to be brought into straits Things are here expressed as we heard according to appearance a man is not pinched with want till he feels it and is oppressed with it Hence DOCT. When God intends saving Grace to any he first makes them effectually sensible of their own miserable and undone state God in the ordinary and usual method of converting sinners under the means of Grace begins with the discovery of their empty needy poor and miserable condition Here began the ground and motive of the young man's returning to his Father though it did not presently work to this end had he not been reduced to the greatest straits he had never thought of returning his being in want was that which set him to seeking relief and this is it which did at last though not immediately drive him home Among the works ascribed to the spirit of God there are some which are called common and preparatory common because they may be found in Reprobates preparatory because they are wont in the Elect to be steps towards conversion or works preparing the soul as a rational Agent to entertain Christ as he is tendered in the Gospel The first of these works is Conviction which hath two things for objects viz. Sin and misery one is the cause the other the effect Conviction usually proceeds Analytically it first discovers the effect and from thence searcheth after the cause The conviction of misery is that which here hath its consideration that of sin follows afterwards The first remove of the young man was he felt himself to be in want he found when the famine came and encreased that now he had nothing to live upon In the Explication we may consider 1. What is this conviction of misery 2. How it is wrought 3. The reasons of the Doctrine 1. What is this conviction of misery Answ It is the first legal work that is usually wrought in a sinner making him to apprehend his present state of perdition notwithstanding all that is either in himself or in the world It is though not the full of a lost estate yet leading to it or a step towards it In the Description observe 1. I call it a legal work now Divines are wont to call those works legal 1. Which are usually wrought by the application of the Law in which is the curse and by which is the knowledge of sin Rom. 7. 8. Misery ariseth out of the curse and the curse comes upon the breach of the Law Gal. 3. 12. The Law therefore firstly discovers it 2. Which are common works and not in themselves saving and so the word legal is often used in Divinity of which nature is this before us Conviction of misery may befal hypocrites Isa 43. 14. Yea of it self this is hell begun in the soul or conscience 3. I call it the first legal work my meaning is that God usually begins here and so man for the most part is made to look upon the effect before he discovers the cause yea is led by it thereunto he first sees and feels misery upon himself and thence is led to see sin as the blameable meritorious cause of all this misery Man usually apprehends that he is condemned before he apprehends sin to be the just condemnation he feels himself miserable before he justifieth God for though it be sin which the law condemns and hence he must so far see sin as to know that he hath broken this law yet he is not made to know sin in its just merit but rather counts it a rigour of the law which makes him angry with that and not with sin Rom. 7. 5. 3. The proper effect of this conviction is to make him know and feel his perishing condition at present that he is now going to perdition viz. that he is under the curse of the law bound over to eternal death and that he is in the way to it being held under the curse the young man found himself perishing with hunger 4. The efficacy of this conviction is that it unmasks the former delusion under which he lay making him to see that he hath no remedy against this misery either in himself or in the world In respect to himself he finds that he hath spent all in regard to the world he finds that there is a famine in that land and the conclusion that ariseth from hence is that he is sensibly in what i. e. he still wants that freedom from the curse notwithstanding all God's favours or his interest in the creature this is the summe of this conviction in which though we must confess that there is a change now made in the sinner yet it is not a saving change of his state For 1. His state was as bad before only the difference is he then saw it not but now he doth he thought himself rich and the world a trusty friend both these were mistakes and now he finds them so to be so that the substance of rhis charge is now he is convinced that before he cheated himself Hence 2. His state is not properly mended by this conviction for though he sees his misery in some degree yet this sight doth not free him from it Conviction is not Conversion though God can when he pleaseth make it a step towards it Conviction doth not make any man really better though it doth give us hopes that where the spirit begins he may carry it on for Cain and Judas fared never the better by it though many souls have by Divine Grace 2. How this conviction is wrought Answ 1. If we speak of the Author or efficient Cause of this work it properly belongs to the spirit of God who in a work of common grace brings the creature to the sense and apprehension of this misery I deny not but that rational conviction may be gathered and applyed from the rational consideration of things but that this sensible conviction depends on a special work of the spirit appears 1. Because the same means of conviction are used with others who yet are not thus convinced We preach sin and misery to a great many discourse with them of the distressed condition of the poor prodigal man but it is but now and then one that is touched with remorce and cries out of it or acknowledgeth it sensibly 2. Because the same means may have been formerly used with this person and yet did not gain their effect It may be he had heard the same thing many a time and his judgment assented to it to be truth but yet he regarded it not nor was affected with it yea possibly he had had it more urged with more strength of argument and pressed with more morally perswasive motives by others but yet it never gained upon or got within him till now and why now rather than at any other time there was as much to have driven it home before it must needs therefore proceed from the power of the Holy Ghost working when he sees meet But 2.
it is well this is accepted of God and he that gives to will will also give to do But if it be not so what is thy hope built upon what are thy comforts but delusions what are thy assurances but undoing deceit USE 4. For Exhortation and let me direct it particularly to such as being under the sense of perishing in themselves have made discovery of the great power and goodness of God and received some preparatory hope by it he hence encouraged and counselled to arise and go to God Do you feel your selves under a condition so miserable and have you discovered an object so glorious and sutable take heart and resolve to adventure into his presence and throw your selves upon him Consider God therefore reveals himself to be such an one to such as you are to this very end that you may be wooed and won to him and if now you put him away by unbelief you will slight Mercy Remember withal though there be so much supply with God as is enough to make you compleatly happy and to spare yet it is only for comers If you will taste of this Feast you must accept of the invitation and come and be ghuests you must come out of those hedge-rows and high-wayes in which you ly starving you must go to the waters if you will have wine and milk Isa 55. 1. Halt no longer between two opinions if it be good perishing sit still but if it be good to be saved arise and come away come to a resolution draw up your conclusion If you object and say I can resolve nothing of my self except God put his Grace and resolution in me I answer It is true but remember also that as God is a free Agent so we are obliged by duty and the ty of it is such that we must except we will bring guilt upon our selves set about it and this is our duty to believe and resolve not in your strength but in the strength of God nay it is one of Satans cheats to tell us we must wait before we 〈◊〉 till we discover Grace coming in whereas the habits of Grace come in undiscerned and the first fruit of Grace is to be found in the resolution it self If God helps us to this resolution we must by that know that his Spirit is come into us and it is our duty in the use of means to stirr up our selves to believe Resolve then in the strength of God here thou art perishing there is mercy with him that he may be feared he saith if thou comest he will not upbraid thee he saith The hungry he will satisfie with bread and give the longing soul the desires of his heart he saith he will give the weary rest in a word if ever you obtain Salvation it must be with him hills mountains all created beings will not afford it Thou hast tyred thy self to no purpose in seeking it there already and why shouldest thou again make a vain essay if God will he can and he is a merciful God the fatherless have found him so Do thou but resolve to leave all for him and make choice of him for thy trust and he will do it for thee what ever it be that thou wantest grace glory and every good thing will he bestow upon thee SERMON XV. THus of the Prodigals resolution to return 2. His purpose how to demean himself on his return follows to be considered in which are shadowed out to us divers necessary concomitants of true Repentance or qualifications wherein the truth of it doth appear and serve to instruct us in the true and genuine working of saving Grace to the humbling of the soul and rendring him vile in his own eyes And this is in two things viz. his Confession and his Petition In the one he makes himself as bad as he can be as little as low and sinful in the other he yields himself to be what ever his father would make him To begin with the first 1. In his confession he acknowledgeth his sin and the merit of it 1. In the acknowledgment of his sin 1. He makes it his own I have sinned 2. He aggravates it 1. By the object against whom against heaven 2. By the presence in which before thee The phrase against heaven means against God himself the word Heaven is used both by Hebrew and Greek writers for God either as one of his names or else Metonymically because heaven is the place where he most gloriously appears Divers useful truths may hence be gathered I shall draw them all up into this one DOCT. Where God gives true Repentance such an one will confess his sins with the greatest aggravation He will not mince or extenuate and go about to make them look little and small but acknowledge them in their height greatness present them in their blackest and ugliest colours so doth this Prodigal son resolve to go to his father and so did Though every sin in its proper nature nakedly considered as it is a Transgression of the Laws of God an affront offered and an offence given to the Majesty of Heaven is on that account great yet there are several circumstances with which it is clothed which if truly looked upon do exaggerate or heighten the vileness of it these the Hypocrite endeavours to cover over and hopes thereby to excuse himself â tanto as the Pharisee I am not thus and so but contrariwise in sound Repentance when the sinner comes to humble himself before God and confess his sins he makes himself as vile as he can Sin is made exceeding sinful An hypocrite hopes to plead that he hath not been so bad therefore he may hope for mercy but Paul was of another mind 1 Tim. 1. 25. Christ came to save sinners of whom I am chief And David Psal 25. 11. Pardon mine iniquity for it is very great Now the aggravations in our text are three under which heads the most that can be said may be ranked these let us a little look into 1. He takes the whole blame upon himself I have sinned it is I have done this thing so David calls it his own sin Psal 51. 9. q. d. Whatever blame or guilt there is in it I take it all to my self He confesseth it roundly and plainly without any excuse or extenuations or putting it off to any other cause occasion or tempter And this is one difference between the repentance of an hypocrite and a true penitent the one would put off his sin as much as he can seek excuses find others to lay it upon and bear as little of the blame as possibly he may he would divide the fault that he may leave the least part of it to himself and he finds many occasions or causes to change it upon 1. He throwes it upon everlasting decrees and would make the holy counsel of God to have a causal influence into his wickedness and will say if God had intended me so to have been I
his Glory by any of his Creatures in any of his works which he doth to or for them is a truth not to be questioned but the wayes in which he will be a saver and no loser are to be commended to the management of his own infinite wisdom which doubtless will not fail in the execution and though he may for a while seem to be on the losing hand whiles men are running on the score with him and meditating nothing of payment yet if we can let God alone till his day and time of reckoning with men he will then make it to appear that he will be glorified in all the Pharaoh's and wicked men of this world whom he hath raised up and suffered at present to abuse his manifold mercies to their own ruine and were it not that God knows how to get his penny worths out of them he would never credit them so far as he doth God will be glorified in Zidon as well as in Zion 2. But God seems by this to be an encourager of wickedness and promoter of mans vile designs Is not this to put a Sword in a mad-mans hand that he may destroy himself therewithal And if God hateth sin why would he thus give men advantage to sin against him Ans The wisdom of God in ordering of althings according to his own counsels is not for us mortals to call in question God hath other Attributes besides his Justice to make known and they are his bounty patience goodness long sufferance and this he can do upon the vessels of wrath and thereby makes way for the glorious manifestation of his Justice upon them that are not led to repentance by it but abuse his goodness Rom. 2. 4 5. Neither doth God by this encourage sin since by his holy Law which is man's rule and a discovery of his righteous Judgment he strictly forbids and severely denounceth threatnings against all sin Neither is God's bounty the moral cause of promoting of sin but hath argument in it to prompt men to holiness and obedience but it is man's corrupt heart abusing it to such ends whereas an holy heart is encouraged by all God's benefits to study his Glory and praise Psal 116. 12. And yet God may righteously leave man to follow his own wicked heart and so to misimprove all his beneficence to his own just condemnation yea he may raise up Pharaoh to that very end Exod. 9. 16. But I come to the Reasons of the Doctrine which will serve further to clear the truth from imputation and they are taken from the ends which God design in thus doing which though they are at present secret in regard of the individual persons who are thus left till God of his Providence shall be pleased to make more full and clear discovery of them yet in themselves they are alwayes one of these two for all Gods dealings with mankind do ultimately center in the one or the other viz. either 1. That thus way may be made for the more illustrious manifestation of revenging Justice in the destruction of sinners They are thus made vessels of wrath fitted to destruction Rom. 9. 22. Where much is given there is much expected The more that men have abused the more wrath awaits them Doubtless a man of great parts and understanding hath more to account with God for than a fool the rich and wealthy man then the poor a Magistrate or a Minister then a private Man The more advantage Men have put into their hands to serve God withal the more they have to answer for you may see what endictments God draws up against Babylon Isa 14. Tyrus Ezek 27. which had the advantage of other Nations of worldly pomp and wisdom For such God hath wonderful plagues This patience and goodness as they are largely displayed before such at the present so they by mens abusing of them open a way for the more notable executions of Justice 2. That he may prepare a way to make his Grace notably appear to be Grace the truth is Gods wayes are very mysterious and past mans finding out and oftentimes when we may have reason justly to fear that such a sinner is mounted on Horse-back to run the swifter to his own utter ruine yet even then God hath gracious designs in all this God sometimes allows a sinner a long Tedder and lets him run to the end of it and then pulls him back God suffers him to lay a scene for his own ruine and then displayes his riches of his grace in saving him from it when he hath used all possible means utterly to have undone himself Manasseth in the old and Paul in the New-Testament stand for eminent examples of this and the latter of these speaks thus of it 1 Tim. 1. 13 14. Who was before a blasphemer c. But I obtained mercy c. and the grace of our Lord Jesus was exceeding abundant c. USE 1. To teach us not too much to bless our selves in our enjoyment of outward favours God's love is not from hence to be positively concluded It is the wise mans observation Eccl. 9. begin No man knows love or hatred by all that is before him And yet there is nothing more common than for men to be be proud and self conceited in these things whereas they are indeed nothing else but some of the offals of God's favours which he can spare to the swine of the world and often throws out to them in a plentiful measure Things common to the Elect and Reprobate are not just matter of boasting if you have all these blessings and are wicked in the enjoyment of them you are not happy but miserable in that enjoyment USE 2. It may also teach us not to grudge at or envy wicked men for their great parts and large estates or whatever other worldly blessings they enjoy in a more liberal measure than other men and the more we ought to beware of this inasmuch as good men have sometimes been prone to be envious at these things Psal 73. begin Yea the Prophet had a mind to have impleaded God about it Jer. 12. 1. If God leave them to themselves they will but abuse and foolishly squander them away and then you know the more Talents any have received the more are to be reckoned for and if he fared so ill that did but hide his one in a napkin what account shall he be called to that squanders many away upon his lust and dishonours God with them It would have been better for such men if they had been the veryest fools and the most obscure persons in the world And as you have less of these things so you have the less to reckon for besides this will not hinder your happiness in the end but if you have the grace to be faithfull in a little you shall surely enter into your Lords joy USE 3. It may afford encouragement not to despare of unregenerate men although they may at present be left to
hates God's law and wayes as God hates his way and course God is therefore said to see the proud afar off Psal 178. 6. And the sinner is said to be far from God Psal 73. 27. 2. That in Repentance it is not enough to leave off sinful wayes and courses but we must also put holiness in practice rising out of sin is neither true nor sufficient except there be returning unto God hence they are both put together Isa 35. 7. This is but like the Pharisee's negatives which could not declare him justified we must not only cease to do evil but we must also learn to do well 3. That God alone is the object of true Repentance He goes to his father It is vain for an awakened sinner to go any where else it is but to wander from mountain to hill from one vanity to another hence that restriction Jer. 4. 1. If thou wilt return return to me The distressed soul is full of projects and would try many conclusions but the repenting Believer is resolved in this that he will go to God and no whither else Jer. 3. 23. Joh. 6. 68. 4. That in the work of conversion there is not only a passive reception of grace but also an actual improvment of it unto active Repentance If God gives us life we must stir if he gives us legs we must go Cant. 1. 4. God so calls a sinner in conversion as that he makes him answer his call rise and come away Reas 1. From the nature of saving faith which is a trusting in God for life Now such trust of thesoul necessarily requires repentance in both parts of it for if God be trusted in all other trust must needs be forsaken and rejected to dwel by Cisterns argues the fountain is relinquished He that will find mercy must say Ashur shall not save and if God be trusted in for life then the soul must needs go to him for it Isa 55. 1. Faith without exercise is dead and the working of faith and love is the exercise of Repentance as without faith there is no salvation so faith cannot be but it will bring forth fruit in Repentance Reas 2. Because as happiness and misery are contraries so the way to the one and the other must be contrary Now the way in which man brought himself into misery was by departing from God and falling into Sin The Prophet describes it Jer. 2. 13. and aslong as the cause of misery remains the continuance of it must be As long as a sinner lyeth in Sin he must needs be miserable the foundation of happiness is laid in saving us from Sin Mat. 1. 12. He shall save his People from their sins And therefore the way to Salvation must be retrograde i. e. by rising from Sin and coming back to God Man's felicity consists in his enjoyment of God he cannot enjoy him till he comes to him every distance from God is a misery Sin is contrary to God he therefore cannot in that sense come to us his holiness forbids Christ doth not save us in our sins but from our sins and that is by working us to a true and and through Repentance a sinner must become holy else he cannot see God Heb. 12. 14. USE 1. To teach us that it exceeds the power of a natural man to effect his own conversion or bring about his own salvation Man by nature is dead in trespasses and sins and is it possible that a dead man should rise and go by his own strength till a vital principle be put into him as well might Lazarus dead and ready to stink have by his own vertue shaken off his grave cloths and come forth without a Divine word as the sinner fallen and dead in sin rise and return to God this is an act of spiritual life and requires a principle of it and that can proceed from no less power than Omnipotency Paul therefore compares it with the work of Creation 2 Cor. 4. 6. and with the power of Resurrection Eph. 1. 19. 20. It is true it is the man that riseth and goeth the act of Repentance proceeds formally from the Believer but it is God by his Spirit that enforms him with this power and grace whereby he is enabled to do it Hence also we see how ineffectual means of themselves must needs be unless they be influenced by the spirit of grace how vainly do they dream who attribute to man a power of converting himself and put a Divine honour upon Moral swasion as if it could of it self attract and draw the heart after it No though God require means and ordinances yet they are but the staff of Elisha and except the Lord God be there the touch awakens not the dead man Ezekiel must prophesie over the dry bones but it is the spirit that moves to bring them together and puts life into them Let no man then ascribe this to himself it may be thou knowest not how this wind blew or how this babe of grace was formed no more doth the Child how it was begotten and formed in the womb but if you find the effect that you are enabled to arise and go to your heavenly father you must say the singer of God was here and ascribe all the glory of it to him USE 2. This discovereth their vain and presumptuous hopes who live and ly in sin and yet expect to be saved and yet there are a great many of these they boast of their hopes and yet tarry in their far country live among the swine and feed upon husks they are far from God and will not return to him by Repentance they hold their vain courses and approve not of the wayes of holiness these certainly forsake their own mercies and will be found among the dead and not among the living had not the Prodigal resolved to rise and return he had perished and so must all these Psal 73. 27. They that are far from thee shall perish USE 3. For Examination it may put us upon it by this Rule to try our hopes of Salvation whither they be rightly grounded and hopes that shall not perish Thou art by nature a Child of wrath thou hast been a poor Prodigal hast destroyed thy self and in this state there is nothing but misery to be expected Rom. 3. 16. Destruction and misery are in all their wayes In God only is help and that is only to be had in going to him and thou canst not go to him except thou risest and forsakest thy vain and carnal trust in lying vanities Where art thou what hast thou done art thou pursuing lies art thou sitting still and despairing or art thou going upon thy return to God art thou yet deliberating or art thou resolved art thou consulting with flesh and blood or hast thou said resolutely I will arise and go to my father If thou art in the full purpose of thy heart set against sin and for the glory of God resolving by his grace so to do
this is the moving cause of all the mercy which he shews to a Sinner 1 That God is a God of Compassion appears 1. Because it belongs to his Attributes Exod. 34. 6 7. merciful and gracious forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin Hence his People ascribe this title to him Psal 86. 15. But thou oh Lord art a God full of compassion 2. Because his works declare him to be so his works of providence towards his visible Covenant people evince it Psal 78. 37. But he being full of compassion forgave their iniquity and destroyed them not His works of special favour towards his Elect in pardoning their Sins and accepting of them to be his Children do more notably confirm it 2. That this is the moving cause of alâ— the mercy which he shews to a sinner will appear 1. From the nature of God He is the first mover to his own actions and cannot possibly be moved by any thing out of himself Hence man's pity and God's differ in respect of the the moving cause Man hath such an affection habitually but it lyes still till an object excite it but God is otherwise it moves it self That which moves in us hath the respect of a cause and that which is a cause is in nature before the effect but the good will of God to man whence all his compassion flowes was from Eternity Jer. 31. 3. I have loved thee with an everlasting love therefore in loving kindness have I called thee 2. God renders this is a reason of all his mercy towards his Creatures When he speaks of pitying and relieving them he reduceth it to our good-wil and mercyful nature Jer. 3. 12 13. Hos 11. 9. Rom. 9. 15. Psal 78. 38. 3. Because there is nothing in the Creature can be rendred as a sufficient moving cause of his compassion towards it 1. Not the Creatures misery in it self For 1. The sinners misery is not a fortuitous thing or befalling an innocent person but it is the just penalty of his sin inflicted by God himself and that according to the equity of an holy and just Law Lam. 3. 39. A man for the punishment of his sin 2. Then must God be equally moved to compassion to all sinners who are alike miserable and alike need succour and then why are not all saved That compassion which saves one could as well save another but there are but some sharers in this saving compassion others suffer his rigour Rom. 11. 7. The Elect obtained it the rest were blinded 2. Not their legal convictions and tenors and confessions and softly walkings c i. e. No preparatory work For 1. The Son was for all them a great way off when his Father pittied him 2. There are that Call and God will not hear that seek him early and shall not find him Prov. 1 28 3. Not legal Repentance and Reformation turning from many sinful practises and doing many things For these are nothing but sin Esau repented and wept but it profited him not Heb. 12 17 Herod's reformation engaged not God to him In summ God's compassion is according to his will and that is absolutely free nor to be regenerated by the creature Rom 9 16 with 18 4. Because God's design in the Salvation of a sinner is the manifestation of his Grace which grace discovers it self in shewing him compassion Now this grace of God hath described its subjects from eternity and therein distinguishing Grace is made to appear when it falls upon a subject that hath nothing in it to engage him nor could of it self do any thing in the least to move him USE 1. Here we see how far the name and term of merit is a stranger from Gospel language and what care we ought to take that we do not entertain any thoughts of it God is no debter to his creatures except voluntarily as it was free to him to make them so also to assign them their end and use and it is certain that he designed or appointed no creature to any use but withal compleatly furnished it for that end and if through its own default that be lost it can claim no restitution at Gods hands hence let no man think that his misery should be a sufficient ground to engage Gods mercy to him no nor his acknowledgment of his sin and misery neither for if we stand at the tribunal of Justice unto which merit is properly reckoned it doth not deserve pardon for a delinquent to fall down at the Judges feet confess his fault and beg that it may be past by and not imputed to him if the Law condemns him and he stands guilty before the Bar it is only a free pardon that can acquit him Now though an humane Judge may be moved by the submiss and lamentable expressions of a justly condemned person yet God is capable of no such impressions but if he intends a soul good he puts this very frame into him and then accepts him in this way though not for this carriage but in all this there is not any room or occasion to speak of merit USE 2. Learn hence also not to be discouraged from going to God in the sense of your own misery Though you are altogether unworthy and have nothing of your own to plead with him which deserves to impetrate his mercy yet you see here that his own compassion leads him to be merciful and that the object which it hath chosen to express it self unto is miserable sinners such as are every way miserable helpless and hopeless creatures And if thou knowest findest and feelest thy self to be such an one there is no reason to be discouraged thou art one of such whom God hath chosen to express his compassion upon and he who knows thy condition if he will can have mercy on thee Such as are helpless he is ready to help Isa 63. 5. USE 3. It may be a ground of wonderful encouragement to poor sinners to go to God and to wait upon him for mercy to consider that God is a God of compassion and that this compassion is the originial of all the good which the creature receives 1. To consider that he is a God of compassion We have heard say they That the Kings of Israel are merciful Kings He is a God that delights to exalt and magnifie himself by those titles of Merciful Gracious Compassionate c. His bowels stir towards and he pitties dying sinners and therefore he comes to their Graves and bids them live The commendation of a pitiful and a compassionate nature in a prince wilbring in rebels apace to come and throw themselves upon his mercy sue for a pardon who if they knew him to be pityless and inexorable would run utmost adventures as those that know they can but dy and can hope for no better by submission 2. To consider that this compassion is the root and spring of the mercy he shews Hence we may silence all uprising of heart and discouraging temptations
and be animated to break through all I can do nothing but if I could it would but obscure his compassion Be encouraged Satan presents God in arms against us tells us we must appease him with sacrifices of obedience but God accepts of no sacrifice but that of Christ he looks that his mercy alone should be sought unto learn then to make heaven ring with thy cries ask mercy put God in mind of these Attributes which he hath commended himself in to the Children of men Exod. 34. 6 7. put that into every prayer to encourage thy hope Psal 86. 5. Thou art good and ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee And Dan. 9. 9. To thee Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness USE 4. For Exhortation to Believers This truth tells you what is the work you have to do all your lives viz. To adore admire and magnifie God's compassion those wonderful bowels of mercy that have appeared in your delivery out of all that misery into which Sin had cast you This is the great subject which should take up the thoughts and words of the Saints Grace Grace it should be the voice with which the Temple should resound Think therefore often with yourselves where you once were what was your former condition who it was that transformed you when it was that he looked upon and had regard to you what miserable sinners you were and how near to the pit of eternal destruction Follow this compassion up to the beginnings of its actings towards you think not that it only met you as you were returning but call to mind that it came to your dungeon and lifted you out thence that it followed you into your far Country and fetcht you from among the swine or else you had still been there and perished for ever SERMON XXII THus far we have considered the cause of of the Father's kind carriage to his son the Effect follows in the carriage it self his is expressed in three words He ran he fell upon his neck and kissed him All these acts refer to the work of Conversion and serve to express what love God applyes to the soul in this work they shew us how much of Divine affection breaths forth in the first act of special grace passing from God to a sinner They carry in them the most Pathetical intimations of the greatest love it being a custom among the ancients especially in those countries to discover the superaboundance of their overflowing affections in these kinds of gestures one notes upon this ver that although all Christs Parables are very moving to the affections that none carry so much in them as this doth He ran Love is active it cannot stand still nor yet go softly where it seeth its object to stand in need of speedy succour it shakes off all sloth and rather seems to fly on wings than go He fell on his neck God takes the sinner in his arms falls upon him i. e. with his distinguishing Grace And kissed him Kissing was used among other things to express 1. Intimacy and peculiar affection and then especially when dear friends meet after long absence thus Moses and Aaron Exod. 4. 27. 2. Reconciliation after some distance by reason of injuries and provocations thus David kisseth Absolom 2 Sam. 14. ult DOCT. God manifests his choice and incomparable love to a sinner then when he converts him to himself Here it is that God's special grace is made to appear and such love as all comparisons are but dark shadows and resemblances of God indeed shews a great deed of common favour to the world the goodnesss they â—â—st of is called his hid treasures But all this fall incomparably short of that which he confers upon an elect person in his conversion This love of God was from eternity sealed up in his own breast It began generally to be published and made known in the world as soon as man had by his fall brought ruine and misery upon himself and his progeny as was whispered in that first Gospel promise Gen. 3. 15. He shall break thy head And more abundantly shone forth when the Lord Jesus Christ had laid down his life at the foot of Justice but these were more general demonstrations of it It more especially and particularly first begins to appear to the sinner himself then when he is regenerated and eternal life begun in him The manner and nature of this work was then opened when we considered the Prodigal's return that which is here to be observed is the greatness of this love and how or wherein it expresseth its self according to the spiritual meaning of these phrases I might here expatiate but I shall confine this discourse to the words in our text by a reduction of them to a spiritual sense 1. The first expression of this love is in that he raâ— to him herein is intimated a twofold declaration of divine love one positive the other comparative 1. Positive It points out God's coming to the sinner where he is to bestow his grace upon him The sinner could never have gone to God he therefore cometh to him He was a great way off and could come no nearer The rock of his salvation is higher than he is Though as to rational and common actions man is capable of using means yet as to spiritual life-actions he is void of a principle of them like Lazarus he is both dead and bound in his grave cloths God therefore by his spirit comes to his graves side to his pits mouth where he is perishing and thence he fetcheth him and is not this wonderful love Had not God come hither the sinner neither could nor would ever have come to him that is Emphaticall Zech. 9. 11. I have sent forth my Prisoners out of the pit where there is no water 2. Comparative he not only comes but he comes in hast to the help of the poor dying creature Bis dat qui citò dat Running is a note of speed and signifies a great commotion of the affections God makes great hast to bring relief to a perishing sinner The Heathen painted love with wings noting the swiftness of this affection in its actions Here therefore God's wonderful love to a sinner manifests it-self in that he comes to him unsent for and brings his grace when it was unsought Isa 63. 1. 2. The next expression of his love is He fell upon his neck When men embraced each other in one anothers arms they were said to fall upon one anothers necks It notes embracing And this serves to express the favour which God takes a sinner into It holds out that union which in conversion is made between Christ and the soul They which were at a great distance are now made near God doth not only come and do something for his relief but he takes him into his arms and now those that were enemies are in mutual embraces Such were the greeting between Jacob and
Esau Gen. 33. 4. Each doth now as it were breath himself into the others bosom they exchange souls manifesting by dumb signs that love which is too great for words to express so that by this expression we are taught 1. That God gives himself to the sinner to be his and takes him to himself makes himself to be his portion and bequeaths himself to him and receives him into arms of mercy making him his peculiar treasure and jewel 2. That he now infuseth his grace into his soul by breathing spiritual life into him He falls upon him with his spirit and grace and layes the foundation of spiritual life in him by putting a principle of it into his soul quickening him who was dead 3. He kissed him this is the last thing in the act and here is great favour indeed that when he might have killed him he kisseth him this word hath divorse expressions of love contained under it 1. God now opens and reveals that secret and everlasting love of his to his soul kissing was an outward act to intimate an inward affection Men often did it dissemblingly but God alwayes doth it really Now God begins to give the soul to perceive what was his purpose of good will to him from eternity what were his ancient thoughts about him this is a visible confirmation of that secret love 2. God now reveals that he is fully reconciled to and at peace with him that all former distances and alienations of heart are wholly taken away he is no more angry nor will any more condemn him David kissed Absolom to let him understand he was now reconciled God never kisseth and killeth as Joah dealt with Amasa his heart alwayes goes out with his promise It is a justifying kiss intimating that this soul shall never more have any more cause to fear the suffering the punishment of his sins or being exposed to condemnation 3. The father by this manifestly takes his son into the state of a son It is a kiss of Adoption David thus acknowledged Absolom The sinner had made himself an abject God now restores him again to that inheritance which he had rooted himself out of he is thus taken again into his fathers house and made to enjoy the priviledge of a Child 4. God by this draws out the love of the soul to him breaks his heart and wins him to himself By this testification of his love he attracts a reciprocal love from the sinner makes him now to chuse God and give himself up to him put himself into his hands and devote himself to his service for all this presently follows vers 21. Thus it is a sanctifying kiss 5. All this is done to restore comfort to the soul Sense of his sin and the great wrong that he had done to his father by so vilely leaving him and profusely spending his estate had filled him with sorrow and bitterness his Father now kisseth him to comfort him They are called the kisses of the mouth Can. 1. 2. which are given in the application of the promises to the soul and enabling of him to close with them suck the sweet out of them and draw to his consolation the good that is in them and thus it is also a glorifying kiss Put altogether and it telleth us what a wonderful declaration of God's love it is that comes into the soul at the hour of Conversion USE 1. For Information 1. We hence learn that the soul is passive in vocation I do not mean as it is a Rational but as it is a spiritual Agent If God had not come to the sinner he had never come to God nor could he have done it As well might the widows son lying upon the bier and carrying to the grave have fetcht back his departed soul as a sinner dead in trespasses and sins recover the lost Image of God Hither every Regenerate man ows his spiritual original viz. Not to the strength of his nature or flexibility of his will but to God who came to him there where he lay a dying and whence he was not able so much as to lift up his eyes towards heaven without God put the ability into him by reviving Grace And this proclaims the wonderful concescendency of the great God to undone men and women in that he is not only ready and willing to receive them when they come to him but he runs forth to meet them and to do them good The condition that all men are lying in at such time as he speaks that happy word to them live tends mightily to enhaunce or illustrate the unspeakable kindness of God and hence deserves an ingemitiation Ezek. 16. 5 6. None eye pitied thee thou wast cast into the open field I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood live yea I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood live 2. Here we see that in Regeneration the whole body of graces are brought into the soul at once and together In effectual vocation the soul receives Christ himself and that not only relatively by receiving his person into such relations wherby he becomes his Redeemer and Saviour applyes his righteousness to him for Justification and by marrying him admits him among the Adopted Children of God but also really by the communication of his graces and filling him with his spirit He falls upon his neck and kisseth him all grace is communicated in this act and there is great reason for it for Christ in giving of himself to the soul becomes its life Gal. 2. 20. Christ lives in me And Christ thus becomes his spiritual life not only by changing his relative state from what it was but especially life being a principle of operation by putting this new principle into him in which are contained all such habits and dispositions as are requisite to fit him to live spiritually i. e. the habits of all graces for all flow from one and the same principle viz. spiritual life 3. As a consectary from the former we hence see that at the instant of effectual vocation the soul is made partaker in every grace Justification and Adoption fully Sanctification and Glorification inchoatively and in their degrees these come all together and inseparable and are made over to the soul in the instant in which God converts him For when God gives Christ he gives all things with him Rom. 8. 32. Yea he gives him to be all to us 1 Cor. 1. 30. He is made of God to us Wisdom Righteousness Sanctification and Redemption There is a succession of these Graces 1. Doctrinally they are to be handled orderly methodically and distinctly in the opening of the Doctrines of the Gospel 2. In the apprehension of a Believer who doth not immediatly discern all of them 3. In order of nature and consequence But in time they are contemporary and the reason is because the whole Covenant is sealed up in Conversion and all that is contained in it i. e. all grace 4. We here see the
strengthens the other He hates Sin because he loves God c. Now the setting those affections on work and moving them to their proper object implies a sanctified change in them and no other reason can be given of their so acting 4. The affections being hand-maids of the will hence a change in them implies a change in the will and evidenceth that that is turned it signifies that the heart is altered from what it was for the will exerts it self in and by the affections When therefore we see a man truly to hate Sin and love God we know that his will is set fixed his choise is certainly made and where the will is changed there is conversion wrought where the soul hath indeed chosen God there is saving grace David therefore asserts his grace from this evidence Psal 73. 25. 5. Repentance is the exercise of the grace of Sanctification It is practical holiness which consists in this to be going from Sin to God Sanctification hath two parts in it Mortification and Vivification Repentance comprehends them both brings them in to use and continues them in practice Now Sanctification is a benefit of the new Covenant and a fruit of conversion one of the things for which Christ is given to us 1 Cor. 1. 30. and is wrought at conversion as hath been cleared Reas 2. Because as in Conversion the soul receives a principle and power of acting repentance so by this effect of God's wonderful love there are given to the soul abundant advantages for the helping forward the more kindly exercises of it The truth is all Evangelical motives to it are hence derived For 1. Converting grace makes sin appear in its own colours The sun-light of saving grace makes Sin look more ugly than ever Beauty and deformity are not discerned in the dark the candle-light of common conviction made but obscure discoveries Now he sees it Sin before he did not he had two discoveries of it before viz. 1. That it was displeasing to God his Law being against it 2. That it was a procuring cause of misery by reason of the curse These two he saw in the Glass of the Law But now grace discovers Sin to him 1. As contrary to the nature of God opposite to his holiness Hab. 1. 13. 2. Hence to be in it self an odious thing and that separate from the hell that follows He now sees the beauty of grace and that shews him the deformity of Sin 2. God's love manifested in Conversion discovers Sin under divers aggravations which before were not seen 1. That it was against that God who had loved him with an everlasting love Jer. 31. 3. 2. Against Jesus Christ who had shed his blood for his redemption from hell 3. Against the Holy Ghost that had so often striven with him had waited so long and left not till he had turned him and now sin appears sinful which before appeared only sorrowful USE 1. For information 1. We have here a note of distinction between a legal and a saving Repentance The Scripture makes mention of both it tells us of Ahab's repentance as well as of David's It puts one name upon things vastly different and if we would know how to distinguish them here is it to be discerned The one is effected by a spirit of Bondage the other by the spirit of Adoption the one is produced by teâ—â—ours the other by love the one confesseth 〈◊〉 Sin vomits up his morsels takes upon him a profession of holiness driven to it by the dismal reflexions of his own Conscience and apprehensions of the wrath to come the other is taken into embraces of amity confirmed with a kiss of favour and by this his heart is melted into Godly sorrow in his fathers arms he bemoans himself The truly broken heart is an heart broken with love 2. Here we see when is the genuine season of godly sorrow and the reason why a soul that is newly converted is so full of bitterness complaints and self accusations If a soul do not repent and bitterly mourn for Sin now when shall he before he could not in heaven there will be no room for it God the father the great Husband man of his Vineyard deals in great skil with the soul For having broken up the fallow ground of the heart and sown the seed of grace in it he now sends seasonable showres upon it to water the ridges thereof that it may be made to bring forth a plentiful Harvest Psalm 126. 5. When should showers more seasonably fall on the ground than when the seed is cast in Hence 1. They mistake themselves greatly who think that after Conversion the soul should do nothing but rejoyce as if there were now no room â—â—r sorrow for Sin and self abasement because their Sin is pardoned Whereas what doth more break an ingenious heart than the pardoning of so great offence and receiving him to favour after such grievous provocations God therefore when he hath made large promises of what he will do for his People tells us what shall be the fruit of this love of his Ezek 36. 31. Then shall you remember your evil wayes and loath your selves 2. Let it be for caution to such as are newly converted though now they are and ought to be in bitterness for Sin and to mourn for it before God yet have a care of giving Satan advantage thereby to weaken your faith and undermine the consolation arising from your interest in this grace Godly sorrow humility repentance are so to be exercised as to be helpful to the strengthening and not become impediments to the exercise of and activity of faith Hence make that the great incentive to Godly sorrow viz. the consideration that is against that God that loved you let Divine love be set against Sin and that will help both Faith and Repentance 3. Let others beware of irregular applications to such as are mourning for Sin and full of sorrow by reason of it Do not take pains to dry up those tears be not troubled at them but rejoyce It is a very pleasant sight an heart-comforting fight to see any truly mourning for Sin to give wise relief against despair is prudence but rather help and encourage godly sorrow Though fair weather be pleasant yet showers may be more suitable and make the earth more fertile Paul repents not to have been instrumental to so good a work 2 Cor. 7. 9 10. 3. Here we see a reason why those that have tasted most of the love of God and manifestations of his grace to their souls are most low and vile in their eyes The reason is because the more a soul hath had experience of the wonderful undeserved love of God it feels the more sensible convictions of its own unworthiness and vileness God's large expressions to David made him reflect upon himself and lay himself very low 2 Sam. 7. 18 19. If you are indeed truly converted and have received the grace of God you shall find