That he had hardened her heart from his fear Hardnesse was naturall to her heart yet they found Gods judgement causing in justice that naturall evill to increase upon them From this part of the Complaint observe The Doctrine Judicial hardnesse is the godlies greatest grief Judiciall hardnesse of heart from the fear of God in the times of trouble is the godlies chiefest grief and complaint to God The troubles and calamities of the Jews were great at this time their sins also were great But behold here they complain to God more then for either their calamities or other sins that God had hardened their heart from his fear in the midst of all their sins and judgements This was it that made the Prophet Jeremy amazed The Proof Jere. 5.3 O Lord thou hast stricken them but they have not grieved thou hast consumed them but they have refused to receive correction they have made their faces harder then a rock The Reason why this condition of a people is most lamentable is first It is a presage of destruction The first Reason When strokes humble not a people and soften not their heart to the fear and obedience of God then it cometh to this Why should ye be stricken any more After correction is obstinately refused then cometh rejection 2 Kings 17.18 God is very angry with the ten Tribes and removes them out of his sight the great cause we have Verse 14. They hardned their necks like the necks of their fathers that did not beleeve in the Lord their God This same was the cause of the ruine of Jerusalem Jere. 19.15 I will bring upon this City all the evill that I have pronounced against it because they have hardned their necks that they might not hear my words Jere. 26.29 The Lord hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath because they had hardned their necks and did worse then their fathers Another Reason The second Reason This is such an evill as draweth on eternall perdition after temporall ruine Rom. 2.5 After thy hardnesse and impenitent heart thou treasurest up to thy self wrath against the day of wrath There is a treasure and heap of everlasting wrath from this hardnesse Heb. 3.7 To day if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts as in the provocation Wherefore I was grieved with that Generation and sware in my wrath They shall not enter into my rest Meaning such grief and anger in God against this evil as holds out of heaven Thirdly The third Reason This sin hath extraordinary malignancy in it though neither eternall nor temporall wrath followed on it The hand of an angry God of a working devil and high degree of corruption are into it in its production all these three have place Before any be hardned in sin and become obstinate the corruption of the heart must be great and highly advanced Also Satans hand is in the blinding of the eyes and searing with the hot-iron in stupifying and making senslesse the conscience of the hardned person and God as a just Judge putting on the executioner must be also about this action So that this hardning is very oft the signe of a Reprobate to whom God shews no mercy Whom he will he hardens and sheweth mercy on whom he will shew mercy albeit it s not ever so as in our Text and elsewhere God hardens the hearts of some for a time whom thereafter he softens and to them sheweth mercy Yet oft being the case of Reprobates and ever very like to it and in it self a degree to that wofull condition it affrighteth the godly when they see it in themselves or others and becometh a great part of their complaint to God The Use is for Exhortation The Vse That we be carefull to grieve and complain to the Lord for this great evil wherever we see it in our selves or others Not onely the most faithfull of Gods Watch-men in all the three Kingdoms but also those of the people who by the anointing of God have the eyes of their minde opened to see the Spirituall estate of their own or their neighbours souls bear witnesse with an unanimous testimony that notwithstanding all the Judgements which lie on the Land yet this hardnesse of heart is greater and more universall then ever they have seen it This cannot be but the hand of God adding this Spirituall Plague as the worst and greatest of all our evils For this we have great reason to mourn and intreat the removall of it above all our Woes Motives to the Duty we need no other then the Reasons of the Doctrine If thou finde this evil crept in thy heart as I doubt not but it lodgeth sensibly in some hearts that hear me or though the Lord had blessed thee with the tender heart of Josiah to mourn for the sins and calamities that are already and to tremble for what further is coming yet if thou see this Mischief proclaiming it self in the countenances and lives of the most of thy neighbours as truely an observing and conscientious eye will remark too much of it where-ever he will look even in the days and places of most solemn Humiliation when hardnesse of heart should be banished farthest away this evil I say wherever found in thy self or others should be complained of to God For having in it so much of an angry God a busie devil and of a high degree of humane corruption it being also a presage and certain forerunner if not remedied of greater Temporal Judgements then yet we have seen albeit we have seen and heard of as much wo as our fathers in these Kingdoms have felt for some hundred yeers though all their sufferings were put together Yet the hardnesse of our hearts if it continue will make all we have suffered but the beginning of evils yea this hardnesse of heart poisons and envenoms all our sufferings with a cursed quality Pestilence wounds spoiling of goods death are all sanctified and sweetned to a softned heart but to a hardned heart they are the first acts of a wofull Tragedie there is a treasure of wrath and lake of fire and brimstone at their end attending them If we were able on these days set apart for this end above all other to attain the blessing of a soft heart and the Judgement of a heart hardned by God removed we would quickly be secure of damnation we would becom certain of the removall of all these Judgements which have very long so heavily lien both on the Church and State and on the backs if not of our persons yet of many in whom our interest is great we should be assured of heavenly consolations against all evils that for the time were on or hereafter might befall us Let it therefore be our earnest endeavour to finde this blessing by the Word by the Sacraments by publike by private Prayer by Reading by Conference by Meditation At this time I will point at some Scripturall helps towards
mens own lusts to break out on the objects set before them For these acts of Judgment both in our Text and oft elsewhere in Scripture the cause of mens sins not as they are sins but as punishments of sin is ascribed to him 2 Thess 2.10 Because they received not the love of the truth God shall send them strong delusions to believe a lye He was to send on them The Man of sin whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and with all deceiveablenesse The committing of the sin is ascribed to the sinner who believes the lye the tempting to it is ascribed to Satan and his Antichristian Instruments the sending out both of Satan and Antichrist the giving over to delusion is ascribed to God the righteous Judge by these means punishing former sins Rom. 1.18 21 24 26 28. The wrath of God is revealed against all unrighteousnesse of men because when they knew God they glorified him not as God wherefore God gave them up also to uncleannesse For this cause God gave them up to vile affections God gave them over to a reprobate minde The sinfull acts flow from the reprobate mindes and vile affections of the sinners yet God the Judge is thrice said to give them up to these their own sins Rom. 11.8 God hath given them the spirit of slumber eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear to this day Let their Table be a snare a stumbling-block and a recompence to them Let their eyes be darkned that they may not see 2 Chron. 18.22 The Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of these thy Prophets Many such places there are where God as a righteous Judge is made to give over sinners to the devil to other wicked men to themselves to be led in more and greater sins as punishments of the former Thus far Protestant Divines do go Protestants are unjustly accused for making God the author of sin and all the acts which any of them ascribe to God about the causation of sin may be referred to one of the three named All which stands well with the holinesse of his Nature and extreme contrariety to sin The Papists and Arminians do slander us most unjustly as if we did blaspheme the holy Lord in making him the author of sin All of us ever have abhorred such Doctrine We never ascribed to God more acts of providence about sin then the most clamorous of our enemies themselves expresly have done The three forenamed acts by Bellarmine and Arminius are attributed to God in as ample and unadvised expressions as ever fell from the Pen of any of our approved Divines I grant the Libertines of old This is the blasphemy of the Libertines and of M. Archers book justly burnt therefore and their children the Antinomians this day do cast out on this subject many abominable Blasphemies but these were ever detested by all Orthodox Protestants as the vomit of the father of all lyes and blasphemies which makes us the more to marvel what these men can mean who lately here under the name of M. Archer a famous Independent in his time have printed the worst and grossest of these Blasphemies Surely if such kinde of Doctrine be entertained by any of that Party our Disputations will not stand long at Church-Government but the world will be confirmed in that opinion which some wise men long ago have given out That Independency was not so much loved for it self as for somwhat else A liberty without censure to vent such Doctrines as the conscience of Orthedox Divines will never be able to hear with patience But in this I will not enter The zeal of the whole Assembly and both the Honourable Houses against the blasphemous Heresies of that infamous Book doth quiet and secure our mindes herein The fourth word to be exponed Why doth the Church complain of these acts of God about her sins is the Interrogation and Complaint Why hast thou made us to erre The Church being now before God and laying hold on his fatherly compassions pours out before him the troubles of her heart That which troubled them most was their sins and obstinacie in Rebellion which they complain to the Lord had befallen them in his great wrath through his deserting of them and giving them over to be led away by their own lusts and Satans tentations This part of Gods wrath upon them in punishing their sins with more blindnesse and making them erre farther from his ways was their greatest misery the true cause of all their outward plagues and a greater plague then all the rest as we may see in the sixth of this Prophecie where the Lord for contempt of the Prophets Ministery doth punish the body of that people with Spirituall Judgements and makes their heart fatter their minde blinder then before And from this Spirituall evil he makes all their Temporall desolation to flow as out of its proper Fountain Of this misery the people here complain to God not to lay their sins off themselves on the Lord but to witnesse their deep sense of them as coming on them through Gods just desertion and deserved judgement Not to upbraid the Lord with their miseries but to spread them out before his feet as their onely hope from whose hand alone they expected a remedy The first Doctrine The godly pour out all their complaints in Gods bosom From the words thus exponed observe first The children of God in their worst estate are so familiar with their heavenly Father as to pour out in his bosom the complaints of whatever misery lies upon them At this time as appears by the words both before and after the peoples condition was exceeding hard We are all as an unclean thing our iniquities as the winde have taken us away Thou hast hid thy face from us and consumed us because of our iniquities His zeal strength and mercifull bowels seemed to be restrained towards them yet they come before him and that which troubled them most their wandring from his ways they spread it out before his feet as the matter of their chiefest complaint The truth of the Doctrine may be seen Lam. 4.1 The Proof hereof Remember O Lord what is come upon us consider and behold our reproach In all the Chapter and the whole Book there is a familiar complaining to the Lord of all their miseries Moses and Aaron in all their tribulation run to the door of the Tabernacle Jacob at the side of the foord Jabbuk in his great fray for Esau betook himself to weep and pray David in his present danger of stoning by his own men comforted himself in God Hezekiah spread out before the Lord the railing of Rabshakeh and after his desperate sicknesse turned himself to the wall to pour out his heart to God The examples of this practice are innumerable The Reason of it is The Saints interest in God The Reason He is their Father
There is no interruption of the course of mercy towards a People by the destruction of many particular persons Great Vengeance may be upon Thousands the carcases of Ten Thousands may fall in the Wildernesse even of Moses himself and many of the Shepherds both of Church and State and yet the Lord may graciously march on before his People till he have setled them and his Ark in peace on his holy mountain The Prayer consists of Petitions The second member Complaints Confessions of sin Professions of faith intertexed one with another as the holy passions of the Supplicants hearts do mix them In the fifteenth verse The matter of the 15 verse there is a Petition backed with a Complaint The Lord for a long time had left his People to the outrages of their Enemies he had as it were left the earth gone up to the heaven and miskent all that the Enemy had done to his People Now therefore they petition that he might be pleased to look down upon them from his holy and glorious Throne in the heaven For this is the strange faith of the Church That she is perswaded so far of the power and goodnesse of her God at that very time when he hath left her to sink in misery for her offences that even then if he would but look back to her in never so far a distance if from the very heaven the place of his retiring he would behold her on the earth overwhelmed with misery she is hopefull if she come but in the sight of her gracious Lord he would not fail to take pity upon her and deliver her To this Petition a Complaint is subjoyned of the restraint and withdrawing of Gods ancient favours Sometimes his zeal and strength had been employed in her defence his mercies the tender bowels of his compassions had been extended towards her but now all sense of such favours were away This complaint lest it should irritate The matter of the sixteenth is presently corrected in the sixteenth Verse with a fair profession of Faith â—bove and against all present sense however the beams of Gods loving countenance did not then shine upon them as at some other time yet they professe their certain perswasion that God was their Father Though Abraham and Israel and all their bodily Progenitors should cast them away as unworthy to be counted their children yet they did beleeve that their everlasting and unchangeable God would not cast them off but deal with them as children notwithstanding of all their misdeservings As for the words in hand in the seventeenth Verse The division of the Text. the Church goes on to powre out her spirit before him whom she beleeves to be her Father in the midst of all her afflictions in a new complaint and petition The complaint hath two parts and the petition is backed with a twofold Reason The first part of the complaint is in these words O Lord why hast thou made us erre from thy wayes the second part in these Why hast thou hardned our hearts from thy fear The petition is that he would return after his long absence The first reason They were his servants the second They were his inheritance Let us consider severally the minde and use of every part As for the first part of the complaint The Exposition of the first pars four things in it would be exponed First What are the wayes of the Lord. Secondly What it is to erre from his wayes Thirdly How God makes men erre from his way Fourthly How the Church complains of this divine action Three of these particulars are easie and may be dispatched in a word but in the fourth there is no little difficulty For the first What are the wayes of God Gods wayes here are his Commandments full of holinesse and righteousnesse they are called Gods wayes because of their similitude with his nature that is holy righteous and true All his Commandments and conversation are according to the strait rule of his eternall and essentiall holinesse righteousnesse and truth Secondly Because they are his Law and Prescription his will prescribes them as a way to his creatures to walk in Thirdly Because of his presence therein in that way he is to be found He is graciously present and doth conntenance all that walk into it Fourthly Because of their end they lead to God they are the strait way wherein the godly walk till they come to the glorious palace above The second point What it is to erre from these wayes To erre from these wayes is to sin as it is expressed Psal 119.8 10. To wander from Gods Commandments When we leave Gods way and run out on the right hand or the left to the wayes of our own blinde minde and corrupted heart our false opinions against Gods truth our wicked inclinations and actions against his holy nature and revealed will all of this kinde is our erring from his wayes But the great difficulty is in the third How God makes men to erre How the Lord causes us to erre from his way This would seem to make God the cause and author of sin which is a horrid blasphemy against many Scriptures and all reason To eschew this huge great and intolerable inconvenience sundry famous interpreters do translate the originall otherwayes then we read it Not Why hast thou made or caused us to erre but Why hast thou suffered or permitted us to erre So Junius an excellent translator And many hundred yeers before him the Chaldee Paraphrast did render it Why hast thou cast us away to erre from thy wayes This interpretation is approved by very Learned and Orthodox Divines who bring this reason for it That the Hebrew word here is not simply in the active form not in Kal but as they speak in Hiphil whose signification oftentimes is not to make or cause but to permit Indeed this translation does eschew fully the difficulty The Grammaticall solution of some great men is not selid yet we dare not venture upon it for as it seems it were to make too bold with the Scripture The Septuagens the ancient Latin the French the Dutch the Italian and many more reads it just as our English Why hast thou made us to erre from thy wayes The Grammaticall reason alleaged hath no strength in this place for be it so that Hebrew Verbs in Hiphil sometime have a permissive and not an active sense though this in any word is very rare and the examples alleaged are very questionable yet for the Hiphil of the word in hand we deny that ever it can be so exponed A number of places of Scripture may be produced where Hithah must be actively exponed as here our translators read it but not one if it be not this in question can be brought where it may be exponed of a meer permission without some agency and operation upon the erring and seduced person We dare not trust the solving of so
marvell therefore that men of awakened consciences make it a chief part of their complaint and grief That God had caused them to erre This being a figne of wrath and increase of guiltinesse and a forerunner of greater punishment The use is first for Caution 1 Vse for Caution To beware of that dangerous errour of taking comfort and encouragement from Gods judiciall hand in our sins that is to glory in our shame and to joy for what we should be sad It is to cast off our self the burden of our sin to whom alone it belongs on God whose eyes are purer then to behold iniquity Secondly 2 Vse for Counsel It serves for Councell to make it our chief grief in our mourning That we have faln under so heavy displeasure as to be scourged with the worst of Gods Rods Of all the Arrows in Gods Quiver this is the most venemous To be given over by God to sin this comes from a speciall wrath and is a presage of very great misery following When Gods spirit stirred up David to number the people it came from his anger against Israel and was a forerunner of the destroying Angell The blinding of the peoples eyes Isaiah 6. and John 12. is made an antecedent of a nationall ruine When ever we feel this to be our condition it should be the matter of our most mournfull complaint The fourth observation will clear the third it is this The fourth Doctrine Judiciall errours are most lamentable The godly when their eyes are opened to see their wandrings they are singularly affected with their judiciall errours As here the Church mourning and praying to God for sin and misery begins her complaint for these errours into which by Gods anger and judgement she had faln Old Israel by Gods judgement The Proof had faln in the grievous errour of civill discord which cost in two dayes the eleven Tribes the lives of fourty thousand men and in the third proceeded very near to the extirpation of the twelfth Tribe When the hand of God was lifted off them and they began to look back upon their actions Judges 21.2 they weeped fore before the Lord and complained to him of the great mischief wherein they had faln Though the injustice and obstinacy of Benjamin had been the immediate cause of the dissention yet they pittied their Brethren seeing it was the Lords judgement upon them all that had made that breach in Israel Verse 15. Ephraim in his pride would needs rebell against the house of David and have a King among themselves and Altars of their own making at Dan and Bethel God in justice gave them over to these sins of continuall sedition and idolatry till they were totally ruined He gave them a number of Kings in his anger Hos 8.11 Because Ephraim hath made many Altars to sin Altars shall be unto him to sin But when the Lord gave repentance to Ephraim see how much they are grieved ashamed and confounded for their madnesse wherein by the judgement of God they were made long to go on Jere. 31.18 I have heard Ephrains bemoaning himself thus Surely after I was turned I repented and after I was instructed I smote upon my thigh I was ashamed yea even confounded because I bore the reproach of my youth The Jews were plagued of God with a horrible blindnesse of minde and obstinacy of heart so that they rejected the Gospel crucified the Lord of Life and remain in Rebellion to this day But when the Lord shall take off the vail of their eyes and they begin to see their judiciall errours their madnesse against Christ and the Gospel wherewith God in justice did plague them their grief for it will be extraordinary as it is set down Zach. 12.10 They shall look on him whom they have peirced and they shall mourn for him as one mournath for his onely son and shall be in bitternesse for him as one is in bitternesse for his first-born 2 Thes 2. The Churches of the Gentiles are in Gods justice many of them given over to strong delusions to beleeve Antichristian Lyes but when God begins to open their eyes to see these delusions their grief and indignation for them is so great Revel 17.16 That they hate the whore who did seduce and bewitch them They make her desolate and naked They eat her flesh and burn her with fire The Reasons of this Doctrine The Reasons are the same which of the former especially the second The singular and extraordinary guiltinesse that is in these judiciall errours the blinded soul sees them not while God in mercy remove the cloud and send in his light but then the lightned soul beholding the horrible wayes wherein it hath been wandring such wherein it would never have walked had it not been led by a powerfull Divell set on by the permission and commission of a just God Seeing in these sins a just God a wicked Divell and a heart stirred up by extraordinary temptations by this horrible back-sight is affrighted and amazed till Faith in the infinite mercies of God doth calm and settle it The Use is for admonition The Vse Beware of judiciall errours very often they are never pardoned but bring on destruction both temporall and eternall 2 Thes 2.11 They to whom God sends strong delusions are damned Isai 6.11 When God shut the peoples eyes and made their heart fat the Cities were wasted and the Land made desolate Before Ephraim and Juda recovered themselves from that snare of rebellion and came to the repentance spoken of How many hundred thousands and millions of them did perish both temporally and eternally And these few whom the Lord bringeth to see and mourn for their judiciall ertours How great is their grief How much do they wish to have seen in time their madnesse that they might not so much have been plagued therewith But what are these judiciall errours which we would beware of Search the Scriptures they will make you wise in this very necessary point of knowledge For your use I shall point at some First Civill discord a Judiciall errour Civill Discord is a sin and a great judgement a sin to the authors and fomenters a judgement to all as well the innocent as nocent party Isai 19.2 God punisheth the sins of the Egyptians with his plague I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians and they shall fight every one against his brother and every one against his neighbour City against City and Kingdom against Kingdom and the spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst thereof and I will destroy the counsel thereof The same is the Judgement of Israel Zech. 11.6 I will no more pity the inhabitants of the Land but I will deliver the men every one into his neighbours hands and into the hands of his King and they shall smite the Land and out of their hand I will not deliver them This is the great Judgement that long hath lien upon us the
Princes or States refuse or delay to grant Ecclesiastick Government to the Churches that live in their Dominions Have the Independents the Brownists or the Anabaptists or any of the Hetorodox Societies among us wanted their own Government since the first hour of their self-erection The Judgement of this Errour appeareth in three Circumstances It is demonstrate to be a Judgement and Plague First That it is evident to all Secondly That it were most easily amended Thirdly That it is singularly hurtfull The Evidence of it may be seen in the confession of all The greatest and most unreasonable Sectaries will not deny but every true Church should be without all delay invested with Government And if you will speak with the men who most have and do retard the erection of the Government desired they will professe their true intention and desire to see the Church-Discipline established For this evil Anarchy hath been so oft by so many of Gods faithful servants witnessed against that now it s defended by none Concerning the second The facility of its erection it is as clear For I pray who are the men that will take it upon them to impede it Can we at this present or could we for some yeers complain of the violence of a seduced Court Can the blame be cast on any Popish or Prelaticall Faction Will either Brownists or Anabaptists professe their deniall to us of what they long ago have taken to themselves Who then must answer to God for our shamefull Anarchy for so long a time The hurt of it is too too perspicuous Whosoever will lay the Sword the Pestilence and all the Calamities that destroy the Land on our delay to build the House of the Lord shall have for him the Prophet Zechariahs direct Warrant Zech. 8.10 Before these days there was no peace to him that went out or came in because of affliction For I set all men every one against his neighbour And if we indeed believe It is not the strength of men but the Lord Christ who setleth troubled Kingdoms What hope can we have that he will ever settle our State so long as his Church lies neglected in so wofull a confusion Beside outward Judgements this Errour is the cause of the greatest spirituall Mischiefs The hedge of Discipline lying level with the ground makes open doors yea invites and calls for all the devouring beasts to prey on the Flock of Christ From this it is that so many thousand souls are permitted to perish eternally in ignorance in profanenesse in Heresies in damnable Sects without the least controll or any mans endeavour to reclaim them So long as the Law permits no Pastor in England to exercise his Pastorall charge on any person he may well weep and mourn when the devil in his sight plucks away numbers of his Sheep but with his Shepherds Crook with the Ordinance of Christs Discipline to hold off that Lion it is not in his power It is not onely the passionate desire of all the Reformed Churches abroad of all the godly and Orthodox Party at home but also their confident expectation That the Honorable Houses without further delay will at last set up the walls of the House of God who now is going on apace by so many Successes to ruine their enemies and to settle the state of their affairs much according to their hearts desire The neglect of this piece of Thankfulnesse may provoke the Lord to repent him of his favours and to call back in one day what he had been giving in many I point but at one other Judiciall wandering False Doctrine is a Judiciall Errour that which usually and properly goeth under the name of Errour the word of our Text false Doctrine contrary to the ways of Gods Truth That Errour is a sin and a Judiciall one infliflicted by God as a punishment of former sins we may see in divers Scriptures 2 Thess 2.10 11. Because they received not the love of the Truth for this cause God gave them over to strong delusions to believe a lye Here Errours are Judgements which God puts Satan to bring on men for their coldrife entertaining of the truth And how grievous a Judgment Error is this and other Scriptures clear Here it is made a cause of damnation That they might all be damned who believed not the Truth The Socino-Remonstrants have taught our new Masters to extenuate much and at last to deny the sinfulnesse and danger of Errour They would hide the Vipers sting till the pretty and beautifull worm be once taken into the bosom where a little warmed it makes it quickly appear how innocent and harmlesse a creature it is They tell us that all sin is in the Will Errour is a dangerous evil and the cause of damnation but the seat of errour is the minde Is not the minde the most high and divine facultie of the soul Is not the corruption of the best things truely worst The mindes pollution with the darknesse of errour is eminently contrary to the light and truth of the divine nature Against this greatest of errours the excusing of all errours we should minde the truth of God who cannot lye In the place cited errour is made the cause of damnation elsewhere the Apostle tells us That false Doctrine eats up and kills the soul as a Canker Gangrene or Pest doth the body 2 Tim. 2.17 Also false Teachers are called Ravening Woolfs who tear and rent in peeces the souls of the seduced Acts 20.29 The Apostle Peter is in the same minde 2. Epistle 2. He tells us the condition of false Teachers They bring in damnable Heresies their wayes are pernicious their distruction is swift their damnation slumbereth not It is as certain as was the damnation of the Devils of the old world drowned in the deluge of the Sodomites All this is Peters Doctrine And this he had from his Master Christ Matth. 7.15 Beware of false Prophets When they have the fairest shew of piety he that knows the heart pronounceth They are but ravening Woolfs Matth. 15.14 If the blinde lead the blinde both shall fall in the ditch If we beleeve the Lord a false Teacher doth not onely destroy himself but draws with him all his blinded Scholers into the ditch of the same perdition 1 Cor. 12.25 27. The Apostle tells us The nature of Shism That the Church is the Body of Christ and that Schismaticks make a Schism in Christs Body that is they rent his Body in peeces they who crucified him would not rent his seamlesse Coat but Schismaticks can tear his skin cut his flesh rent his Joynts and Members in peeces Understand the Language of them who plead for liberty of errours What is meant by liberty of conscience and what is the true sense of their language who require a toleration of Errours If you beleeve Christ or the Doctrine of Paul attested by Peter and the rest both Prophets and Apostles whom I have not time
it First The first cure of hardnesse is The embracing of the word by faith believe the Word of the Lord. Gods Word is the means that softneth the heart like the Sun that melteth the wax likethe Hammer that breaketh the stone the Fire that softneth the Iron the watry cloud that moistneth the dry and parched ground With all care and conscience set thy heart under the beams of that Sun the stroke of that Hammer before the heat of that fire under the droppings of that cloud The contempt the neglect the misbelief of this holy instrument of the Spirit is a great cause of all the hardnesse of heart we speak of Heb. 3. To day if ye will hear his voice harden not your heart Take heed there be not in any of you an evil heart of misbelief Who will not hear the voice or doth hear but with an evil heart of misbelief they harden their heart The Word which should melt them as the Sun doth Wax hardneth them as the Sun doth Clay that Word which to the believer is the loud voice of the Trumpet of God to waken them when sleeping to quicken them when dead becomes to the unbeliever and carelesse hearer the song of a pleasant voice to sing them asleep and to keep them sleeping To such the most powerfull Ministery of a Prophet of an Apostle of Christ himself serveth to make the heart more hard and fat and dead then it was before as from the sixth of Isai and twelfth of John it is manifest That which to the faithfull is a quickning Spirit to the misbeliever is a killing letter What to the one is the power of God to salvation to the other is but as sounding Brasse and a tinkling Cymbal Let it therefore be your earnest endeavour in all holy exercises about the Word private or publike be it preaching or reading or conference to embrace it with an honest heart with all attention reverence and faith Particularly Especially the promise of a soft heart embrace and lay up in thy heart the promise of a soft heart as it is set down Ezek. 36.26 there the people of God were in a worse condition then we yet The fury of the Lord was so far kindled against them for their sins that they were cast out of their Land they were swallowed up on every side as it is in the third verse They were taken up in the lips of talkers they were an infamy of the people and the reproach of the Nations and for all that were not reformed but continued to profane the Name of God and to encrease their provocations in the midst of all their Judgements Yet even then the Lord doth promise For my own Names sake not for your sake will I do this A new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and will give you an heart of flesh Let this Word as a pickle of good seed be laid up in the heart it will in time break up to good fruit This is a part of the new Covenant as appeareth from Jer. 31 and 32. and Heb. 8. which belongs to us as to any other which we would embrace humbly waiting till the Lord perform it to us A second help to softnesse of heart will be a Catalogue of sins for which we ought to mourn The second Cure of hardnesse is A clear sight of sin for softnesse of heart is either the same thing or proceeds in a great part from grief and forrow for sin as hardnesse of heart and impenitency are the same or are always conjoyned Thou from thy hardnesse or impenitent heart The tendernesse and melting of Josiahs heart was his mourning for the Lands sin The softning of the Jews heart from their long Plague of induration is when they are weeping and in bitternesse for their sins as one for his first-born The clear sight of sin being a help to grief sorrow and repentance must be so towards the softnesse of heart The speciall end of these solemn Humiliations is for registrating in clear and legible letters in the hearts of the godly the sins both of the Land and of their own persons The Tables of our conscience have been so oft impressed with these Types that I need no more but to remit every one to the books of their brests There you may read in capitall letters the cause of our Woes the matter of our Mourning While the Lords Candle did shine over our head What are the sins of the Land and we washed our steps in butter while to all the Neighbour-Nations for a great number of yeers we were a wonder of Prosperity and with abundance of all Temporall blessings we had likewise plenty of the Gospel How did we meet the Lord Great numbers of all ranks and estates were obstinate in Idolatry and known Papists Of them who professed the Truth how many were altogether void of knowledge void of fear without any conscience of God The most did pollute the Service and Church of God with manifold Superstitions and Prelaticall Tyranny persecuting all who had the least zeal to oppose their Corruptions True Piety was mocked The Sabbath by publike Authority profaned Covetousnesse Pride Oppression Pampering of the flesh Uncleannesse like a flood did overflow the Land In these very times when the Lords patience is broken off and he from heaven is revealing his wrath against our wickednesse yet where is our Repentance How many have an ear to hear more what the present Rods of God do speak then what his former Favours How many Popish and Prelaticall spirits have yet mourned for their old ways How many upon conscience have left any of the named abominations How great an addition have we made to our old heap of sin How much have we put to our old treasure of wrath Rather then to be reclaimed from their ways Hath not a great part run to the Sword and covered the Land with more innocent blood more Rapines and Ravishments then this Isle did see for many Ages together Many whom Gods mercy hath separate to the right hand Episcopacy and Independency flow both from one fountain How do they still provoke the Lord continuing without grief for their old ways And sundry of them who professemost Piety advancing the old unhappie way of this Land an affectation of singularity and difference from all the Reformed The bitter Potions of Gods Judgements have not yet purged out this very evil humour of many stomacks The vain spirits of this Land made that the peculiar glory of England which was truely her peculiar infamy and proper unhappinesse and the speciall grief of the most godly in the Land The gloriation of these light spirits was That England did excell all other Reformed Churches in their Episcopacy and Service-book also That the moderation of their King and Prelats was such that Romane Catholikes might enjoy a sober liberty
among them without all hazard of persecution Is this humour diminished to this day Or with a little change doth it not predomine yet in many We must still excell all other Churches in our Government In place of Episcopacie we will have a new Popularity Just the old Brownism of the rigid Separatists covered with the new name of Independency For after triall it will be found that this new and Middle way as it is called is really the extremity of the most rigid Separation That it is not a semi but a sesqui-Separation Independency is not a seâ—i but a sesqui-separation That for the smaller crotchets of the Brownists which they lay aside they adde more errors of a worse stamp which the old Separatists were wont much to detest But to sweâ—ten our new eminency above other Protestants it must be mixed with a Liberty of Conscience not that for which the King Court and Bishops were lately so much cryed out upon The toleration onely of Papists or any one false Religion but a full and Catholike Liberty for all imagiuable kindes of false Religion much more then to this day was ever required either in Amsterdam or Pall or Transilvania or any where else where the licentiousnesse of erring in the great wrath of God hath been permitted to dwell Upon these things the godly would look not as upon a subject of talking or an incentive of wrath and indignation against the persons of any but to be matter of heart-grief and mourning to the Lord in our secret places In the end of this Catalogue of publike sins thou wouldst have annexed a Register of thy personall provocations When thou hast brought the Candle of Gods Word and Spirit within thy own house and within the Cabinet of thy own brest doubtlesse thou wilt behold so many abominations both fleshly and spirituall that will be just cause of watering thy Couch with thy tears and pouring out thy heart before the face of the Lord if thou wer able in tears of blood A third help to softnesse of heart A third Cure of hardnesse is Motives to fear is Motives to fear for this hardnesse of heart proceedeth as from misbelief and impenitency so also from security wherefore in our Text it is opposite to fear Why hast thou hardned our hearts from thy fear And Josiah so soon as tendernesse of heart came upon him began to fear and tremble So Motives to fear are helps to softnesse and cures for hardnesse of heart Of these I point shortly but at three The Judgements of God on others His Mercies to us And if these affect not The Wrath yet to come on us For the first 1 Judgements on others we would oft remember the examples given us by God Who ever thou art thou hast thy patern from God Be thou a Church-man a Citizen a Knight an Earl a Duke a Prince how hath the Lord scourged divers of thy Coat lately before thy eyes wounded killed impoveriffied disgraced many and put others to stand this day on the brink of ruine and worldly misery Were they the greatest sinners on whom the Tower of Siloam fell Or they whose blood Pilate mingled with their Sacrifice The Lords remark on these Judgements was That except we repent we shall all likewise perish The late Judgements which God hath inflicted on many of thy quality are loud words to thee that thou mayest fear and tremble that thy heart may melt within thee for thy sins lest the Lord make thee a spectacle of Judgement to others who by the miseries of others wouldst not be taught to repent Again Remember the great mercies of the Lord 2 Mercies on us For there is mercy with God that he may be feared The speciall means whereby Nathan softned the heart of David after it had been long hardned in sin with Bathsheba was a Catalogue of Gods mercies towards him 2 Sam. 2. I dâ—livered thee out of the hand of Saul I made thee King over Israel I gave thee thy masters house and if that had been too little I would have given thee more Why hast thou despised my Commandment The ointment of mercy is most softning of it gracious heart when it groweth into hardnesse It s good to have a Register of Gods favours both to the publike and thy person Consider all that the Lord hath done lately for the Church and Kingdom If the Malignant party had prevailed as once they were too like to have done if their Tyranny in Church and State had been established by the overthrow of the gracious party in the whole Isle what wofull days should have come upon us and the posterity That the Lord hath heard our Prayers and from the heaven hath done so many and so great things for us That we are in so fair a way to have both Church and State setled according to Truth and Justice That for our persons we have been guided aright in the common Cause that when so many greater wiser better then we have been given over to the counsels of their own hearts to joyn with the enemy for their own disgrace and wrack That the Lord should have kept thy heart strait and hold â—â— thee on thee side wherein was Justice Truth and the blessing of God That in that party the Lord hath taken any service at thy hand when many more able and as willing have been unserviceable That thy life thy limbs thy estate are preserved when this service hath cost many their life some their limbs some their estates These and the like favours would be remembred for the softning of our heart In the third place 3 Greater Judgements yet coming if neither Judgements on others nor mercies on thy self will move consider what remedilesse evils may shortly be the reward of so great a contempt When Nabals heart grew like a stone within him the hand of God did in a little time cut him off by death When neither Judgements nor mercies bring a heart to fear the Lord usually pours out the full Vials of his heaviest wrath It is a fearfull thing to fall into the hand of that consuming fire We would do well to be lifting up our eyes to that invisible Spirit whom the world cannot see To behold his hand guiding all the wheels of publike and private affairs Were our State much better setled then yet for a long time it can be if he be miskent he can cast down in a moment more then men can build in many yeers If he be not feared and sought to he will so crosse and confound the guides of Church and State that when they are at the end of the Wildernesse on the very borders of Canaan he can bring them back to toil in the Wildernesse till they die without so much as a sight of that Canaan though once they had come very neer unto it Albeit the publike did prosper yet the fearfull wrath of God for thy hardnesse of heart may light on thy