weapons and tremble at thy wretchednesse Branch 6 Sixtly let this doctrine not onely convince thy judgement of a truth that the case thus standeth Lay downe thy pride and rebellion between God and thy soule but let it proceed to bring thine heart and whole selfe under the authority of this advantage at which God hath thee That is let it worke exceeding humiliation and feare of spirit in thee and cause thee to pull downe thy peacocks fethers and lay downe thy pride rebellion and gainsaying heart and be as one out of himselfe As that jailor when the earthquake had broken the prison doores Act. 16.27 and loosed the prisoners thought himselfe but a dead man Act. 9. and Paul being under the arrest of Gods might and power lay for dead So the thought of this thy wofull disadvantage under the hand of God should cause the jollity of thy spirit to quaile and thy bog and bold heart to be abashed saying if this be thus whence comes my impudent resolute purpose to go on in my course I see I have not mercy at my command nor grace pind to my sleeve when I can but use three or foure good wordes at my death Alas I perceive I my selfe am infinitely under the advantage of Justice and wrath both in Adam and by my owne wicked courses Is this then Oh my soule a season of revelling of casting care away of adding drunkennesse to thirst Is this a time to contest to provoke to increase sinne by wilfulnesse What do I think to scare God by my murmurings and cavills against him Oh no! this is the way to make judgement inexcusable and hell seven times hotter then at first See Esay 28.22 Therefore lay it to heart as those in Act. 2. did when they heard Peter shew them what pickle they were in for murdering the Lord of life Oh! their hearts were gored as with a swords point So let rottennesse enter into thy bones tremble and say What if the Lord should take this advantage of his to destroy me What if his long suffering all this while hath onely spared me as a vessel of wrath that he might with the fuller swinge come upon me and all at once sweep me to hell what a taking are those men in who are at their enemies curtesie as having lost all they have or condemned in as much as they are worth and at the mercy of their adversary who hath got an execution against all their estate surely hee were an odde man for stoutnesse of stomacke who should stand it out and dare his enemy to ceaze upon him Alas Esay 27.4.5 what a poore wretch should he be made So here what rescue hath the dry stubble against the advantage of fire if once kindled in it Oh! if thou canst bring downe thy base and sturdy heart by this meditation how thou standest at the meere curtesie of him who cannot only destroy thy body Luke 12.4.5 but cast body and soule to hell if this will master thy proud heart and make thee crouch and put thy face within thy knees for confusion and sorrow thou hast attained some part of that end which this convincement serves for Seventhly yet rest not in this dejection onely Consider that the soveraignty Branch 7 of God doth not reach only to destroy the creature Soveraignty is free to save aswell as to destroy but sometimes to abase it and save it There is a soveraignty of mercy a free and bountifull grace aswell in that God who hath thee at this advantage as a power to condemne And therefore apply thy selfe to the beholding of those cords which the Gospell puts in and offers thee in this dungeon and of that ladder which is thrust in for thee to come up by as to the meer implodding and sadding thy thoughts with the likelyhood of thy confusion Consider its one step to pardon to lay to heart Gods advantage For who are they who perish who carry a blacke marke of wrath about them Surely those who either acknowledge no such thing live at hearts case and elbow-roome and come leaping forth in their chaines with Agag or else if they heare of it murmur fret and kicke against it 1 Sam. 15. If then thou hast escaped both one thing remaineth escape also an unbeleeving heart Rest not in these suburbes of hell but behold the freedome of mercy in the promise And do not reach first at Election and so fal backe and breake thy necke Election not to be first lookt at but the offer of grace But take this first worke of humiliation in thee as an hansell of hope that more shall follow and as for Gods secrets they must attend faith not goe before it Therefore nakedly and without further dispute convince thy judgement of a possibility of escaping this advantage which God hath thee at Not by thy struggling and fighting against it as Pharaoh against the waters returning but by thy meeke and humble stooping under it And know that this doctrine of Gods soveraignty serves to try the spirit of men of what mettle they are made of and to condemne none save the finally rebellious Those who cease whetting at Gods secrets as not belonging to them and only betake themselves to the softly streames of Siloam beholding with stedfast eye Deut. 29.29 the freedome bottomednesse and unchangeablenesse of the promise have a marke upon them of such as shall be saved the soveraignty of Gods advantage against the poore creature notwithstanding Come then to the Lord and say thou mayst indeed justly damne me yet thou mayst also save mee O Lord doe not destroy thy creature let it please thee to have mercy and desire not the death of a poore wretch with thee the fatherlesse shall find mercy of which I am What boot shall it be for thee to have my bloud Oh spare a little let me recover my selfe if thou must needs be just powre thy wrath upon despisers but spare the penitent and such as lye at thy feet as lost Eightly let this conviction of judgement turne thy soule to make an adventure and where thou seest a breach made there to lay the battery Branch 8 of faith to assay an entrance into the City of grace The Lord having cut off his plea by as strong a remedy Assay to beleeve and redemption yea stronger then ever the former advantage lay calls thee to lay hold of it strongly in the blood and satisfaction of thy Redeemer How dost thou find thy selfe affected in this case Whether chusest thou to curse God and dye or to breake and pull downe thy stomacke and live judge thy selfe herein acording to the rule if ever the advantage of God dranke up thy spirit how wentest thou to worke didst thou recke thy teene upon God and quarrell with him for his forsaking thee or soughtst thou after a way of hope by Gods cutting off his owne advantage in his Sonne Dost thou behold the Lord
by a weake man to bring our soules under the authoritie of God even as if hee himselfe spake Doe wee feele the power of an Ordinance as farre above man as heaven is above earth to awe and over-rule us It is a signe that God is preparing to worke somewhat more then ordinary in us if we suffer it not to slip from us 5 Mark Fifthly this shall be another signe to us if wee acknowledge a providence of speciall mercie in that the Lord will use poore meanes to convey his greatnesse and goodnesse into us For what proportion is there between the Majesty of God and our basenesse Or how should wee endure either to heare his voyce or the voyce of an Angell Therefore the familiaritie of the instrument and the weaknesse of the Ordinances is a great benefit unto our simplenesse And as those Israelites were not able to beare the terrors of God no nor so much as the face of Moses being armed and honoured with the extraordinary gifts of the spirit were faine to desire that Moses might speake Exod. 20. and that with a veyle upon his face to weaken the shining of his countenance So should wee turne our offence at the basenesse of Christ and the ordinances into admiration and thankes that thereby the excellency of God might bee accommodated the more easily to our weaknesse 6 Marke Sixtly another marke is when the sinfulnesse of the instrument abusing the ordinance by his ignorant rash confused and unprofitable handling of the word yea attempting the Sacraments with profane hands through the scandalousnesse of his life doth not weaken the esteeme of the ordinances themselves in our hearts nor cause us to stumble at them slight them ever the more Rather when our soules tremble at such impudence and boldnesse of man that they should dare with unskilfull or impure spirits to obtrude themselves upon Gods holy matters and looke up to God by prayer that either he would better and change or else cast them out of his Church that they may no longer darken and destroy the excellencie of truth by their sacriledge and audaciousnesse Mean time looking beyond the sin of the person let us behold the glory of that Ordinance in the nature thereof which yet wee see so sullied and eclipsed by the blindnesse and wickednesse of base usurpers Lastly 7 Mark when wee can fasten upon those great things which the Lord offers us by weake meanes and that by faith in a promise taking them out as our owne peculiar portion For as when the Lord cast downe the walls of Jerico by those Rams-hornes the chiefe active instrument of the miracle was the faith of the Church Heb. 11. as the Author of the Hebrewes tells us so the great things of God are conveyed by faith into the heart through the Conduit of a promise Looke what the Lord of the Ordinances Sabbath and Sacraments hath promised to work by them in the soule when there seemes least likelihood to man that the soule may and will expect from him thereby through faith Therefore try our selves in some of these This doctrine aimes not at discoursing of the severall workes of the Word yet so farre as the point will admit let us try our selves by some of them The promise of God assures us that the weapons of the Minister of God are mightie through God to cast downe strong Towers of a prejudicate rebellious stout proud heart and the high thoughts of man 2 Cor. 10.4 which resists the obedience of Christ Can we then speake it in truth that we have found this vertue go out from the Word into us that when wee went to the Word full of our selves yet we have returned thence emptie And as a Souldier out of an hot battell wherein he hath lost an hand a legge or received some deadly wound yea which is more lost his great stomacke so that hee sees himselfe to be a very foole and no body to that he seemed So have wee seen that in the Law which hath cooled our courage and made us affraid to set up our bristles any more Then a weak Ordinance hath wrought a strong worke in us for it hath mastered that which was our strong fort I meane the fervour of our jolly stomacks It was not the work of a poore instrument but the power of God which did it Againe it is the promise of God that the truth shall make us free Have we then felt that it hath unbound our soules from the chaines of our feare bondage and infidelitie Hath it so enlightned us with the glad tidings of Christ that it hath also piercied into our affections deeply to long and hunger after them for our selves Did we finde that after once we heard the truth as it is in Jesus wee could not lin nor give over till it conveyed the merit of his satisfaction and bloud into us to pacifie our conscience and to rid us of that feare of death Heb. 2.15 whereunto before wee were subject And so renew our soules by the efficacie of his death so that we have crucified our old man with the affections and lusts Ephes 4.18 and felt the bloud strength and marrow of the new Adam and quickning Spirit reviving our veines and bones Surely then poore meanes have done great things in us far above all which the power of weake man can reach unto Againe the Gospell serves to breed and beget the soule to the hope of immortality and life in us Doe wee then feele that as poore as the Preacher was 2 Tim. 1. yet the Lord over-ruled him so as by the power of the Spirit breathing in him the carnall savour of the creature the love of the world and a fading life here below is driven out of us and the breath and savour of Grace and Heaven is put into us Hath it cast out our lingring after an earthly Paradise irrecoverable and carried us into a Paradise of glory never to be cast out more Hath it filled us with heavenly desires even while we are upon earth Hath it set us in an estate of content and peace yea as it were in a rich veine of hope wherein wee are restlesse and ever digging deeper till we attaine full satisfaction in the fulnesse of the fountaine Surely if we can say this in any measure we may buy and sell upon it that the promise by faith hath been the mean of uniting us base flesh and sinfull dust and ashes to the Lord himselfe eternall and incomprehensible that is to say corrupt weake wretched man to God blessed for ever Nothing can doe such a worke but a divine ordinance by the power of a Mediator through a promise for what is weaker then a Minister to effect it or what more impossible and incompatible in reason then for a sinfull man to partake it This then bee said of this second thing collected out of this verse to wit the meanes of Naaman his healing the
surviving nature of it the surviving and outlasting nature of this Danger 2 enemy should strike sad thoughts into us Doubtlesse its the conceit of many in whole bosome it liveth that at one time or other they shall bee rid of it it shall not alway lodge in them but in the meane time that pleasingnesse of it within the bosome doth bewitch them so that they rest in wanzing hope of it without serious using of such meanes as might serve to cast it out of them and so their thoughts perish and selfe lives still in them and so will doe some Sermon fast or meanes they hope shall destroy it for they would bee rid of it but this enemy hath nine lives and will never die quite onely they might quell the poison and power of it if their hearts were serious but then the meanes to effect it require such attendance that they chuse rather to sit still with ease And although they doe take good paines yet they doe but make themselves beleeve they would be rid of it for indeed long custome hath stupified their hearts and made them senslesse of their ayle they have lost their old tendernesse and feeling of the mischiefe of it and therefore they carry it with them to Church to fasting to sacraments and to all good duties but they lose it in none of them all it returnes as it went and out-lives them all Alas no wonder how should a body of death be destroyed by shadowes except that body of life or rather that quickning Spirit be brought in to cast it out how should it give place What wonder if after all vowes Bare offers â—mpâ—ements or means cannot encounter a body of death and experience of the contrary still Selfe of uncharitablenesse privie revenge censuring unmercifulnesse selfe-ease selfe in the creature survives in the soule and out-lives all affections of complaint and dislike so long as the stronger man is not really sought unto to cast out this strong and to beare it downe by his promise and power with head and shoulders This would make the soule resolute and cordiall to say I am resolved indeed to be rid of it for I would not else have done that I have done to cast it out I would never really have admitted the Lord Jesus into me to doe it for he comes strong and will throw him out ere he have done He that doth but wish a bad and noysome Tenant were out of his house Luke 11.21 may hold him in and lose his rent all his life long but if he get a writ of ejectio firmae and bring the Sheriffe in person to throw him out by force and armes he may be beleeved that he would have him out Doe then in this case as the poore Shunamite in the case of her dead childe 2 King 4.30 comming and moaning to Elisha when he hastily sent Gehazi with his staffe to lay it upon the childes face that would not serve her turne she caught the Prophet by the feet saying As the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth I will not leave thee and lind not till she had brought him to the corps where he found the worke to be of more hardnesse then the laying on of a staffe by Gehazi himselfe by the omnipotency of God was onely able to doe it Danger 3 Thirdly adde this one more the closenesse and inwardnesse of this enemy of Selfe The closenesse inwardnesse of Selfe consider how secret and scarce discernable it is Take one or two instances for many in the use of spirituall communion of the Saints how difficult is it to discover the closenesse of this Selfe and how privily it scrues it selfe into such fellowship not for the true and spirituall ends thereof but for some by respects as the admiration of holy persons contentation to a selfe-loving heart seeking her credit or perhaps some knowledge or the like Oh! how hard is it to finde out this that the scope of the soule is meerly and simply to draw up as with the bucket of an hungry empty heart that grace understanding which is hidden in it Again so close and secret is selfe that it is a great difficulty to discerne selfe-joy selfe-content comming from the creature from entire and sound content flowing from Christ It is as hard as to separate confused sorts of corn mixed together Not but that the difference is great but earthly Selfe so scrues and mixes it selfe with religious that oft-times the soule markes not the difference so shee may fare well and please her selfe shee doth not so discern the principle whence it comes but either preferres the content of the creature or else mixes and confounds it with the best content till the creature creep in too farre the heart wax wanton and defiled yea so snarled that it must cost her the vomiting of her morsels ere she can recover a cleare appetite againe so closely and as it were betweeene the marrow and the bones doth this lurking enemy lodge within us So much for the danger Now from both these considerations be we admonished to conceive of to abandon and cast out this enemy I might call it as Paul calls death this last enemy of our peace Overcome this Pressing of the admonition 1 Cor. 15. and all other shall give place as we would obtaine that we run for so in Gods feare let us beware of this enemy Let us not bee as that foole in Salomon when all is sayd Though we bray him in a mortar yet will not this Selfe depart It is even as Saul was whom as Samuel found 1 Sam. 15. so hee was faint to leave with this wofull marke Honour me before the people so saith she Forgoe not thy selfe but if the doctrine be true shee will bee that last foe which will keep thee from conversion Then either renounce her or else say as that wofull wretch said of his harlot I will have her though I go to hell with her So it must be whether thou say so or not therefore renounce not thy Lord Jesus and his free grace to melt to soften to save and change thy heart for the sake of her with whom if thou wilt needs keep her in thy bosome thou canst not possibly have a soft a tender a repenting heart thou canst not thrive to heaven-ward she will lye in wait for thy pretious soule she will be as a canker to thy growth and prospering thou shalt toyle and moyle but she shall blast thy labours and as once one said of the cankers of a state what 's become of all our great Treaties Voyages Nothing so I may say here what 's become of all my strife how chance I grow no faster Surely nothing Thou art as thou wert if not much worse heaven is further off an hard heart neerer the doore Oh thou art smitten and yet knowst not who smote thee But now thou dost prevent the blow I may say of this Selfe as we say
his vantage and all things considered it is no great selfe-deniall to sell all for so infinite a gaine to lose a present little for a future unknowne estate therefore his eye will not spare he will abondon all his worth and gage his credit too but hee will have it and so he makes it his own But having so done will not take twice the worth of it again Oh! do thou so poor Soule and prosper sell all selfe and all for though it be not worth in it selfe the parings of thy nailes yet because opinion and errour and a corrupt heart of selfe-love doe set such a price upon it he Lord is content to take it as a price of the Lord Jesus As David thought a pot of water upon such tearmes as the hazard of three Princes lives a meet offering for God so I say Offer God selfe and all it is scarce worth a pot of water of it selfe but as it is the price of life so it makes the selfe-deniall pretious to God Skin for skin and all that a man hath will hee give for life but even this pretious life and all will a sinfull soule give to save Selfe Oh! what is every man save his minde Each mans will more deare to him then the world The minde of every man is the man the spirit of the Miser the mind of the Drunkard the conceit and opinion of a Papist an Heretick or Schismaticke the will of an Adulterer though all of them are as vile as dung yet they are more pretious to them then life it selfe They will engage all rather then their will and selfe Even so fares it with corrupt selfe The Lord offers to the soule the Lord Jesus the fruit of his bloud and satisfaction to pardon save it But upon what tearmes Surely these that the soule sell all Alas what is all she hath to sell worth Shee hath nothing but bare walls within and a dung-hill without he that should carry them away to have them should take them at a deare rate for what is old Adams wealth but misery and nakednesse Oh! but there is a further thing in it the soule thinkes her selfe rich and full This conceit must be first abhorred the offer of Christ seemes to bee too hot and heavie carnall wisedome reason wit ease feare of losing liberties and all other selfe resists it yea she so likes the Pearle that she will yeeld a devotion a religion of duties of costly service to redeeme this price of Selfe the halfe of the Kingdome she can forgoe and the other halfe shee will yeeld to Christ and so save her stake but to sell himselfe wholly to the skin that Christ may be all in all ground money gold apparell meat drinke and all this is death But even this God must have or nothing For why This will lay grace and the thanke of the soule under feet which God cannot endure Therefore this price the Lord will have or nothing Oh! give it him freely One peece of Selfe will plead how canst thou spare thy darling Another to live at ease in an opinion of a safe estate to God How canst thou part with it being thy Idoll thy bosome delight But if thou be this merchant royall who is able to weigh the worth of the Pearl offered thee peace of conscience an happy death and happier life after I advise thee put it not off for the sake of a thousand Selves except thou will bring such sorrow upon thy selfe after as all thy will cannot make recompence for when the bargain is rejected As the Mariners in Ionah would have rowed to land to have saved Ionahs their own lives Jonah 1. but when no way would serve they threw all into sea Wheat and other provision And when nothing would do they cast Ionah himselfe in so let this last enemy Selfe as perverse as Ionah in his owne device be throwne over-boord rather then the pretious soule should bee in jeopardy Ministers must be the formost in self deniall Josu 3.15 And let us Ministers of God like the Priests that first stepped into Jordan when it gave way into Canaan bee the first that tread out this way to the people of God for it is a way which though it bee troden out plainly enough in the Scriptures yet had need of lively practice to teach it before men will beleeve it These sheep are much led by the eye as well as the eare by beholding the examples of their Shepheards I meane as well as by doctrine Oh! when they heare us declaim against Selfe and plead for selfe-deniall very stoutly with our tongues they lay their eare to our practice and hearing our Lute strings to jarre and seeing us wire-draw and cast about every way rather then we will part with any thing for peace of conscience or glory to God not onely not our livings but not our passions of wrath envie contention vain-glory not a brasse farthing of our gaines not a dramme of our pride ease idlenesse pompe and jollity will and stomack pleasure or preferment for Christ and his Gospel they have the measure of our foot by and by and resolve to give us the hearing till our tongues be torne but till they see in us more selfe-deniall they will never beleeve that wee speake the truth for Gods cause but onely as Parrets for fashion sake Oh! the infinite prejudice which we our selves brethren by our close cleaving to our selves have done to this great cause of God And this I can say That such of Gods Ministers as have hazarded themselves most for God and purchasing advantage for their Ministery have obtained more roome in the consciences of their hearts then many of such as have stood out to the uttermost and would not abate any ace of their owne for the winning of reverence to their doctrine And yet I would also exhort Ministers to be as instant in the teaching of this truth as in lively exemplifying it in their practice And rare it is to see it otherwise that those who have found by experience the life of this truth of selfe-deniall in themselves can keepe hot coales in their bosomes but must needs utter themselves to their people in a serious and painfull preaching of this doctrine There was a Statute we know of Mortmaine The true Mort-maine which was faine to bee enacted since the times of superstition in this our Kingdome to cut off the validity of such gifts as were given to the Clergy for Popish ends This Statute should every good Minister enact in his owne soule if ever he looke to doe good to others first to cut off and make Selfe a Mort-maine a dead hand for God doth so if it shall dare to bring any gifts to God for Christ and to count them as absolute forfeits as if a Popish fellow should give moneyes and yearly gifts to a Priest to read Masse or Dirigies for the weale of his soule after his decease And
so the people let them bee exhorted also to exalt free grace and meere Christ in the promise not muttering that they find not that fruit of their selfe-deniall that they expect but counting it their chiefe work to wait at the posts of grace not as foolish pilgrimes doe at the gate of the Popes entrance knocking with a golden hammer till he bring them his Jubilee blessing but with patience attending the promise till the Lord shall stirre the dead poole of their hearts and quicken them with hope confessing that it is mercy they may live and breathe in Gods aire much more by the aire of a promise although not yet so established in their hearts as they could desire yet sufficient to keep them from grudging to make them lay their hand upon their mouth and to bee dumb Malac. 3. till the Lord bring healing in his wings and put an end to their waiting But as for esteeming themselves for their common gifts of knowledge or zeale to be ever the neerer to God for which thousands are in hell abhorring it and chusing to be the poorest doore-keeper in Gods house then the highest Pharisees in the Church who need no righteousnesse of another because they boast of their owne Therfore in all matters of God deny thy self cleave to God God is the first cause and therefore the true end of our being actions service All Rivers runne into the Sea For us to make our selves our owne ends were to make our selves God independent and to make God an Idoll To deny our selves is to distinguish our selves from the ungodly who make themselves and the creature their happinesse Wee looke to better our selves by our selfe-love but indeed we destroy our selves Selfe is our disease selfe-deniall is our cure Whether is it better for us to yeeld to but we infinitely better our selves by denying our selves even an hundred fold as Christ tells us Object But who ever hated his owne flesh Doth not God himselfe perswade us by selfe-loving arguments As by profit pleasure peace I answer yes Selfe is a plant of Gods planting in our nature But it is one thing to destroy an horses good mettall another to rectifie and subdue it so it is one thing to destroy Selfe and affections with Stoicks another to regulate and direct them Love thy selfe and spare not so the Lord by his word may order thee in it and take off thine exorbitant Selfe as in the love of thy wife seeking of learning wealth honour favour c. For the better perswading of thee hereto take some motives and some meanes First for motives Till Selfe be denied thou dost in vaine enterprise to be religious thou opposest a desire of thine owne against an whole body of death for Selfe is overspread in all the lims and faculties of thy body and soule as the forme is over the matter and the Call over the inwards Thou wilt be tried with selfe resistance except the principle be first removed Flesh will so dog thee with her askings that thou wilt be weary with refusings Till the soule be thus prepared there can be nothing done The first husband must be dead ere thou canst marry a new at least in the rectified intention and preparation of thy soule The flesh of the Virgin had beene a clogge to the second person except first separated and purified by the holy Ghost Else Demas might have clave to Paul as well as Silas the ten spies to God as well as Caleb and Iosue But they were of two spirits No agreement betweene two crosse principles Secondly God will never stoope to thee his will is not to be bowed to thine nor ever will while the world standeth For his will is the rule thine the string out of tune What should order a crooked thing but a streight Neither can they both stand together take whether you will both you cannot have you cannot have your will and swinge in your contents of world lust and liberties and Christ too no man can serve two Masters nor drive two such trades at once as a Fullers and a Colliers the one sullyes as fast as the other whitens nay of the two there is more to be made of following Selfe alone without Christ then Selfe and Christ by the former a man may at least get himselfe a worldly happinesse though he lose heaven after But by the latter a man makes him wretched and distracted so that he can neither enjoy the one nor the other Skin for skin and all that a man hath he will give for his life The heart of a Christian is single in respect of his object onely God and his favour no mixtures with it Either deny nature in her inordinatenesse or else give God over for both cannot consent in one degree of eminency who cares for a wavering minded man either to make him our chapman or friend or husband For still hee seekes not us but himselfe Let no sweet morsell be kept in our palate to cause God to be out of rellish with us Better key-cold then lukewarme Thirdly it is equall that Christ and God be chiefe because they have bought us with a price to bee theirs Wee should doe him great wrong who hath bought a Captive if hee should doe his owne worke God hath not onely bought our service but our selves Except then wee never made such a bargaine with God wee must bee for him who hath so dearly bought us To be sure God will bee revenged of us as well for not making that bargaine as for not keeping it 2 Pet. 2. Some hypocrites are said to deny Christ who bought them A servant is his Masters mony Fourthly The soule feeles a heaven in selfe-deniall What inward content thinke we had Abraham when he had denied Isaacs life And Moses and Paul when they could preferre God and his Church before their salvation to suffer afflictions with Israel rather then to be a Prince in Pharaohs Court Contrariewise what an hell carrieth that man in his soule who for base ends denies God and conscience Let but a man deny one base lust of revenge wrath and what an heavenly heart doth he carry with him to prayer Fifthly Think what an emptinesse there is in thy self thine own aimes and bents of heart and in those creatures and objects which thou judgest so sweet Wells wanting water and cloulds without raine As one saith of the Pagan Gods why did men chuse so many save that each one was emptinesse When the eie of Selfe falls downe from one cleere Sunne it thinkes it sees three or foure but they are all but fancies The fullest creature is but a brittle glasse full of water give it but as a cracke and it is gone If we were convinced hereof who would seeke vanity Who would deceive himselfe in eating ashes Esay 44. and hold a lie in his right hand It is meere inconsideratenesse and want of weighing things as hee saith there of the Idolater Sixtly Either be armed strongly
her in all straits and troubles As Selfe was a body of death in her before easily besetting her so is Christ now a very reall being of Truth and Grace a very life of being and welfare unto her Now the soule is willing to shake off Selfe because she hath a better thing in possession which frees her from the old yrkesomenesse vanity bondage and unsubsistence which before she was disquieted with Oh! it is a wonderfull priviledge to a poore soule that whereas before it was tedious to her to muse of the promise to deny her owne hopes flashes and pangs to cleave to the bottome of another out of herselfe now all these are become sweet unto her because Christ is now instead of Selfe unto her even all in all Before it was a violent worke to apply the soule to meditation for she was out of the element of Grace but now she counts it familiar worke because the presence of Christ hath made it so a mercy more worth then all the world beside when shee considers duly of it Before shee was haled as a Beare to the stake to the word to the sacraments to other ordinances duties now she hath fellowship with them as her owne even as she is Christs before she knew not what to make of herselfe her affections her desires but now shee is able to discerne what God hath done for her and her affections mournings and duties stand not up in the roome of Christ but flow from him safely and returne to him as the waters to the sea whence they came Oh! what oddes is there betweene the dead life of Selfe moving the soule heavily as Pharaohs charet wanting their wheeles and the living life of Christ alway affording some warmth vigor breath and motion to the soule and assuring her that is not from herselfe but from a principle without which will not faile her Oh! this second Adams quickning spirit is as far above that dead principle of Selfe as a living creature is above an Image Thirdly the Spirit of Grace drawes the soule to the end of Grace The third is the end to behold the purpose of God in declaring the riches of that mercy by which he saved a sinner that he might purchase more glory to himselfe then good to the soule Of this I spake before by another occasion only note this that the Spirit carries Selfe out of the soule hereby For when the soule is ravished with the view of those excellencies of God manifested by redemption she loseth herselfe as in a streame as being ashamed to thinke that she should so basely struggle for that by her own strength which onely the Spirit of the promise can conduct her unto for the ends of the promise serving to make the Lord admirable in his Saints Oh! how is the soul ashamed yea confounded for her own folly that she should goe about the fadoming of so bottomelesse depth with her owne bucket I conclude these three branches with renewing my exhortation Try your selves by these whether the Spirit of Grace bee in you or no for if it be it hath the promise of a full bottome to stablish the soule upon it hath brought realnesse of comfort and peace into it and it hath carried it into the sea of the riches of grace so that it can make songs of the Lords deliverance with more admiration then if the inheritance of a Prince had befalne it I cannot insist now any longer So much for the second marke that the Spirit of Grace is for Grace To make an end a third and last marke of the Spirit of Grace is The third marke is The calme proceeding of this Spirit of Grace that it goeth forward calmely and softly in her pursuit of the promise without any carnall striving and violence of Selfe much lesse fretting and distemper of spirit upon Gods delaies She teaches the soule to waite upon the Lord and harken what he would say to his Saints for he will speake peace to them that they may not returne to folly their old selfe-staggering unsettlednesse or bondage The Spirit of Grace is much like the Temple of Salomon it loves not to hear the din of Selfe to disquiet it Psal 85.8 as hammers and tooles might not bee used in the building of the other 1 King 6.7 While he is at worke he cannot endure Selfe to disturbe him he will raise up the frame himselfe we must onely say Grace grace unto it but he will both lay the foundation and corner stone Zach. 4.7 and set the building upon it and it shall prosper in his hands Suffer we our selves orderly and by degrees to be led from step to step without turning off on the right hand or the left meekely and patiently attending his leasure in our innocency and use of meanes and foist not any secret weights of our owne into the ballance as if the Lord were not alone able to perfect his owne worke onely let there be no stops in our owne spirits to set backe or quench this Spirit of Grace under the pretence of our quiet and patient wayting 1 Thes 5. A point which no hypocrite can discerne If he be bidden to rest he leaves his diligence and waxes idle whereas true striâ—â— and true rest goe together and a poore soule so rests from his selfe striving that yet he continues his selfe-denying diligence in the use oâ— meanes Esay 30. Try your selves also in this but I remember I have touched â—oâ— part before when I spake of the violence of Selfe This shall thereâ—ore suffice to have spoken touching the markes of this Spirit of Grace and the several branches thereof Now in a word for the other peece of the question how this Spirit of Grace may be attained Quest 2. Hâ—w this Spirit of grace may be attained I answer briefly First be earnest in prayer to God for it for the Spirit of Grace and supplication are joyned together Zach. 12.10 That both the Lord would cast down this strong castle of Selfe and raise up the strong fort of his own salvation upon the ruines Answ 1 thereof joyne with prayer meditation be much in the use of all other powerfull ordinances of God fasting especially the true Sampson to Answ 2 cast down the house over the head of self and unbeleefe And observe seriously Answ 3 the graces of others such as have shot this gulfe and have had the Answ 4 experience of Christ in them Again seek not to please our flesh as it is said David would never crosse Adonija from his youth and that made him such a good one but abridge our selves of our wills even in some lawfull liberties 1 King 1.6 and abstaine from many things which others permit to themselves dyet our selves daily as those which runne for a prize and that may somewhat inure us to deny our selves in this great worke of Answ 5 Grace 1 Cor. 9.25 Tye our selves closely to the duties of
our places and callings and be not too indulgent to our backs bellies companies travells and the like sensuall recreations and contentments many men affect such a breâ—th in the uttermost of their liberties and jollitie that their very garbe bewraies them to bee men who savor not much of denying themselves goe to the Lord often with this thorne in thy heele and bemoane thy paine unto him 2 Cor. 12.6 till he ease thee as Paul did and ceased not till the Answ 6 spirit was sufficient for him Beseech the Lord not to leave thee to thine owne findings but to take thee into his own patronage maintaining thee at his cost and charge It is said that Ieconia long after his obedience to the Prophet Ieremy Jerem. 52.31 to yeeld up himselfe to the King of Babel was so honoured by God as to become of a vassall and captive a favorite and to be nourished from the Kings owne dish to have a portion of meate from him daily meditation of the Pearle Matth. 13.44 caused the Merchant to sell all and buy it How doth Paul Phil. 3. heate his heart with the Lord Jesus till hee cast out himselfe as dung Dâ—vid Psal 73. recovers himselfe out of his temptation of distrust and impatience by meditation and then breakes out Whom have I in heaven but thee Luke 2.51 Mary bred Christ in her soule by pondering the message of the Angell against her feare and doubting Nothing a greater nourisher of Selfe then unacqaintance and slothfull neglect of the promise Againe behold the practice of the Saints both in Scripture and experience both living and dying Heb. 13.7 how they have moulded their souls into the truth of God and have been content to hazard their own salvation thereupon saying if I perish I perish Let also as I toucht before the afflictions Answ 8 of God whether in our bodies or soules breake us off from our wilde olive stock and implant us into the naturall and sweet olive Say Lord it is a sweet mercy not to live to my self though it cost me deare to learne this discipline but to be at thine allowance As an idle wench chuseth to live basely and idely at her owne hand rather then under a Mistresse so would Self do if God did not over-rule the soul But when she is corrected and instructed then she smites upon her thigh and repenteth Lastly Answ 9 be not too eager in pursuit of our worldly affairs but quietly let us set our boate upon our streame of providence to crosse our selves in our carnall appetites and though God crosse us not yet deny we our selves inuring our hearts to mercy compassion to such as are in necessity bodily or spirituall Let not Papists the chiefe favorites of Selfe condemne us Protestants in this kinde farre it be it from us to foster a spirit of envy which lusteth in us after uncharitablenesse indignation morosity austerity censoriousnesse anger revenge suspitions contentions Jam. 4.4 discontents either with men or with providence and Gods administrations that please us not for these morall distempers will defile us spiritually if we be not aware of it Seeke not honour repute respect and acknowledgement from men let God alone with these Joh. 5.44 and let us not for such base scurfe yet highly set by in the world destroy the worke of God Oh! beloved consider what I have said of this weighty argument and the Lord give us understanding in all things for mine owne part I have cause to mourn that notwithstanding all I have spoken I have so small hope to prevaile with men because I goe against their edge and speake riddles to men of another metall What are we but signes and spectacles to men and divells in preaching these doctrines What serve we for save to harden their hearts For they will fulfill the doctrine and Selfe is like to quash their hopes when all is done The Lord prevent it in you for his mercies sake And so much also shall suffice for this whole use of exhortation to them that seeke conversion Now concerning the latter branch of Exhortation 2. Branch of Exhortation Gods people must practise selfe-deniall in their conversation to them who through mercy are converted already Let me urge this upon them so much the rather to deny all for Christ and his name by how much they have already obtained favour to count all as drosse in respect of pardon and reconciliation If in the former respect that of our Saviour be true how much more in the latter He that will bee my Disciple must deny all if the case so require take up his crosse and follow me And the truth is such are the times we now live in that I am in a manner forced to adde this point of use to the former For you must know the former is secret from the view of men though one day it shall be knowne to men and Angells so that we should doe men a world of wrong if we should judge them to bee other then selfe-denyers and beleevers Matth. 16. end But indeed there is another selfe-deniall a consequent upon faith and that is an outward renouncing of our selves and selling our selves out of all our profits pleasures ease and liberties for the name the truth of doctrine the profession of Christ in power That rather then we would betray these to the enemies thereof neither liberties nor lives should be deare to us Now herein what doe men Alas they shew that either they never knew what it meant to cast out Selfe to receive Christ or else they have found a narrow distinction between barke and tree to save themselves harmelesse viz. That although they deny themselves inwardly for him never so yet they have a dispensation so that outwardly they will not lose a dramme of wealth credit maintenance ease love of wife child will or appetite for his sake And at this plat the world of our professors now fall off Causes They love Christ with their hearts but they will not lose one straw for him Alas what wonder that it is so with them For why Why most men so little deny themselves for Christ To deny a mans selfe for Christ requires a better bottome then they have any The Lord Jesus never denyed himselfe to the death for the redemption of their soules never gave himselfe as a price to wrath for their pardon and peace The Apostle Rom. tells us Doubtlesse for a good man one would be content to dye Christ hath not been a good Christ to them for if he had they would deny themselves to the death for him They are upon their owne bottome still their owne ease will health pleasures life and liberties are too deare to them they love them as pretiously as a zealous Christian loves Christ therefore they will part with nothing for him If Christ were their Selfe their inner man their joy and content they would cleave to him as their
hee will save and some whom he will not Oh! we may well conceive what wrath and rage it worketh Reason 6 Lastly we know wrath is a short madnesse now mad men put no difference betweene any If a King should come in a mad mans way he would strike him as soone as a beggar So doth Selfe defeated She puts no difference between God and men She will sometime chuse men to whet herself on sometime God himself She curseth her luck and bad fortune the weather if too wet too dry too hot or too cold her ill lot and successe her ill market her enemies any thing that comes in her way what wonder then if she spare not Gods Minister yea God himselfe She lusteth after envy as Saint Iames saith and out of an ill custome and habit growes to be as old with God as with men if hee crosse her she knowes not she is not capable of subjection So much for reasons of the point Amplification The godly themselves so farre as led by Selfe rage if disappointed Nay more that which I have said of hypocrites may be verified in measure and with limitation even of the godly so farre as they are unmortified and led by this Spirit of Selfe though not totally yet in any particular case of error and delusion so farre as they forsake the promise and goe to worke by their owne conjectures and strength as in zeale and prayers wherein a good man may rest too much upon himselfe no doubt the Divell and their corruption feasts them but too much as one said he never seemed so zealous as before God mortified his owne spirit but after he found prayer another gates worke But when the Lord separates the pretious from the vile and shewes them the vanity and wanzingnesse of their owne principle it becomes as the very sting of an adder onely the the ods is an hypocrite is fretted with such a distemper Yet with difference from hypocrites as commonly makes him no better but the regenerate is wholesomely smitten by God to cause him with shame and sorrow to abhorre hmselfe and to crouch and runne under the wings of a better friend who can give him content from a better fountaine and of a more lasting nature Object But here comes an objection to be answered How comes it to passe then there being so many unsound and hollow ones in the world never more then now as appeares by their grosse and foule revolts how is it that we see them so joviall and merry still and heare of so few discontents and troubles in their lives or deaths Answ Selfe doth not rage till defeated To which I answer That the reason thereof is because they have no defeates Selfe in her quietnesse and jollity rages not but when shee meets with affronts either by disappointments or by terrors of the Law convincing and slaying the soul The soule in this case is abased and cast down either wholesomely as by a step to humiliation or else slavishly then she shifts and goes forward in a rotten course But Self rageth neverthelesse Or else recovers her selfe againe by her own subtility Note the difference In such as God will save the discovery of this Selfe and the subtilty thereof shall humble the conscience and worke a kindly change by degrees but yet Selfe and corruption will rage and rebell being loath to give place But as for the rest both Selfe and conscience together may not rage because the Law hath not put an enmity betweene them still they hold in together as body and members incorporate in each other and not divorced This by the way But marke The Lord doth not alway blesse the word to worke a defeat of Selfe in every hypocrite or unregenerate person neither doe all such meete with such defeats Ezek. 14. Rather the Lord suffers such justly to stumble at the blocks laid in their owne way by themselves As they chose error and delusion so the Lord leaves them to Satan to be more deluded 1 King 22. and so they fall as Ahab by his false Prophets because being taught the truth soundly they have preferred their owne ease and liberties to it Selfe may want defeats being given over by God to delusion and hardning Nay more the Lord suffers many such and it is a common thing in these declining dayes to be so farre from meeting with defeats that rather they are habited in their waies erring by necessity seeing no danger They are inchanted so with this cup of Selfe that it hath cast them into a deepe sleepe and they are as one asleepe in the toppe of the mast no buffetings will startle them out of their course And it were well with some that this were all For the uncleane spirit returnes into many Matth. 12. and imbarkes himselfe in them more strongly then before defiling them with such lusts as they lye open unto specially and bringing them into such a confused perplexity some by their uncleannesse some by intemperancy some by their open prophanenesse that they never outgrow it but goe on with wasted and seered consciences to their dying day without remorse Although such as belong to God shall return even by these unwelcome batterings for the Lord saw that else their fusty savour and taste would never have gone out So much for answer to this objection This doctrine falls point blanke upon many of us brethren to shame Vse 1 us for our distempers And first Terror let it bee Terror to all such as walke with this cursed heart of wrath impatience and discontent Wrathfull and discontented persons reproved daily and Branch 1 hourely carrying it as hot coales in their bosome and yet through habit never burnt not marking it in themselves Oh wofull creature Is Naaman here so blameworthy being an heathen and defeated of his will for his rage and distemper What shall become of thee then who art in continuall wrath and vexation Not in a fit as Paul calls it Ephe. 4.29 but as it were in a falling sicknesse Truly brethren Because raging in coole bloud I wrong Naaman to make him the text of such a commentary I tremble to thinke how many present themselves here duly at the worship of God who yet in their usuall course are never quiet neither in themselves nor with others They are as I may say steept in vinegar rarely shall you finde them other then froward waspish envious bitter and distempered and yet no defeat appeares to heat their bloud as here in Naaman they are so in very coole bloud out of the surquedry of their wickednesse they are alway distempered because wicked There is no peace saith my God to the wicked More like Nabals then Naamans Esay 57. ult of whom his owne servants could say he was so wicked that no man might speake to him As the Apostle in Rom. 1. describes those heathen Romans full of all wickednesse as a toad is full of
of God Thinke with thy selfe is this a lesse priviledge then the former Are all that are Gods people partakers of this grace Are they preserved by the power of faith to salvation without snares wounds and breach of their peace is this so common and thankelesse a favour to be carried as the Arke above mountaines so above the floods of great waters that they should not come neare us Behold the Saints in Scripture Gen. 7. Psal 32.5.6 how few escaped the trialls of their sincerity in a safe manner How many of them lost their peace wasted their conscience by drunkennesse uncleannesse intemperate passions pride the world disguised and at last comming to their grave with sorrow Witnesse David Salomon Asa Hezekia Ionah Peter others Behold the times in which we live Doe wee finde it so common a grace that those whom we have esteemed of well for uprightnesse and zeale to the Gospel still hold their beauty Doe they not beginne to change colour and wax pale and wanne Doe they not stagger temporize and grow common in their communion with all sorts in their affections to the truth to the power of godlinesse Is it not hard to finde one who may be trusted Oh then if God have kept thee close from the error of the wicked that thou mightest not be pulled from thy stedfastnesse nor wanze in thy first love count it a peculiar unspeakeable mercy Againe dost thou see the most professors to keepe from revolts Is not the world full of offences of such as gave their names to Christ Whence then are so frequent scandales of such as are fallen to uncleannesse in all corners and so to other reproachfull sins Art not thou one of them Hath the Lord hitherto holpen thee as Samuel saith Blesse him and wonder Oh Lord thou who gavest Paul the lives of all that were in the ship with him and notwithstanding all tempests and fears of shipwrack broughtest them all safe to land Thou hast graciously given my soule to the Lord Jesus put me into his ship kept me hitherto from sinking being cast away upon the rocks sands shelfes of this wofull sea in which I am tossed Even so O Father because thou hast promised else I had beene cast away a thousand times by temptation by offences by my corruptions But as nothing could intercept the Lord Jesus till his worke was done when they had beene on the toppe of the hill to throw him downe headlong Esay suddenly he passed through them without hurt fire could not burne water could not drowne him Divell could not tempt to prevaile nothing could hinder but he passed through all reports wrongs persecutions feares till he had fulfilled his course rose againe from death and conquered it And why Hee walked under the banner of his fathers protection Even so it hath pleased thee O Lord to fence and fortifie my poore soule that neither my desertions when I thought my selfe cast off and in despaire through unbeleefe nor the dint of my afflictions when as yet the arrowes of God dipt in venome stucke in me nor the malice of enemies nor the fiery darts of Satan piercing me by my lusts could ever wholly divorce me from thee Oh! how many thousands have fallen on my right hand and as many on my left since I beganne Men of like age birth and education of better parts and endowments then I and yet mercy hath kept mee hitherto nay Naaman was never so sullen and froward with the Prophet and with Jorden as I have beene wayward with God sometime weary of his crosses cavilling against his governement both in generall and speciall ready to leave his worke to renounce his Sabbaths Sacraments Promises and all because I could not see how God performed them to me when I have beene oppressed with Selfe and a dead saplesse and savourlesse heart ready to give the Lord and his trade quite over yet he hath revived me and not suffered me to revolt quite from him by all these still by the power of poore faith he hath kept mee to salvation he hath delivered doth and will deliver me still if I can waite Oh! wonder at this grace of his and let the first linke of vocation be a warrant to thee that the linke of justification sanctification and redemption shall never be broken but he that brought thee through so many unlikelyhoods to beleeve can and will now much more bring thee through as great oppositions to persevere enjoy thy priviledge stand at gaze and boast onely of the Lord. Thus much for the use of instruction Lastly let this doctrine be an incouragement to all feeble and fearfull Vse 2 soules who think they shall never wade out of their distrust Encouragement to all feeble and fearfull ones ignorance of Gods way their deepe pride Selfe rebellion and hypocrisie they behold these corruptions by which Satan holds possession as by Forts and Bulwarks as evident markes of their perishing one day and that they are so strong that they will master grace and deprive them finally of hope But poore soule stay a while doe not so hardly sentence thy soule Looke here upon a poore Pagan out of covenant an alien from God behold how freely God prevented him at first when he sought him not how graciously he assisted him and that when he was past all sense of it deepe in the sence of the contrary One I say that had no promise meerly an hangby to the visible Church save that he was supported by an invisible bounty of unspeakeable goodnesse and yet lo when he was at the saddest point and the lowest ebbe of dispaire suddenly as if this were Gods season to breake his heart and to win him to himselfe all hope of good successe being past there appeares a change of his wretched condition into an happy secret mercy had first marked him out for God and the same still waited on him not suffering him to slippe away and depart from welfare Hath God done this in the green tree and shall not he doe it in the dry Hast thou O poore soule either deeper distempers then Naaman had or sadder affronts then he within or without Canst not thou take courage to thy selfe by a promise when hee found mercy without one What is it then that causeth thee to be so heavy In the following points I shall speake further to thee onely here let me say this If thou canst prove that God hath once savingly prevented thee whereof upon the ninth verse I have at large spoken I can prove hee will not forsake thee he will not lose any one stroke of worke upon thee but will assist it and in time perfect it Sure I am thou canst not feel thy spirit deader or further off then did Naaman thou canst not be further out of Gods precinct then he was and yet the Lord beyond hope turned all to as happy an issue as the premises seemed uncomfortable Take thou like courage unto thy selfe All thy
to all the truth of God without neglect so especially to those maine truths which they most sticke at and come shortest of that their insight into Gods method and way may be more evident unto them As for novelties and fancies of men of unstable minds ready to carry them away from the simplicity of the Gospell whether erroneous opinions or things which have some truth but yet for the present are not pertinent or profitable but might under some pretence of zeale and devotion withdraw them from their grounds ere they be setled which I observe to be a notable trick of the Divell to disorder the course of a soule travelling towards heaven they are shy thereof and cannot close with it Let every one that desires to know himself to thrive to Godward well marke this whole Section So much for this third marke Another is That such a soule strives after that which makes most Marke 4 for her owne good and for the justifying of God Even that foolish modesty which holds many under the hatches that they will not open themselves to any but keepe the Divells counsell to their owne hindrance and thereby nourish unbeleefe the longer in themselves when they are convinced of it as its long ere many will be they abhor it using all means with Paul if by any they may attaine faith at last They doe not as Ahaz who being willed to aske a signe from God to confirme his promise refused it and let all goe at six and sevens pretending that he needed none but would leave it to God without such adoe Esay 7. But he is rebuked for greeving of God by such slightnesse who loves that his people should take order to resist their infidelity and hasten to beleeve using every ordinance each occasion for the atchieving of such a grace Such a restlesse spirit they are led by who keepe the price of the high calling of God in their eie loth to lose it Phil. 3. and preserving the tender care and inquiry after it in their soules as an object of greatest excellency A bottomlesse carelesse spirit to get and lose as fast and to spill that pretious liquor which God hath been long putting into them they loath and detest 2 Joh. 8. and still seek to make up a full reward to themselves and cannot be quiet till the Lord give into their bosomes measure heaped up and running over that they may be at rest If they have any bottomlessenesse it is for the world and the cares of it but as for grace they keep all they have and still are on the gaining hand till they attaine their desire Psalm 84. No faintnesse there shall be but from strength to strength they goe full fast till they appeare before God in Sion Fifthly as they are alway hastening the Lord and impatient in Marke 5 respect of their importunity of desire Psal 70.5 so yet they are patient in respect of discontent unweariedly waiting upon the Lord for the accomplishing of their petition They have learned that lesson of the Psalmist Blessed are they that wait upon him and of Ieremy Lamen 3.25 It is good to wait patiently upon the Lord. It s much to them that the Lord will come and bring healing in his wings at last requiting long delay as Malachi speakes with speed Mal. 3. and as for urging the particular time when he will come and how soone they leave it to him whose the seasons of mercy are by whom onely the day of sealing is appointed they must wait They attend upon a Soveraigne God who shewes mercy to whom and when he pleases Rom. 9. yet also his mercies are fare to them whom hee hath called to the hope thereof Therefore their part is to get the spirit of supplication alway attending the Spirit of grace Zach. 12.10 which will hold out with the Lord without fainting and concurre with him in his time of ease In which respect it makes not haste but considers that each day hastens Gods time For as it is in the second comming of our Lord Jesus Matth. 24. end so it is in his first None knowes whether he will come at noonetide or at the evening midnight or cockcrowing but come he will So whether in youth or middle yeares or old age thou knowest not whether in a short time or after a long season whether in thy hearing or at the sacrament or in prayer or at a fast or in some great crosse or at thy death its unknowne Thou hast a promise come he will and therefore wait upon him thou art not too good and when he comes thou shalt not repent thee Marke 6 Againe this is another marke That such a soule suffers not it selfe to be taken up so deeply with the common mercies of the earth that the mercy of pardon and salvation should lose her price and wax stale with her Oh she strives to put difference alway between the content which blessings of this life bring and those which the mercy of heaven affords Give Esau a messe of pottage and his longing is satisfied Give a child a bright counter Heb. 12. and he will forgoe a gold angell It pleases a foole as well to have his bable as a Kings Crowne why Because he is a fool and discernes not so a wretch that never came in the favour of mercy will equall it to any common thing fill his belly give him ease cloath his body fill his purse and you may rob him of his birthright So hee have content any way and for the present he is well Not so that soule that longs for mercy For why It compares one with other and makes as much difference as between gold and drosse holds firmly the esteem of mercy to herself and will not suffer the base vanishing creature to come between her and home and steale her heart away by such rattles and feathers as these are Zach. 12.10 It comes here to minde what Zachary speakes That the spirit of grace goes with the spirit of compassions There are such compassions towards the Lord in a poore soule as there are in the Lord towards it In the Lord there are tender mercies as that other Zachary speakes Luke 1. Through the tender mercies of our God mercies of tendernesse and compassion to a poore miserable lost sinner reaching to forgivenesse These are peculiar not common or such as he bestowes upon them whom he pitties not in their miserie Now therefore that soul that partakes these tender mercies is as tender of them and doth so prize and esteem them that no other mercy can steale away the affections of the soule therefrom nor stall the heart therein much lesse make tender mercies to wax stale and common but still the price thereof rises till the Lord fill her therewith Marke 7 Lastly note this out of Naamans example That a perpetuall and sure marke of a man who is grace and faithward is this that his old perversenesse
pride and stoutnesse begins to quaile and his great stomack comes downe That heart which before was the heart of Leviathan as Iob describes it hard as a stone now melts and becomes soft as wax This is a signe indeed of mercy drawing neare a poore soule that even as before all turned to gall and bitternesse Job 41.24 and like bad physick wrought by contraries so now the Lord purposing to perfect his work with power lo all goes right and the omnipotent arme of God subduing and casting downe all high things that before caused the heart to swell and bluster against the way of God now molifies the hard heart and thaws it as the frost by the southwind Oh what a strange alteration doth the rising Sun cause in the horizon Fogs and mists and darkenesse vanish and disperse themselves and all the coast is cleare againe as if there had never beene any such And marke it who will thus it fares with every soule which comes to God the nearer it drawes to the Sun of righteousnesse the more melting and humble it is all old quarrells and cavills all old rebellion and stoutnesse of spirit are scattered when Christ once arises to rebuke the boisterous rage of the sea for such is every wicked heart Esay 57. ult even foaming and casting up mire and dirt then on the suddaine all waxes mild and calme and the place where frowardnesse and distempers grew is no more found Thus much for the third question I come to the Uses of the point which are many fold First it instructs Vse 1 us about a difference betweene the hypocrite and the sound hearted seeker after God Instruction 1. Branch Hypocrites elect ones differ in their issues Matth. 12. There may seeme no great oddes in their paines and endeavours both may seeme earnest and longsome both heare much pray and live in the element of meanes constantly both have their terrors their hopes their flashings of light and comfort both have their ebbings and flowings sorrowes and joyes but the one hath not the issue which the other hath The end of the one is to goe out in darkenesse the other to overcome and breake forth into victory The end of the righteous marke it Psal 37. is alway peace though after long toile and hazard The righteous are saved though scarce and with much ado and at last they come to the haven They are like to them in the ship wherein Paul sailed Act. 27. though they had so toilesome a travell of it all the winter yet God gave to Paul all the soules that were with him and bid him be of good comfort for all should safely come to land at last The truth is there is an ods between them from first to last in their knowledge in the work of the Law their terrors and of the Gospell their sorrow their desire and the rest But that is not so easie for us to discerne God only sees that But in the upshot it is manifest For then it appeares that there was a different principle that acted them the one from himselfe to himselfe the other from the Spirit of grace for the honour of grace and the change of the heart As Saint Nazianzen once spake of one of the Councells that neither it began with God neither would end for him Looke well about you brethren for God helpe us the worke of faith seems to be perfected in few of us to any purpose preaching in and out of season we have long had and all follow it but to behold the sad and dead point which many of us doe and long have stood at would flait any honest heart to think of one would thinke those former trialls should exercise every one of us to see what at last will come of all our struglings and strifes I pray God we prove not of the baser sort that enter not but faile of Gods grace though it be long first yet if at last our successe answer our pains it will be well An item to these persons But it s not amisse for some of us to suppose the hardest and say what if I should not be of them who shall end in comfort All shall not If I be one what doe I running this round and treading this maze in vaine As neere at my death as at my entrance And like to one wildred all night and in the morning comming to the place he set out I beseech you looke over those markes above hurt it can doe you none God sets us not to this taske of hearing and profession for policy and to keep us occupied and from idlenesse No he sets us to heaven-ward if we see not his scope we may wander all our lives and never the nearer and what a sad woe would that bring with it Many poore soules are afraid that death will come ere grace bee perfected But I pray God it prove not the portion of many that feare it not but are confident that the upper milstone running upon the nether the corne will be grownd whereas alas they have no corne between the milstones their soules laâ— not in for any such matter as to get their soules saved and broken Esau thought nothing when he dallied with his birthright but after it was gone all his howling could not recover it Be wise therefore looke still at the scope the end must pay for all be sure your growths to heavenward be sure though slow be sure your conception be good and that the seed of God is in you then shall all your combats and strifes be as Rebecca's whom God told she had twins So be sure there be a child a breeding and true life for that will beare you through and at your birth you shall forget your sorrow Otherwise as the unhappy woman who carries a mole orabortive in her hath many feares and saith either I goe with child or with my death so shall it fare with you So much for this first 2. Branch of Instruction Censure neither our selves nor othâ—rs in the matter of Grace Againe it should teach us neither to censure others nor our selves in the passages of our endeavours strifes for heaven Not others To say thus and thus long they have beene striving and making towards salvation and yet they daily complaine as men that have got but little alway in their complaints doubts and conflicts Surely I feare there is little in them No say not so If they be the Lords the issue shall bee good Reasons why God justly permits it thus I gave before Now I adde that these rash censures are commonly theirs who are little acquainted with the trade of faith Alas you know not what the ventures of this Merchant and the toile of this husbandman are Thinke not sinisterly of grace for the paines and the severall troubles that it brings with it If it be more easie with some then with others blesse God you have avoided many a rock and hazard that others meet
with But therefore to judge others doe it not Say that their owne rebellion hath made an easie way to become hard to them what then if they be saved any way what skills it The harder it is and the more it cost the sweeter it will be and the harder to forgoe Looke rather to thy selfe that thy strivings be lawfull then judge them whose strifes are difficult for so it must be till God have brought a base heart to lye downe at his feet with shame Many a noise must pierce a dead heart ere it live many a terror and many a pang of selfe-love many a contradiction feare and hope must come in his way who arrives at heaven onely this is the comfort No enemy shall finally deprive such of their labour as are called to the hope of salvation unfeignedly Nay rather Rom. 14.13 if thou get thither more easily feare that there may be in thee many an old dreg which perhaps is purged out of others by sad medicines but how ever judge them not The end shall make all manifest 1 Cor. 4.5 judge not another mans servant he stands or falls to his owne Master Pitty such rather and pray that God would ease their travell And secondly much lesse condemne thy selfe 3. Branch Instruction Christians must beware of condemning themselves Esay 40.2 because thou findest the worke of grace to hang long in suspence and not to come off with such ease and haste as thou desirest Doe not entertaine base feares into thy heart nor tempt God by putting thy selfe amongst hypocrites and reading thine owne doome looke to those markes I set downe and then conclude it s not in thee but in the Lord to shorten thy travell and to determine thy warfare it is his work who can neither be shortned nor hastned by thee he onely knowes what corruption must be tamed what grace quickned hurt it shall doe thee none to be tried if thou be sure the worke was not of thine owne beginning but Gods know he is faithfull who hath begun who also will finish in due time Thou wouldest be loth thy wife should come before her time as much as thou longest for the fruit of her wombe but art desirous she should fulfill it And thou dost well Doe so here in thy owne case A thousand yeares is as one day with the Lord 2 Pet. 2. to teach thee some of his patience when his day is come it will seeme no whit too long And in the meane season who upholds thee from sinking Is it not the Lord But perhaps thou wilt say Thou feelest but small hope and much sadnesse and deadnesse of spirit I answer thee That may be thy discontent and impatience For why Although thou feelest no thrivings yet perhaps thou maiest thrive and grow nearer thy hopes then thou art aware The infant growes towards birth daily whether it be strong or weake None of Gods cost shall bee lost upon his no drop of his pretious seed can be spilt Though thy course seeme dead to thee yet if the Lord attend thy fruit within and ripen it forme and fashion it in thy heart by secret and unknowne degrees is it not well Thou dost not know how one bone or one joint is framed in the wombe Simil. yet they lose no day no houre of their appointed time Thou seest no haires bredth of growing in thy corne yet it encreaseth daily and even that winter life thereof which stands at a stay and seems dead yet gathers secret heart and strength at the roote which after in the spring makes it shoot and branch forth The Lord is now doing for thee that which thou knowest not of but shalt know hereafter That is Joh. 10.9 that grace cannot be wrought out with thy sweat and care but by his spirit and he is the Soveraigne God who will be adored by all that come to beleeve They must come to a low point in themselves and confesse that God hath them at the advantage to save or destroy which when it hath tamed them throughly under this mighty hand of his to be at his dispose then perhaps he will not take but release the vantage for the glory of his Grace yea truly although the Lord should respit his worke till thy death yet mutter not but know that he chuses that time because then commonly the soule is brought to the narrowest point and sees no props to support her nor helpes to cling to then being at the greatest strait either to trust to a promise or to perish it is put to it and forced to resigne all and to cast it selfe upon meer mercy which while shee walked at large in the world with many false props about her shee found it not so easie to doe Thus much for this Use Vse 2 This sweet Doctrine in the second place serves to reprove and confute the false imputation of many cavilling and slanderous spirits Reproofe and Confutation in their backbiting the Ministers of the Gospell and contrarily for the encouraging of the Minister in his course of painfull persisting in the worke of perswasion Quarrellers against the Ministers unablenesse to comfort the distressed most sinfull For the first of these There be many prophane ones of this sort in all places who cast reproach upon the Gospell and Ministery as unable to effect that which it pretends Oh say they when these Ministers first preach the Law they beare people in hands that it is the way to raise up their soules to hope but for ought we see such dejected spirits complaine every day that their condition is more and more heavy they see themselves further off then ever I had rather be as I was saith another for before I was quiet but now I see the gulfe in which I lye to be deep and terrible But oh poore wretch Is it thus with all Are not some daily raised through mercy as well as others cast down What Dost thou expect as soone a lifting up as thou feelest a consternation Art thou better then he that said Psal 85.8 He would hearken what the Lord would say for he would speake peace to his Saints Surely it s to bee feared thine humbling is but violent and then thou maiest cavill long enough for thou shalt revolt quickly to thine old vomit Gods matters are too hot Job 15.11 and too heavy for thee But say thou art no such yet tell me Are the consolations of God such vaine things with thee Is it not more eligible to be under the hands of a mercifull God who in his good time can perswade the unconvinced spirit and bring it to the bent of his bow then to be under that bondage for a time which the Law by sin hath brought upon thee The like speeches doe many use concerning others How doe base parents husbands wives and kindred cry out of the word when it hath begunne to ceaze upon their children wives and husbands or kinsfolke
till she have cast off all weights and clogges which might hold backe and with-draw her from this free and full giving up her selfe to God Simile I make this plaine by a similitude A Clergie man hath a Benefice which by his errour is fallen into the lapse if hee will still plead a true right by his preaching of his Sermons or serving Cure he loseth his living or if his stomacke be too great to confesse the lapse But if he will acknowledge his lapse and have his friend ready in the Court to begge it of the King to whom it is fallen hee may possibly save the lapse and recover his living with a better title then at first So here Grace is fallen into the lapse by Adams and thy sinne by this the right of it is forfeit into the hand of the King of heaven if thou wilt now confesse the forfeit and renounce thy crazie title if thou wilt resigne it up into the Kings hand going to thy friend the Lord Jesus to begge it for thee againe thou mayst have it better confirmed then ever Else Simile if thou plead thine owne righteousnesse thou losest Gods Another Simile As it is in the marriage union A woman cannot wholly resigne up herselfe to a man except she wholly be free from all her own cavils and exceptions which might hinder her resolution If either her minde stand to live a virgin as distasting the married estate in generall or if she like it but yet refuse except shee may have her owne ends reserve stroke in her owne hand to dispose of that she hath or have such and such liberties to goe and doe as her listeth or if shee feele the yoke of subjection heavie to her and will be eased of it or if she dislike the person or qualities of the party or his abilities or breed parentage or trade calling any of these are sufficient to hold her spirit off and to use her freedome live single Even so here Till Self and selfe-ends be all borne down by the streame of grace and the promise there is no possibility for the soule to yeeld up her selfe and resigne her liberty That which they speake in Joh. 8.33 Wee are Abrahams children were never bound unto any is the voyce of every base heart which though it ly in the deepest slavery yet thinkes her selfe free because that chaine is sweet by custome and becomes even as deere as life it selfe And to bee broken off from it is more bitter then death Oh! every one thinkes thus Rom. 7.9 Now I am alive to my will and lusts If once my necke bee under the coller of Christ I must stoope farewell then all my liberty But till the soule bee brought to see that in the promise which will equall such carnall liberties and recompence them with an hundred fold in a better kinde shee will never be perswaded to deny her selfe Shee sees her selfe warme in her nest feeles no want loves her ease and therefore will not out of her track And hence it is Psal 45. To be brought to an utter strait and a forlorne condition is one ingredient of faith that Salomon tells Pharaoh's daughter in the name of the Church that if shee will forget her selfe her Idols and heathenish heart her fathers house and contents her private wealth and honour that she may wholly bee his and according to his heart in her prizing him for himselfe and for his meere love above all other delights if she will bee subject to him and deny her owne name and will then she should bee a wife for him and hee would delight in her love not else So that resigning up her selfe wholly to bee at his dispose was one maine peece of the marriage Even so is it here That soule which will enter league with God and cast her selfe upon him for pardon and life must wholly cease to be her owne and come under both the name and authority of another or else shee equivocates and lies to the holy Ghost worse then Ananias did First that averse heart in generall to the match must be taken off that contrariety and distaste of conversion and Christianity must be abandoned Rebellion against the way of God must be abhorred then all quarrels against God the conditions of a regenerate person the difficulties the crosses annexed to it must bee devoured All the soules mixtures both in the way of beleeving and obedience afterward must bee pared away All her owne duties performances labours zeale devotion religion morality all her affections bred in her from her owne ends must bee forfeit She must be content that Grace honour her selfe with the only stroke in the worke of conversion if she beare not all the sway she will beare none at all Now if any of these sticke in her stomacke if she be willing to have the fat and sweet but shee will have none of the soure she is still within her owne bounds and cannot freely resigne up her selfe to the promise for Selfe and the Word are directly contrary No soule will cast her selfe upon a bare word of God but that which hath first renounced all that might really give her content without it And therefore to finish such a soule puts her selfe out of her owne dispose and submits her selfe to be at the dispose of God to doe with her as he pleases according to that which in his word hee hath revealed himselfe to be willing to doe She desires that she might bee more willing to have God glorified in his owne way and honoured in his mercy then to enjoy pardon and heaven in her owne way And although it bee not the case of every weake soule to come thus farre because that which drawes the soule first to seeke God is her owne pinch of guilt and curse and her desire of forgivenesse peace yet her entire desire is to cast her selfe so farre upon the bare word of God that if that can faile she is willing to perish and as she growes in light and strength she is glad to be informed what the scope and purpose of any truth of God is and being so shee desires to stoop to it most humbly and entirely that whatsoever become of her owne yet Gods will may be done in her and by her And this may serve briefly to shew what the first part of faith imports that is Selfe-deniall I have oft spoken of it before Thus much here may serve 2 Part. Resignation Resigning up of the soule to God is a second ingredient of faith The second thing in faith is Resignation of her selfe to God This is when God is fully and wholly that unto the soule which before Selfe was or any thing in the world wherein her content stood Consider good brethren I speake of a weighty thing and not for discourse sake Perhaps you may thinke I goe to deepe and indeed so I doe for a carnall fleet heart howbeit no truth of
the weak belong to novices Promises touching them that stand are of one kinde and promises concerning them who are revolted and backslidden are of another Each promise holds a naturall and geniall propriety to such as they concerne No true beleever ought to bee a stranger to any of the promises But hee ought especially to apply himselfe to such as are appointed for him This is to put on Christs apparrell rightly When men mismatch the promises looking rather at such remote promises as lesse belong to them passing by the proper and peculiar ones they feele not the true use and benefit of them What hath hee to doe with promises of growth who is revolted hee hath more need of recovering What hath hee to doe with promises of knowledge who is puft up with that hee knowes Hee hath need rather of such as concerne the humbling of his soule What should hee trouble himselfe with promises of support in greatest difficulties temptations persecutions who rather had need to bee better resolved of pardon it selfe 2. In respect of the variety of promises themselves Secondly in regard of the variety of the promises themselves for there must be a limiting of temporall promises in respect of spirituall He that will enlarge temporall promises to himselfe in point of enjoying them according either to the price which they cost or the right purchased thereby shall disguise himselfe exceedingly For although they are fully purchased for all beleevers in point of right yet not so in point of dispensation herein wisedome orders bounty according to the object upon whom God sometime enlarges 1 Cor. 3.22 sometime restraines All are ours if we be Christs Howbeit not alway for equall measure or time This is our basenesse that we are carried to promises as the beast to her food not by faith but appetite Note Faith puts the knife to the throat and restraines the soule to the ensuing of such promises not as her selfe but as the Lord thinks best And she teaches the soule that it 's better for her that God sometimes should exchange promises for her rather then give her such as she would chuse and preferre through lacke of discretion For they are an hundred times better for us which requite us an hundred fold in one kinde for such as we forgoe in another rather then such as wee covet If God will try some graces in thee as selfe-deniall and patience under sufferings covet not thou the exercise of others as of Sobriety Cheerfulnesse and Thankfulnesse for Blessings 4. When a promise is beleeved according to the extent thereof Fourthly they beleeve a promise according to a promise who beleeve it according to the fulnesse and extent thereof And this branch doth most closely concerne the doctrine in hand As many enlarge promises beyond that which they import so many more doe curtoll them and serve them as Hanun did Davids servants cutting off their clothes by the middle They are straitned in Gods enlargements like Ionah who grudged that God should be so gracious to Ninevee Jona 4. As it is with Beggars who qualifie the measure of their Almes according to their owne basenesse not the bounty of him who bestoweth A Beggar will bee content with cleane straw in a Barne to lodge in But a friend will looke to be lodged in a good roome and best Feather-bed Why Because he measures his welcome according to his friend his beteaming heart It seemes a great thing for a poore sinfull wretch to obtaine forgivenesse but as for other promises hee thinkes them a farre off Or if hee get a few promises by the end hee thinkes God must needs shorten him of others But the Lord will have faith comprehend the length depth breadth of promises yea the fulnesse of him that filleth all in all Unbelief is like Iehoram Ephes 3. 2 King 13.18 who being bidden to shoot the Arrows and smite the ground limited God to thrice whereas God meant seaven times Men having given us bread send us for meat to another doore and for drinke to a third But the Lord will traine all his to know his doore and none else and to expect all from himselfe Men loath ordinary Beggars and give at certaine times but not ordinarily But Christ Jesus is yesterday to day Heb. 13.8 and for ever the same upbraiding no man All promises of God are equally Yea and Amen in Christ one as another 2 Cor. 1. end Some one maine benefit there may be in marriage but there are abundance of second ones consequent thereupon all entailed to it So is it here So that hee who shortens and limits promises doth not according to them but contrary to their extent Separate not the things which God hath put together but rather make a golden chaine of one and other If God will give me the best viz. heaven it selfe hee will not deny us the temporall For the promises reach as farre as the merit Christ died to redeeme body and soule from all distresses though as I noted all sorts of promises are not accomplished to all beleevers at all times yet their right to them all is equall Fifthly he beleeves a promise according to a promise 5. When it is beleeved according to the peculiâ—rity and speciall ufe of it who beleeves a promise in the peculiarity and speciall use thereof For although each promise hath the fulnesse of God in it because it cost the blood of the Lord Jesus and no peece of his Testament no one Legacie of his could be made effectuall to the Church save by his death yet he doth not thrust all the vertue of his death into one or two or a few promises but for the more cleare satisfaction of the soule he distinguishes his good things into as many severall and peculiar promises as the necessities of his people doe require To the end that every one that needs any good thing may know where to finde it Simile And as Apothecaries who sell many wholesome Drugges doe not shuffle all together but for the more ease and certainty disperse them into so many severall boxes and celles where they may be sure to finde them when they need them without mistake or errour So hath the Lord done hee hath not generally and confusedly put all graces and benefites into one promise but hath dispensed them in sundry promises Not a good thing but it hath her peculiar promise to which the Lord will have all his people to resort And by this meanes he trains his people to be well versed in his Scriptures and to pick out promises as they lye yea promises which seeme to bee made to some speciall persons yet hee will have them as the Bee to carry them home to their Hives As that promise which was made to Christ himselfe Esay 49.8 he will have us apply it 2 Cor. 6.2.3 That which was made to Ioshua Chap. 1.4 he will teach us to improve it Heb. 13.5
to shift for my selfe it s I who have broken covenant with thee O breake my heart for it let it not be all one with me whether I feele thy presence or want it It s the death of my soule to be without thee I walke desolately mine heart melts in my bosome as wax I am consumed for thine anger as with a moth and I have no rest in all my flesh for thee Oh Lord let it exercise mee throughly and use any meanes rather then my disease should rankle and grow incurable in me 1 Sam. 20.1 2 3. When David saw that Sauls countenance was changed to him in what a pickle was he How did he bemoane it to Ionathan And yet his favour had beene deare of the price and shalt not thou mourne for the losse of presence and performance of promises from God Oh take heed goe not on adde not drunkennesse to thirst grow not from one or two falls to a falling sicknesse What is the life of most men but a sinning and repenting repenting and sinning againe Yea though the Lord be angry and smite them what doe they save go on still in the frowardnesse of their heart as Esay 57.16 Oh take heed Commune with God and thine heart consider the sad steps of thy revolt undoe thy worke get the Lord Jesus to be thy Mediator better then Ionathan for he was like to have beene slaine for his labour but Christ shall be accepted and the Lord shall restore thee againe and thou shalt bee as in time past unto him returne by a promise and by renewing thy faith as by thy unbeleefe thou didst revolt the Lord is willing that thou doe so and he will heale all thy backslidings and marry thee after thy harlots tricks and divorce Jer. 2. and 3. read the places Soder not up thy errors by duties weigh not good against bad but by a promise And so doing thy flesh shall returne like the flesh of a childe and thou shalt bee cleane and then thy title to the performance of promises shall bee restored And as the daughter of the Priest having buried her husband Levit. 22.13 might returne and eat bread in her fathers house as when she was a virgin so shalt thou returne to thy former demensum at the Lords board and thy charter of promises shall be restored and the performance of them If thou belong to God thus it shall be with thee some crosse or other God will send thee home by he will cause thy wounds to stinke and thy reines to burne within thee but hee will set home his truth in thee yea rather then faile he will set the Divell upon thee though he pull him off againe in mercy rather then he will lose thee But if thou be a revolting hypocrite and a server of the time thou maist goe where thou shalt God will not owne thee Thus much for this third Use Now it is time that we hasten to other Uses of the Doctrine A fourth Use therefore is instruction with caveat If God performe all his promises let us learne so to carry our selves as becomes them that beleeve Vse 4 this truth let not us joine purchasers with God in performances Instruction Caveat God must bee left to himself to performe promises without mixing of our wits and wills therewith Ruth 3.18 but stand still looke on and behold the faithfulnesse of God let us give faire way to his providence in this kinde and leave the businesse to himselfe as onely concerning himselfe As Naomi said to Ruth Rest and be still for the man will not be quiet in himselfe till he bring the matter about leave it to him so let us doe God needs not our negotiousnesse or double diligence to bring his matters to passe he can doe them best himselfe And yet so it is that as in all other lawfull actions we must come in and chop our gourds in the pottage to defile it so especially in the performing of promises Our mixtures must be added our humors and extremities or else all is marred The Disciples must needs crave fire from heaven to destroy the Samaritans Luke 9.54 Matth. 16.21 or else their affection to their Master cannot subsist So Peter cannot love his Master except he disswade him from death Just so is it in this businesse with most men From the chiefe promise of salvation to the least and lowest we must have a finger in the worke and promises must passe through our dispatch To give God the honour of fulfilling as well as promising is too difficult for us And thence it is that we so hardly obtaine the promises they sticke betweene our fingers our hastnings our feares our dallying our presumption causeth so much sorrow betwixt the making and performing of promises If God were nakedly beleeved without our owne selfe-love the worke would soon be at an end Gen. 27.6 God promised Rebecca that the elder of the twinnes should serve the younger She could not rest content with that but she must devise how as if God needed her sinne shifting and lying to bring it to passe and in doing so she being taxed by Iacob tels him Indeed God foretold it to Abraham and alledged the sinnes of Amorites were not full yet why might not this come in as an externall motive to God his execution Gen. 15.16 Thy curse bee upon me my sonne But she could not so easily latch the blow For what might be the cause why Isaac fetcht over the blessing the second time save onely to reprove the indirect course that Rebecca had taken It s true that the spirituall birthright tooke effect from the present But the temporall was delayed six or seven hundred yeares till David brought Edom under bondage I submit my judgement to wiser men and I doubt not but other causes may be alledged but why might not the promise have taken effect sooner if shee had suffered the Lord to take his course We see Esau and his posterity were Dukes and Princes when poore Iacob was faine to bee a servant a pilgrim and his children to be slaves foure hundred and thirty yeares ere they went into Canaan Who doubts but that God guided all Yet I see not but we may suspect God to have had an hand of punishment for this prevention of his performances As the midwives subtilty spake of the Israelitish women to Pharaoh Exod. 2.19 That they were lively and needed not them So I may say Gods promises are lively and need no midwifery of ours they are not so weake that our wisdome need bring them to the birth Yet brethren we cannot be kept from venturing God hath promised to be alsufficient yet as if he could not be so without us we must step forth and bestirre us with using some indirect meane or other to purchase a performance God hath promised to blesse us in all we put forth our hand to but if wee marry a childe or purchase a commodity
Esa 26.2 Salvation will God appoint for wals and bulwarkes Esay 26.1 2 3. What is that The Church under the Gospel should fasten upon the promise for salvation and this should fence out all her troubles and former enemies as a Wall or a Bulwarke keepes out any affronts and vers 3. Thou wilt keepe him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee because he trusteth in thee As the needle of the Diall set just on the North point settles and shakes not and as the Anchor holds in the Ship from floating up and downe so the promise fastned upon stablisheth the soule from her former wanzings and unsetlednesse And the reason is more fully set downe in vers 4. Trust yee in the Lord for ever for the Lord JEHOVAH is everlasting strength that is he is reall in all his promises and gives a being to them as being strong enough to doe it Hence it is Esa 55.4 That the Lord Jesus in the offer or promise is called a Witnesse Behold I have given him for a Witnesse to the people And in Revel 1. That faithfull and true Witnesse Why because he is Yea and Amen all the promises of God in him become so Now as a Witnesse in the Court who is sworne and without exception decides the Controversie betweene two at oddes so the promise beleeved quits the soule and puts an end to strife So in the Hebrews the promise beleeved is compared to a City of refuge which rescued the poore man-slayer whose heart was full of feare and distresse because of the pursuer but there he was free even so the oath and promise of God received into the soule determines all doubts betweene the Lord and her It is said of Hanna that ere Eli had resolved her from God of a sonne shee was full of trouble in spirit But when once hee had satisfied her lo then shee was cheerefull and look'd no more heavily even so is it with the promise fastning upon the soule it causes the waves and stormes of an unquiet heart to turne to a calme Hezekiah was mightily troubled upon the message of death but no sooner came Esay backe againe with the newes of his recovery and the signe of the Suns going back but Hezekiah's moane was turned to a song So is it here For is there not more in a promise of Christ and preach'd to the soule in his name then in all the promises of speciall deliverances which were more darkly derived from him Yes verily Hence it is that the Prophets never describe the power of Christ in his word but they runne very much upon the description also of this effect of chasing away of all spirituall distempers Upon all the glory shall be a defence and there shall be no more weeping nor mourning upon his mountaine In stead of the Bramble Esay 55. ult shall be the Myrtle and in stead of the Thorne shall come the Firre What 's that all shall bee new the face of things shall be changed Teares shall be wiped from all eyes with many such phrases as come not to mind each chapter is full of them So Job 22.29 When men are cast downe then thou shalt say There is a lifting up and hee shall save the humble man Lo consternation and terrors cease by beleeving So Psal 32.6 For this cause shall every good man pray in a time of finding The flouds of great waters shall not come neare him And examples are as evident as other Scriptures How was Cornelius by Peter the Eunuch by Philip the Jaylor by Paul and Silas freed from their doubts and demurres and set at liberty Reasons are many and weighty First this appeares by proportion Reas 1 if we compare the priviledges of Beleevers together we shall find that there be as many as concerne them in point of freedome from their inward distempers as outward enemies But the beleever is really set free from enemies Devill curse law wrath of God an evill world the gates of hell else whence come those triumphs O death where is thy sting O hell where is thy victory The sting of death is sinne and the strength of sinne is the law incensing sinne But thankes be to God c. Now if redemption deliver us from enemies so that they shall not hurt us from all crosses straits tribulations so that they shall not separate us from the love of God shall not then Justification free us from inward horrours feares guilt doubt of conscience rebellion of sinne cavils prejudice and distempers Shall not reconciliation ridde us of our enemy and that shame and confusion which sinne brought upon us Yea much more for both come from faith Secondly the contrariety of estates proves it before and after Reas 2 faith The condition of the wicked is That they can have no peace there is none to them Esay 57. ult because as the winter aire is never temperate by reason of those moist and cold vapors which annoy the aire with winds tempests frost and snow and the like so the coast of their spirits can never be cleare because of the guilt of their consciences they may now and then please themselves with a little truce but still warre returneth the dint of their feares is not broken So on the contrary There is no warre to the soule that beleeves As the aire perfectly clensed in the summer is setled and affords a continuall calme so doth the conscience of a beleever Now and then may be over-castings of clouds but the dint of guilt and wrath is gone Thirdly else we should ascribe more to particular promises Reas 3 and the effect thereof which are weaker then to the maine promise which is the Reuben the first borne of God and the sonne of his strength But we see what particular promises have done to them who have beene under sad distempers by affliction Of Hanna and Hezekiah I have spoken before Adde another The Lord promised the Israelites that upon the sprinkling of their door-posts with the bloud of the Passeover Exod. 12. the Angel of the Lord shall passe over their houses and smite none of them Did they find any distempers possesse them when there was out-cry throughout all Egyt in every family No surely they slept sweetly in their beds Did they doubt of the victory against Ai when as they had received a promise of victory or were they afraid as at first when thirty of them were slaine No. When the promise was made of the fall of the wals of Jericho by the sounding of Rams hornes and compassing the City seven times did the people stagger at it were they not resolved And shall not the maine promise of God remove distempers within as well as afflictions without yes and much more Reas 4 Fourthly the contrariety of corrupt infidelity and the power of the promise doth evince it The strength of infidelity stands in bearing downe the word Whatsoever distemper of heart can be mentioned either selfe carnall reason rebellion
or the like comes from the not suffering the word to enter but holding it out at staves end Now then must not the word of promise beleeved become as contrary to her Why did Micaiah so scare Ahab Because he never spake well to him So why doth the grace of faith so scatter these distempers Because she speakes all against them overthrowes and resists them Contraries have mutually the same respect in their consequencies The distemper of an unbeleeving spirit alway beares downe the word till the word as the stronger man armed with the power of Christ doe foile her and strip her of all The weapons of our warfare are not carnall but spirituall able to cast downe strong holds of corruption Sinnes weapons are carnall Gods are spirituall Therefore there is no proportion in the contrariety God will divide the spoyles that is cease the distempers The reason appeares from that speech of Jonah Ionah 2.8 They that embrace lying vanities forsake their owne mercy But I will looke toward thy holy Temple and promise and thereby abandon them Each destroy the other Reas 5 Fifthly the promise drownes all former distempers because it performes that really which selfe and corruption beare the soule falsly and erroneously in hand withall These afford the soule a rotten peace a deceitfull content vanishing and ending in sorrow See Esay 50.11 But the word doth it really and surely no more to be infringed No more hungring or thirsting if once satisfied with this bread and water of life The text imports it Naamans servants here tell Naaman That which all thine owne discontents and humours could never minister unto thee that the obeying of the message will really afford thee See Act. 13.38 That from which you could not be justified from by the law of Moses by this Man every beleever is justified All at once set free from outward enemies and inward distempers Reas 6 Sixthly the experience of the Saints proves this who till they have cast anchor upon the word and settled upon this center could never find rest in all the circumference as I may call it of your owne best selfe your goodnesse affections gifts or duties Bellarmine himselfe confessing that in respect of the uncertainty of our good workes or else the perill of vaine-glory issuing from thence it is most safe for us to rely upon the sole and meere mercy of God the bare word of truth and promise How much more then shall Gods people say If it had not beene for thy word I had perished in my affliction This is to a poore soule as the chaire of Saint Peter is to a deluded votary the determining voyce All eternall immutable things comprehend and devoure the fading and changeable but cannot be comprehended by them nor resisted by their opposition Lastly the maine and chiefe reason of all is because the word Reas 7 and promise of God is not the bare letter of words or syllables Many branches but furnish'd with all the power and authority of God so that who so clings and cleaves to it is out of his owne keepe and under the Lords There is as our Saviour speakes spirit and life 105. in all which he speakes This may appeare to us in these foure specials First in the wisdome thereof This way of God crosseth all Branch 1 other wayes and hedges the soule out from all sound comfort by them only fastning it upon this 1 Cor. 1. As Paul cals the Gospel in this respect the wisdome of God casting downe all those devices of mans wit wil works or wayes by which flesh would set up a peace and ease of all distempers to her selfe There is no doubt but the errantest hypocrite living would gladly if he could by his smoothing with his owne false heart come to a kind of setling that he might no more be troubled But it is as the sowing of a new peece to an old garment and the rent becomes the worse Even as a short narrow Map of a Shire makes every petty cottingers lands to vanish and causes him to account himselfe a starke begger lord of a Mole-hill not worth the owning So doth this way of God force him who thought himselfe no meane man in his Religion and hopes to seeme a starke foole in his owne eyes For why hath the Lord revealed the way to life by the reall death and resurrection of his onely Sonne glory being made shame and holinesse sinne and eternity death to satisfie justice and shall I play the Mountebank and thinke to satisfie by mine owne trickes and devices Oh foole oh beast Secondly in the righteousnesse of God As the Sunne is able Branch 2 by his heat to licke up all the dew of the earth and scatter all the mists of the aire and the Sea is able to swallow up and devoure whatsoever is cast into it never to appeare more Even so the merit of Righteousnesse and Sanctification by our Lord Jesus compared oft to both these in Scripture is able to licke up and dispell all the most desperate feares doubts and distempers of the soule So Paul speakes Whom God set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his bloud to declare his righteousnes Rom. 3.25 What righteousnesse Surely the equalnesse of pardoning them who are of the faith of Jesus because he hath received a full ransome else saith he if he should not justifie such an one he should not be just So full a content hath Christ given his Father for sinne that if the Father should not acknowledge it sufficient he should doe Christ wrong and if he should not impute it to a poore soule that beleeves he should doe the poore soule wrong nay having freely yeelded his Sonne and received the price for that very end he should doe himselfe infinite wrong by unfaithfulnesse But there is no such feare The Judge of the world will not do unrighteously he will not condemne the righteous and the unbeleever alike For he hath accepted his Sons death as a ful discharge If we should receive a summe of money for the use of an Orphan and when the Orphan comes of age should detain it should he be righteous Mercy then is of free gift and faith is a free gift But justification of a poore soule for Christs merit is an act of righteousnesse So 2 Cor. 5.20.21 Be reconciled to God Why Because he hath made him sinne who knew none that we might be Gods righteousnesse Branch 3 Thirdly all other properties of the promiser are included in the promise as the truth faithfulnesse mercy love greater then that of the creation and all the rest scattered in the booke of God his eternity and unchangeablenesse and the like are all in the Word See 1 Tim. 1.15 Psal 25.10 1 Pet. 1.25 with sundry others So that the soules doubts and distempers may easily be cast upon such promises for so the Apostle cals them 1 Cor. 7.1 as are built upon such foundations Branch 4 Fourâ—hly
as ours doth Naaman here hath an incurable disease which none can heale in all the world save one man He comes to him craves a cure receives answer Go wash The message pleases him not he frets and stampes that it is no easier no more liking to his humour hereupon more looking at his humour then this disease he is ready to fling away in a rage His servants come about him and tell him Master if thy disease might be otherwise cured it skill'd not greatly to turne homeward but the matter is considerable here we are on the one side pinched with a leprosie incurable on the other offered a remedy that likes us not in this case either we must reject it and so we are sure to keepe our disease or we must accept the remedy What shall we here doe Thou sayest the remedy is unlike uncertaine be it so but the leaving it is assured and desperate misery Whether of the two shall we take Shall we preferre certaine sorrow to uncertaine good What folly were that Perhaps we may goe to Jordan and come back as we came grant it it is but a peradventure for perhaps we may speed If we speed by going we are made if we speed not we are not undone we shall come backe no worse then we went Therefore there is three to one for our going let us deny our tech our conceit and distemper let us but venture it and cast the worst but home in any case let us not goe without trying the remedy Hereupon he adventures and finds it as the Prophet foretels Just so is it with a poore soule Feare on the one side lest God his word should deceive it doth dismay it from attempting the promise on the other side hope to speed doth encourage us What shall we doe Surely let the possibility of speeding the desperate impossibility of speeding any other way and that our venturing cannot make us in worse case then we were it may make us in much better prevaile with us If we must be miserable let us fall into the hands of God if we must perish better that his hand cast us away then our owne distrust if he can be unfaithfull well may we be miserable for our owne guilt and not his unfaithfulnesse hath made us so Therefore how ever it be let us venture our selves rather upon a possible hope then lie still in assured misery This is the very state of it and by this we may see what the wofull condition of an unbeleever is He doth as Naaman would have done if God had given him his will he chuseth to lie under his load as the Asse in her slow without striving to get out nay preferreth a sullen humour of discontent before the adventuring upon Gods way that is to say assured misery before possible remedy In other cases 2 Kings 7. no man will be so foolish Take an instance In the great famine of Samaria there sate two Lepers at the gate of all others most sure to starve It comes into their minds that their case was desperate and that any termes were to bee chosen before dying in coole bloud Let us say they go offer our selves to the Campe of our enemies if they save our lives we shall live if not we are but dead men we were better be slaine out-right then die here Hereupon they ventured and lighted well Consider we well of this Shall flesh and bloud in a case of life and death venture upon a possibility rather then lie still in assured misery venture without any promise nay venture upon an enemy And shall we be so base and cowardly in the case of our immortall soules as to chuse rather to perish where we lie then to venture our selves upon a mercifull promise upon no enemy but a Father who assures us that we shall not onely not be worse then we were but happy and forgiven Who should be so foole-hardy but one that was never put to throughly in the sense of his unavoidable misery If the party pursued by the avenger of bloud should having advantage of ground of the pursuer wilfully have lien downe in the mid-way saying I shall never get thither I were as good lie still for naught as goe for naught would not any man have thought him a senselesse blocke not affected with his danger Therefore to end this seeing there is that in the promise which can remedy us let us make toward it and if our base spirits misgive us in the entrance as not knowing the successe yet let our inward disease thrust us forward and tell us This is no time of quarrelling with God and keeping of our misery still but rather of seeking out worse we cannot be better we may be let us therefore preferre hope before ruine and say If I must needs perish I will perish by venturing not by cowardize So much for the fifth And to conclude by these meanes let us resigne up our selves to the authority and power of the promise which hath as infinite a supply of helpe from a fountaine of grace to answer our doubts and cavils as we have of objections to discourage our selves And the rather because it is eternall to survive all our tedious and endlesse cavils Let us claspe and cleave to this promise as having grounds enough from the manifold excellencies therein contained to match our feares let us consent to the offer of it and obey the command of it let us set to our seale that it is true not onely in it selfe but also to us for our remedy let us be carried into the streame of it as being able to turne our streame a quite contrary way let us lot upon it set up our rest in it buy and sell upon it as the thing we make full reckoning and account to be happy by yea let us plead it when our necessities carnall hearts doubts and feares doe put us to it as those who will not easily forgoe their right in it and so hold it as that which the Lord our God hath bestowed upon us Iudg. and therefore as Iphta once said we will possesse it and not be beaten off from it whatsoever any enemy can say to weaken it Thus much for this Use of Admonotion may serve The next is Use of Exhortation Exhortation to all such as either doe desire Use 6 to feele In 2 Branches or such as have felt this benefit by the promise already to free them from their distempers The former to refuse no pains to get faith the latter both to blesse God for that liberty yea to trust him for the true peace of Conscience issuing from faith and also to rely upon the promise for a riddance from all future distempers which may arise from revolts temptations or crosses throughout their course Let me speake a word of both For the first let every poore soule be encouraged to breake through all difficulties hindring the soule from beleeving because the fruit recompenceth
Consumption A great gash of a sword upon a fleshie part arme or thigh carries more bloudy shew with it but the drawing of a small wyre through the heart is far more mortall the prick of a pin there is worse then the wound of a sword upon the legge To finish this use constantly all spirituall lively quickning ordinances and the more lively dispensed the rather Side with them that are spirituall cast thy lot into their lap mourne with them laugh with them gaine or lose with them trade with them of all duties meanes or graces oftenest trade with the most spirituall especially faith the life of all both in one condition of life and other such meditations as thou feelest will leave thee most heavenly and carry thee farthest off thy self traffique most withall knowing that a carnall lukewarme spirit is alway at the doore offering it selfe but a spirituall will not bee kept save by strong hand Preferre this spirit of grace in thy wife child or friend before the most beautifull rich or politicke fellow in all the Country love such an one with all his infirmities rather then another with the best accomplishments Also use Gods afflicting hand wisely for that fire is needfull oft-times to quicken inward hearts as the fire of thy heart to helpe the heat of thy fingers and feet and thereby God would visit thy spirit and keep it in temper So much for this first branch Branch 2 Secondly if by any meanes thou be sunke and decayed in this spirit of Grace Admon Recover again thy temper if it be lost by what meanes never lin till thou hast recovered it againe Many wayes this may be and never fals out more frequently then in these false-hearted dayes Sometimes by overmuch piddling about the bables of this world for every of us must have some vanity or other to while our selves about sometimes by more sad plodding about profit and commodity or by multiplicity of businesse and more irons in the fire then we can well manage over-stocking our selves with cares and employments which we cannot compasse sometime by sadde accidents in our course as ill successe in our trades distempers through unequal yoking in marriage wrath frowardnesse and discontent betweene couples or by rash suretiship which proves a great snare to the spirit by bad debtors by decay in our estate through improvidence and unskilfulnesse by false friends bringing us into trouble by quarrels and sutes in Law especially with potent adversaries by bad children not answerable to their education and hopes These weare and teare out the spirit of Grace disguise a man and weaken his zeale care tendernesse yea oft make him ashamed to put forth himselfe for God lest his poverty be cast in his teeth They intercept a mans times and seasons for God as the hearing of the Word frequently hinder our joy liberty or leisure to set up God in the family or to maintaine secret interest with him they hamper the affections from expressing that grace which is within There bee other occasions also within as ease and sloth wearinesse of a base heart also some mixt of both as want of good Ministery or removall of dwellings which oft are a great hurry to a good mind which is not in her power and liberty in such cases want of good examples or helpe of private friends sorting together in the wayes of God All these helping a wofull world of Declensions the Devill and a base heart must needs damp and coole many and alas when this disease is not cured betimes it will at last breake out into worse evils sad revolts breach of peace and losse of conscience with ill report and scandall which are not easily cured Therefore for such this I say Dost thou come to see this thine estate Dost thou perceive hereby thy precious spirit to be weatherbeaten and halfe blasted thy fatnesse and sweetnesse to be gone thy selfe to become as a dry branch and as one in whom there is no forme or beauty to be desired as in times past Mourne for it as for the losse of a jewell Say thus Who shall give me the wings of a Dove Psal 55.6 Ier. 2.2 that I may flee into the Wildernesse and there with a pensive soule call to mind the love of my youth which the Lord in those first cords of his and drawings of my heart inspired mee withall Oh! how little did I then looke for such a change When I was one of the children of the bride-chamber I was merry and joyfull But now I had need to fast and mourne Then I knew not what sorrow and sinne meant but went in and out with God at pleasure Oh! that some happy messenger from God might bring me newes of the recovery of of my spirit again to that temper whereof it was wont to be yea if it were but newes of a way by which it might be once restored Well if thou wilt not give God over he will not forget thee For why if thou be sure that ever this spirit was indeed wrought in thee by the worke of God whose workes are perfect like himselfe then know that this spirit is eternall And therefore as I advise thee to tremble at thy deadnesse and lukewarmnesse so yet I adde lin not till some beame of ray of that old spirit of Grace as the Sun through a cloud shine into thy prison wals and cause thy flesh to returne againe through faith in his promise as the flesh of a little child If things indifferent or crosses have disguised thee the worke will be the lesse to file thee bright againe because the leprosie is but in the skinne But if any speciall and grosse sinne have fretted inward and rusted thy spirit wasted thy first love then let it smite thee as an arrow piercing thy liver desire God to flayte and gaster thee out of that lap and bosome Simil. as Sampson out of Delilah's As they who worke in Coalepits if once they see their candle to burne blew make away with all haste possible lest they be choaked So thou whiles any life and spirit remains hast thy selfe out of this sadde damp and looke up to him to prevent utter death who hath promised to establish thee with his free spirit and so to renue it that it might never againe waste or decay in thee See that it doe not Thou hast felt the danger of losing it and the presence of God to thy soule by it If God have gathered it up againe as water spilt on the ground and girded up the loynes of thy soule with a second girdle of renewed zeale and fervour of heart lock thy doore upon thy beloved clip him faster in thine armes then ever and sinne no more lest a worse thing befall thee Fifthly this Use leads me to another and more weighty one of Use 5 Examination Examination to try thy selfe about this spirit of Grace whether ever it were wrought in thee soundly or not There is no