We may and ought but our Care must be onely prudent and provident not perplexing and desponding Q. Why is that Expression this Day added A. To shew us that every Day we stand in need of Supplies from God and therefore should daily pray to receive them Q. Since we pray for daily Bread why is it called our Bread A. To note that we ought to use lawfull Means to acquire what we pray for Q. What pray you for in this Petition A. 1. That God would give us the good Things of this Life as the Acquisitions of our lawfull Endeavours 2. That he would bless the Increase of what is lawfully ours 3. That he would bestow upon us a spiritual Right in whatsoever we injoy through Jesus the Heir of all Things 4. We pray that we may not desire nor covet what is anothers 5. We pray for Life it self that it may be prolonged whilst God hath any Service for us to do in this World 6. For all the Means that may lawfully preserve our Life and Health 7. That he would strengthen our Faith and Dependence on his Providence who is the giver of all good 8. That he would give us Contentment in that Portion of Earthly Blessings which he allots us Q. What is the fifth Petition of the Lord's Prayer A. Forgive us our Debts as we forgive our Debtors Q. What things are observable in this Petition A. The Order and the Matter of it Q. What observe you from the Order of it A. That after we have prayed for our daily Bread we are taught to pray for Pardon of Sin Which Method is most rational 1. Because the Guilt of Sin many times with-holds from us those Temporal Comforts which we stand in need of Isaiah 59.2 But your Iniquities have separated between you and your God and your Sins have hid his Face from you that he will not hear 2. Because without Pardon of Sin our Temporal Injoyments are but Snares and Curses Q. What observe you in the Matter of this Petition A. Two things The Petition it self Forgive us our Debts And the Condition or Proportion or Plea and Argument for obtaining this Forgiveness As we forgive our Debtors Q. What mean you here by Debts A. The same which St. Luke 11.4 Calls Sins And forgive us our Sins for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us Q. How stand we indebted to God A. We stand indebted to God both as we are his Creatures and as we are Offenders on the former Account we owe God the Debt of Obedience on the latter the Debt of suffering Punishment Q. Which Debt do we pray God to forgive A. The latter onely for the former is irremissibly due to our great Creator Q. How come we to be thus indebted unto God A. By the Sentence of the Law which condemneth every Transgressour of it to undergo the Penalty it threatens which Penalty is all manner of Woes and Curses and Everlasting Death Gal. 3.10 Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the Book of the Law to do them Rom. 6.23 For the wages of Sin is Death Ezek. 18.4 The Soul that sinneth it shall die Q. Since the Suffering of these is the Debt we owe to Divine Justice why say you that Sin is that Debt A. Because Sin alone is the meritorious Cause of these and we owe the Suffering of them onely as we are Sinners Q. Are there no Sins venial in their own Nature so as not to deserve Eternal Damnation A. No not the least for the wages of every Sin is Death All therefore are Mortal in their own Nature and all are Venial through the Mercy of God in the Merits of Christ excepting onely the Sin against the Holy Ghost Q. Can we no way pay off these Debts so as to satisfie the Justice of God A. No for neither can we do it by Obedience nor yet by Sufferings Not by the Duties of Obedience for these are a Debt we owe to God's Holiness and Soveraignty and therefore cannot pay the Debts we owe to his Justice and we cannot pay Debts by Debts Not by suffering for Sin being an infinite Evil must be punish'd with an infinite Punishment but we cannot suffer a Punishment infinite in Degrees therefore it must be infinite in Duration so that the Damned in Hell shall never be able to say It 's finish'd Q. How then may we hope to be acquitted of our Numberless Debts A. Onely through the free Mercy and Grace of God pardoning them in Jesus Christ and therefore we pray Forgive us our Debts Q. What is Pardon or Forgiveness of Sin A. It is the removal of the Guilt of Sin Q. What is the Guilt of Sin A. The Guilt of Sin is either the intrinsecal Desert of Punishment or else an Obnoxiousness and Liableness to it through God's Designation of the Sinner to undergo it Q. Doth pardon of Sin remove both these Guilts A. No it removes not the former for still the Sins of those who are pardoned do in themselves deserve Eternal Death But it removes the latter viz. it takes away our Appointment unto Death 2 Sam. 12.13 And David said unto Nathan I have sinned against the Lord and Nathan said unto David the Lord also hath put away thy Sin thou shalt not die Q. How is it consistent with the Justice of God to pardon Offenders without Punishment A. Though Believers are not personally appointed to Punishment yet Mystically they are which Punishment they have already suffered in Christ their Surety with whom they are made one by Faith Q. To whom is this Prayer for Pardon of Sin directed A. To God onely whose Royal Prerogative is to forgive Sins Isa 43.25 I even I am he that blotteth out thy Transgressions for mine own sake and will not remember thy sins Mark 2.7 Who can forgive sins but God only Q. Have not the Ministers of the Gospel power to forgive sins according to that of St. John 20.23 Whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted A. They have a ministerial and declarative Power as Officers not an authoritative and judicial Power as Soveraigns As the Prince onely pardons the Herauld proclaims it So God alone by the Prerogative of his Grace grants pardon the Minister by his Office publisheth it to all that repent and believe Q. What then must we judge of that absolute and plenary Power which the Pope assumes of pardoning Sins A. That it proves him to be Antichrist in exalting himself above God 2 Thess 2.4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped so that he as God sitteth in the Temple of God shewing himself that he is God For whosoever can forgive wrongs done against another must be superiour to him and have Authority to cause the Person offended to surcease the Prosecution and sit down by the wrong done him Q. If God onely can forgive Sins how then are we bound to forgive those who
First The Petition Forgive us our Debts Secondly The Condition or Proportion or Plea and Argument call it which you will for the obtaining of this forgiveness as we forgive our Debtors In the Petition we may observe that the same which our Evangelist calls Debts is by St. Luke 11.4 called Sins Forgive us our Sins We stand indebted to God both as we are his Creatures and as we are Offenders By the one we owe him the Debt of Obedience and by the other the Debt of Punishment First As we are Creatures we owe the Debt of Obedience And to the payment of this Debt we stand bound both to the absolute Sovereignty of God who is the Supreme Lord of all his Creatures and therefore may oblige them to what he pleaseth and likewise by his manifold Favours and Mercies conferred upon us From him we have received our Beings and all our Comforts he maintains us at his own Cost and Charge he enlargeth us when we are in Streights relieves us when we are in Wants Counsels us when we are in Doubts Comforts us when we are in Sorrows Delivers us in our Dangers and besides the manifold Temporal Mercies we daily receive from him gives us the Means the Hopes and Promises of obtaining far better things at his Hands even Eternal Life and Glory And therefore certainly upon these Accounts we owe him all possible Service and Obedience And indeed it is but Reason we should employ all for him from whom we receive all and give up our selves to his Service who are what we are by his Bounty and hope to be infinitely better than now we are through his Mercy Now this Debt of Obedience is irremissible and we are eternally and indispensably bound unto it For it is altogether inconsistent with the Notion and Being of a Creature to be discharged from its Obligation to the Laws and Commands of its Creator for this would exempt it from the Dominion of God and make it Absolute and Independent that is it would make the Creature to be no longer a Creature but a Deity We do not therefore pray that God would forgive us this Debt no he cannot so far deny himself and it is our Happiness and Glory to pay it To this his Sovereignty obligeth our Subject Condition and his Mercy and Goodness our Ingenuity Secondly As we are Transgressors so we owe God a Debt of Punishment to be suffered by us to make God some reparation to his Honour and satisfaction to his Justice for our transgressing his Law which sentenceth all Offenders to Eternal Death and Damnation This Debt now is that which we pray God would forgive us a Debt which if we pay we are eternally ruined and undone and there is no way possible to escape the payment of it but by the free Grace and Mercy of God remitting of it unto us And thus Sin is called a Debt not indeed properly as if we owed it but by a Metonymy as it is the meritorious Cause of this punishment the suffering of which we owe to Divine Justice Hence by the way we may observe that every Sin makes us liable to Eternal Death for Death and Damnation is the Debt which we must pay to the Justice of God and Sin is that which exposeth us unto it by the Sentence of the Law which we have transgressed For as against other Debtors is brought forth some Bond or Obligation to exact payment from them So against us is produced the Hand-writing of the Law and we not having performed the Condition of the Bond stand liable to the Forfeiture and Penalty which is no less than Curses and Woes and Torments and Everlasting Death Cursed is every one that continues not in all things written in the Book of the Law to do them Gal. 3.10 And the Wages of Sin is Death Rom. 6.23 And the Soul that sinneth it shall Die Ezek. 18.4 Now here to excite thee to a fervency in praying for the forgiveness of thy Debts consider First The infinite multitudes of thy Debts God's Book is full of them and there they stand on account against us under every one of our Names We were born Debtors to God our Original Sin and Guilt obligeth us to punishment and although we did not personally contract the Debt yet as being the wretched Heirs and Executors of fallen Adam the Debt is legally devolved upon us and become ours And ever since we came into the World we have run upon the score with God our Debts are more than our Moments have been for whatsoever we have thought or done hath been Sin either in the matter or at least in the circumstances of it God sets all our Sins down in order in his Debt-book some as Talents and some as Pence Our flagitious Crimes and hainous Impieties our presumptuous Sins committed against Light Knowledge Conscience Convictions Mercies and Judgments each of these God sets down as a Talent And how many thousands of these may we have been guilty of Our Sins of Ignorance Surreption and daily Infirmity are much more innumerable and though they may be but as Pence in comparison with the other yet the unaccountable numbers of them will make the Debt desperate and the payment impossible And yet notwithstanding our Debts are so many and very many of them such great Sums too yet we daily run ourselves farther in Arrears not considering that a Day of Accounts will come when both our Talents and our Pence shall be punctually reckoned up against us not omitting the least Item when every vain Thought and foolish Passion that hath flushed up in us with every idle and superfluous Word that we have unadvisedly spoken as well as the more gross and scandalous Passages of our sinful Lives shall be then audited all which will make the Total Sum infinite and us desperate Secondly That God who is thy Creditor is strict and impartial his Patience hath trusted and forborn thee long but his Justice will at last demand the Debt severely and every particular shall be charged upon thee even to the utmost Farthing for he hath booked down all in his remembrance and will bring all to thine And therefore we have it expressed concerning the last Judgment that the Books were opened and the Dead were Judged out of those things which were written in the Books according to their Works Rev. 20.12 What now are these Books but the two great Volumes of God's remembrance and our own Consciences These are two Tallies evenly struck that shall justly represent the same Sum and Debt and God's strict Justice will not then abate thee any thing of its utmost due for he will by no means acquit the Guilty Indeed we are apt to think that because God so long forbears us he will never calls us to make up and adjust Accounts with him Our present impunity tempts us to question his Omniscience and to suspect his Threatnings and because he winks at us we are ready to conclude that he
there were hope yea certainty of relief for thee for Divine Justice will not exact more than its due But because this is impossible thy Woes and Torments in Hell must be Eternal that they may be some way infinite as the Justice is which thou hast offended infinite if not in Degrees yet in duration and continuance And O what dreadful despair will this cause in thee when thou shalt have been in Hell under most acute and insufferable Torments Millions of years and yet the payment of all that sum of Plagues and Woes shall not be of value enough to satisfie for the least of thy Sins nor to cross out of God's Book the least and smallest of thy Debts but thy account shall still be as great and as full as it was at thy first plunging into Hell and still an Eternity of Torments remains to be paid by thee And now wretched Creatures that we are whither shall we turn our selves what hope what relief can we find shall we flatter our selves that God will not require our sins at our hands no they are Debts and therefore he may and he is a Just God Just to himself and to the Interest of his own Glory and therefore he will God hath before-hand told us at what rate we must expect to take up our sins and what we must pay for them at the last He hath told us as plainly as the mouth of Truth can utter it that the Wages of sin is Death and the ways Sinners choose lead down to the Chambers of Hell and Destruction Our own Misery is our own choice He hath in his Word set Life and Death before us and declared to us the means how we might escape the one and obtain the other He hath represented to us the unconceiveableness of both And if we will be so obstinate as after these manifest representations to choose Hell and Death it is but Reason and Justice that we should have our own Choice for it is our Choice interpretatively when we choose those ways and actions that expose to them And thus much concerning the acknowledgement we make in this Petition our Debts Debts vast and infinite which the Justice of God will strictly require of Sinners in their Eternal Condemnation Debts the least of which makes us liable to be cast into Prison into Hell and for the least of which we can never satisfie But what is there no hope Is there no possibility to cross the Book to cancel the Obligation whereby we stand bound to the revenging Justice of God and everlasting Sufferings Truly none by our own personal satisfaction but yet there is abundant hope yea full assurance of it through the free Mercy of our God And therefore as our Saviour hath taught us to acknowledge our Debts so he hath likewise taught us to pray Father forgive us our Debts And now that I have shewed you our Misery by reason of our Debts and you have seen the black side of the Cloud which interposeth between God and us So give me leave to represent to you our Hopes and Consolation in God's free Grace and the Divine Mercy in dissolving this black Cloud that it may never more appear And here let us First Consider what the Pardon of sin is And this we cannot better discover than by looking into the Nature of sin Sin therefore as St. John describes it 1 John 3.4 is a transgression of the Law of God And to the validity of all Laws it is necessary that there be a penalty annexed either literally express'd or tacitly implied The guilt that we contract by transgressing the Law is nothing else but our liableness to undergo this penalty And this guilt is Two-fold the intrinsecal and formal and that is the desert of punishment which sin always necessarily carries in it as it is a violation of a Holy and Righteous Commandment The other is extrinsecal and adventitious and consists in the appointment and designation of the sinner unto punishment This now doth not formally flow from sin but from the Will of God constituting and willing to punish sin with Death Now Pardon is nothing else but the removal of the guilt of sin But now the question is which guilt it removeth I Answer First It doth not remove the intrinsecal guilt of sin or the desert of punishment For the sins of those who are Justified and Pardoned do yet in their own Nature deserve Death and Eternal Damnation As a Pardon vouchsafed to a Traitor doth not cause his Actions not to have been Treasonable and worthy of Death for this doth necessarily follow immediately upon the Transgressing of the Law to which the Penalty is annexed So neither is it in the Power of Pardoning Grace to make that our sins should not deserve Death according to their own demerit for that were a contradiction since this demerit is necessary and essential unto sin as such Secondly Therefore Pardon of sin removes that guilt which consists in the adventitious Appointment or Ordination of the sinner unto Punishment flowing from the Will of God who hath in his Law threatned to inflict Eternal Death as the Reward and Wages of sin Now this designation of the sinner unto punishment is Two-fold either Personal or Mystical One of these two ways God will certainly punish every Soul that sins either by appointing the sinner Personally to undergo the punishment of his iniquities and thus he deals with unbelievers whom he will punish in their own Persons for their transgressions Or else he appoints them to undergo the punishment of their sins Mystically as being by Faith made one with the Lord Jesus Christ who himself hath born our sins in his own Body on the Tree Now Pardon of sin doth not remove the Mystical appointment of a Believer unto Punishment for he hath suffered it for Christ hath suffered it and Christ and he are one Mystical Person by Faith God never Pardons but he likewise punishes the very sin that he Pardons he punisheth it in our surety and undertaker when he forgives it to a Believer Pardon of sin therefore removes only that guilt which consists in our own Personal appointment and designation to punishment though the sin doth always in it self necessarily deserve Death though that Death hath been inflicted upon Christ and therefore upon Believers in him as Members of him But yet notwithstanding that God thus takes Vengeance on our sins he doth Graciously Pardon them when he releaseth our Personal Obligation unto punishment and reckons that we have suffered the penalty in Christ suffering it and therefore ought to be discharged from any further liableness unto it This now is that Pardon of sin which we pray for when we say Forgive us our Debts And for the more full Explication of it I shall lay down these following positions First The Pardoning Grace of God in respect of us is altogether free and undeserved We can of our selves scarce so much as ask forgiveness but even this
they have an exact intuitive knowledge So when by such visible Symptoms they perceive Corruption stirring in us they presently joyn issue with it and by all their art and policy inflame our Lusts by adding new fuel to them improving the first Motions and imperfect Embryo's of Wickedness till they arrive to their full strength and stature Thus if by any Symptoms the Devil can perceive Wrath and Malice boyling within our Breast he will presently move the Tongue to give it vent in opprobrious and reviling Speeches and these he will second with injurious and violent Actions So St. James tells us James 3.6 The Tongue setteth on Fire the course of Nature and is it self set on Fire of Hell But as a Holy Man I think St. Austin being demanded by a curious Questionist concerning the Origin of Evil how Sin first got into the World replied It was not so necessary to discourse how it came into the World as to consider how we might get it out again So truly it is not so necessary critically to enquire whence Temptations come into the Heart as how they may be got out of it And to this I may give the same Answer that Christ did to his Disciples Matth. 17.21 This kind goeth not out but by Fasting and Prayer We ought fervently to pray that God would rebuke the Wicked One and cause him to depart from us that he would by his Grace suppress all the Tumultuous Rebellions of our own Lusts and Passions and neither lead us into Temptation nor leave us under Temptation And thus I have done with the First General in this Petition shewing you what Temptations are The Second is To shew you how God may be said to lead Men into Temptation for it may seem very strange that the Holy and Righteous God should have a Hand in Tempting of Men which is so proper a Work of the Devil and of our own Corruptions But the different manner of God's leading us into Temptations and Satan's Tempting us will sufficiently justifie him from the least aspersion or suspicion of being the Author of Sin And therefore First God is said to lead us into Temptation when he providentially presents outward Objects and Occasions which do solicite and draw forth our inward Corruptions When the Temptations of our inward Lusts meet with external enducements that are cast in a Man's way by God's Providence then as we may be said to Tempt him so God may be said to lead us into Temptation Thus Achan and Judas were no doubt of it covetous Wretches before the one stole the Wedge of Gold and the other betrayed his Master But the Temptations of those Lusts were not as yet come to their strength till the glittering of the Wedge of Gold and the proffered Reward of the High-Priest raised their Covetousness to its full heighth Indeed we find the propensions of our wicked Hearts strongly bent towards Sin at all times even then when we have no external Objects propounded to excite them but when these inward inclinations do meet with outward enforcements as alluring Objects fit Opportunities strong Perswasions from others inducing Examples or the like the Temptation then grows head-strong and wild to purpose and if Grace doth not rein it in with a hard hand it will certainly hurry us into the commission of that Sin which hath so many advantages to commend it to the Soul Now all these Objective Temptations God may most righteously administer to our Lusts in the common course of his Providence and we often see he doth so For there is no outward act of Sin committed in the World but the Sinner took occasion from some Providence of God to perpetrate it A Thief steals not any thing but what God's Providence brings in his way The Murderer slays not any Man but whom Providence offers to his Sword and Violence And all the Villainy that ever was acted in the World was by a Providence tendring the Lusts of Men Objects and Opportunities without which Sin conceived in us could not be brought to light And therefore when we pray that God would not lead us into Temptation we pray that God by his Providence would so order and dispose all the occurrences of our lives so as not to lay before us those Objects nor proffer us those occasions which might either excite or draw forth our inbred Corruptions And indeed this is a most necessary Petition to be preferred to the Throne of Grace for we cannot but be conscious to our selves how hard a thing it is to keep our Hearts from sinful Desires when we encounter Objects to excite them And how hard a thing it is to keep our selves from sinful Actions when once sinful Desires are excited in us Secondly God is said to lead us into Temptation when he withdraws the influences of his Grace and Spirit from us and leaves us under the Power of a Temptation Those very Temptations which when assisted by Divine Grace we could easily resist and subdue will when God withdraws himself from us sadly prevail over us and shamefully foil us Thus it is said that God left Hezekiah to try or to tempt him 2 Chron. 32.31 And indeed since our corrupt Natures are of themselves prone only unto evil if God withdraw the Auxiliaries of his Grace as for many righteous causes he often doth every Temptation that assaults us will ravish our Consciences and captivate our Souls For all the security that we have from the committing of the most flagitious Crimes is wholly from God's Grace either restraining or renewing us the former holding us back from the outward act of Sin the latter weakning and destroying the inward habit and principle of Sin And therefore when we pray that God would not lead us into Temptation we beg that he would still continue the influences of his Grace unto us and by them excite and quicken our Graces that his Grace may not forsake us nor our Grace fail us That we may not be exposed to the Assaults of Spiritual Enemies naked and defenceless to become a sure and easie Prey unto them Thirdly God is said to lead Men into Temptation when he permits Satan and Wicked Men his Instruments to tempt us yea sometimes he gives them commission as well as permission and appoints and sends them to do it Thus we find in the case of Ahab 1 Kings 22.24 Who shall perswade Ahab that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-Gilead and an Evil Spirit steps forth and very officiously accepts of the Employment as most congruous to so malicious a Nature and God sends him with his commission in the 22 verse Thou shalt perswade him and prevail go forth and do so and so he did And as God doth sometimes thus send the Tempter and give him commission to assault and prevail over wicked and ungodly Persons their former Sins provoking him to punish them with farther Impieties So whensoever any of us are Tempted God doth at least permit Satan to sift
into the filth and pollution of it for the future Of the Pardon of Sin I have already largely treated in the foregoing Petition The Deliverance from Evil which we here pray for is by preventing it for the future And whereas we are taught by our Saviour to beg this of God our Heavenly Father we may observe that it is only the Almighty Power of God that can keep us from Sin and that will appear if we consider either our Enemies or our selves First Consider the mighty Advantages that our great Enemy the Devil hath against us As he is a Spirit he is both powerful and subtile and both these are whetted by his great Malice against us long experience also for above five thousand years hath made him very politick in dealing with Souls and carrying on his own designs and interest He knows our temper our passions and our inclinations and can chuse and cull out those Objects which shall infallibly strike and affect us he waits those Mollia tempora fandi those easie hours of whispering his suggestions to us when we are most facile and compliant when we are most easily wrought upon and made soft to his hands by some foregoing circumstances And if after all this he despairs to prevail upon us as a Devil he can quickly shift his shape and transform himself into an Angel of Light and engage our very Consciences unto evil he can disguise his Temptations into impulses of the Holy Spirit perswade us that what he prompts us to is our Duty head his fiery Darts with Scripture Sentences wrap up his Poison in the leaves of the Bible and wound our Souls by our Consciences and certainly this Devil of Light is now gone abroad into the World with all that Power of Deceivableness he can and we cannot but with sad and bleeding Hearts observe his too general prevalency and success And besides all this he is continually present with us follows us up and down where ever we go and is always at our Elbow to prompt us to Evil and at our Right Hand to oppose us in that which is Good Hell hath Emissaries enough to afford every Man a Friend for his Attendant and these critically observe every glance of thine Eyes every flash of thy Passions and are presently ready to apply suitable Temptations unto thee and to strike thee in that part of thy Soul which is softest and most yielding And as the Syrians that were sent by Benhadad to the King of Israel to intercede for him watched every Word that should fall from his Mouth that they might lay hold of it to obtain farther Favour from him So these Spies of Hell do watch every kind Word and every kind look of thine towards Sin and want no skill to improve them to obtain yet greater matters from thee Now if God did not appear to deliver us from these subtle Wiles and Methods of the Devil how soon would he make Fools of the wisest and most experienced Christians Secondly Consider the mighty Dis-advantages that we lie under to oppose the Temptations of the Devil which though they be many and great yet I shall name but two which may be found even in the best of Men. First Our inadvertency and heedlessness through which we are often surprized into Sin and captivated by the cunning craftiness of our Enemies which lie in wait to deceive How seldom is it that we stand upon our Guard or if we do that we are compleatly armed Sometimes our Shield sometimes our Helmets sometimes our Sword of the Spirit is wanting How seldom is it that we attend all the Motions of the Enemy Indeed a Christian should look round about him for he is every where beset and encompassed about with Enemies and whilst he is vigilant to ward one part the Devil falsifies his thrust and wounds him in another but if he cannot wound on the Right Hand by Presumption he will try what he can do on the Left by Despair if he cannot prevail by his Temptations to cause us to neglect and cast off Holy Duties he will Tempt us to Pride our selves in the well performing of them if he cannot make us fall he will Tempt us to be high-minded because we stand and so make our very standing the occasion of our woful downfall and because we are apt to think our selves better than others he will Tempt us to be supercilious Despisers and Contemners of others Now O Christian it is a very hard matter and thou wilt find it so thus to turn thee about to every Assault and that Man had need to have his Spiritual Senses well exercised that shall be able dextrously to do it Now when so great circumspection is scarce sufficient for our security how can they possibly escape without fearful Wounds and Gashes in their Consciences who are supinely negligent of their Souls and mind not which way their Thoughts their Passions their Affections encline and so give the Devil a Handle to turn their Souls by which way he will Certainly if we do not buckle our Spiritual Armour close to us but suffer the joynts of it by our heedlessness to lie open the Devil may easily wound us wheresoever and in whatsoever part he pleaseth And truly if through this inadvertency and want of circumspection Adam in the State of Innocency and the State of Uprightness fell when the Devil had no immediate access or admission into the inward Faculties and Powers of his Soul yet if Satan who was but a young unpractised and unexperienced Devil could prevail with him by his Wiles to ruine himself and to betray the great Trust which God had deposited in his Hands for all his Posterity How much greater may we think is his Advantage over us into whom he may insinuate himself and his Temptations and when we are busie about other things strike and wound us at unawares Secondly Besides this inadvertency the Devil hath another grand Advantage to lead us into Evil and that is because we are naturally prone and enclined of our selves to those very Sins to which he Tempts us It is very hard for that place to escape that hath Enemies without and Traytors within So stands the case with us we are not only beleaguer'd but betrayed there are in our Hearts multitudes of Lusts that hold intelligence with the Devil and espouse his Cause yea there is no one Sin how vile and profligate soever but it may find Partisans in our base and wicked Hearts wherein are the Seeds and Principles of all Impieties and therefore as things of a like Nature presently concorporate as we see one drop of Water diffuseth it self and runs into another so Temptations to Sin meeting with a sinful Nature are presently entertained and as it were embodyed together for whilst we pursue what Satan Tempts us unto we do but pursue what our own Natural Lusts and Corruptions inclin'd unto before waiting only for an opportunity of being called forth into Act. And therefore
to another part less dangerous So God by his Providence many times turns Men from the Commission of greater sins to a lesser sin And I believe there are but few Men who if they will but seriously examine their lives may produce may instances both of the Devil's policy in fitting them with occasions and opportunities of sinning and of God's Providence in causing some urgent Affairs or some sudden and unexpected Accidents to intervene whereby they are turned off from what they purposed Fourthly Sometimes by his Providence he takes off the Objects against which they intended to sin Thus God preserved St. Peter from Herod's Ambitious Rage He intended the next morning to put him to Death but that very night God sends his Angel to work his escape and thereby hinders the execution of that wicked purpose And thus in all Ages God many times hides his Children from the fury of wicked Men that their Wrath against them like Saul's Javelin misseth David and striketh only the Wall from whence it often rebounds back into their own Faces These now are some of the most remarkable Methods of Divine Providence in preventing the sins of Men. And I am very prone to think that there are very few who if they will be at the pains to reflect back upon and strictly examine that part of their lives that is past and gone they may easily produce many remarkable instances both of the Devil's Policy in fitting them with opportunities and occasions of sinning and of God's Providences in causing some immergent affairs or some other strange and unexpected accidents to interpose so that he hath either Graciously taken away our power or taken away the Objects of our Lusts or diverted us when we were in the pursuits of them To this we owe much of the innocency and in some respects blamelessness of our lives that we have not been a scandal to the Gospel a shame to the Good and a scorn to the Bad and this is the first way how God preserves from sin by his Providence Secondly God preserves from sin by his restraining Grace Now this restraining Grace is that which is common and vouchsafed to wicked Men as well as good Indeed God by it deals in a secret way with the very heart of a sinner and though he doth not change the habitual yet he changeth the present actual disposition of it so as not only by external checks laid upon Mens Lusts but by internal persuasions motives and arguments they are taken off the prosecution of those very sins which yet remain in them unmortified and raigning Thus Esau comes out against his Brother Jacob with a Troop of two hundred Ruffians intending doubtless to take revenge upon him for his Birth-right and Blessing but at their first meeting God by a secret work so mollifies his heart that instead of falling upon him to kill him he falls upon his neek and kisses him Here God restrain'd Esau from that bloody sin of Murder not in a way of External Providence only but with his own hand he immediately turns about his heart and by seeing such a company of Cattel bleating and bellowing timorous Women and helpless Children bowing and supplicating to him he turns his Revenge into Compassion and with much urging receives a Present from him whom he thought to have made a Prey The same powerful restraint God laid upon the heart of Abimelech a Heathen King Gen. 20.6 where God tells him I with-held thee from sinning against me and therefore suffered I thee not to touch her Here was nothing visible that might hinder Abimelech but God invisibly wrought upon his heart and unhing'd his sinful desires And from these two instances of Esau and Abimelech we may clearly collect how restraining Grace differs both from restraining Providence and from Sanctifying Grace from Providence it differs because usually when God Providentially restrains from sin he doth it by some visible apparent means which do not reach to work any change or alteration upon the heart but only lays an external check upon Mens sinful Actions But by restraining Grace God deals in a secret way with the very heart of a sinner and although he doth not change the nature of it yet he alters the present inclination of it and takes away the desire of committing those sins which yet he doth not mortifie And from Sanctifying Grace it differs also in that God vouchsafes it to wicked Men and Reprobates to the end that their Lives may be more plausible their Gifts more serviceable and their Condemnation more intolerable And indeed the efficacy of this restraining Grace may be so great that there may appear but very little difference between the Conversation of a true Christian whom Special Grace Sanctifies and the Conversation of one in a State of Nature whom common Grace only restains they may both live outwardly without blame or offence avoiding the gross pollutions of the World and shine in a Sphere above the ordinary sort of Men and yet the one be a Star and the other but a Meteor The high-way may be as dry and as fair in a Frosty Winter as in a warm Summer bur there is a great deal of difference in the cause of it In Summer the Sun dries up the moisture in Winter the Frost binds it in So the ways of those who have only a restraint laid upon them may be as fair and clear as the ways of those who are truly Sanctified but the cause is vastly different Grace hath dried up the filth of the one but ownly bound in the filth of the other Now God doth thus by his restraining Grace preserve Men from sin by propounding to them such Considerations and Arguments as may be sufficient to engage Conscience against it when yet the Will and Affections are still bent towards it Restraining Grace thunders the Curse of the Law and brandisheth the Sword of Justice in the Face of a sinner reports nothing but Hell and Everlasting Torments and such terrible things which may scare Men from their sins though still they love them It is indeed a great Mercy of God to keep us from sin even by legal terrours and usually these are a good preparation and introduction for saving Grace Doubtless the thoughts and fears of Hell have with very good success been made use of to keep Men from those sins that lead unto Hell But yet if in our conflicts against Temptations we can draw Arguments from no other Topicks but Hell and Eternal Death and Destruction If we cannot as well quench the Fiery Darts of the Devil in the Blood of Jesus Christ as in the Lake of Fire and Brimstone it is much to be doubted whether our abstaining from sin be from any higher principle than what is common only for fear of punishment and not for love of God or Goodness Thirdly God hath another method of keeping Men from sin and that is by his Special and Sanctifying Grace And this is proper only to the