113.5 6. as well as in heaven to converse with men as well as Angels As the Sun in heaven is far above us and yet doth not disdain to inlighten and warm and quicken the poorest worm that crawls upon the earth as well as the Eagle that soars aloft above the clouds and can gaze the Sun in the face Let not therefore any poor soul be discouraged and think or say It is not for such a worm for such a nothing as I am to aspire to acquaintance and converse with God No no Men may be too high for thee to reach and too great for thee to grasp and compass acquaintance with but the great God will stoop to entertain acquaintance with thee if thou wilt acquaint thy self with him He disdaineth not the acquaintance of the least of men nor of the greatest of sinners Such was the condescension of the divine nature that it disdained not the near acquaintance with the humane nature to take it into personal union with himself and such was the condescension of God in our nature that when he was upon earth he disdained not the acquaintance of those who upon common account were the vilest of men even Publicans and sinners Mat. 9.11 And such is still the gracious condescension of God in Christ that he disdaineth not the acquaintance of the meanest Persons or vilest sinners that seek acquaintance of him Nay Secondly He offers and tenders this acquaintance to them and this is not usual for great persons to do to their Inferiours he intreateth and beseecheth poor sinners that they would be reconciled to him and acquainted with him And this he doth Thirdly Out of his meer grace and favour only for their good and benefit not for any gain or advantage to himself Can a man be profitable to God saith Eliphaz No Job 22.2 God cannot be a gainer by our acquaintance that he offers it seeks it is for our good and benefit that we may be made happy and blessed by it O then let not this grace of God be in vain to us but accept we this gracious offer of God acquainting our selves with him CHAP. VI. Particularly exhorting those that never yet had acquaintance with God now to labour for it With Directions for the attaining of it NOw here are three sorts that I would apply my self unto First Those that never yet were acquainted with God My Exhortation to them shall be that they would now acquaint themselves with God now presently without any further delay Secondly To those that have acquainted themselves with God that they would labour to keep and maintain their acquaintance with him inviolate and uninterrupted Thirdly To those whose acquaintance with God is intermitted and they have in a manner lost it that they would labour to renew it First Such as never yet had any acquaintance with God O labour now to get into acquaintance with him Acquaint thy self now with him now presently immediately without any further delay O consider how long you have lived strangers to God already enemies to God already Is it not enough that you have lived twenty thirty forty fifty years already without any intimacy or acquaintance with God O if you love God if you love your own souls live not a day longer live not an hour longer in that strange condition The time past of our life may suffice us to have lived in lasciviousness lust excess of wine 1 Pet. 4.3 c. saith the Apostle Peter And it is high time to awake out of sleep saith the Apostle Paul Rom. 13.11 So say I the time past may suffice us to have lived without God in the world and it is now high time for every one of us to begin to acquaint our selves with him Acquaint therefore now thy self with him Now now while God is pleased to offer and tender this acquaintance Now is the day of grace 2 Cor. 6.2 now is the accepted time Now while the golden scepter is held forth while the Gospel is preached unto you To day if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts Heb. 3.7 If God speak to your hearts and bespeak your acquaintance with him see that ye refuse not him that speaketh but acquaint thy self now with him If any say Quest But how shall we do to get this acquaintance with God I answer Answ O that there were such a heart in you O that every one into whose hands the providence of God shall bring this poor Treatise were come thus far to seek after God as seriously to enquire how they might be acquainted with God! you that are so take these directions First Labour to be fully convinced of an absolute necessity of acquainting your selves with God Look upon it as your great duty look upon it as that upon which not only the comfort of your lives but the eternal salvation of your souls doth depend There are three times especially wherein this acquaintance with God will be found of great and absolute necessity First In a time of common calamity Such a time as our Saviour speaks of Luke 21.25 26. When there shall be distress of Nations upon the earth with perplexity mens hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things that are coming upon the earth and how near such times may be to us and how fast they may be hastening upon us who can tell O then happy are those that have acquaintance with God they have a friend an acquaintance that will not fail them when their own hearts are ready to fail them and would undoubtedly fail them were it not for their acquaintance with God Whereas they that have not acquainted themselves with God will find God himself a terrour to them in the day of their calamity God will deal with them as he threatens I will shew them the back Jer. 18.17 and not the face in the day of their calamity Secondly In the day of death then acquaintance with God will be found absolutely necessary There is no man but when he comes to lye a dying would be glad to have God his friend and to receive his soul into his presence and favour Into thy hands Lord I commend my spirit Lord Jesus receive my soul is the prayer or at least the wish of every dying man and woman that doth not dye like Nabal stupid and senseless as a stock or stone But do you think that God will do this for every one at the first asking surely no. They that never regarded to acquaint themselves with God in the time of their life God will not so easily own them at the hour of their death but they that have acquainted themselves with God in the time of their life they may with much comfort and assurance commend their souls into the hand of God when they are at the point of death And may say with Paul 2 Tim. 1.12 I know whom I have believed and that he is able to keep
that have ever had experience of acquaintance with God if they have not found more true real solid joy and comfort in one quarter of an hours secret converse with God yea in one friendly look or word of God than ever they did in all their lives besides you that are strangers to this I know will not believe it nor cannot think it but those that have experience of it will bear me witness that I speak the truth in Christ I lye not nor hyperbolize What is the comfort and joy of heaven it self but the presence of God sweet communion and converse with God so far therefore as we can attain this upon earth so far we have an heaven upon earth The Jews have a saying concerning the last day of the feast of Tabernacles which Scripture calls the last and great day of the feast Joh. 7.37 that he who never knew the joy of that day never knew joy in all his life but I am sure it is much more true here he that never knew the comfort and joy of acquaintance with God never knew true joy and comfort in all his life Well if all this that hath been said of the profit honour and comfort of acquaintance with God be not enough to perswade you that it is the great concernment of every one of you to get and keep this acquaintance I have but one thing more to add and that is that it is necessary for every one of you to acquaint your selves with God For tell me can you be content when you shall come to lye a dying and then knock at the gate of mercy saying Lord Lord open unto us Luke 13.25 can you be content that God should answer you as it is there I know you not whence you are Or can you be content that when you come to appear before the judgment-seat of Christ he should profess to you I never knew you Mat. 7.23 depart from me ye workers of iniquity If not O then labour to get acquaintance with God and Christ now for can you imagine that God and Christ will know them in death and judgment who care not for knowing him and acquainting themselves with him in the time of their lives CHAP. IV. Calling us to take notice of the wonderful condescension of God towards us in vouchsafing to admit us into his Acquaintance and of the madness and folly of those that care not for this Acquaintance HEre then see the infinite goodness and condescension of God towards us his poor and worthless creatures who though he be infinitely above us and stands not at all in need of of us nor cannot be in the least benefited or advantaged by us or by his acquaintance with us but before there was made either Man or Angel he was infinitely satisfied and infinitely blessed in the enjoyment of himself yet was he pleased to create Angels and Men not only to a fitness and capacity of but unto an actual communion and acquaintance with himself which was more than needed on God's part or was owing on our parts and when we like foolish and unthankful wretches upon the very first motion of the devil gave away this honour and happiness of acquaintance and communion for an apple as Esau sold his birth-right for a mess of pottage and thereby not only made our selves unworthy for ever to be admitted into Gods favour and acquaintance but unfit for it too as well as unworthy that God should yet please to stoop so low as to take us yet again into acquaintance with himself this speaks the wonderful goodness of God his infinite 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or love to mankind When Esau had once undervalued the birth-right so far as to sell it for a mess of pottage though afterwards it grieved him for what he had done and he sought earnestly and that with tears to recover that blessing and birth-right which he had so foolishly lost yet it could not be so God might have dealt with Adam and every one of us The Text tells us Adam lived 930 years after his sin now if Adam had spent all those years in nothing but weeping and mourning for his folly and madness in parting with his birth-right his acquaintance and communion with God for an apple and in seeking earnestly and that with tears to recover communion and acquaintance with God again and after all had been denyed it yet God had been altogether just and righteous But behold the kindness of God and his love towards mankind As it is said of David when Absalom by his villanies had banished himself from his Fathers Court and presence it is said The soul of King David longed to go forth unto Absalom that is 2 Sam. 13.39 Davids heart was full of fatherly affection towards him and he longs to be friends with him again so did the heart of God even long towards man after his sin and fall and he did even long to be friends with him again and to renew his acquaintance and converse with him And this gracious disposition of his towards sinful man this great desire and inclination which God hath after peace and renewed acquaintance with sinful man God hath abundantly declared and testified First By appointing ordaining and giving one to be a Mediator a Reconciler a Peace-maker a Friend-maker between God and us Secondly By appointing and giving no other nor meaner Person to this work than his own blessed and dear Son who is the express image of his person Heb. 1.3 and the brightness of his glory Thirdly By giving this Son of his to be a Mediator not only by way of Intercession but also by way of satisfaction to make peace for us by paying our debts and satisfying for our sins which he could not do but by shedding his blood and laying down his precious life and yet rather than God would quite lose and abandon all his interest in us and acquaintance with us he would not spare his own Son Fourthly By testifying and proclaiming unto all men in the Ministry of the Gospel that he is reconciled to the world 2 Cor. 5.19 20. and by recalling and inviting sinners unto peace and acquaintance with himself Fifthly By profering his acquaintance unto sinners upon such easie and as I may say such cheap terms namely that we should repent of and cease from our hating of him and our being enemies to him and enter into a league of unfeigned love and friendship with him and would any of us take one that hath been our enemy into our acquaintance upon other terms than these Sixthly By his not only offering acquaintance with us upon those terms by his Embassadours his Ministers but by his coming personally by his Spirit to our several hearts inviting and solliciting us to this acquaintance According to that of our Lord Jesus Christ Behold I stand at the door and knock Rev. 3.20 if any man hear my voice and open to me I will come in to him
that good thing that I have committed unto him against that day It was a noble speech of good Dr. Preston when he lay a dying and full of Christian confidence and comfort I shall change my place but not my company The meaning was that he had so acquainted himself with God here upon earth and had so much conversed with him that now that he was to dye his company should still be the same after death that it was in life How far are they from being able to speak this at their death that have had no care to acquaint themselves with God and to converse with him in the course of their life Thirdly In the day of Judgment it will then be necessary that you should have acquaintance with God Can you your selves imagine but that God who is the righteous Judge of all the world will in that great day look and judge and pronounce far otherwise upon those that have been here acquainted with him than upon those that have lived and dyed strangers and enemies to him To the one he will say Come ye blessed ye have known me and I have known you you have loved me and I have loved you you have visited me and I have visited you and you have thankfully and gladly entertained those visits you have been of my old acquaintance many a prayer have I received from you and many a tear have you dropt into my bottle come therefore come ye blessed inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world But to the other he will say go ye cursed ye have not known me ye have not loved me ye have not regarded to acquaint your selves with me ye have set at nought all my counsels and would none of my reproofs ye have said unto me depart from us we desire not the knowledge of thy wayes Therefore now I say unto you depart from me into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels O dreadful sentence dreadful to hear intolerable to bear which yet ye can no wayes avoid but by acquainting your selves with God You must of necessity acquaint your selves with God or dye miserably and perish eternally O press these and the like considerations upon your selves till you be throughly and effectually convinced of an absolute necessity of acquainting your selves with God Then Secondly Labour to be seriously and deeply humbled that you have lived so â—ong as you have done and lived unacquainted with God Let me plead with you as Moses doth with Israel Do ye thus requite the Lord O foolish people Deut. 32.6 and unwise is not he thy father that hath bought thee hath he not made thee and established thee Is not he that God that hath given thee life and being that hath preserved thee upheld thee maintained thee fed thee clothed thee is not he the God in whose hands thy breath and all thy ways are upon whose pleasure and favour thou dependest for all thy present and eternal good who is able to kill or cause to live to save or to destroy to make blessed or to make miserable to all eternity And hast thou lived twenty thirty or forty years before this God yea upon this God and all this while never acquainted thy self at all with him O what unthankfulness what disingenuity what folly what brutishness is this If thou hadst fed a horse or a dog but the tenth part of that time that God hath fed thee he would have taken more knowledge and acquaintance of thee than thou didst ever do of God Yea thou hast not only not acquainted thy self with God but thou hast not cared thou hast not regarded to acquaint thy self with him but hast lived in a continual mindlessness and regardlessness of God Of the rock that begat thee Deut. 32.18 thou art unmindful and hast forgotten the God that formed thee Yea thou hast not only neglected acquaintance with God but thou hast despised it undervalued it preferred converse with the world and with thy lusts above converse and acquaintance with God as if a man should prefer the company and consortship of beggars and thieves and whores and such like lewd persons before the favour familiarity and acquaintance of his Sovereign King such an affront hast thou put upon the great God of heaven and earth O let the thoughts of this afflict and humble thee in time or else know that hereafter it will torment thee to all eternity and make thee tear thy flesh and gnaw thy tongue and curse thy self for rage indignation at this thy present folly Thirdly When you have thus convinced your selves of a necessity of getting acquaintance with God and humbled your selves for living so long without acquaintance with God Then in the third place be careful to remove those things which may be bars in your way and may obstruct and hinder your acquaintance with God Now what is that why sin and only sin Sin is the wall of separation between God and us that keeps God and us from meeting together and from acquainting one with another Your sins have separated between God and you and have hid his face from you Isa 59.2 Therefore saith God Wash you make you clean Isa 1.16 17. put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil learn to do well Come now and let us reason together As if God had said Ay now you have repented and made your selves clean from sin now you are fit for God to treat withal before you were not fit to come near him nor approach his presence A rebel that would be admitted into his Princes favour and acquaintance must first throw down his weapons of rebellion so must they that would have any acquaintance with God they must put away sin all sin Sin is the only thing that God hates and is an enemy against for its own sake they therefore that would have any acquaintance with God must renounce all acquaintance and familiarity with sin If I regard iniquity in my heart Psal 66.18 God will not hear my prayer Let a man pray never so often and never so earnestly and beg acquaintance with God never so much yet if he regard iniquity in his heart God will not regard him nor his prayers We must therefore resolve to break off all our leagues with sin to give a bill of divorce to every lust to renounce for ever all acquaintance with sin or else to renounce all acquaintance with God Now which of these two would you rather do Fourthly When you have thus convinced your selves of a necessity of acquainting your selves with God and have humbled your selves for living so long without acquaintance with God and have not only resolved but have actually renounced every evil way you must not now think that for your humiliation or for your repentance or for your forsaking of your sins God is obliged or bound to take you for his friends or to admit you into his acquaintance