this glory a defence will make States and Nations blessed Surely if we the Lord's People were but as zealous to use liberty and priviledge well as we are to have it it would come faster than it doth Let us look more into our selves and more up to God as the readiest way to all good These are the thoughts desires and prayers of Him who is Yours ever in the Lord. N. L. Rom. vii xxiv O wretched Man that I am Who shall deliver me from the body of this Death THe great weight of sin and misery and the want of one to remove well both is the cause of this dolefull complaint O wretched man that I am Who shall deliver me from the body of this death or from this body of death as it is put in the Margent The weight of sin is groaned under in this terme of my Text body which is a word of quantity nomen quanâ—itatis and means the corruption of our nature to be a very extensive thing that the whole state of man in all the powers of his Soul and Body is depraved and vitiated and made utterly unfit to serve God and most fit to serve sin and Satan with all Organs and Instruments within and without Secondly This terme in my Text body is also Nomen qualitatis a word of quality that means the naturalness of this general pravity to us it lay with us as Mr. Rutherford saith in our Mothers Womb as Twins as one body lieth with another It took us fast by the heel in the Womb and we could never kick it off since And Thirdly For as much as there is this Epethite given to this Body calling it a Body of Death and a Body of this Death it notes not only the weight of sin but also of misery death being here put to signifie guilt and punishment Our depraved condition casteth us under all guilt and under all punishment that is actually under much misery and lyable every moment to all misery in Soul and Body in this World and in the World to come not only liable to death as 't is a dissolution of Soul and Body and all the sicknesses and diseases which prepare unto it but liable to this death that is a separation of both Soul and Body from God for ever Now to deliver us from the Body of this death a Body of corruption which exposeth us to such a death as this There no Man nor Angel is able no all the Angels did they joyn to do us service in this thing to change our natures to take off guilt to rectifie the Image of God which we have lost they cannot stir this Body as to any of these in the least nor any member of it they are not able to remove one sin or satisfie for the guilt of it nor draw one line an eye or an eye-brow or one finger of the new man This great weight of sin and misery and this utter impotency of all created strength to help out of it maketh the Apostle to cry out thus O wretched man that I am Who shall deliver me c. There be several things very profitable to be observed in these words as First this That every one is in a wretched and miserable condition by nature Depraved in all powers of Soul and Body and exposed in both to the utmost displeasure of God O wretched man that I am c. He doth not mean himself alone but speaketh as personating the best of men and so consequently all men for that he did thus complain of a corrupt state who was so holy who else but hath cause much more to complain For this death which my Text speaketh of hath passed over all Men for as much as all Men have finned in Adam And this Apostle which speaketh but of himself in this case in my Text speaketh generally elsewhere That by nature we are the Children of wrath as well as others Eph. 2.3 Secondly This may be learned from these words That our state by nature is not a safe state to be rested in That our state as we come into this World is not such as we should be contented with but a state much to be complain'd of by the best and much cryed out upon and much strugled under to be freed from O wretched man that I am Who shall deliver me c. Flesh and blood cannot enter into the Kingdome of God They which rest in their state as they come into this World and think that they attain to be moral and civil just and righteous to men and little or nothing complain of that which the Apostle doth here in my Text a Body of Death do not know their own danger Thirdly We may here learn That the best are not so good as they should be That the best in this World are much burdened and much endangered with natural corruption The Apostle Paul though regenerated found much of the rebellion of an evil nature of which he knew not how to get rid carrying him Captive to what he would not and so exposing him continually to the displeasure of God I know that in me that is in my Flesh dwelleth no good thing for to will is present with me but how to perform that which is good I finde not for the good I would I do not but the evil I would not that I do Corrupt nature as it easily besets us so it as easily overcomes us for any strength that we have of our own Such as so feelingly complain as Paul here doth will not easily be brought to drink in the Popish Doctrin of Perfection Fourthly We may here learn That our state in this World at best is but a wretched state for though a little grace be given unto us it is so over-matched with a great body of sin that we rather undo than do any thing that is good Is it not a wretched state to be so hampered with an ill Inmate Night and Day that when one pulls one way 'tother pulls stronger still the wrong way To see two Dogs coupled a little one and a great one What a woful condition is the little one in how he is pulled and haled up and down this way and that way not which way he would go but which way the great one will go or else he grins his teeth on the little one and bites him and abuseth him much just so is the condition of the most regenerate in this World And therefore he that is best and hath best in this World can say no better of it than he findes and daily feels that his condition is but a wretched condition O wretched man that I am c. The Point which I would stand on Doct. is this That we all ought to be deeply sensible of natural corruption Or we all ought much to lay to heart our fallen state by nature The Apostle Paul was a holy Man yet very sensible of much unholiness a body of it of which he was
which I observe to prosecute from these words is this That Christ is the proper remedy of natural corruption I thank God through Jesus Christ c. He whom God the Father hath sealed sanctified and sent into this World for this end to Cure natural corrupâ—ion is Jesus Christ our Lord as the Apostle here calls him The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted to proclaim liberty unto the Captives and the opening of the Prison to them that are bound Isa 61.1 By Captives and such as are in Prison is meant sinners in their unregenerated condition who are under the power and slavery of sin and carried Captive by the evil one at his will and by broken hearted and poor he means such as are deeply affected and afflicted with the body of death natural corruption in the guilt and pollution of it these is Christ anointed with the Spirit of the Lord to relieve and help to bind them up and all their wounds and putrified soares and to heal them and to preach liberty to them and to bring them into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God and such as are shut up under the power of sin and Satan as in a Prison to break down these strong holds and to open the everlasting Doors to himself the King of Glory to make a Prison a Palace a Slave a Son and Heir with him of all with this compare Isa 32.2 And a man shall be a hiding place from the wind and a covert from the tempest as Rivers of Water in a dry place as the shadow of a great Rock in a weary Land and the eyes of them that see shall not be dim and the eares of them that hear shall hearken the heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge and the Tongue of the stammerer shall be ready to speak plainly Men in their natural condition may be in a calm as long as the strong Man ruleth all is at peace but these will be in a tempest and a terrible one first or last when their Consciences come to be convinced as the Apostles here was And then who is able and who is appointed to allay these storms To this the Prophet answers A man shall be a hiding place and a covert from wind and rain but so a Man that he is also God or else he could do nothing at these winds and storms That these things are thus spiritually to be understood appears by the next words v. 3 4. And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim c. So that it means heart-storms and tempest and heart-help and Christ God-Man that is to be the helper and the great Covert in these storms and tempests and the great Rock for shade where the poor Soul is so scorched with the heat of God's wrath that he is ready to faint and die Blindness and deafness and rashness they all speak one thing the ill state we are in by nature blind deaf dumb and yet rash and mad and confident enough and the Man Christ Jesus who is called Emanuel God with us he is the appointed curer of all these Maladies This is a proof of the Point in hand in general I will descend to particulars of our fallen state and shew you that Christ is the appointed and proper remedy of all the diseases of our Souls There are three things complain'd of and supposed in the Apostles complaint in my Text one is a body of death that is our natural depraved state which is the filth of sin Secondly He complains of the Body of this Death that is the obligation of sin to the wrath of God temporal and eternal which we call the guilt of sin These two are expressed in his complaint Now there is a third thing supposed in these complaints of a bad state which is that he would fain have a better or else he would not have complained of this no more than other unregenerated Sinners do Now as to all these three Christ is the proper and appointed remedy and relief of miserable and wretched Man First As to the Body of Death i e. as to the fiâ—th of sin the depravation of our nature of which I spake in the other Sermon Christ is the remedy of this root and branch see Isa 51.9 10 11. Awake awake put on strength O Arm of the Lord Awake as in the ancient days in the Generations of old Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab and wounded the Dragon Art thou not it which hast dryed up the Sea and the Waters of the great deep that hast made the depths of the Sea a way for the ransomed to pass over Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return and come with singing unto Zion and everlasting joy shall be upon their head and they shall obtain gladness and joy and sorrow and mourning shall flee away Now put all these borrowed words into plain English and what deep must this mean the drying up of which maketh the way to Zion where everlasting joy is obtained This deep must necessarily mean the bottomless Gulf of natural corruption shadowed fitly by the deep that hath in many parts no bottom and as Christ was he that went before our Fathers and dryed up that deep Sea and made it a way to go through to Zion and to the holy Land So it is he that dryeth up the deep Sea of sin in our nature and so maketh way to the holy state and the holy Church the true Zion in which is everlasting joy Now forasmuch as corrupt nature puts forth under some chief head and grand lust which is as King to all the Châ—ldren of pride as Pharaoh and his Princes to all the Body of Egypt Who fighteth against these Ans Christ He is remedy for root and branch of the Body of Death Art not thou it which hath cut Rahab and wounded the head of the Dragon The Prophet speaketh still in allusion to Pharaoh and his Princes which he calls Crokâ—dile or Dragon that is a Sea-Dragon wherewith Egypt abounded This Sea of natural corruption hath some Sea-Dragons great Soul-devouring Monsters swimming and playing in it And who deals with these Ans He that dries up the deep that is Christ Art not thou he that hath cut Rahab and wounded the head of the Dragon This Text leadeth us by the hand to that first promise made to Adam The Seed of the Woman shall break the Serpents head which means our state of sin as headed and organised by Satan through any particular prevailing lust whatsoever our state of sin is there spoken of as headed by Satan who organiseth the old man as Christ doth the new And this surely is that great slaughter and the Towers falling which the Prophet especially pointeth at upon the fall of which the light of the Moon becometh as the light of the Sun and the light of
both as to God and as to his Son but of none as to him I thank God all is in a good way of cure now through Jesus Christ Donatum ob causam non est donatum sed potius permutatio A gift given for some cause is not a gift but rather an exchange of one thing for another but when very costly in it self and yet of no cost to us then it sparkles in the eyes of the receiver such a gift is Christ in this great work of the cure of our carnal state And doth the freeness of this love sparkle in your eyes and lay bonds upon you and make you go bound with holy affection and admiration No man that was ever cured of a desperate disease wherein he gave himself up for death but it was much obliging to him as to the instruments used for his Cure Naaman the Syrian thought himself bound to choose the God of Israel for his God that had cured him of his Leprosie If you be cured of your filthy Leprosie which is Christ's Priestly work and Kingly work too your Cure is between them both Do you choose him and own him for your Jesus and Lord as the Apostle here doth I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Christ by kindness conquers as Jeptha did If I do thus and thus for you slay your Enemies deliver you from slavery Shall I be your King And will ye chuse me to rule over you and they consented willingly If Christ hath cured your Soul diseases then are you under the Law of this great kindness and willing that he should be your Lord and to Rule you in all things according to his Word Secondly The Apostle was taken as with the love of Christ so with the love of the Father in this matter I thank God he hath found out a way to do me good a new and living way through his Son So the Apostle Peter Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Christ from the dead to an Inheritance incorruptible 1 Pet. 1.3 He saw an abundant mercy in the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ as well as in the Son our Lord Jesus Christ That having no more Sons should part with him out of his Bosom in Heaven to lodge Him in a Manger yea worse to lodg Him in Hell nay in a Place worse than that the filthy heart of the fallen Sons of Adam So the Apostle Paul again writing to the Ephesians saith But God who is rich in mercy for the great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sin and trespasses hath he quickned us together with Christ that in the Ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus Ephes 2.4 5 6. He saw rich mercy and great love exceeding riches of grace in God that by his own Son and not by any lower hand he should quicken Men dead in trespasses and sins And surely some thing of this is where this great Work is wrought a confessing that Jesus is the Lord To the glory of God the Father Vse 3 The last Use is for Exhortation seeing Christ is the proper remedy of our fallen state let this draw us to him to attend his Word and Ordinances and to attend the Angels stirring of these Waters Christ doth open Prison doors and deliver Captives but he doth it according to his Commission Now well observe the termes of his Commission Is 61 The Lord God hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek To which agrees 1 Pet. 3.19 By the which also he went to preach to the Spirits in Prison which were disobedient in the Days of Noah Preaching how lightly soever esteemed and how much soever opposed and suppressed is the great Ordinance by which Christ frees Captives and Prisoners and therefore this Ordinance which is the most general Ordinance to convince and convert should carefully and tremblingly be attended upon They that make light of preaching make light of their own depraved state of their Captivity to sin and Satan these groan not with this Apostle under the body of death Christ did create every day orderly by his Word he could have done it without but he did all as his Father appointed him and did not Movere per saltum make hast and pursue his own will or his own infinite and absolute Power so he doth in the new Creation and therefore wait upon wisdomes Posts Whoso is simple let him turn in hither where he will have Line upon Line now a little and then a little to touch and turn his heart Presently after the Creation was finished the Creator takes to himself the Title of Jehova Gen. 2.4 These are the Generations of the Heaven and of the Earth when they were created in the Day that Jehova Eloim made the Heaven and the Earth When you do approach to the Preaching of the Word Remember this Name of Christ that he is Jehova and able to give Being to his Word That what he bids you to be that he makes you to be Be exhorted when you attend Ordinances to pant for this thing that Christ as Jehova would Preach to you as one giving Being in your heart to every Word which he speaketh in your Ear That Christ would so speak that you might hear and believe all that he saâ—th as they at Iconium Act. 14.1 Take an Harp go about the City thou Harlot that hast been forgotten make sweet melody sing many Songs that thou mayest be remembred Isa 23.16 This spake the Lord to Tyrus a filthy sinful City and their punishment fore-told and the time for Seventy Years and then counselled to bemoan her self that she might be remembred and it is observable how holy bemoaning our selves is called and holy panting for deliverance from the slavery of sin and wrath it is called sweet melody and singing many Songs So indeed is such panting under the body of death and to be delivered from it as here the Apostle doth The mourning Doves note under the sense of our wretched state with a panting after Christ to cure it no Musick is such melody in the Ears of God to make him to remember us Thus crie and be ye all pained to be delivered Thirdly Take to you words and tell your great Physician how it is with you And if you want words help your selves with those Ephes 4.18 This I say and testifie in the Lord that ye walk not as other Gentiles in the vanity of your minds having your understandings darkned being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in you because of the blindness of their heart being past feeling c. Take up these words and apply them to your own depraved condition saying O wretched man that I am what a vain mind I have and how I walk in the vanity
on many of judicial hardness of heart Isa 6.10 11 12. Make the heart of this People fat and their ears heavy and shut their eyes lest they see with their eyes and hear with their eares and understand with their hearts and convert and be healed Then I said Lord how long and he answered till the Cities be wasted without Inhabitants and the Houses without Men and the Land be utterly desolate and the Lord have removed Men far away and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the Land This will be a strong reproof indeed if this should be the reproof upon us and yet very pleasing Vse 3 Try your selves by this Doctrine Are you deeply sensible of natural corruption If so then it is your only burden Of all perils and distresses though Paul had many did the Apostle complain as here of the Body of Death Do you any where read him say O wretched man that I am I am poor I am in Prison Who shall deliver me out of these sad conditions Alas he made nothing of hunger of nakedness of stripes of deaths oft but gloried in them But the body of this death that made him fetch deep sighs O wretched man that I am he never called himself so for any bodily evil whatsoever The Israelites were enjoyn'd when they came with their first fruits to make a solemn confession of their great unworthiness of God's great bounty and goodness A Syrian ready to perish was my Father and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there with a few Deut. 26.5 If you be deeply sensible then this is the allay in all your glory still in all your mirth this is the qualm that comes over your heart that makes it sad what a wretch ready to perish came I into this holy and good Land And why should such a dead Dog as I be treated thus with grace which abuse all that is bestowed on me Thus you look back to the hole of the Pit out of which digged daily and sigh if deeply sensible Secondly If you be deeply sensible of natural corruption then are you very vile in your own eyes I am more vile saith Agar than any man David calls himself a Beast and the Cananitish Woman owns her self to be a Dog and if Christ had called her a Viper a Toad a Monster no doubt she would have owned it If I wash me with Snow water and make me never so clean yet shall thou plunge me in the ditch and mine own cloaths shall abhor me Job 9.31 If ye be indeed sensible of your naughty state by nature ye are Persons of low eyes ye think the Cloaths ye wear too good for you because ye defile them the Meat you eat too good for you because to the unclean all things are unclean and the Earth too good to bear you because you are such a great load of filth such a going Dunghill If ye be indeed sensible of natural corruption ye are poor in Spirit unworthy that Christ or any good thing should come under your root This Apostle means all this when he calls himself a wretch labouring under a Body of Death The Leper under the Law and the Person with a Running Issue how low and loathsome were they in their own eyes loath and ashamed to come neer nay to come in fight of any one Thirdly If ye be deeply sensible of natural corruption then ye are as this Apostle in my Text at an utter loss in your selves what to do for deliverance from the guilt and power of it O wretched man that I am Who shall deliver me I am utterly to seek to save my self so is all the Creation I cannot deliver my self and who of all the Creatures of God in Heaven or in Earth that can deliver me To which of the Saints or Angels shall I turn So the Prophet Isaiah saw himself at an utter loss upon the sense of his vile condition Then said I woe is me for I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips Isa 6.5 He saw no way but one with him I am cut off So is the reading in the Margent I am gone and lost utterly now the holy God hath seen what an unholy wretch I am he hath got a view of me and a sent of me and surely he will think on it for ever what an ugly sight he saw and what a filthy smell he smelt Do you feel your selves undone by sin by reason of this Running Issue and that in your nature Are ye a burden to your selves because a burden and grief to the Holy Spirit of God Or are you not clean and pure in your own eyes and cock-sure ye shall go to Heaven when you die you have lived so well amongst all your neighbours and have done so much good and every one speaks so well of you Can such a state do amiss Our Saviour saith the whole need no Physician and that he came to save lost ones such who are so deeply possessed with the signe and sense of their sinful state by nature and life and conversation that they cry out Who will deliver me wretched me most sinful and forlorne me Isaac was at a loss for an Offering and doubtless thought at last that he must be burnt Fourthly If ye be deeply sensible of the body of death then ye prise deliverance from it above all this World Naaman the Syrian how he prised any Person or means that could cure his Leprosie And the Man-slayer how he prized and pursued the City of refuge And what would not one of those pursued Man-slayers have given for but one Foot within the Gate of the City of refuge To them that are under the deep sense of sin the Redeemer that is come from Zion to turn away ungodliness from Jacob is very precious O how precious was Christ to this Apostle which my Text mentioneth as you read in the next Verse O wretched Man that I am Who shall deliver me I thank God through Jesus Christ As a Man almost drowned having some one that can swim leaping in and taking hold of him O how doth he thank God for this friend I The Apostle Paeul being deeply sensible of his wretched state by nature did so esteem Christ that the truth is he esteem'd all else in comparison but as dung and dross Nebuchadnezar which was brought as a Beast from grass from creeping upon all four O how he magnified the true God for a while So doth that sinner magnifie and extoll Christ Dan. 4.34 that is brought from crawling like a Toad upon all four in the filth and poison of his natural corrupt on The black crabbed Tree of the Cross hath made Christ and my Soul very entire saith Mr. Rutherford He is my Song in the Night So I say the black Crab-stock of natural corruption maketh Christ and that sinner very dear and entire and his Song in dark Night who is in the pains and travels of natural corruption The
his bosom then Christ doth the helping of poor wretched burdened sinners the binding up and mollifying their maladies Some are bound fast enough to a business by their word but not at all by their affection and these though they keep their word yet it is in such a rough churlish way as is much discouraging but it is not so with Christ because he is under the bond of his bowels and affections as well as under the bond of his word and therefore trust in him that your case shall be helped and very carefully and compassionately helped Finally Confider the danger of not believing in this able One. You become debtors to the Law to fulfill it and debtors to your own desperate wretched condition as not self murderers to deliver your selves from the body of death in which you are and from the wrath of God to which this obligeth you You frustrate the Ordinance of God which he hath anointed and appointed for your good You cast your selves under the Covenant of works as that young Man which said to Christ What shall I do to be saved As if he could have saved himself and so made himself a debtor to fulfill the Law and Christ put him upon it seeing he would that way be saved and so he will serve you and them Confider whether you be able to keep the Law in every point and so restore your own state some are at the Doctrin of Perfection but they make void the Gospel and Christ and will as the young Man miâ—s perfection in one thing at least one thing will be wanting and he that fails in one Point is guilty of all and will bring the curse of the breach of the whole Law upon him Confider that by nature you are the Children of wrath and Transgressors from the Womb and how soon may the curse of this state be executed Wherefore I conclude all with the repetition of the promise again to you Isa 25.6 7 8. And I beseech you heed it well and take hold of it for your good And in this Mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make a Feast to all People a Feast of fat things a Feast of Wine on the Lees of fat things full of marrow and he will destroy in this Mountain the face of the covering cast over all People and the Vail that is spread over all Nations and he will swallow up death in victory and the Lord God will wipe all teares from all Faces and the rebuke of his People shall he take from all the Earth for the Lord hath spoken it and let me add his heart and soul is in it Jer. 3â— 41 What is the Vail that covereth all Nations Ans The Vail of natural corruption the Body of Death as the Apostle here calleth it and as this Prophet in this place calls it Death and saith it shall be swallowed up in victory yea he hath engaged to wipe all teares from all Mourners eyes who sigh and take on as this Apostle because of their wretched condition and to give them victory over the body of this death and the triumphs of this great victory in this World or in the World to come Comfort your selves all ye that groan under the Body of Death with these words FINIS SERIOUS CONSIDERATIONS OF DEATH Being A SERMON ON Isaiah 57.1 The righteous Man perisheth and no Man layeth it to heart and merciful Men are taken away none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come Isaiah 57.1 The righteous Man perisheth and no Man layeth it to heart and merciful Men are taken away none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come THe general Mortality of Man-kind and the Holy Use that should be made thereof by all the living are the two principal things of this verse Death takes away the wicked and doubtless the wicked and others too should lay this to heart for Death is no partial Visitor if it fetch off one wicked Man and send him to his place it will fetch down another nothing is more naturally the wages of wickedness than death and yet no worse enemy to any wicked Man than death therefore one wicked Man should be startled much at the death of another But Death sometimes taketh away all Men and then all Men bad and good should be much moved then all should lay to heart this i.e. should be sensible of their sin and the displeasure of God and speedily make peace with him by repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ that so present evils and also future presaged by present strokes may be turned away which thing this People could not be stirred up unto which was the reason of the complaint of this Prophet he preached the Funerals of the dead the best dead to the living good and bad but no man laid it to heart that is not held themselves deeply concerned to look about them to search their Souls to set House and Heart in order to die but kept on every one in his wonted pace of sin and wickedness and formality in Religion and so fell most of them in the common calamity The Doctrines which may be observed in these words are these First That God sometimes by common calamity taketh away the good as well as the bad Moses and Aaron as well as the mixed Multitude which murmured Did the Lord take off and would not let them come in to the good Land The righteous Man perisheth as if the Prophet had said the Lord strikes more mortally than any one is well aware he plucks up the stakes in the Hedg he pulls down the Pillars of the whole Nation and yet Men do not fear that all will fall about their Ears Hence it is that another Prophet calls upon the best People to look about them and to labour to be much better yet gives them but a may be for their safety Seek meekness all ye meek of the Earth ye which have wrought his judgments seek meekness seek righteousness it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord's wrath As if the Prophet had said I cannot ensure the life of the best Man because God sometimes destroyeth the righteous with the wicked for ends best known to himself This should make us all fear and tremble much in this dying Day and to give all diligence to make our Calling and Election sure and to be getting Oyl into our Lamps yea and to keep them trim'd and to stand guirt and ready to go in with the Bride-groom if call'd at Mid-night by the destroying Angel that is now abroad A Second Doctrin that may be observed in these words is this That gracious Men and merciful are the likeliest to scape best in times of common calamity The Prophet seems to note it in these words of my Text as very severe Justice that gracious and merciful Men should not be distinguished from others in the Day of evil The righteous Man perisheth and
our Death of Souls by the Famine of the Word of hearing the Word of the Lord in City and Country A great deal of do seems to be about the death of Bodies but ah Lord how many Thousand Thousand Souls have perished in this City and in these Nations in a few years past for want of hearing the Word of the Lord that is able to save the Soul Be not wrath very soar see behold we are thy People Zion is a Wilderness Jerusalem a Desolation and all our pleasant things are scattered Will the Lord refrain for these things Herein the Prophet seems to be toucht to the quick that Zion and Jerusalem was desolate and all these Soul-pleasant things were spoiled whereby Souls starved and perished and Soul-Famine and Pestilence was made a Famine of hearing the Word of the Lord that whither soever they went from one City to another from one Sea to another 't was all alike This this the Prophet laid deeply to heart and so should we I urge it by way of proportion if we should deeply lay to heart bodily death then much more Soul-death and destruction A fide exorbitans puniendus saith the Civilian such as play the wanton from the truth must be punished answerably We have been and yet still are a fide exorbitantes such as play the unruly Persons from the truth Children of Belial which cannot bear Christ's Yoke full of Soul-itch for another Gospel and being thus lewd in spirituals answerably in spiritual liberties and enjoyments hath God punished us it is not a little peril unto us that we meet now although the hand of God affright such as would be looking after us This this we should deeply lay to heart that the Bread for our Souls fails from the House of our God The strokes of God and the strokes of Men together affright away the Pastors and so the Pastures of your Souls and yet all this but the just punishment of much spiritual wantonness and exorbitancy Secondly If temporal strokes which refer to the death of the body should be laid much to heart then Eternal strokes which make the everlasting destruction of the Soul should be deeply laid to heart much more Such a stroke as that Isai 63.17 O Lord Why hast thou made us to erre from thy ways and hardened our hearts from thy fear and such as that Prov. 17.10 A reproof entereth more into a wise Man than an hundred stripes into a Fool. Some Mens hearts are by the inward strokes of GOD made Judgment-proof that Plague Famine and Sword all the Ten Plagues that were inflicted on Pharaoh and Ten more to them will not stir them nor turn them no more than they stopped or turned him nor yet so much And what do you see in this day done on the hearts of Men by the hand of God abroad now of Sword Famine and Pestilence Do these enter the hearts of Men This speaks that Eternal strokes judicial wrath upon the Soul is abroad fiting Men for Eternal death much of which I fear the most of us are little aware O Juresalem Jerusalem how oft would I have gathered thee as a Hen her Chicken and thou wouldst not but now they are hid from thine Eyes This was a Soul-mortal and an Eternal stroke and how Christ laid it to heart how he sighed and wept O Jerusalem And if our Gospel be hid it is hid unto them that perish saith the Apostle and how long hath thâ—s stroke been upon the Souls of most Assemblies in these Nations and else where the Power of the Gospel hid and a spurious efficacy gone forth in the place thereof faithful Labourers fishing all night and can catch nothing scarce covert a Soul and unfaithful Labourers such as come not in by the Door but come in their own name these pervert many yea though they come with never so damnable Doctrines if denying the Lord that bought them yet flockt after O give me leave to tell you in this day of God's sore Visitation Hinc illae lachrymae these are Soul-Plagues which have brought our Bodily-Plagues these are Soul mortal and eternal strokes because we have not received the truth in the love of it and no Man of us have laid these to heart as we should Spiritual Plagues and Judgments have swept away Souls by thousands all the Nations over many years together and who of us have laid this Mortality to heart as we should See how the Prophet Isaiah layeth to heart spiritual strokes Isa 24.16 17. My leanness my leanness the treacherous dealer hath dealt treacherously yea the treacherous dealer hath dealt very treacherously fear and the snare and the Pit are upon thee Treachery swearing for swearing thus in spiritual matters as Judas who betrayed Christ and as much as in him lay the Bodies and Souls of all Man-kind such treacherous dealers were the Jews which the Prophets much bewailed as great spiritual and eternal strokes and so should we as we see these on any Nation for these things are written for our learning that we should follow the foot-steps of the Flock It were well we that live in these last and worst times of the World could with the Prophet for like things sigh and say My leanness that we could sigh our selves lean this day before the Lord because of hypocrisie treachery and all Soul-villany and spiritual wickedness and the hypocrisie and treachery of our own hearts greatest of all and O how should we sigh and lament our selves lean for this ere the Plague sweep us away The next Use of this Point may be for Reproof and it may reprove two sorts 1. Such as are sensible of nothing 2. Such as are sensible of nothing to purpose First This may reprove such as are sensible of nothing or nothing sensible Temporal strokes are thick God and Man upon us Pestilence at home War abroad God and Man killing and slaughtering us one at Sea 'tother at land Is not this general Mortality God shoots his Arrows every where and how great is his dread fallen upon us In what Street of this poor City can one walk but dead Corps and Ghosts walk In what Fields about this City can one walk where death also doth not walk and as God's Bailiff seize and arrest and carry away to the great Bar above and to the Judge of all the World to receive all that they have done here in the Body good or bad At what corner of this City can we that live abroad creep in and not be met and saluted with trains of dead Corps carrying to the Grave to new Church-yards and New-exchanges old Burying-places being over-fatted and glutted and Corps inhumanely crowding one another out of their Places before the time and among all these sad salutations some righteous Men and merciful Men and Women taken away and we can tell their names and where they lived and so ends the story till the next Bill of Mortality come out with more taken away and then they
nature make a kind of Kindred and so consequently love much more friendship makes a kind of Kindred yea neer Kindred a brother A friend is as my Text saith a brother as a very neer Kinsman or as a neerest Kinsman And you may as well say a brother is a brother without love as say a friend is a friend without love A friend loveth c. that is purely Pure love is that which springeth from pure Principles which are two love to GOD and love to Man as some way or other bearing his Image either by Creation or Regeneration and so not upon any self-account Thus David loved Saul and was much pleased with the Men of Jabesh Gilead that buried Saul and much offended with the Amalechite that killed him although he was his great and implacable Enemy And thus Jonathan loved David although David dethroned him Jonathan was grieved that his Father had done David shame so Jonathan arose from the Table in fierce anger and did eat no meat the second day of the Moneth for he was grieved for David because his Father had done him shame I Sam. 20.34 A friend loveth a friend upon his honour as he would be found answering the will of God and the Creatures true good and for no bribe of applause or profit The Men of Israel were angry with the Men of Judah for stealing David home from his exile without them And the Men of Juda made this ingenuous reply The King is neer of Kin to us Wherefore then be ye angry for this matter Have we eaten at all of the King's cost Or hath he given us any gift 2 Sam. 19.42 Have we as if they had said any self-end in our kindness to David but shewing pure love as such a neer Relation requires The love of sympathy is pure love The Iron moveth to the Load-stone not from knowledge consequently not from design but from some hidden similitude in property between them which is as love in rational Creatures and from the hand of the first mover which inclines this Creature to that as pleaseth him and no more else can be said of the matters of friendship no gifts nor this nor that make it We love not yours but you saith the Apostle Secondly A friend loveth c. that is really not in word only but in deed as the Apostle saith And David said to Abiathar I knew how it would be when Doeg the Edomite was there I have occasioned the death of all these Persons of thy Fathers house abide thou with me fear not for he that seeketh thy life seeketh my life but with me thou shalt be in safety I Sam. 22.23 I will take care of thy life and livelihood as of my own as of he had said A friend is alter ego another self Hushai is called David's friend and he made David's case and condition his own and adventured himself far as far as his life and laid down his life for his friend Beasts love one another and will fight for one another to the death whose friendship is but a love of sympathy There are in England 9725 Parishes how many thousand Souls may be in these Parishes If I should be asked by Men in Place what is true friendship to all these Souls I would answer To love them really What is that I answer To love them in words and in deeds to do as he we read of in the Acts of the Apostles He loved our Nation and built us a Synagogue to provide able and faithful Preachers for every Parish through these Kingdomes that is to love their Souls and to feed them and so to love their Bodies who are in want and to feed them and to cloath them my meaning is to set good Ministers and good Magistrates over them this were to love really and so to be a true friend to the Nation and to all in it To give titles of honour and complements this is not that which filleth up the definition of friendship Cannot a City and all Places study plaucibility of carriage and must this by and by be called friendship But as Absalom said to Hushai that stuck not to him in his distress Is this thy kindness to thy friend to talk and to give goodly complements Why wentest thou not-with thy friend 2 Sam. 16.7 A poor Widdow a Ministers poor Widdow of which there be many now complained to the Prophet Elisha and he became a friend to her what was that Answ He loved her really And Elisha said to the Widdow of the Prophet What shall I do for thee 2 Kings 4.2 and did do for her to purpose as much as her condition needed Set her out of debt and gave her and hers wherewith to live upon Pliny tells us of a Sea that doth Accipere amnem in rotam sed non recipit That is takes in such a River but doth not connaturalise it self with it doth not incorporate it as with other waters but as it goeth in so it goes out And just so do we open our Doors and Gates of our Houses and Towns and accipere take in poor Ministers and poor People but do not recipere receive them i. e. welcome in with What shall I do for you and for yours and make their wants as our own and mingle tears and sighs and cares and travels and spirits and purses with them Thirdly A friend loveth c. that is strongly or unexpressibly I am distressed for thee my brother Jonathan very pleasant hast thou been unto me thy love to me was wonderful passing the love of Women 2 Sam. 1.26 Niphla from Pala it signifies saith the Critick high and hidden such as Man's power cannot reach nor perform nor reason attain unto Used Exod. 33.16 For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy People have found favour in thy sight Is it not in that thou goest with us So shall we be separated I and thy People from all the People that are upon the Face of the Earth Separated this is the word that is so shall we be a People above all expression admired and beloved and honoured c. So did Jonathan honour and esteem David beyond all expression And such is the love of a friend it should seem as set forth to us by the Word There is a Hauke which they call accipiter humipeta because it lies hovering over Mice and little Vermin on the Earth and petty small Birds as they peep in Hedges and Furrowes and useth not to soar and seek any noble and great Game as some other kind of stately Hawkes do So there is a love of Man to Man attended with some small realities of action giving some small Mony as one goeth the Streets and broken meat from the Table and such like little low things of kindnesses and love which may well be spared and no prejudice but this kind of love though it hath a reality in it and doth good and would there were more of this in these times
honourable in thy House 1 Sam. 22.14 Did not his most tender and natural affection beget him and render him rather a brother than a friend to David in this strait The like instance is Ittai the Gittite an alien Return saith David to him why shouldst thou go up and down with me seeing I go whither I may 2 Sam. 15.20 And Ittai answered the King and said as the Lord liveth and as my Lord the King liveth in what place my Lord the King shall be whether in death or life even there also will thy servant be What Brother or what Child or Father could more tenderly and naturally have spoken and done Had not his friendly affection begotten him a neer Kinsman a Brother to David in his adversity Plato endeavoured that meum and tuum mine and thine might not be heard of in that Common-wealth wherein he was And this was the friendship of the Primitive Churches and Christian World without which they could not have subsisted under such bloody Persecutions And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one foul neither said any of them that ought which he possessed was his own but they had all things common and so with great power gave the Apostles witness Act 4.32 The Historian saith that Queen Elizabeth commanded the whole Ocean and laid out all to the support of the Protestant Interest against the Papists every where By this tender and friendly love to the poor persecuted Protestants she was in that season of the Churches adversity born a Sister or a Mother in Israel as Debora is called for like reason Vse Learn from hence these things First That friendship is more than complement a how do you vain visits frothy foolish diversions as carrying to Stage-Playes which make calamity return more heavy when Persons are gone which know to fhew no better friendship And Joab fell to the ground on his Face and thanked the King and said now I know that I have found grace in the sight of my Lord the King in that the King hath fulfilled the request of his Servant 2 Sam. 14.22 Absalom was a banished Man and Joab was his hearty friend and he did not understand Court-complements But when things were done that might fully answer the distresses of his friend there he understood it Now saith he I know that I have found favour now thou hast fulfilled my requests and done things that may fully relieve the distressed Joab was born a Brother as it were to Absalom in his adversity by his friendly love and this written doubtless by the Holy Ghost to let us know that friendship had much more than slight service in it It hath much and through following and serving distressed causes and conditions till Petitions with God and Men be granted and some thing to purpose done that will arise to full relief The Heathen when they would make one another believe that there was more than words in what they said would use to cite their strong god Hercules as their Author Vt de Hercule accepimus as we have heard from Hercules therefore surely it will be accomplished A friend is a distressed Man's Hercules My friend hath said he will take care for me in this and in that distress therefore surely it will be done he will never cease petitioning God and Man he will never rest Night nor Day till he hath done some thing and some thing to some purpose to relieve my distress We have found a friend no where so deficient as where it hath been supposed to be most abundant saith Seneca Some have all their best gifts in their tongue these are unfit to make friends and yet the forwardest to pretend it Mephibosheth which had not dressed his Feet from the day that David fled till he returned and came so undressed to meet him is a fit Reproof of Complemental friendship Secondly Learn from this Description of a Friend that a Friend is a rare Jewel If we have hit the Description of a Friend rightly we doubt we shall not easily finde the Person All of you have conspired against me this day and there is none that sheweth me that my Son hath made a League with the Son of Jesse and there is none of you that is sorry for me or sheweth unto me that my Son hath stirred up My Servant against Me 1 Sam. 22.8 To him that is afflicted pitty should be shewed by his friend yea by any body by an Enemy but ye do nothing but play the censorious Persons against me said Job And truly in great distresses this is the Vinegar Gall and Wormwood which even Friends give in stead of Cordials in stead of compassions and pains and expence to make relief A great many severe enquiries How did he come into such want surely he is an ill husband he did not follow his business How did he come into all this trouble Surely he was a busie body he medled with that which he needed not have done His Wife and Children go too fine A thousand holes are pickt in the Man's Coat quickly and the reason because so poor and needeth some to help him and none of these holes found in his coat whilst it had a good nap upon it as long as he had no need of friends So that they that go for Friends are the worst of Enemies and afflict in stead of comfort and more afflict than an Enemy would do And yet alass this is commonly the friendship of this World yea of such too much whom God hath called out of this World and off of this World which is as if one should see a Man or Woman in the Field and bleeding to death and should spend nis time in curious enquiries how it came and who did it and why would he go that way alone and be out so late and never do any thing to stay the Man's bleeding or do any thing to save his life All People almost make distress and calamity the subject of censure and not the object of compassion and friendship Either it is thus or else it is I will shew kindness to Hanun as his Father shew'd kindness to me 2 Sam. 10. I will invite such for they invited me and I will visit such for they visited me and these kind of Friends there be and few at any higher rate A Samaritan is a rare Man who though a stranger and upon no account in the World but as the wounded Man needed him fell in with him unasked and gave him a full relief and what is more needed put that upon my account said this stranger And now saith Christ which is the neighbour and friend Such a Neighbour now and Friend I fear is hard to be found A Friend saith Seneca is not only rare in a House but in an Age. Aliter de amore atque est accipis saith one Thou thinkest otherwise of love than it is and so we think otherwise of friendship than it is we think it a
to give way to unbelief They that do not wait on the Lord will surely not keep his way and they that do not keep his way will not be exalted to inherit the good Land Heathenisme began at Babel when the Hebrew Tongue was lost at the confusion of Tongues only to one Family was God and Salvation preached And when this was lost Religion was lost with it and all the Earth became strangers to God and so lay 2203 Years till the gift of Tongues at Zion began to be given to preach the Gospel in every Language we may in this Glass see our black face at this day So I may say that all transgression even unto Heathenisme begins at unbelief What will not an unbeliever be drawn unto and consequently all misery begins here too and neither the one nor the other begin to be removed till God begin to work faith in the Soul And therefore I say again and say some thing more than I did you cannot give way to unbelief and be innocent you cannot give way to unbelief but you give way to all sin and unto all misery See Rom. 11.23 And they shall be graffed in again if they abide not still in unbelief Try your selves therefore by this Point Do you believe Do you look thoâ—â—â— the dark matters oâ— your conditâ—oâ— And behold a Woman which was diseased with an issue of blood Twelve Years came behind Christ and touched the Hem of his Garment for she said within her self if I may but touch his Garment I shall be whâ—le Mat. 7.21 What talk within your selves have you touching your dâ—stâ—â—sses inward and outward whereâ—n you are If I could lean in the â—â—ast on this woâ—d of promâ—se surely I should enter into rest surely I shou'd be maâ—e whole of this wickedness and that Running issue which hath run in my nature above Twelve Years without Cure I will name only one Promise for instance Rom. 11.26 And so all Israel shall be saved as it is written I here shall come out of Zion the Deliverer and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob for this is my Covenant with them when I shall take away their sins What a deal of scarlet guilt is upon the Jew And as for natural corruption how wilfully blind how stubborn in and their sins and yet the Apostle Paul by vertue of the Promise looks 〈◊〉 wall and seeth the condition of these forlorne sinners a condition remed able that 't is â—â—t Immedicabile Vulâ—us Do you in your reading the Scriptures make a stand at any promise or â—â—uâ—able word to your condition and say within your selves O that I could but touch this Hem of Christ's Garment If I could but believe in this word I should be whole I should overcome such a sin which hath so oft overcome me all my ungodliness both of guilt and filth would be turned away Whiâ—st Simeon he just lived the Fire on the Altar ever burnt pleasantly but when he dyed its force abated saith the Jewish History Simon the just was a great believer and did Miracles saith Euschius and very Holy and Heavenly Where faith indeed is that Heavenly Fire of love and zeal to God will burn in the heart very bright and clear according to that excellent speech of David I have hoped for thy Salvation and do thy Commandement Psal 119.166 And as faith fails so this Heavenly Fire on the Altar goes out so a Mans skill and his conscience to please God dye both together Secondly Are you able to look thorow outward troubles and difficulties and dark matters as they lye now in these and other Nations Can you stand on your high places and see now beyond this thick Cloud of the Pestilence and other evils that are upon us Can you say O thou Enemy destructions are come to a perpetual end or saith the margent The destructions of the Enemy are come to a perpetual end Theâ—r Cities hast thoâ— destroyed Psal 9 6. The wicked shall be turned into Hell and all that forget God there they will be quite out of the way For the needy shall not alway be forgotten the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever v. 17.18 The Ticle of this Psalm is Muth Labben the Death of some great Enemy which Ainsworth saith to be Anti Christ Anti-Christ is now more alive than ever in all the parts of Christendom he is a man of good eyes that now can see his death and downfall and all his Cities even Rome it self that great City which Ruleth the Nations The first thing that dyed in the World was Christ in the offering of our first Parents whose skins cloathed them And the last that dyeth in the World will be Anti-Christ who cloatheth himself in scarlet with the skins of the Saints Hence was Christ called a Lamb slain from the beginning and therefore may Anti-Christ be calleâ— a Bear or Beast slain in the end of the World But who seeth now in this dark and dismal Hour the death of this Monster I remember not long since in the days of the great Armies then we all talkt of the downfall of Anti-Christ But who seeth his downfall now There is no Rain so great that watereth the Earth above so far Ten Foot deep saith the Naturalist I think the storms which have fallen of late in these parts have soakt our Souls and Bodies and Estates and all that is dear clear thorow yea our faith and all our graces for we can scarce look through any thing well But when exhorted to trust in the Lord at all times as David saith we are ready to say as the Princes of Succoth to Gideon are Zeba and Zâ—lmunna now in our hands that we shouâ—d do so and so Judg. 8.6 Who saith Although the Fig Tree shall not blossom neither fâ—uit be in the Vines thâ—ugh the labour of the Olive shall fail and the Fields shall yield no meat the Flocks shall be cut off from the Folds and no Herd in the Stalls yet will I rejoyce in the God of my Salvation Hab 3.17 8 Yet this is no more but the proper acts oâ— faith If you say you do not thus believe so as to look thorow dark condâ—tâ—ons and things neither spiritual nor temporal Let me ask you do you not thuâ— sometimes No not at any time can I thus believe Elian compares Tyrants to Swine which if a Man but touch they cry thinkâ—ng they shall be kiâ—led Is it thus with you when God doth but touch you in this and that Do ye cry as if he mâ—ant to kill you in alâ— What do you do then in your trials throw off alâ— David was not wont to do so but when all things failed to call upon his Soul to trust only in God I willâ—â—g in the stâ—ength of the Lord God I will make mention of thy righteousness even of thine only and will hope continually and will yet praise thee more and more Psal 71.14 15 16. Whether the Gods be pleased