to be poor in faith and to be such a beggar as not to be endowed with one dram of grace and then you are beggars indeed As we say he is a poore man that God hates He that hath not Christ and hath not the treasures of heaven in him he is exposed to worse poverty a thousand times then he can be for imbracing the cal of Jesus Christ Rev. 3.17 Yea and he is exposed to worse persecution also that for fear of persecution neglects Jesus Christ Psal 83.5 The Lord will persecute them saith David with fury and wrath speaking of wicked men All persecution from man reaches but to the body but this from God reaches to the soul 7. And then lastly This should not hinder you from following Jesus Christ considering that though you should be poor and should be persecuted yet heaven wil make you amends for all Heb. 11.35 Heaven wil make amends for povertie when you are endowed with all the riches of Christ and Heaven wil make amends for persecution when there the weary shal be at rest and there the troubled shal be at ease And thus much be spoken of the third suggestion of the Devil that if you entertain the cal of Jesus Christ you shal be exposed to much povertie and persecution here in the world SERMON VI. 2. Pet. 1.10 Wherefore the rather Brethren give all diligence to make your Calling and Election sure THE Doctrine I am yet upon is this That Christians ought to put forth a great deal of diligence to make this sure to their souls that they are effectually called by Jesus Christ In the prosecution of which I have resolved one case of conscience and am yet upon the second case namely what suggestions the Devil doth use to keep men off from imbracing the cal of Jesus Christ I have laid down and answered three already 4. Now there is one suggestion more When the Devil sees either of these wil take place then he comes in with a fourth to disswade men from imbracing the call of Christ and that is this Why saith the Devil if you wil entertain the call of Christ you wil abridge your selves of all the joy and comfort of your lives you wil never have merry daies while you live upon earth You see men that pretend to be converted and doe hear Sermons what lumpish and melancholy men they are not so jocund and jolly as others are that walk not so precisely if you follow Christ and his Gospel this wil casheer all your merry daies and this wil put you into a sad temper all your jovial daies are gone Therefore to take off this aspersion that the waies of Christ are sad and melancholy waies which hath been an aspersion that from age to age and generation to generation hath been as a Gin the Devil hath used to keep men from Christianity And I remember it is one of the greatest Engines Antichrist useth to support and uphold his Kingdom The Papists to deter men from Christianity and the Protestant Religion they would hold their Disciples in hand with this that the spirit of a Calvinist is a sad and lumpish spirit and therefore they would disswade all Nations from turning to their Religion and this the Priests were to tel in all the Churches of Rome how sad and melancholy they were that turned to the Calvinists religion and this did mightily stay the people from imbracing the truth And this aspeâ—sion hath passed from hand to hand and is many times prevalent upon the spirits of men that are of the true Religion that they must not be too forward in the practice of Religion fearing lest this should work melancholy and sad thoughts in them Now to take off this I shal onely urge four or five heads briefly First Whereas you say they are melancholy sad that are called by Christ to a profession of his waies I would answer thus That they of all people in the world have most cause of mirth gladness and they are the most truly joyful people in the world That they have most cause of rejoycing is apparent When the Disciples came triumphing that they could cast out Devils heal the diseased and work Miracles O but saith Christ Rejoyce not in this but rejoyce that your names are written in the book of life Luke 10.20 As much as if Christ should say All the endowments and extraordinary gifts of the spirit they are no such grounds of joy if you had them all but here is your joy and cause of rejoycing that your names are written in the book of Life that you are in Christ and your souls shal be saved And so Paul tels us Phil. 4.4 Rejoyce in the Lord alwayes again I say rejoyce The Apostle would not speak it to them with a single command but doubtless his expression to shew that they that are people that have their sins pardoned that have their souls reconciled that have a title to glory whose names are written in the book of Life these of all men in the world have most cause of joy and gladness And they have not onely most cause but they doe most truly rejoyce and have more real joy in their hearts in one day then the wicked can have all their lives 1 Pet. 1.8 They rejoyce with joy unspeakable and full of glory What joy you have in the world the tongue is able to speak of it but the tongue is not able to speak of that inward joy that godly men have in their hearts upon the apprehension of the interest they have in Jesus Christ Psal 4.6 Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance And Thou shalt put more gladness in mine heart c. Prov. 14.13 A good conscience is a continual feast Men are never more merry then when they are at a feast godly men they carry clear consciences about them and that makes them as joyous and pleasant as if they were alwayes at a great and sumptuous feast Indeed this is true they do not rejoyce with such exorbitancies of joy as wicked men do Wicked men rejoyce in sin that they cannot do wicked men rejoyce in their lusts in their drunkenesse and their adulteries and wayes of sin that godly men dare not do Such a rejoycing as this is the foundation of sorrow This rejoycing like the Prodigal in a riotous course of living is the foundation of sorrow and will meet with you when you are to die Secondly Grant this should be true yet consider that this sorrow that godly people have it is such a sorrow that they shal have no cause to repent thereof but it is a foundation of future joy to them 2 Cor. 7.9 10. I rejoyce saith the Apostle in that I have made you sorrowful What rejoyce to see them a sad people Yes for the sorrow I made you sorrowful with was a sorrow never to be repented of you wil never repent of that sorrow and therefore Paul would do it because it was a
Grace and Peace be towards you Rom. 1.6 7. Called to be Saâ—â—tâ— Grace and Peace be multiplyed towards you and so in every Epistle besides to note that when a man is effâ—ctually called the more assurance he hath of his calling the more peace he hath in his own conscience It wil greaten your peacâ— and greaten your inward comforts therefore you should labour afâ—er this assâ—rance of your effectual calling And thus having shewn you what effectual calling is and why you â—ust give diligence to make this sure I now passe to a third Qâ—erie What are the Characters or discoveries whereby my soul may be assured that I aâ— effâ—ctually called by Jesus Christ And in the dispatch of this I shall resolve it onely by these two general heads First You may be assured of your effectual calling if God hath â—aken that method with your souls which he doth ordinarily take with those whom he doth effectually call Secondly If the Lord hath wrought in you those saving effects or concomitants which do ordinarily accompany those that are thus effectually called if these two things be done you may have a seal and assurance in your own hearts that you also are effectually called Beloved it is not for Ministers to flatter you there are among many in the world but few that are called among many that are called but few that are elected and therefore do not flatter your selves If upon tryal you finde you are not in the number of Gods called ones go home and bewail your unregenerate and unconverted estate But before I can speak of this method I must first lay downe some mistakes that are held by erroneous mindes about the method God takes in calling a sinner home to himself A fiâ—st mistake is of the Pelagians who hold this that a man is able to call and convert himself Now this opinion doth quite exclude and justle out God from having any hand therein they say a Christian is able to call and convert himselfe having only a general concurrence and assistance from God 2. Of the Arminians and they hold this That effectual calling consists only in moral perswasions and may be resisted by the person that is thus called and that a man being called into a state of grace may fall from his calling and fall from his grace and so have no profit by his calling at all which is a most uncomfortable opinion and surely God would never take this method in calling of his people 3. That of the Papists and they say that God calls and ordains a sinner to glory but it is upon the foresight of his good works God foresaw how good and holy the man would be and therefore God would chuse and call him to glory But this hath no ground from Scripture neither 4. That of the Familists and they hold this That Gods method in calling a sinner is not by the outward Ministry of the Word but it is by Raptures and Revelations and by divine inspirations and extraordinary wayes of working but this is not Gods usual method though God sometimes takes this way as he did by Paul who was called this way after an extraordinary manner Yet this is not Gods ordinary rule 5. There is another mistake and that is of those who presse a necessity of such measures of legal horrour and terrour upon the consciences of men else they can never be saved Sometimes Ministers have been so harsh now and then though indeed no such cause to blame them as is pretended yet sometimes lashes break out that men must be so and so humbled in such a measure and so long for duration Now this is not Gods method to presse for measure but a great mistake about Gods manner of calling a sinner though I must confesse this is the nearest of all the five to that rule God takes in calling a sinner to glory Having thus laid down the mistakes 't is the easier now to finde out the truth I come now to speak of that method God takes in calling a sinner And here I shall lay down a sixfold method in which God proceeds with those whom he doth effectually call which if he doth so with you you may go home with a seal upon your hearts that you are effectually called to grace and you shall one day come to glory First When God goes about effectually to call a poor sinner into a state of grace he puts a clear light into his soul whereby he may see the hainous and aggravated nature of all his sins more then ever he did before Rom. 7.8 9 13. Paul tells you Before the commandment came he was alive and sin was dead that is before the power of the word came upon his conscience to convert him he was alive i.e. he thought he was a good man and a just man and he thought sin was dead sin was destroied he never knew sin so sinful but when the commandment came sin revived and I died but when the word of God came with power upon my conscience and light upon my judgement then I saw I was a dead man sin had kil'd me and I saw sin was raigning and sin was raging in me and what then ver 13. I saw sin exceeding sinful he never saw sin so before conversion before his Call when he was a Pharisee but when the word of God came with power upon his conscience to call him then saith he I saw sin to be exceeding sinful Now O Beloved hath ever God done thus with your souls may be you look upon sin with a transient and general view but do you look upon sin so as to see more evil in sin then ever you saw before This is the course God usually takes Me thinks God deals with a converted sinner as it is spoken in Job 33.27 28. He looketh upon men and if any say I have sinned and perverted that which was right and it doth not profit me he will deliver his soul from going down into the pit and his life shall see the light that is God looks upon the mass of mankind in the world and saith if any man say he hath sinned and it did not profit him that is if he look upon sin as an evil and that he never did get good by it then saith God I will deliver his soul from hell and bring him to heaven Yea but you will say May be sometimes God may do thus to affright men and trouble men in minde make them see their sins but is this Gods usual work Yes it is ver 29. Lo these things worketh God oftentimes with men Mark it is not a seldom work but it is Gods work often he will make you see your sins see them to be fruitlesse and see them to be unprofitable Lo these things God worketh oftentimes with men Hence you read John 16.8 When the Spirit shall come mark his Office he shall convince the world of sin The first act of the Spirit in converting a
should be ready to give answer that is when men ask you what hopes you have of heaven and upon what ground do you hope to be saved the Apostle saith you should be ready to give answer of that hope that is in you And who were they that should do so they were those that had a good conscience those men that had consciences free from sin and had evidence in their own consciences that they belonged to God they were ready whoever asked them to give a reason why they hoped for heaven Whereas a man that hath false perswasions of heaven and of his effectual calling that man cannot endure to be tried either by God or man He is like the man that hath stolen goods in his house A man that is an honest man let the Constable come let search be made it never troubles him because they are his own goods that he hath bought with his own money but the Thief when the Constable comes and search is made every Trunk that is opened his heart trembles It is so with an unsound-hearted man a man that hath false assurance lest there should be a flaw found in it Come to a man that hath false perswasions as to you Formalists and those that are presumptuous wretches come to these men and put this question unto them Upon what ground do you hope for salvation What evidence can you give of your effectual calling How can you make out upon Scripture-grounds that you shall goe to heaven Such questions as these will puzzle an unsound heart that he cannot give you any reasonable answer at all And herein the difference is palpable between a grounded assurance and those false perswasions that wicked men have Tenthly True assurance wherever it is it makes a man so to value the comforts of the Spirit of God that he doth undervalue all other comforts in the world in comparison of them Psal 4.6 Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon me what then and this shall more glad my heart then when my corn and wine and oile increaseth Beloved assurance it doth so transport and raise up the heart that it makes all things in the world all comforts here below to be nothing in comparison of that The favour of Princes is nothing to that man that hath the favour of God Life and all the comforts of life are nothing to that man that hath comfort in referrence to his eternal life Psal 63.3 Thy loving kindness O Lord is better then life David did not value his life nor all the comforts of it so as he valued the loving kindnesse of his God But now a man that hath false perswasions these do not so transport his spirit and take up the whole man and fill the soul with jâ—y unspeakable and full of glory these do no whit abate his comforts in the world A man you know that hath tasted hony other things are of an unpleasant taste to him that are eaten after Beloved assurance is like hony nothing so sweet to a godly palate as that is Now when a godly person tasteâ— of the hony of assurance all other outward comforts they are but as gall and wormwood things unpleasant to his taste and palate And thus you see I have laid down ten particulars to you I would intreat you to distinguish in your own hearts whether you are the people that have a true assurance or onely false perswasions of your effectual calling And let me tell you the reason why I speak of this is because the most of men in the world do misse of heaven by false perswasions VVhere desperation damnes one soul presumption damnes a thousand I might say of this as it was sung in the Triumphant song of David and Saul Saul hath slain his thousands but David his ten thousands So I might say desparation hath slain a thousand but presumption ten thousand Thousands and ten thousands are slain and undone for ever by harbouring presumptuous and groundlesse perswasions of their effectual calling when they are not SERMON X. 2 Pet. 1.10 Wherefore the rather Brethren Give all diligence to make your Calling and Election sure THE Doctrine I am yet upon drawn from these words is this That Christians ought to put forth a great deal of diligence to make this sure to their souls that they are effectually called by Jesus Christ In the prosecution of which I have handled many particulars I now come in the close of this Point to make a particular use of all that hath been said and so passe on to that other branch to make your Election sure And the Use I shall speak of shall onely be an Use of Exhortation and Direction My Exhortation shall be directed to two sorts of men First to them that do enjoy and are assured of their effectual Calling who are called and are assured they are so Secondly to them that have sometime enjoyed this assurance but now have lost or eclipsed the comfortable feeling of their assurance Into these two heads I shall branch my discourse And first the exhortation or counsel I am to give is to them that are assured of their effectual calling that have done the work the Apostle here injoynes them that have made sure their Vocation and by unquestionable evidence can say so And these I would advise to three particular duties Fiâ—st you should be directed rightly to use your assurance Secondly Carefully to preserve your assurance Thirdly Daily to improve your assurance This is the three fâ—ld task that lies upon you that enjoy this rich Jewel of assâ—rance First You are â—o take care that you rightly use and manage your assurance A thing hardly gotten if it be not well managed a man may enjoy it in a way of losse to himselfe To use assurance well is the great Art of a Christian And here that I might speak distinctly to this direction I shall lay down â—ight particulars as concomitants or gracious qualifications which must accompany you in a condition of assurance As First You must use and manage your assurance with humility in case you use it well Assured Christians must be humble Christians The more high you are in comforts the more low you should be in Spirit You know the fullest eares of corn hang down their head lowest when light and flashy darnel that hath nothing of worth in it lifts up its head on high Assured Christians they are like your full and ripe eares of corn the more full they are of this fruit of the Spirit assurance the more low do they and should they hang down their heads It is your empty barrels make a noise when your full vessels though you strike them will not sound It is those Christians that are most empty of faith and most empty of assurance that make most noise and are most proud of their guifts and graces when your assured Christians they are like vessels full of the best liquor that make the least noise The fuller God
grace to be the multiplying of peace The more you multiply and grow in grace the more you will increase peace inward peace of conscience they are both joyned together You have a passage 2 Pet. 1.5 11. compared together Adde to your faith vertue c. The Apostle there urgeth our diligence to adde grace to grace that is to live in the improvement of grace And what wil follow ver 11. If you doe these things you shall never fall for so an entrance shall be ministred unto you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdome of our Lord Iesus Christ You shall not onely goe to heaven but you shall have an abundant entrance ministred before you come there you shall have abundance of assurance and inward peace before you come there And here to give you a more particular direction there are these foure graces chiefly you are to improve First Improve the grace of humility Isa 57.15 The Lord doth promise there to revive the spirit of the humble It is a particular promise to that grace that God will revive you and give you a new life if you have it And reviving there is not meant of the first life of grace but of a life of comfort They had grace before but God would give them a life of comfort he will restore your consolation to you in case you are an humble people Hence it is Iam. 4.6 The Lord gives grace to the humble Yea he gives more grace The Lord gives more grace to the humble person then to any man in the world Now the more grace you have the more comfort you must needs have Humility is a foundation of more grace therefore needs must be a foundation of more comfort That building whose foundation is laid lowest is of all the most beautiful and comely Fabrick above ground So those Christians that lay a foundation low in humility they are likely to reare up a most beautiful Building in way of comfort Secondly Improve the grace of faith in beleeving and that is the way to increase comfort 1 Peter 1.8 Whom though you have not seen yet believing you rejoyce with joy unspeakable and full of glory Though they did never see Christ yet believing in Christ and improving their faith they had not onely an ordinary measure of comfort but they had more comfort in their hearts then they could utter with their Tongue They rejoyce with joy unspeakable and full of glory So Rom. 15.13 The God of peace fill you with all joy and peace in Believing that you may abound in hope through the Holy Ghost Believing makes you full of all joy and makes you abound in it The more you are in Believing the more you will be in assurance Thirdly Improve the grace of love to Jesus Christ John 14.23 If any man love me my Father shall love him and we will come in unto him and make our abode with him If you improve in your love to Jesus Christ God the Father and God the Son will make their dwelling in your hearts Now he must needs be a comfortable Christian that hath so good a guest as God the Father and Jesus Christ to come in and make their abode with him As you know to your bosome-friend whom you love and you know loves you you will communicate all your secrets Thus will God the Father if he knowes you are his bosome-friends and seeth you love him he will communicate all his comforts to you you shall never want comforts if you increase in love to Jesus Christ Fourthly Improve the grace of godly sorrow you will never finde sweeter musick in comfort then when you are laid down in teares As the sound of the Trumpet is never more pleasant then when they are upon the water so when God seeth you flow with the water of repentance and godly sorrow then you are likely to hear the most melodious harmony in the apprehension of Gods love Psal 126. They that sow in teares shall reap in joy You shall not onely have a dram but a handful of joy as Reapers they cut down handfuls of corn at once And as you know in seed though you sowe but one grain of corn there may a dozen eares come from that one seed so if you sowe but a little godly sorrow a grain of godly sorrow may be a root to a great deal of spiritual joy Secondly If you would improve your assurance preserve a clear conscience both towards God and man A good conscience is a continual Feast Prov. 15.15 Assurance I may say of it as the Father speaks of the Holy Ghost and the comforts thereof The Spirit of God is a very nice thing every thing will give the comforts of Gods Spirit a check and distaste now if you harbour sin upon conscience you will never thrive in comfort every thing will give comfortable motions a check And as Philosophers say when the Aire is foggy it ariseth from vapours that are exhaled from the earth which makes the Aire so cloudy as it is So it is filth drawn from our earthly hearts that makes such foggy mists to arise between our comforts and us and between God and us You must keep conscience clear else you will never keep heaven clear Heaven will be clouded if the heart be filthy Job 11.14 15. If iniquity be in thy hand put it far away If sin be upon the conscience harbour it not for then thou shalt lift up thy face before God thou shalt be stedfast and not fear You shall not onely not fear but you shall have a degree of assurance You shall be stedfast if you put sin far away from you A sullied and a polluted conscience shall never be in a Christian strong in assurance You will not grow in assurance if your conscience harbour guilt Thirdly If you would improve your assurance keep close in communion with God Nothing that feeds comforts so much as a Christians holy walking Esa 32.17 The work of righteousnesse shall be peace and the effect thereof quietnesse and assurance for ever If you walk in works of righteousnesse and in a way of keeping lose communion with God this shall be peace and this shall be quietnesse and great assurance Mark how the Holy Ghost makes a gâ—adation not onely peace and quietnesse but assurance also you shall have the highest degree of peace and the highest step of comfort if you walk diligently in a way of holinesse with your God And thus much be spoken to the first sort of men those that live in the enjoyment of the assurance of their effectual calling I have now a word to those men that live in the want of this assurance who happily have in times past had some glimmering and some dimme sight of comfort touching their everlasting estate and yet are now much clouded and eclipsed in their comforts or have lost the comforts they once hâ—d what they should do to recover it And to these I â—hall by way of direction speak
say it doth not extend to children who die in their infancy but onely to men come to years of discretion if they live and die without having these six effects they may conclude they cannot be elected Secondly that the want of these six particulars for a time is no Argument of a mans non-election for before conversion which is Gods first dealing with a sinner an elect man may be as vile and as bad as any wicked man alive As the Apostle Paul tells us Titus 3.3 In times past we were also disobedient and served divers lusts and lived in pleasure and excess c. So 1 Tim. 1.12 So that the want of this for a time is no argument of a mans non-election for then it would follow a man unconverted is no elect man which would crosse the whole tenour of Scripture But a man living and dying without these doth not belong to the election of grace Thirdly I do not presse the having of these effects actually if you have them habitually My meaning is this A man may be elected and yet may not act any thing answerable to effectual calling nor act with any delight and love to the word nor act any thing in a way of sanctification yet if you have these habitually in the habit of them these may be testimonies or evidences of election Fourthly I do not presse the having of these effects sensibly to be an evidence of election if so be you have them really There are many men have these really when they have them not in their own apprehension Fifthly I do not presse the having of these effects gradually so you have them sincerely My meaning is this that a man may be elected yea and he may not onely be chosen in Gods eternal decree but the execution of that decree may be passed upon him that he may be effectually called and yet he may not have all these six effects in a great measure in the highest degree yet he may have them sincerely and so be a pledge to his own heart of his eternal election And thus having finished this third Quere I come now to enter upon another depending upon the former which indeed is a very dreadful subject and a point to be trembled at while it is handling and that is this what probable guesse may be given of a man that he is not within the compasse of Gods election This is a very high point and must be handled with a great deal of seariousnesse and sadnesse it being a point concerning the salvation or damnation of all the men upon earth And therefore I would intreat you to look about you Gods decrees they are in Heaven and it is onely a reall work of grace upon your hearts on earth that can give you evidence that those decrees are for good to you As good wrought is an evidence of Gods purpose to save you so the contrary work may be an evidence of Gods purpose never to save you but of leaving you without the compasse of his eternal election There can be nothing laid down absolutely and certainly yet there may be many probable guesses given of the men that are not within the compasse of Gods election Of which I shal name but six or seven sorts And I wish to God that none of you that are before the Lord this day have your names written in this black book lest you have just cause to fear your names are no written in the book of life First That man that falls back from a course of profession to a course of profanenesse without timely returning the Scripture gives a shrewd guesse of such a man that he is not within the compasse of Gods purpose to save I do not say every backsliding and every decaying affection but a total and final relapse when a man falls and riseth not again wâ—eâ— a mans runs from God and â—eturns not again the Scripture gives a guesse at him that he is not within the compasse of Gods election Heb. 10.38 39. If any man draw back my soul shall have no pleasure in him Interpreters observe that in these words there is a figure wherein there is lesse expressed then is intended My soul shall have no pleasure in him It is as much as if God should have said My soule shall hate or I will exceedingly hate him But we are not of them that draw back to perdition but of them that believe to the saving of their souls which words clearly import that men that draw back without returning they draw back to perdition to damnation but we are not of them saith the Apostle And here then beloved doth this word fall upon any man before God this day Hast thou left a course of strictnesse and fallen into a course of prophanesse and loosnesse Hast thou fallen from thy God and never thinkest of a returning I shall not censure thee now but if thou livest and diest in this estate it is an undoubted argument thou art not within the compasse of Gods decree to save Secondly Men that do make the mercies and goodness of God as arguments to embolden them the more in sin such men are not likely to be the persons whom God hath elected to life and glory In the Epistle of Jude v. 4. It is spoken there of men that turned the grace of God into wantonness And what saith the Apostle of them they are men ordained of old to damnation The Scripture there makes it the badge of a man ordained of old to damnation when he shall persist in this sinful temper to turn Gods grace into laciviousnesse that is to take arguments from the grace and mercy and goodnesse of God to walk in waies of sin And therefore look to it and with your hearts bewaile it all you that are apt to abuse doctrins of grace and because God is good you will be evil because God is merciful therefore you will be sinful if you die in this temper the Scripture declares that you are the men ordained of old to condemnation Thirdly a man that doth walk in a course of sin wilfully with malice and knowingly against conscience and obstinately without reluctancy and persist in this and live and die thus that man is not within the compasse of Gods election There is a phrase Psal 59.5 Be not merciful O Lord unto wicked transgressors It is in some translations be not merciful to them that sin of wicked malice or of malicious wickedness Now there is this rule which Divines give that those prayers which were made by David they are rather Prophesies of what should be then meere prayers that this might be As David prayed against the Jewes Psal 69 2â— that their table might be a snare to them and that they should alway bow down under their prayes which was a prophecie and they did so And so he burden here that God would not be merciful to men that sâ—n of wicked malice which is as much as a prophecie that God will not be
to salvation Secondly though men have been notoriously wicked in their lives before calling yet if this notorious wickedness doth lay any engagement upon them to make them labour to be more eminent in grace after calling this is rather a sign of election then reprobation It is observable in Paul he was a notorious wicked man before his call but now this exceeding wickednesse of his before call did engage him to labour to exceed all others in goodnesse after he was converted and the more evil he was before the more holy he labours to be after As he laboured before to hale men to prison for professing Jesus Christ he is now as zealous to draw men to Jesus Christ after his call he was very industrious to do evil before his call and this made him after his call as he saith himself I was in labours more aboundant then they all And so Mary Magdalen who before her calling was a vile woman one that was a common harlot a woman out of whom Jesus Christ cast seven devils and yet this woman after her calling she laboured to be more eminent in godly sorrow then any woman before or since she washed Christs feet with her teares and wiped them with the haires of her head The like of which you do not read of any woman in Scripture And this was a very good sign when your notoriousness in waias of sin before calling shall lay such an engagement upon you to become more eminent in grace after calling this is a very good encouragement or evidence that you are within the compasse of Gods election and therefore you have no cause to be discouraged Suppose before the word laid hold upon your conscience you were guilty of filthy sins not fit to be named in the congregation if you will the more honour God and praise God now and walk more humbly and labour to excell each other in grace now as you did in sin in times past This is a great sign that you are in the compasse of Gods Elect ones Thirdly you that have been scandalous in your lives before calling for your comfort know that God in his eternal counsel doth commonly make the profane and wicked and the worst of men the objects of his election rather then civil honest men rather then men that are of an honest and civil and moral conversation here in this world And the Lord doth it upon this ground the more to magnifie the freenesse and the riches of his own grace in electing men to life For should God only chuse moderate and civil honest men in the world men would be apt to think it is that mans morality and that mas civility that was the motice which provoked God to elect them and therefore God to overthrow these thoughts he lets electfon runne rather unto men that have been notoriously grosse and sinful in â—heir lives then other men Manasseh a notorious bloody man yet falls within the compassâ— of Gods election when many a civil man is left out Maâ—y a common harlot yet chosen when many a modest chaste woman was cast into hell Matth. 21.31 32. That Christ urgeth a parable of two men One that said he would go and follow Christ but did not and the other said he would not go but did now which of these twain did the will of Christ and they said the first And Jesus said unto them Verily I say unto you that publicans and harlots shall go into heaven before you But you will say was this common this was onely one single time therefore mark the next words For Johâ— came to you in the way of righteousness and you believed not but the publicans and harlots believed in Christ John came preaching and you would not believe you Phrisees strict moral men that did not flie out into such scandals as other men did you would not believe saith Christ but Publicans men that were most addicted to extortion and unconscionable gain they imbraced Jesus Christ when moral men would not This therefore should be another comfort for you that many times election runns rather to the profaner sort of men then to men that are civil and righteous dealing men here in the world and this God hoth to magnifie the riches of his own grace Fourthly that it is no matter what you were before your callâ—ng if you are a repentant and holy people after your former miscarriages shall no way prejudice your future blessednesse 1 Cor. 6.9 10 11. Neither Fornicator nor Idolater nor Adulâ—erer nor envious nor thiefe nor covetâ—us nor reviler shall enter â—nto the Kingdome of Heaven and such were some of you c. Here you see a Catalogue of vile evils heaped together and such wâ—re some of you but now you are washed now you are sanctified â— So that no matter what you were before conversion though guilty of great sins so you are now a reformed people now a sanctified people Titus 3.3 We our selves were sometimeâ— foolish disâ—bedient decieved serving divers lusts and pleasures and living in malice and envy c. You were so but after the kindness love of God appeared to you after they were converted they were not so So that these four particulars wil clearly take off this objection that no matter what you were before conversion if you are now a repentant people and bewail your evils and reform your waies your former ill led life will be no hindrance at all to your election Indeed this I must needs say that you that have been most notorious in sin God expects this at your hands that you be most eminent in grace most deep in humiliation most eminent in godly sorrow though your former evils do no way prejudice your election Secondly if the devil cannot fasten this upon you he will come upon you with this assâ—ult viz. your frequent falling into scandalous and foul and grosse enormities after you took upon you a profession of Jesus Christ And this the devil will lay close happily sin before conversion was not so great but now since you have followed Sermons and since you have professed Jesus Christ since that time you have fallen foulely into grosse and scandalous sins and surely this is inconsistent with grace and cannot befal persons within the compasse of Gods election And I confesse this is both sad and hazardous yet I shall lay down three things to uphold thee that yet for all this thou maiest be within the compasse of Gods election As First that divers persons that were within the compasse of Gods election have fallen foulely into grosse sins after their call Lot after he was called fell to be incestuous and fell to drunkenesse David after he was called fell into Adultery Peter after he was called fell to a denial of Jesus Christ Yea you read of Solomon 1 Kings 11.9 That his heart was tuâ—ned from the Lord after the Lord had revealed himself unto him twice After God had revealed himself to Solomon and converted him