for this flowing down to you in the precious Blood of the Covenant you had remained yet on the side of God's Enemies and would have perished everlastingly with them Antidate Heavens holy happy Employment living in the raised thankful affectionate humble Praises of Free Grace 2dly Be faithful to the side you are on to the Interests you are in Do as much against the other side Sin and Satan and their Interests as you can the more the better and do all you can for the side you are on you cannot do too much you cannot do enough Be most faithful to and active for God Be sure you be so in all the Particulars that have been named Go over them particularly in your own Thoughts and let the Reasons serve for Motives I cannot inlarge But I would more particularly address my self First To you of the Society Secondly To all others on God's side tho not of the Society First To you of the Society in three Particulars 1st Be all of you on God's side Be sure you be so I know all of you are so by Profession by agreeing and combining together to appear for God against the horrid Profaneness of the Day Let all and every one of you then and I speak nothing to you but what I would speak to my own Soul see that you be indeed savingly internally vitally on God's side that you indeed fear God and love God that you do indeed hate Evil and love Good as you have been not long since exhorted to do Let what you do in this matter be in the Sincerity of your Souls and out of Love to your King Country and the Good of others See God have your Hearts that there be a thorow regenerating Change there or else I must tell you it is not being on God's side by appearing outwardly against Profaneness that will do no tho you be never so industrious and active and run never so many Risques and Hazards all these will not do if the Heart be not with God and for God God will have the Heart or nothing The Heart must be God's or all will be accounted nothing at all of by God Make sure then of this that you have savingly laid hold of God's Covenant and so be ingaged in this matter 2dly Being thus continue all of you on God's side Being savingly on it keep on it Keep on it personally considered every one of you and socially considered as you are united together against the Sins of the Day So go on and pursue heartily the Ends for which you did coalesce and combine I say Go on prosperously Go on Couragiously Go on Resolvedly Go on Unweariedly Go on Patiently Go on Invincibly Go on constantly Perseveringly Let nothing discourage you much less turn you out of the way you are in or make you faint or succumb under the Burden of this great Undertaking Let not the Threatnings Huffs Scoffs or Reproaches of the Ungodly at all weaken your hands You expected these things before you ingaged in this Work now then you meeâ— with them be not at all concerned at them so as to slackea your Diligence or go on fearfully or heavily There is no Reason you should be discouraged but you should go on as I have exhorted you to do For 1. You have a good Cause the best Cause 1st It is the Cause of God Profaneness and Immorality are contrary to God what he cannot away with the abominable things that he hates as he speaks of Idolatry You are ingaged then in this Matter against nothing but what God himself is ingaged against you are ingaged against none but only his Enemies that are mad of their Lusts and that shew their selves to be so by being so desperate and obstinate that they cannot be dealt with by hands but Men that deal with them must be fenced with Iron and the Staff of a Spear I mean the Magistrate's Sword and Power You are ingaged against nothing but what is offensive and dishonourable to God and for nothing in this Affair but what is pleasing to and honourable in the Sight of God Then go on it is the Cause of God God calls to you to be on his side as in the Text against the Profaneness of the Day by which he is so sadly dishonoured and you in some measure have answered his Call go on to do so more and more God calls to you too as Psal 94. 6. Who will rise up for me against the Evil-doers who will stand up for me against the Workers of Iniquity Do you still do so 2d It is the Cause of the King It is his Mind and Will that Men should reverence the Name of God their great Maker and assemble themselves for the Worship of God and abstain from Profaneness and Immoralities as you may see by his excellent Proclamation In truth these Sins do the King his Interest and Government a great deal of hurt they indanger him and them Profane Persons are the King 's worst Subjects It is the King's Interest that Men avoid these things because they often bring down the Wrath of God upon Governors and Governments especially when they are not check'd by Law and the Execution of it Then go on to plead this Cause of the King 3d. It is the Cause of your Country your dear Native Country that you are bound by so many Ingagements to and that you injoy so much Good in They are England's greatest Enemies that dare provoke God that dare sin against him and bring down his Wrath upon it And they are England's best Friends that do what they can to reform England's Inhabitants and to restrain Sin and purge it out of the Nation 2. You have a good Call therefore go on and a good Cause and a good Call may very well be a great Incouragement to you You have a good Call you have the Call of God as in the Text and in Ps 94 16. as before You have the Call of the King and the Call of the Parliament the Magistrates Call The Words are the Words of Moses Israel's Supream Magistrate You have the Call of all the Godly in the Land their hearty Approbation and best Prayers and Wishes God calls you by his Word by the Precepts of his Word Promises of his Word Threatnings of his Word and by his Providence giving you a fair Opportunity very inviting and incouraging Advantages which should they be neglected not improved who can tell whether you shall live to see such another and you have the Call of the incouraging successful Example of the City of London which has gone before you herein I am sure of this every Man that hath a Heart to appear for God and Ability has a good Call and no Man can question his Call that has a Heart Ability and Opportunity for such Services as this 3. As you have a good Cause a good Call so you have a good Patron a great one the Blessed Jehovah the Almighty God He stands by
you and will defend you and protect you and believe me Brethren one God this one God I say is enough against all the posse Inferni all the Devils in Hell and their Agents on Earth Well God is on your side then go on You may say as he Psal 118. 6. The Lord is on my side I will not fear what can Man do unto me 4. As you have a good Cause a good Call a good Patron you shall have a good a great Reward a glorious massy Reward if your Hearts are right with God you shall not lose your Reward God does not need you but he takes it kindly from you that you are on his side and he will once testify this and you shall find it placed to your account in the Day of the Lord if not before If a Cup of cold Water given to a Disciple of Christ shall not lose its reward Mat. 10. 42. to be sure this Service for his Name shall not Therefore go on 5. For your Incouragement still you have good Company all the Great that are good on your side and all the Good too You have God as was mentioned just now God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost the Uncreated Great on your side and you have the Created Great the great and glorious Angels assisting of you in your sincere Indeavours and doing you many great tho unseen good Offices of defending of you under God in all your Difficulties and Dangers and approving of you and pleased with you in all your Designs and Labours and you have the Spirits of the Just made perfect all the holy happy heavenly Society are on your side all these are great and good above and you have all the Great and Good below too on your side You have the King and Parliament your Governors on your side and you have all the Good of all Denominations all that know and love and fear God on your side you have their Approbation Judgment Prayers and hearty Wishes and for the Bad and the Great that are bad they are not so considerable in this matter being against God as either to be regarded or feared Then by Faith behold the blessed God and his holy Angels and all the heavenly Company from the Battlements of Glory looking on and applauding your Indeavours and let this incourage you notwithstanding Difficulties and hereupon be you filled with the utmost Vigour in all your Enterprizes and Attempts Thus you see what abundant Incouragement you have for you have a good Cause the best Cause the Cause of your God your King your Country you have a good Call as well as a good Cause and you have a great Almighty Patron as well as a good Cause and good Call and you have as a good Cause Call Patron you have good Company all the great that are good and all the Good and as you have a good Cause Call Patron Company you shall have a good a great a vast Reward an exceeding eternal Weight of Glory Then surely you may well go on as you have been exhorted to do 3dly And lastly to you of the Society Carry in all things towards God and Man as becomes those that are ingaged in such a Design and united in a Society for such an End Carry so as all that see you and know you may have reason to believe you are filled with the Fear of God with an awful Reverence of his Name and glorious Perfections and blessed Word and Laws and Government Be filled with a deep sense of his Dishonour by the abounding Sins of the day keep your selves very faithful to God in being pure from the Sins of the day wherein you live not only from the Sins of the Profane but the Professors of the day many of whom God knows take a strange liberty in many things very unbecoming their Profession and very dishonourable to it but do not you do so be neither afraid nor ashamed to bear your Testimony for God where you have a Call to it and do all that ever in you lies singly socially against the Sins of the day to stem and if it might be to turn the Torrent of Profaneness into that of Holiness and carry so towards all Men as becomes you being altogether just and true in your Dealings in your Words and Works further let your Carriage towards all Men be filled with all that Love Goodness Tenderness Humility Meekness that Readiness to do them all good Offices and In-offensiveness in Words and Actions that becomes such as profess to do nothing to others but only what is for their Good Be sure you carry thus to Men. I am afraid it may not be possible for you to carry so considering your Circumstances as to avoid Reproach and Censure for Men value their Lusts above their Souls nay they do not value them above their very Lives and therefore they will rage at that and them that stand between them and their beloved Sins but however be you blameless and harmless the Sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse Nation among whom shine ye as lights in the World Phil. 2. 15. That all Men may have Reason however to believe that you have no design but their Good in your Indeavours that the Laws may be executed upon flagitious incorrigible Transgressors yea so as that themselves whose lot it may be to be punished by them may have no cause to believe any other but their Good not Hurt is pursued therein for those that indeavour the Reformation of others should themselves be great Instances of Reformation and Purity I am sure they should be so See you be so as ever you would be any ways at all useful in what you have undertaken as you would do any Good as you would not do Hurt I must tell you with all Faithfulness and Freedom it is a shameful vile accursed thing I would use harder words if I had them for the thing will bear it for those that take upon them to be Reformers of others to be unreformed themselves If any of the Society for Reforming others be as ill as those they pretend to reform what a Shame Reproach and Mischief will it be unto you and how prejudicial to your Design If any are of a Society for Reformation of others and are unreformed themselves can they with any Modesty indeavour the Reformation of others that are guilty themselves Can those indeavour a Drunkard's Reformation by his Punishment according to Law that are drunk sometimes themselves Can those be concerned in executing the Laws upon profane Swearers that swear profanely themselves and curse and rail How can any see that others be punished for profaning the Lord's Day when themselves make no Conscience of it See then to your Hearts to your Lives to your Words to your Actions to your Families that there be all Purity and Reformation within you without you and round about you See you be altogether such as that
Houses that indulge themselves in all Sensualities and neigh after their Neighbours Wives Jer. 5. 7 8. Perhaps there may be some such here led by Curiosity or which is worse a design to scoff if there be I pray God they may consider things and whether they will hear or whether they will forbear I must deliver the Mind of God unto them in these four things 1. Consider all of you for the Lord's sake what side you are on You are not on God's O no! it may be indeed you say you defy the Devil and all his Works you may so and think so too as much as you will but your Lives your Speeches your Actions loudly proclaim you to be Rebels against God Consider 1. With and amongst whom you are ingaged Verily with Satan and his black infernal Crew he is your Lord and Master your Prince and God he is the God of this World and all the evil Angels are under him and all the Ungodly in this World are under them especially such as you most visibly They are the Rulers of the Darkness of this World These these are the wretched vile Creatures that you are amongst and numbred with You are of the Society of Hell for if those on God's side by Faith and being in Covenant with God are come to Mount Zion unto the City of the living God the heavenly Hierusalem the innumerable Company of Angels Heb. 12. 22. Then surely such as I am speaking to are come to Tophet to the Lake of Fire and Brimstone to that dreadful Place and State reserved for the Devil and his Angels You are of the number of these dreadful Enemies of God engaged with the vilest of Creatures the horridest Wretches on Earth and the Inhabitants of Hell 2. What you are engaged in as well as with and amongst whom what Work you are doing You think indeed of pleasing your selves by gratifying your Appetites and so promoting your Happiness but indeed you are sinning against God rebelling against your Maker violating his holy Laws doing the filthiest vilest Drudgery in the World such is Sin The Slaves in Fez in Sally are Freemen are Princes compared to you You are doing the Devil's Work what he delights in and what he has engaged you in by means of your own evil Hearts and outward Objects and Temptations which he takes care to ply you with You are ruining your Bodies you are defiling your Souls you are putting far from you your Salvation you are making sure of and hastning your Damnation and desperately increasing your Guilt now and Torments and Miseries hereafter You are undoing as much as in you lies your Families your Wives and Children whom you should love and tender You are bringing the Wrath of God upon the Land of your Nativity You do what is in you to ruin all These things verily you are doing whether you believe it or no. O that good Men were but as industrious in Well-doing as such as I am now speaking to are in Evil-doing to prevent publick Judgments as these are to procure them You profane ones you are running to Hell with all the speed that the rapid Current of time and the Impetus of your own Lusts and Satan's Malice can carry you So I come to the 2d Exhortation 2. Consider what will be the end of all this of your being on the Devil's side of your being engaged in his Work What can it be without Repentance Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish Luke 13. 3 5. Truly if Christ be to be believed who is the faithful and true Witness of God nothing nothing can come of this course of yours but your eternal Ruine without Repentance and this is true of those that sin not to the height of your Wickedness to be sure then it must be true of you Satan indeed tells you fine Stories of this and that Evil you will avoid and this and that Good you will have by your sinning but do you not know that he is a Liar and the Father of Lies Do you not know he is the great Deceiver and thereby the great Destroyer of Souls Will you believe God or him God who tells you of your Sins and Danger to prevent your Ruine or Satan who keeps you in the dark and makes it his business very subtlely and industriously to misrepresent things to you on purpose to bring you into that Ruine which he himself is involved in Your Lusts too they tell you this and that and the other what they will do for you what merry pleasant jovial Days you shall have and Lives you shall lead But do you consider what will be the end of these at Death Judgment and Hell for ever which you are in greatest danger of every moment You are like a Company of mad distracted Criminals going indeed to Execution but not knowing it roaring and swaggering all the way they go so it is with you and as it would be in that case a great Surprize to them all of a sudden unexpectedly to see the Gibbet and Halter and Executioner and suffer by them so what an unspeakably worse Surprize will it be for you after you have gone on a little securely to fall into Hell Lord how great is your Danger Consider this 3. If the Laws of the Land do take hold of you for your own impudent Violation of them and God's too do not rage do not storm against those that might inform nor against Magistrates nor against Laws but thank your selves and lay all the blame upon your own Folly and Wickedness for there is no body to blame but your selves but your own Lusts If you meet with Shame Reproach and smart by publick Censures lay the load of all upon your own Sins and selves for they are the alone culpable Cause for the Laws are good and Magistrates are in their Duty when they execute them and those that were Witnesses of your affronting Laws they could not be clear of Guilt nor the Nation of Wrath if they had not informed nor is it any Uncharitableness in them no but true Charity if they are sincere in what they do nor is it any Unkindness to you for if milder Methods would have done you had not been treated thus but that milder would not do is only your own fault Who is to blame but your selves and your own unreasonable brutish ungovernable Lusts Besides this may be a Kindness to you and that is designed and if it be not it will be wholly your own fault for hereby you have a very fair opportunity given you to consider things thus True I am exposed to the Magistrates Punishment for what I have done but what is this to Hell I have a greater Magistrate to do with than any I have been punished by the Supream Magistrate of the World the Judge of the Living and Dead and his Laws are severer Laws and his Punishments sorer Punishments how shall I do when he enters into Judgment with me I can't avoid
Country has been answered so often and so well by many worthy Men with whom I am not worthy to be named both of the Conforming and Non-conforming Perswasion that have pleaded this Cause of God against the Profaneness and profane Ones of the day that for my part I will spend none either of your time or mine own in answering it Nor is there any Injury by informing done to the guilty Party but as there is in it a Service done God the King Country and Place where we live so the Person himself receives Good thereby or may do so if he do not it is his own fault as you heard under the 3d Exhortation to the Profane What Injury is it to a Man in a raging Feaver for those that love him to use some rough but proper Methods for his Cure or what Injury for a Man to be forc't by those that may lawfully do it to do that or suffer that which if he did not do or suffer would be his Ruine and his doing or suffering it at least may be a means to save him Then inform only let me leave this Caution with you Be sure when you do so you do it uprightly for God's Honour and doing Good and not to vent your Ill-will against the Party for as I said before to the Society if you do so God sees it and he will deal with you for it 3. Lastly by Prayer All of you pray for the Society's and their Indeavours that the Blessing and Presence of God may be upon them and with them and make them effectual for the personal Good of many and publick Good of all That this Cloud may spread may over-spread all our British Hemisphere and increase until it fall down in Showers of Blessings upon us and our Posterity after us Strive with God wrestle with God in Prayer for all the Societies that where they are begun they may be a great Blessing in being effectual for the Restraint of Sin and Conversion of Sinners and that in Country Towns where they are not begun they may and be effectual there too as was mentioned just now Pray for the pouring down of the Spirit from on high on all sorts of People that there may be in many very many a Reformation the effect of Conversion that we may live to see that joyful Day when Profaneness Irreligion and Immorality shall be banished out of the Land and Godliness Religion and Goodness shall be in a flourishing spreading prevailing and prospering Condition every where Pray for the King for the Parliament that God would inspire them with Zeal in this Cause that Laws may be yet made that may facilitate Reformation and may more effectually discourage Sin and suppress Wickedness That all may issue in substantial universal Goodness the Love of God and Man the alone true saving Morality and Reformation of Manners FINIS BOOKS Printed for Thomas Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers-Chapel FOrty Nine Sermons on the whole Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Colossians by Monsieur Daille Minister of the Reformed Church in Paris Folio Sermons and Discourses on several Divine Subjects by the late Reverend and Learned David Clarkson B. D. and sometime Fellow of Clare-Hall Cambridge Folio A Body of Practical Divinity consisting of above One hundred seventy six Sermons on the Lesser Catechism of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster by Tho. Watson formerly Minister of Stephen Walbrook Folio The Support of the Faithful in Times of Persecution or a Sermon preach'd in the Wilderness to the poor Protestants in France By M. Brousson an Eminent Minister who was broke upon the Wheel at Montpelier Novem. 6. 1698. Quarto The Fountain of Life opened or a Display of Christ in his Essential and Mediatoral Glory containing Forty two Sermons on various Texts Wherein the Impetration of our Redemption by Jesus Christ is orderly unfolded as it was begun carried on and finished by his Covenant Transaction mysterious Incarnation solemn Call and Dedication blessed Offices deep Abasement and supereminent Advancement By J. Flavel