ask and entreat several things of you he entreats you to give him your heart Prov. 23.26 My son give me thine heart He beseecheth and prayeth you to be reconciled to him 2 Cor. 5.20 We are Ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead be ye reconciled to God He beseecheth you to leave off your sins Jer. 44.4 Oh do not this abominable thing which I hate He beseecheth you to present your bodies to him Rom. 12.1 Now if the great God condescend to ask several things of you why should you be so proud and high-minded as to chuse rather to starve or to murder your selves than to ask relief of your fellow creatures 4. Job was a burden to himself as he himself telleth us Job 7.20 I have sinned what shall I do unto thee O thou preserver of men why hast thou set me as a mark against thee so that I am a burden to my self He was also by reason of his sores and other afflictions a burden to his friends so that neither his wife nor his servants nor his friends cared to come at him Job 19.14,15,16,17,19 My kinsfolk have failed and my familiar friends have forgotten me they that dwell in mine own house and my maidens count me a stranger I am an alien in their sight I called my servant and he gave me no answer I entreated him with my mouth my breath is strange to my wife though I entreated for the childrens sake of mine own body all my inward friends abhorred me and they whom I loved are turned against me Yet though Job was become a burden to himself and to all his friends he durst not put an end to his life but resolves Job 14.14 All the dayes of mine appointed time will I wait till my change come 5. If you destroy your selves and thereby provoke God to cast your souls into hell you will be in greater want there than ever man was upon the face of the earth for there is nothing good in hell there is nothing to please the eye or the ear or any of the senses there you shall be tormented with hunger and thirst for ever and shall not have so much as a drop of water to cool your tongue The rich man that fared deliciously every day though he begged hard for but one drop of water to cool his tongue he could not obtain it Luke 16.19,23,24,25,26 In your wants here you may have relief by going to God you may have comfort from the word but there is no relief to be had from God neither is there any comfort to be had from the word of God in hell Your wants here continue but a little while if you go on to serve God you shall shortly be in heaven where you shall want no good thing but if you destroy your selves God will cast you into hell where you shall suffer all sorts of wants in the utmost extremity to all eternity and therefore it is great folly for any man to destroy himself for fear of being brought to want Plea 4. My sins lie as a heavy burden upon me and they are greater then can be forgiven and I know not how to be eased of this heavy burden but by making away my self Answ 1. Say not thy sins are greater than can be forgiven for all sorts of sins are pardonable by vertue of the Blood of Christ 1 John 1.7 The Blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin Mark 3.28 Verily I say unto you all sins shall be forgive unto the sons of men and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme And though it be true that the sin against the Holy Ghost shall never be forgiven the reason is not because the Blood of Christ is not of sufficient value to wash away that sin but because such persons as commit the sin against the Holy Ghost do not repent and believe in Jesus Christ but do despise and trample under foot the Blood of the Son of God 2. Self-murder will not lessen but encrease the number of your sins it will not take off the burden which is upon your consciences but will make your burden a thousand times heavier for if a man dye in his sins all his sins go down to hell with him and there will lye as so many mountains of lead pressing and loading his conscience to all eternity and the sence of sin which men shall have in hell will torment them a thousand times more than it doth in this life for then they shall know more of the evil of sin and more of the Majesty of that God against whom they have sinned than they do now Then they shall see more sins than they do now and feel more of Gods wrath for their sins here they have some few drops there they shall have full vials of wrath then they shall have certain knowledge that there is no possibility of obtaining the pardon of any one sin for ever Here though they may be under great fears yet there may be some hope of mercy at least as long as they live they are not under an impossibility of being pardoned 3. Though thou art under despair and ready to say there is no hope that God should ever pardon such a great sinner as I have been yet set upon the work of repentance and returning to God and God will pardon all your sins Jer. 3.22 Return ye back-sliding children and I will heal your back-slidings These persons to whom this promise is made had been exceeding great sinners as you may see ver 5. Behold thou hast spoken and done evil things as thou couldest and were in a despairing condition chap. 2. v. 25. Thou saidst there is no hope Yet to these persons that had done evil things as they could and said there was no hope of mercy for them God promiseth if they would return he would not cause his anger to fall upon them ch 3. ver 12. but would pardon and forgive their sins ver 22. God also by the Prophet Isaiah promiseth pardon to the chiefest of sinners if they will but forsake their sins Isa 1.16,17,18 Wash ye make ye clean put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil learn to do well Come now and let us reason together though your sins be as searlet they shall be as white as snow though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool Obj. It is true if I could repent then though my sins were never so great I know the Lord would pardon them but alas I cannot turn from my sins to God repentance is hid from mine eyes Answ Though you cannot repent of your self yet you should not despair for God hath exalted his his Son Jesus Christ to give you repentance Acts 5.31 Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins It may be you will reply Christ is
exalted to give repentance unto Israel but what is that to me I answer 1. This Israel had embrued their hands in the Blood of Christ Acts 2.36 Let all the house of Israel know affuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ and in the words immediately foregoing that Scripture where the Apostle tells them God had exalted Carist to give them repentance he tells them Acts 5.30 The God of our Fathers raised up Jesus whom ye slew and hung upon a tree him hath God exalted to give repentance unto Israel c. Now was Christ exalted to give repentance to them that crucified him and do ye think that he will not give repentance unto you if you go to him for a penitent heart have you committed greater sins than the crucifying of Christ 2. If you question whether Christ will give you repentance you may be satisfied that he will from his own words if you go to him for repentance for he hath said John 6.37 Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out Plea 5. I have committed may some say a very foul sin and I am afraid it should come to light and if it should I shall be ashamed to look any man in the face and I had better make away my self than live to be a publick shame Answ 1. This will not conceal your sins to make away your self for there is a day of Judgment coming wherein God will bring to light and publish in the hearing of the whole world all your sins even your foulest and most shameful sins which you have committed with greatest secresie Eccles 12.14 God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing whether it be good or whether it be evil Luke 12.2,3 There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed neither hid that shall not be known whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the house tops 1 Cor. 4.5 Judge nothing before the time until the Lord come who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts And therefore if you should escape the shame of your sins here you will at the resurrection and the day of Judgment when God shall disclose your sins to the whole world be put to everlasting contempt Dan. 12.2 Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt 2. The way to get your shameful sins covered is to confess them to God and to humble your souls for them and to flee to the Blood of Christ for by so doing God will pardon them and cast them behind his back and when God hath pardoned them they shall not do you any hurt 1 John 1.9 If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness When God forgives sin he is said to cover it Psal 32.1 Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is covered David committed a shameful sin when he murdered Vriah and committed adultery with Bersheba yet upon his confession of these sins God pardoned him Psal 32.5 I acknowledged my sin unto thee and mine iniquity have I not hid I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin Plea 6. I am tempted in my straits to steal and to kill my Children because I cannot maintain them I am tempted also to other sins Now I am afraid if I live I shall fall by my temptations into some foul sin and thereby be a scandal to Religion and to the Gospel and it is better for me to dye than to scandalize Religion and therefore I am of the mind when I can get a convenient opportunity to make away my self that I may not become ascandal to the Gospel Answ 1. You must not commit one sin to avoid another Rom. 3.8 Not as we be slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say let us do evil that good may come whose damnation is just It is a good thing to prevent sin and to prevent scandalizing of Religion yet we must not murder our selves which is a great evil to prevent other sins or scandalizing Religion because it is in the judgment of the Apostle a damnable tenent and practice to do evil that good may come 2. What greater sin or scandal to Religion than for a man that professeth Religion to murder himself and therefore it is a strange delusion for a man to design the making away of himself to avoid other sins or to avoid scandalizing of the Gospel 3. If you be tempted to steal or destroy your Children or any other sins and are afraid that you shall one day fall by these temptations there are better means of avoiding these sins than by murdering your selves and they are such as these 1. Pray to God to keep you from those sins to which you are tempted by Satan or unto which you are enclined by your own hearts Psal 19.12,13 Cleanse thou me from secret faults keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins let them not have dominion over me Psal 119.133 Order my steps in thy word and let not any iniquity have dominion over me 2. Hide Gods Word in your hearts for there is great efficacy in the Word of God when it is treasured up in the heart to keep a man from falling into sin Psal 119.11 Thy word have I hid in mine heart that I might not sin against thee 3. Rest upon Gods Promises wherein he hath promised you that he will not suffer sin to get the dominion over you but when he seeth your sins rising up against you and ready to prevail he will take compassion upon you and subdue your iniquities Rom. 6.14 Sin shall not have dominion over you Micah 7.19 He will turn again he will have compassion upon us he will subdue our iniquities and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the Sea Go out against your sins in the strength of these promises and though you be often soiled yet renew your combat hanging and cleaving to the promises of God and doubt not but you shall in the conclusion obtain the victory Plea 7. I am a man cast off by God and I am sure to go to Hell when I dye yea methinks I feel the beginnings of Hell already in my Conscience by those terrors of God that are in my soul and a seared Conscience and the longer I live the more I shall sin and the more I shall encrease my torments hereafter and therefore 't is better for me to put an end to my wretched life than to live to encrease my sins and my torments for I do nothing else but treasure up wrath against the day of wrath Answ 1. God would not