into the grave if hee had not fallen into transgression Man dyed not because his nature was subject to corruption but because sin had corrupted his nature Man was wholly a stranger to death till acquainted with sin There is no man that lives that shall not see death Death will finde every man and connive at no man The glorious end wee should aim at in life is not to study how wee might injoy the comforts of life but how wee may overcome the discouragements of death Death is alwayes drawing nearer and nearer whether you improve your time or throw away your time Men ordinarily leave the earth when they are most busie about it Those must dye that shall not bee damned It is a good minde in a man to bee content to dye and willing to live but to bee willing to dye and content live is the minde of a strong Christian To labour not to dye is labour in vain to live without fear of death is to dye liveing The comforts of life are no rational comforts till you bee freed from the terrours of death What comforts of life can bee sweet when a man is afraid of death and uncertain of life Seldome doth hee dye well that lives ill They are fools that give away their souls for nothing Prevention is better than confusion Hee lives twice that bestows the fore part of his time well That man that lives to dye shall dye to live The way to dye well is to dye often often and seriously think of dying and then sin if thou canst A dram of grace will bee more worth to you when you come to dye than a sea of gifts A man may live by a form hee cannot dye by a form Remember this the bellows of death will blow the spark of sincerity into a flame and the blaze of formality into nothing Hee neither fears nor feels death that hath his hopes in heaven Though death bee terrible yet innocency is bold Christ by death in death delivers us from death If hee dyed that you might live with him do not desire to live long from him 1 If you would live well take heed where you live even the place of pleasure is dangerous 2 In learning to live study how to dye hee loses all his time that knows not how to end his time 3 Dye you must bee active for God whilst you live You that must dye shortly had need to live strictly The way to have great confidence when you dye is to get and keep a good conscience whilst you live Mans life may bee very short it cannot bee long the time of man is a long death but it is but a short life Mens principles speak the shortness of life but their practises speak the eternity of life Time is but short but eternity is long If a wicked man would bee happy hee must make time long and eternity short As time is the measure of his sin so eternity is the measure of his punishment Prepare for an enemy that is alwayes getting ground of you not only the approaches of death are perpetual but insensible Make sure of death that you bee not miserable in death and after death When I was a young man saith Seneca my care was to live well and when age came I studied how to dye well The right way to dye well is to live well and the right way to live well is to dye betimes to sin the world and self You must dye make sure of an interest in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ Christ will do you good when you come to die so will the power of godliness AFter death comes Judgement At that day the wicked shall know Gods forbearance is no acquittance Wicked men are surely ordained to punishment as godly men are ordained to deliverance Though the Saints may bee losers for Gods word yet they shall lose nothing by God It cannot bee long before the worlds Funerals and the birth day of Judgement Though wee sleep in sin judgement slumbers not The Lord Jesus Christ hee is judge not onely of the fact but of the heart Make the Judge your friend Get him that is your Judge to bee your Advocate It is not the varnish of profession Christ will respect at that day unless hee see the workmanship of the Holy Ghost in the heart The wicked may drink a sea of wrath but they shall not sip one drop of injustice The sinner beeing self-condemned shall clear the Judge Christs first coming was to unite his second coming shall bee to separate That heart that would not break with sorrow for sin shall now bee rent thorow with despair They that would not weep for their sins shall now barn for their sins To bear this will bee intollerable to avoid this will bee impossible Sinners they must come to the Bar and they are sure to bee cast at the Bar. If you have not a part in the blood of the Lamb you shall bee sure to have a part in the wrath of the Lamb. But if thou hast no sins of allowance thou shalt have grains of allowance One dram of grace is too good to go to hell ALL that will expect to bee saved must wait upon the foolishness of preaching The creature as a creature is indispensibly bound to serve God Pray privately hear publickly God never comes so nigh to the soul as when hee enters into the ear It is preaching that brings hearing and hearing that brings faith and faith salvation As God will bee worshipped in Spirit so in truth not onely in opposition to the Ceremonial Law but in opposition to the hypocrisie of the heart That man never received the word in the power of it that never received it in the perpetuity of it Instability is alwayes a sure note of insincerity God looks more at the manner of the duty than the matter it is not what you do but how you do not how much but how well As God will have you holy because hee is holy so you must worship him in spirit because hee is a Spirit What is the reason that men sleep so securely after so many Sermons they say with Samuel It is onely mans voice The outward teachings of man is of no power without the inward teachings of Gods Spirit Christ revealed to us differenceth us from Pagans Christ revealed in us severeth us from Reprobates It is not thy hearing of mans voice but thy subjection to Gods voice that begets thee anew to God As hee sins that gives not God the hearing so hee sins that only gives God the hearing The word is never spoken in vain though it may bee often heard in vain it either purifies or consumes Gospel-ordinances you will finde either ripen your graces or ripen your corruptions The word of God is an enemy to none but them that are enemies to themselves No worship is a breach of the first Commandement false worship is a breach of the second Commandement Will-worship is alwayes false
heart is then most fit to pour out a prayer to God when it is lowest in the apprehensions of misery When you hear David praying for mercy it is a sign he is in misery There is no want so great but prayer will help Prayer is the most efficacious Engine a man can work by for what is in the power of God the same is in man by prayer Prayer is a calling upon God Prayer AS Christs prayer was not so ours must not be a bare manifestation of our mindes unto God but a holy arguing with God No natural man can pray he is muzzled You may be able to word it in prayer but you cannot have a prayer in the sight of God as well as in the sight of man without the Spirit of prayer Do not judge of your having the Spirit of prayer by your freedome of utterance in prayer by your constant performance of prayer nor by your extraordinary inlargements under prayer but by the inward reaching of your heart after God It is the panting soul that is the praying soul Watch unto prayer not onely to keep off drowsiness but to eye providence To pray and do nothing else is in effect to do nothing less Let not your practice bee a confutation of your prayers lest the day of supplication prove a day of provocation Remember this If you regard iniquity in your heart God will not hear your prayers Then is a good prayer when God doth not onely confirm thy hopes in prayer but conform thy life to prayer In duties wee can do nothing with God as they are our duties but God will do something in us If stoln waters bee sweet to wicked men begged meat is much more sweet to godly men Wee are too ready after wee have done well to lye down and catch cold When wee have pleased the Lord in lawful duties to please our selves in unlawful liberties ASk thy self often what sin have I left It is not the converting but the converted sinner that is the true penitent All that are converted shall bee saved but all that shall bee saved are not converted Hee that confesseth his sin and turns to it again repents of his repentance Hee that repents provides for after repentings God gives heaven to a man that is fit for heaven there is no aptness in a sinner for heaven that repenteth not Repentance REpentance is an universal turning from all sin even unto God Though repentance and turning from sin doth not deserve heaven yet it fits us for mercy and pardon It is against the Justice of God to give pardon without repentance though repentance doth not profit God yet repentance pleaseth God Such as are kinde and merciful to their sins that love not their sins should bee spoken against never repented Health and freedome from sickness is a great mercy pardon of sin is a greater for this is the ground of the other Take heed of sinning lest you teach God to punish you When you see a man sinning at a high rate do not sensure him but say Why am I so low in grace To delight in mens sins is the sport of Devils Recovery from those sins is the joy of Angels The eye of the Lord is more upon the root of sin than upon the act of sin Nature makes a soul sensible of the act of sin the Spirit of the root of sin Nature presents to us the painfulness of sin the Spirit the sinfulness of sin Nature makes sensible of gross sins the Spirit of the least sin as well as the greatest The Spirit teaches to measure every sin by the greatness of God and so no sin is little If you would keep from the act of sin avoid the occasion of sin They that confess and forsake not are onely dog-sick when they have disgorged their stomachs they will return to their vomit Every sin a beleever commits deserves damnation but no sin shall condemn but the living and continuing in it As it is not the falling into the water that drowns but lying in it so it is not the falling into sin that damns but dying in it Neither good nor bad at the last day shall bee judged by every one of his actions but by all not according to his steps but according to his wayes There will bee every dayes pollution let there bee every dayes purifying The Devil will bee at his work bee you at your work To him that knoweth to do good and doth it not to him it is sin It is not the body that sins it is the soul that sins A Christian should alwayes have this care that the iniquity of his hands may bee cleansed and the filthiness of his heart purged The Spirit of God loves clean hands and the holiness of God loves a pure heart To bee alwayes suffering and never repenting is the property of infernal spirits Wise men that set themselves against God they very wittily go to hell Could you but think what bitter pains your sweet sins will cost you would bee provident you durst not but bee innocent Sin drives a man from himself and from God Conversion it brings a man to himself and unto God when the Prodigal was come to himself hee returned to his Father Wee never go below our selves but when wee sin Wee do not go below our selves when wee suffer Holiness hath a silent excellency in it Sin hath a secret deformity No person in the world that sin doth so much defile as a childe of God and no person in the world that sin doth so ill with as a childe of God It is a spotting time let the Saints take heed The eclipse of the Sun is more observed than the shining of the Sun Sin becomes no man more ill becomes a wise man Finde out your sins before Gods judgements find you out It is good to bee beforehand with God If you are inclined to intemperance take heed of ill company When drunkenness sayes Come say No I have got a new acquaintance Wee must consider our own wayes before wee can turn our feet to Gods testimonies The house of God is the worst place to sin in The Lord is in the middest of his people there must bee no hypocrite there The City where God dwells must bee a holy City and the Mountain a holy Mountain Holiness becommeth thy house O Lord for ever There is nothing that the Law can call sin but the Gospel can pardon Do your sins reach as high as Heaven Christ is above them Christ hath as much compassion as thou hast iniquity Christ is sensible of a sinners condition every sin-labouring soul is a welcome guest to Christ But remember this sin cannot bee killed without the death of Christ nor mortified without the Spirit of Christ Conversion is your first work then mortification However Christ makes intercession in heaven for his own people hee doth not speak a word for the wicked AS the thread followeth the needle so death followeth sin Man had never fallen
Covenant applies this promise and rests upon Christ for justification Therefore of faith that it might bee by grace therefore of faith to the end the promise might bee sure to all the seed Faith is the root of a Christians conversation and a Christians conversation is the fruit of faith Many measure their faith by perswasion but I had rather measure my faith by the power of mortification so much as it sanctifies so much it is faith cannot conduce to the act of redemption but faith conduces to our justification You are to act faith upon God that the promise may bee returned Wherefore do I believe because God hath promised Wherefore do I hope because faith believes Wherefore do I wait because hope expects An easie faith is always a false faith Hee that never found it hard to believe never believed A fruitless faith is alwaies a false faith It is not the work faith nor the works of faith but faith with her proper work by which wee are justified By faith the person is justified and by works the faith is justified Though faith alone doth justifie yet not that faith which is alone Christians should not onely labour to be justified by faith but they should labour to justifie their faith Shew mee thy invisible faith by thy visible life God doth justifie a man by his faith hee doth not justifie him for his faith Faith is the Engine by which wee do all by which wee prevail with God and overcome the world it must not onely live in us but wee must live by it Faith it grows in the exercise Do what you can for faith though your doing will not come up to believing and say not that you cannot believe for if you go not thus far to do what you can your unbelief is not from your cannot but from your will not Go and put forth that faith thou art able to put forth and in the end God will make it a spiritual believing As the water Christ commanded to bee poured out was turned into wine by the pouring of it out so deal with Christ Jesus for believing and in the end God will turn thy faith which is but water into wine Thou wilt believe thy self into believing You ought to believe till you bee perswaded that you do believe for the more you do believe the more you shall bee perswaded to believe By frequency of believing you shall feel at your very heart that you do believe 1 Joh. 5.10 If repentance accompany faith it is no presumption to believe but it is presumption to look for mercy in a way of unbelief Beware of unbelief for it is a shelter to sin all your life As faith is the shield of the new man so unbelief is the shield of the old man As the shield of faith doth quench the fiery darts of the Devill so unbelief doth quench the fiery darts of God This unbelief removes all the blocks that lie in the way of sin as belief removes all the blocks that lie in the way of holiness Unbelief it robs God the Father at once of all his Attributes it robs God the Son of the Glory of his triumph over Sin Death and Hell it robs God the Holy-Ghost of his seals to thy evidence of pardon The Spirit seals to thy soul the pardon of thy sins and unbelief comes and tears thy evidences and breaks the seals Labour as much for faith in the threatnings as for faith in the promises And remember this though other sins merit hell yet it is this sin of unbelief onely that puts you into damnation AS great sins are not easily to bee reformed so great mercies are not soon obtained When the stream of thankfulness is not returned the tide of mercy stops Although God looks for nothing in us to bestow his love upon us nor for nothing from us as the ground of the continuance of his love to us yet wee are to bee highly thankful for any little the Lord gives and to be humble and judge our selves worthy of nothing when the Lord denies Mercy is not the purchase of the creature but the gift of God Follow God close with your praises that goes before you in his mercies As praises are the seasonable fruit under mercies so humiliation and prayers are the seasonable fruit under troubles Sinners may speak good words of God it is only comly for the upright to praise God Thanksgiving it is the proper work of Christians and the natural work of Angels A little makes a thankful man admire much Oh how big are a thankful mans mercies and how little hee Bee careful for nothing but by prayer and supplication make your requests known to God with thanksgiving Daies of thanksgiving and prayer are helps to the duties God requires from us they are not our onely business When wee pray and give thanks it is not the onely business of the day but these are helps to us that wee may persevere and improve our obedience Though our goodness reaches not to God yet it should to the Saints If God be rich in mercy unto us it is that we should be rich in good works unto others It is good to receive a mercy from God it is better to improve a mercy Great and renewed receivings from God should beget fresh quick and strong resolutions of obedience unto God The more holy fire there is in the service the more pleasing the service When ever you serve God it must bee with fear when ever you praise God it must bee with trembling Though I cannot praise God sufficiently yet Christ can ALl have a call of inexcusableness few have a call of effectualness Grace is not denied to the wicked but it is onely given to the weary By grace is meant the love and favour of God within himself and is the spring and fountain of all that good which hee doth give out unto his children As grace is communicative so it is called goodness As it is with delight so it is called love as it is given out to man in state of misery so it is called mercy as it is dispensed freely so it is called grace When the Spirit works a man for salvation then doth the Spirit pour forth those graces and exercises those operations without which you cannot live grace Notwithstanding Christ hath paid the price of salvation yet you shall not bee saved without the Spirits application The Spirit is the executor of that will of which Christ is the Testator Christ gives the Legacies but the Spirit paies them Christ is the Mediator of the new Covenant and the Spirit is the Administrator of that Covenant You can no more expect to be renewed without the Spirit than to bee saved without the Son As you cannot bee saved unredeemed so you cannot bee saved unrenewed A graceless man shall never inherit heaven A graceless man is a cruel man to his own soul As sinners are given up to sin so those that have really profited by
time of peace hee will bee thy Tower in a time of trouble Those that are under the government of Christ are sure to bee provided for by Christ Unto whom Christ is a King to rule them he is a strong tower to secure them Christs power is beyond the distresses of his people Our difficult work is Christs work If thou wouldest not fear temporal judgements when they come strengthen thy faith and bee much in prayer before they come As faith gets up so fear gets down the strength of fear is from weakness of faith All our spiritual swouns come from unbelief The way for a Christian not to act his fear is to act his faith The creature is not much to bee feared You cannot fear man too much but you fear God too little The main sin that brings destruction upon men is trusting to men and not to God Fear addes much to our vexation nothing to our safety When fear prevails take a promise and plead it by faith If you go to the Father by prayer you need not fear peace through the Son Make the Lord of hosts your fear and you shall have him for your sanctuary You must sanctify God and make him your fear and your dread and he will sanctuary and safe-guard you In evill times God will have a special care of his own people That man is too big for all evils that is great in God Hee that dwells in God for sanctification shall dwell in him for preservation Hee that walketh uprightly shall dwell on high and his place shall bee in the Rock THe times of the Churches calamities are the times of wicked mens insolencies and blasphemies When the Church suffers there should be a veil of sorrow drawn over thy eyes Look not what the world doth but what God would have thee to do Be not afraid or discouraged though sometimes our Ark doth move upon very troublesome waters Victory in the end shall bee on the Churches side The Church is taken for the whole number of Gods Elect effectually called into a fellowship with Christ through sanctification and belief of the truth What ever the difference is between the enimies of the Church and the Church Christs party shall overcome On whose side dost thou think God doth ingage himself Is not the Sea able to quench a coal of fire One acting of a grace sometimes is sufficient to destroy an enimy Heb. 11.33 34. The Church of Christ in this life is like a ship upon the Sea The ship hath goodly sails the Church hath admirable graces If there bee not a gale the ship cannot stear so notwithstanding all the Churches graces it cannot move from faith to virtue without the fresh actings and breathings of God upon those graces The ship is a trading vessel and so the Church They are the great trades-men for heaven The ship is the onely safe place out of the Church there is no safety The Church of God though it bee tossed and tumbled yet it hath an Anchor the blood of Christ The ship in comparison of the sea is but a little thing yet it is above the water so the Church in comparison of the world is but a handfull of men yet it hath an Ark the Lord Jesus Christ In every new danger the people of God are apt to forget their former deliverance The proper time of fear is in thy prosperity and the time to believe when other helps fail There is all in God in the want of all The life of a Christian as a Christian is to live out of himself As the graft of a tree lives upon the root so a Christian by faith lives upon Christ You must provide for a troubling time as well as a healing time Prophane persons will make troublesome times with such David had to deal their words pierced nearer his heart than their swords When a people are not healed by their troubles they must expect to be troubled in their healings Observe this wheresoever there is faith there is a quiet soul first or last THe top of a Christians joy is not in outward earthly but spiritual things They which are most acquainted with carnal mirth are greatest strangers to spiritual joy Every grace as it is the expression of Gods love so it is the spring of our joy Wee may joy in these things below but they must not bee our spring and sea the spring from which they come and the sea to which they tend Joy it sets the soul upon wing for heaven what is the nature of your joy doth it make you fly up or fly out Cursed is that joy that makes God sad eat and drink and rise up to play and not rise up to pray and praise God and your table will bee your snare your death There is a desperate propension and active forwardness in the affection of joy to run out upon such things that are sinful Let not that bee the matter of your joy which is the fruit of your sin Do not make that the matter of thy joy which should bee the matter of thy humiliation The sins of others the calamities of others God allows us to rejoyce in creature-comforts and lawful liberties so it bee done lawfully It is not the thing rejoyced in but the manner of rejoycing that makes our joy criminal and sinful Though the Scripture allows thee to rejoyce yet it forbids sinful rejoycing It is a sinful thing to rejoyce in a creature for it self Joy sinfully acted is when the sweetness of the creature is not a means to lead thee unto God but as an object to satisfie thee without God Creatures are not given properly to bee injoyed but to bee used and directed to a further end You are not to bound and terminate your comforts in them You cannot joy in any thing for it self but you make it a God Delight is a glory proper to God as God Joy naturally centers it self in the things of this life A natural man doth not take occasion to rejoyce from the creature but hee rests his joy in the creature Do not you over-joy in the things of this life but joy in this that your name is written in the book of life Your heart cannot bee overmuch taken or best pleased with that which is not best without sin Though outward comforts are good in themselves and so occasions of joy yet they are not good enough for the joy of thy heart to bee taken up at or to bee taken up with As wee may quickly be more taken with these things than they are worth so our joy cannot but exceed Worldly comforts since the fall suit so well with our carnal humours that while wee deal about them wee cannot but feed too heartily on them and drink more deep of that cup than wee ought It is a lawful thing to take pleasure in lawful things but they are made unlawful to us when much of our time is eaten up in eating and drinking Time is short and time