in his Excellencies and All-sufficiency by making him All and in all things to us Sect. 13. Thirdly Shewing we are to deny our selves in other things for the eternall good of our souls Sect. 14. Fourthly Shewing that the publick good of others of the Church and Common-wealth is to be preferred before our own private good CHAP. XXXVII Sect. 1. Shewing 3 That such as God converteth and saveth must be willing and plyable to Gods will and ready to submit to him in matter 1. of Salvation 2. Of Religion and worship 3. Of Obedience Why With Uses Sect. 2. An Exhortation to Obedience with the comfort of it at Christs coming contrà Terrour to the rebellious and disobedient The generall Method of the whole TREATISE on Acts 2.37 Where three things What these young Converts 1. Heard 2. Suffered 3. Said 1. What they heard where of 1 The time of their Conversion Now and not till now Chap. 1. 2 Persons They where their 1 Quality Chap. 2. 2 Number Chap. 2. 3 Means of their Conversion when they heard this where 1 The Act Heard Chap. 3. 2 Object This 1 general Chap. 4. 2 special Chap. 4. 2. What they suffered They were pricked in heart which passion is considered in a threesold relation 1 To Peters Sermon as an effect of it Chap. 5. Sect. 1 2. 2 To the sinners themselves as a fruit of their sin Sect. 3. 3 To the whole work of Conversion and as the first degree and beginning of the same Sect. 4.
the truth And these are not all but some onely who there opposed to such the followers of Antichrist who shall be damned This makes Saint Paul speak with distinction when he mentions vessels of mercy which God hath afore prepared to glory Even us saith he Rom. 9.23 24. whom he hath called not of the Jewes onely but also of the Gentiles Yet not all Jewes nor all Gentiles but us whom he he hath called of the Jewes and of the Gentiles And S. John brings the foure Beasts and foure and twenty Elders in praising the Lamb and saying For thou wast slaine Rev. 5.9 and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and Nation Not all Nations but some out of all Whence is this Which depends on his free Election Rom. 9.15 Jer. 31.3 but from Gods free Election and soveraigne will who will have mercy on whom he will have mercy c. According to that in Jeremy I have loved thee with an everlasting love therefore with loving kindnesse have I drawn thee 1Vse God excludes no sorts calling or kind of men if they repent VVhich is for comfort Vse 1. God being so free in his choyce and calling of men as that he chusing where he will calling or chusing none for any goodnesse either actually in them or foreseen nor rejecting any of any sort of men for their unworthinesse simply It is for comfort to such as receive the word in humility who hearing it repent and beleeve Let their condition or state be what it will be in the world let not them exclude themselves by impenitency and unbeleef and God will not exclude them He will have none make arguments against themselves saying I am an Eunuch I am separate or an heathen c. no Isai 36.3 6. let them but joyne in covenant with God and doe the thing which God commands and they shall be welcome to him as any So I say also for the rich whose salvation is most difficult and for the noble 1 Cor. 1.26 of whom not so many are called yea for the greatest sinners let them hear and obey Gods word and they may rest assured of acceptation with God Yet not for any worth in them but by vertue onely of Gods free Promise grounded on his free Election So that we further inferre That Vse 2 the difference between man and man in regard of saving grace is not from men themselves God mades the difference between man and man singling out some to whom only he sends the Gospel but from God from his Election his saving free and powerfull grace who in and by his Spirit accompanying the word preached singles out by effectuall calling whom he pleaseth and so separates between man and man To which end God with choice and according to his freedom and will sends the word so to some as that he denyes it to others Acts 16.6 7. where he hath any belonging to his Election whom he will save thither he sends his word in the ministry of it chiefly for their sakes Acts 16.6 7 14 30 31 and 13 10. So it was send and directed to Philippi and Thyatira for the convesion and salvation as of others so of Lydia and the Jailour and to Corinth in which City God had much people And however the Promise is to be propounded to all and some to whom he makes it effectuall near or far off that will hear it yet the thing promised that is Christ life and salvation belongs not simply and without exception to all and each but to all with this restraint To you and to your children and to all that are afar off even as many as the Lord our God shall call as it is in this Chapter vers 39. Now these are only the Elect as Acts 17.48 where it is said As many as were ordained to eternall life beleeved but none else These are they whose hearts the Lord openeth as he did Lydia's that they attend to the things spoken and beleeve them which all doe not Of which more anon Onely this teacheth such as finde the fruit and effects of this grace of God in themselves Vse 3 to be specially and singularly thankfull unto God for the same To be thankfull to God more then others even as God hath specially singled them out from among others and made them vessels of mercy Lord what am ' I that thou hast manifested thy choyce of me as thou passest by Whence is it that thou thus by thy saving grace comest to me and not to ' many others For if Christ on the behalfe of such who partake not of like choyce mercies confessed to God saying I thanke thee O Father Lord of Heaven and Earth because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes Even so Father for so it seemed good in thy sight then I conclude such as have found this mercy and speciall grace should on their own behalfe blesse God from the soul and seek more to glorifie God in their lives then such great ones on earth who having a name of wise prudent learned holy yea and of the Church dishonour God by their pride insolency and arrogancy too ascribing whatsoever wisedom grace and holinesse which they pretend and presume they have not to Gods free saving and effectuall grace but onely to his common grace and favour vouchsafed alike to the reprobates as well as to them but which they have made a better use of then those others by using their own Free-will better Vse 4 A reproof of the unthankfull and of the enemies of Gods grace Oh unthankfulnesse Who that effectually and truly did partake of Gods saving and speciall grace did ever long at least seeke to take the honour and praise of the work from God to themselves as these do who meerly fancying that grace they have not will have the stroke the casting voyce or the casting of the ballance in their own hands Let God have the honour then of making the difference as well as of giving of grace common to all hearers as the Apostle beating down mans pride doth teach us 1 Cor. 4.7 Of which place more below CHAP. 3. Concerning the Means of Conversion SECT 1. Of the efficacy of Gods word Whence it is And of the Vses of it 3 The Meanes of their Conversion the hearing of the word preached THe third thing here considerable is the Instrumentall Cause or Meanes of these Jewes Conversion And this is on Gods part the word preached on mans the same word heard and received by faith First generally by which through beleef of the threats and law the heart comes to be pricked and wounded being convinced of sin and wrath due unto it then speciall by which through beleefe of the speciall promise and by particular application and use of the remedy here prescribed vers 38. the heart comes to be healed Now when
or find content in their present condition they were stung and till they got ease in a very hell Thus it was with these Converts here what will then be the condition and sorrows of such as do remain live and dye impenitent Let it then be hence observed that sinne must never want sorrow Observe Sinne carries a sting with it never wants sorrow it carries a sting with it which will shew it self at one time or other It s like those locusts spoken of Revel 9.7.10 which have faces like men but stings in their tails like scorpions Such a thing is sinne though at first it may seem to have a beautifull face and appearance yet such as dally with it will find it will leave pricks at least and venemous wounds in the conscience such as have been named And though the conscience at length grow to be seared Though the conscience be seared senseles sometime yet it wil awaken here or in hell yet not onely the searing of it is not without pain or without many conflicts and terrours before it be deprived of all fence but God after awakens it to feel the horrour of hel even in this life though he deny such repentance as we see Judas Julian Nero Brutus King Saul who having an evil spirit which formerly had haunted him yet though as Brutus his malus Genius or Ghost which haunted him at Rome having for a while left him yet met with him at Philippi a little before his death though I say it left Saul often yet often it returned especially at Endor where Satan in the likenesse of Samuel told him that to morrow he should be with him 1. Sam. 28 29.20 which struck him with horrible amazement as there was cause Let this be thought on by all such as can find no delight in any thing but in sinne Vse For such as delight in sinne to expect bitternes Prov. 9.17.18 or so farre as there is sinne in the same The forbidden fruit seemed even because forbidden to promise more delight then all other trees yet it proved bitternesse in the end as sin will do so stollen waters and bread of deceit end in hell and prove like poyson given in sugar which may go down sweetly Which young men Eccles 11.9 but kindleth a fire in the bowels and bereaves of life Think of this you young men and rejoyce but know c. as you have lately heard remember the threefold sting which accompanyed and followed that of sin especially that of Conscience and of eternall torments Think of this ye Joviall and merry men of the world and merry men should think of how can ye be merry when so many thousand woes curses and vengeances belong unto you and hang over your heads sorrow you will find enough one day which may be to you without repentance but know assuredly that true repentance and conversion cannot be without sorrow seeing then sorrow must and will follow sin And either by godly sorrow in time to prevent it 1 Learn in time to sorrow soundly for sinne to be pricked wounded and in heart truly grieved for your sinne for such sorrow onely will prove saving and prepare you for through conversion and for sound and lasting joy as in these converts here 2 Otherwise know that you will gain nothing by sin or by living in it 2 Or assuredly to to look for it Grief of heart and pricking and wounding of the soul in some measure is the easiest which if you be afraid of chusing rather to enjoy your ease pleasures liberties then to be interrupted in the same by godly sorrow There is nothing gained by sinne then expect nothing in the end but hellish horrour terrours and torments not a pricking but piercing of the heart a breaking an opening a cutting a cleaving of it it may be even in this life and then a wounded spirit who can hear Prov. 18.14 but assuredly hereafter and for ever in hell For the prevention of which consider now well what you do what will be the end of your courses what the bitter and accursed fruits of your sinnes and of your smothering of the checks of your conscience Be now in time sensible of these things and consider this you that make nothing or but a jest of sinne or of conscience Take heed of lading A wounded name estate and broken bones nothing to the wounding of the spirit Psal 38.4 wounding and piercing your souls by voluntary and wilfull transgressions The soul hereby though for the present it be not perhaps so sensible yet insensibly is wounded and burthened with the guiltinesse of sinne whereby wrath is a treasuring up the burthen increaseth so long till at length your iniquities grow and go over your heads and as an heavy burthen prove too heavy for you Sinne long harboured within will at length fester break out into torments and in a word prove the death of the soul eternally The madnesse of men in falling into the greater evil for avoiding the lesse How is it to be wished then that men were as sensible of pricks and wounds in their hearts and spirits which by sinne are alwayes made though not perceived or believed or that they feared these half so much as they do a wounded body estate or name how sensible are men of the one and how fearlesse of the other hence they receive wounds on the inside and gashes in their consciences that the outside may be saved they will steal and do wrong to prevent poverty and yet poverty no such burthen as the guilt of theft they lye will falsifie word promise and oath to prevent or get out of debt and yet debt with man is no such burthen as debt with God which will exclude them out of heaven They will voluntarily smother the checks of conscience and repell the reproofs of the word that they may sinne more securely and with lesse trouble and yet this fire which thus smothered will once yea and for ever break out into flames doth infinitely surpasse that small seeming sorrow or lesser prickings which are in repentance They will go to witches to gain health and yet no sicknesse so ill as to be the devils devoted slave yea to save their skin their liberties their offices and to avoid reproach for Christ and persecution they will deny the truth of God and give the soul a thousand gashes to keep the skin whole and yet no losse to that of the soul Mark 8.36 What madnesse * Mr. Harris of a wounded spirit saith one is this This is to prick the hand to save the glove to hazard the head for the saving of the hat or of a feather to prick and wound the heart yea to kill the soul rather then to forgo a little vain and sinfull pleasure gain or honour alas they know not yet neither will they be told what the sorrows of a wounded spirit and conscience meane when God shall
and consultation whom he meanes to save This for the first preparative and most generall Use CHAP XII Shewing the desperate estate of secure sinners and danger of a false peace 2 Second sort of uses concern such as yet have notbeen pricked or not sorrowed 1Vse of Instruction not to please themselves with their false peace NOw upon this Triall it will be discovered whether thou hast been pricked wounded convinced and made sorrowfull for thy sinne or not And first if not here is an Use and matter both of Instruction and of Exhortation to thee But if yea then here are other Uses for thee 1 The secure sinner whether of more profane or of civill conversation is hence instructed not to please himself in his secure estate or false Peace He that hath not in some good measure been under the spirit of bondage troubled for his fin pricked and wounded in conscience hath just cause to suspect himself all is not well Many please themselves in their secure courses load their consciences yea wound gash the same with the guilt of many enormous and grosse sins and yet blesse themselves in their condition and remain unsensible and of stupified consciences sorry they would be to be in such case as they have seen or see some others to be in who yet indeed are either in the state of grace or in a good way unto it Yet those other are such as these wretches should be if ever they prove true Converts Those other it may be with David have their sins often before their eys which draw out tears of true hearty yea alsoof saving sorrow repentance from them but these secure ones cast all behind their backs and leave all to be reckoned for hereafter are moved with nothing they either think say or do and are not willing at any time to have ought in their thoughts or before their eyes but such things as may give the flesh content and which may blind their eyes and besot their souls namely sensuall delights and pleasures gain nonours in the world love and favour of men and such like True peace distinguished from false 1 It goes with Righteousnesse Rom. 14 2.2 is grounded on the Gospel That it is no true peace but a fools Paradise and false peace which they enjoy is most evident 1 True peace and righteousnesse go together the Kingdome of God is not meat and drink or pleasures or ought else of that nature but righteousnesse and peace and joy in the holy Ghost But their peace and joy is not such 2 True peace is grounded on the Gospel of peace which works reconciliation with God Rom. 5.1 but their false peace cannot endure the Gospel or the reproofs of the word as we see in Ahab hating Michaiah and may see in these men not enduring to be told of their sinnes or to be called to mourn and to weep for the same and for their ensuing miseries 3 It issues out of sorrow for sinne 3 In a word true peace sound and solid comfort is for order of nature yea and working after yea out of true sorrow for sin trouble of conscience and spirit of bondage as hath already plentifully been shewed their 's not being such cannot be good â— Terrour â—secure ones who have not arowed for sin Let me then read thee thy doom thou secure sinner whosoever thou art and shew thee what cause thou hast to suspect thy self till thou hast at least been wounded pricked and pierced in thy couscience for thy sinne in some sense and feeling of Gods displeasure against thee for the same Their secure estate is a signe that they are stil 1 in their naturall condition and in sinne Simil. This is a sign 1 that thou art still in thy natural that is in thy damnable estate in which thou camest into the world and wast by nature a child of wrath as well as others Is sin no burthen to thee It is a signe thou art yet in sin as in thine own element For as the weight of water is not felt in the water as not of a man who shall dive deep into the sea whereas one hoggeshed of water on the land would crush him so to a soul any way separate and divided from sin who her it be in its judgement will or affâ—ction sin will be as it was to David and heavy burthen too heavy for it to bear and will make the soul to cry to God for ease as finding no peace Psal 38.1 2 3 4 rest or health because of its sin whereas if the soul be not in some measure burthened and troubled with sin but do still make light of it as Samson did of the brazen gates of the City and do still bath it self in the delights and pleasures of sinne it must needs prove that it and sinne is yet all one and that there is no separation made between them as yet and consequently that it remains in its naturall and damned estate and that sin unsorrowed for will prove to it as that dead sea of Sodom which causeth all living things to dy that come into it 2 That they are in Satans possession 2 And so this false Peace is also a signe that such an one is in Satans possession all things are so quiet within him Satan molests none so much as those that make from him and those he will not suffer to be quiet as we have heard onely the Lord first by his word troubles those souls he means to save all is so quiet as by the Angel the waters were troubled before any cure was done Now what a condition it is to be in Satans keeping yea possession let any wise man consider 3 and dead in sin 3 This condition of secure sinners doth plainly shew them to be dead in and by sinne and deprived of all spirituall sense and life To be without the sense of feeling is a certain signe of death now these being wounded as being without sense stung and pierced by the word yea hewed by it for such are the effects of the word even 〈◊〉 slay and kil men that is to devote the impenitent to certain destruction yea damnation of soul and body yet shew themselves no whit sensible but are as dead and senselesse blocks under the lashes and strokes of the word herein like the drunkard or as he described Pro. 23.34.35 lying down in the midst of the sea or upon the top of a mast They have strucken me shall be say and I was not sick they have beaten me and I felt it not c. 4 That they are far from Repentance 4. It s a signe that secure sinners have not as yet entred the porch or so much as touched the threshold of the School of Repentance whereof this pricking of conscience in my text is made the first stop as hath been so largely shewed and proved It is a strong argument that the word the means and
sins unsorrowed for an enemy to God how much better then to be pricked here for our curing as a tumor gets ease by pricking then to be put to indure the whole wrath of God hereafter and to be stung to death forever Where we may also note and might consider for our encouragement and seeing wee shall not lose by sorrowing here that the greatest sorrows we here suffer when wee mourn for our sins savingly are in comparison but prickings Note The greatest sorrows of the elect are but prickings yea as flea-bitings considered with the eternal torments of the damned which by timely sorrow now may nay undoubtedly shal be prevented as it was with these mourners here who though whilest they looked on Christ whom they pierced they mourned for him as one mourneth for his onely son and were in bitterness for him as one is in bitterness for his first born and shall be much more so at their calling and at the conversion of their whole scattered Nation and though some few be longer holden under sense of sin and wrath here then most other converts are which should incourage us yet what lost these Jewish converts by this their sorrow and smaller wounds by pricking when they were presently healed and withall obtained the pardon of their sins ver 38. the favour of God freedom from condemnation Rom. 8.1 and from eternal sorrows in hel yea and right of sons and heirship to eternal life and glory No more shalt thou lose by thy sorrow here if in time thou give over thy profane carnal worldly courses and secure living and betake thy self in time to the serious exercises of Repentance and godly sorrow Dost thou think 〈◊〉 â—xhortaâ—â—◠〈◊〉 by Motives or canst thou imagine that thou hast no cause so to do Come tell me have you who are now so secure and merry no true cause of mourning or of being touched and pricked in conscience and soul 1 From the consideration of our sin 1 Orginiall 1. Are ye without sinne 1. Are ye not inwrapped all of you in the guilt of Adams transgression I wil not charge you to have brought each of you for your parts in that regard sorrow sin and damnation upon all men that are or shall be damned though some wil have it so and yet I cannot say but that thou art guilty and sharest in the guiltiness of that sin which did all this And if so it wel weighed were enough to break thy heart that thou and I and each of us have had in our first parents a part in bringing damnation on our selves and others But howsoever know that there is in regard of Original sin that corrupt fountain within thee that leaven that bitter root seed and sink of sin in thy nature whereby as thou art wholly indisposed yea backward and ready to oppose all goodnesse and truth so inclined to do as wickedly as ever did sinners even as did the Sodomites and other heathen and as Judas and those Jews who betrayed Christ and crucified him yea as such Christians as sin that unpardonable sin the sin against the holy Ghost nothing hindering but Gods mercy restraining or sanctifying them And is not this enough to humble thee should it not make thee fear lest taking such liberty in thy ways as thou now dost God leave thee to thy self and to these thy natural and corrupt inclinations and give thee over to commit the same or like wickedness and to come to like ends 2 Actuall 1 Our own considered with their aggravations Job 13.11 which are many 2. But I am sure thou canst not but confess thy self to be guilty of many actuall sins which are obvious to every eye and ringing in every mans ear that lives neer thee Wil not these bring thee to be ashamed of thy self or should they not trouble thee Is not the least of thy sins 1 Against the great and holy God and then shall not his excellency make thee affraid and his dread fall upon thee 2 Against his mercies and goodness and art thou not ashamed of thine unthankfulness and of thy base usage of him and abuse of his favours 3 Against his threats and examples of his judgements on others and shall not that daunt thee 4 Against thy conscience and knowledge especially in these days of light and doth not conscience smâ—te and prick thee See Luk 12 47 Wilt thou stil hold the truth in unrighteousness and yet not fear Gods wrath revealed from heaven against such Rom. 1.18 5 Against thy Covenant with God and vows often renewed and dost thou not fear to receive the just reward of a traytor and of perfidiousness Wherefore should God be angry at thy voyce Eccles 5.4 5 6. Why dost thou by breaking wedlock with him for by covenant thou art become his provoke the eyes of his jealousie and glory against thy self canst thou thus do and yet live secure Ezek. 16.8 3. Other mens which we make ours helping to damn them 3. Nay Besides thine own personal sins think how many thou hast helped to send to hel before thee by having an hand head or heart in their sins Didst thou never intice any to commit folly with thee to cast in their lot with thee in some wicked enterprise Didst thou never incourage provoke counsel or command any to do evil Hast thou never made other mens sins thine own by thy silence consent connivance commendation defence or at least want of sorrow for them Hath not thine example presence and familiarity with sinners in their vanities drawn many into sin and hardened them in the same and hast thou not by such means become a murtherer of their souls And if they be dead in their sins in hel before thee hast not thou sent them thither or helped at least And if so what comfort canst thou have on earth Matth 18.7 to have them so many of them there to curse thee continually unlesse by hearty and timely sorrow thou get the pardon of all thy sins sealed to thy soul Which our sins should cause in us great sorrow Here know it also for certain that if ever thou wouldest kindly grieve the Law must not onely reveal sin unto thee and give thee cause of sorrow but it must cause the offence to abound and so afford thee cause of great sorrow so that if ever thou partake of Gods abundant grace Rom. 5.20 or be saved thou must by the Law see thy sin to be exceeding sinful and to abound considering how they abound 1 For hainousnesse Which therefore see First for hainousnesse according to all the aggravations of it and in the vilenesse of it as by sinning against so much and so long patience in God and against such means of grace which have wrought so effectually in many others 2 Multitude Secondly For multitude and that thou hast been a sinner not in this or that particular being ready to justifie thy self
blood if it be done and therefore becoming man for us his head was pricked with thorns his hands and feet pierced with nails his heart pricked pierced and wounded with a spear his body broken for us yea his soul heavy grieved wounded in a sense of his Fathers wrath against him making him not onely sweat drops of blood being in an agony but complain and cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me All this and more then I can expresse the onely beloved Son of God suffered from his Father ere he overcame death or recovered the sense of his Fathers love or yet a possibility of salvation for thee And what we Vnlesse here we sorrow savingly and dost thou think to passe thy whole time in pleasures ease vanity and sinne and yet not so much as be pricked in heart or wounded in conscience for thy sin and troubled in sould in the fear and apprehension of thy so justly deserved damnation yea wilt thou also expect and presume of heaven and the joyes thereof Let me then tell thee from God that unlesse thou in time beest pricked in thy heart for thy sin yea many sins especially such as these converts as hath been said were pricked for crucifying of Christ unthankfulnesse unbelief impenitency rejection of him in the offers of his grace hardnesse of heart obstinacy ignorance and disobedience c. I say neither shal Christs pricking and piercing his wounds and sufferings avail thee any thing and which more is thou thy self in thine own person most inevitably shalt and must suffer the vengeance of everlasting fire must in our own persons suffer in well and all those sorrows eternally which the Son of God did suffer as thy surety if thou couldst believe and rest on him and repent and which made him so cry out And then see how thou wilt be able to endure it or rather O my brother O my sister O every one of you now in love to your own selves consider this in time O consider this saith God himself unto you what your own ill doings and desert Psal 50.22 and yet my patience and forbearance a while now consider this ye that forget God lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver Consider that the sins thou hast not sorrowed for which would be considered thou must sorrow for here or hereafter chuse where thou wilt have thy portion whether here where thy sorrow may be saving accompanied with inward and true joy and followed with eternall and unspeakable comfort or hereafter where endlesse sorrows in soul and body shall be the just reward of thy security now Thy sins will be thy ruine one day Sin else will be our ruine and tear thee in pieces if thou be not their ruine now by mortification of them and of thy self so farre as to be pierced and wounded savingly for them in time God forgets them not though thou do they are written before him as with a pen of iron and point of a diamond in his book which one day will be opened against thee and be more terrible to thee then was the hand writing against Belshazzar for such an hand writing there is for every sinne of thine unrepented and uncancelled how many then are the curses wraths and vengeances that are due to thee and will most inevitably befall thee for thy so many sins not repented of A wonder that any in this case can be merry Isa 5.14 how can you then be merry or light-hearted when so many thousand woes belong unto you compasse you about and dog you continually at the heels all waking and watching against you like so many hungry bears starved wolves and lions yea when hell it self gapeth for you enlarging her self and opening her mouth without measure as for all other sinners so particularly for such as follow strong drink and in whose feasts are the harp and viol tabret pipe and wine but no regard of the works of the Lord with 11 12. no consideration of the operation of his hands or of any thing either their own sins or Gods judgements which is seasonable Futher to convince the secure a few questions are propouneded to them O then in the feare of God be convinced of these truths and of the necessity of such sorrow and let me ask thee yet a a question or two 1 Dost thou so live or canst thou so live as not to sin or transgresse Gods Law surely no thou wilt say at least thou wilt find that is impossible Wel then 2 art thou able to undergo the curse and penalty of the Law by suffering Gods wrath everlastingly no alas thou accountest that and well mayest intollerable 3 I ask again what wilt thou then do seeing thou art so many wayes a transgressour and liable to all this wrath If thou resolvest to do nothing but sittest still in thy security and setlest still on thy lees thou mayest certainly conclude against thy self as the foure lepers at the gates of Samaria suffering a famine within and a siege of strong enemies without that thou shalt undoubtedly perish and die Oh then be sensible at length of thine own danger see thine own inevitable destruction unlesse in time thou humble thy self with God and judge thy self that he judge thee not in hell be sensible of the fire of his wrath and of hel hold no skreens any longer between thee and it seek to quench it in time by thy tears and hearty sorrow for sin lest thou be cast into it irrecoverably and in consideration of the torments of it now cry earnestly to God in Christ O Lord here give me my part of sorrow and teach my heart more truly to mourn for my sinne and be mercifull unto me here O God here burn cut launce wound prick and pierce my heart savingly that I never may know what belongs to everlasting burnings woundings and gnawings 4 Or now again to bar thee off and to stop all starting holes dost thou think that thou art exepted and exempted from this curse and wrath Will God be partiall for thy cause Doth not thy sin bring thee under this curse and wrath as well as others Deceive not thy self see Deut. 29. where verse 10 c. All without exception of any present or absent born or not yet born are either in their own persons or persons of their Parents presented before the Lord Deut. 29.10.18 19 20. c. to enter into his covenant lest saith Moses there should be any among you man or woman or family or tribe whose heart turneth away this day from the Lord our God c. And it cometh to passe when he heareth the words of this curse that he blesse himself in his heart saying I shall have Peace though I walk in the imagination of mine heart The Lord will not spare him but then the anger of the Lord and his jealousie shall smoke against that man and all the curses
from him Or otherwise as is said by a good but ungrounded conceit of thy self and of thine own estate being alive before the Law come closer and neerer home to thy conscience thou thinkest thy self safe and in good estate Rom. 7.8 and apprehendest no danger or judgement as belonging to thee but onely to others But in a word know and remember that though thou be thus partiall towards thy self yet God is not as hath been said though thou hide cover and conceal thy bosom sin neither searching it out thy self nor suffering the word to search thee yet God will search thee and finde it out Thy safest way were to judge and condemn thy self that thou mayst not be condemned and judged of the Lord and to imitate the poor and humble Publican who smote on his brest and heart confessing and craving mercy for his sin and to beware of the proud Pharisee his self-justification 5. Flattery of soothing Prophets 5. And as part cause of the former beware of smoothing and flattering teachers who howsoever sometimes they may make a flourish and declame it may be against sin and tell of Gods judgements yet they will have a care that they come not so neer as to offend thee or to touch thee in thy speciall sin if especially thou be one in place or who mayst come even with them again These men heal before they hurt and what stings others the faithfull servants of God have left in the mindes and consciences of any they seek to pluck out and to heal the wound with their oyly words being like the false Prophets of old of whom and of the Priests it was said They have healed the hurt bruise or breach of the daughter of my people slightly saying Peace peace when there is no peace Jer. 6. v. 14. And when Gods deerest servants tell the people of particular judgements belonging to them and so by wounding and pricking their consciences bring them on in a good way towards repentance these flattering Prophets strengthen their hands that they should not return from their wicked wayes by promising them life Ezek. 13.22 onely wounding and making sad the heart of the righteous whom God hath not made sad In this case I must say to you if you would be pricked and savingly wounded for your sins as the Lord in another case said to the Kings of the Nations Therefore hearken not ye to your Prophets nor to your Diviners c. for they prophesie a lie unto you to remove you far from your Land and that ye should perish Jer. 27.9 10. and Jer. 29.8 6. Lastly 6. Vnbelief take heed of unbelief want of faith to beleeve Gods true Prophets when they tell you of the danger of your sin keeps you from applying the threatnings of God to your selves so that you reap no fruit by the word but though fairly warned and called to repentance with hope of mercy perish through your own unbelief in his wrath as it was with those of the old world whereas Noah himself by faith being warned of God of things not seen as yet moved with fear prepared an ark to the saving of his house Hebr. 11.7 So wee read of Enoch Jude v. 7. though but the seventh from Adam and in the beginning of the world who yet set the end of the world or the day of judgement before him prophesying thereof whereas secure men through their unbelief never humble themselves if then till judgements be upon them being herein like such as hearing thunderclaps far off are not moved till they be as present over their heads and some hurt in their sight be done then with Pharaoh they tremble but not till then So want of faith in Christ keeps men from being sensible of their sin and from being pricked in conscience for it When was it that these Converts in my Text were pricked in heart It was when they heard and withall beleeved that Christ whom they crucified was the true Messias So it was foretold Zech. 12.10 that when they should look upon him whom they had pierced they should be pierced themselves and mourn bitterly and be sensible of their sin which shall be fulfilled especially at the conversion of their Nation but then they must no longer abide in unbelief Rom. 11.23 Seeing then faith is the gift of God we must earnestly pray for it and carefully attend to the ministry of the word by which it is begotten To withdraw from the hearing of the word either in regard of presence of body or attention of mind is to keep our selves out of the sphere and compasse within which onely the word of God that sword of the Spirit is active and operative and will reach and pierce us SECT 2. Le ts removed which make the soul senseless And first Sensuality and worldliness 2 Lets keeping the soul from being sensible of pricking BUt men who cannot avoid the stroke of the word the scorching of that fire the smiting of heart and conscience having such teachers as smite home and will not suffer them by their evasions shifts excuses and extenuations to put by the blow yet as experience sheweth shew themselves little sensible of the same neither are they truely made sorrowful thereby being like Jacob or Israel Mens senselsness for blindnesse deafnesse incredulity senselessness and stupidity on whom it is said the Lord poured the fury of his anger and the strength of battell and it set him on fire round about yet he knew not and it burned him yet he laid it not to heart Isa 42.25 or like the drunkard who may say They have stricken me and I was not sick they have beaten me and I felt it not Prov. 23 25. being past feeling Ephes 4.19 and of cauterized consciences 1 Tim. 4.2 Now there are divers things which bereave men of all spirituall sense and pain which accordingly if we would become true mourners for sin we must carefully beware of and see that wee give no way unto them Men have ways and means by which they for the while especially become insensible of pain by pricking Divers things bereaving men of the sense of bodily pain As Deep sleep Searing burning bone-setting incision cutting off a member and the like as by the use and application of narcoticall or stupefactive medicines and potions by being cast into a deep and dead sleep by which all their senses even that of feeling are bound up so by searing and burning whereby the part is mortified and the inward humidity dried up So I have heard and read Bewithching how in the body of witches in covenant with the Divel in the place where by sucking or otherwise he sets his mark or Sacramental signe the place is so benummed and deaded that a pin of a great largeness and length may be thrust in to the head without the grief or any sense of the party by which means if that mark or bewitched place can be but once found out
the Almighty hath afflicted me Thus the good woman was humbled in Gods sight who had deprived her of her husband and two sonnes in a strange land and that doubtlesse in sight of her sin and unworthinesse and acknowledgement of Gods just hand upon her 2 To joyn with God 1 By justifying him 2. Secondly when God by afflictions humbles and bruiseth thee joyn with him in humbling thy selfe 1. Justifie God in his chastisements confesse him righteous and thy selfe the sinner and justly met withall this is one main end of Gods chastisements Levit. 26.41 that our hard and uncircumcised hearts be humbled and that we when his hand is upon us accept of the punishment of our iniquity and condemning our selves Do thou then follow home the affliction lament thine own unto wardnesse and if especially his hand lie long on thee or that his strokes be multiplied say Lord what an hard heart have I and senslesse that needs all this hammering and melting this battering and bruising that none of this could be spared Thus at length by Gods mercy thy hard and unrelenting heart shall be bruised softened and humbled 2. 2 By taking advantage of the occasion and time Take the advantage of the time when Gods hand is upon thee Men of the World both know and are carefull to observe the fittest Seasons for ploughing and breaking up of their grounds and God lookes that we do the like for the breaking up of the fallow and hard ground of our hearts Jer. 4.3 which he expects from us as a duty Eccles 3.4 There is a time to weep and a time to mourn God by his judgements on us by crosses and afflictions softens bowes and masters our stout stomackes brings down our high lookes and thoughts when we finde him stronger than our selves which perhaps we thought not on before and to take from us such stayes and props whether wealth friends health c. as on which we rested our selves more than on him Seeing men commonly under cresses are somewhat softened Job 23.15 16. Now hereby God workes in men more selfe deniall at least remorse and some more fitnesse and pronenesse to repent then at other times Thus saith Job I am troubled at his presence when I consider I am afraid of him for God maketh my heart soft and the Almighty troubleth me And in regard of troubles and distresses David complaineth to God saying I am poured out like water Psal 22.14 and all my bones are out of joynt my heart is like wax it is melted in the midst of my bowels And thus in some measure the unregenerate finde it with them in their troubles and feares whereby they finde themselves more disposed to pray and more disposed to pray and to repent and to repent as the Israelites though unsound and unconstant when God slew them they sought him and returned Psal 78.34 Isay 26.16 and Lord in trouble have they visited thee saith Isay they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them At such times the hearts even of hypocrites become more remorsefull as we see in men in their sicknesse and distresse Now as Ministers should take such opportunities to worke upon mens hearts Job 33.22 so should they themselves especially as the iron when it is hot is soon bowed and fashioned by hammering and as the Wax when it is warme and soft may better be wrought and formed as we please which opportunity would be followed home My advice then to thee who desirest this pliable and sensible heart is to take the oportunitie of thy deep afflictions and crosses to follow home this worke Is any afflicted Let him pray saith Saint James Let him humble himselfe in prayer Jam. 5.13 confesse heartily his sin and seek mercy Art thou affected with sorrow upon the death suppose of some dear Friend Parent Childe or Associate Husband or Wife Whatsoever the occasion of thy grief be yea or if a secret sadnesse or pensivenesse come upon thee so as thou findest thy selfe disposed to weep omit not such a fit season now that thy countenance is sad the heart is made better Eccles 7.3 that is more soft and yielding to good impressions and our sorrow turned the right way the Lord thus softens and inclines thy soul to fresh sorrow for sin and would have thee to turne the stream of thy natural sorrow or melacholicke pensivenesse into the right chanel from the out ward or inward occasion from the known or unknown cause of thy heavinesse to sorrow and mourning for thy sin from the effect to the cause seeing nothing is truly to be sorrowed for but sin which is the onely true cause of all our other sorrowes and afflictions Blessed is such a crosse losse or affliction as bereaving us of earthly if not sinfull comforts and confidence sends us to seek our comfort and to place our trust onely in God by seeking our peace with him with true teares of godly sorrow sor our sin by which he was offended 3 To come 3. Thirdly for evils to come and judgements threatened or feared in this life or at and after the end of it Death it selfe Hell and the last Judgement the dreadfulnesse and terrour of which should make us afraid and such fear will or should worke sensiblenesse and tendernesse in us as apprehension but of temporal judgements made Josiahs heart to melt though there was in him some mixture also of love to God and zeal to his honour howsoever As 1. Temporal judgements threatened it made him with teares seek peace with God for himselfe and his people for the aversion of his judgements from them If an earthly Prince should threaten us how would we fear and by humbling our selves seek to make our peace again with him How submissively did Jacob carry himselfe toward his brother Esau when he came towards wards him as an enemie Thy servant Jacob and Let me finde grace in the sight of my lord Gen. 32.20 33.15 How much more should we fear and humble our selves Amos 38. when the Lord God hath spoken when this Lion roares who will not fear and humble himselfe before him How also did the thought of death humble not onely a good King Hezekiah but an hypocrite King Ahab 2 Death Isay 38.1 2 3. 1 Kings 21 19-21 27.29 Jon. 3.5 c. and the Ninivites Let the living then lay death to heart Eccles 7 2 and apprehend it as near that as men in apparent danger of death both by sea or land on their death-beds or as men condemned to die they may be humbled sorrowfull and penitent Let us thinke often also of Hell and of that place of torments 3 Hell and how it is prepared as for all impenitent sinners so also for the secure and voluptuous livers Luke 16.27 c. 4 The last judgement such as was Dives and his brethren so of the dreadfull
and condition out of their own houses in some parts of England but especially in Ireland as also by Sea as they go for New-England and other parts putting them to most miserable slaverie so by Antichrist and spiritual Babylon tyrannizing over soules and bodies as elsewkere and formerly killing massacring spoiling and laying waste whole Townes Cities Provinces and Countries by their cruell and mercilesse Souldiers witnesse not onely of later times Roehel in France and those of the Valtoline where Christians have been forced to flie their Countrey others staying to renounce their Religion in hope and promise of life and then cruelly slain the Enemie boasting they had now slain both bodies and soules of Heretickes so at this time in the lower Hassia but especially divers places of Germany and of the Reformed Churches there as the Palatinate Bohemia Silesia anno 1640. and now at this present the Lower Hassia over-run with barbarous Souldiers burning killing and spoiling without all respect to Sex Age or Order forcing men to leave their own homes to seek to maintain life by feeding on carrion and such like burning and demolishing their Churches and Colledges and School-houses impoverishing all of all sorts especially their Ministers and School-masters three hundred and more of whom at this time are forced to seek and by the recommendation of their Princesse The Landgrave of Hassia to desire the charitable and bountifull relief of Christians in other Provinces and Kingdomes for the present relief of the foresaid Ministers and Rectors of Schooles Octob. 1641. And for the re-edifying of their Churches and Schoole and should not we be affected with these things and weep with them that weep and shew a fellow-feeling with them making their case our own We should be alike affected with them not knowing how soon it may be so indeed in the mean time so remembring them that are in bonds as bound with them c. which is the Apostles exhortation Hebr. 13.3 Herein following the example not onely of Moses as was Moses whose heart melted when he looked on his brethrens afflictions in Egypt but especially of that worthy Nehemiah who at a great distance and Nehemiah hearing of the miseries of the Jewes that had escaped and which were left of the captivity Nehem. 1.3 4 5 c. that they were in great affliction and reproach that the wall of Jerusalem was broken down and the gates thereof burnt with fire sate down and wept and mourned certain dayes and fasted and prayed before the God of Heaven This made him no doubt mourne for his own and others sinnes against which God by every judgement of his doth testifie that he hath just cause and matter against us and ours This is a noble president for us to follow seeing we want not like occasion and it would bring us to a mourning temper and disposition to weep even for our own as well as others sins At this time also the bleeding condition of Ireland would not be forgotten 3 specially we are to meditate on the sufferings of Christ for us 3. Lastly view we in our thought and meditations attentively the sufferings and greatnesse of the sorrowes of our Lord and blessed Saviour Jesus Christ dying for us with the cause thereof in our selves and sinnes together with the love of God and Christ himselfe in giving himselfe for us We should look on his sorrowes not with a spirit so much of compassion as of compunction not weeping for him in pitie so much which silly ignorant people and women can do when they see his Passion prophanely acted on the Stage and on our wounding him or in the streets in their Corpus Christi Playes or when they look upon the Crucifix striking and beating on their breastâ— as in true sorrow for out own sinnes by which we pierced him and in some sense do daily pierce him by the same so these Jewes here in my Text no sooner had Christ by the Word evidently set forth to be the true and onely Messias Gal. 3.1 and crucified among them by being charged and convinced that they were the Crucifiers of him but they were thus savingly pricked in heart as it was foretold of them and of those yet to be called by the Prophet Zechary They shall look upon him by the eye of meditation whom they have pierced Zech. 12.10 and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his onely son and shall be in bitternesse for him as on that is in bitternesse for his first-borne Consider herein Christ his bitter death not onely what thou must expect to suffer in thine own person for ever unlesse thou now be pricked in heart for him as well as he was pierced in heart head and hands and feet for thee but his infinite love as also on his infinite love in suffering such things for us who would suffer so much for thee and interpose himselfe between his Fathers wrath and thee yea receiving in his own bowels the javelin of his Fathers anger to keep it from thee to whom onely it was due as in like case did it not thinke we both trouble David to thinke of Jonathans hazards for him and also cause his heart to melt in true love to Jonathan who shewed himselfe so loving to him Will it not pricke and wound thy heart to consider this thy dear and truest Friend for thus he was wounded in the house of his friends one the racke of the Crosse for thee to the end that thou mightest never come unto it Zech. 13.6 how should yea and would this meditation if seriously made use of melt and mollifie our hard hearts and overcome all our obstinacies His sorrowes well thought on would helpe to break our hard hearts but his love appearing in the same would and should melt and thaw them 3 God softens our hearts by his mercies which we should often thinke of to that end And so generally the meditation of his mercies a thousand wayes manifested to every one of us How did hard-hearted Sauls heart melt into teares when he saw and was convinced of Davids love integritie and respects to him and his life when in the very act of his hostilitie against David yet David spared his life And how was Davids own heart humbled at the relation of Gods many mercies against which he had sinned The like in the Israelites 1 Sa. 24.16 17. 2 Sam. 12.7 8 9-13 who upbraided by Gods mercies in bringing them out of Egypt lift up their voice and wept so that the place had its name thence and was called Bochim or Weepers Judges 2.1 2 3 4 5. They considered Gods kindnesse to them and their unkindnesse to him and thereupon wept such consideration of mercie shewed or offered to the unworthy is foretold to worke shame in the sinners and loathing themselves Ezek. 36.25 26 c. with verses 31.32 O then hearts harder than the Adamant that are not
though they pretend they do well in rejecting of them is to be sorrowed for Yet doublesse some do too much please themselves in it thinking now they have just cause to cast off these precise preachers and Doctours of despaire who do all they can to shame men and drive them to despaire and to hearken to such as will not make the way to heaven so narrow 3 Naturall sorrow grounded on naturall causes is not saving sorrow 3 There is naturall sorrow proceeding from naturall causes either more inward and lesse discerned as from melancholy sadnesse of disposition heavinesse of heart and naturall feares and terrours whereby they dare hardly be alone especially in the dark and are often heavy and dejected but they can scarce tel for what Not that which is from occasions which are outward by which we are not to measure our sorrow for sinnne or more outward palpable and known as from crosses and losses in estate friends health liberty name and from toyl labour trouble and vexation in their callings and conditions of life Such sorrow as this causeth mistakes in judging of true sorrow divers wayes some finding their sorrow excessive and that they can shed plenty of teares for worldly occasions Evcesse in such sorrow causeth some doubtings in the godly of the truth of their sorow for sinne as if it were as losse of wife husband child friend c. but that they cannot so sensibly mourn for their sins do hereupon question the truth of their sorrow for sin as not sufficient or enough because not so great as they conceive as worldly sorrow is in them but without just or sufficient ground seeing 1 worldly sorrow runs with the stream of nature which it hath to help it not enough But it should not Why whereas spirituall sorrow runs against the stream of nature and is meerely from grace which often receives resistance and abatement from the opposition of nature and carnality 2 Sorrow would be considered as in the will well guided and led by soundnesse of judgement and not so much as it is in the sensitive part of the soul and so sin is most hated and abhorred and in gods account and acceptance most sorrowed for whilst it is by true judgement acknowledged a greater and truer cause to deserve and procure sorrow then any wordly losse or crosse whatsoever 3 sorrow for sin may be and is in Gods deare children greater in vertue though the other seem greater in quantity as good corn in time will overgrow the weed which for the present is higher and as the small spring or fountain and still stream fed by a spring will outrun and outlast the violent land-flood which though for the present it run over its banks and make a greater noise yet when the great rain that caused it is done It soon runs it self dry but the other still keeps its tenour and constant course An affection then whether of Joy or grief is not to be measured by the sudden indeliberate passing motion of it How we are to judge of the affection of grief and joy but according to the setled habit in the judgement and estimation and as is said dislike in the will for as on the one hand a man sometimes laughs and cannot but laugh at a toy in which he yet joyes not so much as in many other things concerning which he doth not for the act of laughing so lively carrry himself so on the other hand a man may be more stirred and moved whether with anger or with sorrow for a trifle or a thing of lesse concernment in the main then for a greater matter and spirituall losse for which yet more solidly truly and lastingly he mourns Lighter sorrows make men cry out Difference betweeen naturall and spirituall grief in regard 1 of causes when greater do more deeply affect and are thought on more in silence As then there is great difference in the cause of sorrow wordly grief being caused by worldly and nnaturall causes but true sorrow is wrought by the word and is for sin so also in the continuance naturall grief pain and sorrow wears away with time as who grieves now for the pain sorrow sicknesse or losse he suffered many years ago whereas true contrition 2 Of Continuance even after pardon will and ought to be renewed for our further humbling all our life long in remembrance of sinnes of youth Caveat long since repented of Onely to such I say let this serve to humble you the more when you find your selves so excessive in worldly losses greater sorrow for natural causes then for sin should more humble us but not dishearten us and so remisse in the other be hence excited to mourn the more for sin to check your hearts for this inordination and to turn the stream of your tears into the right channell and if such a crosse or losse be so bitter cry out oh bitter sin of mine which hath caused all this sorrow Howsoever measure not thy sorrow for sin as not by other mens scantling as is lately said so not by thy own greater sorrow as at least thou thinkest in and for temporall evils But far be it from thee to mistake sorrows labour toyl and suffering in and for temporall things for or in stead of saving sorrow and such as will bring thee to heaven Bodily sorrow is not godly sorrow simply as is mistaken 1 By Papists in their sufferings 1 Voluntary as yet divers do who having as yet never shed one tear or so much as fetched one hearty sigh for their sins either all many or yet any one yet perswade themselves that their sorrows sufferings are to salvation Such are the Popish sort generaly who ascribe so much to their sufferings whether voluntarily inflicted on themselves by hard usage of the body by whippings scourgings fastings pilgrimages the like where they take penni worths on their skins but their sins souls are no whit touched or mortified but increased rather a superstitious conceit of merit and satisfaction made thereby to Gods justice or justly inflicted on them by the hand of justice for their disloyalties 2 Inflicted treasons conspiracies poysonings or attempts to destroy their Soveraign Liege Lords Kings which just punishment of theirs they will falsely call martyrdome and a Baptisme of blood washing them from all their sins without any other sorrow for their evil deeds in wh ch they rather glory rejoyce standing in stead of all other punishment to them either in Purgatory or yet in hel which by this means they hope and suppose they do escape prevent 2 By common Christians who acknowledge no other sorrow for sin then such as is outward Others there are who through their ignorance or rather as they are leavened with Popish principles conclude with themselves they need no more sorrow then such as they have found for if sorrow be good they have had
enough of that they have been men of sorrows and labour they have scarce had any respite or breathing time from crosses sicknesses aches in regard 1 of crosses pain povertie toyl and labour in their calling all their life time they hope they have now sufficiently dreyed their Penance that 's the phrase of some of the more Popish sort of them God forbid that God should lay any more sorrow upon them either here or hereafter they hope there is no more for them to suffer hereafter they have had their punishment and sorrow enough in this life Now as for true contrition and sorrow for sinne tell them of that or call on them for it and they will presently stop your mouth yea and answer satisfie or rather suffocate and choak their own consciences by telling you of their sorrows in this life 2 of toil and labour in their callings and that they laboured truly in their callings and wrought hard for their livings and have not eaten the bread of idlenesse they hope God will require no more of them neither will they be convinced of the necessity of any other sorrow for sin In the rank of these we reckon such as popishly and foolishly conceive that if a woman die in child bearing she is undoubtedly saved 3 Of death in Childbearing as if that sorrow were sufficient and expiatory or satisfactory to Gods justice ah poore souls wretched creatures to think Gods Justice can so be satisfied or that God should do them wrong if he required any more at their hands here or hereafter if they be not saved who shall be saved seeing they have toiled moiled and laboured hard in their callings let rich men as was Dives who was cloathed in purple and fine linnen and fared sumptuously every day look to go to hell as for them Gods Justice is not so satisfied they are like Lazarus who went to heaven Thus as in the former of women dying in childbed they can abuse Scripture to their own perdition But let such know that neither Lazarus nor any other went to heaven or escaped hell torments for their poverty sicknesse sorrows labour and toil in this life unlesse they also forrowed for their sins neither is such sorrow from naturall externall causes sufficient and withall sought to the all sufficient sorrows and sufferings of Christ for them by true faith without which all sorrows of this life are but beginnings of eternal sorrows no sorrows sufferings or obedience either active or passive of ours save onely that of Christs can satisfie Gods Justice which is infinite Sin must and will have sorrow if not in this life then everlastingly hereafter as hath been shewed largely and therefore their sorrow being not for their sin nor humbly and willingly undertaken will never save them Sorrow from inward distemper by Melancholy is not true or sufficient sorrow And as for Melancholick dumpish fits of heavinesse they must not simply be taken for sufficient or saving sorrow being the effects of naturall causes and ill constitution and temper of the body I know where sorrow for sin and such a disposition and temper meet in in any one the sorrow becomes the greater and the party is further off from receiving comfort by the the Gospel but this increase of sorrow in such belongs not to Godly and Evangelical Contrition so much as to the work of the law in a deeper apprehension of wrath and punishment furthered by the cunning malice of the Devil whotaking advantage of that dark Though it may and doth increase sorrow for sin neither in the godly dull and ill disposition of their bodies presents strange fancies to their brain and dreadfull apprehensions yea and apparitions to their souls whereby the soul seeing nothing but through such dark and foggy mists and being distempered with the distempers of the body beholds nothing but black darknesse and is disquieted with needlesse and excessive fears and doubts and that often till it come to desperate resolutions tending to the destruction of themselves or those they otherwise dearly love as husband wife child or friend unlesse God mercifully stay them But in such case their sorrow for sin as it is sin may be little enough nay if it were more the other would be lesse seeing true sorrow for sin is not without some apprehension of goodnesse and graciousnes in God and love and hope in themselves who so do sorrow But as melancholie in such doth not argue a greater measure of godly and true saving sorrow in them nor in some other whose naturall distempers being healed so in some others it argues none at all of it self and simply Let such be cured of their melancholy of their naturall and bodily distemper and we shall see that the Divines work is to begin in them when the Physician hath left them sorrow for sinne is to begin pensivenesse for sin is to begin in their souls after sadnesse fullennesse foolish fancies and fears with the cause thereof distemper hath left them in their bodies Not but that where the distemper of body is not very great the Divine may and should take the advantage as much to work on that soul for good as Satan for evil None of these sorrows then caused or occasioned from either sinfull worldly or naturall causes must be mistaken for godly sorrow at all much lesse for sufficient and saving contrition neither are they to be rested in Nor that whereby some in their bodily infirmities especially distempers of brain withall fall a weeping and crying when by others they are spoken to and pitied 4. Such sorrow and Repentance is not sound which is the effect of any power of will in man Before I shew positively what sorrow is and may be taken as sufficient for the present in the young penitent so as to afford him comfort in the assurance it is well-grounded I advise men who it may be little question the truth of their godly sorrow and repentance to consider well with themselves whether they do not ascribe their repentance as other graces to some power of free will in themselves as if God onely by externall motives in the word and by some internall excitations thereupon did let them see what to do and some necessity of doing it but the doing it is of themselves and from the good use of their own free-will and naturall power without the powerfull prevailing and determining grace of God Such men have cause to suspect themselves and their repentance See Matt 9.13 as built upon a weak foundation and standing upon feet of clay as well as iron The work being of men wil undoubtedly come to nought as in another case was said We have heard Acts 5.38 and shall hear more that true contrition and godly sorrow proceeds from and followeth upon self-denyall True sorrow is grounded on self-denyall and felf-despair of a mans own wisdom worth will power as in my
Text they presumed on nothing in themselves but said to the Apostles What shall wee do yet not by our own strength no and on no power or worthiness in man as Peter and John in case of healing the lame man ascribed all to Christ his power and grace Act. 4.12 16. and nothing at all to their own power or holinesse so is it much more in the conversion of a sinner and in true repentance where is not onely the restoring the lame to his feet but the born blinde to his sight the deaf to hearing and in a word the dead to sense and life This presumption keeps men in whole or in part from Christ that they feek not to him or depend not wholly on him for this and all other grace as having the same at least in part within the compasse of their own power and so not fully and heartily seeking to Christ or depending on Christ his grace and power for it by going wholly out of themselves they wholly go without true and saving contrition otherwise then in seeming and in theiorwâ—n presumption and thus harbouring though secretly it may be and so as they take no great notice of it a conceit of some sufficiency in themselves they misse of Christ whose grace and power must either do all or in effect it doth nothing at all these by presumption think they need not so much be beholding to the grace of Christ as contrariwise some men apprehending the greatnesse of wrath due to them for their sin which whiles some closely conceit suffer themselves to be swallowed up of despair for seeing no power or sufficiency at all in themselves for their own help they fall to despaire as well of Gods help as their own and will not seek to Christ which is through a kind of pride stoutnesse and stubbornnesse of heart whereby seeing they cannot have what is needful of their own they will not go to any other to receive it and so their despaire is not out of sight and sense of sin and punishment so much as out of stoutnesse of heart as in Cain whose sins were not so great as King Manasses his were who yet despaired not being both humbled in himself and not without hope of help in God They either despair wholly or in part and so are long kept from comfort And this sometimes keeps even such as otherwise are broken-hearted and prove true Converts from their comfort a long while an apprehension of their own unworthinesse which makes them repel mercy as so exceedingly unworthy of it that they dare not apply the promise Belike then if they were in themselves more worthy they then durst go to Christ as if Christ were not able alone without some worthinesse or power of theirs to save and succour them through a secret Pride undiscerned by them whereby they still object their own unworthinesse but that they must joyn something with Christ in furthering the work of their salvation As such a conceit as this keeps the proud Papist for all his seeming austerity and Compunction from true sorrow for sin and from saving repentance they like Naaman in his fit of pride and scorn refusing their own help healing and salvation because they will not have it so easily without somewhat of their own so these though they have as much Compunction as would and should drive them to Christ yet in a nicenesse because they are such great sinners so disabled so unworthy they dare not be so bold and so couch and lie down under the burthen of their sins conceiting if their sins were lesse fewer or not so hainous they could better hope for mercy and might be bolder to beg it or to cast themselves on it as if God ever accepted any for any righteousnesse of their own whether simple or comparative because they are not so great sinners as some others or yet rejected from mercy the greatest of sinners that in a sense of sin and of the burthen thereof could or would come unto him True Compunction then and contrition of heart must be grounded on some Hope generall at least True Compunction is grounded on Hope in God and not in our selves if not speciall and particular but then that hope must be grounded on nothing in our selves on no power worthinesse and lesse unworthinesse and sinfullnesse of ours but onely on the mercy and goodnes of God in Christ and so by such hope our sorrow shall prove saving and not end in despaire If either thy hope be presumptuous as grounded on thine own power or worthines or none at all in God because thou canst see nothing in thy self to make thee hope thou hast cause to think that thy sorrow is not found It s true many mans sense of sin and miserry is such that in a fit and for a time they either cannot or will not see any ground of hope yet such as God will save are not alwayes left to themselves True Converts are sustained by some hope in God as Lam. 3.18 19 20 21. but are secretly sustained with some hope and perswaded of a possibility of help in God and from his All sufficiency free love and abundance of mercy which he hath for the greatest sinners upon their repentance whereby they are able to say when their soul is humbled or bowed in them this I recall to mind therefore have I hope though formerly they could say my strength and my hope is perished from the Lord so Jonah in the fishes belly I am cast out of thy sight yet I will look again toward thy holy Temple so these Converts in my Text secretly sustain themselves with hope Jonah 2 2 4. and in these Converts in my Text. they say not desperately there is no hope there is nothing to be done all means are in vain but what shall we do Is there no way for us being so guilty to escape our deserved punishment yes certainly if we could light on it ah good Sirs men and brethren let us know it tell us what 's to be done what course is to be holden that we may be saved so that they conceiving some hope and possibility resolve not to go on or to continue in their guiltiness or to adde sin to sin as some in like case desperately would say seeing we must go to hell and be damned we will take our pleasure while we live as one expresseth it and be damned for something but being inwardly and truly touched in soul and heart with sence of their sin as well as of hell and wrath deserved they become truly remorsefull and resolve not to despaire of that goodness and saving mercy offered them in Christ against which they had thus grievously sinned and therefore sustained with some hope of acceptance if they might be well directed to the means thereof they ask saying What shall we do Whereupon they are directed to the true meanes in the next Verse And thus we see their
wounding and pricking was not meerly Legall with respect to punishment only but Evangelical tending to true contrition and Repentance and therefore not wholly an effect of the law but in part also of the Gospel and a work of the saving spirit of God CHAP. XVIII SECT 1. Signes of true sorrow from the true grounds of it And first that it is and must be for sin TRy we our sorrow then henee whether it be wrought by the Gospel Other Tryals of our sorrow from the grounds of it or only by the Law If it be true and saving sorrow it is grounded 1. On some sight and sense of sin 2. On some glimpse of mercy and goodness in God True sorrow is procured 1 by the sight of sin and is for sin 1. He that savingly sorroweth seeth his sin and miserie by sin and groanes under the burthen of both Matth. 11.28 he is sensible thereof his heart is become like his eye tender and sensible of the least sin as it is of the least mote in it he looking on his sin mourns and that heartily and secretly If then the sight of sin be not the procurer of thy sorrow thou hast cause to suspect it Yea but how shall I know whether my sorrow be for my sin and fault or for the punishment of it either felt or feared This is a needfull quaere Herein many deceive themselves seeing men are commonly more sensible of the evill of smart then of the evill of fault and of sin and if their sorrow be either only by sorrowing more for the punishment then for sin or more for the shame and punishment of sin in this life or in hell then for the fault it is unfound howsoever it may seem or be pretended to be only for the sin Many herein being like one Polus an Actor who being to act a sorrowfull part on the stage to move him thereunto had secretly conveyed into a corner of the Stage his fathers or some dear friends Urne in which were the ashes of the deceased on which whiles he looked his sorrow was so much the more excited only with this difference he being to fain sorrow came thus to act it truly and truly to mourn these while they pretend to sorrow truly for their sin do it but in seeming for sin but truly for the punishment of it on which their eie is chiefly set Howsoever it is a good sign when men grieve when Gods hand is upon them or threatned It is not denied but that men may and ought to shew themselves sensible of and grieve for the punishment of their sin be it present and incumbent whether it be publike or private and personall or imminent and only threatned Nay it is an ill sign for men not to be moved in such case but to give themselves to feasting and jollity when God by his judgements calls to weeping and mourning Jer. 5.3 as Isai 22.12 13 14. where God threatens the want of it and elsewhere complains by his Prophet that though he had stricken them yet they grieved not And the best men in such case fear and tremble most and shew greatest humiliation The best do it as David in time of pestilence 2 Sam. 24.17 Jehoshaphat when God threatned an invasion 2 Chron. 20.3 4. and generally the godly in their own and the Churches miseries So true converts do mourn even in respect of the evill and miserie which their sin threatens them withall as reverencing his Word and are made to fear the falling into the like sins again as Job 31.23 The reason hereof is Because they reverence Gods Word and fear all signs of his anger And this God pleaseth to sanctifie as a beginning of saving sorrow as in these converts in my Text. So that we here conclude as formerly we have shewed that it is a sign of an ungracious and hard heart that is not some way humbled under the tokens of Gods wrath on or towards our selves or others and that such come short of many Reprobates To tremble at Gods word and judgements a good sign as of Pharaoh Ahab Jehoram c. 1 Kings 21.29 and 2 Kings 6.30 And on the other hand it is a good sign of true sorrow indeed and such as God doth accept of when men tremble at Gods word and at the tokens of his displeasure Isa 66.1 2. so do hearts truly humbled which howsoever before they were stout and stubborn against God and relented not at his judgements yet now an angry word of God humbles them And when it is so as it was with good King Josiah Such as are not humbled at Judgements and at the word are not sound 2 Kings 22.10 11. its a good sign of a heart truly compunct contrite and humbled Let such look to this as hearing of Gods judgements with Ahah doe quarrell with the Minister as he with Micaiah as never speaking good unto them far are they from the humble spirit of good K. Hezekiah who though he had sinned through pride yet soon humbled himself for it when Isaiah so sore threatned him saying 2 Chro. 32.26 Isai 39.8 Good is the word of the Lord which thou hast spoken A heart truly humbled for sin and hating it can be content to have it searched out by the word discovered and reproved Yet such sorrow is not enough Psal 139.24 Yet though it be a thing needfull that in reverence to God to his Word and threatnings men do humble themselves under Gods hand and stroke and in apprehension of his dipleasure befalling or otherwise due for their sins unlesse it be also and chiefly for sin yet this is to be taken as a sign of true contrition and saving sorrow when withall or chiefly their sorrow is for sin and upon the sight thereof as it was in Josiah and Hezekiah more then for punishment who formerly had tasted of Gods goodness and now finding God displeased upon the breach of his Commandments and by reason of the dishonours done unto him melt into teares and sorrow and in true grief of heart for their own and peoples sin seek to appease his wrath by humbling of themselves If then we would know whether our sorrow be sound and good we must try and consider whether it be for sin or for the punishment of sin and that first when Gods hand of correction is upon us for our sin Hypocrites may then humble themselves as is said but true converts only mourn and are humbled for sin as cause of those judgements yea more for the sin then for the judgement Such was the sorrow of David who was willing to endure punishment The judgement and evill inflicted they are most willing to undergoe but the sin procuring it is intollerable as we see in David when for his sin the Pestilence devoured his people in whose multitude and strength he trusted too much and gloried Lo saith he I have sinned and I have
done wickedly but these sheep 2 Sam. 24.17 what have they done Let thine hand I pray thee and of Job be against me and my fathers house Job 1. Levit. 26. So Job in his sore affliction was content to receive evill at the hand of God as well as good thereby accepting of the punishment of his sin as true converts do who are sensible of their own ill deservings and others and are humbly patient under Gods hand Thus the mournfull repentance of them that escape in the finall desolation of Israel is described But they that escape of them shall escape and shall be on the mountaines like doves of the vallies all of them mourning Ezek. 7.16 and 18. every one for his iniquitie as for the rest when destruction is upon them horrour covers them and shame is upon their faces The King shall mourn and the Prince shall be clothed with desolation and the hands of the people of the land shall be troubled but what they shall seek peace what peace not with God but with man that is ease from their troubles but there shall be none and 26 27. Then they shall also seek a vision from the Prophet in hope God will give them ease and deliverance such as their seducing and flattering Prophets did promise them but the Law shall perish from the Priest and counsell from the ancients there shall be none to give them any hope from God Psal 38.3 4. c. So David again being in a pitifull case in regard of some grievous sicknesse inflicted on him because of his sin which he confesseth though his sorrow which was increased by reason of the insultations and snares of the wicked was continually before him yet that troubled him not so much as his sin the cause thereof therefore saith he and vers 18. I will declare mine iniquity I will be sorry for my sin So that when hee is sensible of Gods judgements and afflictions yet his sin is his greatest sorrow The troubles of mine heart are inlarged Psal 25 17 18. look upon mine affliction and my pain and forgive all my sins They were his sins which most troubled him Now I ask is thy sorrow when Gods hand is upon thee Application or upon the Church or nation and place where thou livest such as this If so thou mayest have comfort of it when thou canst turn the stream of thy worldly sorrow into the right channell and make thine eyes run down with rivers of teares because of sin Psal 119.139 thine own and others because men keep not Gods Law and canst with those in Ezekiel mourn for the sins of the place Ezek. 9. and for all the abominations thereof more then for the evill fruits and effects of sin which thou canst in all humility accept of and submit unto heartily bewailing the one and humbly submitting to the other as it was with good Nehemiah chap. 1.4 5. compared with 5 6. and with Daniel chap. 9 5 6 7 8 c. 14. But if it be chiefly for the evill effects of thy sin either felt or feared thou hast cause to sorrow afresh lest thy sorrow being only for punishment prove but the beginning of everlasting sorrow and torment to thee as to Pharaoh who when Gods hand was heavy upon him and his people shewed himself more affected with the evill he suffered then with the evill which he did and therefore cried not out to God as David did I beseech thee O Lord take away the iniquity of thy servant for I have done very foolishly but to Moses and Aaron 2 Sam. 24.10 Exod. 10.17 Intreat the Lord your God that he may take away from me this death only True sorrow is for sin as sin and as it is an offence of God True sorrow then is more for sin as it is sin and an offence of Gods Majesty and a dishonour done unto him then for any evill consequent of sin hurt perill or danger it brings men into It is therefore called a godly sorrow or sorrow according to God respecting him more then our selves being more for the object of our sorrow which is sin 2 Cor. 7 9. and 10. then for any Act of sorrow caused by sin whereof sorrowing aright for sin as sin we may have much comfort it being repentance not to be repented of and not worldly sorrow working death It is such a sorrow as wherby we lament after the Lord as they did Such is not the sorrow of hypocrites Zach. 7.5 1 Sam. 7.2 and not such as the Iews in their captivity performed concerning which the Lord bids Zacharie aske the Priests saying when ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh moneth even those seventy yeares did you at all fast unto me even to me Nor such as the Israelites formerly made shew of and of which the Lord complaineth saying They return but not to the most High Hos 7.14.16 they are like a deceitful bow And saith the Lord they have not cried unto me with their heart when they howled upon their beds they assemble themselves for corn and wine and they rebell against mee The meaning is what shew soever they make of sorrow for sin it is not in sincerity nor from the heart Whose sorrow meerly respects themselves and that chiefly in things of this life It is not for their sin as it is sin against me and my honour but it is for their adversity captivity want through dearth and famine give them ease libertie and let them have corn and wine and their sins against me will never trouble them Nay when thus they howl and cry unto me they rebell against me how much rather then would they so doe if they had their desire they seek as worldlings usually do Psal 4.6 7. not my face and favour whom by their sins they have offended and dishonoured but corn and wine the blessings of my left hand and so in their howling fasting and sorrow they have not regard to me whom by their sins they pierce and wound but to themselves and that not to their soules but to their bodies in the things only of this life Now hence it is that God having threatned his people with grievous evils for their sins against him calls on them to return and to mourn sincerely in these words Therefore also now saith the Lord Joel 2.12 13. Turn you even to me with all your heart and with fasting and with weeping and with mourning And rent your heart and not your garment c. Where the Emphasis would be observed turn you to me even unto me till ye come and reach unto me Vsque ad me shewing that our repentance and sorrow comes short of God if it be chiefly for worldly wants crosses and losses and not in sincerity of heart sorrow for sin as it is sin against God SECT 2. How to know when our sorrow is for sin as sin if
in prosperity Trials whether our sorrow be for sin as sin NOw the better to judge of our sorrow whether it be not more out of fear or feeling of punishment and shame and such like evils then for sin as it is sin Let it be considered First 1 Sorrow for sin as sin is as well in prosperity as adversity whether we can humble our selves and grieve for our sins against God as well in our prosperitie when all things in the world go well with us as in adversity in wants in our feares troubles dangers c. I know evill men and hypocrites can in their prosperity rejoyce or rather seem to rejoyce in God as their God Hypocrites hence discovered 1. By not sorrowing in their prosperity Job 27.10 but can they then mourn for their offences against God as being then more apt to sin against him then at other times I trow not Will the hypocrite alwaies call upon God No. Will he mourn for sin whiles he may yet sin in regard of health youth occasions and opportunities to sin No he makes that his time for taking liberty against God he will repent and cry God mercy and sorrow for his sin when he is old and that the yeares come in which he shall say which many take for their time of sinning I have no pleasure in them Or in case of some dangerous sickness crosse disaster bodily weakness or the like Oh thinke of this you yong men especially on whom God calls for repentance young and healthy men especially and to remember your creator in the time of your youth or as the word implieth of your elections when you may yet chuse the good yet not by any power of will of your own and refuse the evill that is before the time of age sickness and death come when through infirmity of body debility or want of occasions and opportunities you cannot sin at least in act for many kinds of sin though you would as now you will not when otherwise you may and when God chiefly expects it from you Never then tel me that your sorrow if there be any so much as in seeming in you can be sound at such time as Gods hand shall be upon you 2 By their forced sorrowing in adversitie For I know secondly That hypocrites yea very profane wretches when by affliction sickness dangers by sea or by land Gods hand lyeth heavy upon them they can then humble themselves and seem sorry as King Ahab did and the incredulous and disobedient Israelites who when God slew them they sought him they returned and inquired early after God Neverthelesse they did flatter him with their mouth for their heart was not right with him Psal 78.34 ◠36 37. and so they lying and dissembling or at least deceiving themselves in heart return but not to the most High they in grief and sorrow seek the removall of Gods stroakes but they grieve not that they have provoked God to strike them being as ready when Gods hand is removed from them and when without apparent danger they think they may to sin against God even with delight as ever before But thus either to forsake sin when sin for the acts thereof forsakes them first or to sorrow for sin onely when Gods hand is upon them or in regard of the shame or punishment of it in this life or in hell is a signe of unsoundnesse and if thy sorrow whosoever thou art be no other then this thou hast cause to sorrow and repent of thy sorrow and repentance and exceedingly to question the sincerity of it and Gods acceptance if thou canst not as heartily at least truely and sincerely mourn for thy sin in thy health as in sicknesse in thy youth as well as old age in thy prosperity as well as adversity SECT 3. True sorrow is for all sin in our selves and others True sorrow is for all sin 2 IF thy sorrow be occasioned and wrought in thee for sin as it is sin and as it is a disobedience and dishonour to God then it will be against sin not onely at all times In our selves and in others but against all sin both in thy self yea and in others also 1 In thy self Thou wilt both hate every false way and desire to be rid of all sin as well as to have all pardoned 1 In our selves 2 Tim. 2.19 yea also mourn for all as well as any one as knowing any one sin persisted in with delight will amount to as much in Gods account as if thou wert guilty of all Jam. 2.10 And though thy sorrow be not so great for some one sin as for some other all sins being not alike hainous yet it will be true and sincere against all because all sins There being the same nature of all sin though not all alike are against God and his will revealed against his holinesse soveraignty crown and dignity will and glory This quatenus or as all and each being against God when we say wee must mourn for sin as sin being a reduplicative implyeth a universality because there is the same nature in all sin every sin being against Gods holinesse wil soveraignty and glory so that he that is sorry for any one sin in that regard Quicquid propter Deum fit aequaliter fit will be sorrowfull for every sin and he that is not sorry for all sin upon the same ground and respect is truely sorry for no sin at all True sorrow is 1 For smaller sins as well as great 2 Et contrà Try then thy sorrow hence Is it 1 For lesser sins as well as greater Davids heart smote him for that which as I take it was in it self no sin even for cutting off the lap of Saul's garment 1 Sam. 24.5 2 For greater sins as well as lesser seeing hypocrites often strain at a gnat and swallow a camell 3 For such sins as the world taketh no notice of 3 Is thy sorrow as well for such sins as the world takes no notice of to wit for spirituall pride inward lustings and pleasing thy self with contemplative vanities arguing sensuality of heart covetousnesse ambition revenge c. as for more open and shamefull sins Thus it should be God is dishonoured and disobeyed by these and they are against his holinesse as well as more open sins 4 For naturall corruption 4 Art thou humbled at the uncleannesse of thy nature the depravation of thy soul yea deprivation of Gods image according to which thou at first wast made Is it a burthen and grief to thee to finde so much untowardnesse in thee and aversenesse from whatsoever is good holy or true and such a pronity and readinesse to imbrace errour admit of sin and to do evill This was part-part-cause of David's sorrow when bewailing his actuall transgressions hee traced them home to the root and originall confessing and bewailing saying Behold I was shapen in iniquity and
in sin did my mother warme as it is in the Originall 5 For bosome sins or conceive me Psal 51.5 5 Is thy sorrow as much for thy beloved bosome and darling sins such as have brought thee in unlawfull gain delight and pleasure and have procured thee favour respect yea advancement it may be with and from evill men as for other sins not so much feeding thy corruption By this I beleeve many mens sorrow will be found too light whilest their hearts are not so much pricked and wounded for these their sins as that the Word and Ministers of God will not suffer them without galling their conscience and with quietness and false peace to enjoy them still 6 For sins of the first Table aswel as the second 6 Is thy sorrow for thy sins against the first Table or four first Commandments of the Law as well as for sins against the second Table respecting more immediately thy neighbour and against the second as well as first 1. It may be it would be thy grief if thou hadst offended dishonoured and disrespected thy father or thy mother thy Magistrate and thy Prince but canst thou as truly mourn for the dishonour done to God If thy father on earth shew his displeasure and spit in thy face Numb 12.14 it may be thou wouldst be ashamed seven dayes but art thou so when thou provokest God to anger I know if any of you should kill a man though uupurposedly it would trouble your conscience somewhat and be grief unto you but I doubt whether when you do that which God accounts an offence equal to murther as when the Jew killed an oxe in sacrfice to God trusting in the work done and living without faith repentance and reformation of life or as when the Christian comes unreverently and in his sins to the Lords table and eats and drinks unworthily you are any whit troubled in conscience for the same when of the one God said hee that killeth an oxe is as if hee slew a man Isa 66.3 and so he that prayeth heareth and offers other Christian sacrifices without an heart humble and contrite penitent and beleeving is the like and of the other S. Paul Whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord as if he had been the Judas or the Pilate or one of the Jews who crucified him Thou again maist perhaps be ashamed of adultery to do thy penance for it as in Popery c. but yet please thy self in thy spiritual adultery against God going a whoring from under him by thine idolatries and superstitions and shew no shame sorrow or grief for it And so on the other hand and for sins against the second Table as well as against the first Thou maist be troubled some way in conscience if thou shouldst worship an Idol frame ceremonies and superstitions of mens devising break out into blasphemy taking Gods name in vain or into open profanation of the Sabbath but yet makest no conscience and art not troubled for dishonouring thy parents and superiours speaking evill of lawfull authority or otherwise offending against thy neighbours life wife or chastity goods or good name either by sins of commission or of omission towards them Jam. 1.27 This is no true Religion nor is the other godly sorrow if thou sorrowest not alike for these 7 For evil cleaving to our best actions 7 Canst or dost thou as well sorrow for thy failings and imperfections or for thy unworthy and unprepared and unreverent medling with holy things in thy hearing preaching praying and communicating at the Lords Table as for thy omission of such duties or commission of evils and sins apparently forbidden There is an evill cleaving oftentimes to our best performances through distractions carelesnesse irreverence confidence in the doing of the duty do these things trouble thy conscience or not Grosse and open sins would perhaps trouble thee but are these things a trouble and burthen to thee I am sure they should and wee should put away by hearty sorrow and amendment the evils even of our best doings and sacrifices Isa 1.16 Dost thou judge thy self as thou oughtest even for want of due preparation to the Sacrament thou shouldst so do as well as for open profanenesse seeing there is sin and dishonour done to God in the one as well as in the other To conclude Thou must know that thou truely grievest not for any sin as it is sin and with respect to God if thou grievest not for all known sins and that particularly if as one well saith thy very unprofitablenesse idlenesse peevishnesse unconstancie trouble thee not yea I add if thy hardnesse of heart and thy want of grieving as thou shouldst grieve do not grieve thee 2 If thy sorrow be right and good for sin as sin it will also be thy grief to see and know others to sin against God 2 True sorrow is also for sin in others and by sin to dishonour him to disgrace Religion and profession and to cast away their own souls This is the property of true mourners Ezek. 9.4 Thus mourned David Psalm 119.136 and Lot 2 Pet. 2.6 So should wee mourn for the sins of the Land For the sins of the Land Town or place where we live especially if Gods judgements be upon the same or towards it and that more for the sins provoking God then for the judgements themselves as in the aforesaid examples Sometimes in case of Pestilence War Famine and other great evils and dangers wee meet and are called together to fast and pray to mourn and humble our selves and otherwise are much disquieted and vexed but what is the true cause of our mourning is it as it should be our own sins or the sins of the Land place or Kingdome Nay alas these are least thought of or at least but generally acknowledged and slightly bewailed a signe our sorrow is not for sin or with respect to God but to our selves So of our families if they be the sins of our own Families wee cannot approve our own sorrow for our own sins such as it should be if we do not also mourn for and bewail the sins thereof as of our own children as Job did Chapt. 1.5 of our parents and fore-fathers as Nehemiah did Nehem 1.6 and Daniel Chap. 9.8 and one of another of those that are neerest us every family mourning apart Zech. 12.12 and as the Corinthians were blamed for not mourning for the sin of Incest committed by one of them As wee are to shew a generall dislike of sin in all even in those that in other respects are neer and dear unto us as King Asa who allowed not his mother in her Idolatry 1 King 15.12 so should wee both shew our care and endeavour to reclaim others from their sins but however mourn to God for them if wee can do no more Such as regard not
much more then will it concern others to try themselves hereby who are so ready to be deceived in this point mourning not to God but to themselves and therefore hypocritically CHAP. XX. An Vse of Comfort to the truly contrite HAving now spoken to mourners or to such as at least pretend to mourn and that by way of Caveat more briefly A third Use more concerning such as mourn as also more largely by way of Counsell we must speak a word or two of Comfort to such as upon Triall doe find themselves truly and sincerely to have mourned or now to mourn for their sin And I wish I knew many such among you that I might also be as large in this point as in the last and in some others which concerned the secure Doest thou then find that thou are truly touched in conscience for thy sin thou hast then true cause to rejoyce and never till now Comfort to such as truly mourn for sin As there is no sound joy but such as issues out of true sorrow so true sorrow for sin alwaies sooner or later ends in joy There is cause of joy even in and for such sorrow to sin is cause and matter of sorrow shame but to sorrow for sin is cause and matter of unspeakable joy glory and thanksgiving Such sorrow affords cause of joy as being wrought by the holy Spirit of God Zech. 12.10 for none can so in a godly manner mourn but by the holy Spirit of God he cannot pour out any tears for sin till God pour upon him and into him the spirit of grace and of supplication then shall they mourns and not till then as it was with these converts on whom inwardly as well as on the Apostles outwardly on this day of Pentecost the spirit was poured out The very spirit of bondage as Gods spirit is called in that it discovers sin and misery and affects the heart therewith is in that regard and a gift of God Rom. 8.15 requiring our Thankfulness a gift which we are said to receive how much more when it proves also a spirit of Adoption And if a gift yea a saving gift what cause of thankfulness have such seeing God might have left them in a senceless blockishness to perish therein for ever or otherwise to stick in themselves and so utterly to despair how ought such to rejoyce in this so great a testimony of his goodness and mercy to them Comfort promised to such Such as so sorrow shall not sorrow alwaies God hath promised them comfort God himself will dwell with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble Isai 57.15 and to revive the heart of the contrite ones Psal 34.18 The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart and saveth such as be of a contrit spirit God is said to be one that comforteth those that are cast down 2 Cor. 7.6 Be thou then but truly cast down in thine own eies and God will comfort and raise thee up Comfort and ease belongs to none but such thus to tremble is the way to true quietness Habbak 3.16 Thus the Prophet Habbakuk I trembled in my self that I might rest in the day of trouble I may truly say the only remedy against not only all worldly crosses but especially against all legall desperate hellish and comfortless feares and sorrows is true sorrow and repentance for sin Such sorrow for sin is the remedie of all hellish fears and sorrows and that thereby we have offended God which is that medicine which Peter prescribed to those here who were pricked in heart for crucifying Christ Repent saith he and shew your sorrow not as you now seem to do with respect only to your selves out of fear of wrath but with respect to God that you have so offended him and sinned against your Saviour Thus weep for your sins and you shall withall have assurance of the remission of your sins And assuredly never do nay finde such comfort in God and in his mercy as when they are deepliest humbled and weep most bitterly for their sins How true is it even in regard of inward joy in God after trouble for sin which is said and promised Isa 29.19 The meek shall increase their joy in the Lord and the poor among men shall rejoyce in the holy one of Israel Come then and let us reason a little together Comfort 1 to the pricked and wounded 1 Art thou pricked indeed and wounded in conscience for sin fear not it is not the wound of an enemie that seeks to kill thee but of thy Surgeon who means to cure thee such wounds are not mortall but medicinable Thou hast a stone in thine heart and it must be broken and thou cut for it But as in the cutting of one for the stone in the bladder the pain may be sharp and sore for the present but it is to ease the patient of continuall and greater pain for ever after so is it it here Thou gettest ease and comfort for ever by Gods mercy especially after this life ended for putting thy self to some smaller sorrow now for sin so it be sincere and true and truely humble sorrow 2 To such as tremble at Gods wrath threatned 2 Quakest thou in the fear of wrath from him whom by sin thou hast offended yet hope well God may shew himself terrible to thee but no otherwise then Joseph shewed himself rough to his brethren with purpose to reveal himself as a loving brother yea father unto them This fear of wrath is a signe it shall not befall thee even as the rain-bow though it threaten rain yet it is a signe yea a seal to assure us wee shall not be drowned by it As therefore on the one hand security and not to fear wrath is a signe that wrath shall befall as we see in the world destroyed by water and are told of like destruction to befall such by fire in the end of the world 1 Thes 5.3 so contrariwise terrours upon a due apprehension and acknowledgement of deserved wrath is a sign no such thing shall come upon us 3 To the sininen and bruised 3 Hath God smitten thee in thy conscience for sin he will also binde thee up Hos 6.1 2. his rod even smiting comforts Psal 23.4 he will not break the bruised reed we have his promise for it Isa 42.3 and elsewhere He healeth the broken in heart and bindeth up their wounds and griefs Psal 147.3 I will binde up that which was broken saith the Lord and will strengthen that which was sicke Ezek. 36. ver 16 4 To the burthened in conscience 4 Art thou burthened in conscience for sin God and Christ thereby calleth thee to him that coming thou mayst finde ease Matth. 11.28 Therefore in such case as it was said to the blinde man Be of good comfort the Master calleth thee Thou thus burdened
Saviour Mat. 18.6 Who so shall offend one of these little ones which beleeve in me it were better for him that a milstone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the Sea CHAP. XXII An Exhortation to men of all sorts to get this mournfull disposition of soul for sin LAstly A Second use of exhortation to all that we labour after a sorrowfull disposition of soul for sin in our selves as a thing 1. Necessary 2. Seasonable and befitting 1. The times 2. The persons 1. Of Kings and great ones 2 Chron. 37.27 Why to conclude all Be we again exhorted all of us to be so far from condemning this mournful disposition in others that we rather conceive it needfull and necessary for our selves seeing mourn we must for sin either here savingly if we willingly undertake it and frame our hearts to it or hereafter eternally and hellishly as hath been said And it is a disposition not only such as befits the times it being the time of Jacobs trouble and of the Churches miseries in many parts of the world but all sorts and conditions of men and women 1. Kings and great ones who are tenderly brought up may seem if any most of all exempt yet behold David a King watering his couch with his teares King Hezekiah turning to the wall and weeping but above all King Josiah humbling himself rending his clothes and weeping before the Lord Why Though to other men they be as gods yet to God whom by their sin they offend they are but men and it is the great God they are to deal withall and who will deal with them as well as with others seeing he is no respecter of persons It s no shame but the honour of the best and greatest on earth to humble and abase themselves before the great and dreadfull God Who should not be ashamed to humble themselves But I am sure it shall be pride and matter of shame in meaner men not to do it when such great and godly Kings as have been named have not been ashamed so to do 2. Rich men if they be as yet unhumbled are called on to weep and howl 2. Rich men their danger being so great and their salvation so difficult by being told what else in the end will befall them Jam. 5.1 2 c. 3. And poor men should strive to be also poor in spirit 3. Poor men their outward poverty and wants inviting them thereunto as we see in the Prodigall whose poverty and wants though deeper matters be implied humbled him and sent him home unto God his Father 4. Young men should begin betimes 4. Young men and so by godly sorrow prepare themselves to do God long and cheerfull service they should make use of and maintain that naturall tenderness which is in them least by time and continuance in sin they grow more sencelesse and hard-hearted 5. And older men though perhaps lesse disposed to weep 5. Old men yet have the greater cause by reason of their long continuance in sin and as being in all probability nearer either heaven or if they have not formerly mourned hell and the everlasting torments thereof which cannot otherwise be prevented but by timely sorrow here on earth 6. Nay it concerns us all generally whatsoever our relations are on earth 6. All generally whether considered 1. As men Jam. 4.9.10 who by St. James are called on to be afflicted and mourn and weep Let your laughter your carnall rejoycing saith he be turned to mourning let it be the matter of your sorrow that you have so carnally rejoyced and your joy to heaviness Humble your selves under the mighty hand of God c. It becomes us all thus to do Are we men since sin came into the world the world it self is but a vale of teares whose condition is to be here on earth as in a vale of misery a house of mourning and mortality and surely mad mirth and laughter doth not become it or us being as men banished into a strange land from heaven the place of joy But are we Christians are we members of Christ 2. As Christians that we may Phil. 3.10 be conformable to Christ Then weeping and mourning will well become and befit us that we may be conformable to him our Head in his death and sufferings here as we hope be like him in glory hereafter 2 Tim. 2.11 12. This is a faithfull saying If we be dead with him we shall also live with him If we suffer with him we shall also raign with him saith the Apostle and suffer with him Matth. 26.37 38. Now his sufferings were for our sins when his soul was exceeding sorrowfull even to the death and he offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and teares Heb. 5.7 Now though his sorrows and sufferings being alone satisfactory were to ease and free us from everlasting sorrows yet sorrow we must not by way of satisfaction but of sympathie not by way of satisfaction but of sympathy and so far only as by tasting the bitterness of our own sin we may not only so far suffer with him but feel and expresse the more joy and thankfulnesse to him who drunke the very dregs of that cup of trembling and of wrath which we should have been made to swallow down as shall the damned who now by not sorrowing in time lose the benefit of Christs death and sufferings but whereof we who are now touched and pricked in heart for our sins do only sip and taste a little Moe lets of godly sorrow with their remedies barely named You have heard of Le ts to this godly sorrow which I endeavoured to remove and to which I do refer some moe might here be added such as are from the suggestions of Satan telling us such an austere course is a needless strictness from distractions occasioned by other men and other businesses from our selves and from that naturall indisposition unto duties of this nature and from a love of pleasures and lothnesse to bid vain pleasures adieu unto all which must be opposed watchfulnesse prayer good consideration of the straitnesse of the way and gate of life and the necessity of the duty The sweet content and true pleasure which is in these waies of God when sensuall men can find no pleasure no not in things otherwise necessary naturall and lawfull unlesse there be sin in them and some tang of the forbidden fruit and leaven of corruption Whereas there is no such pleasure as to overcome pleasure no such delight in the acting of sin as pleasure in resisting the temptation thereunto c. But we may seem to have said enough already of such things Conclusion exhorting to get soft hearts Therefore let us as we love our soules shew care to make good use of the things we have heard and known aboue all things labouring in the use of the meanes abovesaid to get
Christ himself God-man in and by the order of that most absolutely perfect form and frame of prayer which he left as a pattern to his Church according to which all our desires and wills should be regulated and bounded in all things That petition which more directly and immediatly concerns God in his glory is premised and set in the first place for order and eminencie In which Gods glory is to be respected first and last as the rule measure and square of all the rest First Hallowed be thy name Yea that respect of Gods glory bounds and shuts in all the former Petitions all which are by us no otherwise to be made nor will by God be otherwise accepted then as they are referred to the same end seeing therewith in the end of our prayers we are to conclude yea and to bind God by urging him with respect to his own glory saying For thine is the Kingdom the power and the glory for ever and ever Amen By which Attestation of our faith and desire we confirm that we beg nothing but so far as may stand with Gods glory yea that God thereby may be glorified A double end of man 1. Gods glory 2. His own salvation And wheras the chief end of man and of all his desires and indeavours is or ought to be in the first place and most principally and universally the glory of God 1 Cor. 10.31 and secondarily his own and others eternall good happiness and salvation which before all earthly things he is to desire Matth. 6.33 See ye first the kingdom of God and the righteousness thereof The Lord teacheth us so much This last subordinate to the first by making our own and others spirituall and eternall good to be desired in the next and second place directing us to say and pray after the other Thy kingdome come whereby we pray that we and others may be of or belong to Gods Kingdom to raign with him in this life by grace and after in glory for evermore Now though this be mans chief end in regard of himself yet in regard of the former which is the glory of God the hallowing and sanctifying of his name it is secondary and subordinate For so Gods eternall decree hath made it Ephes 1.5 6. which is shewed God hath predestinated us to be adopted through Jesus Christ unto himself according to the good pleasure of his will But to what end to the praise of the glory of his grace Yea and contrariwise in the reprobation and damnation of the wicked Rom. 9.17 Even for this same purpose saith God unto Pharaoh have I raised thee up that I might shew my power in thee and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth And Prov. 16.4 The Lord hath made all things for himself yea even the wicked for the day of evill Not that he is author of his wickednesse but that he according to his eternall purpose permits him through his own impiety to oppresse such as are good reserving him to the day of wrath and punishment that he might shew in him his power and justice by which his name is glorified Job 21.30 2 Thes 1.6 7 8 9 10. The like reason in the generall and in respect to Gods glory is to be considered in such as everlastingly perish be they young or old though they be not so apparantly wicked as the four last petitions are to the four first as those named and intimated So that as the other four petitions in the Lords prayer and our desires of such things whether 1. the purchasing of good 1. Spiritual as the third 2. Temporall as the fourth Or 2. the removall of evill 1. Past and committed the pardon of sin Or 2. such as may hereafter be admitted by the temptation of the Divell should be subordinated to these two ends named Gods glory and our own and others eternall good and glory So the second of these is and ought to be subordinate to the first and not simply and absolutely sought but with like subordination to the first at least with submission thereunto as also to Gods will we being taught in the next Petition in case we be denied the former to say not only Hallowed be thy name but Thy will be done From this ground we infer that we are so far to deny our selves in our own if need were and in others salvation as to subordinate all unto Gods glory and just will Two Inferences hence 1. For others dear unto us and with relation to our love and respect to them whether dead or dying or as yet living 1. Concerning the salvation of others I know first that divers good Christians both can and doe so far submit to Gods will in the death or dying condition of their nearest and dearest friends and tender young children and others brothers sisters parents and associates whether wives or husbands as to rest therein 1. Dead or dying being dear and near to us and in our doubts of their salvation and be content to be denied the comfort of them on earth Only troubled they are and know not what to say or thinke or how to comfort themselves through doubt of their eternall salvation and good estate with God after this life If they could be satisfied herein they would take up and moderate their sorrows and not so excessively mourn as David by some is thought upon this ground to have mourned for the death of Absolom But what can we be content in the one to submit and deny our selves We are howsoever to rest in Gods will and in this that God glorifieth himself in them whether they die apparantly in their sins and not if need be in the other Is not God alike just and holy in both and doth he not in the one as well as in the other seek his own glory and the hallowing of his Name and should not we likewise so do I know it cannot nay ought not but be a cause of very great sorrow to any godly soul to see such as otherwise in naturall respects they love dearly to die apparantly in their sins in the act as well as habite thereof without shewing any signs of remorse or repentance Yet in such case we must in due season moderate and put limits to our sorrow yea and thoughts and so far deny our selves as without grudging gainsaying reasoning against God or replying and questioning his justice holiness and soveraignty lay the hand upon the mouth silence our own thoughts as well as words and rest in his most holy will suffering him to glorifie himself which way soever he please whether it be by the way of mercy or justice will and soveraignty ever mindfull of that He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will he hardneth where we are not to reply or dispute against God And dashing such in the teeth as are ready to lay all blame on him from off themselves
chiefly against the sincerest holiest and most conscionable Christians and Ministers yea and most soyall Subjects of his Majesty whose molestations and banishments by false suggestions have been procured Hence also such interruption of godly proceedings for Reformation whilest Christs easie yoke of discipline is accounted such a burthen and his cords so strait hence such and so many mighty plots and machinations such associations and practises such ill counsels and instigations and all by raising a combustion to hinder the work of Reformation which they cannot bear to draw in which upon too just grounds is feared the Irish Rebels to be our butchers here also Ah poor Ireland and ah poor England thus after so long a continued outward peace with the Gospel now after fourscore yeers to be divided against thy self and to seek thine own ruine And now beloved Brethren let us but look to God and we cannot but taking all blame to our selves justifie him and say in the midst of all this enmity The Lord is righteous in all his waies and holy in all his works Psal 145.17 Can it or should it be thought any wonder These judgements just considering such connivence as hath been shewed to practising Priests if God plague and punish us a while by the prophane Popish Arminian Antichristian faction and by such as hold of superstitious vanities when by our too much connivence used towards such and countenancing of them we have in effect and as God will take it repealed actually all those good Lawes and Statutes which upon most just cause have been enacted against practising Papists and Jesuites and against prophanenesse Did not the Lord punish his own people by their lovers the Assyrians and Caldeans who first defiled them and then slew them with the sword Ezek. 23.9 10. 17 21 22 23 c. And did not those Canaannites and other Nations uncast out prove as God foretold and threatned snares and traps unto Israel scourges in their sides and thorns in their eyes untill they perished from off that good land which the Lord their God did give them Josh 23.13 concerning whom God had said Exod. 23.31 32 33 c. Thou shalt drive them out before thee They shall not dwell in thy land lest they make thee sin against me c. Exod. 23.31 32 33. They shall vexe you in the land wherein ye dwell and it shall come to passe that I shall do unto you as I thought to do unto them Num. 33 5â— 50. even cast you out by them whom you should have cast out Even so the sparing of such let be pretended what will is but foolish pity Thine eye shall shall have no pity upon them saith God Deut. 7.16 And blood spared as that of Jesuites and practising Priests and Papists as well as spilt calls for blood as in King Ahabs foolish pity towards Benhadad God in such case curseth such as keep back their sword from blood Jer. 48.10 The different course and issue held by K. Henry 4. of France There hath never been any long while peace or safety either to King or State where such have been whether through fear or favour suffered or connived withall It is worth our best observation to consider the different course holden by King Henry the fourth of France and Queen Elizabeth raigning at the same time with the different events and sucesses of both He in policy saith mine Author to establish the Crown of France upon his head revolted to Popery from the true Religion in which he had been bred and re-admitted the Jesuits after their just banishment by solemn Edict of the Court of Parliament not only into his Kingdome but Closet making Father Cotton the Jesuite his Confessor saying to some that would have disswaded him from the same Give me then security for my life fearing it seems if he did refuse to admit them they would at one time or other find means to send him the same way after his Predecessour Henry the third who was murthered by James Clement a Monk through the perswasion and incouragement of Father Commolet and others of the Jesuits society Yet at length himself was stabbed to the heart by Ravilliac through the instigation as by strong presumptions is probable of these Jesuits Contrariwise and Queen Elizibeth blessed Queen Elizabeth though at first weak and having many enemies yet building by faith upon God and not upon such worldly wisedome and policie she restored and maintained true Religion constantly reposed her trust in God confidently held the Jesuites and all her Popish enemies at the staves end stedfastly put her Lawes in execution against them resolutely yet without cruelty was protected by God against all their hellish plots and practises miraculously reigned fourty and four yeers gloriously and departed this world in her bed in a ripe age peaceably so leaving a glorious example to all succeeding Princes and others of constancie and perseverance in the true profession of the Gospel and of reposing trust in God more then in humane policy Good use may be also made of the example of King Solomon Did not Solomon King of Israel saith Nehemiah Nehem 13.26 As also other sins 1. Of great ones sin by these or such like things yet among many Nations was there no King like him who was beloved of his God and God made him King over all Israel Neverthelesse even him did outlandish women cause to sin Now this was no sooner done but mark it the Lord was angry with him and not only stirred him up two adversaries whilest he lived Rezon and Hadad but threatned to rend the Kingdom from him and to give it to Jeroboam 1 Kings 11 2 3 4-9-14-23-25 The foundation of which losse was laid in his own time though it were not effected till his son Rehoboam began to reign who in a suit of relaxation made to him by the people forsaking the counsell of the old men that stood before Solomon his father and following the advice of yong men and answering his people roughly he so occasioned the revolt of ten Tribes whilest only two remained with him Now if from such effects already felt or from our danger and feares of worse we would unpartially look into like causes we should soon see what need there were of true compunction contrition and godly sorrow without which it is in vain by the use of any other meanes or by trusting to an arm of flesh to expect peace quietness or safety This is the only way as it may concern our own Nation at this time to disappoint the Romish Church of their hope as it is expressed in the late brief or Bull of dispensation of the Pope to his Sonnes in England But are not the sins of the people to be looked into as a main cause and procurer of our present unquietnesse and distractions 2. Of the people Yes doubtlesse for when such a wonderfull and horrible thing is committed in the Land namely that the Prophets
suppose beginning in the hand or foot if it be suffered further to spread will be their death when Zipporah saw her husbands life endangered if not her own she circumcised her son and cut off his foreskin which otherwise she was loath to do Thus God presents sinners with a true apprehension of his eternall wrath due unto them for their sinne and sets hell-gates open before them in the way of their lusts and fills their hearts with such terrours and horrours that they see no safety to their souls in the ways of sin and so as Pharaoh by strong hand at length did let the people go and the Philistines sent home the Ark so God if he love us especially makes us weary of sin and saves us even by fear not to say that such as have most smarted for sin at first in the pangs of their new-birth are not so easily drawn back to such or any other sins Again the spirit of bondage becomes to them a spirit of sanctification and it may be observed that such of all others as have been deep liest wounded at the first prove the holiest Christians afterward throughout the whole course of their lives 2 As the spirit of bondage proves a spirit of liberty freeing men from sin 2 God doth this to the increase of their joy and of Sanctification delivering from the power of sin so also it leads men to sound and solid joy and true comfort there is no comfort but to such The first work of the Comforter even when it is sent by that name and to that intent is first to convince of sinne so Habbak 3.16 and Psalm 94.12 13. Ease to sores which being whole do throb and rage is got by pricking lancing searching sleep is sweetest after labour and a pardon from the King most acceptable when after judgement passed the head hath been laid on the block and joy follows the labour of child-bearing 3 as also for their greater honour Rom. 8. 3 I might adde that God takes this course with such as he will convert to glorifie them the more thus to sanctifie them and to make them the more glorious in holinesse and holinesse we know or sanctification is the beginning of our glorifications Yea it is their glory thus to be made vessels to bear the name and glory of Christ before men which none do more then such as have been deepliest humbled Such of all other are fittest and ablest to glorifie God as having most experience of his justice mercy wisdome goodnesse and can best speak to his praise which to do is our glory more then his God gets nothing by us our acknowledgement of him makes him no wiser juster holier happier then he ever was even before any creature was made when he then sets and imprints on us the stamps of his glory and shews forth in us his justice mercy goodnesse c. That is in deed and for substance our gloglory not his There is somewhat excellent truly added to us nothing to him 2. God takes this course with converts for his owne honour And yet we may truly say God takes the aforesaid course with those he means to convert for his own glory that is for the further manifestation of the same and for this main end that the whole worke of conversion may appear to be his not ours 1. That of his Justice 1. His very Justice manifests its selfe in and by these terrours of conscience whilst the convicted sinner is made to see the depth of his own ill deservings is presented with the sight of hell which by such is acknowledged and made inwardly to acknowledge that it were but justice in God to cast him into the same yea so strong is this apprehension in some that for a long time they can see nothing but justice Howsoever this makes them at first and ever after to confesse and give the glory of justice to God acknowledging how just their condemnation should be if God did deal with them according to their deserts being ready ever to justifie God as cleer whensoever he judgeth Psal 51 4. Rom. 3.4 Thus all by sin are brought under the Law and the Law is let loose upon sinners threatens damnation and nothing but justice appears and vers 19. that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God God will not in this work of conversion suffer his justice to be swallowed up of mercy he must and will be acknowledged just before mercifull taking us as it were by the throat Mat. 18.28 bidding us pay all we owe when indeed with that poor woman 2 King 4.1 we have nothing at all to pay And so in every convert he takes away all matter of glorying letting them see the depth of their desert and their own both unworthinesse of mercy and inability and impotency to make themselves any help Isâ— 66.2 Job 9.13 2 His mercy which thus is more felt And by so doing whilst the best are made to tremble before him and that the proud helpers do stoup under him he makes way for his mercy that he may be the more glorified both by shewing mercy and by the acknowledgement of mercy by those that finde mercy as it is Gal. 3.22 The Scripture hath concluded all under sin that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that beleeve or as Rom. 11.32 God hath shut up or concluded them all i. both Jew and Gentile in unbeleef that he might have mercy on all For so by shuting all up under sin and wrath his mercy is more felt and admired by such as finde mercy and thankfully acknowledged The foregoing terrours of justice in the converted which makes them smart makes mercy relish better with them and be more esteemed by them yea all the world may now see and that acknowledge the receiving and conversion of sinners is meerly of mercy None derogate more from Gods mercy and the freenesse and power of his grace then such as not sensible enough of their wounds and misery by sin ascribe somewhat in their conversion to themselves neither can they be so truly thankfull as others And by thanks or offering praise unto God God professeth himself to be glorified So that God by thus humbling men Pal. 50.23 as is said with terrours doth but make way and prepare matter of praise and thanksgiving to himself in due time which accordingly we see given unto him by Paul even upon this ground 1 Tim. 1.13 14 15 16 17. I saith he being before a blasphemer and persecuter and injurious obtained mercy And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant Christ came to save sinners of whom I am chief howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all long-suffering Now unto the King eternall c. be honour and glory for ever and ever Amen So elsewhere crying out in a sence
of his bondage under the law of sin O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death Rom. 7.24 apprehending his deliverance by Christ he adds I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 3 His power wisdom Lastly the glory of Gods wisdom and power doth also thus shine out to the world by this his manner and method of dealing with converts and in making them new creatures We all do confesse that the works of creation especially the heavens do declare the glory though not the will of God How much more doth his glory appear in this work of effectual Redemption Psal 19.1 where by a like manner of proceeding his glory appears in greater brightnesse as in the creation There and here he works by contraries he in the creation made first a confused vast and grosse Chaos or rude lump where was nothing but darknesse and confusion yet out of that darknesse he brought light out of that confusion he brought order and this goodly frame and comely structure of Heaven and Earth do shew his wisedom power goodnesse beauty and glory beyond all expression Rom. 1.20 21. and he is glorified or should be in and by the right acknowledgement of these Oh how then doth his glory appear when in the new creation or conversion of a sinner he first casts all strong holds and high things into ruinous heapes into rubbish into a confused Chaos staining the pride of man laying him level with the ground what darknesse is in the minde what impotency in the will what confusion in the affections yea what feares and terrours is the confounded soul first brought into and yet such is the infinite power and wisdom of God he out of these ruines raiseth a goodly building even an house a Temple for himself to dwel in he brings light out of darknesse strength out of weaknesse order out of confusion joy out of sorrow and feares in a word heaven out of hell God in dealing roughly with such intends and prepares way for mercy Now for the conclusion of these proofs we hence may see how mans greatest good is wrought and Gods glory most manifested whilst God in the conversion of a sinner shewes himself terrible as there is just cause in us why he should indeed be so and so he is to impenitent sinners and yet intends nothing but love and mercy and by humility to exalt us to glory dealing with us as Joseph dealt at first with his brethren roughly imprisoned some charging all of them to be spies and threatning them and yet he even intended to discover himself in due time as a loving brother unto them Thus before God entred into covenant with his people to be their God Exod. 19. he shewed himself most terrible unto them by lightning fire thunder and black clouds Heb. 12.18 19. c. yea when the Spirit was sent down on the day of Pentecost Act. 2.2 6. there was a mighty rushing winde from heaven and shew of fire whereby they were confounded or troubled in minde and thereby the better prepared to hear that word which so wounded and pricked these converts in their heart And so was Elias prepared to hear the still voyce of God in which God made his will known to him by a strong winde rending the mountaines by an earth-quake as also the Jailor Acts 16. and by fire And so were the Israelites humbled terrified driven out of themselves by thunder and raine in time of harvest and prepared for repentance 1 Sam. 12.17 18 19 20. Let this suffice for the Demonstration of the aforesaid point of doctrine after which should follow the Application of it by way of Vse but to make further way for the same we will as we at first propounded speak of the Order degrees and steps by which God proceeds in perfecting this work of Conversion CHAP. IX Of the order of Conversion first as it depends on Gods Love Where ten Approaches of Gods grace to us 4 The Order steps and Degrees of Conversion and of faith THE work of mans Conversion is an effect both of Gods Love and of his power and so is to be considered of us but yet especially according to the latter respect which is more pertinent to my scope There is an order of Gods proceeding in each of these but first we may briefly consider that there is an order to be observed between these two First Love and then Power the one leading the way to the other The Conversion of a sinner faith and the meanes of both come to us first from the Love and then from the power of God And first as it depends on love in God not but that the power of God accompanieth his Love for Gods love is an effectuall and working love it is reall and operative in its time and the Love of God goeth along with his power even then when he seems to pull and rend us in pieces by his power his seeming rigour is mitigated and moderated by mercy and ever tends to and ends in the good and conversion of his elect This is taught us Jer. 31 3. I have loved thee with an everlasting Love therefore with loving kindnesse have I drawn thee So Joh. 6.37 and 44. All that the Father giveth me lo there is Gods free love shall come unto me c. there is expressed the power of his grace And no man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him No man can come to Christ but by Gods free grace in love giving Christ as a surety John 3.16 and then by power applying him to our justification as our head Rom. 3.25 26. It skills not much in shewing the order degrees and steps by which Conversion is wrought whether I name it conversion faith yea or salvation seeing each includes or inferres the rest Ten divers degrees and approaches of Gods grace to us First then briefly for the Order of Gods work of Love by which we come to conversion faith to all other saving and sanctifying graces and to salvation 1 We must first begin with the consideration of Gods eternall decree of Election and Predestination To which purpose see and consider of these places of Scripture Ephes 1.3 4 5 c. Gods blessing us in time is according to his election of us in Christ before all time 1 Election Tit. 1. so 2. Thes 2.13 Matth. 11.25.26 hence faith is onely of Gods elect and onely such as are ordained to eternall life beleeve Acts 13.48 2 Next to this there is Gods sealing and ordaining of Christ the object authour and finisher of our faith 2 The sealing of Christ Heb. 12.1 from eternity also Joh. 6.27 1 Pet. 1.19 20 21. Where of Gods covenant with Christ and transaction with him 3 The publishing of the Promise 3 There is the publishing and promising of Christ made of old to our first parents after the fall