pacifie the Consciences of sinners any more than the Blood of Bulls and Goats could do it under the Law yea any more than the Lustrations and Expiations of Sin amongst the Heathen could effect it Wherefore they have at length formed a more stated and specious Image of it to serve all the turns of convinced Sinners and this is a Purgatory after this Life that is a subterraneous place and various means where and whereby the Souls of men are purged from all their Sins and made meet for Heaven when the Lord Christ thinks meet to send for them or the Pope judges it fit to send them to him Hereunto let them pretend what they please the People under their conduct do trust a thousand times more for the purging of their Sins than unto the Blood of Christ But it is only a cursed Image of the vertue of it set up to draw off the minds of poor sinners from seeking an interest in a participation of the efficacy of that blood for that end which is to be obtained by faith alone Rom. 3.25 Only they have placed this Image behind the curtain of mortality that the cheat of it might not be discovered none who find themselves deceived by it can come back to complain or warn others to take care of themselves and it was in an especial manner suited unto their delusion who lived in pleasures or in the pursuit of unjust gain without exercise of afflictions in this world From these two sorts of persons by this Engine they raised a revenue unto themselves beyond that of Kings or Princes for all the endowments of their Religious houses and Societies were but commutations for the abatement of the fire of this Purgatory But whereas in its self it was a rotten Post that could not stand or subsist they were forced to prop it with many other imaginations for unto this end to secure work for this Purgatory they joyned the distinction of Sin into mortal and venial not as unto their end with respect unto Faith and Repentance not as unto the Degrees of sin with respect unto the aggravations but as unto the nature of them some of them being such namely those that are Venial as were capable of a purging expiation after this life though men die without any repentance of them And when this was done they have cast almost all the sins that can be named under this order And hereon this Image is become an Engine to disappoint the whole Doctrine of the Gospel and to precipitate secure sinners into eternal Ruin And to strengthen this deceiving security they have added another invention of a certain storehouse of Ecclesiastical merits the keys whereof are committed to the Pope to make application of them as he sees good unto the ease and relief of them that are in this Purgatory For whereas many of their Church and Communion have as they say done more good works then were needful for their salvation which they have received upon a due ballance of Commutative Justice the Surplusage is committed to the Pope to commute with it for the punishment of their sins who are sent into purgatory to suffer for them then which they could have found out no engine more powerful to evacuate the efficacy of the blood of Christ both as offered and as sprinkled and therewith the Doctrine of the Gospel concerning faith and repentance Moreover to give it farther countenance as one-lie must be thatched with another or it will quickly rain through they have fancied a separation to be made between guilt and punishment so as that when the guilt is fully remitted and pardoned yet there may punishment remain on the account of sin For this is the case of them in Purgatory their sins are pardoned so as that the Guilt of them shall not bind them over to eternal damnation though the wages of sin is death yet they must be variously punished for the sins that are forgiven But as this is contradictory in it self it being utterly impossible there should be any punishment properly so called but where there is guilt as the cause of it so it is highly injurious both to the Grace of God and blood of Christ in procuring and giving out such a lame pardon of sins as should leave room for punishment next to that which is eternal These are some of the rotten Props which they have fixed on the minds of persons credulous and superstitious terrified with guilt and darkness to support this tottering deformed Image set up in the room of the efficacy of the blood of Christ to purge the souls and consciences of Believers from sin But that whereby it is principally established and set up is the darkness ignorance guilt fear terrour of conscience accompanied with a love of sin that the most among them are subject and obnoxious unto being disquieted perplexed and tormented with these things and utterly ignorant of the true and only way of their removal and deliverance from them they greedily embrace this sorry provision for their present ease and relief being accommodated unto the utmost that humane or Diabolical craft can extend unto to abate their fear ease their torments and to give security unto their superstitious minds And hereby it is become to be the life and soul of their Religion diffusing it self into all the parts and concerns of it more trusted unto then either God or Christ or the Gospel Spiritual light and experience with the consequents of them in peace with God will safeguard the minds of Believers from bowing down to this horrid image though the acknowledgments of its divinity should be imposed on them with craft and force otherwise it will not be done for without this there will a strong inclination and disposition arising from a mixture of superstitious fear and love of sin possess the minds of men to close with this pretended relief and satisfaction The foundation of our preservation herein lies in Spiritual light or an ability of mind from supernatural illumination to discern the Beauty Glory and efficacy of the purging of our sins by the blood of Christ when the glory of the wisdom and grace of God of the love and grace of Christ of the power of the Holy Ghost herein is made manifest unto us we shall despise all the paintings of this invention Dagon will fall before the Ark and all these things do gloriously shine forth and manifest themselves unto believers in this misterious way of purging all our sins by the blood of Christ Herein will ensue an experience of the efficacy of this heavenly truth in our own souls There is no man whose heart and ways are cleansed by the blood of Christ through the effectual application of it by the Holy Spirit in the ordinance of the Gospel but he hath or may have a refreshing experience of it in his own soul and by the power which is communicated therewith he is stirred up unto all that exercise of Faith and all those duties
to God in Prayer 2. They have Faith to urge their pleas they are indeed the only Persons that have true Faith and it is Faith especially makes Men plead with God and improve all the Arguments they can so far as the Word which is the ground of Faith will warrant them so Moses pleads for Israel Exod. 32.11 12 13. And Jeremiah for the Jews in the Case of the Famine Chap. 14.7 8. The more Faith in Prayer usually the more pleading in it And this Prayer is always best because of the Faith that is Acted in it The goodness of Prayer is not to be Judged of by the Curiousness of the Composition the Elegancy of the Stile the Vehemency of the Expression but by the workings of Faith It is the Prayer of Faith that is called for and to which the promise is made James 1.6 3. They urge them with most fervency There is a natural fervency in Prayer which ariseth from natural affections excited and quickned by some pressing trouble or distress and there is a gracious fervency which proceeds from Faith nothing makes Men more earnest and warm in Prayer than Faith doth the more firmly a Man believe the more importunately he asks the greater hope he hath of prevailing the more vehement he will be in begging It was Jacobs Faith made him so importunate in Prayer that he wrestled with God and would not let him go unless he Blessed him Gen. 32.26 for he had a promise of being blest and all Nations in him Gen. 28.13 14. it was the Faith of that Promise stir'd up this Fervency And Matth. 15. that great example of importunity in Prayer the Syrophenician Woman is no less an example of Faith verse 28. O Woman great is thy Faith So that we may conclude the religious of a People Pray best because both with true Faith and spiritual Fervency 3. They Pray to best purpose with most success If ever any Prayer be effectual it is the fervent Prayer of a righteous Man Jam. 5.16 which is the same with the Prayer of Faith verse 15. when God abhors the Prayers of others he hath respect to his when the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to him the Prayer of the upright is his delight Pet. 15.8 He fulfills the desires of those that fear him he hears their cry and saves them Psal 145.19 They Pray according to his Will and he hears them 1 John 5.14 They having most Interest in God as before can prevail most with him and get most of him The Favourites of a Prince will many times prevail with him when the Petitions of common Subjects and much more of rebels are rejected by him The prevalency of godly Mens Prayers is well known and hath been often experienced by their Enemies themselves Pharaoh himself believed it when he desired Moses Prayers Exod. 9.28 and Simon Magus when Peters Acts 8.24 such are conscious to themselves of their want of an Interest in God and their being obnoxious to him and that the truly godly are in favour with him and therefore when their hearts fail them and they have not the Face to look up to God they will beg the Prayers of those that have when they are in great distresses or dangers on sick Beds when Conscience teiseth them Death looks grimly on them Hell gapes for them and Heaven frowns upon them then they must have some good Men to Pray for them they think God is ready to hear such when he is angry with themselves Thus 1 Sam. 15.16 Saul would have Samuel come back and worship with him he thought God was angry with him and would not look to him but Samuel might be accepted It was a good Testimony given by a Queen to the efficacy of the Saints Prayers when she professed her self more afraid of one poor Minister in the Pulpit than of a numerous Army in the Field And a good Bishop once told a great King concerning a godly Gentleman that was under some disfavour for his plain speaking that he had not a better Subject in his Kingdom being a Man that could have what he would of God The Romans themselves took notice of the prevalency of the Prayers of the Christian Legion among them in that great deliverance obtained by them in the time of the Emperour Marcus It is usually a sign of Mercy to a Person or People when God opens and enlarges the hearts of his Servants in Prayer for them When God intends to do them good he puts it into the hearts of such to seek it for them When the time of the Jews return from their Captivity drew neer he set Daniel at work to Pray for it chap. 9.1 2 3. And it is as bad a sign when the hearts of the godly are shut up and straitned so that either they drop others out of their Prayers or cannot be earnest with God for them he doth as it were secretly forbid them to Pray for such he hinders them by withdrawing his Spirit from them The Mercies he gives out to others being frequently at the request of his Saints when he stops those requests it is a sign he hath no Mercy for those for whom they were to be made when a Petition is prevented it is a sign it should not have been granted When God doth not prepare his Servants hearts he doth not incline his own ear Psal 10.17 As on the other side when he intends to hear he stirs up Prayer even as Princes will sometimes give a private intimation to those for whom they design a Favour to Petition them for it To conclude this the summ of all is the Religious of a Nation are upon this account the Strength of it so that they Pray most and with best success for it 3. As they are a means many times to stop the current of wickedness which is ready to overflow a Land with Judgments and to bring swift destruction on it for they are thereby a means to prevent or lessen those Judgments It is the Sin of a People that lays them open to wrath and he that would keep off wrath must endeavour to keep out sin he that would hinder the effect must obviate the cause It is the Devils damnable policy to draw Men into Sin that he may expose them to punishment this he taught his Disciple Baalam who taught the Midianites to cast a stumbling-block before the Children of Israel to eat things sacrificed to Idols and commit fornication Rev. 2.14 he could not otherwise hurt that People than by setting God against them and that he could not do by any means but bringing them to sin against him None are greater Enemies to a People nor can go a readier way to ruin them of which more hereafter than they that draw them into Sin and thereby into Gods displeasure and on the other hand none are greater Friends to them than they that labour most to keep them from Sin for that is the surest way to keep them from
have been about things less necessary yet their Hearts have been more thorowly broken and more unexpressibly longing for Spiritual supplies 'T is about Gods bestowing of his Grace that they adore his Sovereignty justifying God though he should reject them and wondering even to astonishment how he can shew kindness to them so that the more Spiritual any Christians are the more they lose their will in the will of God and the less they quarrel with God let him do what he will with them They do not think it in vain to serve God thô he should but he will not cast them off at last they thankefully acknowledge they receive so many mercies from God here as are infinitely more worth than all the Services they can do him and they see cause to love God thô there is no cause why God should love them so that they 'l pray and wait hate sin and love holiness admire God and abase themselves and let God do what he will with them This is the temper and practice of the most serious Christians This will teach us to observe Gods answering of Prayer so as to be thankful or penitent to retract or alter or urge our Petitions as our case requires And this I think I may say One of the choicest exercises of Grace is about the improving the return of Prayer e. g. I think such a thing to be good for me suppose a better frame of Health for this I fill my Mouth with Arguments and my Heart with Faith but God answers me with disappointments this puts me upon reflection I find causes more than are good why God should deny me Suppose further I beg the pardon of sin am sensible that I must perish if I be denyed and therefore reckon I can't be too earnest but am so far from speeding that to my apprehension God seems Implacable and I have less hopes every day than other Well! this puts me upon a more thorow Scrutiny and I find I have not observ'd Gods Method for Pardon I would have the comfort of a Pardon without a suitable sense of the evil of Sin which if I should obtain I should not be so shie of Sin as when I have felt the smart of it I should not look upon my self as so much beholding to Christ but that I might venture upon sin and have a Pardon at pleasure I should not so much pity others under their Soul-troubles In a word the more we consider the more cause we shall see why God answers Prayer according to his own wisdom not our Folly We do not see that Religion doth any great matter towards the Object 2 bettering of every condition those that pretend to Religion have always their own good word they love to speak and hear of the Atchievements and Priveledges of Religion thô they are invisible to all but themselves A little more Modesty and less Arrogancy would better become ' em To our grief we must acknowledge Answ that Serious Christians are shamefully defective in living up to such a height of Heavenly-mindedness as to have the Experiences they might have and shall we when we are injurious to our selves expect God to fulfill conditional Promises when we neglect the Condition of them No! Christians God will say to us what he once said to Israel e Lev. 26.3 c. If thou wilt walk in my Statutes and keep my Commandments and do them then the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth and all these blessings shall come on thee and overtake thee c. f Deut. 28.1 c. But if you will walk contrary unto me then will I walk contrary to you also g Num. 14.34 and you shall know my breach of Promise God doth not only in displeasure but in kindness make his People feel a difference in their Comforts from the difference in their walking ou may as well expect to buy things without Money because Money answers all things as to expect Promises fulfill'd to Godliness when you want that Godliness to which the Promise is made 'T is true God may give it of bounty but not of Promise and then it may be a Mercy but not a Blessing Make Conscience of performing the Condition and make Conscience of believing the Promise for God will certainly fulfill that Promise or a better so that the fault 's our own that we don't inherit the Promises When I have granted all that can rationally be demanded in the Objection do but impartially observe and you 'l find that notwithstanding all the defects and imperfections of Christians 't is they alone that live most above the vanity of every Condition h 2 Pet. 1.4 't is they only have received those exceeding great and precious promises whereby they are partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust and though they have not already attained that heavenly frame they hope for neither are already perfect i Phil. 3.12 c. yet this one thing they do forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before they press towards a full Experience of what is to be found in the wayes of Holiness If this be not a sufficient answer to this Objection what I shall add will be more than enough Whereas I have by an Induction of six comparative Cases I hope demonstrated the excellency of Serious Godliness I shall now in as many Instances beyond all Comparison and beyond Contradiction demonstrate the superlative excellency of the Power of Godliness all which may serve as arguments for Practical Godliness Serious Godliness will make your present Condition good for you be it what it will Every thing but Religion will make you think any Condition better than your present Condition There 's one Text I would commend to your consideration in this matter 1 Tim. 6.5 6. Those that are destitute of the Truth suppose that Gain is Godliness from such withdraw thy self but Godliness with contentment is great gain q. d. Those that only talk of Religion and wrangle about it they have no higher design than to make a gain of it avoid all familiarity with them but those that are sincerely Religious that know and fear and worship God aright there 's a Treasure a great Treasure k 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fundus quasi perannis sons a constant Revenue an unexhaustible Spring and then Content is not mentioned as a Condition added to Piety as if Piety were not great gain without Content added to it but Content is mentioned as the very genuine effect of Piety m Purum putum pietatis effectum The Godly man is so well contented with his Condition that he is not so solicitous as others for the bettering of it whatsoever is wanting to him is made up by Tranquility of mind and Hope in God that God will supply him with necessaries and he acquiesceth in his
will Now where 's that Man in all the World that can do this beside the Christian Serious Godliness will make every change of Condition good for us thô the change shock both Nature and Grace A change of condition is either the hope or fear of every one in this World and 't is not the least part of Heavens happiness that there 's no fear of change In that state of Happiness wherein Men and Angels were created Mutability was their Out-let into Sin and Misery but now through Grace there 's no change formidable Alas we change more or less every day and who is it that meets not with some almost overwhelming changes in his life and doth or should preparingly expect his greatest change at Death And let the Consciences of all that are not worse than dead say whether any thing on this side now-despised Godliness can so much as endure the thoughts of such a Change In the comparatively petty changes of our life when we but change Plenty into Want or Credit into Disgrace or Health into Sickness how do Persons fret and toss like a wild Bull in a Net or lye down sullen under God's hand as if he had done us wrong or were to give us account why he grieves us But now Grace in exercise turns our eyes inward and shews us what we have more cause to lament no evil comparable to the evil of Sin whatever God doth against us on this side Hell 't is less than sin deserves Will God any way prepare us for our unchangeable change glory be to Free Grace Serious Godliness will make Relative Afflictions which of all outward Afflictions are the most grievous good for us and nothing else can do it I confess 't is morally worse for all the Relations of a Family to go the broad way to ruine and thô their Lusts clash one against another yet to be all agreed to be the Devils willing Servants 'T was sad in Egypt n Exod. 12.30 when there was not an house whore there was not one dead but 't is far worse to have whole Families where there is not one Spiritually alive but thô 't is Sinfully worse than Divisions in Families about Religion yet 't is at present more dolefully Afflictive to have those whose Souls welfare we desire as our own to be Devils incarnate For a David a man after Gods own heart when he comes from publick worship o 2. Sam. 6.20 c. to bless his houshold to be so revil'd by Michal as to divert his Zeal to a twitting her with her Fathers rejection and his Blessing of his Houshold into Gods Curse upon her Self On the other hand for a most obliging Abigal p 1 Sam. 25.17 c. to have such a Son of Belial to her Husband that a man cannot speak to him that when by her prudent fore-sight he was preserv'd from sudden death he was so drunk as not to be capable of hearing of his danger Again for Abraham the Father of the faithful to have a seven years Promise of a Son and for God to give that Son his Name and this Son to prove a scoffing Ishmael for Isaac the quietest of all the Patriarchs to pray twenty years for a Son and to have his first-born prove a profane Esau for good Eli to have such Children as †1 Sam. 2.17 made the Offerings of the Lord to be abhorred And on the other hand for Hezekiah of whom 't is said q 2 Kings 18.5 After him was none like him among all the Kings of Judah nor any that were before him to have such a Father as Ahaz that as it were r 2 Kings 16.3 devoted his Children to the Devil and hath this peculiar brand upon him ſ 2 Chron. 28.22 that in the time of his distrests did he trespass yet more against the Lord this is that King Ahaz How might every one of these complain as Rebekah did t Gen. 27.46 I am weary of my Life because of some wicked Relations and if I should have more such what good shall my Life do me Again for Masters to have such Servants as Mephibosheth had of Ziba * 2 Sam. 16.1 4. who irreparably blasted him in his Reputation and ruin'd him in his Estate For Servants to have such a Master as Laban was to Jacob who gives this account of his twenty years Service †Gen. 31.40 c. In the day the Drought consumed me and the Frost by Night and my sleep departed from mine Eyes and had not God relieved him by little less than Miracle Surely thou hadst sent me away empty And now having mentioned sinful relative Afflictions I 'le mention no other for there 's no Evil comparable to Sin nor any Evil so intolerable to a Gracious Soul that if Serious Godliness can keep from sinking under this burden you need fear no other to be inseparably related to one that is loaded with infamy or even famisht thrô Poverty loathsomely diseased or incurably distracted these are but flea-bitings to the stabbing wounds of wicked Relations But now serious godliness doth not only support but grow under this burden which is a priviledge they are injurious to themselves to overlook Christ takes upon him all those Relations that are impossible to meet in any other that what is grievous in any Relation may be comfortably made up in him and God usually increaseth their Graces thô not alwayes their present Comforts Serious Godliness will make horror of Conscience and divine Desertions good for us These where there is no godliness nor working towards it they are none of the least of Hell torments but where they befall any one that is godly or that God is about to make so they prove healing thô rough Physick When God thorowly awakens the Conscience thô with a fright and drops spiritual influences thô withdraws he makes Convictions more deep and Repentance more sound you may take this for a tryed case Those serious Christians whom God is pleased to exercise with tremblings of Conscience temptations of Satan and apprehensions of Desertion God thereby makes them eminently gracious and compassionately useful they walk most humbly with God justifying and praising him under his most astonishing Providences And thô above all temptations these are so far from joyous that they are most grievous yet these even these u Heb. 12.11 afterwards yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby Serious Godliness will force something good out of the evil of Sin Here it concerns me to speak with more Caution than in any other Case whatsoever for we must not dare to venture upon Sin thrô hopes of extracting good out of it as Chymists extract Spirits out of Soot and Vrine c. No The Apostle tells us * Rom. 3.8 That those that do but say that offer to say we may do Evil that Good may come of it the Damnation of those slanderers is just So that
receive it i. e. To acknowledge receive resign entrust and subject our selves unto God in Christ revealed in it 2ly And of how vast importance this is towards our establishment the confirming fortifying and uniting of our hearts and our joynt preservation in our Christian state the main thing we are to design and be solicitous for we may see in these particulars 1. Hereby we should apprehend the things to be truly great wherein we are to unite That union is not like to be firm and lasting the center whereof is a trifle It must be somewhat that is of it self apt to attract and hold our hearts strongly to it To attempt with excessive earnestness an union in external formalities that have not a value and goodness in themselves when the labour and difficulty is so great and the advantage so little how hopeless and insignificant would it be The mystery of God even of the Father and of Christ how potently and constantly attractive would it be if aright understood and ackowledg'd Here we should understand is our life and our all 2. Hereby we should in comparison apprehend all things else to be little And so our differences about little things would languish and vanish We should not only know but consider and feelingly apprehend that we agree in far greater things than we differ in and thence be more strongly inclin'd to hold together by the things wherein we agree than to contend with one another about the things wherein we differ 3. Hereby our Religion would revive and become a vital powerful thing and consequently more grateful to God and awful to men 1. More grateful to God who is not pleased with the stench of Carkasses or with the dead shewes of Religion instead of the living substance We should hereupon not be deserted of the divine presence which we cannot but reckon will retire when we entertain him but with insipid formalities What became of the Christian interest in the world when Christians had so sensibly diverted from minding the great things of Religion to little minute circumstances about which they affected to busie themselves or to the pursuit of worldly advantages and delights 2. More awful to men They who are tempted to despise the faint languid appearances of an impotent inefficacious spiritless Religion discern a Majesty in that which is visibly living powerful and productive of suitable fruits Who that shall consider the state af the Christian Church and the gradual declining of Religion for that three hundred years from Constantines time to that of Phocas but shall see cause at once to lament the sin and folly of men and adore the righteous severity of God For as Christians grew gradually to be loose wanton sensual and their leaders contentious luxurious covetous proud ambitious affecters of Domination so was the Christian Church gradually forsaken of the divine presence Inasmuch as that at the same time when Boniface obtained from Phocas the title of universal Bishop in defiance of the severe sentence of his Predecessor Gregory the great sprang up the dreadful delusion of Mahomet †Brerewood's Enquiries And so spread it self to this day thorough Asia Africa and too considerable a part of Europe that where Christians were twenty or thirty to one there was now scarce one Christian to twenty or thirty Mahometans or grosser Pagans And what between the Mahometan infatuation and the Popish Tyranny good Lord what is Christendom become when by the one the very name is lost and by the other little else left but the name 4. Hereby we shall be inabled most resolvedly to suffer being call'd to it when it is for the great things of the Gospel the mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ clearly and with assurance understood and acknowledg'd Such a faith will not be without its pleasant relishes 'T is an uncomfortable thing to suffer either for the meer spiritless uncertain unoperative notions and opinions or for the unenlivened outward forms of Religion that we never felt to do us good in which we never tasted sweetness or felt power that we were really nothing ever the better for But who will hesitate at suffering for so great things as the substantials of the Gospel which he hath clearly understood whereof he is fully assured and which he hath practically acknowledged and embraced so as to feel the energy and power of them and relish their delicious sweetness in his soul And thô by such suffering he himself perish from off this earth his Religion lives is spread the more in the present age and propagated to after ages So seminal and fruitful a thing is the blood of Martyrs as hath alwaies been observ'd And as such a faith of the Mystery of the Gospel appears to have this tendency to the best firmest and most lasting union among Christians and the consequent preservation of the Christian Interest this mystery being more generally considered only So this tendency of it would be more distinctly seen if we should consider the more eminent and remarkable parts of it The mystery of the Redeemers person The Emmanuel God uniting himself with the nature of man His Office A reconciler of God and Man to each other His Death as a propitiatory sacrifice to slay all enmity His victory and conquest over it wherein is founded his universal Empire over all His triumphant entrance into Heaven whither he is to collect all that ever lov'd trusted and obey'd him to dwell and be conversant together in his eternal love and praises How directly do all these tend to endear and bind the hearts and souls of Christians to God and him and one another in everlasting bonds Thus then we have the answer to our question in the two parts of the Text. The former pointing out to us the subjects of our union with the uniting principle by which they are to be combin'd with one another The other the center of it with the uniting principle whereby they are all to be united in that center Vse And what now remains but that we lament the decay of these two principles And to our uttermost endeavour the revival of them 1. We have great cause to lament their decay for how visible is it and how destructive to the common truly Christian Interest It was once the usual cognisance of those of this holy profession See how these Christians love one another and even refuse not to dye for each other Now it may be How do they hate and are like to dye and perish by the hands of one another Our Lord himself gave it them to be their distinguishing character By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if you love one another Good Lord what are they now to be known by And what a cloudy wavering uncertain lank spiritless thing is the Faith of Christians in this age become How little are the ascertaining grounds of it understood or endeavoured to be understood Most content themselves to profess
Soul-mercies for his Children To see them poor in the World will not so much afflict him as to fear they will never be rich to God Besides the Sins of those that are nearly related are most frequently presented to our eyes and ears they cry nearest us and therefore they should cry loudest to us They are most committed to our care and therefore their miscarriages should be the greatest objects of our Fear Near Relations may also probably more endanger the residue of those that belong to our Family Sin in one or two though in a large Family may endanger and infect the whole We most strive to quench those Flames that destroy houses near us we are more fearful of them than of those at a greater distance A Snake in ones Bed is more formidable and a Toad there more odious and ugly than in my Field or Garden § 7 3. They that mourn for others Sins especially the Sins of those they most love must mourn more for their Sins than their Afflictions and outward Troubles They must be more troubled for the poysonful root of Sin than for the Branches and Fruits of Sufferings that spring from the Root We must more mourn for the sin of a Child than for the sickness of a Child More lay to heart what our Children have done than what they have undergone more for their Impiety than for their Poverty more because they have left God than because their Trades or Estates have left them more for fear they dy'd in Sin than because they dy'd The Troubles of the outward man must not so afflict us as the Unrenewedness of their Hearts and Natures To be afflicted for the death of thy Child's Body and not for his Soul-death in Sin is as if a fond Parent should when his Child is drown'd only lament the loss of the Child's Coat and Garment and not for the loss of the Child's Person § 8 4. We ought to bewail the Sins of others according to the Proportion of the Sins of the times and places where we live When Sin grows impudent and hath a brazen brow when 't is declared as Sodom Jer. 3.3 and not hidden when men are asham'd of nothing but not being impudent in sinning when Sinners cannot blush Jer. 6. v. 8 12. have lost the very colour of Modesty then is a fit Season for Gods People with Ezra 9.6 to say We are ashamed and blush to lift up our faces to thee our God to bewail and blush before God for those Sins of which Sinners are not ashamed and for which they have not a tear to shed Further when the Sinners of the times are obstinate and inflexible in Impiety as Nehem. 9.16 Harden their Necks 17. refuse to obey 20. are disobedient and rebell cast the Law behind their back 29 withdraw the shoulder and will not hear when they make their face as an Adamant Stone When the Wicked say as Jer. 44. As for the Word that thou hast spoekn we will not hearken to thee we will do whatever goes forth out of our own mouth then is the time for the Godly to have broken and melted Hearts when the Wicked are so Obstinate and Obdurate Next when Sin becomes universal when Governers and Governed from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head are all prophane and impious Isa 1.6 When a man cannot be found in the streets of Jerusalem Jer. 5.1 that will stand up for God and his Interest when as in dayes of Noah all flesh hath corrupted it self then is the time for all Gods People to mourn before God and to oppose an holy universality to a profane Lastly When not ordinary but the most horrid and gross Impieties are committed as Murder Sodomy Perjury broad-fac'd Adultery when these mountainons Wickednesses are acted then is the time for the Godly to endeavour to overtop these high towering abominations with a Flood of tears 5. We ought to mourn for the Sins of others advantageously to § 9 those for whom we mourn with the using of all due means to reclaim and reduce them 1. By Prayer for their Conversion and Gods pardoning them My hearts desire and prayer to God saith Paul is that Israel might be saved Rom. 10.1 He tells Chap. 9.1 how he bewail'd them that he had great heaviness and continual sorrow in his heart for them but here we see he mingled his tears with prayers for them We cannot mourn for those for whom we cannot pray for every Evil that makes us grieve because of its continuance we must needs desire may be removed Exod. 32.11.27 Thô Moses when he was with the People maintain'd the Cause of God with the Sword yet when he was with God he endeavoured the preservation of the People with prayer 2. We must endeavour to follow the Mourning for Sinners with restraining them from Sin if we have it by Power We must not hate Sinners and suffer them to sin we destroy those whom we suffer to sin if we can hinder them None may permit Sin in another if he can restrain it but he that can produce a greater Good out of it than the permission is an Evil. Restraining of Inferiors is as great a duty as Prayer for Superiours See it in the case of Eli's negligence to restrain his Sons from their Impieties 3. We must mourn for Sinners with advantaging them by Example that they may never be able to tax us with those Sins for which we would be thought sorrowfull Examples sometimes have a louder voice than Precepts Tears will not in secret drown those Sins which publick Examples encourage We confute our Tears and Prayers before God by an unsuitable Example before the Offender The blots of others cannot be wip'd off with blurred fingers 4. We must follow our mourning for others Sins with labouring to advantage them by holy Reproof for the Sins we mourn for If our place and opportunities allow us we must not only sigh for their Sins but cry against them Ezek. 9.4 Lot was not only a Mourner for the Sodomites Sins but a Reprover I know not whether it be a greater sign of a Godly man to give a Reproof duly or to take a Reproof thankfully 1. But be sure Reproofs be given with Zeal for Gods Glory not either out of hatred to the Person reproved or out of desire to promote thine own Reputation and Interest by the Reproof The Apostles Acts 14.14.17.16 reproved Idolaters but Zeal for God purely put them upon it Paul and Barnabas rent their Cloaths as well as reproved Idolaters And Pauls Spirit was stirr'd with inward Zeal Act. 17.16 before his Tongue stirr'd against the Athenians Let Reproofs 2. Be mingled with Meekness Passion is seldom prevalent with a Sinner Sweep not Gods House with the Devils Besom Let the Sinner see thee kind to himself when thou art most unkind to his Sin 3. Let Reproofs be qualified with Prudence by observing the nature and degree of the Offence and the
With a reflection of Care and Watchfulness that thou mayst never dare to fall into the Sins that thou bewailest in another and that thou mayst never admit a temptation to a Sin in thy self which is the object of thy Lamentation in another That thou who labourest to quench the fire that hath seized upon thy Neighbours house mayst be careful to preserve thine from being set on fire also To conclude that thou mayst not dare to do that which doth or should grieve thee to see another do § 17 III. To shâ—w why this holy Mourning is 1. The Disposition and 2. Duty of the Righteous I shall express the Reasons of both distinctly 1. It is their Disposition and that under a threefold qualification 1. Because they are a knowing People They know what tears and heart-breakings Sin hath stood them in they know that Sin will cost the Wicked either Tears of Repentance or Damnation They know that Sin is but gilded Destruction and Fire and Brimstone in a disguise Knowing the terror of the Lord saith Paul we perswade men 2 Cor. 5.11 'T is as true we mourn for men that will not be perswaded In one word the Godly know that when the Wicked sin they know not what they do The Word threatning Sin makes Woe as present to a knowing Saints Faith as the evil threatned can in its execution be present to a Sinners sense To a Saints eye sinning is but the Seeds-time of Wrath and Eternal Vengeance in the root But principally the Godly know what Sin hath cost Christ not tears of Water only but great and many drops of Blood 2. As to a Saints Disposition He is Compassionate and tender-hearted § 18 If Sinners mourn he mourns with them If not he mourns for them The Wicked are more the objects of his Pity than Anger The Saints only have Bowels Col. 3.12 and Christs Bowels Phil. 1.8 The Wicked as the High Priests were to Judas are hard-hearted in drawing to Sin and in leaving those whom they have drawn into it Good men are full of tears see it in David Ezra Joseph Josiah Jeremiah Quanto quisque sanctior tanto fletus uberior The more holy the more plentiful are our tears Saints have received and return Compassion Grace kills not but only cleanseth Affection 3. The Righteous are a purifi'd sanctifi'd People A Saint as such § 19 hates nothing but Sin Grace ever conflicts with Sin where it sees it either in a mans own Soul or in the Life of another Holiness contends with Sin where it cannot conquer it Now where an Object is truly hated it ever causeth Sorrow till it be removed Further every sanctifi'd Soul labours to keep it self holy Now sorrow for Sin puts us upon carefulness to avoid it 2 Cor. 7.11 All take heed of that which occasions their grief 2. 'T is the Duty as well as the Disposition of the Righteous to § 20 mourn for the Sins of others And that as they are considerable in a threefold Relation 1. In their Relation to God they are his Sons Phil. 2.15 As the Sons of God they are commanded to be blameless without Rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse Nation This Relation of Sonship doth as truly make us mourn for the Sins of others as it engageth us to avoid Sin in our selves It suffers us not to put up dishonour offered to God our Father with sinful Patience It makes us quietly to bear our private troubles but not quietly to suffer the Sufferings of Gods Name Exod. 32.11.27 Thô Moses when with God pray'd for the People yet when with the People he vindicated the honour of God with the Sword Job 2.10 Thô Job when a Sufferer from God was holily patient yet when an hearer of the Counsel of his Wife to curse God he was as holily impatient A Son of God cannot bear the abuses offered to his Father Saints can no more endure the dishonour done to their heavenly Father according to that measure of Grace given unto them than the Angels which are in Heaven do according unto theirs Jesus wept for Lazarus's death because his Friend and should not we much more weep for Gods dishonour because our Father Gods Glory should be dearer to us than our Lives He that toucheth it should touch the Apple of our Eye and that soon makes it water § 21 2. Their Relation to the Mediator the Lord Christ Here I shall mention only a double relation between Christ and Saints that engageth them to mourn for the Sins of others The first is his Relation to us as a suffering Surety in respect whereof he sustain'd and pay'd the debt of Penalty which we owed to Gods Justice for 't was Sin in man that made Christ a man of Sorrows Saints have but one Friend and He but one Enemy how then is it possible that that Enemy when seen should not be the Object of Sorrow Sin drew not from our dear Lord Jesus's eyes only tears of Water but from his sacred face great drops of Blood 'T was Sin that pierced not his feet hands and side only but his Soul Who can look upon the bloody Knife that stabb'd Christ without some Sorrow 2. There 's a second Relation between Christ and Saints that should make them mourn for the Sins of the Wicked and that is the Relation of Teacher and Instructer We are his Disciples and Scholars and 't is our Duty as much to make him our Example as to expect he should obtain our Pardon Christ never had a Pollution but oft a Commotion of Affection Christ never wept but for Sin or its effects How full of Zeal was he for his Father when he saw his Glory blemished Joh. 2.17 Joh. 19.9 10 11. Mar. 3.5 his House defiled did it not after a sort eat him up and consume him The Reproaches of them that reproached God fell upon Christ Rom. 15.3 'T is observable thô Christ in his own cause gave Pilate no answer but stood silent yet when he heard Pilate arrogate to himself the Power of Life and Death over Christ he could not forbear to shew Pilate his Sin by telling him of an higher Power than his from whence his was derived How full of grief was Christ Luk. 19.41 seeing the hardness of the Jews hearts to their own destruction In his approach to Jerusalem filled with Enemies to God and him he wept over it for their Blindness and Impieties and approaching Destruction He bewail'd the Sins of those that rejoyced in them and shed his tears for those that thirsted to shed his blood Either resemble Christ or lay off the name of Christian § 22 3. Their Relation to the Wicked for whose Sins they should mourn 1. The Saints are men with the worst they have the Relation of humane nature to the greatest Sinners upon Earth they are ex eodem luto formati In the Body as the Apostle expresseth it Heb. 13.3 'T is a wickedness to hide our selves from
our own flesh Isa 58.7 Humanity in respect of common nature should cause Humanity in regard of Affection To see Mans Nature so depraved that was once so beautiful so like the Devil that once so much resembled God so swiftly running to Hell that was once an Heir of Heaven should draw forth Pity unless our hearts be Flint and Marble A mans Beast deserves thy Pity much more his Soul 2. The Righteous are the same with the Wicked in respect of § 23 corrupt depraved Nature born in Sin as much as they Eph. 2.3 with a Principle of inclination to all their Impieties Saints by nature grew upon the same Root flow'd from the same Fountain were Stones digg'd out of the same Quarry Should it not then make thee mourn to consider by the wickedness of others thine own inbred depravation What thou hadst done thy self if God had not either renewed or restrained thee yea what thou wouldst do if God should leave thee and withdraw his Grace from thee What are all the visible Impieties in the World but Comments and Expositions upon thy depraved Nature This Drunkard Adulterer Sodomite Murderer and I say Lord were both cut off from the same piece and only Free Grace came between us If it have made thee white Paper thou wert by Nature as very a Dunghil rag as the filthiest Sinner 3. Perhaps the Holiest men have been some way or other Furtherers § 24 of the Sins of the Wicked among whom they live perhaps by their former Sinful Example when they lived in the same Sins themselves which now the Wicked wallow in 'T is very possible that one that shall be saved may have been the cause of anothers Damnation shouldst not thou then mourn for killing that Soul which God so severely punisheth thô Free-Grace hath pardon'd thee Should we not quench that Fire with our Tears which we have blown up with our Bellowes of encouragement Saints that are to mourn for others Sins possibly have suffered Sin in others when they might have restrained them We destroy all those whom we suffer to sin and perish when we can prevent it May there not be some Elies among Godly men who have too negligently reproved and animadverted upon the Sins of those under their charge 'T is possible to be a good man and yet a bad Magistrate Minister Parent by not restraining the Sins of those committed to us Cold Reprovers cause bold Sinners An idle silence may sometimes be more pernicious than Idle yea profane Words 4. In this Relation of Saints to Sinners that should put them upon § 25 Mourning for them 't is very considerable that the Godly and the Wicked make up one Community or political Body in the places where they live in which respect the Sins of some particular offender or offenders may pull down Judgments upon the whole body or lump of persons that abide where those offenders live So that every one had need do his utmost by mourning and in whatever other way he can to redress the Sins and so to prevent the Plagues of the place where he lives 'T is very evident Deut. 21.1 2 3. c. the Blood of one man murdered defiles the whole bordering Land and provokes the Lords displeasure against a people even all the place where one notorious Wickedness is committed The Sin of making the Golden Calf thô 't was not the Sin of all yet it endangered all The Altar built by the two Tribes and an half which the rest of the Tribes thought had been built for Sacrifice was thought by Phineas to be so great a provocation as that Josh 22.18 for it the Lord would be wroth with the whole Congregation of Israel For the villany by some of the Inhabitants of Gibeah committed in abusing the Levites Concubine Judg. 20.46 the Vengeance came not only upon the City where it was committed Josh 7.12 2 Sam. 21.1 but upon all the Tribe of Benjamin Achans Sin troubled all Israel There came a Famine upon Israel for three years together for the Sin of Saul in killing the Gibeonites contrary to his Fidelity This was the chief Cause of the custom which was at the publick Fasts in Israel for the finding out of notorious Offenders and offences to have Vengeance taken on them openly Hence was the pretence of Jezabel for the killing of Naboth 1 King 21.9 10. under a shew of Execution of Justice against a Blasphemer to pacifie Gods anger By all this 't is evident what just cause the Godly have to mourn for all the Abominations committed among them which else may pull down Divine Vengeance upon them § 26 IV. APPLICATION 1. Use of Information in sundry Branches 1. Godliness is Vniform in all times places and companies Saints in the worst of these keep up their Integrity and are so far from joining with Sinners in their Sins that they by lamenting their Sins before the Lord enter their Protestation against them A Righteous man is not as the Swine in a Meadow clean only in clean places he will maintain opposition to Sin in the midst of Inducements to Sin Lot did so in Sodom His goodness may justly be suspected that only shews it self in good Places Companies and Times § 27 2. The greatest Sinners cannot Constrain us to sin They cannot extort our consent to Sin Sodom could not thô never so filthy make Lot so No external inducement can take from a Godly man either his Peace or Purity Men may constrain thee to be poor not impure The worst Creatures either among Men or Devils cannot take away what is best The greatest temptation is no plea for committing the least Sin if we give not away none can take away our Holiness 3. One Cause may produce contrary Effects Others sins draw the Wicked § 28 to follow them but they put the Saints upon bewailing them The coming of the Angels into Sodom stirrs up in Lot a desire to exercise Hospitality in the entertaining them but it stirres up in the impure Sodomites the heat of Lust and the most horrid Uncleanness That which sets the Graces of Saints on work puts the Wicked upon Acts of Impiety A Godly man is drawn nearer to God by that very thing that drives the Wicked farther from God 'T is the Disposition of the Person that makes what befalls him good or bad Davids beautiful House of Cedar puts him upon setting up Gods House Nebuchadnezzar's Palace puts him upon thoughts of haughtiness and proud self-admiration 4. 'T is our Duty to rejoyce in the Holiness if to mourn for the Sins § 29 of others Love to Gods house in others was Davids gladness Psal 122.1 'T was the greatest joy of holy John that his spiritual Children walk'd in the truth 3 Epist 4. Holy ones were Paul's Joy Crown and Glory 1 Thes 2.19 20. This rejoycing in the Grace of others must be thô their Grace out-shines and eclipseth ours They who have but a little Grace themselves must rejoyce
that others have and act more than they The Preaching of Christ by those that envyed made Paul joyful Phil. 3.18 It should please us though another can do more service to God than our selves 5. Christianity abolisheth not Affection but rectifies it It dries not § 30 up the streams of Sorrow Joy Hatred c. but only turns them into the right Channel it removes not away their Being but their ill Being Religion non mactat sed sanctificat it slayes not but sanctifies affections It doth not unman a man but only undevil him Grace is like the percolation or dreining of Salt water through the Earth it only takes away the brackishness and unsavouriness of our affections and faculties It kills not Isaac but the Ram it doth not break but only tune the string of nature Non tollit sed attollit it destroyes not but advanceth Nature When you are Godly you have more innocent Humanity than ever You may exercise humane affections and actions as much as you can desire only not to damn your selves You may eat thô not be Gluttons drink thô not be drunk buy and sell so as you make not sale of a good Conscience Grace gives leave to every thing besides damning your Souls 6. Every thing betters a Saint Not only Ordinances Word Sacraments § 31 Holy Society but even Sinners and their very sinning Even these draw forth their Graces into exercise and put them upon Godly broken-hearted Mourning A Saint sails with every wind As the Wicked are hurt by the best things so the Godly are bettered by the worst Because they have made void thy Law therefore do I love thy Commandements Psal 119.127 Holiness is the more owned by the Godly the more the world despiseth it The most eminent Saints were those of Caesars Nero's house Phil. 4.22 They who kept Gods name were they that lived where Satans Throne was Rev. 2.13 Zeal for God grows the hotter by opposition and thereby the Godly most labour to give the Glory of God reparation Lime by casting Water upon it grows inflamed and opposition confirms the upright Christian in Holiness Winds make the trees more firmly rooted 'T was said of old Grave bonum a Nerone damnari the best action Saints account that which is opposed by the worst men Elijah's Jealousie for Religion was the more kindled by its being opposed by Idolaters 1 King 19.14 Lot shew'd himself a better man in Sodom than in the Cave Gen. 19.30 § 32 7. The great Misery Sin hath brought into the World to make Sorrow and Mourning necessary Could we live so holily as we cannot as not to see cause of trouble from our selves we must be troubled by observing others Ever since the coming in of Sin Sorrow is become a Duty What is to live long in the World but to be Mournful and Afflicted long It should make us long for a better World where that which is here our Duty to practise shall for ever be our Priviledge to be freed from And § 33 8. There must needs remain a better State for the Saints Surely thô here Sorrow yea because Sorrow is here their Duty it must not alway last here and hereafter too in both Worlds for then their Condition in this regard would be worse than that of the Wicked who have their good things here § 34 9. How ought Sinners to mourn for their own Sins The nearer the Enemy is the more dreadful he is Nothing more dismal than to see a Sinner to go not swiftly only but merrily to Eternal Mourning Maxime gemendus qui non gemit He that hath no tears for himself should be helpt by ours § 35 The Second Use is of Reprehension and that to sundry sorts Vse 2 1. To those that reproach the holy mourning of Saints for others Sins They count it at the best but melancholy Mopishness First they cause them to mourn and then they deride them for mourning like some that beat a person till he cryes and then they beat him for crying 'T is better to be a Mourner for Sin than a Mocker for mourning Some account mourning for publick Sins a sign of disaffection to the Publick Government As Jeremy who mourned for the Sins of his time was charged to be an Enemy to the State They are not to be accounted the troublers of Israel who are the only persons troubled for the cause of Israels troubles They are falsly esteem'd the Incendiaries in a State whose great study is to quench Gods burning Wrath. If Sinners kindle the Fire let Saints quench it 2. This Doctrine of Mourning for the Sins of others speaks Reproof § 36 to those that take pleasure in the Sins of others Rom. 1.32 I fear there are many who would be glad were Sin more common that there might be none to make them asham'd of Sin that delight in the frowardness of the Wicked Prov. 2.14 that recreate themselves with others Sins that say of Sinners as the Philistines of Blind Samson Let them come and make us sport by Sinning that cannot be merry unless a Sinner be in their Company Fools make a mock of Sin Prov. 14.9 Some have observed that among all Solomons delights he never had a Fool to make him merry Of all Fools Sinners are the greatest but especially they that are delighted with the sinful follies of others To be delighted with the Holiness of others is a good sign but to be delighted with the Sins of others is a black mark Holy David was of a contrary temper Depart saith he Psal 119.115 from me ye Workers of Iniquity No Wicked mans Company is to be desired unless to do him good We should not be with the Wicked as Companions but Physicians The Wicked's good Fellowship will have a bad Conclusion 3. This Doctrine reproves those that mourn for the Holiness of others § 37 Who are troubled when they see a Child or Yoke-fellow holier than themselves These are most afraid where no fear is That a man can be too fearful of Sin 'T is sad that a precise Turk or Papist should be honoured for their silly self-contrived preciseness and Fopperies and that a Saint should be derided for real Sanctity I have known some Parents that have greatly desired their Children should be good Husbands to get and encrease their Estates but then have been very fearful lest they should be too Godly and it hath been the righteous Judgment of God that their Children proved Spend-thrifts neither Godly nor Good Husbands 'T is often seen that as Gardiners with their Sheers ship off the tops of the tallest sprigs so men most labour to discountenance the tallest in Christianity 4. This Doctrine reproves those that put others upon Sin so far § 38 are they from mourning for their Sins Poor Souls have they not Sins enough of their own to answer for must they needs contract to themselves the Guilt of others Sins also How many instead of being burning Coals to inflame others with love
to God are blacking Coals to defile others with Sin They are not willing to go to Hell alone 'T is little enough to be a Leader to Heaven but too much to be a Follower to Hell what then to be a Leader Of Exhortation to mourn for the Sins of the Wicked among whom § 39 Vse 3 we live 1. If we mourn not for others Sins theirs become ours We are justly to be accounted approvers of others Sins if we enter not this Protestation of Mourning against them If sin be not layd to thy heart thou knowing it it will in some degree be layd to thy Charge When the Corinthians mourned for the sin committed among them the Apostle pronounc'd them clear of this matter 2 Cor. 7.11 Their Hatred of it did not clear them till followed with mourning for it § 40 2. Mourning for others sins is the way to awaken thy Conscience for thine own former Sins It will mind thee what thou hast done in thy former unconverted state It will bring to remembrance as Paul speaks Tit. 3.3 what thou didst in times past and cause a fresh bleeding in thy Soul for Sin § 41 3. Without Mourning for Sinners you 'l never seek the Reformation of Sinners The greatest Mourners have been the greatest Reformers See it in Nehemiah Ezra David Neh. 9.16 Ezra 9.6 7. 6.10 We only seek to redress what is burdensom If Reformation be our Joy Sin to be reformed will be our Sorrow All mourners will desire to remove the Cause of their Mourning Private Sorrow increaseth publick Care § 42 4. This mourning for others Sins will make us more fearful to admit Sin into our selves It will keep us at a greater distance from temptation to Sin the best way to keep us from infection by Sin Who will dare to do that which he grieves to see another do He that is afraid of a Plague-sore upon another will fear it should come upon himself § 43 5. Mourning for others Sins speaks thee a man of publick usefulness to thy Countrey That thou hast an holy Care of it that thou art to be reckon'd among the Chariots and Horsemen of it and a Pillar of thy Nation a Defender of it and one that stands in the gap to prevent the incursion of what would destroy it That in a publick Conflagration thou hadst rather bring thy bucket of Tears than take thy sleep A publick Spirit is only truly Noble § 44 6. Mourning for others Sins makes the Sins of others beneficial to thee Instead of infecting thee by sinful Example it stirs up thy Graces of Zeal Compassion and holy Charity It speaks thee like to Christ who had a Commotion without Pollution of Affection That thou hast an Heart like a Garden of Roses or a well of Rose-Water which the more blown upon and stirr'd smell the more delightfully For this § 45 7. Holy Commotion of Soul for others sins sends forth a most acceptable and fragrant savour into the Nostrils of God It speaks thee marked out for Mercy God bottles thy Tears He likes it that thou art good in bad times and highly approves our mourning for them He will shortly wipe all these Tears from thine Eyes and bring thee to that state where thou shalt have neither Sin in thy Soul nor Sinner in thy Society where thou shalt be freed from the power and presence of both in one word where thou shalt find that thou who didst contend in secret hast prevailed openly 4. I shall adde thô but name one Use more and that is Direction § 46 to the means of practising this duty of holy Mourning for others Sins Vse 4 1. Look not upon this duty with self-Exemption as if it belonged only to the highest in the practice of Religion or persons in Office The whole Church of Corinth were bound to mourn for that great Sin among them All desire to be marked 1 Cor. 5.2 and therefore should be Mourners 2. Look upon mourning for Sin to be no Legal practice but an Evangelical Duty the Gospel-Grace makes Tears sweeter not fewer 3. Preserve tenderness of Conscience in respect of thine own Sins 4. Strengthen Faith in divine Threatnings against Sin 5. Be Holily not curiously inquisitive into the state of the times Lastly Take heed of being drown'd in sensual Delights Quest How a Child of God is to keep himself in the Love of God SERMON VI. JUDE Vers 21. Keep your selves in the Love of God Syr. hath it thus Let us keep our selves in the Love of God But the Greek Arab. Aethiop have it as we read it THIS is the Scripture upon which we ground this solemn Case and Question And a weighty one it is to every Soul that pretends to the Love of God and the happy Priviledges of it Now the summe of this short Epistle whâ—ch is but one Chapter is this I say the design of the Spirit of God by the Apostle is in two things 1. To confirm true Believers in the Faith of Christ 2. To caution them against the Enemies of it These Enemies are described in four things Verse 4. 1. By their Qualities they turned the Grace of God into Laesciviousness and denied the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ Such were the Carpocratians and Gnosticks this they did both in Doctrine and Manners 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 In their Entrance into the Church Subtilly and secretly as Foxes into the Fold or like Wolves in Sheeps-clothing the proper mark of False Teachers 3. By their End Which is Condemnation whereunto they are appointed vers 4. 4. By their Parallel of the Evil Angels the old World Sodom and Gomorrah Vers 14. to 19. ver 7. 8. Such were foretold by Enoch and the Apostles Of these the Apostle Jude warns the Saints and withall shews how they should quit themselves principally in two things 1. As to themselves 2. As to others The First consists in four things 1. Building up our selves in the Holy Faith 2. Praying in the Holy Ghost vers 20. 3. Keeping of our selves in the Love of God 4. Looking for the Mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto Eternal Life vers 21. The second what they must do to others 1. They must put a difference between them that are fallen off Verse 22 23. and them that are falling as being of different Complexions having Compassion on some with the Spirit of Meekness others treating with some quickness pulling them out of the Fire 2. They must hate the Appearance of Evil even the Garment spotted with the Flesh 3. Pray for them that God would keep them from falling Verse 20. 24. For the Grace of Christ by which we alone stand without which neither they nor we can do any thing he both can and will do it faithfully 4. Praise the Lord who hath made such Provision for our Preservation and Salvation vers 24 25. Now that which I shall confine my self to is in vers 21. the first Clause Keep
2. But now more particularly I. He that will keep himself in the Love of God must he himself love God for Love deserveth Love and Love begetteth Love Gods Love worketh thus towards us and therefore our Love must work towards God Prov. 4.6 Prov. 8.17 Our Love to God is but the Reflection of the Beams of Gods Love upon us Love Wisdom and she shall love thee I love them that love me And thus the Beams are doubled and the Love of God to the Soul and the Souls love to God encreaseth the heat betwen both as it is with the Sun shining on the Earth II. He that loves God loving him Magnes amoris amor is drawn to God by the attractive Beams of Divine Love these are called the Bands of Love Hos 11.4 He that loves God loving him is inflamed with Gods Love as it is in a Burning Glass This is a Heavenly Fire kindled from Heaven and not easily quenched Cant. 8.7 He that loves God loving him finds the strongest Obligation upon him to Love God as constrained to it 2 Cor. 5.14 and God endears him to love God from his Heart for Love ravisheth the Heart beyond all things in the World The Lord and his Spouse ravish one another Cant. 4.9 III. He that will keep himself in the Love of God must mind and meditate on four Attributes and Properties of Gods Love which will have great influence upon his Heart and Love 1. On the Eternity of Gods Love to him which hath been ever of old time out of Mind yea before all Time he hath been thy Friend and thy Fathers friend therefore forget him not Prov. 27.10 Because Election which is the effect of Gods Eternal Love is Eternal Ephes 1.4 And because he is Love essentially 1 John 4.8 therefore his Love is Eternal as himself Hos 14.4 2. On the Freeness of Gods Love All the Arguments of his Love are drawn out of his own Breast therefore this free Love of God is called Grace 2 Tim. 1.9 which is no Grace unless it be gratuitous and free Not according to works saith the Apostle the great Champion of Free Grace which Bradwardin calls the Cause of God but according to his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus Rom. 11.5 6. before the world began And again There is a remnant according to the election of grace and if by grace then it is no more of works otherwise grace is no more grace O meditate on this How should the consideration of this keep us in the Love of God! ¶ Mark and mind this well Free Grace and Love sent Jesus Christ into the World and all the train of Spiritual Blessings Joh. 3.16 1 Joh. 4.9 1. The free Love of God was the Cause of Election Rom. 11.5 2. The free Love of God is the cause of our effectual Vocation Gal. 1.6.15 3. The free Grace and Love of God is the cause of our Adoption Eph. 1.5 6. 4. The free Love and Grace of God is the cause of our Justification Rom. 3.24 5. The free Love and Grace of God is the cause of the Pardon of Sin Rom. 5.20 6. The free Grace and Love of God is the cause of true and thorough Conversion 1 Cor. 15.10 7. The free Grace and Love of God is the Cause of true Faith Act. 18.27 8. The free Grace and Love of God is the cause of Christs suffering for us Heb. 2.9 9. The Free Grace and Love of God is the Cause of that inestimable Jewel and Blessing the Word of God Act. 14.3 10. The free Grace and Love of God is the cause of our Salvation Eph. 2.5 8. ¶ O meditate and mind the infinite free Love of God in all the sweet Streams of it and dwell upon the meditation of it and be ravished with it and give the God of Grace and Love the Glory of it for ever 3. Mind the Immensity of Gods Love This is so vast an Ocean that thou wilt find neither Bounds nor Bottom in it Hear the Apostle upon it Eph. 3.18 That ye may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the Breadth and Length and Depth and Height and to know the Love of Christ which passeth knowledge To know it to pass all knowledge The Consideration of this alone hath so amaz'd some devout Souls that they have been in an Extasie above and besides themselves with it 4. Mind and meditate on the Unchangeableness of Gods Love This is grounded upon two immutable things by which it is impossible for God to lie This O! Heb. 6.17 18. this gives sure Anchor-hold and comfort to a true Believer in a Storm v. 19. This Assurance God hath given his People of old Jer. 31.3 I have loved thee with an everlasting love Rom. 8. ult Joh. 13.1 It is an Inseparable Love It is a final Love but not finite Love It is to the end and without end It is Invincible Love Cant. 8.6 It is an Vnquenchable Love Cant. 8.7 Obj. If this be so what need then of the Apostles Exhortation to keep our selves in the Love of God Answ 1. Because Gods Promises and Believers Priviledges do not exclude but include the use of Means For instance Phil. 2.12 13. Work out your own Salvation with fear and trembling for it is God that worketh in you to will and to do of his good pleasure Eph. 1.5 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundaon of the World that we should be holy and without blame before him in love 2 Pet. 1.4 to verse 10. He tells them God hath given them exceeding great and precious Promises yet bids them to give all diligence to make their Calling and Election sure by adding Grace to Grace Ephes 2.3 He saith we are saved by Grace through Faith which is the Gift of God without Works and yet he saith we are created to good Works that we should walk in them and this God hath ordained v. 9 10. 1 Thes 5. After he had Exhorted them to many Dutyes he adds this Faithful is he that hath called you who also will do it Mark our Text and compare it with the Context after when he bids us keep our selves in the love of God he saith Vers 24. God is able to keep us from falling and to present us faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy 2. God who prevents us with his Grace and works upon us and in us unto Conversion and Regeneration hereby puts into us an Active Principle and helps and recruits it continually by auxiliary Grace Our habits of Grace cease acting if God suspends the influence of Grace as we see in Peters ease both upon the Waters when he began to Sink till the Lord gave him a Hand and went on denying his Master till the Lord looked upon him and melted him into Tears God will ever have us beholding to him and lean upon him h. 15.4 5.
flatter themselves whilst they please that on one consideration or other they shall be the Objects only of their kindness if these men according to their Profession be obliged in conscience to execute whatever their Superiors shall command them no less than Abraham was to sacrifice his Son on the Command of God they hold their Lives at the Mercy and on the good Nature of these Superiors who are always safe out of the reach of Revenge It is marvellous that Mankind doth not agree to demolish this cursed Image or the Ascription of a Godlike Power unto men to require blind Obedience unto their Commands especially considering what effects it hath produced in the world All men know by whose Device it was first set up and erected by whom what means and unto what end it was confirmed and consecrated and at this day it is maintained by a Society of men of an uncertain Extract and Original like that of the Janizaries in the Turkish Empire their Rise being generally out of obscurity among the meanest and lowest of the People Such they are who by the Rules of their Education are taught to renounce all respect unto their Native Countreys and Alliances therein but so as to make them only the way and matter for the advancement of the interest of this new Society And this sort of men being nourished from their very first entrances into the conduct of the Society unto hopes and expectations of Wealth Honour Power Interest in the disposal of all publick Affairs of Mankind and the Regulation of the Consciences of men it is no wonder if with the utmost of their Arts and Industry they endeavour to set up and preserve this Image which they have erected from whence they expect all the advantage which they do design But hereof I may treat more fully when I come to speak of the Image of Jealousie it self SECT X. From these Generals I shall proceed unto more particular Instances and those for the most part in important Principles of Religion wherein Christian Faith and Practice are most concerned And I shall begin with that which is of signal Advantage unto the Framers of these Images as the other also are in their degree for by this craft they have their Livelihood and Wealth and most pernicious to the Souls of other men It is a Principle of Truth that such as wherein the whole course of Christian Obedience is concerned that there is a Spiritual defilement in Sin This the Scripture every where declares representing the very Nature of it by spiritual Uncleanness And this Vncleanness is its contrariety unto the Holiness of the Divine Nature as represented unto us in the Law This Defilement is in all men equally by Nature all are alike born in Sin and the pollution of it Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean And it is in all personally in various degrees some are more polluted with actual Sins than others but all are so in their degree and measure This pollution of Sin must be purged and taken away before our entrance into Heaven for no unclean thing shall enter into the Kingdom of God Sin must be destroyed in its Nature Practice Power and Effects or we are not saved from it This Purification of Sin is wrought in us initially and gradually in this Life and accomplished in Death when the Spirits of just men are made perfect In a compliance with this work of Gods Grace towards them whereby they purifie themselves consists one principal part of the Obedience of Believers in this world and of the exercise of their Faith The principal internal immediate efficient cause of this purification of Sins is the Blood of Christ the Blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God cleanseth us from all our Sins 1 John 1.7 The Blood of Jesus purgeth our Consciences from dead works Heb. 9.14 He washeth us in his own Blood Rev. 1.5 And there is an external helping Cause thereof which is Trials and Afflictions made effectual by the Word and accomplished in Death But this way of purging Sins by the Blood of Christ is mysterious There is no discerning of its Glory but by spiritual Light no experience of its Power but by Faith Hence it is despised and neglected by the most that yet outwardly profess the Doctrine of the Gospel Men generally think there are a thousand better ways for the purging of Sin than this by the Blood of Christ which they cannot understand See Micah 6.6 7. It is Mysterious in the Application of it unto the Souls and Consciences of Believers by the Holy Ghost it is so in the Spring of its efficacy which is the Oblation of it for a Propitiation and in its relation unto the new Covenant which first it establisheth and then makes effectual unto this end The Work of it is gradual and unperceptible unto any thing but the eyes of Faith and diligent spiritual Experience Again It is so ordered by Divine Wisdom as strictly to require to begin excite and encourage the utmost diligence of Believers in a compliance with its efficacy unto the same End What Christ did for us he did without us without our aid or concurrence As God made us without our selves so Christ redeemed us but what he doth in us he doth also by us what he works in a way of Grace we work in a way of Duty And our Duty herein consists as in the continual exercise of all gracious Habits renewing changing and transforming the Soul into the Likeness of Christ for he which hopes to see him purifieth himself as he is pure so also in universal permanent uninterrupted Mortification unto the end whereof we shall speak afterwards This also renders the Work more Mysterious and difficult The improvement of Afflictions unto the same end is a principal part of the Wisdom of Faith without which they can be of no spiritual Use unto the Souls of men This Notion of the Defilement of Sin and that of the Necessity of its purification were retained in the Church of Rome for they could not be lost without not only a rejection of the Scripture but the stiffling of natural conceptions about them which are indelibly fixed in the Consciences of men But Spiritual Light into the Glory of the thing it self or the mystical Purification of Sin with an experience of the power and efficacy of the Blood of Christ as applied unto the Consciences of Believers unto that end by the holy Ghost were lost amongst them In vain shall we seek for any thing of this Nature either in their Doctrine or their Practice Wherefore having lost the Substance of this Truth and all experience of its Power to retain the Use of its Name they have made sundry little Images of it creeping things whereunto they ascribe the power of purging Sin such as Holy Water Pilgrimages Disciplines Masses and various commutations But they quickly found by experience that these things would neither purifie the Heart nor
of obedience whereby the work of purifying and cleansing the whole person may be carryed on toward perfection see 2 Cor. 7.1 1 Thes 5 2â— 1 John 3.3 And he who is constantly engaged in that work with success will see the folly and vanity of any other pretended way for the purging of sins here or hereafter The consequent of these things is peace with God for they are assured pledges of our justification and acceptance with him and being justified by Faith we have Peace with God and where this is attained by the Gospel the whole Fabrick of Purgatory falls to the Ground for it is built on these Foundations that no assurance of the love of God or of a justified state can be obtained in this life For if it may be so there can be no use of Purgatory This then will assuredly keep the souls of believers in a contempt of that which is nothing but a false relief for sinners under disquietment of mind for want of peace with God SECT XI Some other instances of the same abomination I shall yet mention but with more brevity and sundry others must at present be passed over without a discovery It is granted among all Christians that all our helps our relief our deliverance from sin Satan and the world are from Christ alone This is included in all his Relations unto the Church in all his offices and the discharge of them and is the express Doctrine of the Gospel It is no less generally acknowledged at least the Scripture is no less clear and positive in it that we receive and derive all our supplies of Relief from Christ by Faith other wayes of the participation of any thing from him the Scripture knoweth not Wherefore it is our duty on all occasions to apply our selves unto him by Faith for all supplies Reliefs and deliverances But these men can find no life nor power herein at least if they grant that somewhat might be done this way yet they know not how to do it being ignorant of the life of Faith and the due exercise of it They must have a way more ready and easy exposed to the capacities and abilities of all sorts of Persons good and bad yea that will serve the turn of the worst of men unto this end An Image therefore must be set up for common use instead of this spiritual application unto Christ for relief and this is the making of the sign of the Cross Let a man but make the sign of the Cross on his forehead his breast or the like which he may as easily do as take up or cast away a straw and there is no more required to engage Christ unto his assistance at any time And the vertues which they ascribe hereunto are innumerable but this also is an Idol a teacher of Lies invented and set up for no other end but to satisfie the carnal minds of men with a presumptuous supposition in the neglect of the spiritually laborious exercise of Faith an Experience of the work of Faith in the derivation of all supplies of spiritual Life Grace and Strength with deliverance and supplies from Jesus Christ will secure Believers from giving heed unto this triffling deceit SECT XII One thing more amongst many others of the same Sort may be mentioned it is a notion of Truth which derives from the Light of Nature That those who approach unto God in divine Worship should be careful that they be pure and clean without any Offensive defilements This the Heathen themselves give Testimony unto and God confirmed it in the Institutions of the Law But what are these defilements and pollutions which make us unmeet to approach unto the presence of God how and by what means we may be purified and cleansed from them the Gospel alone declares And it doth in opposition unto all other ways and means of it plainly reveal that it is by the sprinkling of the blood of Christ upon our Consciences so to purge them from dead Works that we may serve the Living God see Heb. 9.14 chap. 10.19 20 21. But this is a thing mysterious nothing but spiritual Light and saving Faith can direct us herein Men destitute of them could never attain an Experience of purification in the way Wherefore they retained the notion of Truth it self but made an Image of it for their use with a neglect of the thing it self And this was the most ludicrous that could be imagined namely the sprinkling of themselves and others with that they call Holy Water when they go into the places of sacred Worship which yet also they borrowed from the Pagans So stupid and sottish are the minds of men so dark and ignorant of heavenly things that they have suffered their Souls to be deceived and ruined by such vain superstitious Trifles This Discourse hath already proceeded unto a greater length than was at first intended and would be so much more should we look into all parts of this Chamber of Imagery and expose to view all the abominations in it I shall therefore put a close unto it in one or two instances wherein the Church of Rome doth boast it self as retaining the Truth and Power of the Gospel in a peculiar manner whereas in very deed they have destroyed them and set up corrupt Images of their own in their stead SECT XIII The first of these is the Doctrine and Grace of Mortification That this is not only an important Evangelical Duty but also of indispensable necessity unto Salvation all who have any thing of Christian Religion in themselves must acknowledg It is also clearly determined in the Scripture both what is the nature of it with its causes and in what acts and duties it doth consist For it is frequently declared to be the crucifying of the Body of Sin with all the Lusts thereof For Mortification must be the bringing of something to death and this is sin and the dying of sin consists in the casting out of all vitious habits and inclinations arising from the Original depravation of nature it is the weakning and graduate extirpation or destruction of them in their roots principles and operations Whereby the Soul is set at liberty to act universally from the contrary principle of Spiritual Life and Grace The means on the part of Christ whereby this is wrought and effected in believers is the communication of his Spirit unto them to make an effectual application of the vertue of his death unto the death of sin for it is by his Spirit that we mortifie the deeds of the flesh and the flesh it self and that as we are implanted by him into the likeness of the death of Christ By vertue thereof we are crucifyed and made dead unto sin in the Declaration of which things the Scripture doth abound The means of it on the part of Believers is the exercise of Faith in Christ as crucifyed whereby they derive vertue from him for the crucifying of the Body of death And this
of Jesus Christ THE CVRE of MELANCHOLY AND OVERMUCH-SORROW BY FAITH and PHYSICK Quest What are the best Preservatives against Melancholy and Overmuch Sorrow SERMON XI 2 COR. II. VII Lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow THe Brevity of a Sermon not allowing me Time for any unnecessary Work I shall not stay to open the Context nor to enquire whether the Person here spoken of be the same that is condemned for Incest in 1 Cor 5. or some other nor whether Chrysostom had good Tradition for it that it was a Doctor of the Church or made such after his Sin nor whether the late Expositor be in the right who thence gathers that he was one of the Bishops of Achaia and that it was a Synod of Bishops that were to excommunicate him Dr. Hammond who yet held that every Congregation then had a Bishop and that he was to be excommunicated in the Congregation and that the People should not have followed or favoured such a Teacher It would have been no Schism or sinful Separation to have forsaken him All that I now intend is to open this last Clause of the Verse which gives the Reason why the censured Sinner being penitent should be forgiven and comforted viz. Lest he should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow as it includeth these three Doctrines which I shall handle all together viz 1. That Sorrow even for Sin may be overmuch 2. That overmuch Sorrow swalloweth one up 3. Therefore it must be resisted and asswaged by necessary Comfort both by others and by our selves In handling these I shall observe this Order 1. I shall shew you when Sorrow is overmuch 2. How overmuch Sorrow doth swallow a man up 3. What are the Causes of it 4. What is the Cure I. It is too notorious that overmuch Sorrow for Sin is not the ordinary Case of the World A stupid blockish Disposition is the common Cause of mens perdition The Plague of a hard Heart and seared Conscience keeps most from all due sense of Sin or Danger or Misery and of all the great and everlasting Concerns of their guilty Souls A dead sleep in sin doth deprive most of the use of Sense and Understanding they do some of the outward Acts of Religion as in a Dream they are vowed to God in Baptism by others and they profess to stand to it themselves they go to Church and say over the Words of the Creed and Lords Prayer and Commandments they receive the Lords Supper and all as in a Dream They take on them to believe that Sin is the most hateful thing to God and hurtful to man and yet they live in it with delight and obstinacy they dream that they repent of it when no perswasion will draw them to forsake it and while they hate them that would cure them and will not be as bad and mad as they who feel in them any effectual sorrow for what is past or effectual sense of their present badness or effectual resolution for a new and holy Life They dream that there is a Judgment a Heaven and a Hell but would they not be more affected with things of such unspeakable Consequence if they were awake would they be wholly taken up with the Matters of the Flesh and World and scarce have a serious thought or word of Eternity if they were awake O how sleepily and senselesly do they think and talk and hear of the great Work of mans Redemption by Christ and of the need of Justifying and Sanctifying Grace and of the Joys and Miseries of the next Life and yet they say that they believe them When we preach or talk to them of the greatest things with the greatest evidence and plainness and earnestness that we can we speak as to the dead or to men asleep they have Ears and hear not nothing goeth to their hearts One would think that a man that reads â—n Scripture and believes the everlasting Glory offered and the dreadful punishment threatned and the necessity of Holiness to Salvation and of a Saviour to deliver us from Sin and Hell and how sure and near such a passage into the unseen world is to us all should have much ado to moderate and bear the sense of such overwhelming things But most men so little regard or feel them that they have neither time nor heart to think of them as their Concern but hear of them as of some foreign Land where they have no interest and which they never think to see Yea one would think by their senseless neglect of preparation and their worldly minds and lives that they were asleep or in jest when they confess that they must die and that when they lay their Friends in the Grave and see the Skulls and Bones cast up they were but all this while in a Dream or did not believe that their Turn is near Could we tell how to waken Sinners they would come to themselves and have other thoughts of these great things and shew it quickly by another kind of Life Awakened Reason could never be so befooled and besotted as we see the wicked world to be But God hath an awakening day for all and he will make the most senseless soul to feel by Grace or Punishment And because a hardned Heart is so great a part of the Malady and Misery of the unregenerate and a soft and tender Heart is much of the New Nature promised by Christ many awakened Souls under the work of Conversion think they can never have Sorrow enough and that their danger lies in hard-heartedness and they never fear overmuch sorrow till it hath swallowed them up yea though there be too much of other Causes in it yet if any of it be for sin they then cherish it as a necessary Duty or at least perceive not the danger of Excess and some think those to be the best Christians who are most in doubts and fears and sorrows and speak almost nothing but uncomfortable Complaints but this is a great mistake 1. Sorrow is overmuch when it is fed by a mistaken Cause All is too much where none is due and great sorrow is too much when the Cause requireth but less If a man thinketh that somewhat is a Duty which is no Duty and then sorrow for omitting it such sorrow is all too much because it is undue and caused by errour Many I have known that have been greatly troubled because they could not bring themselves to that length or order of meditation for which they had neither Ability nor Time And many because they could not reprove sin in others when prudent instruction and intimation was more suitable than reproof And many are troubled because in their Shops and Callings they think of any thing but God as if our outward Business must have no thoughts Superstition always breeds such sorrows when men make themselves Religious Duties which God never made them and then come short in the performance of
and they have it not to pay them its hard to keep all this from going too near the heart and hard to bear it with obedient quiet submission to God especially for Women whose Nature is weak and liable to too much Passion 2. And this Impatience turneth to a setled Discontent and Vnquietness or Spirit which affecteth the Body it self and lieth all day as a Load or continual Trouble at the Heart 3. And Impatience and Discontent do set the Thoughts on the Rack with Grief and continual Cares how to be eased of the troubling Cause they can scarce think of any thing else and these Cares do even feed upon the Heart and are to the Mind as a consuming Feaver to the Body 4. And the secret Root or Cause of all this is the worst part of the Sin which is too much Love to the Body and this World Were nothing ovâ—â—loved it would have no power to torment us if Ease and Health were not overloved Pain and Sickness would be the more tolerable if Children and Friends were not overloved the Death of them would not overwhelm us with inordinate sorrow if the Body were not overloved and worldly wealth and Prosperity overvalued it were easie to endure hard Fare and Labour and Want not only of Superfluities and Conveniences but even of that which is necessary to Health yea or Life it self if God will have it so at least to avoid Vexations Discontents and Cares and inordinate Grief and Trouble of mind 5. There is yet more Sin in the root of all and that is it sheweth that our Wills are yet too selfish and not subdued to a due submission to the Will of God but we would be as Gods to our own chusing and must needs have what the Flesh desiâ—◠〈…〉 â—â—â—t a due Resignation of our selves and all our Concerns to God and 〈…〉 as Children in due dependance on him for our daily Bread but â—â—â—t needs be the keepers of our own Provision 6. And this sheweth that we be not sufficiently humbled for our sin or else we should be thankful for the lowest state as being much better than that which we deserved 7. And there is apparently much Distrust of God and Vnbelief in these troubling Discontents and Cares could we trust God as well as our selves or as we could trust a faithful friend or as a Child can trust his Father how quiet would our minds be in the sense of his Wisdom All-sufficiency and Love 8. And this Unbelief yet hath a worse Effect than worldly Trouble it sheweth that men take not the Love of God and the Heavenly Glory for their suffâ—cient portion unless they may have what they want or would have for the Body this world unless they may be free from Poverty and Crosses and Provocations and Injuries and Pains all that God hath promised them here or hereafter even everlasting Glory will not satisfie them and when God and Christ and Heaven are not enough to quiet a mans mind he is in great want of Faith Hope â—nd Love which are far greater matters than Food and Rayment III. Another great cause of such trouble of mind is the guilt of some great and wilful sin when conscience is convinced and yet the foul is not converted sin is beloved and yet feared Gods wrath doth terrifie them and yet not enough to overcome their sin some live in secret fraud and robbery and many in drunkenness in secret fleshly lusts either self-pollution or fornication and they know that for such things the wrath of God cometh on the Children of disobedience and yet the rage of appetite and lust prevaileth and they despair and sin and while the sparks of Hell fall on their consciences it changeth neither heart nor life there is some more hope of the recovery of these then of dead hearted or unbelieving sinners who work uncleanness with greediness as being past feeling and blinded to defend their sins and plead against holy obedience to God Bruitishness is not so bad as Diabolisme and malignity But none of these are the persons spoken of in any Text Their sorrow is not overmuch but too little as long as it will not restrain them from their sin But yet if God convert these persons the sins which they now live in may possibly hereafter plung their souls into such depths of sorrow in the review as may swallow them up And when men truly converted yet dally with the bait and renew the wounds of their consciences by their lapses it is no wonder if their sorrows and terrours are renewed Grievous sins have fastened so on the consciences of many as have cast them into uncurable melancholly and distraction IV. But among people fearing God there is yet another cause of Melancholly and of sorrowing overmuch and that is Ignorance and mistakes in maâ—â—â—â— which their peace and comforts are concerned in I will name some particulars 1. One 〈◊〉 Ignorance of the tenor of the Gospel or Covenant of Grace as some Libertines called Antinomians more dangerously mistake it who tell men that Christ hath Repented and believed them and that they must no more question their Faith and Repentance than they must question the righteousness of Christ so many better Christians understand not that the Gospel is tidings of unspeakable joy to all that will believe it and that Christ and Life are offered freely to them that will accept him and that no sins how great or many soever are excepted from pardon to the soul that unfeignedly turneth to God by faith in Christ that whoever will may freely take the water of life and all that are weary and thirst are invited to come to him for ease and rest And they seem not to understand the conditions of forgiveness which is but true consent to the pardoning saving baptismal Covenant 2. And many of them are mistaken about the use of sorrow for sin and about the nature of hardness of heart they think that if their sorrow be not so passionate as to bring forth tears and greatly to afflict them they are not capable of pardon though they should consent to all the pardoning Covenant and they consider not that it is not our sorrow for it self that God delighteth in but it is the taking down of pride and that so much humbling sense of sin danger and misery as may make us feel the need of Christ and mercy and bring us unfeignedly to consent to be his Disciples and to be saved upon his Covenant terms Be sorrow much or little if it do this much the sinner shall be saved And as to the length of Gods sorrow some thinks that the pangs of the new birth must be a long continued state whereas we read in the Scripture that by the penitent sinners the Gospel was still received speedily with joy as being the gift of Christ and pardon and everlasting life humility and self-loathing must continue and increase but our first great sorrows may be swallowed up with
unbelievers but address my self to you that are Saints who have known Christ with a saving Knowledg and shall shew you how Christ and the knowledg of him may be used and improved 1. Improve the knowledg of Christ with reference to God himself God out of Christ is very dreadful thus considered sinful man must look upon him as the Devils do and tremble Jam. 2.19 He has fury in his Face curses in his mouth and a glittering Sword in his hand and what flesh can stand before him But you that are Believers are to look upon him as he is in Christ now his wrath is taken away he is the God of Love and Peace and Grace and comfort you may discern his bowels yearning towards you his everlasting arm embracing you his Language is most sweet and full of kindness nay He swears he will bless you with all sorts of blessings but especially with the best namely spiritual and everlasting Under the Old Testament God was called the Lord that brought Israel out of Aegypt Afterwards the Lord that brought Judah out of the Land of the North. But under the New Testament he is styled again The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Eph. 1.3 1 Pet. 1. â— Behold him in Christ and you will see him to be a Father a Guide a Shield an exceeding great reward you may abound in Faith and Hope and Joy in the Lord for he is the God of your Salvation 2. Improve the Knowledg of Christ with reference to the Law of God The Law considered in it self since the fall of Man is the ministration of Death it condemns the Transgressors and concludes and leaves them under wrath and t is so weak through the flesh that it can give righteousness and Life to none but if this Law be lookt upon in the hand of Christ the Mediator its Curse is removed its rigour abated The Believer may delight in the Law of God Ps 1.2 and prefer it before thousands of Gold and Silver Ps 119.72 and is to account it one of the choice new Covenant Blessings to have this Law written in his very heart Heb. 8.10 Christ heals the natural enmity against the Law of God which was in the hearts of believers and strengthens them to yield obedience to it and that promise is fulfilled Ezeck 36. â—7 I will put my Spirit within yoâ— and cause you to walk in my Stutures and ye shall keep my Judgments and do them 3. Improve the knowledge of Christ with reference to Sin Behold the Lord Jesus for Sin condemning Sin in the flesh that is by being made a sin offering he condemned sin Sins cause Falls sin is as it were cast and the sinner believing in Jesus is acquitted If you are in Christ Sin though it has damned thousands yet you are freed from it's condemning Power Rom. 8.1 There is therefore no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus Behold this Lamb of God who bare your sins himself a Load too heavy for you to bear Are you afflicted with the remainders of Lusts and Corruptions Still look to Jesus No Lust so strong but he can easily mortify it The death of Christ has a killing Power in reference to sin without this all means of mortification will be of little efficacy The Apostle speaks of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being planted together in the Likeness of his death Rom. 6.5 As the branch derives vertue from the Vine so the Christians mortifying Power from Christ's death When he the second Adam was crucifyed the old Adam was crucifyed with him and truly the old Man with his Lusts and Deeds must be mortifyed by the improvement of Christs Crucifixion Rom. 6.6 Knowing this that our Old Man is crucifyed with him that the Body of Sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve Sin Hoc benâ—ficium Christo acceptum ferre convenit quia sine ipso hostile potius Angelis nobiscum diâ—cidium est quam familiaris juvandi nostri cura Ideo super ipsum ascendere descendere dicuntur non quod illi soli ministrent sed quod ejus respectu in ejus honorem complectantur sua cura totum Ecclesiae corpus Calvin in Johan c. 1. 4. Improve the Knowledg of Christ in reference to Angels and that both good and evil Angels The good ones have Christ to be their Head Col. 2.10 And they holding this Head are confirmed and established These good Angels are said to ascend and descend upon Christ John 1.51 Which Luther refers to their Contemplation of Christs divinity and humanity V. derâ— in eadâ—m Persona summa infima conjunctissima But Calvin refers it to the Angels Ministration here is an allusion to Jacob's Ladder Christ is that Ladder whereby we may ascend 't is through Him that Heaven is open and 't is upon his Account that the Angels are ready to do Offices of kindness to believers and are so ready to be ministring Spirite to minister for them that are Heirs of Salvation Heb 1.14 And as from Christ you are to expect care from the good Angels so he can easily defend you from the bad ones He stops the mouth of the Devil who is the Accuser of the Brethren by that full satisfaction he haâ— made to divine Justice He detects him as a Lyar and discovers his wiles and devices He opposes Satan as a Murtherer and hinders him from devouring the least Lamb of his flock he is ready to aâ—m you with the whole armour of God and strengthens you both to combate and to conquer He has tryed Satans Strength in his own person and had got the Victory He had spoiled Principalities and Powers and made a shew of them openly triumphing over them Col 2.15 5 Improve this Knowledg of Christ with reference to this present World Christ in the days of his flesh had little of the world and in the hour of Temptation he despised the offer of the whole Surely 't is a thing of small value and it usually proves a great snare else Christians should have more of it They are enemies to the Câ—oss of Christ who mind eâ—rthly things Phil. 3.18 19. They are Strangers to the power of his resurrection whose hearts and Treasure are not in Heaven Look unto Jesus and look off from the World or look upon it with contempt Be not so eager after that which Christ lost his Life to deliver you from Gal. 1.4 He gave himself that he might deliver us from this present evil world acccording to the Will of God and our Father 6. Improve this knowledg of Christ with reference to Duties Grace and perseverance in Grace Let all your Duties be done in his Name Gal. 3.17 that is in his Strength and with expectation of acceptance â—â—â—â—rely upon the account of his Mediation Apply your selves to him for grace to help in every time of need Heb. 4.16 for grace to do for grace to suffer for grace to persevere and stand perfect and
his principal end is himself degenerated into a Beast The inferior and subordinate end is the good of the Communities the happiness and welfare of the whole Country the peace comfort and prosperitie of all the People over whom Governours are set The supreme Magistrate is to his Dominions what the Head is to the body natural and so influence belongs to him as well as preeminence he is engaged to think contrive study care order and provide for the comfort of the body and all the members of it Paul saith Rom. 13 4. He is the Minister of God to thee for good for a fourfold good as learned Partus saith 1. In bonum naturale for natural good that he may secure thy person and life from danger and thy outward Liberty comforts and enjoyments from the Sons of violence 2. In bonum morale for moral good that he may curb thy unruly passions and base lusts and restraine or hinder them from breaking out into vitious and enormous practices 3. In bonum civile for civil good that he may preserve publick Society and keep up common honesty and Justice 4. In bonum spirituale for spiritual good that he may defend the true Religion that which is pure and undefiled before God and the Father and keep up and encourage the Worship of God which is warranted by the Scripture And all this is according to the word which doth direct and command that we should pray for Kings and all that are in Authority that under them we might lead peaceable and quiet lives in all godliness and honesty So that the end of Government is the securing peace and quietness and the encouraging of honesty and godliness 2. In all Government there is supposed a power sufficient for the ordering of things unto these ends not only natural power but also moral Authority lawfully come by for without that there can be no just right and good Government Magistrates therefore are called Powers Rom. 13 1. Let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers for there is no power but of God the powers that be are ordained by God Lawful Governours are invested with Authority and Power there are put into their hands the Scepter to rule and the Sword to protect and punish as there is cause They have a legislative Power to make Laws and issue out commands which shall oblige their Subjects they have a right to do this so they use their power rightly and obedience is due from their People obedience to all their just and lawful commands they ought to rule in the fear of God and their Subjects ought to obey in the fear of God Rom. 13 5. Ye must needs be subject and that not only for Wrath but also for Conscience sake as knowing that this is the will of God concerning you and when any wilfully fail herein they contract guilt and break their own peace And as there is an Authority to enact Laws so a Power to suppress the Rebellions and animadvert on those that are refractorie and stubborn and also to defend reward and encourage all persons studious and careful of performing their duty Where all this Power is not there is a miserable defect in the Government which will in time dwindle and come to nothing and confusion and every evil work step up in its place 3. In Government this Power is reduced into act there is a prudent seasonable exerting and putting forth of the Power in order to the attaining of these ends This is the complement of all for it is folly for any to make that his end which is quite out of his reach and that Power is in vain which always lyes dorment Power is not put into the Rulers hand meerly for ornament but for use It is no other than a trust committed to him therefore though he be a Magistrate over men yet he is a Minister of God and is obliged to serve his great Lord according to the best of his skill and to act toward the end formerly mentioned As he is advanced to high and honourable places so he is engaged to great and excellent work Rom. 13 4. He is not to bear the Sword in vain and it may be said He weareth not the Crown in vain he holdeth not the Scepter in vain not for nothing not for a meer shew an empty Pageantry but for a good end for excellent and noble purposes The Crown and Scepter are not so glorious as that for which he is advanced the Sword committed to him must be drawn against the enemies of God and truth and holiness he must be an Avenger to execute wrath not upon the pious and peaceable that would be an abuse of his Power but upon them that do evil Thus have I shewed you what Government is Viz Using of lawful Power for excellent ends The second thing propounded was to prove and evidence to you that God doth Govern the world As he made it at first so he doth still uphold and order it In a Nation you know there are many inferiour Magistrates and under-Officers yet it followeth not but the King is supreme who authorizeth influences directs and limits them by his Laws There are upon Earth many Governours various forms of Government yea the Angels in Heaven are ministring Spirits employed in special and weighty matters But all of them are set up and set forth by God and fulfil his pleasure God himself sits at the helm and steers the course he overrules and orders all from the highest to the lowest For the evidenceing hereof take these following particulars 1. First the light of nature hath discovered this and by the glimmering thereof though it burn dimly as a Candle in the Socket many among the Heathens have been led to the knowledg of it and constrained to acknowledg it It must be granted that they groped and were exceedingly in the dark differing much one from another in their Sentiments about the Deitie and his Providence Some plainly denyed a God some owned and asserted the being of a God but denyed the creating of the World but that it was from everlasting or rose up through a fortuitous concurse of atomes Some granted that the World was of God as of the first cause yet he did not see nor observe what is done in it among men Some held he doth indeed see all things that are and be done in the world but he is only an insignificant idle Spectator who minds and regards nothing Some were of opinion that God doth not attend to the meaner and inferiour Creatures nor take any cognizance of small inconsiderable matters but only superintended the affairs and concernments of mankind Doth God take care of Oxen Some did again assert that God did look after and care for all things yet he acted only in a way of common general influences and by second causes doing nothing immediately and by himself Others again on the contrary side did affirm that God doth immediately and by himself so work all
but afterward to Books but certainly both Memory and Books are little enough to preserve those things that should be remembred The Holy Ghost teaches better Deuter. 11 20. And thou shalt write them upon the door-posts of thine House and upon thy Gates yea Chap 17 18. The King himself was to write him a Copy of the Law in a Book that he might remember it the better The very writing of any thing fixes it deeper in the mind And therefore I should still recommend the writing of Sermons not only as a help to the memory but also as a good preservative from sleeping under Gods ordinance as also from gazing about to the great distraction of the thoughts at that Sacred imployment For alas how many excellent Doctrines Directions and Marks have you heard that are quite forgotten which a discreet use of writing might have preserved unto you b I have seen a large Common Place-Book of famous Mr. Bruâ—n filled with choice sentences out of good Authors and digested under fit heads for his own use being a private Gentleman 3. Custom or Vsing your Memories is an excellent way of improving tâ—â—â— Thus many wise persons charge their memories at the present and thereby strengthen them and then commit what they have remembred to writing when they come home that no time may wear it away For every Faculty is improv'd and strengthen'd by imploying it We say use legs and have legs and so use the memory and thou 'lt have a memory So if you oblige your Children and your Servants to bring you away an account of a Sermon or so much of a Catechism you will see that use and custom will make that easy which before they thought impossible I have seen some of an old mans girdle who could not read a word yet by the only help of a girdle which he wore which was hung about with some knotted points he could bring home every particular of a Sermon And therefore charge your memories with those things that are sit to be remembred and doubt not but use will make you perfect I purposly avoid discoursing of that which is call'd an Artificial Memory both because the inconveniences thereof are great and the handling of it unfit for a Sermon 3. The Spiritual Helps for Memory are these 1. Bewail your Forgetfulness There Reformation and amendment when it is sound begins The Jews say that when Adam look't towards Paradise he wept in the remembrance of his Fall I am sure we have cause to mourn and weep and weep again at the remembrance of it To consider not only the great guilt but the sad fruit of that Apostacy and that as in other particulars so in respect of our Memories which have born their share in that convulsion And we have cause to mourn also for all such excesses and follies which have concurr'd to make them worse wherein no man is guiltless so that though you may reckon a sorry memory but a small fault yet you will find that it is both the effect and the sign and the cause of much evil In so much that Idolatry and the worst Sins are in Scripture stil'd the forgetting of God Psal 9 17. c. Few of us would reckon it a small fault to have a Servant frequently neglect his business and run into Errors and still to excuse all by saying I quite forgot it For generally such forgetfulness is the effect of supine negligence and therefore we have the more cause to be humbled seriously for this Sin 2. Prayer is a second Help For every Good and perfect Gift whereof this is one is from above and cometh down from the Father of Lights Jam. 1 17. and therefore is to be sought by frequent and earnest Prayer which is the Golden Key to unlock the Treasures of Heaven to the needy soul O beg it then of him that as he sanctifies the Soul he would sanctifie this with the rest And you have a ground for your Prayer in that Joh. 14.26 where our Saviour hath said that the Father will send the Holy Ghost to teach us all things and to bring all things to our remembrance And this Spirit you may have for asking Luke 11.13 Your Heavenly Father shall give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him understand that God will grant your Prayer herein there being joyn'd with the same a due use of all other means on which earnest Prayer brings a Blessing And you must not only crave this in your solemn Prayers but also when you are reading or hearing you should dart up an Holy Ejaculation or short desire Lord write this Truth in my heart and bless it to me This is like the clenching of a nail And when you have heard a Sermon look the Chest with Davids Prayer 1 Chron. 29.18 O Lord keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of my heart And be assured that God will hear the breathings of his own Spirit and give thee a Memory to serve thy turn 3. Diligent Attention If the mind wander in hearing the Memory will be weak in remembring Confine therefore your thoughts to the Holy Work you are about and fetch in your stragling Fancies with a hearty sigh Remember that Almighty God speaks to you by every good Book or Sermon that you read or hear every Chapter and Sermon is a Letter from the God of Heaven and directed in particular to you and you know we read with attention the meanest Letter that is directed to us and we observe every period of it The Gospel is our Saviours Will and Testament and how carefully doth every Child attend to every Clause in his Fathers Will Now the more diligent your Attention is the better you will remember As you know the greater weight we lay on the Seal the deeper Impression it doth make Holy David could say Ps 119.93 I will never forget thy Precepts for with them thou hast quickned me The Scripture the Sentence that hath quickned us we shall not easily forget when all the heart is engaged then all the head is imployed also And it is no marvel that divers remember so little when they are so palpably careless in hearing and their wandring Eyes do plainly discover their wandring minds 4. Due Estimation The more we love and admire any thing the better we remember it This is the reason given of Childrens remembring things so well because they admire every thing as being new to them And of old People the saying is known That they remember all such things as they care for For when we esteem and affect any thing the Affections work upon the Spirits which are the Instruments of the Memory and so seat things upon it Why is it that a Woman cannot forget her sucking Child because she doth vehemently love it and the like affection in us to good things would keep us from forgetting them And to this accord that saying of Mr. Guentianus Pag 25. That the best Art of Memory
were common between them And in the next succeeding Ages this fraternal Love was so conspicuous in the Professors of his Sacred Discipline Tert. Apoâ— c. 3â— that their Enemies observ'd it as a rare and remarkable thing See how the Christians love one another see how ready they are to die for one another Now the same gracious Principle that inclines us to do one Command will make us universally willing to observe all for sincere Obedience primarily respects the Authority of the Lawgiver which binds the whole Law upon the Conscience James 2. And as he that breaks the Law wilfully in one point is guilty of all because the violation of a single Precept proceeds from the same Cause that induces men to transgress all that is contempt of the Divine Majesty so he that sincerely obeys one Command does with consent of heart and serious endeavors obey all And from hence 't is clear that without a religious and unreserved regard of the divine Commands 't is impossible there should be in any person a gracious affection to the Saints that is the product of Obedience to God and consequently the observance of his Precepts is the certain proof of our Love to his Children 2. Spiritual Love to the Saints arises from the sight of the Divine Image appearing in their Conversation Now if the Beauty of Holiness be the attractive of our Love it will be fastned on the Law of God in the most intense degree The most excellent Saints on Earth have some mixtures of Corruption their Holiness is like the Morning-light that is checquered with the shadows and obscurity of the Night and 't is our wisdom not to love their infirmities but to preserve an unstained affection to them But the Law of God is the fairest Transcript of his Nature wherein his glorious Holiness is most resplendent Psa 19.7 8. The Law of the Lord is perfect converting the Soul the Commandment of the Lord is pure enlightning the eyes This ravish'd the heart of David with an inexpressible Affection O how I love thy Law Psal 119. it is my Meditation all the day And he repeats the declaration of his Love to it with new fervor upon this ground I love thy Law because it is pure Now Love to the Commands of God will transcribe them in our hearts and Lives As affectionate expressions to the Children of God without the real supply of their wants are but the shadows of Love so words of esteem and respect to the Law of God without unfeigned and universal Obedience are but an empty Pretence 3. The Divine Relation of the Saints to God as their Father is the Motive of spiritual Love to them And this is consequent to the former for by partaking of his Holiness they partake of his life and likeness And from hence they are the dearest Objects of his Love his eye and heart is always upon them Now if this Consideration excites Love to the Children of God it will be as powerful to incline us to keep his Commands for the Law of God that is the Copy of his Sacred Will is most near to his Nature and he is infinitely tender of it Our Saviour tells us that it is casier for Heaven and Earth to pass away Luk. 16.17 than for one tittle of the Law to fail If the entire World and all the Inhabitants of it were destroyed there would be no loss to God but if the Law lose its Authority and Obligation the Divine Holiness would suffer a Blemish The Use of the Doctrine is to try our Love to the Children of God to which all pretend by this infallible Rule our Obedience to his Commands This is absolutely necessary because the deceit is so easie and so dangerous and it will be most comfortable if upon this Trial our Love be found to be spiritual and divine The deceit is easie because Acts of Love may be expressed to the Saints from other Principles than the Love of God Some for vain-glory are bountiful and when their Charity seems so visibly divine that men admire it there is the Woâ—m of vanity at the root that corrupts and makes it odious to God The Pharisees are charged with this by our Saviour Mat. 6 2. their Alms were not the effect of Charity but Ostentation and whilst they endeavoured to make their Vices virtuous they made their Virtues vicious There is a natural Love among persons united by Consanguinity that remains so entire since the ruine of Mankind by the Fall and is rather from the force of Nature than the virtue of the Will and this in all kind Offices may be express'd to the Saints There is a sweetness of Temper in some that inclines them to wish well to all and such tender Affections that are easily moved and melted at the sight of others miseries and such may be beneficent and compassionate to the Saints in their afflictions but the Spring of this Love is good Nature not divine Grace There are humane Respects that incline others to kindness to the Saints as they are united by interest Fellow-Citizens and Neighbours and as they receive advantage by Commerce with them or as obliged by their Benefits But Civil Amity and Gratitude are not that holy Affection that is an assurance of our spiritual state There are other Motives of Love to the Saints that are not so low nor mercenary in the thickest darkness of Paganism the Light of Reason discovered the amiable excellence of Virtue as becoming the humane Nature and useful for the Tranquility and Welfare of Mankind and the Moral Goodness that adorns the Saints the Innocence Purity Meekness Justice Clemency Benignity that are visible in their Conversations may draw respects from others who are strangers to the Love of God and careless of his Commandments And as the Mistake of this Affection is easie so it is infinitely dangerous for he that builds his hope of Heaven upon a sandy foundation upon false Grounds will fall ruinously from his Hopes and Felicity at last How fearful will be the disappointment of one that has been a Favourer of the Saints that has defended their Cause protected their Persons relieved their Necessities and presum'd for this that his Condition is safe as to Eternity though he lives in the known neglect of other Duties and the indulgent practice of some Sin But if we find that our Love to the Children of God flows from our Love to God that sways the Soul to an entire compliance to his Commands and makes us observant of them in the course of our Lives What a blessed Hope arises from this Reflection We need not have the Book of the Divine Decrees opened and the Secrets of Election unveil'd 1 Joh. 3.14 for we know that we are past from Death to Life if we love the Brethren This is an infallible Effect and Sign of the Spiritual Life and the Seed and Evidence of Eternal Life Quest What must we do to
us be exhorted to comply with God herein let us make it our care and endeavour so to do This Exhortation concerns us all forasmuch as we are all infected with this plague none can say they are free of this contagion There is no distemper more epidemical it reacheth the poor as well as the rich the godly as well as the wicked though it hath dominion only in the latter yet it dwells in the former You see how it was with the Apostle Paul you read how it was with the Apostle Peter with David with Hezekiah c. The holiest Persons on Earth are more or less sick with this disease how therefore are we all concern'd to endeavour the prevention and cure thereof And if any ask what they must do in order thereunto the remainder of the discourse shall be spent in the resolving and satisfying of this enquiry 1. Be throughly convinc't of the greatness and sinfulness of this Sin Direct 1 how that 't is a Sin of the greatest magnitude a first rate Sin greater than theft intemperance or uncleanness or any other fleshly wickedness 'T is indeed the strength and heart of the old man it lives in us when other Sins are dead yea it will help to kill other Sins that it may boastingly shew their heads and blow the sinner up with a conceit of his own strength and holiness 't is a Sin that will take Sanctuary in the holiest duties and hide it self under their Skirts yea it will pollute our holy things and turn remedies themselves into diseases I prefer this direction and shall be the longer upon it because when men are convinc't of the sinfulness of this Sin that it hath more evil in it than other disgraceful Sins they will then set themselves in good earnest to mortify and subdue it Then they will put it far away from them and deal with it as they do with those Sins that argue them in the judgment of all men to be graceless and ungodly persons Remember therefore what hath been already hinted concerning the odiousness of this Sin 'T is hateful indeed to men when it is discern'd but it is most hateful unto God his nature and his honour both engage him against it he doth severely punish it both in this world and in the next Pride is the forerunner not only of temporal but of eternal destruction This one Sin unless it be pardon'd and subdu'd is sufficient to turn us all into Hell it was the Sin and the condemnation of the Devil and his Angels There are two properties in Pride which greatly aggravate it and make it out of measure sinful and abominable 1. The Antiquity of it It was the first enemy that God ever had this was the Sin of the fallen Angels and also of our first Parents this was the original of original Sin Some have disputed whether pride or unbelief had the precedency in mans fall A question as one says much like that whether repentance or faith hath the precedency in his rising But all are of opinion that mans pride if it was not antecedaneous yet at least it was contemporary with his unbelief and that pride was the great cause of his Apostasy He proudly affected to be as God to have known good and evil He fell from what he was by a proud desire of being what he was not 2. The pregnancy of it It is a big belly'd Sin most of the Sins that are in the world are the off-spring and issue of pride Let me instance in several other Sins that are the genuine spawn of this Sin It causeth covetousness Though covetousness is said to be the root of other evils yet this root it self springs from pride what is covetousness but the purveyor of pride and a making provision for the lusts thereof why are men greedy of wordly wrath but for the feeding and maintaining of the pride of life Habakkuk tells us that he who is a proud man enlargeth his desires as Hell Again it causeth ambition Proud persons have aspiring thoughts and think themselves the fittest persons to preside in Church or State Haman said whom should the King honour but my self a proud person takes it for an injury if any be prefer'd before him though never so deserving and he bears a secret grudge to any that had a hand in it though they did it with the greatest sincerity and impartiality None are friends to proud persons but those that humour and honour them Again Pride causeth Boasting Hence it is that in two Places of Scripture Proud Persons and Boâ—sters are put together A proud person is ever praising and commending himself and when he is ashamed to do it by open ostentation then he doth it by secret insinuation and circumlocution Again it causeth Scorning Disdain of others comes from mens over-valuing of themselves Compare two Scriptures you read Jam. 4.6 How God hath said that he resisteth the proud but he giveth Grace to the humble Now where hath God said this You will find it Prov. 3.34 There 't is said he scorneth the Scorners but he gives Grace to the humble You see the same persons that are call'd Scorners in the Old Testament are call'd Proud in the New so that Scorning is the immediate fruit and effect of Pride Again it causeth Lying Proud persons are great Liars Most of the Lies and Falshoods that are told in the world are to avoid disgrace and shame or to purchase applause and esteem Again it causeth Contention The Scripture is express in this Prov. 13.10 Only by pride cometh contention ay that is the greatest Make-bate in the world Prov. 28.25 He that is of a proud heart stirreth up strife he is a very firebrand in the place where he lives he is like an unpolisht stone that will never lie even in any Building Again Pride causeth Unthankfulness Hezekiah's Pride and Ingratitude are coupled together in Scripture Proud persons instead of prizing they despise the Mercies of God and think diminutively of them they look upon God's gifts as due debts and instead of being thankful for what they have they are ready to think they have not what they do deserve Again it causeth Selfishness Pride makes men prefer themselves not only before others but before God himself Proud persons Idolize themselves and make Self their principal End they love themselves more than God and they live to themselves more than to God they are not so zealous for his honour as for their own their Estates and Parts are more at the command of their Pride than at the command of God Again it causeth carnal Confidence Proud persons are fearless persons they are so perswaded of their own strength and the goodness of their hearts that they can walk in the midst of Snares and venture upon temptation and fear no harm The fool rageth says Solomon and is confident Pride makes men insensible of their danger till it be too late Again Pride causeth Self-deceit Proud persons think themselves
are given for as the rigid Dominicans do certainly make God the Cause of Sin whether culpable or not culpable is not the Question even so do the Scotists and Molinists for they both include in the matter of Sin somewhat more than what is meerly Natural even somewhat that is morally Vicious and yet assert that this Matter is the immediate effect of Gods Causality only the one says That God does as it were take man by the hand and lead him to Sin the other That man determines the Efficiency of God and the Scotist says That the first and second Cause do walk hand in hand to the Sin but whether I lead another to the Sin and help him to commit it or whether I am taken by the Sinner and determined to help him to produce what is sinful in the Act or whether I walk with him stil I am at least a Concauser of what is sinful in the Act so that neither the Scotist nor the Molinist give me any satisfaction in this Matter The Result therefore of my thoughts is as follows I am sure that no Natural Being ever has been is or can be without the Efficiency of God the first Cause and yet I am as confident that no Moral Evil is in any sense the Effect of the Physical Efficiency of God The Moral Undueness that is considered as that which is the Foundation of Sin cannot be from God but yet how satisfactorily to reconcile these things or how to comprehend the Modes of Divine Operation is above us we cannot reach unto it it transcends our Understandings 5. There are also several Doctrines which have a special Aspect on those Transactions that are about the carrying on Fall'n Mans Salvation to the Illustrating the Glory of the divine Perfections which are very profound The Doctrines of the Fall of Man the Transition of Original Sin from Adam to his Posterity the Methods taken for the Recovery of the Elect the Covenant of Reconciliation between the Father and the Son from all Eternity the Incarnation of the Son of God and the many surprizing Doctrines with reference thereunto even about his several Offices as Mediator and in special That of his Being a Priest after the Order of Melchisedek his Suretyship how our Sins were imputed to him and his Righteousness made ours beside those Doctrines about the Nature of the Mystical Vnion that is between Christ and Believers and how this is the ground of Imputation and many other momentous points might be spoken unto to evince That though there is nothing of Contradiction in these Doctrines yet there is very much that transcends the most enlarged Capacity They are points that the Angels themselves are prying into but cannot fully comprehend But these things I must wave and go on to acquaint you with some of the many Providences that do in like manner transcend our Understandings II. Among the many amuzing Providences that are before Us I will single out a few 1. That the greatest part of the World should lye in Wickedness unacquainted with the Methods of Salvation is an amuzing Providence Look we into the remotest parts of the World we find nothing but a strange Ignorance of the true God or of the true Worship of God Oh how great a part of the World is over-run with Paganism Mahometanism and Judaism Come we nearer home and take a view of the Christian World behold how small is it in comparison of those parts where the abovemention'd false Religions prevail and of the many thousands who are called Christians how many Invelop'd with the thick clouds of Ignorance and Error and how â—ew free from the Influence of Idolatry and Superstition A multitude of those who have been baptiz'd into the name of Christ have not the opportunity of looking into the sacred Oracles which reveal the true way to Life everlasting and of those who have the happy Advantages of consulting the sacred Scriptures how few can understand them The which is not without a Providence of God But can we compare these Providences with those discoveries that are made of the Infinite Compassions of Almighty God towards the Children of men and comprehend a consistency between them In the Scriptures 't is said That God would have all men be saved and to that end come to the Knowledg of the Truth even when but a very small spot of the Earth have any suitable means afforded 'em for the obtaining such knowledg In the Scriptures the Proclamation is general to all Ho every one and the Expostulation with Sinners is Turn ye Turn ye why will ye dye as I live saith the Lord I desire not the death of a Sinner of a Sinner indefinitely q. d. of any Sinner but rather That he would Turn and Live Besides did not Christ die for this end namely to shew the unexpressible greatness of Gods Love to the world God so loved so so loved the World as if it had been said the Love of God to the World is so transcendent that no words could sufficiently express it nothing would fully represent it but the Delivery of the Son the only begotten Son of God to the Death the cruel the shameful and the reproachful Death of the Cross for the salvation of the World on their Believing and this even when God left Millions of Angels to continue in everlasting Chains of Darkness notwithstanding all which it is manifest That they cannot believe in him of whom they have not heard and cannot hear unless a Preacher be sent unto them and that no such thing has been done no Preacher has been sent or if in one Age yet not in another How can we reconcile these Providences with the Discoveries that are given us of the infinite Compassions of God to Mankind when so few are made partakers of it What of Grace is there in leaving the greatest part of the World in a very little better condition than the fallen Angels I know that there are many things offered towards the satisfaction of a thoughtful Person as Who can tell but there are thousand of Worlds above us whose Inhabitants are in a better capacity to receive and improve the Instances of Divine Love and that this world is but a Spot in comparison of them and if this whole World should perish 't is but as the hanging up a few Malefactors to shew that God is just as well as merciful but how does this solve the Difficulty which is not meerly taken from the Notion we have of Gods meâ—ciful Nature in it self considered but from the Revelations made thereof unto the Children of men in the Scripture about which we cannot have any solid satisfaction but from things which are obvious before us not from what is so fully out of our view and knowledge and concerning Creatures of another kind 'T is true there are some intimations in the Sacred Scriptures which apart and by themselves considered afford Relief such as these The Gentiles which have not
of God's Transcendency are to be seen in them all Whence we have as satisfying an Argument to convince us that the Doctrines of the Gospel are from God and consequently true as that the world was created by him and is now under his Government yea such as believe a Providence and the Scripture to be the Word of God have as much to offer for their Faith as the meer Deist who only belive the Existence of a God has for his for the very same Characters Signatures Impresses and Footsteps of Gods infinite Perfections that are on the things made are in these Doctrines and Providences of which the Transcendency that is in them is an uncontroulable Evidence Why do we believe the World to be made of God but because we see that the things made are so admirably fram'd and order'd that there is somewhat in them incomprehensible by us They are made by One whose Wisdom is infinite and transcends our largest Capacities In like manner those who will look into the Scriptures and consult the Doctrines of the Gospel will find that there are the Impresses of infinite Wisdom in them which could not be unless they had been of God who is infinitely wise whence 't is that by the Transcendency that is in the Doctrines we are engaged to conclude that they are true i. e. we are hereby confirm'd and establish'd in the Truth of the Christian Religion that is discover'd unto us in the Holy Scriptures IMPROVEMENT III. The Third Improvement is this The Transcendency of these Doctrines and Providences prove most excellent Expedients to silence and stop the mouths of the Vngodly for by the Transcendency of some Doctrines and Providences God is carrying on the great End of glorifying his Righteousness in the letting out his Fury and Indignation on the Vessels of Wrath. God who made all things for himself will be Glorified either by or upon the People he has made God will be glorified by some to their Salvation and upon others in their Condemnation And by the Transcendency that is in the Doctrines and Providences both are done For the Transcendency of these Doctrines and Providences as hath been already shewn exciting the Faith and Patience of some does farther their Salvation and as they are stumbling-Blocks in the way of others they occasion the Ruine and Destruction of others These Transcendent Doctrines and Providences must be considered as stumbling-blocks that God puts in their way not that there is any Evil in God's putting them in the way but the Evil is only from the indisposition of the corrupt Heart of man For the clearer understanding which we must consider that there is certainly such a Decree as that of the Election of some particular Persons unto Glory which doth necessarily infer the dereliction of others the leaving them in a state of Sin and Misery Some being Elect according to the fore-knowledge of God the Father shall through the sanctification of the Spirit unto Obedience and the sprinkling of the Blood of Jesus Christ obtain Salvation with Eternal Glory But others there are even ungodly men who turn the Grace of our God into lasciviousness and who were of old ordained unto Condemnation The Salvation of some the Damnation of others is acknowledged by all to be certain as to the Event and that there is no event in time but what was foreknown of God from Eternity is not denied by any that believe God to be God and that these Events cannot be without a Providence of God is most manifest 'T is true God has a greater influence on the Elect than on others for God does not only support their Powers and Faculties and by a Physical Efficience enable them to perform what is Natural in their Moral Actions but moreover God does by his mighty Power in infinite Wisdom sweetly determine the Elect to the doing what is morally good and savingly gracious God does not so much in such Actions as are sinful and vicious the moral Vitiosity or Obliquity that is in a sinful Action is not of God though what is natural in a sinful Action has its Origin and Rise from God yet what is Moral and Vitious is not from God God does not Physically and Invincibly determine any man to what is sinful in any Action the Sinfulness of an Action has no higher Being than a Creature for its Author However though the Sins of the Damned are without a Divine Physical Predetermination yet not without a Divine Providence There is no Event without a Providence of God As all Events are according to the fore-knowledge of God so they are by his Providence The Destruction of Pharaoh in the Red Sea according to the fore-knowledge of God and the hardness of his Heart that was the Cause of his ruine was by Gods Providence This Providence is somewhat more than a meer unconcerned permission and yet much less than a Physical Predetermination it falls short of this latter because God has no Physical influence on the sinfulness of our Actions and 't is more than the former for the Wisdom and Power of God is marvellously exercised in doing very much towards the bringing the Event to pass and that by laying stumbling blocks in the way of the Non-Elect which stumbling blocks in our way may occasion our Sin and Ruine but not cause it so that although the Lord does lay Stones of stumbling in our way which occasions our Sin yet he cannot be said to be the Cause or Author of our Sin No one is the Cause or Author of anothers Sin but he who does either Physically or Morally contribute to the Commission of Sin but though God lays stones of stumbling before the Sinner yet he does not in doing so either morally by perswasions draw or physically by Impression drive him to the Sin The stumbling block is before him and from it the Sinner takes occasion to sin against the Lord. Though such is the infinite Knowledge and Wisdom of God that he foreknows that such a Block in the Sinners way will occasion his Sin and notwithstanding puts it in his way yet he is not therefore the Author of his Sin because God does not hereby either Physically or Morally move the Sinner to the Sin for the Sinner having a Natural power to withstand it 't is his Wilfulness and Sin he does not That God does lay stones of stumbling before us is evident enough to any who will consult the Sacred Scriptures In Ezekiel 3.20 't is said that God doth lay a stumbling block before the man who was externally Righteous and he turns from his Righteousness unto Sin and dies in his Iniquity This will appear more convincingly in the Instances I will give concerning it The Dâ—scoveries that are made of Gods gracious Designs towards us are about such matters as do amuse us whoever will consider what is declared in the Gospel concerning the way to eternal life will find that Jesus Christ though he be God as well as
De cult Foem in initio c. Why then dost thou provoke Lust in thy own heart Quid autem alteri periculo sumus c. Why do we endanger the souls of others Qui praesumit minus veretur minus praecavet plus periclitatur timor fundamentum salutis est presumptio impedimentum timoris He that presumes fears little uses little precaution and runs into great danger Fear is the original of security but presumption the enemy to fear I easily grant that there is a great difference between a Cause and an Occasion of evil A Cause is much more than an occasion yet is not the latter so small and light a matter but that many of God's weighty Laws were grounded on this that the Occasion of sin in themselves and others might be avoided The Civil Law determines That if Archers shooting at rovers should kill a man passing on the Road they shall make satisfaction That they who dig Pitfalls to catch wild Beasts if accidentally a man falls into them they shall be punished and that he shall be severely punished that being set to watch a Furnace falls asleep whence a scarefire ariseth But the New Testament is very full We are not to lay a stumbling-block nor an occasion of offence nor to use our liberty in that wherein our weak brother is offended IX Lastly Let us lay it to heart That Pride is the forerunner of destruction whether Personal Domestical or National Prov. 16.18 Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall a Truth so obvious to the observation of Heathens that Seneca could say Quem dies videt veniens superbum Hunc dies vidit fugiens jacentem There is the pride of the rich who boast themselves in the multitude of their Riches there is the pride of the ambitious who swell with Titles and Dignities and there is the childish pride of Women and effeminate Men who glory in Apparel And tho this last may seem below the notice of the Divine Nemesis yet these light and small things draw down great and heavy Judgments What more trifling and ludicrous than those Fopperies mentioned Isa 3.18 The tinkling Ornaments as if they would imitate Morrice-dancers or Hobby-horses their round Tires like the Moon an Embleme of their lunacy and levity The Nose-Jewels very uncomely sure in such Epicurean Swine And tho many of them seem to be innocent as Bonnets Ear-Rings and Mantles yet God threatens v. 24. That instead of sweet smells there shall be a stink instead of a girdle a rent instead of well-set hair baldness and burning instead of beauty All which threatnings were punctually accomplisht in the Babylonish Captivity whither God sent them to spare the cost and trouble of fetching home their new Fashions their strange Apparel Archbishop Usher and Mr. Bolton Two great Lights of our Church have long since forewan'd us That God would punish England by that Nation which we were so ambitious to imitate in their Fashions of Apparel And how much is the ground of fear encreased since their days The Plague is never more easily convey'd than in cloaths And it 's to be feared that with their strange Apish Fashions we have imported their vitious Manners if not their Idolatries The Degeneracy of the Romans in this Point prognosticated their declining greatness And there 's no more easie observation than that when a People cease to be great in generous and noble Atchievements they begin to affect this Trim way of glory by Apparel But I must conclude The Use and Application must be your own This Sermon will never be compleat till you have preach'd it over to your Souls by Meditation and to the World by a thorough Reformation And if you slight this advice and counsel yet rememer the Text however That God in the day of his sacrifice will punish all such as are cloathed with strange Apparel Quest How may Child-bearing Women be most encouraged and supported against in and under the hazard of their Travail SERMON XXII 1 Tim. II. 15. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in child-bearing if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety THAT I may with all Christian tenderness give a satisfactory Answer to that Practical Case of Concernment to be resolv'd for the sake of fruitful pious Wives whose manifold sorrows call for the best aids viz. How may Child-bearing Women be most encouraged and supported against in and under the hazard of their Travail I shall by Gods assistance according as I am able with some respect to the time allottel for this Exercise open and apply this notable Text I have read to you To find out the true importance of which words it will be requisite to cast an eye upon the foregoing part of the Chapter wherein the Apostle exhorteth all Christians to pray for persons of all Ranks a Ver. 1 2 8. and particularly Christian Women to practise answerable to their profession of godliness b Ver. 9 10. instructing them about their deportment in Church Assemblies and at home both in reference to their habits that they be modest without excess in their Apparel and Dress and to their Actions which they are 1. injoyned viz. to hear with silence and subjection 2. forbidden viz. to teach because that were to usurp authority over the man c Ver. 12. which the womans posteriority in the creation d Ver. 13. and priority in the transgression e Ver. 14. doth not allow of but on the contrary brings Her by whom her Husband was deceived into subjection and Child-bearing sorrow with the Fruit of her Womb. For tho Adam was first formed Eve first sinned and so infested all with Original sin However as one notes f Testard de Nat. Gratia Thes 20. the Opposition is not to be consider'd of the Thing but in respect of the Order that the sense might be Adam was not first seduced but the Woman agreeing with the scope foregoing Yet that the Female Sex at home may not despond under the sense of that suffering which Eves forwardness to sin had more especially brought upon them the Apostle here in these heartning words prepares a most sweet and strengthning spiritual Cordial for the chearing up of all good Women and the clearing of their eyes from fumes in fainting fits And therein it eminently concerns Child-bearing ones to copy out the most approv'd Receipt in the comfortable Expressions of the Gentile Doctor That tho they breed and bear children with much trouble which may argue God's displeasure in his Sentence and is indeed a consequent of the first sin which they are very sensible of in the Antecedents Concomitants and Consequents of their sore Labour that may as it sometimes hath done in Rachael and Phineas his Wife c. bring their bodies or their Babes if not both to the Grave yet the Pains shall be sanctified and be no obstacle to their welfare their souls shall be safely deliver'd The
the wicked not the Graces of the godly Sinners cannot endure the Light of the Truth nor the power of Holiness in the Lives of Saints and therefore quarrel with them but are those Saints to be blamed for such troubles as only accidentally and by reason of the corruptions of others arise on their doing but their Duty Is a Bridge to be blamed for troubling the Water because keeping its place it stops the Waters passage and is the occasion of its swelling and roaring Are Sheep to be blamed for incensing the Wolves Or Doves for provoking the Hawks Truly just such incendiaries are Gods Children in the places where they live they disquiet their Neighbours only by the good things they enjoy which others love and covet and fain would get from them or by the good they do which wicked Men hate and fain would hinder in them The quarrels of the ungodly World with the Holy Seed among them are but like that of Cain with Abel he slew his Brother because his own works were evil and his Brothers righteous 1 John 3.12 3. The Sinners of a Nation are really the weakness of it It is they of whatsoever Party or Sect or persuasion they are that troubles any People and occasions their dangers and procure their ruin Righteousness exalts a Nation Prov. 14.34 it is Sin that is a reproach to it that humbles it and brings it down Wicked Men are they that betray Nations and Kingdoms expose them to Gods wrath subject them to his judgments Did Noah bring the Flood upon the old World or did the wicked of it by their wickedness Did Lot bring down Fire from Heaven upon Sodom or did the Sodomites do it by their own lewdness Did Jeremiah by his Preaching or Baruch and Ebedmelech and those few other godly in Jerusalem by their Praying and Weeping and Mourning bring on the Captivity of that People or did not they themselves by their Idolatry their Prophaneness their Swearing their Sabbath breaking their polluting Gods Ordinances their shedding Innocent Blood c. were the Apostles and primitive Christians the cause of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans or were not the unbelieving Jews by their rejecting Christ and persecuting those that adhered to him I deny not but the Sins of the best of Saints may sometimes contribute to the bringing down judgments upon others Jonahs Sin raised a Tempest upon the Mariners chap. 1. and David numbring the People brought the Plague upon them 2 Sam. 24. God will not only manifest his own Holiness by punishing them that are dearest to him when they Sin against him but teach them more care watchfulness against Sin when they find how far the direful effects of it are extended unto others And yet what is this to the numerous instances on the other side Which doth ordinarily do most mischief the Sins of the truly godly which are fewer and lesser and mourned over and repented of or the Sins of the prophane the Hypocrites the Impenitent May we not say that if the Sins of the one have slain their Thousands those of the other have slain their Ten-Thousands The greatest danger any can be in is to be liable to the displeasure of God who is Holy and cannot endure to behold iniquity powerful and able to destroy those that offend him can Arm and Commission innumerable Enemies against them raise the Posse of Heaven and Earth upon them let flie Thousands of Arrows at them and command what judgments he please to consume them And who are they that do ordinarily make a People naked and lay them open to the Wrath and Revenge of God Is it they that love God or they that hate him the obedient or the rebellious they that please him or they that provoke him they that intercede with him or they they that defie him they that mourn for the abominations of a Land or they that commit and encourage them they that tremble at his judgments or that dare his vengeance In a Word they that hinder all the Sin they can or that hinder all the good they can they that dare not be wicked or that will not be Holy 4. It is the Interest of any People where God hath a Seed of righteous ones to favour them and make much of them They are their best Friends that are Gods Friends They should favour them most whom God favours of whose good things they partake for whose sakes they are preserved receive many a mercy enjoy many a privilege escape many a judgment It is their interest to be kind to those that have most interest in God most power with him and can get most of him What Society of Men but usually favours them most whom their Prince favour most and they think it their interest to do so They know they may need them and many a good turn they may do them They that are the greatest among Men and sit at the upper end of the World may need the help of the Faith and Prayers of the meanest Saints they may need them to interpose with God for them and ward off his blows or remove his plagues and when he hath no respect to a People for their own sakes yet he may for the sake of his Servants among them 5. It is folly in any People to Persecute them that are truly Religious That is but to fall foul upon their Friends and then they lie open to their Enemies or are indeed their own greatest Enemies to pluck the Stakes out of the Hedge and turn the Vineyard into a Common to pull up the Sluces and then there is nothing to keep out an Inundation of evils to pull down the Pillars and then the House comes tumbling about their Ears It is indeed but to dig their own Graves to make way for their own destruction by destroying those that are their preservers For by this means they lose 1. The benefit of the Saints Prayers When Men go on maliciously to abuse and oppress the godly among them God may refuse to hear even their Prayers for them The Jews persecuted Jeremiah slandered him as a Traytor Jer. 37.13 smote him with their tongues devised devices against him 11 19. put him in the Dungeon and God would not hear his Prayers for them Their posterity persecuted the Lord Jesus Christ and though his Prayers were heard for many of them converted Acts 2. and afterward by the Preaching of the Apostles yet when they still persevered in their persecuting those very Apostles their Prayers could not prevail for them but God gave them up first to hardness of heart and blindness of mind Acts 28.26 and then to their Enemies Sword Or God may stop the mouths of his Saints that they shall not so much as pray for them he may as was before intimated straiten them and withdraw from them When they begin to open their lips for those whom he hath appointed for destruction Nay he may set their Hearts to pray against them