continues still to do in order to the freeing and delivering the Children of God from the fear of death and the bondage that ensues thereon 1. He worketh and increaseth those Graces of his Spirit in them which are destructive hereof and opposite hereunto you 'l say which are they 1. There is the Grace of Faith This is the Grace that conquers the World that conquers the Devil and that conquers also the slavish fear of Death This excellent Grace of Faith hath such an excellent hand in the conquering of all these that it is call'd the conquest and victory it's self This is the victory says the Apostle John 1 John 5.4 even your Faith Our Saviour tells Peter Luke 22.31 32. That Satan had desired to have him that he might sift him as Wheat And with what did he sift and shake him Why it was with the fear of Death he was afraid they would deal with him as they did with his Master It was his slavish fear of Death that made him deny Christ and to do it once and again but anon he recovered himself and got above this fear he was reâ—dy by and by boldly to confess Christ and that in the face of Death and danger How came this about Why it was by means of Faith Christ had pray'd for him that his Faith should not fail it may be said of those that are fearful of death that they are of little Faith 2. A second Grace is Love An ardent love of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ will banish all slavish fear of death out of the Soul 1 John 4.18 There is no fear in love but perfect love casteth out fear Of what fear doth he speak The next words tell you he speaks of slavish tormenting fear of that fear which hath torment By perfect love he means a greater measure and degree of love I said but now of fearfull Christians that they have but little Faith I may add also that they have but little Love for perfect or great love expells all tormenting and servile fear 3. A third Grace is Hope The very nature of Hope is quite contrary to fear Where there is a Hope of eternal life there can be no prevailing fear of Death 'T is said of the righteous Prov. 14.32 that they have Hope in their death and those that have Hope in their death they are not afraid to dye Then Hope doth more especially free us from an inordinate fear of Death when it grows up to that which the Scripture calls The full assurance of Faith Heb. 6.11 this is a gracious Gift which the Father bestows upon many of his Children they know that they are in him that they are pass â—â— from death to life 1 John 2.5.3.14 2 Cor. 5.1 that when the earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolv'd they shall have a building of God a house not made with hands eternal in the Heavens Ay this is that which steels and fortifies them against the fear and terror of Death This leads me to consider of a second way or means whereby Christ delivers the Children from a slavish fear of death 2. He delivers them from it by convincing and parswading them that they shall not be Losers but Gainers yea great gainers thereby It was this perswasion that made the Apostle Paul to desire death rather than to dread it I desire says he to depart or to be dissolv'd which is far better Philip. 1.23 And again v. 21. he saith For me to dye is gain It were easie here to expatiate and shew the advantage the exceeding great advantage that Believers have by Death It is commonly said to consist in these two things in a freedom from all Evil in the fruition of all Good 1. It consists in a freedom from all Evil which is sub-divided into the evil of Sorrow and the evil of Sin Believers are freed by Death from the evil of Sorrow 'T is one blessed Notion of the life to come that God will wipe off all tears from his peoples eyes and remove all sorrow and causes of Sorrow from their Hearts Believers also are freed by Death from the evil of sin which is indeed the greatest evil the evil of evils all the evils of sorrow are but the effects and fruits of the evil of sin By Death they are deliver'd from all actual sins not only from Fleshly but Spiritual filthiness Now they are deliver'd ordinarily from inordinate actions but then also from inordinate affections they shall never any more be troubled with Pride Passion Discontent Unbelief or the like By Death also they are discharg'd from Original sin and all remainders thereof when the Body dies Believers are rid of that body of death which dwelleth in them and is always present with them they no more complain of themselves as wretched creatures upon the account thereof 2. It consists in the fruition of all Good Believers when they dye they enjoy God Himself who is the chiefest Good He is bonum in quae omnia bona all other things that are good and desireable are comprized in him as the Sun-beams are in the Sun the Saints enjoyment of God in this life is a Heaven upon Earth but our enjoyment of God after death will be the Heaven of Heavens David says in one Place Psal 73.25 Whom have I in Heaven but thee There are Saints and Angels and Arch-Angels in Heaven says Musculus with whom David and such as he will have to do but what are these to God Believers won't barely enjoy God after death but they will enjoy him fully In this life they enjoy a little of God and oh how sweet and refreshing it is But in the life to come they shall have as much enjoyment of God as their hearts can wish or hold Now they enjoy God in the use of means in Prayer in hearing the Word and in receiving the Lords Supper but hereafter they shall have not only a full but an immediate fruition of God Now they see the Face of God in the Glass of his Word and Ordinances and 〈◊〉 what a lovely sight is it But then they shall see God face to face and what tongue can mention or heart imagine the loveliness of that sight If it were not too great a digression I could readily demonstrate the gain and advantage of Death from other Topicks Believers in the other life shall possess and inherit the Kingdom of Heaven which doth more transcend the Kingdoms of this World and all the glory of them than the light of the Sun doth excell the light of a Candle they shall be most gloriously perfected both in their Souls and in their Bodies their vile bodies at the Resurrection shall be changed and fashioned like unto the glorious body of our Lord Jesus Christ Phil. 3.21 Their gain and happiness will be greatly augmented in the other life by the work and employment that they shall do and by the Society and Company that they shall
have they shall associate with an innumerable company of Angels and with just men made perfect with many of their dearest Relations and Friends whom whilst alive they dearly lov'd and whose death and departure hence they greatly lamented Let me close this with one Text 't is in 1 John 3.2 There the Apostle tells us wherein the gain and glory of the godly consisteth after death he summs it up in two things They shall be like Christ and they shall see him as he is Ay that is the happiness of the Children when they dye it lyes in Conformity to Christ and in the Vision the beatifical Vision of him 3. Christ delivers Believers from the slavish fear of Death by giving them some real Foretastes of Heaven and of Eternal Life It is usual with God to give his People some Cluster of the Grapes of Canaan here in the Wilderness to give them some drops and sips of that new Wine which they shall drink full draughts of in the Kingdom of their Father he gives them to taste not only of the good Word of God and of the heavenly gift but of the powers of the world to come and this sets them a longing to have their fill thereof Even as the Gauls when they had tasted the Wines of Italy they were not satisfy'd to have those Wines brought to them but they would go and possess the Land where they grew This foretaste of Heaven is that which the Scripture calls The earnest of our Inheritance Eph. 1.14 't is both a pledge and a small part of that Happiness which the Saints shall hereafter inherit Rom. 8.23 We says the Apostle that have the first-fruits of the Spirit even we our selves do groan within our selves waiting for the Adoption to wit the redemption of our body By Redemption he means the Resurrection of the Body at the last day which the Scripture calls a Resurrection unto Life The Apostle knew there could be no Redemption of the Body without the dissolution thereof therefore in waiting for the one he must needs also wait for the other The Apostle and the Believers with him did groan for this they were so far from groaning under the fears of Death that they rather groan'd to be partakers of that which follows after Death nay In this they groan'd earnestly 2 Cor. 5.2 as he elsewhere speaks Now whence was this but from their having the first-fruits of the Spirit which are all one with the foretastes of Heaven and everlasting Happiness of which I have been speaking Those that whilst they live have these tastes of future Blessedness they are not afraid of Death the door by which they enter into the full enjoyment of them Having thus resolved this Question in both its Branches give me leave to make some short Application of what I have said and I 'le conclude I would Exhort you that are the Children of God and Oh that all that read these Lines were of the number of such I would earnestly beseech and exhort you to prize and improve this great Priviledge to wit a deliverance from the slavish Fear of Death 1. Be perswaded to Prize it it is a Priviledge that was purchas'd for you at a dear rate even with the precious Blood of Christ Oh what a blessed Priviledge is this not only to be delivered from the second Death but also from the servile and enthralling fear of the first Death This is the benefit and blessing that the Apostle Paul seems to be so much affected with Thanks be to God says he who hath given us the Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ What Victory doth he mean The foregoing words tell us 1 Cor. 15 5â— that he means a Victory over Death with all its fearful concomitants and consequents Death is become a Friend and not an Enemy 't is without any Sting or Curse attending of it Oh! this is owing to Jesus Christ he is the great Deliverer he hath so order'd the matter that though we must dye yet we shall not be in bondage all our dayes through a slavish Fear of Death 2. Be perswaded to Improve this Priviledge put in for a part and share therein See to it that you be Partakers of this benefit of Christ's Death to live without any tormenting fear of your own You 'l say how shall we help it can we contribute any thing towards our Deliverance from the Fear of Death I answer You may And therefore as I have shewn you what Christ hath done and doth to deliver you so now give me leave to shew you farther what you must do towards your own Deliverance I 'le give you some short hints of things which you may enlarge upon at your leisure in your own thoughts 1. You must be earnest with God that he would apply to you this benefit of his Sons Death by his blessed Spirit Oh! begg of God and that with all importunity that the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus may set you free from a tormenting Fear of Death This hath been done for others and who can tell but it may be done for you likewise Ezek. 36.37 only remember that God will be enquir'd of by you to do this for you 2. You must give all diligence to the attaining of a greater measure of Faith Love and Hope yea to the attaining of a full Assurance of Hope 't is by means hereof as you heard before that the Children are deliver'd in part from the Fear of Death 'T is Grace and the Assurance of Grace that is the Anchor of the Soul that keeps it safe from the fear of Shipwrack 3. You must resist the Devil and withstand his Temptations not only to other sins but to the sin of Despondency in particular You must not give place to Satan nor give way to enthralling Fear when he tempts you thereunto Remember as I told you before 't is the Law of the Combate betwixt the Devil and you that if you fight he shall fly if you stand your ground he must give ground 4. You must have frequent Meditation of Death and of the gain that is to be gotten thereby the frequent thoughts hereof will familiarize Death to you and if once Death and you be familiar together you won't be so much afraid of it 5. You must have frequent Contemplation also of the Resurrection You find that Job had conquer'd the Fear of Death and if you read the 9th Chapter of Job and Ver. 26 27. you will see that his thoughts of the Resurrection were very helpful to him herein He is a Conqueror over the Fear of Death that considers with the Apostle Paul that the Grave shall lose its Victory 1 Cor. 15.56 It was the saying of a worthy Minister of our Nation That nothing lifted him over the Fear of Death like the belief and Meditation of the Resurrection to Eternal Life 6. You must take heed of living or allowing your selves in any known Sin if it be as
Of Man's wickedness in both these thieves who had spent all their time in sin even to the last hour of their lives but especially in the impenitent thief whom neither Bonds nor Tryal nor Condemnation had humbled or mollified or brought to repentance but being still under the power of an hardned heart we find him at the last gasp railing on a Saviour instead of believing in him and belching out his blasphemies in the very mouth of Hell vers 39. If thou be Christ save thy self and us II. Of Divine grace in the penitent thief First Converting grace and that 1. In the power and efficacy of it for how powerful must that grace needs be which had wrought so great a change had suppled that heart in an instant which had been hardning in sin for so many years overcome so many stubborn inveterate lusts at once and made the Man all on a suddain commence one of the most eminent Saints the World had ever yet had and act faith to such an hight as might not only have become the chiefest of the Apostles but did really exceed any they had hitherto shewn The Disciples of Christ who had sat so long at their Masters feet yet were hardly induced to believe his Resurrection even after he was risen Luke 24.25 When this thief who hitherto had been a stranger to him and now saw him hanging on a Cross and dying yet by faith sees him in his Kingdom triumphing over his Cross and Death too 2. In the freeness of it for 1. Gods grace did not wait for his preparations good moods good dispositions these were all over if ever he had any but it takes hold of him when at the hight of sin and not only was void of grace but seemed past grace i. e. never like to come to it by any ordinary methods 2. It seised on him and passed by the other though no worse that we know of than himself Grace makes a difference where none was before of these two in the like case it takes one and leaves the other II. Pardoning grace This appears in our Lords answer and carriage to him vers 43. He doth not upbraid him with the abominations of his forepast life his Theft or Rapine or Violence his hardness of Heart or long Impenitence but easily readily gently receives him and is so far from denying him a pardon that he assures him of a present Salvation To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise The case of these two thieves doth in a good measure parallel the case of other dying sinners though dying upon their beds They were in the extremity of their lives drawing their last breath both full of pain and anguish in their Bodies and very likely full of shame and confusion in their Minds considering their death was not only cruel and grievous but reproachful in the eyes of Men and accursed by the sentence of God So that here was much to interrupt disturb and distract them in so great so close and serious a work as Repentance is And is it not so with others who live in sin all their days and pretend to Repent at last They are taking their leave of the World groaning under their Diseases racked with pains and have many things tho not the same the thieves had to discompose disquiet and divert them from or hinder them in the like work But if we look to the issue the parallel will not reach so far Here is Man for Man one of the thieves humble believing repenting and accordingly accepted the other unbroken unbelieving impenitent and dying like a reprobate This equality is not to be found among other dying sinners as hereafter we shall see However from the example of these two thieves we may safely infer this Proposition Doctrin That tho a very late even a death-bed repentance may be sincere yet it is not safe to run the hazard of it Two parts there are of this Proposition 1. That even a death-bed repeentance may be sincere this I shall speak to by way of Concession 2. That yet it is dangerous running the hazard of it by deferring repentance till such a time this I shall handle by way of Assertion I. It is possible that a death-bed repentance may be sincere In speaking to this I shall briefly 1. Premise something in general concerning the nature of Repentance 2. Lay down the reasons of this Concession First For the former Repentance may be considered either I. In the Act or exercise of it which the Scripture usually expresses by turning or returning implying that sinners are out of the way to God and their own happiness till by repentance they return into it If we speak distinctly of it we may consider 1. The Essence of repentance which is the turning mentioned a turning from sin to God i. e. from all sin both of Heart and Life as to the love and allowance of it and subjection to it and a turning to God as our Sovereign Lord from whom we had revolted to walk with him in all known ways of obedience and holiness And tho we cannot attain to a legal perfection in this Life either as to freedom from all Sin or the practice of all Duty yet there is not meerly a temporary and transient but a peremptory fixed and setled purpose for the one and against the other which is more than a promise de futuro and amounts to a present breach with all sin and an actual will to engage in every duty a respect to all Gods Comandments Psal 119.6 in the degree of our obedience to which we notwithstanding may oftentimes fail 2. The causes from which it proceeds First A right sence of sin as to the guilt defilement and dominion of it It s being offensive and odious to God Jer. 44.4 as well as hurtful to our selves in the danger to which it exposeth us the blot it leaves upon us and the tyranny it exerciseth over us Secondly An apprehension and belief of the mercy of God in Christ Jesus to them that do repent This is always the principle from which Evangelical repentance proceeds Tho the terrors of the Law may help to drive Men from sin yet there must be Gospel attractives to draw them to God either in a way of faith or repentance Who will dare to trust him from whom he expects no mercy or care for serving him from whom he looks for no acceptance Hence it is that Gods mercy is used as the grand motive to perswade Men to repentance Matth. 3.2 The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand and Isa 55.7 From these proceed both that Godly sorrow for sin and that hatred of it which always accompanies Gospel repentance and in a good measure promotes it Paul seems to place Godly sorrow among the causes of repentance 2 Cor. 7.10 II. If we consider repentance in the habit I need say no more but that it is that grace of the Holy Spirit which he infuseth into the Soul as the immediate
Atheists in Opinion likewise they say in their Hearts though they don't speak it out with their Tongues that there is no God Psal 14.1 they have not a thorough belief of a Deity or of a future State of Rewards and Punishments Or else it is in the last place because of their great Security Multitudes of professed Christians are fast asleep in their sins they give up themselves sinfully and many of them are given up of God judicially to a spirit of slumber and of deep sleep And when this is the case with men no wonder they are without any dread of Death or Hell or any thing else You know when a Man is in a deep sleep he fears no danger whatsoever These and such-like are the reasons why many carnal persons do spend their days in mirth and sensuality without any actual fear of Death or of it's dreadfull consequents But then it must be remembred that these very persons are subject or liable thereunto and if God awaken their Consciences and rouze them out of their security Job 24.17 Psal 55.4 5. then they are as 't is in Job in the terrors of the shadow of death horror overwhelmes them as 't is in that Psalm and the terrors of death fall upon them Like Foelix they fall a trembling and like Belshazzar their knees are ready to smite one against another 'T is time now that I should come to the second branch of the Question which is By what Means and Methods are the Children of God deliver'd by Christ from the fear of Death To this I shall return an Answer First By shewing you what Christ hath already done and then Secondly What he continues still to do in order to this end 1. I shall shew you what Christ hath already done to deliver or free the Children of God from the fear of Death He himself in his own Person hath suffered or tasted death for them This is every where declar'd in the New Testament and 't is hinted to us in the Text. Christ by death that is by his own death hath delivered the Children from the fear of death The death of Christ hath made Death to look with another face than formerly it had As the Wood that Moses cast into the waters of Marah did alter their property so the Death of Christ hath alter'd the property of Death and taken away the bitterness and formidableness thereof hence 't is that the death of Believers in Scripture is call'd a Sleep It is said of Stephen when he dyed though it was by a violent death That he fell asleep Acts 7.60 And the Apostle Paul says 1 Thes 4.14 That as Jesus dyed and rose again even so them that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him It is well observed by some that the Apostle doth seem purposely to vary the Phrase he says that Jesus dyed and that the Saints sleep in Him and the reason is because that he sustained Death with all its terrors that so it might become a calm and quiet sleep unto the Saints The Death of Christ must needs sweeten the fore-thoughts of death to the Children and Chosen of God because that he dy'd in their stead he did not only dye in their Nature but in their Room not only for rheir good but also in their stead You know how it was with the Sacrifices of old they were put to death in the room of the Sacrificers So it was with Christ the truth of those Sacrifices he was put to death in the room of Sinners and they dy'd in him as their Representative Now this serves to free them from an enthralling fear of Death why should they fear that which Christ hath undergone in their place and room There are two things more to be considered under this Head 1. Christ by his Death hath taken away the true Reason of the fear of Death that is the Curse and Condemnation of the Law of God The Apostle Paul says That the sting of death is sin 1 Cor. 15.56 and the strength of sin is the Law Death hath it's wounding power from sin and sin hath it's condemning power from the Law 't is the Law that discovers the nature of sin that enhanceth the guilt of sin that denounceth condemnation against him that commits it and 't is this condemnation of the Law that torments the Sinner with the fear of death Now Christ having in our stead subjected himself to death and so undergone the penalty of the Law he hath taken away the Curse and condemning power thereof He hath says the Apostle Paul redeemed us from the curse of the Law being himself made a Curse for us Gal. 3.13 There is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus Rom. 8.1 The death of Christ hath satisfi'd every demand of the broken Law The Law of God hath nothing now to lay to the charge of God's Elect it owns the Blood of Christ to be a sufficient compensation for their violations of it there are no petty satisfactions to be made by themselves since Christ hath made compleat satisfaction for them and in their behalf The Law now is ready to acquit the Believer it says Thou mayst live for all me and live eternally I require not thy death as being satisfied with the Death of Christ When thou dyest a natural death it is rather to comply with the appointment of God and in order to the raising up hereafter a better and more curious Fabrick of thy Body than to satisfie any demand of mine 2. Christ by his Death hath deprived the Devil of the power of death and by this means also he hath deliver'd the Children from a servile fear of Death The Devil as I said before hath a power to terrifie the Consciences of men with the apprehension of death and the dreadful consequents thereof you see into what bondage he brings men upon this account many times he brings the Children themselves into the suburbs of Hell and lays them under dreadful terrors and horrors the pains of Hell says one of them gat hold of me I found trouble and sorrow Psal 116.3 2 Sam. 22.6 and again at another time the sorrows of death compassed me about Now this power of Satan is taken away by the Death of Christ The Blood of Christ hath cancel'd or at least contracted and lessened his Commission So that when he assaults a Believer in this kind he is easily resisted the Devil gives ground if the Believer stands his ground he can't prevail against a Child of God unless God give him a special Commission or unless he yields to his Temptation being justified by Faith in the Death of Christ we have that peace which all the Devils in Hell are not able to disturb the weapons of his power and warfare in this way are wrested out of his hands by the Death of Christ Thus you see what Christ hath already done 2. Let me proceed to shew you what he
worthy than that which I have now mention'd of the depth of the Riches of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God which may be allowed to be on the top of this foundation-stone and round about the Stone that which follows Let every one that nameth the Name of Christ depart from Iniquity Which words I shall at present be confined to they may be understood as a seasonable Caution least any that heard of the Continuance and Assurance of Gods Care and Love should be puffed up for as the Apostle would not have the defection of others to cause any to despond so he would by no means have others security upon any pretensions whatsoever to cause them to presume but as a wise Physician having prescribed so great a Cordial against their fainting at the sight of others falling ◠Cor 3.9 by telling them that they who were of God's Building should stand he gives them direction how to use this Cordial least if unwarily taken it might strengthen their distemper in which Direction we may take notice 1. Upon whom this Injunction is laid viz. Every one that nameth the Name of Christ 2. The Injunction it's self viz. To depart from Iniquity which last words to depart from Iniquity I shall suppose to be so far understood as that I need not to stay in the Explication of them All Sin is an unequal and unjust thing against our Duty which we owe to God or Man 't is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But the manner of the Apostles expression is equivalent to a Negative Form which is most comprehensive and therefore Eight of the Ten Commandments at least are Negative but they do all include the contrary positive As the forbidding us to have any other God commands us to take Jehovah for our God and to Love and Obey him accordingly And thus the departing from Iniquity includes not only the leaving of all Sin but the following after and practising of Holiness in all Duties that are required in every Relation and Condition So that there is no Duty to God or Man but he that names the Name of Christ is required to practise it nor no Sin against God or Man against the first or second Table but he is enjoyn'd to forsake it which will farther appear when we have considered 1. What is meant by naming the Name of Christ or who is understood by the Apostle to name this Name of Christ 2. That such an one as thus names the Name of Christ is especially concern'd and obliged to depart from Iniquity As to the first What is meant by naming the Name of Christ What is meant by naming the name of Christ it is evident that it cannot be understood of a bare speaking of the word Christ sounding the letters of which it is made which Pagans and Mahometans may do and the wicked Jews often did but by naming the Name of Christ is understood a making some special use of it or of him that is signified by it We must therefore consider That wheresoever there is any thing of Divine Revelation there mans Fall and Misery is manifested for tho by natural Light it could be perceiv'd that all was not well with Man hence the many complaints that Nature dealt very hardly with Man the noblest visible Creature that had rule and command over the rest of the Creation yet that he was so short-lived so full of misery and trouble Job 5.7 which seem'd as natural to him as for sparks to flie upward This was for a lamentation amongst the very Heathen But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence all this mischief came they knew not In Scripture only we find the Cause of our disease and the Remedy against it and here Vbi invenitur venenum juxta latus ejus nascitur Antidotus Where we may discover the Malady we may seek for and discover the Remedy In the Word of God we have Means prescribed Institutions appointed which being used and observed will help and recover us In the former Oeconomy and Dispensation they were vail'd under Shadows and Types The wages of Sin being Death Gen. 2.17 Rom. 6.23 every Transgressor of the Law forfeits his Life and his sin cannot be expiated but by Blood it might justly have been his own blood and no others But the Law-giver being graciously pleas'd to accept of Animam vicariam anothers blood or life such as he should appoint he did for a while accept of the sacrificing of Beasts in the stead of the Sinners till the fulness of time was come in which he sent his Son this Christ whom the Text mentions to make full satisfaction to his offended Justice and by his Death to expiate for all the sins of them that by Faith apply themselves unto him Hence it is said he was made sin for us and that he was bruised for our Iniquities 2 Cor. 5.21 Isa 53.5 and that the chastisement of our peace was upon him But as under the Law the Transgressor was to lay his hand upon the Beast to be sacrific'd thereby acknowledging that he was the Creature that had deserv'd to dye and desiring that the death of the Beast to be sacrificed might be accepted in his stead Lev. 3.2.4.4 so under the Gospel we must apply to Christ with a due sense of our sins and our deserving of death for them and be accordingly affected with them Yet more when all the outward Ceremonies were perform'd the sacrific'd Beast accepted and slain thô the Law according to the letter was satisfied and a legal Expiation did ensue and a legal Atonement was made yet if the Person that brought the Sacrifice did not mortifie his sin as well as the Priest kill the Sacrifice his Conscience inwardly remained defiled and God still provoked and incensed Nay if the Sinner had done one without the other killed his Beast and spared his sin alive God look'd upon it as a double Iniquity for so indeed it was to acknowledge he had offended God and to pretend that he desired to be reconciled unto him and yet to go on in provoking of him Hence God did forbid and reject their Sacrifices tho of his own appointment Psal 50.9 I will take no Bullock out of thy house nor he-goats out of thy fold Nay he declares that in such a case he that killeth an Oxe Isa 66.3 is as if he slew a Man he that sacrificeth a Lamb as if he cut off a dogs neck he that offereth an Oblation as if he offered swines blood he that burneth incense as if he blessed an Idol and elsewhere Bring no more vain oblations Isa 1.3 incense is an abomination unto me Now that all Sacrifices were Types of Christ thrô whom only they had their virtue and efficacy is confessed by all Christians Thus Christ was a Lamb slain from the foundation of the World Rev. 13.8 And the Christian when affected with his sin and desirous to be reconciled to God whom by his sin he
and duration and so could not give us a just measure of the demerits of sin 3. If we consider the sufferings of Christ they will prove that the evil of sin is unmeasurable they were such as could not be expressed and therefore the Ancient Christians used in their Prayers to beg of Christ that he would deliver them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by thy unknown torments Lord deliver us And hence we may infer that the Love of Christ must needs be unmeasurable because he delivered us from unmeasurable wrath by unconceivable torments 2. The Love of Christ to sinners is unmeasurable for these Reasons 1. Reas We have no scale in nature in which we can weigh no line in created things by which we can measure it § 1. If we examine the love of Relations we find them all limited and bounded and they ought to be so The love of a Father to a child is an intense love the love of a Father to an undutiful child a rebellious child may stretch the line somewhat farther yet this will fall vastly short of the Love of Christ to sinners The highest instance of this love that I remember was that of David to his rebellious Son Absalom expressed 2 Sam. 18.33 O Absalom my son my son would God I had died for thee O Absalom my Son my Son Here is Paternal love strained up to the highest pitch imaginable That a King should desire to die for a Rebellious Subject that a Father should be willing to die for the most disingenuous and rebellious of Sons This was great but yet we find this love extended but to a natural death he would have been unwilling to have died a Cursed death to have been made a Curse for him to have been made sin for him And yet the torrent of this impetuous love soon dryed up it was founded in passion rather than judgment and perhaps in cool blood he would have been unwilling to have died that such a wretch might live I question much whether David durst deliberately advisedly and premeditately have laid down his life to save that of a vitious debauched Son yet such was the Love of Christ who laid down his life for sinners the greatest of sinners 1 Tim. 1.15 And laid it down voluntarily when none could take it away John 10.18 and not only died against the persuasions of his friends to save his life Mark 8.32 but against that bitter malice of his Enemies which always sparkled and at last flamed out in the most cruel bloody implacable fury that ever was in the World nay against the just displeasure of God as a Judge all which he had a clear prospect into and yet gave this great pregnant proof of his unconquerable Love that he not only poured out his Soul in tears Luke 19.41 his Soul in prayers Luke 23.34 Father forgive them but his Soul in sacrifice too unto the death Isa 53.12 But if the love of a Father to his Son will not measure this Love of Christ perhaps the love of a Mother to her Son may And this is indeed naturally the more soft and passionate Sex and of this love the case is put Isa 49.15 Can a Woman forget her sucking Child that she should not have compassion on the Son of her Womb The case is put exceeding strong A Child a sucking Child that hangs upon the breast and is always crying for pity in its natural dialect the Son of the Womb that 's more than the Child of the breast she can hardly forget that at any rate which she brought forth at such a dear rate yet the circumstances may be such that this tender Mother may forsake and forget nay kill and destroy too this innocent Child such exigences they have been in that Nature has prov'd unnatural or Nature in one instance has overcome Nature in another A Mothers hunger has caus'd her to forget her pity to the Child of her Womb Lam. 4.10 The hands of the pitiful Women have sodden their own children to forsake to forget to kill to cook and at last to eat is certainly the greatest stemming of the current and stream of natural affection that we can conceive of but Christ's Love will not suffer him to forget to forsake he has oftens forgotten himself to remember them he has forgotten his own food that he might provide for their Souls John 4.34 he has forgotten his own approaching death that he might provide for their life 1 Cor. 11.23 The same night in which he was betrayed he took bread c. And yet perhaps the love of the Husband to his Wife may come up to this example of Love Ephes 5.25 Husbands love your Wives as Christ loved his Church and gave himself for it Here 's an argument indeed to enforce that conjugal Love and here 's a president for conjugal Love to look upon but that As is not a note of equality but of some general similitude for the Husband gives himself to his Wife but will not is not bound to die for his Wife he cannot be persuaded to have her sins charg'd upon his Soul How short are all the Loves the Affections of Relations to give us a pattern and example of the Love of Christ But possibly we may find a love in Nature more strong than any of these And that if any where must be amongst some of those great instances of Love which have been amongst friends It is indeed said 1 Sam. 18.1 3. That Jonathan loved David as his own Soul and in Deut. 13.6 The friend is said to be as a Mans own Soul But yet when we come to examine these expressions they fade away and signifie nothing but the life where is the friend that will make his Soul an offering for sin Isa 53.10 However this is the highest flight that ever humane love took to lay down life for a friend but Christ has put this quite out of countenance John 15.13 Greater love has no man than that he lay down his life for his friend but a far greater Love than this had Christ that he laid down his life for enemies Christ laid down a better life for them that were worse And this is proposed to our consideration as that which has out-done all the love in the World Rom. 5.7 8. Scarcely for a righteous Man will one die No I think it s out of question that none will for who would be so friendly to him that walks by the rules of strict justice that will do no wrong yet shews no mercy but peradventure for a good Man some would even dare to die If there be an instance found in the World of any that has laid down his life for another it must be for a good Man one that is a publick blessing to the age wherein he lives some one may throw away his private life which is not very useful for so generous a Person that is a Common good to his Country but if such an instance be found which
things which we comprehend not III. That which makes believing so difficult is the seeming contradictory acts of Faith it seems not to consist with it self Here I take Faith more generally as it has for its Object the whole Word of God the Law and the Gospel the special Object of Faith as Saving is the Promise Saving Faith seeks Life which is not to be found in Commandments and Threats but in a Promise of Mercy Faith acting upon the whole Word of God seems to contradict it self for Faith believes a Sinner is to die according to the Law and that he shall live according to the Gospel Faith has the Word of God for both both for the Death and Life of a Sinner and both are true the Law must be executed and the Promise must be performed but how to reconcile this is not so obvious and easie to every one Is the Law then against the Promises of God God forbid Gal. 3.21 't is impossible both should be accomplished in the Person of a Sinner he cannot die eternally and live eternally yet both are wonderfully brought about by Jesus Christ according to the manifold Wisdom of God without any Derogation to his Law and Justice God and his Law are satisfy'd and the Promise of Salvation made good to the Sinner and so both Law and Gospel have their ends not a tittle of either falls to the ground Heaven and Earth may sooner pass away than this can be O what a mistery is Christ Flesh and blood can't reveal this to us every believer assents to the truth of the Law as well as the Gospel he knows that both must have their full course the Law is fulfilled in inflicting Death the Gospel in giving Life the Law contributes nothing to the eternal Life of a sinner but kills him and leaves him weltering in his blood is no more concerned about him for ever if God will bring this dead sinner to life again he may dispose of him as he please the Law has done its utmost against him so the Law did against Christ spared him not but killed him out-right and left him for a time under the power of Death but having slain a Man who was God as well as Man Death was too weak to hold him he swallows up Death in victory he whom the Law slew as Man rises as God by the power of his godhead the Law contributed nothing to his Resurrection the Law had the chief hand in his Death but none in his Resurrection And here begins our eternal Life in the Resurrection of him who dies no more and is the Resurrection and Life to all who believe in him IV. The reigning unbelief that is among the generality of Men even among those who are of greatest reputation for Wisdom and Learning Ay and among those who carry the vogue for Zeal and Religion are counted the Head and Pillars of the Church Some pretending to Infallibility others set up themselves and are cryed up by many as such competent Judges in all matters of Faith that their judgment is not to be questioned but readily complied with by all who would not be counted singular and Schismatical So 't was in our Saviours time the Jews who had been the only Professors of the true Religion for many ages in opposition to all Idolatry and false Worship they stumble at the Gospel the Greeks who were the more Learned sort of the Heathen World they counted it foolishness And thus was the whole World set against Christ here was the greatest outward hinderance of the belief of the Gospel that could be imagined and add to this the indefatigable pains and industry of the Devil to keep out the light of the Gospel from shining in upon us he blinds the Eyes of Men by a cursed influence upon their corrupt minds that they should not believe Is it not a hard matter under all these discouragements to embrace the Gospel and declare our belief of it Have any of the Rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him But this people who know not the Law John 7.48 49. Why should any regard what a company of poor illiterate people do Their following Christ is rather an argument why we should not follow him they are all but fools and ideots that do so A cursed sort of people This is the judgement the Men of the World have of believers There is nothing among too many self-conceited Scepticks lies under a greater imputation of folly and madness than faith in the Lord Jesus Christ O what a pass are things come too that after so many hundred years profession of Christianity we should grow weary of Christ and the Gospel V. The notorious Apostacy of many Professors this day who have made Shipwrack of Faith and a good Conscience 1 Tim. 1.19 may convince you all that 't is no easie matter to believe so to believe as to persevere in the Faith VI. Believers themselves find it a difficult matter to act their Faith if their Lives lie upon it they cannot act it at their pleasure without the special aid and assistance of the Spirit 't is God must work in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure Believers are hardly put to it great is the labour and travel of their Souls in believing they meet with much opposition from flesh and blood in every act of Faith they put forth they are forced to cry out for help in the midst of an act of Faith lest they should fail in it I helieve Lord help my unbelief q. d. I am now under some light and power of Faith but I see I can't hold it if thou dost not help me I feel flesh and blood rising up against my Faith I begin to stagger already Lord help me that I may not be run down by my carnal Heart Temptations shake our Faith many times there is a perpetual conflict between Faith and Diffidence yet Faith fails not utterly there 't is still Psal 31.22 23. Psal 42.6 9. Faith upholds the Heart still Psal 116.7 Unbelievers they tremble and turn away from God but true believers in their greatest frights and fears do run to God Psal 56.3 make towards him still Were it an easie matter to believe such suddain fits of unbelief would not come so strongly upon believers themselves Secondly The Reson why many Professors count it an easie thing to Believe The main Reason is this and I will insist upon no other viz. Because they mistake a formal Profession of Faith for real believing this undo's thousands who because they are qualified as National Protestants for all worldly preferments here they rest and make no other use of their Religion as if the Articles of their Faith obliged them to nothing A formal Profession is general takes up Religion in gross but is not concerned in any one point of it But real Believing is particular brings down every Gospel Truth to our selves shews us our concernments in it Save thy self saith
to be willing to part with your sins till you are parting with your lives nor begin your work till your time is ending and in a word to begin then only to serve God when you can serve your selves your Friends nay your Lusts no longer 2. The sooner you set about the work the more easie you will find it You will have fewer Sins to repent of and mourn over and turn from less guilt to terrifie and dishearten you less stupor in your Consciences less hardness in your Hearts less strength of sin to be wrestled with The Dominion of sin will not be so confirmed with a long tract of time nor the cords of your iniquity hold you so fast Tho it be true that how soon soever you begin and set about the work you cannot of your selves effect it God's Grace must do that yet the sooner you begin the less sin there will be in you to resist his Grace and the more hope that God will afford you Grace to overcome that resistance which is made And tho Grace can subdue and conquer the most strong old overgrown Lusts yet still you will be more ready to hope it will do it when you have not the guilt of a long impenitent Life and refusing former calls to encourage your unbelief and check your hopes and sink your hearts 3. You may expect more comfort in it for the more able you will be to discern its sincerity as having less cause to doubt of it To turn to God when you have something to deny for him some time to spend in his Service and which might have been spent in the service of sin looks much more like true repentance than to turn to him when you are immediately to appear before him The less force and fear there is in your repentance the more like it is to be kindly and evangelical when tears flow and are not squeezed you are rather drawn than driven and your Obedience is freely yielded rather than extorted But the further ye apprehend your selves from Death and Judgment the less there usually is to force your repentance and so the less to make it suspicious and hinder your enjoying the comfort of it And so the sooner you repent the more time you will have to prove its sincerity by its fruits and the more fruit you bring forth meet for repentance Matth. 3.8 the better satisfy'd ye will be as to the truth of it and have the more comfort in it When you cannot so well judge of it by looking to it immediately in the principle you may be better able to judge of it by its actings as tho the root of a Tree be hid under ground yet good fruit will shew it to be good 4. Consider what you lose by putting repentance off to the last beside the comfort of your death as was above intimated ye lose no less than all the comfort of your Lives the comfort of all the good you might have done all the Grace you might have acted all the glory you might have brought to God A Christians greatest comfort is the comfort of faith and holiness the comfort of walking with God and communion with him in Duties and Ordinances the comfort of exercising his Graces and reflecting upon his Graces of seeing his priviledges his interest in the promises his title to his inheritance c. so that where no Grace is there no true comfort can be and where repentance is not there no other Grace can be no Faith for that is always the cause of Evangelical repentance and no holiness for that always supposeth Repentance as the beginning of it There can be no walking in the narrow way if there be not first an entring in at the strait Gate Wisdoms ways are ways of pleasantness Prov. 3.17 but they only experience that pleasantness that walk in that way and walk in it you cannot if you do not enter into it and that must be by repentance which is your very first stepping into it Think then what comforts the Saints enjoy in their Lives what it is that makes them chearful in their Duties couragious against their enemies strong against temptations patient in sufferings what it is makes them go on singing in the ways of the Lord Psal 138.1 and glorying in tribulations Rom. 5.3 and remember that all this comfort you lose by being so late e're you come into the way wherein alone it is to be found 5. Think what others beside your selves lose by your thus deferring your repentance Every Saint is a publick Good the World is the better for him But while you go on in sin and never think of repenting till the last who is the better for you nay who are not losers by you Angels in Heaven lose the joy they might have had in your Conversion Ministers lose the comfort of being instrumental in it your Families lose the Instruction they might have had of you your Neighbours the provocation they might have had to holiness by your example the wicked lose the convictions they might have been brought under by the power of holiness appearing in your conversation Saints the comfort and refreshment they might have had by your Society Discourse Experience and all generally what good they might have got by your Prayers and that which is more than all doth not God lose the glory you might have given him had that time that life and strength been spent in his Service which you have spent upon your Lusts I need not tell you over again what you hazard even your never repenting at all your being forsaken of God given up to the Devil and your Lusts and so having your hearts hardned your minds blinded your Consciences seared and your Souls in conclusion damned If it be not so no thanks to your selves If God be merciful to you and no body in this World knows whether he will or not yet you do your part to bereave your selves of that mercy and plunge your selves into the Abyss of eternal misery Obj. If you say you are fully resolved to repent of your sins when you come to die and then ask pardon for them Answ Do but seriously consider 1. The Vanity and Folly of such resolutions What is more uncertain more fickle more variable than man's mind you resolve upon this to day and are you sure you shall not break that resolution to morrow Do you know what will be your minds two or three days hence if not how can you know twenty or thirty years before-hand are you sure you shall never meet with any accident any temptation that may change your mind And if you do know your mind what it will certainly be when you are dying yet do you know what God's mind will be then whether he will give you repentance when you set about it and give you a pardon when you seek it If you do know it I pray how came you by that knowledge When did God tell you so and where In what text
like but worse than the Beasts for the fiercest Beasts of Africa or Hyrcania have a respect for their own likeness tho' they devour others yet they spare those of their own kind but Men are so degenerate as to be most cruel against their Brethren These are some of the Evils that proceed from sin as their natural Cause And from hence 't is evident that sin makes Men miserable were there no Hell of torment to receive them in the next State 2. I will consider the Evils consequent to sin as the penal effects of the sentence against sin of Divine Justice that decrees it and Divine Power that inflicts it and in these the sinner is often an active instrument of his own misery 1. The fall of the Angels is the first and most terrible punishment of sin God spared not the Angels that sinned but cast them down to Hell reserved in chains of darkness to judgment How are they fall'n From what height of glory and felicity into bottomless perdition How are they continually rackt and tormented with the remembrance of their lost happiness If a thousand of the prime Nobility of a Nation were executed in a day by the sentence of a righteous King we should conclude their crimes to be atrocious innumerable Angels dignified with the titles of Dominions and Principalities were expell'd from Heaven their native seat and the sanctuary of life and are dead to all the joyful operations of the intellectual nature and only alive to everlasting pain One sin of pride or envy brought this terrible vengeance from whence we may infer how provoking sin is to the holy God We read of King Vzziah that upon his presumption to offer incense he was struck with a Leprosie and the Priests thrust him out and himself hasted to go out of the Temple a representation of the punishment of the Angels by presumption they were struck with a Leprosie and justly expelled from the Celestial Temple and not being able to sustain the terrors of the Divine Majesty they fled from his presence 'T is said God cast them down and they left their own habitation 2. Consider the penal effects of sin with respect to Man They are comprehended in the sentence of death the first and second death threaten'd to deter Adam from transgressing the Law In the first Creation Man while innocent was immortal for altho his Bâ—â—y was compounded of jarring Elements that had a natural tendency to dissolution yet the Soul was endowed with such vertue as to imbalm the Body alive and to preserve it from the least degree of putrefaction But when Man by his voluntary sin was separated from the fountain of life the Soul lost its derivative life from God and the active life infused by its union into the Body It cannot preserve the natural life beyond its limited term A righteous retaliation Thus the Apostle tells us Sin came into the World and death by sin Even infants who never committed sin die having been conceived in sin And death brought in its retinue evils so numerous and various that their kinds are more than words to name and distinguish them Man that is born of a Woman is of few days and full of trouble at his birth he enters into a labyrinth of Thorns this miserable World and his life is a continual turning in it he cannot escape being sometimes prick'd and torn and at going out of it his Soul is rent from the embraces of the Body 'T is as possible to tell the number of the waves in a tempestuous Sea as to recount all the tormenting passions of the Soul all the Diseases of the Body which far exceed in number all the unhappy parts wherein they are seated What an afflicting object would it be to hear all the mournful lamentations all the piercing complaints all the deep groans from the miserable in this present state What a prospect of Terror to see Death in its various shapes by Famine by Fire by Sword and by wasting or painful Diseases triumphant over all mankind What a sight of woe to have all the Graves and Charnel-houses open'd and so many loathsom Carcasses or heaps of dry naked Bones the trophies of Death expos'd to view Such are the afflicting and destructive effects of sin For wickedness burns as a fire it devours the Briars and Thorns Besides other miseries in this life sometimes the terrors of an accusing Conscience seise upon Men which of all evils are most heavy and overwhelming Solomon who understood the frame of humane Nature tells us The Spirit of a Man can bear his infirmity that is the mind fortified by Principles of moral Counsel and Constancy can endure the assault of external Evils but a wounded Spirit who can bear This is most insupportable when the sting and remorse of the mind is from the sense of guilt for then God appears an enemy righteous and severe and who can encounter with offended Omnipotence Such is the sharpness of his Sword and the weight of his Hand that every stroke is deadly inward Satan the cruel enemy of Souls exasperates the wound He discovers and charges sin upon the Conscience with all its killing aggravations and conceals the Divine mercy the only lenitive and healing Balm to the wounded Spirit What visions of horror what spectacles of fear what scenes of sorrow are presented to the distracted mind by the Prince of darkness And which heigthens the misery Man is a worse enemy to himself than Satan he falls upon his own Sword and destroys himself Whatever he sees or hears afflicts him whatever he thinks torments him The guilty Conscience turns the Sun into darkness and the Moon into blood the precious promises of the Gospel that assure favour and pardon to returning and relenting sinners are turn'd into arguments of despair by reflecting upon the abuse and provocation of mercy and that the advocate in Gods bosom is become the accuser Doleful state Beyond the conception of all but those who are plung'd into it How often do they run to the grave for sanctuary and seek for death as a deliverance Yet all these anxieties and terrors are but the beginning of sorrows for the full and terrible recompenses of sin shall follow the Eternal Judgment pronounc'd against the wicked at the last day 'T is true the sentence of the Law is past against the sinner in this present state and temporal evils are the effects of it but that sentence is revocable at death the sentence is ratified by the Judge upon every impenitent sinner 't is decicive of his state and involves him under punishment for ever But the full execution of judgment shall not be till the publick general sentence pronounc'd by the everlasting Judge before the whole World It exceeds the compass of created thoughts to understand fully the direful effects of sin in the Eternal State For who knows the power of Gods wrath The Scripture represents the punishment in expressions that may instruct the mind
taking pleasure in the promoting of the Graces and Comforts of others in our way to Heaven Christians forget not that the joy of the Lord is your strength (m) Neh. 8.10 The serving of God with chearfulness strengtheneth both Body and Mind whereas excess of grief damps the Spirit and infeebles the Body unfitting us for the Service of either God or Man But the complaining Soul will still complain Say what you will or can Comfort belongs not to me (n) Ps 77.3 4. I may say with Asaph My Soul refuseth to be comforted I remember God and am troubled I complain and my Spirit is overwhelmed God holds mine Eyes waking I am so troubled that I cannot speak q. d. I cannot but reject all the Consolations that my Friends suggest to me The thoughts of Gods Goodness Wisdom and Power have sometimes been refreshing to me but now they are matter of terror to me God is angry with me and I cannot bear it my trouble is so great I can't express it your speaking Comfort to me is but as the Singing of Songs to a heavy Heart 3. Notwithstanding all this and a great deal more of such Complaints yet I 'll assert and make good my assertion That Comfort belongs to them that conclude against themselves that their case is hopeless and I 'll try to make those very persons confess it We are not to take Mens own word that either the Promises or Threatnings are their portion but we must examine the grounds of their peremptory assertion e. g. If a wicked wretch shall confidently boast he doth not in the least doubt but he shall as certainly be saved as any of those that take most care about their Salvation though he ne're troubles his thoughts about it Do you think that in taking his Accounts Chist will let his Confidence pass for saving Faith and give him Heaven for his Presumption surely you can't think he will while he hath given us so plain a Rule how to judge of words by things viz. By their fruits you shall know them (o) Mat. 7.16 c. A good Tree cannot bring forth evil fruit So then as a Man shall not save his Soul for his groundless Presumption so neither shall he lose his Soul for his groundless despondency Thou complainest of thy self not of Christ he is precious (p) 1 Pet. 2.7 in thine eye therefore thy Faith is saving thou fearest that thou dost not cleave to Christ yet thou hadst rather die than offend him this is a Faith of adherence and that is saving Thou complainest but restlesly strivest to be more inwardly outwardly universally holy that is a good Evidence thy state is good though while under a Temptation or under a Cloud thou canst not see it to be so But thou still sayest I am an unprofitable Hearer and I cannot believe that Christ will pardon what is amiss and accept of any thing as good of what I can do and therefore pray quit this way of answering my complaint by telling me of Comfort If you have any thing else to offer I 'll hear it I may expect rather to hear of Christ in a clap of Thunder than in a soft and still voice 4. I 'll speak to thee no more directly of Comfort but only ask thee a Question about the Comforts of others What are thy thoughts about the Comforts and Joys of the Holy Ghost are there any such things or are they meer Fancies If there be any such things what thinkest thou of those that partake of them Is the enjoyment of them desirable Are they happy that have them Whether is more eligible to spend your Life in mourning Complaints or to spend it in the joyfull Praises of the Lord our Redeemer Are these Questions hard to be answered These Questions are out of question Oh! there are no joys like the joys of the Holy Ghost the best of carnal joys are incomparably below them Though I fear I shall never be so happy as to enjoy them yet I can't but admire them that do Do you ask which is more eligible a life of mourning Complaints or a life of Joys Ask a Man under a fit of the Stone whether that is more eligible than a state of health Well dost thou speak this heartily Ask thy Heart again that thou mayest not mistake me or go back from thine own answer Are the joys of the Holy Ghost Realities Are they unspeakably beyond all other joys Are they happy that enjoy them Wilt thou stand to thy word Then they are all thine own thou hast a title to them at present and as sure as thy Redeemer lives thou shalt be put into the possession of them Mark how I prove it Every one that hath Truth of Grace hath an indefeasible Title to Glory (q) 1 John 5.13 These things which I have written unto you that believe on the Name of the Son of God that ye may know that you have eternal life (r) 2 Cor. 1.22 They have a Seal for Assurance but an earnest which is a begun possession elsewhere called the first-fruits (Å¿) Rom. 8.23 but every one that prizeth the holy joys of the Holy Ghost hath Truth of Grace Graceless Persons make a mock of the joys of the Holy Ghost they can scarce forbear sneering at the mention of them he perfers carnal Comforts before them (t) Psal 4.6 7 Many say who will shew us any good But the gracious Soul says Lord lift thou up the light of thy Countenance Thou hast put gladness in my heart more than in the time that their Corn and their Wine increased ver 3. This is the godly Man whom the Lord hath set apart for himself Not any one that is not a Saint himself hath any esteem for a Saint as a Saint (u) 1 Joh. 3.14 We know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren He that loveth not his brother abideth in death Now I dare appeal to your selves in the very midst of all your complaints when thou fearest thou shalt never have any of these joys yet thou hast a value for them above any other Thou preferrest thy complaints before worldly Pleasures thou dost not thou canst not but follow Christ though it be tremblingly If all these be not infallible Evidences of Grace what are Chide thy self and pray thy self out of thy complaining temper (w) Eccl. 9.7 Go thy way eat thy Bread with joy and drink thy Wine with a merry heart for God now accepteth thy works And thus you have my Answer as well to the Complaint as to the Case God make it beneficial to all that shall read it There remains some questions depending upon the Case that require some Answer I 'll attempt that also Qu. 1. When we make choice of a Minister to be under Christ the special Guide of our Souls How shall we avoid the sinfull preferring of one before another How may we escape that
his Royal Captives who helped to draw his Charlot looking wistly on the Wheel how the part now lowest was presently uppermost so that he considering the mutability of these sublunary things released him from that bondage And however forget not what the Holy Ghost saith Jam. 2.13 He shall have judgment without mercy that sheweth no mercy and mercy rejoyceth against judgment 10. My last Advice is to Pray for the peace of Jerusalem This every one may do and this every one ought to do Psal 122.6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem they shall prosper that love thee Peace be within thy walls and prosperity within thy palaces There are few greater Reasons for our solemn Fasting and Prayer than this If some Plague or War or Drought come upon us we reckon it 's high time to Fast and Pray But alas those are in themselves but Miseries but our Contentions are so our Miseries that they are our sins also Those will but destroy some of our People but Uncharitable Contentions will consume us all But whatever Others do herein let it be every sincere Christian's care to lay holy violence to Heaven upon this Account You have done all that is in your Power to restore Love and Peace and it is in vain try thâ—â— what God can do Abi in cellam dic miserere Deus He can make Men to be of one mind in a House City and Nation He can bow the Hearts of a whole Nation even as the Heart of one man and that in a moment of time He can bring the Wolf and the Lyon and the Lamb to feed together so that they shall not hurt nor destroy in all his holy mountain Isa 65 25. And O that the Prayer of our most Blessed Saviour Joh. 17.21 may yet prevail with God to pour down a spirit of Love and Peace into us all In the mean time let all those that are passive that are upright humble and quiet comfort themselves with Salvian's saying Insectantur nos in nobis Deum Christ is a fellow-sufferer with all that suffer as Christians and their design is against God himself that devour his servants And then pergant nostrae patientiae praecones 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 beatos nos hoc modo facient dum vellent miseros They that speak and write all manner of evil of you so it be falfely while they endeavour to render you miserable do thereby make you happy True Virtue and Piety shines most in the fire and therefore in Patience possess your Souls if you can possess nothing else And for Others if after all Warnings and Endeavours their Hearts be still fill'd with Rancour and bent upon mischief we must leave them to St. Augustine's Sentence Quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat There is a God who tells his Servants wandrings and puts their tears in his bottle and who will execute judgment upon all that have spoken or done hardly toward them and though they may support themselves with their present impunity and prosperity yet the Lord of that servant that began to smite his fellow servants will come in a day he looked not for him and in an hour that he is not aware of and shall cut him asunder Matth. 24.50 And though they may think it a long time to that day they will find there is a longer space after it They that choose the Fire shaâ—â— have their fill of it For to them that are contentious there remains indignation and wrath and Fire that is everlasting But I despair not of so much Remorse in such as have without Prejudice and with Consideration read these Pages but that they will awake and shake off the Inchantment which hath possess'd them and discerning their Sin and our common Danger they will embrace all their faithful Brethren and become sincere lovers of Truth and Peace which effect the God of Love and Peace work in us all by his Holy Spirit for the sake of the Prince of Peace Jesus Christ our Redeemer Amen Amen Quest From what Fear of Death are the Children of God delivered by Christ and by what Means doth He deliver them from it SERMON IV. HEB. II. 15. And deliver them who through fear of Death were all their life time subject unto bondage IN this and in the foregoing Verse you have some Account of the design and end of our Lord Jesus Christ in his Incarnation and Passion There were divers weighty Reasons why he assum'd our Nature and therein subjected himself to Death and two of them are told us in this Context 1. That he might destroy the Devil 2. That he might deliver the Elect People of God 1. That he might destroy the Devil who is describ'd to be one that had the power of Death not the supream but a subordinate Power of Death a Power of Death as God's Executioner to inflict it and affright men with it to make it terrible and formidable to them by heightning their guilty Fears and representing to them its dreadful consequents In these and in divers other respects that might be mentioned the Devil is said to have the Power of Death Him as it follows hath Christ destroyed That is disarm'd and disabled Christ hath not destroy'd him as to his being and substance but as to his Power and Authority over the Children and chosen of God And this Christ did by his own Death Through or by death he destroy'd him that had the power of Death viz. The Devil It was upon the Cross that be spoil'd Principalities and Powers and made a shew of them openly triumphing over them in it 2. To come to what I intend another End and reason of Christ's Incarnation and Passion was that he might deliver the Elect People of God These he calls the Children in the foregoing Verse not the Children of Men as some expound it but the Children of God Such Children as the Father had given the Son so they are said to be Ver. 13. Behold says Christ I and the Children which thou hast given me such as were predestinated to the adoption of Children as it is phras'd Ephes 1.5 These the Text also describes and tells us in what Condition they were by Nature Through fear of Death they were all their life-time subject to bondage By all their Life time you must understand all that time which they liv'd before they were deliver'd This is the Condition of the Elect of God as they come into the World they are not only subject unto Death but unto the Fear of Death and unto bondage by reason thereof The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is render'd subject signifies they were held fast and manacled as Birds that are taken in a snare or as Malefactors that are going to their Execution The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is rendred bondage signifies a state of servitude or slavery such as men dislike but cannot avoid One calls it a poenal disquietment or perplexity of mind that ariseth from a
sense of misery that a man would fain be rid of and can't 't is a Yoke whereby his Neck is gall'd but he can't put it off and if he should be released from it by any undue ways or means it would be to his farther detriment and danger in the end Now from this Fear of Death the Children are said to be delivered by Christ There are many evils from which he redeems and delivers them he delivers them from the bondage of sin and Satan from the rigour and Curse of the Law from everlasting Punishment and Wrath to come and he delivers them also from the Fear of Death This is imply'd if it be not express'd in the Text for upon the mentioning of their deliverance he gives this description of the Persons that are delivered that they wâ—â—e such as were afraid of Death and lyable to continual bondage by reason thereof Hence all Expositors both ancient and modern do rationally inferr That the Fear of Death is one of those evils from whence we are deliver'd by Jesus Christ The Text thus briefly open'd administers a fair occasion of resolving this Case or Question From what Fear of Death are the Children of God deliver'd by Jesus Christ and by what means doth he deliver them from it I shall break this Question in two and enquire 1. From what Fear of Death the Children of God are delivered from by Jesus Christ And then 2. By what Means or Methods he doth deliver them from it 1. From what Fear of Death are the Children of God deliver'd by Jesus Christ That I may resolve this Question aright I must distinguish of the Fear of Death 1. There is a natural Fear of Death This is common to all Men as Men and 't is more or less in them according to their different Constitutions and other accidental Occurrences This is nothing else but Natures aversation to it 's own dissolution and in it's self it is a sinless infirmity such as sickness weariness or the like To be loth or afraid to dye is humane and inseparable from the nature of man this fear of Death is found with the best of men Nature as one says hath a share in them as well as in others and will work as Nature or like it self The Apostle Paul tells us how good godly men are unwilling to be uncloath'd and to put off the body 2 Cor. 5.4 Our blessed Saviour who was a true though not a meer Man without the least impeachment of the Holiness and Perfection of his humane Nature express'd at some times an aversion to death John 12.27 Mark 14.35 This therefore is not the fear of Death of which the Text speaks and from which the Children of God are deliver'd by Jesus Christ 2. There is a slavish Fear of Death which hath Torment in it or which torments the Souls of men which fills their hearts with terrors and distractions which discomposeth their minds and unfits them for the duties of their general or particular callings and totally disables them from prosecuting the things that belong to their Peace and Welfare This is that fear of Death of which the Text speaks and from which the Children are deliver'd such as genders unto bondage and is servile or slavish a fear of Death as poenal and drawing after it everlasting punishment This fear of Death takes hold of carnal men they are not so much afraid of Death as of that which the Scripture calls the second Death Revel 2.11 20.6 Heb. 9.26 't is that which follows after death that makes it so formidable to them after Death as that Text speaks comes Judgment when they must receive according to the things which they have done in the Body When they dye they must launch out into an endless Ocean and go the way as Job says from whence they shall never return Job 16.22 And if Death overtakes them in their unregenerate state and condition then it will be an entrance or inlet into outer darkness where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth These and such-like are the considerations that make Death so dreadfull to the Children of Men that give it the denomination of the King of Terrors and of terrible things the most terrible they are not as one said afraid to dye but they are afraid to be damn'd Hence it is that though Death be terrible to all men yet it is most terrible to those whose Consciences are awakened and whose understandings are enlightned who have been instructed in the Knowledge of God and of a future State of Retribution Death as one observes is not half so terrible to a Heathen as it is to an ungodly Christian Heathen men are in the dark and see but little of that which is the true terror of Death But enlightned Christians who have been acquainted with the Scripture who know that the Wrath of God is reveal'd from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men Rom. 1.18 1 Cor. 6.9 Psal 9.17 2 Thes 1.7 8 9. that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God that the wicked shall be turned into Hell and all Nations and people that forget God that Jesus Christ shall be reveal'd from Heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the Gospel who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the Glory of his Power That the greatest part by far of the wages of sin which is eternal damnation shall be paid in another World These are they that are surrounded with the slavish fears of Death 'T is true that many wicked Persons who live under the Gospel are under none of these terrors but then 't is because they look on Death at a great distance from them and the remoteness of any Object though in it's self never so terrible takes away the fear of it Or else it is because they are over-busied and taken up about the things of the World as the lust of the flesh or of the eyes or the pride of life and if any thoughts of Death and of the World to come arise in their minds they are presently smother'd and stifled by worldly objects and diversions Cain was a while afraid of Death he thought every one that met him would slay him but by and by he gets into the Land of Nod and there he falls a building of Cities and doth so immerse or drown himself in the affairs of the World that by little and little the slavish fear he had of Death did wear out of his mind Or else it is because of their Atheism or Infidelity there is a great deal of this amongst professed Christians All wicked men as the Apostle Paul says are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eph. 2.12 without God in the World or as it may be rendred they are Atheists in the World They are all practical Atheists and too many are
your right eye you must pull it out The guilt of one known sin will put a sting into Death and make it very terrible to you especially in your near approaches unto it 7. You must look to it that your whole Conversation be order'd arigh◠and that it be as becomes the Gospel of Christ When all is done an upright and holy Life is one of the best Defences against the dread of Death We are told in two several Chapters of the Proverbs that Righteousness delivers from Death Prov. 10.2.11.14 Whatever other Interpretations those words will admit of I am sure this is a true one That it delivers from a slavish Fear of Death Hear how David speaks he bids you Mark the perfect man and behold the righteous or upright Psal 37.37 for the the end of that man is peace The Apostle Paul was above the Fear of Death he seem'd rather to desire than dread it as I said before and well it might be thus with him seeing he liv'd in all good Conscience and had this Testimony from his Conscience That in simplicity and godly sincerity Acts 23.1 2 Cor. 1.12 and not with fleshly wisdom but by the Grace of God he had his Conversation in the World Quest How is Gospel-Grace the best Motive to Holiness SERMON V. 2 TIM II. 19. And let every one that nameth the Name of Christ depart from Iniquity 1 Tim. 1.2 2 Tim. 1.2 THis Epistle was wrote by St. Paul to his Son Timothy whom he had begot in the Faith as his fatherly Blessing a little before his death for he was at the writing of it in bonds Ch. 1. vers 8. and he had finished his course Ch. 4. v. 7. This very Paul whom God had so miraculously delivered at Damascus 2 Cor. 11.32 Acts 16.26 and at Philippi and where not for whosoever reads the Catalogue of his sufferings 1 Cor. 11.26 may wonder how so many evils could befall any one man but as they did abound deliverance did proportionably abound yet now when God had no further work for him to do he calls his Servant home to receive his wages and being so near the end of his Race Phil. 3.14 Paul stretches out his hand for the prize of his high calling in Christ Jesus And if we cannot but allow the Children of God to grow in Grace and in Knowledge 2 Pet. 3.18 and that the Lights of God's setting up in his Church are brightest a little before they are extinguished by death Timothy and all Believers had reason to mind especially the words of this dying Man This Epistle being his last Will and Testament in which every Member of Christ's Church hath a Legacy left unto him ' more precious if understood and improved than Gold that perish In the beginning of this Chapter the Apostle requires that those things he had taught Vers 2. might be continued still to be taught and to be practis'd He knew that there was no getting into Heaven per saltum that there was no coming to Glory but by taking the degrees at least arriving at the truth of Grace and therefore here as elsewhere in all his Epistles so many Exhortations and Dehortations are to be found so many Precepts about what we are to do and Cautions about what we are to avoid The Philosopher treating of Happiness observes Arist Rhet. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Way is narrow and the Danger is great and they are the best Friends to us that bid us beware and are jealous lest we should mistake But withal the Apostle here meets with a great Obstacle a Stone or Rock of Offence which he endeavours to remove out of our way Hymenaeus and Philetus two considerable persons and probably highly accounted of in the Church for we find no such difficulty arose at the turning away of Phygellus and Hermogenes of whom mention is made Chap. 1. vers 15. Apostatiz'd from the Truth and whether they were by their Office Teachers or no is not certain but that their breath was infectious and that their words did eat as a canker is testified vers 17. That their error was in a fundamental Article denying the Resurrection is very obvious for as the Apostle says If there be no Resurrection then is our preaching vain and our believing vain 1 Cor. 15.13.14 yet such a darkness or perversness rather hath the Fall and our corruption betray'd us to that without God cause his Light to shine into us there is nothing so senceless irrational or unscriptural which we shall not embrace for truth Hence these wretches did not perish alone but overthrew the Faith of some vers 18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or temporary Believers who assented to the Truths of the Gospel and were reckoned amongst the Faithfull nay and they shrewdly shak'd the Faith of others When men in a Field-battle see such fall who stood next them or were before them their hearts are apt to misgive them least the next Bullet should take them off also Especially true Believers knowing so much of the deceitfulness of their own hearts as to make them humble all their days and being so charitable towards others and apt to believe any better than themselves Their concern also being so great for their Souls Hinc lacrymae they cry we shall one day fall To such the Apostle accommodates these words Nevertheless as if he had said Granting all that any fearfull and weak but true Believers amongst you can Object that so many fall away and such as seem'd so resolute have Apostatiz'd Mat. 7.24.25 Yet the Foundation of God standeth sure Thô they who built upon the Sand with their statelyest and highest confidence fell yet every building upon the Rock should hold out all winds and weathers To prove which the Apostle offers a double security 1. From the Election and fore-knowledge of God The Lord knoweth them that are his Verba sensûs intellectus ponunt affectum effectum is a known Rule to understand Scripture by God does not only know his People as he does all other men and all other Creatures in the World but he hath a special eye upon every one of them and a special care for them as well as Love unto them and this is as it were the Privy Seal which every Child of God may take for his security 2. They have also a broad Seal their Sanctification which comparatively at least is evident for it is as a light set on a Candlestick and is visible more or less unto all at least they may have the Testimony of a good Conscience ◠Cor. 1.12 which is as a thousand Witnesses Some have thought that these words may relate to an ancient custom of putting words and sentences upon such stones as were laid for Foundations in buildings in which something of the Builder or Author or at least something thought worthy by him to be perpetuated Rom. 11.33 was inserted and what more
influence the Faith of some confident Professors has upon their Lives they are not they will not be governed by the Faith which they profess the Devil allows of such a profession and 't is all the Religion he will admit of in his followers provided they don 't touch upon the power of godliness all forms are alike to him and in some cases the purest and most Scriptural serve his turn best when separated from the power of godliness then he has some Scripture on his side to perswade them that all is well then he cries The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord are ye setled in a Church way according to all the Rules of Discipline laid down in the Word and is not this Religion enough to save you Thus the Devil will sometimes give the best form its due commendation from Scripture when it may serve as an Argument to perswade a formal Christian to sit down short of the power of Godliness he knows God's own form will not save us then though he would make them believe otherwise He put the Jews upon pleading this and possessed them that all was well while they held to the outward form of Worship that God had appointed which made the Lord himself so often to declare against them and the outward forms of Worship that he had appointed because he saw they rested in them and played the Hypocrites under them Let us have a care in these Gospel-times that we do not rest in Gospel-forms only placing the whole of our Religion in that which God has made but a part of it and such a part that should never be divided by us from the Power and Spirit of the Gospel We talk of damnable Heresies and there are such the Lord keep us from them but let me tell you you may pass though more silently into Hell through a formal Profession of the Truth and have your porticn with Hypocrites who profess'd what you do had the same form of Godliness that you have but deny'd the power of it I don't say as some of you do I hope otherwise of you all but let every one examine himself what powerful Influence those Gospel-truths have upon him which he has lived so long under the profession of you know this best and others may more than guess at it by your Lives and Conversations but I spare you having laid my finger upon the soar place I take it off again and leave every one to his own feeling Obj. You seem as if you would put us off from our Profession Answ It may be better off than on in some respects but my design is to bring you up to your Profession that you may be real in it and not mock the Lord nor deceive your selves I have often thought that he who makes a solemn Profession of his Faith and says I believe in God and in Christ had need consider well what he says lest he lie unto the Holy Ghost though what you profess be truth yet your Profession may be a Lie if you say you believe what you do not believe with the Mouth Confession is made but with the Heart Man believes believing is Heart-work which the Searcher of Hearts only can judge of therefore you should consult your Hearts whether you do indeed believe before you tell God and Man that you do 't is a sad thing that the frequeut repetition of our Creed and the renewed Profession we make of our Faith should be charged upon us as so many gross Lies as Psal 78.36 37. Thirdly They who count it an easie matter to believe are destistute of Saving Faith I prove it thus 1. They who have never found any Conflict in themselves about believing are destitute of saving Faith But they who count it an easie matter to believe have never found any Conflict in themselves about believing ergo If Faith did not act in opposition to carnal Reason and carry it against all the strong reasonings of the Flesh to the contrary Supernatural Truths which never enter never be admitted never find acceptance in the Soul we should never be brought over to assent to them so as to make them the sure ground of our trust and confidence in God but Faith captivates all rebellious thoughts that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God 2 Cor. 10.5 as if they could disprove all that the Gospel says but the demonstrations of the Spirit are with that power that we cannot resist them Christ teaches as one having Authority besides the instructive evidence of Truth in clear reasonings and full demonstrations of it by the Spirit there is Authority and Power to back all this so that having nothing to object that is and fully answered we dare not but obey because of his Authority lesh Power over us were it not for this Authority and Power proud F the would pertinaciously stand out against all the Reasonings of the Spirit but when the Rationale of the Gospel is made out by art Spirit beyond all contradiction from Flesh and Blood the carnal p et is nonplust and silenced cannot speak sense against the Gospel y e however 't will be muttering and kicking against the Truth her comes in the Authoritative Act and Power of the Spirit suppressing the insolence of the Flesh and commanding the Soul in the Name of God to obey and not stand it out any longer against such clear evidence resisting the Wisdom of the Holy Ghost You must know that Flesh and Blood i. e. that carnal corrupt part that is in every Man is never convinced 't is not capable of any such thing but the Power of the Spirit of God brings on a Conviction upon the Soul from a higher Light notwithstanding all that the Wisdom of the Flesh can say to the contrary Flesh is Flesh still in all chose who are born of the Spirit but 't is overpower'd and kept under by the stronger reasonings of the Spirit which is the cause of that continual Conflict that is between the Flesh and Spirit to talk of easie believing without any resistance from our own corrupt minds is to talk of that that never was nor can be in any man whatever Saints are inclined two contrary ways though one Principle be predominant yet the other is not extinct has not yet lost all its power 't will stir and fight and resist though it can't overcome and Faith it self feels the struglings of unbelief and bears up with more Courage against them 2. They who were never convinced of the sinfulness of sin and of the dreadfulness of God's Wrath against Sinners are destitute of Saving Faith but they who count it an easie matter c. ergo I don't mean that all must pass under the like terrors of Conscience some have a more easie passage from a state of Nature to Grace from Death to Life from Terror to Comfort they may sooner get over their Tears and attain to peace than others may But this I say that
Had he had none himself he would not have been so much concerned for the others want of it 5. He makes a publick profession of his faith in Christ and owns him to the very teeth of his Enemies and that too when Peter had denied him the other Disciples forsaken him and those that had rallied after their rout and were now come to be the Spectators of the most doleful Object had ever been presented before their eyes were so far from making any such publick confession of him that their Faith was ready to expire with him ch 24.21 II. Repentance being Gods gift and God being a Sovereign Agent he may give it where and when he pleaseth as to whom he will to one and not to another so at what time he will to one sooner to another later He may give it to one early in the morning of his days to another late and when his Sun is Setting And if the great Master of the Vineyard shall call some into it not only at the sixth or ninth hour but even at the last minute of the eleventh hour what is that to any who shall call him to an account for it 3. God being not only a Sovereign Agent but an Almighty one can by his Power and that in an instant remove all hindrances on the Creatures part and whatever might obstruct his work and so with one turn of an Omnipotent hand bring about the heart of the most obdurate Sinner work repentance in the most unlikely Subject and where there is most within to make head against him and resist his Grace suppose the most obstinate and rooted habits of sin Grace is an infused and supernatural habit and the power that works it a supernatural and creating Power and we are not to confine God in his working Grace to those methods whereby men acquire natural or moral habits In these I grant there may need time to unlearn and extirpate those vitious habits they have so long been contracting and to acquire new ones by a long series of and accustoming themselves to better actions Custom in Men may be strong and like another Nature and they may not be able presently to overcome it nor on the sudden to bring themselves to a readiness and easiness in doing those things which tho their reason approves yet their boysterous appetites strengthned too by custom hurry them against But let the habit of sin be never so deeply radicated in the Soul and the Heart of Man never so averse to holy actions yet God can soon make a change soon remove the sinful disposition and enable and encline the Soul to what it was most averse and impotent He can even in a moment overcome that love of sin and hatred of holiness which is either natural to a Man or contracted by him and both abate lessen weaken the power of sin in the Soul whereby it was wont to resist the workings of his Spirit and restrain and suspend any actual resistance it might make Let the mind of a Man be as dark as darkness it self yet he that caused light to shine out of darkness can enlighten that mind when he pleases 2 Cor. 4.6 Let the Soul be never so dead in sin and destitute of all Spiritual Life yet he that quickens the dead and calls things that are not as tho they were Rom. 4.17 can quicken it and breathe the Breath of Spiritual Life into it and whatever there be in the Soul to oppose him in his working yet the same power can at once quell the opposition and produce the Grace 4. God having infused the habit can as easily enliven it and draw it out into act in those that are capable of exercising grace wrought in them as I suppose dying sinners to be at least when they are capable of exercising their rational faculties For there is less to make opposition against God than in the former case the prevailing power of sin being broken and something in the Soul to take Gods part in the work viz. grace now begun and some habitual promptness and disposedness of the heart to spiritual good and compliance with the will of God It doth not require more power to awaken a vital principle tho dormant than to infuse it where there was none before 5. It may be for Gods honour sometimes to give Repentance to dying sinners the honour of his Sovereignty and free Grace in shewing that he hath mercy on whom he will Rom. 3.18 and that the deepest guilt even of an old hardned sinner cannot hinder the outgoings of his grace and mercy and the honour of his power when it prevails over the most setled habits of corruption Should God work only upon lesser sinners and who are not so confirmed in evil Man might be apt to think that he could not do it and that Mens lusts might be too hard for his power and so reflect on his Omnipotence or to think he could not find in his heart to do it and so reflect upon his Mercy II. By way of Position or Assertion It is a very dangerous thing to run the hazard of a death-bed Repentance or defer Repentance till the approach of death that is to neglect the doing a Mans own part in order to the obtaining this grace as was above premised viz. the seeking it of God and using all those means by which he ordinarily works it The danger of this neglect may appear by the following considerations 1. That no Man knows the time of his death any more than the manner of it or means by which it shall be brought about Our breath is in Gods hands Dan. 5.23 No Man hath a lease of his earthly Tabernacle but is Tenant at will to his great Landlord Who knows when he shall die or how Whether a natural death or a violent one To how many thousand unforeseen accidents are Men subject Not only Swords and Axes may dispatch them but God can commission Insects and Vermin to be the executioners of his justice upon them Hatto Archbishop of Mentz A great Prelate may be eaten up of Mice and a potent Prince devoured by Worms Acts 12.23 And who doth not carry the principles of his own dissolution perpetually within him Death lies in ambush in every vain in every member and none know when it may assault them It doth not always warn before it strikes If some Diseases are Cronical others are Acute and less lingring and some are as quick as lightning kill in an instant Men may be well in one moment and dead in the next God shoots his arrows at them they are suddenly wounded Psal 64.7 How many are taken away not only in the midst of their days but in the midst of their sins The lusting Israelites with the flesh between their teeth Numb 11.33 Julian if Historians speak truth with blasphemy in his mouth and how many frequently with the Wine in their heads In such cases what place what time for repentance for seeking it
sence of the believing World Believers generally know as having found it by experience that they are naturally impotent to spiritual good They find much weakness in themselves after grace is wrought in them and nothing but weakness before God work it They acknowledge they cannot work any degree of grace in themselves when some already they have much less could they work it in themselves when they really had none And how come others to have more strength than they Did not they fall in Adam Or had his Apostasie a less malignant influence upon them than upon others How come they to have such a reserve of Spiritual strength when the rest of the World hath lost it 4. If they can work repentance in themselves why do they not do it sooner Why do they defer it so long when they cannot deny but one time or other it must be wrought Is it a fit return to God for the goodness he hath shewn them all their days to live in sin all their days and turn to him when they can live no longer in it Or will it be an acceptable answer to him when he calls them to a reckoning that they had not served sin long enough nor had their fill of their lusts or else they would have turned to him sooner 5. And how many be there who to encourage themselves in their present impenitency and the enjoyments of their sinful pleasures fancy they can turn themselves when they please yet if God open their eyes and awaken their Consciences and they begin in good earnest to set themselves to labour after repentance they are soon convinced of the hardness and deadness of their Hearts and their utter disabilities to such a work and are fain in spight of all their high thoughts and conceits of themselves to look up to God and implore his assistance and depend upon him for the working of that grace in them which they fondly imagined they could work in themselves 5. God may not give them grace to repent when they come to die Admit they have time and means yet God may not give a blessing to the means Let it be considered First To how few God ever gives repentance at the last even of those who have as good means and helps as their weak and dying condition will admit of It is one of the saddest parts of a Ministers work to visit dying sinners How few do they leave any better than they find them How few give any hopes of a through change wrought in them How few can they perswade to believe in Christ when they have an hundred times before rejected him How few can they bring to repentance then when they never minded it before Ministers even the best are but Men and not God flesh and not Spirit and means instructions exhortations are but means whose whole efficacy depends on Gods co-operation with them and when he with-holds his Blessing they are altogether ineffectual When they judge of man's eternal State though their judgment is not to be rash nor peremptory yet it should be reasonable some good grounds they should have for it But alas if they keep to Scripture-rules in how few of them that never repented before do they find when dying so much as a foundation for a charitable judgment of their Spiritual state 1. If we set aside those that die in gross ignorance of the things of God of the very first Principles of Religion the nature of God the Offices of Christ the ends of his Death the necessity of satisfaction for sin the nature and use of Faith the terms of the Covenant c. Ignorant indeed of those truths some knowledge of which is necessary to the very being of saving Grace How many such do we find and what hope can we have of the truth of their Repentance and so of their Salvation How can their Hearts be holy when their Minds are so blind What Heavenly heat can their be in there affections when there is such an hellish darkness in their understandings Such may read their doom Isa 27.11 2. Set aside those that die stupid without any awakenings of Conscience any sense or concernedness about their spiritual state and so die as much like Beasts as they lived 3. Those that die despairing fill'd with horror and void of hope overwhelmed with the sense of sin the thoughts of approaching vengeance and a fearful expectation of appearing before the Tribunal of that righteous God whom they cannot escape and dare not trust They have not hearts to pray to him hope in him or commit their Souls into his hands when they die having never loved nor served nor regarded him while they lived 4. Those that die presuming Such are the ignorant before mentioned such are Formalists Moralists proud Pharisees conceited self-justifiers The Innocency of their Conversation the Profession they make or the Duties they perform are the righteousness by which they expect to be justified Nay how many after a Life of sin hope to be saved meerly by the mercy of God without respect to any righteousness at all either of Justification or Sanctification either imputed to them or inherent in them either that whereby they may have a title to glory or meetness for it Sure I am such as these are void of repentance and when the greatest part of dying Sinners may be reduced to one or other of these sorts to how few doth God give repentance at the last of those who did not before seek it of him Secondly With how many is the day of Grace past and the time of God's patience run out and then we may be sure God will not give them repentance They have so many times rejected the counsel of God against themselves Luke 7.30 refused the Offers of Grace turned a deaf ear to the calls of the Gospel stiffned their necks and refused to return that now they are past it God that waited on them so long will wait no longer They had a time of acceptation a day of salvation 2 Cor. 6.2 but that being over they are to have no more God was nigh to them and might have been found of them Isa 55.7 but is now withdrawn from them and they may seek Christ and die in their sins John 8.21 the may seek and not find call and God give them no answer Prov. 1.28 Thirdly God may have judicially hardned their Hearts when they had sinfully hardened them before And this seems to be one great cause of that stupidness and insensibleness we so often find in Sinners at the time of death True God infuseth no sin into them yet he may wholly abandon them to the power of the hardness they have contracted and give them up into the Devils hands to delude and blind to act and manage them according to his pleasure and their own corrupt inclinations They may not have so much as an heart to desire to repent or pray to God for Grace to enable them to to it all those
common assistances of Gods Spirit they sometimes had being wholly withdrawn from them and it 1. Partly as a punishment for their former wilful impenitency It is one of the most dreadful Judgments God ever executes upon any on this side Hell when he punishes one sin with another one hardness with another which yet sometimes he doth Prov. 81.11 12. Israel would none of me c. so I gave them up c. 2. As a terror to others and a warning too that they that hear it may fear and not dare to live impenitently lest they should die impenitently God not being bound to give them the Grace he denies to others who perhaps were not greater Sinners than themselves Obj. The great encouragement Men have to embolden them in sin and yet to hope for repentance at last is the instance of this poor Thief which they stretch beyond the intention of the Holy Ghost in leaving it upon Record when they use it as a means to strengthen their presumption which was designed only to prevent despair The Thief on the Cross repented at last saith a Sinner and why may not I Answ Why should not the example of the other Thief 's impenitency affright them and drive them to repentance as well as the example of the good Thief encourage them to sin It is but setting one against the other and if they argue God gave repentance to one and therefore may give it them Why may they not as well argue God denied it to one and therefore may deny it to them too 2. It is but a single instance against thousands on the other side And though one instance is sufficient to evert the generality of a Rule and therefore we cannot certainly conclude from Gods not giving repentance to thousands at the hour of Death that he will give it to none because we have the example of this Thief to the contrary yet with what reason can men expect that God should give that to them which he gave to one rather than that he should deny that to them which he hath denied to thousands If general Rules are to be drawn from particulars it is much more rational to ground them on a multitude of particulars than on any single one The most therefore any Men can infer from this example is only that it is not impossible but God may give them repentance 3. Some things seem to be singular in the case of this Thief which are not to be found in the case of others who therefore cannot reasonably argue from it 1. He was one so far as we can judge that had never formerly rejected Christ never saw him before his Sufferings never heard his Doctrin never was a Witness of his Miracles which might convince him of the truth of it He was one that had otherwise employed himself than in attending on Christs Ministry and might more likely have been found robbing on the Road than worshiping in the Temple or breaking up Houses than hearing of Sermons and therefore though he had sin enough in him for which God might have denied him Repentance and nothing in him which might move the Lord to give it him yet it is very probable this was the first of his being brought to the knowledge of a Saviour and so he was not guilty of the great Gospel-sin of Unbelief and refusing the offer of Christ and Salvation by him which doth so often provoke the Lord to leave men to themselves and deny them his Grace If it be said the same was the case of the other Thief I grant it But God being a Sovereign Agent and his gifts most free he might make use of his Prerogative in dispensing them and so grant repentance to the one and deny it to the other admit their circumstances were every way the same And why then may he not deny repentance to those now that are in some respect worse than either in that they have so many times resisted his Spirit stood out against his Calls and slighted the offers of his Grace made to them and where is the Sinner that lives under the means without repentance but as he hath daily repeated calls from God so he daily rejects them and thereby abundantly justifies the Lords refusing him that Grace at the last which he did before not only never seriously seek but wilfully reject I should have more charitable thoughts and better hopes of the veriest Varlets upon earth that were never called till the last hour than of those that are otherwise guilty of much less sin but have abused and resisted greater Grace 2. The instance of this Thief seems particularly designed by God for the honour of his suffering Son God would have a Witness even upon the Cross one to adore him when so many despised him He would have his Sons Death honoured by his giving Life to a poor Wretch even at the point of Death and make him known to be a Prince and a Saviour to give repentance and remission of sins Acts 5.31 by his giving both to such a Sinner and at such a time 3. Another end may be to render them that Crucified Christ inexcusable when this Malefactor made so honourable a confession of him to expose and shame the unbelief and hardness of the Rulers and Pharisees by the faith and repentance of a most flagitious Offender and therewithal confirm the Word of Christ spoken formerly to them that the Publicans and Harlots entred into the Kingdom of Heaven before them Matth. 21.31 6. Suppose God do give them repentance at the last yet they may have very little it may be no comfort in it I. They may be ready to question the sincerity of it and then they can have little comfort in it Admit their condition be safe yet comfortable it cannot be so long as the truth of their repentance from which their comfort should proceed is so uncertain and questionable To say nothing of their ignorance of the nature of repentance and the methods of the Spirit in working it having never found the like in themselves before nor been acquainted with what others have felt many things there are which sometimes may make them call what they find in themselves in question 1. The experience they have already had of the deceitfulness of their own hearts and perhaps of others in the like condition It may be they have known others upon a sick bed look as like Penitents as they now do who yet upon their recovery from their Diseases have relapsed into sin and by returning to their former Lusts have confuted their Profession and evidenc'd their repentance to have been unsound and hypocritical And this may make them fear lest things may be no better with themselves and their repentings no more real than their Neighbours Or it may be they themselves formerly when under a Sentence of Death have had strong convictions of sin been filled with horror of Conscience and dismal apprehensions of approaching damnation It may be they
have greived for sin been vex'd at themselves for their old Follies it may be they have had good desires and purposes made promises and vows of devoting themselves to the fear of God and never again returning to their former sinful courses if it should please the Lord to restore them and yet no sooner were they raised up again but they changed their purposes brake their promises stifled or wore off their convictions and grew worse than before the Devil that went out of them when they were sick returned into them when well and seven more with him Matth. 12.43 c. And they know not but things might be as bad with them now if God should restore them as they have heretofore been They fear lest their Hearts which they have found so deceitful fickle slippery should play tricks with them and dissemble and pretend what they never mean and so from the trial they have had of them they dare not trust them but suspect all their present relenting mourning confession mortification to be false and counterfeit 2. It may be more difficult at such a time to discern the principle from which their repentance proceeds whether from Faith in Christ love to God and hatred of sin or only from fear of Wrath and Hell whether they mourn as Children under a Fathers hand or only as slaves under a Masters whip When they lie upon the brink of the grave and expect every moment to drop into it their Souls are dislodging leaving their bodies and by and by to appear naked before their Judge this may affect them fill them with fear and fear with sorrow for sin whereby they have exposed themselves to the danger of damnation and both together put them upon resolutions against sin which is usual in such cases Now though there may be something else at the bottom yet this lying uppermost and most obvious to their view they may fear that it is the only prevailing argument and great cause of their repentance which can then be no better than meerly legal as having no better a foundation Principles are usually latent and discoverable only by their workings and that too more easily or difficultly in proportion to the intenseness or weakness of these workings and in this case the more weak and feeble stirrings of Faith or Love may be so outdone and overtop'd by the vehement and strong motions of fear that themselves can hardly be perceived much less the principles they flow from A dying sinner may feel his fear when he cannot perceive his Faith and suspect he hath no Faith because he is so full of fear and consequently question his repentance which cannot be Evangelical without an Evangelical principle 3. They are apt to doubt of the truth of their repentance for want of seeing the fruit of it And indeed in their circumstances when they have so little time to live they cannot see much The fruits of repentance in an holy humble mortified conversation are the best proof of its sincerity and so most like to bring in the comforts of it But their repentance being young green and unripe they know not whether ever it might bring forth fruit and so may easily be induced to suspect the nature of it How warm soever for the present their hearts are yet they may question the continuance of such a frame if life should continue As much as at present they are set against sin yet they know not but if they should again be in a capacity of committing it they might be again reconciled to it They have but newly entred upon the ways of God and know not whether they should like them upon further trial of them whether as sickness and fear of death have begun to mortifie their lusts so the temptations of life and health might not again restore them They never yet knew what it is to be Godly in time of health and ease in the midst of the snares and allurements of the World and so know not whether that appearance of godliness they now have be any more than an appearance which upon the approach of agreeable temptations might easily vanish Men seldom judge of Trees but by the fruit they bear A Crab-tree may have as fair a blossom as the sweetest Pipin Here may be fair buds and leaves and blossoms sorrow for sin resolutions against it purposes of new obedience yet they may suspect all for want of seeing the fruit of their repentance in the acts of obedience a setled course of walking with God and progress in mortification 4. The Devil is most like to be busie with them at such a time He is a never failing enemy to Mens Souls and shews his enmity to their very death and as he makes it his business to keep them from repentance so if he cannot do that he labours to bereave them of the comfort of it by making them question the truth of it As where it is false he is ready to flatter them and perswade them it is true that he may draw them into presumption so where it is sincere he labours to terrifie them by perswading them it is hypocritical that he may run them into despair Thus he doth with Men while they live and why may he not do the same when they die He is like at that time either for ever to have them or for ever to lose them his temptations then are his last efforts and therefore most vigorous and such they may be as though the grace of God preventing they may not hinder the true repentance of a dying sinner yet the wisdom of God permitting they may cloud and obscure it and render it questionable and thereby bereave him of the comfort of it II. They may be ready to question Gods acceptance of their repentance and indeed that must needs be if they question the sincerity of it when God never accepts any but what is sincere But besides they may be ready to fear they have outstood their time that the day of grace which is the only time of Gods accepting them is at an end Or that God will not accept of them as his Servants when they cannot live to do him any service or not accept of their returning to him now who have forsaken him so long not accept of their sorrow for formerly dishonouring him when they are past time for glorifying him and in a word not look upon them as his Children at the last hour who have been the Devils Children all their days Now if this be their case how uncomfortable is a death-bed repentance admit it be sound when Men know not that it is sound but are wholly in the dark as to the sincerity and acceptance of it and so set in a cloud and fear a storm They may have even just so much hope as may keep them from despair not what may cause any rejoycing in them a secret and almost insensible support but no enlargement They do but as was said of the penitent Thief
Spirit of God Sure he who hath an Immortal Soul within him and a Dubious State to himself as that dreadful Eternity before him should never be sick of his time that lies upon his Hand one hour whereof millions of Wolds can't redeem 2. Covetousness is a weighty Argument Thousands are enough to break the Loyns of most Mens minds too heavy for the back of the strongest Rationalist in the World the Scale of Judgment cannot turn while this beam is in the Eye nor any Argument counterpoise this dead and deadly weight but Tythe Mint and Cummin will outweigh Faith and the Love of God Luke 11.42 St. Briget prophesied Fox's Martyr The Roman Clergy would ruin the Church by their avarice for she said They had already reduced the Ten Commands to two words da pecuniam 3. Pride of Life swells Men till they break all bonds and bounds like Stum in the Cask makes all the Hoops fly off The zeal of a party and having declared for a way makes Men they cannot retreat but will spur on for honour and profit though the Angel of the Lord oppose them till they are crushed to the Wall If Christian Religion be founded in Self-denyal Mortification and bearing the Cross they who seek their own glory are not of God John 7.18 that is either no Gospel or these certainly are no Disciples of Christ We had need look to ourselves for this lust of domination and glory as Charon saith Is the very Shirt of the Soul on from the first but last put off Secondly I am to shew you that the practice of holy Duties clearly commanded is the ready way to have our minds inlightned in the knowledge of Principles Reading the Scriptures discoursing about Heaven and about their Souls everlasting welfare Reproving one another and admonishing Rom. 15.14 comforting and supporting the weak and dejected Soul 1 Thes 5.14 To exhort one another dayly lest any be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin Heb. 3.13 Duties so much out of fashion in these days that it is not counted good manners or civility to practise them friendly reproof is esteemed want of good breeding But are they not strange Christians who are strangers to Scripture Duties 1. These Practical Duties performed would give us light He that doth the Truth cometh to the light John 3.21 not only out of boldness but discovery of knowledge Truth is nothing but goodness explained and goodness is nothing but Truth consolidated Rudiments of knowledge are prerequisite to practice but examples clear all things to us Demonstration by the Compasses maketh the Maxim evident He that doth best knoweth best for he seeth the actions as they are in themselves and circumstances he doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he seeth the bottom by diving into them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psal 119.130 pethac pethaiim the very entrance into the command giveth light the Door is a Window to him that hath a weak sight even those things Men have formerly ridiculed practice hath reconciled them to be their Diana and great delight As the Gnostick in Clem. Alex. who could not taste lewdness till he was in all evil as t is Prov. 5.14 If wicked practices darken the mind as all the works of darkness do than holy actions illuminate the Soul 2. The exercise of holy Duties advanceth light every step a Man takes he goeth into a new Horizon and gets a further prospect into Truth Motion is promoted by motion actions breed habits habits fortifie the powers the new life grows stronger and fuller of Spirit The yoke of Christ is easier smoother and lighter by often wearing it this anoints us with the oyl of gladness and makes the ways of Wisdom pleasantness Prov. 3.17 Life and light are nearly related John 1.4 The life was the light of Men Acts 1.1 These things Jesus first did then taught and so he was mighty in Deed and in Word Luke 24.19 very airing and motion heateth to a flame this made his light burn vers 32. and shine too Truth incarnate in action seems a lively resemblance of God in flesh the unfolding a doubt to another hath often expounded and resolved it to the proponent 3. If any be in danger of Error or got into an ill way keeping up warm Duties Meditation and Prayer will keep him in or help him out communion with the Saints is an admirable antidote against sin or Error As in a Team of Horses if one lash out of the way if the other hold their course they will draw the former to the right path 1 John 2.20 ye have an unction and ye know all things when there are Antichrists and great Apostacies keeping to Duty like keeping the Road preserveth us from by-paths I remember a Snowy night when many wandring homeward were frozen to death A Shepherd feeling himself foiled by often falling set down his Crook in one point and beat a path round and so preserved his life and kept him out of precipices and ditches And we have a promise of light if we press to the mark and prize of our high calling Phil. 3.15 carry the Goale in your Eye and it will direct you a path where there is none upon a plain Sincerely aim at Gods glory and your Souls salvation and you shall not miss your way If in any thing you should miss it and be otherwise minded God will reveal even this unto you Yea our great Lord and Master assureth us John 7.17 He that doth the will of God he shall know the Doctrin whether it be of God or I speak of my self But if Men will make bold with God and Conscience and act for their own ends and glory they rob God of his supremacy and will lose both their way and their end He that walketh uprightly hath God for his guard and guide with devout Zachary he is within the Vail and if he be in a mistake God will reveal it to him For the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him and he will make them know his Covenant Psal 25.14 Go to thy Oracle and pray and a ray of heavenly light shall direct you as the Wise-mens Star to the holy Jesus their minds are Gods candles Prov. 20.27 and as Father of Lights he will light them when they approach him with ardent supplication Thirdly I am to shew that Christian charity and reception will sooner win weak ones to the Truth than rigid Arguments for so the Apostle adviseth them who were to deal with people weak in Faith and strongly zealous for Ceremonies dispute not with them but receive them first 1. In regard opposition breeds oppositions a Man will never believe that he Loves his Soul who cuts his purse belies his actions torments his Body Passion begets passion but love only kindles love when Men do hotly Dispute they jostle for the way and so one or both must needs leave the path of Truth and Peace The Saw of contention reciprocated with its keen teeth
to observe and require an account of all their Actions The radical cause of this Hatred is from the Opposition of the sinful polluted Wills of Men to the Holiness of God for that attribute excites his Justice and Power and Wrath to punish Sinners Therefore the Apostle saith They are enemies to God in their minds through wicked works The naked representing of this Impiety that a reasonable Creature should hate the blessed Creator for his most Divine Perfections cannot but strike with Horror O the Sinfulness of Sin 4. Sin is the Contempt and Abuse of his excellent Goodness This Argument is as vast as God's innumerable Mercies whereby he allures and obliges us to Obedience I shall restrain my Discourse of it to three things wherein the Divine Goodness is very Conspicuous and most ungratefully despised by Sinners 1. His Creating Goodness 'T is clear without the lea st shadow of Doubt that nothing can give the first being to it self for this were to be before it was which is a direct Contradiction and 't is evident that God is the sole Author of our Beings Our Parents afforded the gross matter of our compounded Nature but the Variety and Union the Beauty and Usefulness of the several Parts which is so Wonderful that the Body is composed of as many Miracles as Members was the Design of his Wisdom and the Work of his Hands The lively Idea and perfect Exemplar of that regular Fabrick was modell'd in the Divine Mind This affected the Psalmist with Admiration I am fearfully and wonderfully made Psal 139.14 15 16. marvellous are thy works and that my soul knows right well Thine eyes did see my substance yet being imperfect and in thy book all my members were written which in continuance were fashioned when as yet there was none of them And Job observes Thy hands have made me and fashioned me round about Job 10.8 The Soul our principal Part is of a celestial Original inspired from the father of Spirits The faculties of Understanding and Election are the indelible Characters of our Dignity above the Brutes and make us capable to please and glorifie and enjoy him This first and fundamental Benefit upon which all other Favours and Benefits are the Superstructure was the Effect from an eternal Cause his most free Decree that ordained our Birth in the spaces of time The Fountain was his pure Goodness there was no necessity determining his Will he did not want external declarative Glory being infinitely happy in himself and there could be no superior Power to constrain him And that which renders our Maker's Goodness more free and obliging is the consideration he might have created Millions of Men and left us in our Native Nothing and as I may so speak lost and buried in perpetual Darkness Now what was Gods end in Making us Certainly it was becoming his infinite Understanding that is to communicate of his own Divine Fullness and to be actively glorified by intelligent Creatures Accordingly 't is the solemn Acknowledgement of the Representative Church Thou art worthy O Lord to receive glory and honour and power For thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure they were created Who is so void of rational Sentiments Rev. 4.11 as not to acknowledge 't is our indispensable Duty Our reasonable service to offer up our selves an intire living Sacrifice to his glory What is more natural according to the Laws of uncorrupt Natures I might say and of corrupt Nature for the Heathens practised it than that Love should correspond with Love as the one descends in Benefits the other should ascend in Thankfulness As a polish'd Looking-glass of Steel strongly reverberates the Beams of the Sun shining upon it without losing a spark of light thus the understanding Soul should reflect the Affection of Love upon our blessed Maker in Reverence and Praise and Thankfulness Now Sin breaks all those Sacred Bands of Grace and Gratitude that engage us to love and obey God He is the just Lord of all our Faculties Intellectual and Sensitive and the Sinner employs them as Weapons of Unrighteousness against him He preserves us by his powerful gracious Providence which is a renewed Creation every Moment and the Goodness he uses to us the Sinner abuses against him This is the most unworthy shameful and monstrous Ingratitude This makes forgetful and unthankful Men more brutish than the dull Ox and the stupid Ass who serve those that feed them nay sinks them below the insensible part of the Creation that invariably observes the Law and order prescribed by the Creator Astonishing Degeneracy Hear O Heavens give ear O earth I have nourished and brought up Childen and they have rebelled against me was the Complaint of God himself The considerate Review of this will melt us into Tears of Confusion 2. 'T was the unvaluable goodness of God to give his Law to Man for his rule both in respect of the matter of the Law and his end in giving it 1. The matter of the Law this as is forecited from the Apostle is holy just and good It contains all things that are honest and just and pure and lovely and of good report whatsoever are vertuous and praise-worthy In obedience to it the innocence and perfection of the reasonable creature consists This I do but glance upon having been consider'd before 2. The end of giving the Law God was pleas'd upon Mans creation by an illustrious revelation to shew him his duty to write his Law in his Heart that he might not take one step out of the circle of its precepts and immediately sin and perish His gracious design was to keep Man in his love that from the obedience of the reasonable creature the divine goodness might take its rise to reward him This unfeined and excellent goodness the sinner outragiously despises for what greater contempt can be exprest against a written Law than the tearing it in pieces and trampling it underfoot And this constructively the sinner does to the Law of God which contempt extends to the gracious giver of it Rom. 7.10 Thus the Commandment that was ordain'd unto Life by sin was found unto Death 3. Sin is an extreme vilifying of Gods goodness in preferring carnal pleasures to his favour and Communion with him wherein the life the felicity the heaven of the reasonable creature consists God is infinite in all possible perfections all-sufficient to make us compleatly and eternally happy he disdains to have any competitour and requires to be supreme in our esteem and affections the reason of this is so evident by Divine and Natural light that 't is needless to spend many words about it 'T is an observation of St. Austin * Omnes Deos colendos esse sapienti Cur ergo a numero caeterorum ille rejectus est nihil restat ut dicant cur hujus Dei sacra recipere noluerint nisi quia solum se coli voluerit Aug. de Consens Evang. c. 17. That
it was a rule amongst the Heathens that a wise man should worship all their Deities The Romans were so insatiable in Idolatry that they sent to forreign Countries to bring the gods of several Nations an unpolisht Stone a tame Serpent that were reputed Deities they received with great solemnity and reverence But the true God had no Temple no Worship in Rome where there was a Pantheon dedicated to the honour of all the false gods The reason he gives of it is that the true God who alone has Divine Excellencies and Divine Empire will be worshipt alone and strictly forbids the assumption of any into his Throne To adore any besides him is infinitely debasing and provoking to his dread Majesty Now sin in its nature is a conversion from God to the creature and whatever the temptation be in yielding to it there is signified that we choose something before his favour Sin is founded in bono jucundo something that is delectable to the carnal Nature 't is the universal character of carnal Men they are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God To some riches are the most alluring object The young Man in the Gospel when our Saviour commanded him to give his estate to the poor and he should have treasure in Heaven went away sorrowful as if he had been offer'd to his loss To others the pleasures that in strict propriety are sensual are most charming Love is the weight of the Soul that turns it not like a dead weight of the Scales but with election freely to its object in the carnal ballance the present things of the World are of conspicuous moment and outweigh Spiritual and Eternal blessings Altho the favour of God be eminently all that can be desir'd under the notion of riches or honour or pleasure and every atom of our affection is due to him yet carnal Men think it a cheap purchase to obtain the good things of this World by sinful means with the loss of his favour This their actions declare Prodigious folly as if a few sparks struck out of a Flint that can neither afford light or warmth were more desirable than the Sun in its brightness And how contumelious and provoking it is to God he declares in the most moving expressions Be astonished O ye Heavens Jer. 2.12 13. at this and be horribly affraid be ye very desolate saith the Lord. For my people have committed two evils they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters and hewed them out broken cisterns that can hold no water This immediately was charg'd upon the Jews who set up Idols of jealousie and ador'd them rather than the glorious Jehovah and in proportion 't is true of all sinners for every vicious affection prefers some vain object before his Love and the enjoyment of his glorious presence that is the reward of obedience 5. The sinner disparages the impartial Justice of God In the Divine Law there is a connexion between sin and punishment the evil of doing and the evil of suffering This is not a mere arbitrary constitution but founded on the inseparable desert of sin and the rectitude of Gods nature which unchangably loves holiness and hates sin Altho the threatning does not lay a strict necessity upon the Lawgiver always to inflict the punishment yet God having declar'd his equal Laws as the rule of our duty and of his judgment if they should be usually without effect upon offenders the bands of Government would be dissolved and consequently the honour of his justice stain'd both with respect to his nature and office for as an essential attribute 't is the correspondence of his will and actions with his moral perfections and as Sovereign Ruler he is to preserve equity and order in his Kingdom Now those who voluntarily break his Law presume upon impunity The first rebellious sin was committed upon this presumption God threaten'd if you eat the forbidden fruit you shall die the Serpent says eat and you shall not die and assenting to the temptation Adam fell to disobedience And ever since Men are fearless to sin upon the same motive Psalm 50. God chargeth the wicked Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thy self not concern'd to punish the violation of his sacred Laws The sinner commits the Divine Attributes to fight against one another presuming that Mercy will disarm Justice and stop its terrible effects upon impenitent obstinate sinners From hence they become bold and hardnen'd in the continuance of their sins Deut. 29.17 19 20. There is a root that beareth gall and wormwood and when the curse of the Law is declar'd and denounc'd against sin the wicked blesseth himself in his heart saying I shall have peace tho I walk in the imagination of my heart to add drunkenness to thirst This casts such a foul blemish upon the Justice of God that he threatens the severest vengeance for it The Lord will not spare him but the anger of the Lord and his jealousie shall smoke against that Man and all the curses written in this book shall be upon him and the Lord shall blot out his name from under Heaven Psalm 50. Consider this ye that forget God lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver 6. The sinner implicitly denies Gods omniscience There is such a turpitude adhering to sin that it cannot endure the light of the Sun or the light of Conscience but seeks to be conceal'd under a mask of vertue or a vail of darkness There are very few on this side Hell so transform'd into the likeness of the Devil as to be impenetrable by shame What is said of the Adulterer and Theif sinners of greater guilt and deeper dye Job is true in proportion of every sinner If a Man sees them they are in the terrors of the shadow of death Now from whence is it that many who if they were surpriz'd in the actings of their sins by a Child or a stranger would blush and tremble yet altho the holy God sees all their sins in order to judge them and will judge in order to punish them are secure without any fearful or shameful apprehensions of his presence Did they stedfastly believe that their foul villanies were open to his piercing pure and severe Eye they must be struck with terrors and cover'd with Confusion Will he force the Queen before my face was the speech of the King inflamed with wrath and the prologue of Death against the fallen favourite Would Men dare to affront Gods authority and outragiously break his Laws before his face if they duly consider'd his omnipresence and observance of them it were impossible And infidelity is the radical cause of their inconsideration It was a false imputation against Job but justly applied to the wicked Jâ—â— 22.13 14 Thou sayest How does God know can he judge through the dark cloud Thick clouds are a covering to him that he sees not And such are introduced by
Favour of God he is eminently precious Who can break the Constraints of such Love If there be a spark of reason or a grain of unfeigned Faith in us We must judge that if one died for all then all were dead and those that live should live to his Glory who died for their Salvation Add to this that in the Sufferings of Christ there is the clearest Demonstration of the Evil of 〈◊〉 and how hateful it is to God if we consider the Dignity of his Person the Greatness of his Sufferings and the innocent recoilings of his humane Nature from such fearful Sufferings He was the eternal Son of God the Heir of his Fathers Love and Glory the Lord of Angels he suffered in his Body the most ignominious and painful Death being nail'd to the Cross in the sight of the World The Sufferings of his Soul were incomparably more afflicting For though heavenly Meek he indured the Derision and cruel Violence of his Enemies with a silent Patience yet in the dark Eclipse of his Fathers Countenance in the desolate state of his Soul the Lamb of God opened his Mouth in that mournful Complaint My God my God why hast thou forsaken me His innocent Nature did so recoil from those fearful Sufferings that with repeated ardency of Affection he deprecated that bitter Cup Abba Father all things are possible to thee let this cup pass from me He address'd to the Divine Power and Love the Attributes that relieve the Miserable yet he drank off the dregs of the Cup of Gods Wrath. Now we may from hence conclude how great an Evil Sin is that could not be expiated by a meaner Sacrifice then the offering up the Soul of Christ to atone incensed Justice and no lower a Price than the Blood of the Son of God the most unvaluable Treasure could Ransom Men who were devoted to Destruction 4. The consideration of the evil of sin in it self and to us should excite us with a holy circumspection to keep our selves from being defiled with it 'T is our indispensable duty our transcendent interest to obey the Divine Law entirely and constantly The tempter cannot present any motives that to a rectified mind are sufficient to induce a consent to sin and offend God Let the scales be even and put into one all the delights of the senses all the pleasures and honours of the World which are the Elements of carnal felicity how light are they against the enjoyment of the blessed God in glory Will the gain of this perishing World compensate the loss of the Soul and Salvation for ever If there were any possible comparison between empty deluding vanities and celestial happiness the choice would be more difficult and the mistake less culpable but they vanish into nothing in the comparison so that to commit the least sin that makes us liable to the forfeiture of Heaven for the pleasures of sin that are but for a season is madness in that degree that no words can express Suppose the tempter inspires his Rage into his Slaves and tries to constrain us to Sin by Persecution how unreasonable is it to be dismayed at the Threatnings of Men who must dye and who can only touch the Body and to despise the terrors of the Lord who lives for ever and can punish for ever Methinks we should look upon the perverted raging World as a swarm of angry Flies that may disquiet but cannot hurt us Socrates when unrighteously prosecuted to Death said of his Enemies with a Courage becoming the Breast of a Christian They may Kill me but cannot Hurt me How should these Considerations raise in us an invincible Resolution and Reluctancy against the Tempter in all his Approaches and Addresses to us And that we may so resist him as to cause his flight from us let us imitate the excellent Saint whose Example is set before us 1. By possessing the Soul with a lively and solemn Sense of Gods Presence who is the Inspector and Judge of all our Actions Joseph repell'd the Temptation with this powerful Thought How shall I sin against God The fear of the Lord is clean 't is a watchful Sentinel that resists Temptations without and suppresses Corruptions within 'T is like the Cherubim plac'd with a flaming Sword in Paradise to prevent the Re-entry of Adam when guilty and polluted For this end we must by frequent and serious Considerations represent the Divine Being and Glory in our Minds that there may be a gracious Constitution of Soul this will be our Preservative from Sin for although the habitual thoughts of God are not always in act yet upon a Temptation they are presently excited and appear in the view of Conscience and are effectual to make us reject the Tempter with Defiance and Indignation This holy Fear is not a meer judicial Impression that restrains from Sin for the dreadful Punishment that follows for that servile affection though it may stop a Temptation and hinder the Eruption of a Lust into the gross act yet it does not renew the Nature and make us Holy and Heavenly There may be a respective dislike of Sin with a direct affection to it Besides a meer servile Fear is repugnant to Nature and will be expell'd if possible Therefore that we may be in the fear of the Lord all the day long we must regard him in his endearing Attributes his Love his Goodness and Compassion his rewarding Mercy and this will produce a filial Fear of Reverence and Caution lest we should offend so gracious a God As the natural Life is preserved by grateful Food not by Aloes and Wormwood which are useful Medicines so the Spiritual Life is maintained by the comfortable Apprehensions of God as the Rewarder of our Fidelity in all our Trials 2. Strip Sin of its Disguises wash off its flattering Colours that you may see its native Ugliness Joseph's reply to the Tempter How shall I do this great wickedness Illusion and Concupiscence are the Inducements to Sin When a Lust represents the Temptation as very alluring and hinders the Reflection of the mind upon the intrinsick and consequential Evil of Sin 't is like the putting Poison into the Glass but when it has so far corrupted the mind that Sin is esteemed a small Evil Poison is thrown into the Fountain If we consider the Majesty of the Law-giver there is no Law small nor Sin small that is the Transgression of it Yet the most are secure in an evil course by conceits that their Sins are small 'T is true there is a vast difference between Sins in their nature and Circumstances there are insensible Omissions and accusing Acts but the least is Damnable Besides the allowance and number of Sins reputed small will involve under intolerable Guilt What is lighter than a grain of Sand you may blow away a hundred with a Breath and what is heavier than a heap of Sand condenst together 'T is our Wisdom and Duty to consider the Evil of Sin
13. When the Lord sent Paul to Preach the Gospel among the Gentiles that he might hearten him for that difficult and dangerous work he promised him Protection Act. xxvi 17 18. Delivering thee from the People to whom I now send thee To open their eyes They stand in need of a mighty presence of God with them who have just cause to fear That those people will seek their death to whom they bring the word of Life and Salvation I thought this Scripture so apposite to the matter in hand and so directive to private Christians that it may plead my excuse for this enlargement upon it 2. That Private Christians may be sure to mind it our Saviour hath put it into the Rule of Prayer Matth. 6.10 Thy Kingdom come I have read That it is one of the Jews Maxims touching Prayer Ista Oratio in quâ non est memoria regni Dei non est Oratio That Prayer in which there is no mention made of the Kingdom of God is no Prayer at all when we pray Thy Kingdom come we beg That the Gospel which is the Rod of Christ's Power and the Scepter of his Government may spread all the world over For where the Gospel is believed and obeyed there doth Christ reign over fallen Man as Mediator 3. The Saints under the Old Testament prayed for the Calling and Conversion of the Gentiles under the Gospel-dispensation Psal lxvii 2 3. That thy way may be known upon Earth thy saving health among all Nations Let the people praise thee O God Let all the people praise thee 4. When by the Preaching of the Gospel in any place the people were wrought upon and brought to Believe in Christ They were exhorted to pray That the Word of the Lord might be carried to all other parts of the Gentile-world 2 Thess iii. 1. Finally Brethren Pray for us that the Word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified even as it is with you And such Prayers are not to be thought to be lost or put up to God in vain That Prediction or Promise Rom. xvi 20. And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly did doubtless excite many a Prayer and That Promise was eminently accomplished and those Prayers which were grounded upon it and put up to God in faith took effect when the Kingdom of Satan administred in the Idolatries of the Gentiles was laid waste and the Christian Profession was advanced by Constantine the Great Having now so inviting an occasion offered to me give me leave to present a Request to you and it shall be in the words of the Apostle 1 Thess v. 25. Brethren Pray for us for those who labour among you in the Word and Doctrin And I hope I may without vanity enforce this Request by the same Apostles Argument or Motive Hebr. xiii 18. Pray for us for we trust we have a good conscience in all things willing to live honestly Many reflect upon us with disparagement and we are very sensible of our own many and great infirmities But Help us with your Prayers That we may Be better Live better and Preach better It is no Paradox but a well-weighed Truth That a godly private Christian upon his knees in his Closet may assist the Minister in his Study and in the Pulpit And that I may prevail in my Request I can assure you That whatsoever Gifts or Graces ye obtain of God for your Ministers by your Prayers they will come as Blessings upon your selves like the vapours that rise from the Earth being concocted in the Middle-Region fall down upon it again in fruitful showers 1 Cor. iii. 21 22. For all things are yours whether Paul or Apollo or Cephas If any say This is a Digression from the Case which I was to speak to I would entreat them to consider what is the general scope and design of it and they will find That it comports very well with it Once I am sure That it is as much the Duty and Concernment of private Christians to pray for the Success of the Gospel that it may be blessed to the Conversion and Salvation of Souls in England as that it may be preached entertained believed and obeyed in the uttermost parts of the Earth And so I will return to prosecute my Discourse with two Remarks 1. That From what hath been said touching the Prayers of private Christians for the spreading of the Gospel we may be assured That God hath determined to bestow those Mercies for which he commands his people to pray And more than That He usually bestows them in the disposal of his Providence upon the intervention of his Peoples Prayers as may be collected from Ezek. xxxvi 25. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness ver 27. I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my Statutes ver 30. I will multiply the fruit of the tree and the increase of the Field compared with ver 37. Thus saith the Lord I will yet for this be enquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them 2. That no godly private Christian can object against his Duty in praying that the Gospel may be carried to all Nations and be entertained by them nor alledge any excuse or pretence why they should be exempted from it If any hesitate let me expostulate the matter with their Consciences Have ye received the Spirit of Christ as the Spirit of Grace and Supplication and can ye not pray Do ye feel the Love of Christ warming stirring and constraining your hearts and will ye not pray ye dearly value the Glory of God and sincerely desire That the earth may be full of the Knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the Sea And can ye refrain from praying that this may be performed ye tenderly compassionate the miserable condition of Poor Perishing Souls and will ye not afford them so much as your Prayers that they may be relieved Are ye not greatly affected with the distinguishing Grace of God in bringing the Gospel to you and opening your Hearts to receive it How then Can ye offer up your Praises to God for so signal a Mercy without making some reflection on the deplorable state of those who have not as yet obtained the like favour without lifting up a Prayer for them that they may be made partakers of the same Grace Or will ye reply That you do pray indeed That God would visit the heathen World with the Gospel of Salvation But ye cannot think that your Prayers will contribute much toward so great and good a work Suffer me to debate this also a little with you Why will you reproach the Spirit and Grace of Prayer in saying it can avail little or nothing when God himself saith Jam. 5.16 The effectual fervent Prayer of a Righteous man availeth much Those Prayers which can mount as high as Heaven are able also to reach
by the Sword of the Spirit all his force was repelled Christians are to look upon the Evil one as an Enemy that Christ has conquer'd and this should encourage them in their conflicts with him they are to despise his offers they are not to be perswaded by his misapplication of Scripture to any thing that is unjustifiable and irregular The Word of God should abide in them that they may be strong and overcome the wicked one 1 Joh. 2.14 The Head always resisted shall the Members yield to this Destroyer Let not your hearts be filled with Satan let not your heads and hands be employed by him who works in the Children of disobedience 4. Christ is to be followed in his contempt of the worlds glory and contentment with a mean and low estate in it Never was the world so set forth in such an alluring dress as when the God of it in a moment of time shew'd unto our Lord Jesus all the Kingdoms of the world and all the glory of them Luk. 4.5 yet the heavenly Mind of Christ is not taken with the sight he knew he saw nothing but what was Vanity and his Kingdom which was not of this world was a far better thing than the worlds best Kingdom Instead of pursuing he flees from a Crown which the people were ready to force upon his head Ambition and covetousness after worldly grandeur and gain which make us so unlike to Christ should be far from us If the world be the great thing with us Mammon will have us at command and Christ will have but little service from us Why should that be high in the esteem and affection of your hearts which Christ so little minded Love not the world neither the things that are in the world 1 Joh. 2.15 Set your affection on things above not on things that are on earth Col. 3.2 If you have the worlds riches let not your minds be high nor your hearts set upon them and be rich in good works if you are in a meaner estate be satisfied remember who said The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head The best men in the world that have done most good in the world have least cared for the world and have been most willing to leave the world and go to a better 5. Christ is to be followed in his living a life so very beneficial doing good being his perpetual business The Apostle Peter who was one of his greatest and most constant attendants says that he went about doing good Act. 10.38 to do thus was meat and drink to him How great was his Kindness and Compassion to Souls how much Mercy does he shew to the Bodies of Men You that are Christians be very active in the best sence the true Members of Christ have the Spirit of the Head in them whose fruit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth Eph. 5.9 What have you Faith for but that it may work by Love Why are you created in Christ Jesus but that you may be employed in good works which God hath before ordained that you should walk in them Eph. 2.10 Be sure to do justly be injurious to none render unto all their dues and do not only consult the dues of others but their needs also and love to be merciful and let the perishing Souls as well as the distressed Bodies of others have a great share in your Compassions As you have opportunity do good unto all men and good of as many sorts as may be especially to the houshold of faith Gal. 6.10 The Apostle speaks with great authority and asseveration when he presses Christian practice This is a faithful saying and these things I will that thou affirm constantly that they who have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works these things are good and profitable unto men Tit. 3.8 A Christian by Profession who lives wickedly is not a true Member but a Monster in the Church and will not be endured long but is near to be cut off and destroy'd It 's a true Saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Death does not destroy the Soul but 't is an ill Life that ruins it 6. Christ is to be followed in his most profitable and edifying Communication We read Psal 45.2 That grace was poured into his Lips the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth were the wonder of the hearers Luk. 4.22 Exact truth always accompanied his Speeches he never spake a word that was offensive to God or injurious to any man Was he chargeable with guile or when he was reviled did he revile again No no he gave a better example he speaks words to awaken Sinners to search Hypocrites and how does he comfort the mourners calling all the weary and heavy laden to come to him for rest He takes occasion almost from every thing to discourse of the heavenly kingdom His parables of the sower of leaven of the Merchant man seeking goodly pearls and such like plainly shew that the most ordinary things may spiritually be improved unto great usefulness All Professours and especially you of London set a watch before the door of your lips and let your words be like the words of Christ Jesus Your lying and corrupt communication your slanderous and backbiting words your passionate and angry speeches and revilings are these like Christs language An unbridled tongue though it utters many a falshood yet it speaks one certain truth that your Religion is but vain Jam. 1.26 Let Conscience be tender and purpose with the Psalmist that your mouths shall not transgress Let the word of Christ be more in your Hearts for out of the abundance of the Heart the mouth speaks Let your speech be always with Grace Col 4.6 Discourse as those who do believe you are debtors of edifying words one to another that idle words are heard by him that is in Heaven and an account must be given of them in the day of judgement 7. Christ is to be followed in his manner of performing holy duties never was He negligent in an Ordinance His cries were strong his tears many Heb 5.7 and how does he wrestle with his Heavenly Father Christians should take heed of doing the work of God deceitfully they should be fervent in Spirit when serving the Lord Rom. 12.11 Look to your Hearts in all your performances for Gods eye is fixed upon them and if they are not present and right with him your duties are but dead duties and dead duties are really dead works so far from being acceptable that they are an abomination When Christ was here upon the Earth as he taught in other places so he went to the Temple and to the Synagogues though there was much corruption in the Jewish Church Christians should learn so much moderation as to own what is good even in them in whom there are mixtures of much that is bad and there should be a
on the good or evil to the comfort or the discomfort of the Church-Catholick or any particular Churches near to or far from you Nehemiah no doubt weigh'd the importance of the News brought to him from Jerusalem and it was thought reasonable that Israel in Egypt on the first appearance of Moses should have considered what Importance it was to see such a Man as Moses was how likely he might be to bring them out When the Edict for Israel's return out of Captivity was first spread as good News to the Jews none of them resented it aright who considered only his personal advantage by it They pray'd and prais'd God aright who look't into the Import of it to the whole Church The News of the death of Ahaz and Succession of Hezekiah is not enquired after till the certainty of the Reformation of Religion and the great change for the better in the Church is lookt into Julian's death was great and good newes to the Church and called for praise to God but those that considered not the influence it would have upon the Church for good if God rais'd up a Christian Successor must needs fall very far short in their prayer and praise When the News of the death of Edward the Sixth afflicted the hearts of Gods children in England and they mourn'd and pray'd as apprehensive of the consequences of the death of a pious Prince a Zealous Reformer a Hearty Lover of Truth and professor of it whilest he lay sick these considerations quickken'd them of that Age to beg his life So when the sickness of Queen Mary was the News on the Stage and her death would be the safety of the Church no wise Protestant enquired after the News without a thought how much it would benefit the Church to lose her III. Who Enquires as a Christian in order to manage Prayer and Praise should I think Enquire of those who can and will inform him the best most truly and sincerely of any News he knoweth There ever have been and now are persons who abuse the world with false Reports to amuse the more simple-hearted they dare coin Lies and cry out Wo Wo or Peace Peace very unagreeably to the nature and aspect of Affairs If you have a Friend who dares not wittingly spread a Lye nor deny a Truth and knows much of publick Occurrences thou mayest rely somewhat on his word thou mayest with greater confidence pray for the Church in deep Distress and Praise God for bringing it out of its Distress When we know the Church needs our Prayers it is most agreeable to God that we do pray If when we praise God for the Church in any particular if afterwards it appear we were deceived by false Reports the Enemy scoffs at us we should to the best of our knowledge pray and praise suitably to the real state of the Church It was a common practice in our late Civil Wars upon a fight that both Parties kept Thanksgiving Days when 't was not possible both should have the Victory this was highly Scandalous and each upbraided others with Hypocrisie Let us as much as in us lieth prevent such a reproof what we cannot be Eye-witness of but must take on Hear-say let us endeavour to be truly informed that both prayer and praises may be grounded on the Truth of things as they proceed from Truth of Heart Tragical Stories of Catholicks prosecuted in England when Garnet and some few others were executed for their unparallel'd Hellish Powder-Plot and Treason set many a deceived Papist into Tears and Prayers who had they known the Truth of things would have prais'd God for preserving their King and Countrey condemned the Traitors and own'd the Hand of God in the Discovery of the Plot and punishment of Plotters On the other side when bloody Men imbru'd their Hands in blood of many Thousand Innocents in the Parisian Massacre and the Irish Rebellion destroy'd Innocent Protestants by Hundreds of Thousands it is palliated with false Rumors to lessen the Horrour of the Fact the Barbarous Cruelty of the Actors as if a few turbulent persons had been prevented and fallen by the hands of Self-Defenders Which had it been a Truth who could have found in their hearts to pray for such But with respect to all such bloody usage of the Innocent Church in all Ages past and in this of ours we will pray with the Psalmist Let God be known by the avenging the blood of his Saints Psal 70.10 IV. Who Enquires as a Christian must Enquire with a Compassionate Affection to the suffering Churches of Christ or feeling their Wounds as living Members feel the griefs and wounds of the Body in what part soever preparing to help the whole and bear his own part as one who prefers Jerusalem above his chief â—oy and can heartily rejoyce in her prosperity as one whose heart is wounded with the same sword that woundeth Jerusalem and therefore bitterly bemoaneth and heartily prayeth for the bleeding Church Give us an Nehemiah who chap. 1. ver 4. sate down and wept when he heard sad tydings great distress and long desolations of Jerusalem When you Enquire with Jeremiah's wish Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears Jer. 9.1 To weep for the slain of the daughter of my people Such an heart doth as naturally pour out it self in prayers as it doth into tears and doth as naturally rejoyce with the rejoycing Church as it either wept or pray'd before When Christ foresaw and foretold the doleful state that Jerusalem should fall into he wept over her and so must every Christian weep over desolate and disconsolate Jerusâ—lem when he hears her Sorrows and prays for her Relief Among Natural Relations few there are who are not affected with grief for the Sorrows and troubles of a Brother there should not be one among Spiritual Relations but should with hearty grief entertain the News of Sorrows and distress upon the Church and give God no rest till he make her a quiet Habitation till he turn her Mourning into Joy till he take away the garments of her Widowhood and cloth her with the garments of his Salvation When we hear the sad Tydings with such a Heart as Josiah heard the Threats of the Law read in his presence 2 Chron. 34.27 ver then we are like to do as he did to seek the Lord to return to him and make a Covenant with him to serve him that he may turn away his displeasure and spare his people Josiah heard the news with a tender heart a melting heart and sent to Enquire of the Lord that he might know what was to be done by him and his People to prevent or defer or lessen the threatned Evil. V. When you Enquire into the present News that concerns the Church that you may the better pray for the Church or praise God on behalf of the Church Enquire into the sins of the Church with an humble mourning and repenting Heart So
Duty beforehand that as soon as he came to Capacity of Understanding he should not want for Attractives of his Affection to Convert and Cleave to God And no otherwise doth God deal with you You that know what your Baptism means do know so much Now no sooner do you Understand Consent unto and Profess the Imports of your Baptism but God calls you to his Holy Table There to confirm again and again with great frequency all the foresaid Promises O ye height length bredth and depth of the Divine Munificence and Kindness The Blessing of Abraham and every Iota of it comes on every sincere Convert Gal. 3.13 14. Speak Sirs is God so ill a Master that no offer can perswade you to return unto him Or What is there more than God has offered that you desire Or what further Confirmation and Ratification of his Promises than he gives do you crave Or which is that I listen after will you now straitway turn unto him And here right take on the Spiritual Robe the Ring and the Shoes And make Joy in Heaven and in this Congregation I do hope the Sun shall not go down before some of you are reconciled to God I have heard of a sinful Boy that offered to Convert presently if a Friend of his could make it out to him that he should fare the better for it in his Body and things of this Life Which being done he did Convert and lived and dyed an eminent Saint I am aware there is much of that Boys Spirit in all young People And it likes me to try whether I may so draw you with the Considerations that drew him Hear then what I say to evince that Conversion is a very Friend unto good Health Estate Mirth and Name that the state of Grace is in respect of these like the City Triocala one of Water-springs sweetest Vineyards choicest and Rocks most impregnable That when you once enter into Covenant with God your wants will be of nothing but things worse than nothing and wherever you are lodged the worst of your Wounds will be but Flea bites Or however ye are wounded ye can never be hurt Health is the Salt and sweetest Sawce of Life 'T is Sin Peoples own or their Ancestors or both that ordinarily is the working cause as well as deserving cause of sickness The Spirit and Grace and Service of God every way make for Health Particularly Temperance and good Conscience are the most benâ—gn of all things unto your Blood and Spirits And Converting Grace is not it self without them Go ask Physicians they will tell you Luxury and Lechery do make them an hundred Patients for every one that is made them by Fasting and Prayer No Precept of Christ is for any Duty Fasting it self unto Sickness if his precepts were observed they would prevent more than ever his Miracles healed If a good Man be at any time so weak as to hate his own Flesh he is not led to it by God's Spirit He ought indeed to beat it down and keep it in subjection to Gods Law and from the Usurpation of sinful Lusts But withal 't is those Lusts he is to mortifie and not his Body A Convert's Body is the Holy Ghost's Temple And if so be sure God will be kind unto it and his Servants ought to be duly careful of it An Estate is a very useful Hedge about you to keep off those many Proud that will be trampling upon all that is Poor And nothing raises or keeps up this Hedge like the Grace of God For it spirits you with Diligence which gets Riches with Humility which hates superfluity and saveth what is got with Charity which puts out all to Use and unto that Lord who never pays less than an hundred Fold in this Life it self Sin is this Hedge-breaker Rags are mostly Sins Livery When 't is otherwise and Sin makes you a Hedge it will be full of Snakes and Snares In the fullness of sinful sufficience you will be in straits And 't is odds but the Straits will be long and the Fullness a very little while On the other hand when a Converts Duty to God makes him poor it makes him rather a Martyr than a Beggar For he thereby testifies God's Truth and through the Truth of God to his Covenant he abounds in the middle of his wants For God doth but prune his Vines he burns up none but Thorns By Poverty he may undo Sinners but he still enricheth Saints Do but Convert you can never want what is truly good for you while God has it The first Minute that a great Estate begins to be good for you you shall have it And if you never have a Great one you shall still have a Good one Whereas Unconverts can have but one of these two a vexing Adversity or what is worse a slaying Prosperity One made of thick Clay and deeper Cares Mirth and Comfort are the Hony and Sweetness of your Beings Now Conversion makes exchange but no Robbery of these There is in Africa an Hony lusciously sweet but the Bees gather it from poysonous Weeds and it affects with madness and Frenzy all that eat of it He were no Thief that should take that sort of Hony from you and give the most wholesom to you Conversion deals no otherwise by you Only what it gives is more sweet as more wholsom And the quantity greater as well as the quality better For observe ye God forbids not any one Kind or Degree of pleasures but what is injurious And what your very Nature Reason and Interest do forbid you I deny it not Converts have Valleys of Troubles but then they have doors of Hope They are in Wildernesses but God prepares them Tables therein Dryest Rocks yield them Water and in darkest Dungeons they have shining Lights They receive here their Evil things and have their Hell upon Earth but then 't is a Heaven upon Earth to think this is all the Hell they shall ever endure And as for the Wayes he commandeth Converts to walk in they are all of Pleasantness Mysteriously yet most certainly Godly sorrow is made a sweet thing Every Week almost have I People crying for more of it than I think God allows them O Youth scies cum fies when thou art a Convert thou shalt feel what I tell thee No such Manna falls in Calabria none falls from Heaven like that which feasteth the Camps of sincere Converts The Convert state hath of the Joy as well as of the Purity of Heaven Unthought of Delights Such as don't Dye in the Enjoyment No but be stronger than Death as well as sweeter than Life Such as none of the Busie-bodies of this World ever found in the Mills of their Business or the Circles of their pleasure Gilboa's Mountains had not Rain or Dew Unconvert Youths have not Joy or Peace Madness is theirs Mirth they know not The three Hebrew Martyrs were merrier in the fiery Furnace than their Persecutor was in his
Galatians than the Romans for the same fault Because the Galatians had been fore-instructed and sinned against more Light In all the Bible though it be an History of more then Four Thousand Years we read of but one that converted just before his Death And we do believe that he also did convert at his first convincing-call Rarely do any savingly Convert who do not upon their first convictions Convert St. Austin's stifled Convictions cost him dear You that will make so bold with Conscience as Spira did should expect to roar for it here as he did or hereafter to fare worse than many hope him to do They are considerable Divines who are not hopeless of his Salvation R. 5. You dye and go to Judgment as ordinarily in your young dayes as others in their older Therefore 't is your Duty to convert presently Come stand forth the liveliest Spark of you all and tell us if you can that no body was ever known to dye at your Years Or if there did your Life is no such Vapor your Flesh no such grass as theirs You know our Weekly Bills of Mortality would shame you And the great multitudes of Graves of all sorts every where You do know your own vanity in putting far from your Minds the fatal day that cannot be thrust off one Minute from your Persons It is an undenyable Truth the day of Life and of Grace be not always of a Length And that if they were that could be no warrant for delaying the work of your Salvation But one would think your Life's uncertainty it self if considered should be of weight enough to press you unto hast And make your wilful delay as impossible unto you as 't is Impious For you are not Papists And if you were Prayers for you after death you could not think regularly to obtain They do not hold it lawful to pray for any after their death that do not Repent and Convert in their Life If you dye unconverted your Fathers and Mothers are taught to consent to your being damned And the best Friends you have be forbid to pray for your being took out of Hell or your being cooled in it You do not imagine I hope that a cold drying God be merciful to you just before death is a saving Conversion If it were we might say Heaven is the receptacle of the most and worst of men And a great part of the Scripture is took up in requiring our needless Labor But we are well sure of the contrary Though you ought to be told also that if it were really so yet were your delay still a prodigious Folly Being of your ability to utter those words at your death you are as uncertain as of any thing And you have little reason to think that your present Obstinacy shall not then be punished with at least Impotency Oh Death of Judgment come look you in the Faces of these secure young Folks Shew your selves unto them ask them whether upon sight of you they can think two or three broken words preparation enough for your Terrors And that it can be time enough to think of peace with God when Pain will not let men be able to think three thoughts together of him I knew an excellent Person that used to Exclaim O Lord Pain will not let one think upon thee R. 6. You as much as elder people are absurd in your promises to Convert hereafter Therefore it is your Duty to Convert presently It is no easie thing to ascend to the height of Atheism in which alone you can dare say There is no God or None that you are bound penitently to convert unto or You will not whatever follows ever Turn to him Wherefore you must be dumb or find somewhat else to say Very many I suspect to Harbor in them a dumb Devil and to say little to themselves about matters between God and their Souls But many there are in whom Conscience will not be so easily muzzled But will have somewhat said or else give no quiet For want of all things beside this is said Hereafter I will convert But who has bewitch'd hearers of the Gospel Neither Law nor Gospel it self knows any way to Heaven by a delayed Conversion The Law requires continuing the Gospel requires Beginning and Persevering neither admit of Delaying Gal. 3.10 Cursed be every one young and old that continues not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them Did you not only Intend but Begin and that this present minute not only to wish but to do not only some but all things of the Law The Law for all this would damn you without Mercy for having ever ceased to do all Glory be to God in the highest for the blessed Gospel And what says that Why Act. 16.31 Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved Thou art a sinner a sinner grievous against Law Gospel and Conscience But what then Believe now on the Lord Jesus Turn to God by him dutifully God will draw nigh to thee graciously But neither there or any where is it said If thou art not minded to believe presently do but promise hereafter to do it thou shalt be saved And for your lives young People consider after Law and Gospel but Example and Presidents When Christ call'd his Disciples all follow'd him presently VVhen the Three Thousand were preached to and were convinced they were converted presently So the Jailor Act. 16. converted straitway But look we a little into these your words you will convert hereafter Fall they not into these two parts 1. We will not Convert now 2. We will hereafter First You will not Convert now That is You will abide Rebels to God Devils to your self Vassals to the Devil Idolizers of this vain VVorld c. This you will do though you know it Vnjust Vnsafe Vnprofitable Vngrateful and all that is worst And though you would think it hard if God should hold you in such a state against your Wills Or suffer Satan to keep you in it by force This you will do though you know if God should now use you like your selves that is like unreconcilable Enemies even against his very intreaties you must be sent quick to Hell Though you know too that every sin you commit makes Conversion harder if ever it be made and Hell hotter for you if it be not made This ye will do of Choice you will And because you will without any Reasons that you dare to produce or let mortal Men hear you speak Secondly You will Convert hereafter Thy Power Foolish Creature thy Power Where is thy Power thy Will or thy Reason Thy Power Man Canst thou live as long as thou wilt Or canst thou keep what ability God has now given thee for Conversion and make it more when thou wilt Canst thou save thy self from Distraction Delusions of Satan c. Art thou able thy self to supply thy self with necessaries Natural and Supernatural now and hereafter