thy Redeemer's Sufferings and thy own Ingratitude Did the Son of God cry out under the burden of thy Sins and art thou easy and chearful under them Did he bleed and die for thee and canst thou not weep for him for the Sufferings thou hast brought upon him and thy unkind behaviour towards him O Blessed Jesus that I should be thus insensible of thy intolerable Sufferings and of thy infinite Love that I should take Pleasure in that which brought thee to so much Sorrow that I should cherish and embrace and be so fond of that by and for which thou wast wounded and bruised and put to all the Shame and Torments of the Cross Oh! what Lamentations what Tears can be loud or bitter enough to bewail the shameful returns I have made for that precious Life and Blood which were so freely given and shed for me Thirdly Let us endeavour to afflict our Souls with Grief and Shame by considering the filthy and abominable Nature of Sin we have been so fond and spent so much Time in the service of There is not any thing in Toads or Vipers so ugly so loathsome so destructive as there is in Sin Every Creature of God is Good but Sin is the Devil's Off-spring it is the Devil's Image and Work And what can make us more deformed than that which makes us resemble him which the God of Love cannot but hate which the Father of Mercies cannot but abhor which he cannot look upon It is the Transgression of a Holy Just and good Law it is the corruption of our Nature the plague of our Hearts and the filthiness of our Flesh and Spirit and do we not blush and loath our selves to think how much we have set our Hearts upon it that it was for this for the sake of this so base and filthy a thing that we have been all this while abusing the Love of a most Merciful Father and defeating the Design of our Compassionate Redeemer who gave himself for us to redeem us from Iniquity Fourthly Let us endeavour to afflict our Souls with Shame and Sorrow by considering what means of Reformation and what earnest Invitations from God we have sinned against God hath given us marvellous Light frequent Warnings great and precious Promises severe and dreadful Threatnings and called upon us with the greatest Compassion and Importunity that he might reclaim us from our Sins And is it not an evil and bitter thing O Sinner that thou hast resisted all these rendred them all of none effect and in spite of all the Methods of Heaven still persisted in the dangerous ungrateful and filthy Ways of Sin Try then how thou canst affect thy Heart with such Reflections as these upon thy sinful Doings Had I been born amongst Heathens and Infidels my Sin and Folly had been less but all that I have done against my God and Saviour and my own Soul I have done it in a bold and obstinate defiance of the Glorious Gospel of the Son of God against the plainest Commands and the strongest Motives to Obedience revealed in it There I had Life and Death Heaven and Hell plainly set before me but neither did the one move me with Fear nor the other encourage me with Hope to forsake my Sins and return to my God How often have my God and Saviour besought me by their Ambassadors to be reconciled to come unto them that I might have Life How have they stretched out their Hands all the Day long and with repeated Declarations and Instances of Mercy and Compassion invited me into their Embraces But alas all this hath been done to a stubborn and gain-saying Wretch O my foolish and unhappy Soul that thou shouldst be thus obstinately bent upon Sin and Ruin that thou shouldst be thus insensible of the most gracious Offers of Pardon and Mercy and the most dreadful Denunciations of Wrath and Vengeance that thou shouldst make so light of the most condescending Addresses of thy offended God of the most compassionate Invitations of a dying Saviour How grievous should the remembrance of these things be how intolerable the Burden of them Fifthly Let us endeavour to afflict and humble our Souls by considering how shamefully we have contradicted our Profession and broken our most solemn Ingagements by the Sins we have committed Is it possible we can think without regret and shame how we have dishonoured the Holy Name by which we are called how contrary we have walked to the Precepts and Example of our Lord and Master and how frequently we have broken our Vows and Resolutions of Amendment Say to thy Soul then and try how it will work upon it Oh! what a shameful Sinner hast thou been How wide a Difference is there betwixt thy Profession and thy Practice How holy is thy Religion how loose and prophane thy Life How regardless hast thou been of the Vows of thy Baptism of the Promises thou hast made in thy Distress and of the most solemn Engagements thou hast entred into at the Table of the Lord O my Soul doth it not become thee bitterly to bewail such false and absurd dealing such bold dissembling with thy Almighty and Gracious Lord such presumptuouViolations of the Covenant of thy God Sixthly Let us endeavour to afflict our Souls with Shame and Sorrow by considering for what Trifles and Vanities we have committed and continued our Sins When Lysimachus had sold himself and his Army for a Cup of cold Water he thus lamented the foolish Bargain he had made O ye Gods said he for how short a Pleasure have I Plutarch made my self of a King a Slave So let the Sinner say within himself For what perishing Enjoyments for what poor and short Delights have I forfeited the Favour and Love of God and endangered the Life of my immortal Soul For what Vanities have I wearied my self in committing Iniquity What Fruit have I of all those things for which I am now ashamed and the End whereof is Death That I should spend my Strength for that which is not Bread and my Labour for that which profiteth not That I should so wilfully expose my self to everlasting Death and Misery for the Pleasures of Sin which are but for a Season That I should prefer the empty Profits of Iniquity before the inestimable and incorruptible Reward of Righteousness That I should so offend my Merciful Creator dishonour my Gracious Redeemer and grieve the Holy Spirit of God so often and so wilfully as I have done for things that perish in the using for the most vain and momentany Enjoyments If we did but seriously consider these things and press them hard upon our Minds surely we could not be altogether stupid and insensible under them we could not but feel some remorse for the Folly and ingratitude of our Sins and humble our selves in the sight of God for them I shall hope therefore that we are in some measure thus affected with these Considerations have been laid before us that we
and humbled themselves before him he repented of the Evil he said he would do unto Jonah 3. them And when the King of Egypt had gathered a mighty Army against Israel because they had forsaken 2 Chron 12. God 2 Chron. 12. and the Lord saw that the great Men particularly humbled themselves he sent his Prophet to tell them that he would not destroy them but Ver. 5. grant them some deliverance and his Wrath should not be poured upon them by the hand of Shishak And accordingly we read vers 12. that in Judah things went well Is it then in our Power to do any thing so serviceable to our publick Peace and Prosperity and shall we still neglect it Are not these Blessings worthy to be sought with Tears and Sorrow and would they not be very cheaply purchased by the performance of so reasonable a Duty after so large an Expence of Blood and Treasure in vain for the recovery of them Secondly Our particular penitent Sorrow and Humiliation may prevail with God to lift us up above those Calamities it may be too late for us to prevent When Men are cast down then thou shalt say There is lifting up and he shall save the humble Person Job 22. 29. An eminent Instance of this distinguishing Providence of God we have Ezek. 9. 4. where God commands a Mark to be set on the Forehead of those that did sigh and cry for the Abominations that were done in the midst of Jerusalem that the Ministers of his Wrath might not come near any of them ver 6. For such Men are the particular Care of Heaven and the peculiar Objects of the Divine Favour To this Man will I look saith God Isa 66. 2. even to him that is poor and of a contrite Spirit and trembleth at my Word Thirdly God will lift up them that mourn and afflict themselves as the Command of the Text requires that is He will raise their drooping Spirits revive and comfort their humbled Souls He is therefore called by St. Paul 2 Cor. 7. 6. The God that comforteth those that are cast down The Spirit of the Lord is upon me saith the Prophet Isaiah he hath sent me to preach glad Tidings to the Meek to bind up the broken hearted and to comfort them that mourn Isa 61. 1 2. Such Men have an everflowing Spring of Comfort always abiding in them even the Holy Spirit of God who dwelleth with such as are of a contrite and humble Isa 57. 15. Spirit to revive the Spirit of the Humble and to revive the Spirit of the contrite Ones to give them such a Sense of the Divine Love such joyful and glorious Hopes as will abundantly sweeten the worst Condition they can be in So that to be thus sorrowful is the best way to be always rejoicing Fourthly God will lift them up who thus humble themselves in his sight here to his own everlasting Kingdom hereafter where they shall shine as the Sun and whither no Clouds can reach to diminish ought of their Glory and Joy Blessed are the poor in Spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven Mat. 5. 3. As God delights to dwell with such Men here so will he receive them to dwell with himself hereafter when he will dry up all their Tears heal all their Wounds put an end to all their Sorrows and fill their Souls with Joy unspeakable and full of Glory when he will no longer speak to them as he doth in the Text Be afflicted and mourn and weep but will call them to enter into the Joy of their Lord to sing the Song of the Lamb and to exercise themselves in perpetual Hallelujah's Thus then you see how necessary how seasonable and how profitable the Duty of the Text and the Duty of the Day is And shall we not now at length set our selves in earnest to the performance of it Shall we still rejoice to do Evil and delight in the frowardness of the Wicked Shall we still maintain the Character which the Prophet gave of Niniveh Zeph. 2. 15. This is the rejoicing City that dwelleth carelesly God forbid Let us search and try our Ways then and know every Man the Plague of his own Heart and turn to the Lord with weeping and mourning for all our great and crying Sins And for the afflicting our Hearts with this Sorrow I shall V. Direct to some proper Considerations for this purpose First Let us consider the Goodness and Mercy of that God we have sinned against and try to afflict our Souls with Shame and Sorrow for the base Ingratitude of our Sins When David had put Saul in mind of the tender regard he had had for his Life and Safety we read that Saul lift up his Voice and wept at the thoughts 1. Sam. 14. 16. of his cruel Designs against him And will not our Souls melt with Sorrow when we consider the tender Love the great and innumerable Favours of that good God we have injured and provoked Was ever Love so great as his or Ingratitude so vile and monstrous as ours hath been How kind how compassionate how bountiful a Father have we offended O the Riches of that Forbearance and Long-suffering we have despised O the height and depth of that Love we have abused The Ox knows his Owner and the Ass his Master's Crib but ungrateful Wretches that we have been we have not known we have not considered as we ought our innumerable Obligations to love and serve him in whom we live and move and have our being That we should thus requite the Lord the Lord that made and bought us that preserves and provides for us of whom and from whom are all the good things we enjoy What more than brutish stupidity are our Hearts depraved into if they are not pierced through with Sorrow at the remembrance of such prodigious Ingratitude Secondly Let us endeavour to afflict our Souls with Sorrow for the Sins we have committed by considering the bitter Sufferings of the Son of God by and for them They shall look upon him whom they have pierced and they shall mourn and be in bitterness saith the Prophet Zech. 12. 10. And methinks we should always be thus affected when we look upon him when we consider the Death and Passion of our Blessed Saviour who did bear our Sins in his own Body on the Tree How doleful were his Cries how tormenting his Pains how shameful his Death when he carried our Sorrows and our Iniquities were laid upon him Are we not pained at the very Heart to think how insensible we have hitherto been of all these things how we have renewed and increased his Sorrows Crucified him afresh and again and again put him to an open shame by the hardness of our Hearts and the scandal of our Lives O my Soul methinks we should every one of us be ready to say How canst thou any longer endure the Thoughts of these things without shame and remorse the Thoughts of
feel our Hearts afflicted with Shame and Remorse for our many and great Transgressions This is that temper of Soul which becomes the Fast that God hath chosen and which we profess to appear before him with O that we might all manifest to our selves and to the World by our future Behaviour that we have not dissembled with God this Day but at length humbled our selves in sincerity before him and indeed sorrowed after a Godly sort both for our own and the Nation 's Sins I shall conclude my Discourse with shewing VI. What are the necessary Fruits of such a true godly Sorrow First It must and will be followed with an actual forsaking the Sins we have mourned for and lamented If we are in earnest pricked to the Heart with the remembrance of our former Sins how can we consent to stick such Thorns into them again Can we be easily perswaded to repeat those Practices which have so deeply afflicted our Souls and created us so much Shame and Sorrow Can we willingly load our selves with those Burdens again we have heartily sighed and groaned under If we do return to the service of the same Lusts and persist in the same sinful Neglects we pretend to bewail it is most certain we are not humbled unto this Day we proclaim our selves Dissemblers with God or such extravagant lovers of Sin that though it hath cost us a great deal of Grief and Pain yet we cannot but still cherish and embrace it And then what will all our Sorrow avail It will aggravate the Guilt of our continued Disobedience and we shall be but the greater Sinners the greater Mourners we have been Secondly Our Sorrow and Humiliation must and if it be sincere it will be followed with vigorous and earnest Endeavours to restrain and reclaim Men from those evil Practices which give us so much Grief and Vexation To what purpose do we pretend to fast and mourn for the Sins of the Times if we neglect to do our parts to make them better It is very much in the Power of this Assembly of the Magistrates and Officers of this City to advance the Reformation of it at least to prevent the bold and publick commission of many of those Sins we are met together to humble our selves for And what provoking Hypocrisy must it be to pretend to mourn and be afflicted for those Maladies we have power to cure and will not Is it possible you can lay to Heart as you profess to do this Day the Dishonour is done to our God and Religion the Mischief is done to our Countrey and to the Souls of Men by the open and insolent Vices of the Age if any little private worldly Considerations can hold your Hands from a zealous and faithful execution of those Laws which are made for the Terror and Punishment of such evil Doers For God's sake then for the sake of our most Holy Religion for the sake of all that is dear to us here for the sake of those Souls for whom Christ died and for the discharge of our Oaths and Consciences let us do all that is proper for us in our several Places and Circumstances at least to repress the Growth and Insolence of open Wickedness Let the World see by our Zeal and Diligence and Courage in prosecuting this Design that we do not sigh and mourn in appearance only for the Abominations that are done in the midst of us that the sight of them is really so grievous and hateful to us that we cannot forbear as far as it is in our Power to force them out of Publick View and Practice We must all shortly appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ to give an Account of our executing those Trusts God hath reposed in us And do we not tremble to think of being found unfaithful in the most weighty and important Matters of our Duty both to God and Man But I am perswaded better things of you though I thus speak You have already given many Instances of your Zeal in striving against Sin and the Effects of it are not altogether invisible May its Flames increase and spread yet more and more till it have burnt up all those Briars and Thorns which prick and wound the Souls of all Righteous Men and hedg up our Way to Peace and Settlement Then would you have Praise of God and Peace in your Minds and the Applause of all good Men and the Generations to come would call you Blessed Then you would have comfort in the Hour of Death and boldness in the Day of Judgment and an exceeding great Reward in Heaven inestimable Treasures unfading Crowns and Joy unspeakable for ever more Amen FINIS Some Books Printed for B. 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