no such thing can be concluded for who can tell what an arbitrary Sovereign free Agent will do if he declare not his own purpose himself How should it be known when the Spirit of God hath been often working upon the soul of a man that this or that shall be the last act and that he will never put forth another And why should God make it known To the person himself whose case it is 't is manifest it could be no benefit Nor is it to be thought the holy God will ever so alter the course of his own proceedings but that it shall finally be seen to all the world that every mans destruction was entirely and to the last of himself If God had made it evident to a man that he were finally rejected he were obliged to believe it But shall it ever be said God hath made any thing a mans duty which were inconsistent with his felicity The having sinned himself into such a condition wherein he is forsaken of God is indeed inconsistent with it And so the case is to stand i. e. that his perdition be in immediate connection with his sin not with his duty As it would be in immediate necessary connection with his duty if he were bound to believe himself finally forsaken and a lost creature For that belief makes him hopeles and a very devil justifies his unbelief of the Gospel towards himself by removing and shutting up towards him the object of such a faith and consequently brings the matter to this state that he perishes not because he doth not believe God reconcileable to man but because with particular application to himself he ought not so to believe And it were most unfit and of very pernicious consequence that such a thing should be generally known concerning others It were to anticipate the final Judgment to create an Hell upon Earth to tempt them whose doom were already known to do all the mischief in the world which malice and despair can suggest and prompt them unto it were to mingle devils with men and fill the world with confusion How should Parents know how to behave themselves towards Children an Husband towards the Wife of his bosom in such a case if it were known they were no more to counsel exhort admonish them pray with or for them than if they were devils And if there were such a rule how frequent misapplications would the fallible and distempered minds of men make of it so that they would be apt to fancy themselves warranted to judge severely or uncharitably and as the truth of the case perhaps is unjustly concerning others from which they are so hardly withheld when they have no such pretence to embolden them to it but are so strictly forbidden it And the judgment-seat so fenced as it is by the most awful interdicts against their usurpation and encroachments We are therefore to reverence the wisdom of the divine Government that things of this nature are among the arcana of it Some of those secrets which belong not to us He hath revealed what was fit and necessary for us and our children and envies to man no useful knowledge But it may be said when the Apostle 1 Joh. 5.16 directs to pray for a brother whom we see sinning a sin that is not unto death and addes there is a sin unto death I do not say he shall pray for it Is it not imply'd that it may be known when one sins that sin unto death not only to himself but even to others too I answer it is imply'd there may be too probable appearances of it and much ground to suspect and fear it concerning some in some cases As when any against the highest evidence of the truth of the Christian Religion and that Jesus is the Christ or the Messiah the proper and most sufficiently credible testimony whereof he had mentioned in the foregoing verses under heads to which the whole evidence of the truth of Christianity may be fitly enough reduced do notwithstanding from that malice which blinds their understanding persist in infidelity or apostatize and relapse into it from a former profession there is great cause of suspicion lest such have sinned that sin unto death Whereupon yet it is to be observed he doth not expresly forbid praying for the persons whose case we may doubt only he doth not enjoyn it as he doth for others but only saies I do not say ye shall pray for it i. e. that in his present direction to pray for others he did not intend such but another sort for whom they might pray remotely from any such suspicion viz. that he meant now such praying as ought to be interchanged between Christian friends that have reason in the main to be well perswaded concerning one another In the mean time intending no opposition to what is elsewhere enjoyned the praying for all men 1 Tim. 2.1 Without the personal exclusion of any as also our Lord himself prayed indefinitely for his most malicious enemies Father forgive them they know not what they do thô he had formerly said there was such a sin as should never be forgiven Whereof 't is highly probable some of them were guilty yet such he doth not expresly except but his prayer being in the indefinite not the universal form 't is to be supposed it must mean such as were within the compas and reach of prayer and capable of benefit by it Nor doth the Apostle here direct personally to exclude any only that indefinitely and in the general such must be supposed not meant as had sinn'd the sin unto death or must be conditionally excluded if they had without determining who had or had not To which purpose it is very observable that a more abstract form of expression is used in this latter clause of this verse For whereas in the former positive part of the direction he enjoyns praying for him or them that had not sinn'd unto death viz. concerning whom there was no ground for any such imagination or suspicion that they had In the negative part concerning such as might have sinn'd it he doth not say for him or them but for it i. e. concerning or in reference to it as if he had said the case in general only is to be excepted and if persons are to be distinguisht since every sin is some ones Sin the sin of some person or other let God distinguish but do not you 't is enough for you to except the sin committed by whomsoever And thô the former part of the verse speaks of a particular person If a man see his brother sin a sin that is not unto death which is as determinate to a person as the sight of our eye can be it doth not follow the latter part must suppose a like particular determination of any persons case that he hath sin'd it I may have great reason to be confident such and such have not when I can only suspect that such a one hath And
of your final condition as an exempt case reserv'd to the future judgment and the present determination whereof against your self is without your compass and line and most unsutable to the state of probation wherein you are to reckon God continues you here with the rest of men in this world and therefore any such judgment you should tear and reverse and as such not permit to have any place with you 4. Yet since as hath been said yoâ— are not quite to reject or obliterate any apprehension or thought touching this subject make it your busines to correct and reduce it to that other form i. e. let it only for the present remain with you as a doubt how your case now stands and what issue it may at length have And see that your fear thereupon be answerable to your apprehension so rectify'd While as yet it is not evident you have made your peace with God upon his known terms you are to consider God hath left your case a doubtful case and you are to conceive of it accordingly And are to entertain a fear concerning it not as certainly hopeles but as uncertain And as yours is really a doubtful case 't is a most important one It concerns your Souls and your eternal well-being and is not therefore to be neglected or trifled with You do not know how God will deal with you Whether he will again afford you such help as he hath done or whether ever he will effectually move your heart unto conversion and salvation You therefore are to work out your salvation with fear and trembling because as was told you he works but of his own good pleasure Your fear should not exceed this state of your case so as to exclude hope It is of unspeakable concernment to you that hope do intermingle with your fear That will do much to mollify and soften your hearts that after all the abuse of mercy and imposing upon the patience of God your neglects and slights of a bleeding Saviour your resisting and grieving the Spirit of grace he may yet once for all visit your forlorn Soul with his vital influence and save you from going down to perdition How can your hearts but melt and break upon this apprehension And it is not a groundless one He that came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance will not fail to treat them well whom he sees beginning to listen to his call and entertaining the thoughts that most directly tend to bring them to a compliance with it Your hope insinuating it self and mingling with your fear is highly grateful to the God of all grace He takes pleasure in them that fear him and in them that hope in his mercy Psal. 147.11 5. But see to it also that your fear be not slight and momentary and that it vanish not while as yet it hath so great a work to do in you viz. to engage you to accept Gods own terms of peace and reconciliation with all your heart and soul. It is of continual use even not only in order to conversion but to the converted also Can you think those mentioned words were spoken to none such Phil. 2.12 13 Or those Heb. 4.1 Let us therefore fear lest a promise being left us of entring into his rest any of you should seem to come short c. And do we not find an holy fear is to contribute all along to the whole of progressive sanctification 2 Cor. 7.1 Having therefore these promises dearly beloved let us cleanse our selves from all filthines of the flesh and spirit perfecting holines in the fear of God And that by it he preserves his own that they never depart from him Jer. 32.40 Much more do you need it in your present case while matters are yet in treaty between God and you And as it should not exceed the true apprehension of your case so nor should it come short of it 6. You should therefore in order hereto aggravate to your selves the just causes of your fear Why are you afraid your day should be over and the things of your peace be for ever hid from your eyes Is it not that you have sinn'd against much light against many checks of your own consciences against many very serious warnings and exhortations many earnest importunate beseechings and intreaties you have had in the Ministry of the Gospel many motions and strivings of the Spirit of God thereby Let your thoughts dwell upon these things Think what it is for the great God the Lord of glory to have been slighted by a worm Doth not this deserve as ill things at the hands of God as you can â—ear 'T is fit you should Apprehend what your desert is thâ— perhaps mercy may interpose and avert the deserved dreadful event And if he have signify'd his displeasure towards you hereupon by desisting for the present and ceasing to strive with you as he hath formerly done if your heart be grown more cold and dead and hard than sometime it was if you have been left so as to fall into grosser sin 't is highly reasonable you should fear being finally forsaken of the blessed Spirit of God and greatly fear it but with an â—â—ful fear that may awaken you most earnestly to endeavour his return to you not with a despairing fear that will bind you up from any further endeavour for your soul at all And if upon all this by death or otherwise such a Ministry be withdrawn from you as God did work by in some degree upon you and you find not in that kind what is so sutable to your state and case take heed lest your be stupid under such a stroke Think what it imports unto you if God have as it were said concerning any servant of his as Ezek. 2.26 I will make his tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth that he shall not be a reprover to you any more Consider that God may by this be making way that wrath may come upon you to the uttermost and never let you have opportunity to know more the things of your peace Perhaps you may never meet with the man more that shall speak so accommodately to your condition that shall so closely pursue you thorough all the haunts and subterfuges and lurking holes wherein your guilty convinced soul hath wont to hide it self and falsly seek to heal its own wounds One of more value may be less apt possibly to profit you As a more polish't Key doth not therefore alike fit every lock And thy case may be such that thou shalt never hear a sermon or the voice of a preacher more 7. And now in this case recollect your selves what sins you have been formerly convinc'd of under such a Ministry and which you have persisted in notwithstanding Were you never convinc't of your neglecting God and living as without him in the world of your low esteem and disregard of Christ of your worldlines your minding only the things of this earth of
to cure the trouble of some than by the danger and too probable ruine of others However none should themselves make their own case incurable by concluding that they have sin'd that sin or by believing they are otherwise forsaken and rejected of God so as that he will never more assist their endeavour to repent and turn to him thorough the Mediatouâ— If it be enquired here since as hath been shewn some may be quite forsaken of God while yet they live in the world ought such to believe then they are not forsaken and so believe an untruth that they may make it true or try if they can better their condition by it I answer nor that neither For that God will further assist an obstinate sinner that hath long resisted his Spirit and despised his mercy is no matter of promise to him and so no matter of faith When he doth conquer at length any such 't is of meer unpromised favour as was also shewn whereof therefore he gives others no ground to despair and for which they are deeply concern'd with great earnestnes to supplicate But if it be said how can they pray for that whereof they have no promise and can have no faith since what is not of faith is sin Rom. 14.23 I answer that passage of Scripture would in this case be much misapply'd It speaks not of faith concerning the certainty of any event to be expected but the lawfulnes of a work to be done and of doubting not concerning the event but my own act Can any man in his wits doubt concerning his own act in this case whether it be better to pray for the grace of God to save him than slight it and perish nor are they without very encouraging promises concerning the event that God will be a rewarder of them that diligently seek him Heb. 11.6 And that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved Rom. 10.13 which promises 't is true the context of both shews do speak of believing prayer They are to faith not of it and import that God will reward and save the believer not that he will give faith to the obstinate contemptuous unbeliever If he do this 't is as was said of unpromised bounty But thô they are not promises to give faith they should induce it and incline sinners to cast themselves down before the throne of so gracious a God and seek grace to help them in their need in confidence that he will never reject penitent believing prayer They indeed that for their former wilful sinning are utterly forsaken of God will not thus apply themselves but our question is not what they will do but what they should Because they would not therefore they were forsaken and because they yet will not they are still and finally forsaken Their refusal proceeds not from any discouragement God hath given them but from the malignity of their own hearts God hath not repeal'd his Gospel towards them The connection continues firm between the preceptive and promisory parts of it Their infidelity is not become their duty but remains their hainous sin and the more deeply hainous by how much their own malignity holds them more strongly in it Unto what also is discoursed p. 99. concerning anger and grief or other passions ascribed to God it will not be unfit here to adde that unles they be allowed to signify real aversion of will no account is to be given what reality in him they can signify at all For to say what some do seem to satisfie themselves with that they are to be understood secundum effectum not secundum affectum thô true as to the negative part is as to the affirmative very defective and short for the effects of anger and grief upon which those names are put when spoken of God are not themselves in him but in us But we are still at a losse what they signify in him Such effects must have some cause And if they be effects which he works they must have some cause in himself that is before them and productive of them This account leaves us to seek what that cause is that is signify'd by these names That it cannot be any passion as the same names are wont to signify with us is out of question Nor indeed do those names primarily and most properly signify passion in our selves The passion is consequent only by reason of that inferiour nature in us which is susceptible of it But the aversion of our mind and will is before it and in another subject very separable from it and possible to be without it In the blessed God we cannot understand any thing lesse is signify'd than real displicency at the things whereat he is said to be angry or grieved Our shallow reason indeed is apt to suggest in these matters why is not that prevented that is so displeasing And it would be said with equal reason in reference to all sin permitted to be in the world why was it not prevented and what is to be said to this shall it be said that sin doth not displease God that he hath no will against sin it is not repugnant to his will yes it is to his revealed will to his law But is that an untrue Revelation His law is not his will it self but the signum the discovery of his will Now is it an insignificant sign a sign that signifies nothing or to which there belongs no correspondent signisicatum nothing that is signify'd by it Is that which is signify'd for sure no one will say it signifies nothing his real will yea or no who can deny it that will then and a most calm sedate impassionate will it must be understood to be sin and consequently the consequent miseries of his creatures are â—â—â—ugnant unto And what will is that 't is not a peremptory will concerning the event for the event falls out otherwise which were upon that supposition impossible for who hath resisted his will as was truly intimated by the personated questionist Rom. 9.19 but impertinently when Gods will of another not a contrary kind i. e. concerning another object was in the same breath refer'd unto why doth he yet find fault 't is not the will of the event that is the measure of faultines for then there could not have been sin in the world nor consequently misery which only by the Creators pleasure stands connected with it For nothing could fall out against that irresistible will The objector then destroys his own objection so absurdly and so manifestly as not to deserve any other reply than that which he meets with Nay but who art thou O man that replyest against God And what is the other object about which the divine will is also conversant matter of duty and what stands in connection with it not abstraâ—â—â—â— and separately but as it is so connected our felicity This is objectively another will as we justly distinguish divine acts that respect the creature by their
it so blinded and stupified their own souls as to have made themselves very little capable of apprehending that they have committed it or of considering whether they have or no. But they are sunk into a deep abysse of darknes and death so as that such knowledge may be as little possible as it would be useful to them All their faculties of intellection consideration and self-reflection being as to any such exercise bound up in a stupifying dead sleep And to what purpose should they have a rule by which to determine a case who 1. Can receive no benefit by the determination and 2. Who are supposed when they are to use it to have no faculty sufficiently apt to make this sad but true judgment of their case by it But for them who have not committed it and who are consequently yet capable of benefit by what should be made known about it there is therefore enough made known for their real use and benefit It will 1. Be of real use to many such to know their danger of running into it And it is sufficient to that purpose that they are plainly told wherein the general nature of it consists or whereabouts it lies without shewing them the very point that hath certain death in it or letting them know just how near they may approach it without being sure to perish when there is danger enough in every step they take towards it As if there were some horrid desart into any part whereof no man hath any busines to come but in some part whereof there is a dreadful gulf whence arises a contagious halitus which if he come within the verge of it will be certainly poysonous and mortal to him What need is there that any man should know just how near he may come without being sure to die for it He is concerned to keep himself at a cautious awful distance 2. It may be of great use to others that are afflicted with very torturing fears lest they have committed it to know that they have not And they have enough also to satisfie them in the case For their very fear it self with its usual concomitants in such afflicted minds is an argument to them that they have not While they find in themselves any value of divine favour any dread of his wrath any disposition to consider the state of their souls with any thought or design of turning to God and making their peace they have reason to conclude God hath hitherto kept them out of that fearful gulf and is yet in the way and in treaty with them For since we are not sufficient to think any thing that good is of our selves it is much more reasonable to ascribe any such thoughts or agitations of spirit that have this design to him than to our selves and to account that he is yet at work with us at least in the way of common grace thô when our thoughts drive towards a conclusion against our selves that we have committed that sin and towards despair thereupon we are to apprehend a mixture of temptation in them which we are concerned earnestly to watch and pray against And yet even such temptation is an argument of such a one 's not having committed that sin For such as the devil may apprehend more likely to have committed it and 't is not to be thought he can be sure who have he will be less apt to trouble with such thoughts not knowing what the issue of that unquietnes may prove and apprehending it may occasion their escaping quite out of his snare And I do conceive this to be a safer method of satisfying such as are perplext with this fear in our dayes than to be positive in stating that sin so or limiting it to such circumstances as shall make it impossible to be committed in this age of the World For let it be seriously considered whether it be altogether an unsupposeable thing that with some in our dayes there may be an equivalency in point of light and evidence of the truth of Christianity unto what those Jews had whom our Saviour warns of the danger of this sin at that time when he so warned them his warning and cautioning them about it implies that he judged them at least in a possibility at that time of incurring the guilt of it If the text Mat. 12. do not also imply that he reckoned them then actually to have committed it For it is said ver 25. he knew their thoughts i. e. considered the temper of their minds and thereupon said to them that which follows concerning it Let us consider wherein their advantage towards their being ascertained of the truth of the Christian Religion was greater than we now can have It was chiefly in this respect greater that they had a nearer and more immediate knowledge of the matter of fact wherein that evidence which our Saviour refers to did consist A more immediate way of knowing it they had the most immediate the persons whom he warns or charges seem not to have had For those Pharisees it is said heard of the cure of the Daemoniac not that they saw it They took it upon the no doubt sufficiently credible report of others Now let it be further considered what we have to ballance this one single advantage We have to intelligent considering persons rationally-sufficient evidence of the same matter of fact But how great things that have since followed have we the sufficiently certain knowledge of besides beyond what they had in view at that time As the wonderful death of our Lord exactly according to prediction in many respects together with all the unforetold amazing circumstances that attended it His more wonderful resurrection upon which so great a stresse is laid for demonstrating the truth of the Religion he taught The destruction of Jerusalem as he foretold and the shattered condition of the Jewish nation as was also foretold ever since The strange successe of the Gospel in the first and some following ages by so unlikely means against the greatest opposition imaginable both of Jews and Pagans Not to insist on the apostacy foretold in the Christian Church with many more things that might be mentioned Let be considered whether the want of a so immediate way of knowing some of these things be not abundantly compensated by the greatnes of the other things that are however sufficiently known And if such as have wit and leisure to consider these things in our dayes are often prest to consider them have them frequently represented and laid before their eyes if such I say have in view as great evidence upon the whole of the truth of Christianity as these Pharisees had it is then further to be considered whether it be not possible that some such may equal the Jewish malice against the holy design of our Religion To which I only say the Lord grant that none may But if there be really cause to apprehend such a danger some other way should be thought of