to the Church that we can do God no longer service and so a man may desire to live still and be afraid of death if he look upon death in the glasse of nature and in the glasse of the Law likewise that it comes in as a punishment of sin so indeed it is terrible it is the King of fears But look upon it in another glass in the glass of the Gospel as it is sweetned and as it is disarmed by Christ and so it is comfortable Better is the day of death then the day of birth for in our birth we come into miserie in death we go from it So upon diverse considerations we may be diversly affected and have diverse rspects to things for the soul of man is framed so to be carried to the present object and therefore to a good man in some respects at sometime death is terrible he trembles at it which upon higher considerations and respects he imbraceth willingly Indeed it is a signe of a wise man to value life it is the opportunitie and advantage to honour God After death we are receivers and not doers then we receive our wages but while we are here we should desire even for the glory that is reserved for us to do all the good we can because the time of life is that blessed advantage of doing good and of taking good It is to be in heaven before our time to do others good and to get evidence of heaven for our selves This is the second thing that as Gods children are suffered to fall into extream dangers so they are very sensible of them especially in matter of death which is the last enemie there the Devil sets upon them indeed he knows that that is the last enemy and that there he must get all or lose all and he labours to make death more terrible then it is or should be The way not to fear death and not to let nature have over-much scope is to disarm death before hand to pluck out the sting of it by repentance weaken it before hand that it may not get the better Even as we doe with our enemies the way to overcome them is to weaken them to weaken their Forces to starve them if we can to intercept all their provision What makes death terrible and strong we put stings into it our sins our sins against conscience the time will come when conscience will awaken and it will be then if ever to our comfort and then our former sins will stare in our faces the sins of our youth the sins that we have before neglected soundly to repent for therefore let us labour this way to make death less terrible Again That we may not fear it over-much let us look upon it in the glasse of the Gospel as it is now in Christ as it is turned cleane another way Now it hath sweet names it is called a dissolution a departure a sleeping a going to our Fathers and such like God doth sweeten a bitter thing that it may enter into us with lesse terrour so it must be our wisdom to sweeten the meditation of it by Evangelicall considerations what it is now by Christ. And withall to meditate the two termes from whence and whither what a blessed change it is if we be in Christ it is a change for the better better company better imployment a better place all better Who would be grieved at and afraid of death Let us recal the promise of the presence of God he wil be with us to death and in death Blessed are those that die in the Lord. And especially faith in Christ wil make us that we shal not fear death when we shall see him our head in heaven before us ready to receive us when we come there and to see our selves in heaven already in him as verily in faith and in the promise as if we were there We are set in heavenly places with Christ already Let us have these and such like considerations to sweeten the thought of death But to touch this which is an Appendix to that formerly mentioned that Gods children are deceived concerning their death oft-times The time of death is uncertain St. Paul thought he should have dyed when he did not he was deceived There is a double errour about death sometimes we think we shall not dye when indeed we are dead men sometimes we receive the sentence of death we passe a censure upon our selves that we cannot live when God intends our escape so it is uncertain to us the houre of death sometime we are uncertain when it is certain sometime we think it certain when it falls not out so both wayes we are deceived Because God will have us while we live here to be at an uncertaintie for the very moment of death Our times are in his hand Our time of life is in his hand we came into the world when he thought good our time of living here is in his hands we live just as long as he will have us our time of death is in his hand The Prophet saith not only my time is in thy hands but my times my time of comming into the world my time of living in the world and my time of going out of the world shall be when thou shalt appoint me therefore he will have us uncertain of it our selves till the moment of death come St. Paul was deceived He received the sentence of death in himself but he dyed not at that time So that the manner and circumstances of death are uncertain whether it shall be violent or faire death it shall beby diseases or by casualties whether at home or abroad all the circumstances of death are hidden from us as well as death it selfe and the time of it And this is out of heavenly wisdome and love of God to us that we should at all times be provided and prepared for our dissolution change It is left at this uncertainty that we might make our estate certaine to be fitted to die at all times Let us make that use of it to provide every day oh it were a happy thing if we could make every day as it were another life a severall life and passe sentence upon our selves a possible and probable sentence it may be this day may be the last day And let us end every day as we would end our lives how would we end our lives we would end them with repentance for our sins past with commending our souls into the hands of God with resolution purpose to please God in all things with disposing all things wisely in this world Let us end our daies every day so as much as possible may be let us set every thing right let us set the state of our souls in order set all in order as much as may be every day it were a blessed course if we could do so And this is one part one main branch of our corruption wherein it shews it self
phrase that puffs them up they are but Gods in a kind of sence and the other are but creatures in a kind of sence because perhaps they have nothing in them and in that sence deservedly creatures but it is proper to God to make somewhat of nothing and so he is the God of Comfort where there is no comfort at all he can raise comfort as he made the World of nothing by his very Word And which is more it is the property of God as God it is peculiar to God to make comfort out of that which is contrary therein he shews himself most to be a God of all he can raise comfort out of discomfort life out of death When Christ had been three dayes in the grave he raised him As it is with the head of comfort with the head of believers so it is with every particular Christian he raiseth them out of death those that sow in sorrow they reape in joy What cannot he do that can raise comfort out of discomfort and discomforts oftimes are the occasions of the greatest comforts Let a Christian go back to the former course of his life and he shall find that the greatest crosses that ever he suffered will yeeld him most comfort and who did this certainly it must be God that can raise all out of nothing and that can make comfort not only out of comfortable creatures that are ordained for comfort but he can draw honey out of the Lions belly Out of the eater came meat and out of the stronge câ—me sweetnesse saith Sampson in his Riddle When a hony combe shall câ—â—â— out of the Lions belly certainly this is a miracle this may well be a Riddle This is the Riddle of Christianity that God who is the God of comfort he raiseth comforts out of our chief discomforts he can create it out of that which is contrary Therefore Luthers speech is very good All things come from God to his Church especially in contraries as he is righteousnesse but it is in sin felt he is comfort but it is in misery he is life but it is in death we must die before we live indeed he is all but it is in nothing in the soul that feels it self to be nothing there is the foundation for God to work on Therefore the God of comfort can create comfort if none be he can make comfort if the contrary be he can raise contraries out of contraries he is the God of all comfort Every word hath Emphasis and strength in it The God of all Comfort Amongst divers other things that flow from hence mark the order he is the God and Father of Christ first and then the Father of mercy and the God of comfort Take him out of this order and think not of him as a God of comfort but as a Consuming fire but take the method of the text now he is the God of comfort after he is the Father of Christ. This being laid as a ground the text it self as a doctrine what subordinate truths arise hence First of all if God be God of all comfort there is this conclusion hence that Whatsoever the meanes of Comfort be God is the spring of it Christ is the Conduit next to God for he is close to God God is the God of Christ and the Holy Ghost is usually the stream The streams of comfort come through Christ the Conduit from God the Father the fountain by the graces of the Spirit But I speak of outward comforts Blessed be God the Father Son and Holy Ghost all are comforters God the father is the father of comfort the Holy Ghost is the comforter Christ Jesus likewise is the God of Comfort whatsoever the outward meanes be yet God the Father Son and Holy Ghost are the comforters take them together that is the conclusion hence I observe it the rather to cure a disposition to Atheisme in men that look bruitishly to the thing they look to the comfort and never look to the comforter even for outward comforts Wicked men their bellies are filled with the comforts of God but it is with things that are comfortable that are abstracted from the comforter they care not for the root the favour and mercy of God so they have the thing they care not Therefore they are not thankful to God nor in their wants they go not to the God of comfort why they think they have supply enough they have friends they have riches that are their strong hold and if they have outward necessaries to supply and comfort them that is all they care for as for the God of comfort they trouble not their hands with him A Christian whatsoever the comfort be if it be outward he knowes that the God of comfort sends it and that is the reason he is so thankful for all outward comforts if they be the necessaries for this life in meat he tasts the comfort of God in drink he tasts the comfort of God in the ornaments of this life he tasts the comfort of God It is God that heates him with fire it is God that cloaths him with garments it is God that feeds him with meat it is God that refresheth his senses in these comforts Therefore the Heathen out of their Ignorance they made every thing a God that was comfortable out of which they received comfort they made a God of the fire and of the water these are but instruments of the God of comfort but the Heathen made gods of them A Christian doth not so but he sees God in them and drives these streames from the fountain God is seen to be the God of Comfort in them all Again considering that God is The God of all comfort This should teach us as thankfulnesse to God so prayer in the want of any comfort that he would both give the thing and the comfort of the thing We may have the thing and the wrath of God with it but thou that art the God of comfort vouchsafe the outward comforts to us and vouchsafe comfort with them thou that art the God of every thing and of the comfort of the thing vouchsafe both Again if God be the God of all comfort whatsoever then here is a ground of diverse other truthes as for instance that if we look for any comfort from the things or from reasons and discourse or from God we should go to God in the use of the thing before the use after the use at all times before the use that God would suggest either by reading or hearing c. reasons of comfort in the use that he would settle and seal comfort to our souls Lord I hear many sweet things I read many comfortable things these would affect a stone almost yet unlesse thou set them on my soule they will never comfort me thou art the God of comfort the materials are from thee but except with revelation discovery thou joyne application all will not
hearts and wayes and presently to apply the balme of comfort the promise of pardon take the present when we have searched the wound to get pardon and forgivenesse daily as we sin daily Christ bids us ask it daily This will make us fit for comfort by discerning the estate of our souls and the remainders of corruption That which sharpens appetite and makes the balme of God to be sweet indeed is the sence of and the keeping open of our wound a daily search into our wants and weaknesses a daily fresh sight of the body of sin in us and experience how it is fruitful in ill thoughts and desires and actions this will drive us to a necessity of daily comfort And certainly a fresh sight of our corruptions it is never without some fresh comfort We see St. Paul Rom. 7. he sets himself to this work to complain of his indisposition by reason of sin in him and how doth he end that sight and search into his own estate he ends in a triumphing manner Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus After he had complained Oh miserable man that I am who shall deliver me from this bodie of death There can be no danger in a deep search into our waies and hearts if this be laid as a ground before that there is more supplie and heavenly comfort in God and the promises of God then there can be ill in our souls then the more ill we find in our selves the more we are disposed to fetch grounds of comfort from God And together with this searching of our souls and asking daily pardon let us for the time to come renew our covenant with God that we may have the comfort of a good conscience to get pardon for our sins past and renew our resolutions for the time to come And withall that we may use an orderly course of comfort let us every day feed on Christ the food of life let us every day feed upon something in Christ consider the death of Christ the satisfaction he hath made by his death his intercession in Heaven his blood runs afresh that we may every day feed on it We may run every day into new offences against the law to new neglect of duty into new crosses let us feed upon Christ he came into the World to save sinners to make us happie with peace of conscience here and with Glorie afterward Let us feed on Christ daily as the bodie is fed with cordialls so this feeds and comforts and strengthens the soul. This is to live by faith to lead our lives by faith to feed on Christ every day And likewise if we will keep our souls in a perpetual temper of comfort let us every day meditate of some prerogatives of Christians that may raise our souls Let us single out some or other As for example that excellent prerogative to be the Sons of God What love saith the Apostle that we of Rebels and Traitors in Christ should be made the sons of God That of slaves we should be made Servants of servants sons of sons heires and of heires fellow-heires with Christ what prerogative is this that God should give his Son to mak us that were Rebels sons heires and fellow heires with Christ And to consider what follows upon this liberty that we have from the curse of the Law to goe to God boldly to go to the throne of Grace through Christ our elder brother by prayer to think of eternall life as our inheritance to think of God above as our Father Let us think of our prerogatives of Religion adoption and justification c. Upon necessity we are driven to it if we consider the grievances of this world together with our corruptions our corruptions and afflictions and temptations and desertions one thing or other will drive us to go out of our selves for comfort to feed on the benefits by Christ. And consider what he hath done it is for us the execution of his office and all for us what he is what he did what he suffered what procured all is for us The soul delighting it self in these prerogatives it will keep the soul in a perpetuall estate of comfort Therefore the Scripture sets forth Christ by all terms that may be comfortable he is the door to let us in He is the way the truth and the life the water and the bread c. In sinne he is our righteousness in death he is our life in our ignorance he is our way in spirituall hunger and thirst he is the bread and water of life he is all in all And if we cannot think of some prerogative of Christianity then think of some promise as I said before think of the Covenant of Grace there is a spring of comfort in that that God in Christ is our God to death and for ever and that promise I speak of that All things shall work for the best Let us every day think of these things and suggest them to our owne souls that our souls may be affected with them and digest them that our souls and they may be one as it were And every day stirre up our hearts to be thankfull a thankfull heart can never want comfort for it cannot be done without some comfort and chearefulness and when God receives any praise and glory he answers it with comfort a thankfull heart is alway comfortable And let us stirre up our hearts to be fruitfull in the holy actions the reward of a fruitfull life is a comfortable life besides Heaven God alway in this life gives a present reward to any good action it is rewarded with peace of conscience Besides it is a good foundation against the evil day every good action as the Apostle sayth to Timothie it layes up a good foundation The more good we do the more we are assured that our faith is not hypocritical but sound and good and will hold out in the time of tryall It will be a good foundation that we have had evidence before that we have a sound and fruitful faith What do wicked men carelesse sinful creatures that go on in a course of prophanenesse and blasphemie c they lay a ground of despaire a ground of discomfort to be swallowed up in the evil day then conscience will be awaked at the last and Satan will be ready to joyn with conscience and conscience will seal all the accusations that Satan layes against them and where is the poor soul then As it is with them so on the contrary the Christian soul that doth good besides the present comfort of a good conscience it layes a good foundation against the time to come for in the worst times it can reason with it self my faith is not fruitlesse I am not an hypocrite though the fruits of it be weak and mixed with corruptions yet there is truth in them this will comfort us when nothing
it breeds discomfort and is terrible that way Again in death we leave those that cast their care upon us we leave oft times Wives and Children without Husband or Father those that had dependance upon us and this must needs work upon nature upon a right principle of nature indeed the excesse of it is with corruption alway Again in death there is great pain They say Births are with great pangs and so they are Now death is a birth the birth of immortality no wonder then if it have great pangs therefore nature fears it even for the pangs the concomitants that are joyned with it And then in death nature considers the state of the body presently after death that that goodly body that strength and vigour I enjoyed before must now be wormes-meat I must say to the worm Thou art my brother and to corruption Thou art my mother and the like as it is in Job That head that perhaps hath ruled the Common-wealth the place where I lived it must lie level with others and that body that others were inamoured with it must now be so forlorn that the sight of it will not be indured of our best friends Nature considers what the estate will be there that it shall turn to rottenesse ere long that the goodliest persons shall be turned to dust and lie rotting there till the day of the Resurrection Faith and Grace looks higher but because we have nature as long as we are men these and such like respects work upon nature and make death grievous But besides the glasse of nature and these things here in the World look upon it in the Law of God in that glasse and so nature trembles and quarrels at death Death what is it It is the wages of sin it is the end of all comfort and nature cannot see any comfort after that it is beyond nature Nature teacheth us not that there will be a Resurrection of the body nature teacheth not that the soul goes to God here must be a great deal of Grace and a great deal of Faith to convince the soul of this nature teacheth it not Now when besides this the Law of God comes and faith Death came in by sin and sin is the sting of death death is armed with sin and sin comes in with the evidences of Gods anger here unlesse there be Faith and Grace a man is either as Nabal a stone and a fot in death or as Judas and Cain swallowed up with despaire It is impossible for a man that is not a true Christian that is not a good man but that either he shouldbe as a stone or desperate in sicknesse and Death without Grace he must be one of them If he be a wise man he cannot but despair in the hour of Death For is it a matter to be dallied with or to be carried bravely out as your Roman spirits and Atheists think they account it a Glory to die bravely in a stout manner Is it the terrible of terribles so to be put off when all the comforts in this world shall end and all imployments cease when there is eternity before a man and after death hell and eternall damnation of body and soul Are these matters to be slighted it would make a man look about him if a man have not faith and Grace he must eitherr despaire or die like a stone none but a good Christian can carrie himself well in the hour of death nay a good Christian is sensible of death and till he see Gods time is come he labours to avoid it by all meanes as St. Paul doth here But St. Paul had another ground beyond nature to avoid Death He knew himself ordained for the service of the Church therefore he desired to escape that he might serve God a longer time for the good of his Church Are Gods Children sensible of Death and the danger of it and out of a principle of nature and Grace too How then should carnall wretched men look about them that have not made their accounts even with God the report of Death to them should be like the hand-writing upon the wall to Belteshazer it should make their knees beat together and make their countenance pale it should strike them with terrour and like Nabal make their hearts to die as a stone within them But it is a Use of comfort to poore deluded Christians they think alas can my estate be good I am afraid of Death I tremble and quake at the name of Death I cannot endure to hear of it but it most of all affects me to see it therefore I fear I have no Grace in me I fear I have no faith in me Be not discomforted whosoever thou art that sayest so if thou labour to strengthen thy faith and to keep a good conscience for thou mayest do thus out of a principle of nature nature trembles at Death A man may do two things from diverse principles from diverse respects both without sin For example in fasting nature without sin desireth meat or else fasting were not an afflicting of a mans body but Grace that hath another principle and that desires to hold out without sustenance to be afflicted so here is both a desire and not a desire and both good in their kind So a man in the time of sicknesse and death he may by all meanes desire to escape it and tremble at it out of a principle of nature but out of a higher principle he may triumph O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory and they that believe in Christ shall never die We are in heavenly places together with Christ we are as sure of heaven as if we were there So out of such kind of principles we may triumph over Death by Faith and Grace So let none be discouraged nature goes one way and faith and grace another a man may know when it is nature and when it is grace when grace subdues nature and subordinates it to a higher principle a man need not be much troubled Christ himself our head he was afraid of death when he looked on death as death but when he looked upon death as a service as a redemption as a sweet sacrifice to God so with a thirsting I have thirsted saith he he thirsted after death in that respect looking to his humane nature to the truth of his manhood then saith he Oh that this cup might passe from me but in another consideration he willingly gave his soul a sacrifice for sin to God The desire is as the objects are presented let heaven and happinesse be presented so death is a passage to it so death is the end of misery and the beginning of happinesse so Gods Children desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ as St. Paul did But look upon death otherwise as it is an enemy to nature as it is a stop of all imployment in this world and of all service
deliver me from every evill work and that is that which the Saints and Martyrs and all good people desire that God would deliver them that they may not sink in their minds that they despair not that they carry not themselves uncomely in troubles but so as is meet for the credit of the truth which they seal with their blood he hath delivered me and he will deliver me from every evill work and what saith he afterwards He shall preserve me to his Heavenly Kingdom He doth not say he shall preserve me from death he knew he should die but he shall preserve me to his heavenly Kingdom So put the case that God do not deliver from death yet he delivers by death There is a partial deliverance and a total deliverance there is a deliverance from this and that trouble and there is a deliverance from all troubles God delivers us most when we think he delivers least for we think how doth he deliver his Children when we see them taken away by death and oftimes are massacreed That is one way of delivering them God by death takes them from all miseries they are out of the reach of their enemies death delivers them from all miseries of this life both inward of sin and outward of trouble all are determined in death therefore God when he doth not deliver them from death he delivers them by death and takes them to his heavenly Kingdom God oft-times delivers his by not delivering them out of trouble for when he sees us in danger of some sin he delivers us into trouble to deliver us from some corruption Of all evills Gods Children desire to avoid the delivering up to themselves and to their own lusts to their own base earthly hearts to a dead heart he delivers them into trouble therefore to deliver them from themselves God will deliver us for the time to come so that we depend upon him and humble our selves and be like our selves When God delivereth us at the first it may be we are like our selves but perhaps afterward we grow prouder and self-confident and will not do that we formerly did therefore God sometimes though he put us in hope of deliverance yet he will not deliver us because we are not prepared we are not throughly humbled As we see in Judges 20. there the Israelites were to set on the Benjamits they go the first time and had the foile they go the second time and are foiled the third time they set on them with fasting and prayer and then they had the victory What was the reason they had it not at the first time they were not humbled enough they did not flee to God with fasting and prayer It may be there is some sin some affection unmortified of revenge and anger when God hath subdued that and brought it under and brought us to fasting and prayer then God will deliver us as at the third encounter they carried away the victory When we have not made our peace with God we may come the first and second time and not be delivered but when we are throughly humbled and brought low then God will deliver us And then we must know that alway these outward promises have a reservation to Gods glory and our eternal good God hath delivered me and he doth and will deliver me if it may stand with his glory and my good and therefore the soul saith to God with that reserved speech of him in the Gospell Lord If thou wilt thou canst heal me if thou wilt thou canst deliver me if it be for thy glorie and my eternall good or for the Churches good thou wilt do it and neither the Church nor the particular members of the Church desire deliverance upon any other termes but when it may be for the glory of God and for the Churches good when they may be instrumental by long life to serve God and to serve the Church and when it is for their own advantage to gather further assurance of their salvation then he hath and doth and will deliver still This is enough to build the confidence of Gods children upon for their deliverance for the time to come God will deliver his Church and Children and he will deliver them out of all he will deliver Israel out of all his troubles he will not leave a horn or a hoof as Moses said he will not leave one trouble he will deliver us at the last out of all and advance us to his heavenly Kingdom His bowels will melt over his Church and Children he is a Father and he hath the bowels of a Mother This may serve to answer all objections that will arise in our hearts as indeed we are ready to cavil against divine truthes and comforts especially in the time of trouble and temptation our hearts are full of complaints and disputes therefore I thought good to answer this But what is the argument of the Apostle here Especially experience he hath delivered he doth deliver and he will deliver me As God will deliver his Church for the time to come so this is one maine argument that he will do it experience of former favours and deliverances This Saint Paul useth familiarly 2 Tim. 4. 18. I was delivered out of the mouth of the Lyon and the Lord shall deliver me from every evill work and preserve me to his Heavenly Kingdom A blessed arguing So David argues God delivered me from the Bear and the Lyon and therefore he will deliver me from this uncircumcised Philistine So Jacob pleads that God would deliver him from Esau he had had experience of Gods mercy till then and therefore he trusted that God would deliver him from Esau. It is a good argument to plead experience to move God to care for us for the time to come It was used by the head of the Church By the body the Church and by every member of the Church It was used by the head Psalme 22. which is a Psalme made of Christ I was cast on thee from my Mothers wombe therefore be not far from me It was Tipycally true of David and it was true of the Son of David So the Church pleads with God in diverse places in Isay 51. 2. God calls to his people to make use of former experience Look to Abraham your Father and to Sarah that bare you c. Look to former times to the rock whence you were hewen and to the hole of the pit whence you were digged he that was your God then is your God now Look to Abraham your Father and from thence reason till now So in Isay 63. 7. I will mention the loving kindnesse of the Lord and the praise of the Lord according to the great goodnesse of the Lord bestowed upon us In all their afflictions he was afflicted c he speaks of former experience In love he bare them and carried them all the daies of old So in Psalme 44. Our Fathers have told
estate is not good because it is not such an estate So foolish and as a beast was I before thee saith David because I regarded such things No marvell if men be uncomfortable that are led away by scandals Look to faith goe to the Word to the Sanctuarie I went to the Sanctuary saith he and there I saw the end of these men So conscience must be suffered to have its work to be led by a true rule Again conscience sometimes concludes not comfort when there is ground of comfort from the remainders of corruptions and infirmities whereas we should be driven by our infirmities to Christ. And conscisence sometimes in good men doth not exercise its work in good men it is drawn away with vain delights even in the best men And conscience of its owne unworthinesse and of the greatnesse of the things it lookes for being joyned together it makes a man that he joyes not when he hath cause As for instance when the soule sees that God in Christ hath pardoned all my sins and hath vouchsafed his Spirit to me and will give me heaven in the world to come to such a wretch as I am here being a conflict between the conscience and sense of its own unworthinesse and the greatnesse of 〈◊〉 good promised the heart begins to stagger and to doubt for want of sound faith Indeed if we look on our own unworthinesse and the greatnesse of the good things promised we may wonder but alas God is infinite in goodnesse he transcends our unworthinesse and in the Gospell the glorie of Gods mercy it triumphs over our unworthinesse and over our sins whatsoever our sin and unworthinesse is his goodnesse in the Gospel triumphs over all In Innocency God should have advanced an innocent man but the Gospel is more glorious for he comes to sinners to condemned persons by nature and yet God triumphs over their sins and unworthinesse he regards not what we deserve but what may stand with the glory of his mercy therefore we should banish those thoughts and enjoy our own priviledge the promises of heaven and happinesse and all comforts whatsoever so much for the answer of that objection Now if we would joy in the witnesse of a good conscience we must especially in the time of temptation live by faith and not by feeling not by what we feele for the present but as we see Christ in his greatest horrour My God my God why hast thou forsaken me he goes to my God still We must live by faith and not by sense And then if we would rejoyce in extremities remember that God works by contraries God will bring us to heaven but it must be by hell God will bring us to comfort but it must be by sense of our own unworthinesse He will forgive our sins but it must be by sight and sense of our sins he will bring us to life but it must be by death he will bring us to glorie but it must be by shame God works by contraries therefore in contraries believe contraries When we are in a state that hath no comfort yet we may joy in it if we believe in Christ he works by contraries As in the Creation he made all out of nothing order out of confusion So in the work of the new creation in the new creature he doth so likewise therefore be not dismayed Remember this rule likewise that in the covenant of Grace God requires truth and not measure thou art not under the law but under the covenant of Grace A little fire is true fire as well as the whole element of fire A drop of water is water as well as the whole Ocean so if it be true faith true grief for sins true hatred of them true desire of the favour of God and to grow better truth is respected in the covenant of Grace and not any set measure What saith the Covenant of Grace He that believes and repents shall be saved not he that hath a strong faith or he that hath perfect repentance So Saint Paul saith as we shall see after This is our rejoycing that in simplicity and sincerity we have had our conversation among you he doth not say that our conversation hath been perfect So if we would have joy in the testimony of conscience we must not abridge our selves of joy because we have not a perfect measure of Grace but rejoyce that God hath wrought any measure of Grace in such unclean and polluted hearts as ours are for he least measure of Grace is a pledge of perfection in the world to come This is our rejoycing the testimony of our conscience c. Hence we may gather clearly that A man may know his own estate in Grace I gather it from the place thus Our rejoycing is this the testimony of our conscience that in simplicity c. Where there is joy and the ground of joy there is a knowledge of the estate but a Christian hath glorying and a ground of glorying in himself and he knowes it he hath that in him that witnesseth that estate he hath the witnesse of conscience therefore he may know and be assured of it If this testimony were not a true testimony it were something but all men naturally have a conscience and a Christian hath a sanctified conscience and where that is there is a true testimony and true joy from that testimony therefore he may be assured of his salvation and have true joy and comfort a Heaven upon Earth before he come to Heaven it self If conscience testifie of it self and from witnessing give cause of joy much more the Spirit of God comming into the conscience The Spirit beares witnesse with our spirits If our spirit and conscience bear witnesse to us of our conversation in simplicity and sincerity and from thence of our estate in grace much more by the witnesse of two By the witnesse of two or three every thing shall be confirmed but our spirits and conscience and the Spirit of God which every Child of God hath witnesseth that we are the Children of God Rom. 8. The Spirit witnesseth with our spirits that we are the sons of God Therefore a Christian may know his estate in Grace The spirit of a man knowes himself and the Spirit of God knowes him likewise and it knowes what is in the heart of God and when these two meet the Spirit of God that knowes the secrets of God and that knowes our secrets and our spirit that knowes our heart likewise what should hinder but that we may know our own estate It is the nature of conscience as I told you to reflect upon it self and upon the person in whom it is to know what is known by it and to judge and condemne and execute it self by inward fear and terrour in ill and in good by comfort and joy in a mans self It is the property that the soul hath above all creatures to return and recoyle upon it self If this be
Redeemer and yet notwithstanding to need the help of other Mediatours and Intercessours here is yea and nay it is a contradiction That the Church of Rome is the Catholike Church if it be Roman it is not Catholike The universal Catholick Roman Church it is as much as the universal particular Church it is a contradiction one thing overturnes another The sacrifice of the Masse an unbloody sacrifice a sacrifice is the killing of a thing that was alive a sacrifice is with blood the offering of Christ in the bread is an unbloody sacrifice a sacrifice and not a sacrifice here is yea and nay a contradiction So that besides their thwarting of Scripture they thwart and contradict themselves in their fundamentall points they are yea and nay And then they are full of uncertainties they are not undoubtedly yea There is no Papist in the world would end his dayes so if he be not drunk if he be advised if he be not surprized with passion if he do not forget himself Come to a Papist and ask him what are the main points of Popery that you believe alwayes yea Can you say when you confesse your sins that you confesse all No can you then say then you have a perfect absolution that depends upon your confession No it is an uncertain thing What an absutd thing is Popish Religion it wracks the conscience of people Can you say that the Priest intends consecration in these words This is my body No and if the Priests intention be not there then Christ is not there and then you are Idolaters Can you tell certainly that Transubstantiation depends upon his consecration No how full of uncertainties and contradictions is Popery you cannot say the Points of Popery are alwaies yea Perhaps they are yea in life but are they yea in death It is yea in life that they merit salvation by works but is it yea in death No Bellarmine disclaimes it It is safe not to trust in our own merits for danger of vain-glory c. but to trust onely in the mercy of God in Christ. So their doctrine it is yea in life to sin by to live riotously by but then it is nay in death they reverse it if they belong to God they disclaim their works and other things and cleave onely to Christ and there is hope of them that have grace truly to do so So their doctrine is not yea that in life and death they can stick to To go on a little further to lay open the grossenesse of their tenents and the danger of their Religion We are better bottomed then they are which make the Word of God our rule and ground that is not yea and nay but yea The Canonization of Saints The Pope he makes Garnet a Traytor and Thomas of Becket Saints how can he know that these were Saints that he Canonizeth he that makes a Saint must know the hearts of men and search the heart for the truth of grace is there now it is the priviledge of God to know the heart So that Popery is full of uncertainties and pitifull perplexities Indeed they maintain the doctrine of doubting that we must doubt as if our nature were not sufficiently prone to doubt but we must get arguments to make us doubt as if it were needful to have infirmities to stablish grace in us Alas we are too prone to doubt and the Devil is ready to make us stagger in the time of temptation Again the Invocation of Saints it is a Point wondrous full of uncertainties Can they know and say certainly that the Saints hear them They cannot know that one Saint having a finite power should hear a hundred Petitions at once A finite creature hath but a finite power to hear one thing at one time distinctly how can they be perswaded that a finite Saint in heaven at one time distinctly should hear many thousands that put up their Petitions at once Can a man that is but a capable creature though glorified as Peter or Mary c. distinctly consider a thousand Petitions that are made they cannot how then can they think that a certain truth the Invocation of Saints The main ground of all their Religion is yea and nay the Pillar of it what is that The infallible judgment of the Pope but how can they tell when he speaks ex Cathedra for 9. or 10. exceptions and tricks they have when he speaks to be built on and when not how can poor soules know when he speaks so that the people may infallibly build on his judgment Because many times he is an illiterate man that knowes nothing in Divine things wherein he is to judge So the very foundation of Popery is yea and nay that is a most uncertain thing And then the ground of that that he is the Successour of Peter there is no place of Scripture for it neither dare they bring any It is but a Tradition It is somewhat uncertain whether ever Peter were at Rome that he was Bishop there is more uncertain but that the Pope should be his Successour is most uncertain and impossible of all So indeed the Religion of Popery is a rack to conscience especially to conscience that is awaked and knowes what Religion means at all Why is it a rack to them There is no certainty in it in the main Tenents of it It is not onely contrary to Gods yea but it is yea and nay uncertain in it self Now here the Apostle he frees his preaching from this imputation Our Word to you was not yea and nay and he calls God to record God is true and as he is true my Word to you was not yea and nay but was certainly yea Thus you see what use we are to make of it for confutation and conviction of our own judgments It may be moved by some perhaps How doth it appear how shall we know by what arguments that it is yea and not yea and nay I answer The testimony of S. Paul here is that it is so and his appeal to God with an asseveration As God is true But our own experience doth tell us that the Word of God is certain and true if we belong to God for we stand convict in judgment by many arguments which I will not now repeat But how shall any man certainly know it is yea the Word is the undoubted Word of God unchangeable wheresoever it is In a word you may know it is so he thinks it is so if he yield obedience to it as to such a Word absolute obedience to Gods truth without questioning when once a thing is clear to be agreeable to Gods truth he yields obedience to it then it is yea If it be a duty he must do it if it be a threatning he must avoid it by repentance if it be a promise he must believe it this is absolute obedience Likewise reverence in hearing it as Cornelius did Act. 10. To hear it as the
Covenant A Covenant is with condition with stipulation a Legacie is an absolute thing when a man gives a thing freely without any condition So though the promises be propounded by way of Covenant with stipulations to and fro in the passages of them as a Covenant yet in regard of Gods gracious performance to them that depend upon him all the promises are Legacies Therefore Gods promises and Gods Covenant they are called a Testament as well as Promises They are called a Will A Will shewing what God will give us freely in the use of means as well as what our duty is in the Covenant Therefore our estate is happy in Christ if we depend upon God in the use of means He will give us all things that are necessary that he hath promised nay he will give grace to fulfill the Covenant if we beg it If a man be carelesse and live in sinnes against the Covenant he cannot perform the Covenant and let him not alledge this that he cannot for God will give grace to them that are careful to fulfill it Let such a man as neglects the performance on his part expect no good from God while he is so let him expect vengeance for all the threatnings of God are Yea and Amen as well as his Promises to them that live in sins against conscience Those that will not expect grace to serve him for the time to come all the threatnings are Yea and Amen there is no comfort for such I beseech you therefore consider it is a terrible thing to live in a State without God and without Christ to have no care of the performance of that that we have bound our selves to God by the Sacrament and in our particular vowes for his threatnings are effectual as well as his promises In Zech. 1. 5. there he tells the Jewes of the Prophets that had threatened many things The Prophets are dead saith he that threatned your fathers but for all that the threatnings lighted on them The Prophets where are they They were but men but when they were gone the threatnings lighted on your fathers Jeremy dyed but the Captivity that he threatned it did not dye they were carried captive 70. years So we threaten the vengeance of God on obstinate sinners that will not come in to the Gospel we are not Yea and Amen in regard of our being we die but our threanings are Yea if they be not reversed by repentance the threatnings are Amen as well as the Promises It is an evidence therefore we do not believe if we have not care to make good the Covenant on our part Again another evidence of a Child of the promises of a man that believes the promises it is inward opposition of the flesh and hatred of fleshly men for as it is Gal. 4. The son of the bond-woman persecuted the son of the free-woman A true down-right Believer is a son of the free-woman a son of promise and the flesh in us opposeth it like Ishmael like Job's wife and like Sarah that laughed when the promise was made we have an Ishmael and a Sarah in us I can this Promise of life everlasting when I am rotten and this promise of forgivenesse of sins and that good will be good to me if I crack not my conscience if I take this and that course shall these promises be performed here is opposition We cannot believe the Promises without much opposition So carnal men they mock and deride the counsel of the poor as the Psalmist saith The children of the promise that depend upon Gods mercy in Christ they are persecuted by fleshly Justitiaries and they that look to be saved by themselves without a promise they will not be beholding to God so much their proud swelling hearts rise against Christians that honour God by trusting in his promises and will be saved by promises A proud Popish person his heart riseth against a holy Christian that is a son of the promise he scorns him You intend to be saved by the righteousnesse of another no we will not be so much beholding to God we will satisfie for our selves we will merit heaven our selves God shall not be beholding to us to trust in him we will bring somewhat our selves we will buy it out Can these men have humble hearts Nay can they have any other then malicious persecuting hearts against humble believing Christians that honour God by trusting in his promises You know Isaac was a son of the Promise how was he born not according to the course of nature Sarah's womb was dead Christ was the Son of the promise how was he born not according to the course of nature for his mother was a Virgin So a Christian is a son of the Promise he is begotten where there is nothing in the course of nature likely where there is breeding for sin no works no righteousnesse then he believes in Christ. Isaac was a notable type of Christ and a son of promise he was begotten besides the course of generation so a Christian is not begotten as a proud Justitiary by works but he shewes himself therein to be a true believer he is begotten against the course of nature when he sees a barren heart and sees as little disposition in his heart to be a Christian as was in the Virgins womb for Christ to be born How was the Promise made to the Virgin She could not conceive how this should be since she knew not man It was replied again The Holy Ghost shall overshadow thee her heart closed with that speech and Christ was conceived then So the barren heart of a Christian if it can believe his sins shall he forgiven and he shall have life everlasting if he can honour God in believing that he will keep him in life and death let the heart close with these Promises and a Christian is begotten he is a son of the promise As for the proud Justitiary that will have something in himself to vaunt of and will persecute others that are true Christians he relies on no promise A Christian when he sees nothing to rely on but the promise he closeth with the promise and Christ is begotten in him at that very instant To name no more evidences you see how we may examine our selves whether we trust in and cast our selves upon the Promises of God or no if we do we shall find them Yea and Amen Consider it therefore and be glad of these Promises and when you have them go to God in Christ for the performance of them Take the counsel of that blessed man that in these latter times brought the glorious light of Religion to light Luther I mean to whom we are beholding for the doctrine of free grace more then any other Divine of later times Go to God in Christ in the Promises Christ is wrapped up in the Promises the Promises are the swadling cloathes wherein Christ is wrapped as he saith We must not think of
Christ. Use. To study Christ. Why Christians are no more comfortable Job 15. 11. Doct. The afflictions of the Saints for the good of others 4. They gather assurance of the same assistance 5. It is Gods intent and their intent that suffer Use 1. To make use of examples of 〈◊〉 Simile Ground of patience Use 3. To communicate our estate to others The Popes treasurie Doct. The good we have by others afflictions is by stirring up grace in us Doct. We come to the possession of salvation by patience Patience helps salvateon 1 It cleares our evidence 2 By way of qualification Of the person 2 By removing hindrances 3 They strengthen graces 4 They whet our desire of heaven All Christians suffer 1. By sympathy 2 By scandals 3 The burthen of of our calling 4 Combat between flesh and spirit Doct. Gods Children do good in every Condition Use. To be content in all conditions God aymes at many things in the same affliction To obsâ—…rve Gods providence in our suffering Doctr. Gods Children partake of the sufferings of others 1. By sympathy 2. By proportion Indisposition Reas. The communion between Chrians 3. Vnions 1. Of Christ and our nature 2. Of Christ mystâ—…cal head and members 3. Of one member with another 1 Reas. There is some ill to be wrought out of us 2 Reas. To commend comfort to us Use 2 Terrour to those that will not suffer Doct. Those that suffer as they should are sure of comfort Those that partake in the sins shall in the judgment of others Certainty double Double efficacy in hope 1. In the party that hopes of another Doct. We may stedfastly hope for performance of divine truths Comfort to Christians Good men in affliction censured Object 1. Cor 10 13. Object Answ. Object Answ. Doct. God suffers his Children to fall into great extremity Reas. 1. Reas. 2. Reas. 3. Reas. 4. Reas. 5. Reas. 6. Use 1 Not to censure those that suffer Use 2. Not to be confident of earthly things Doct. Gods children sensible of afflictions Quest. Ans. Reas. 1. Death anenemy to nature and to natural comforts Reas. 2. It parts the best friends Reas. 3. Itcuts off all imployment Reas. 4. We leave those we had care of Reas. 5. Pain in death Reas. 6. The horror of the grave Reas. 7. Death the wages of sin Reas 8. St. Paul desired life to serve the Church Use 1. Terrour to wicked men Vse Comfort to Christians The way not to fear death Observ. Gods children are deceived in their death Gods end in St. Pauls sufferings Doct. Certaintie of death helps against self-confidence Physitian fault to flatter the sick Doct. Gods children are prone to self-confidence Reas. 1. The things of this life are useful Reas. 3. Sensuality besâ—…ts nature Use To justifie God dealing 1. In the falls of great Christians 2. Doing great things by weak means Use. To take heed of false confidence Signs of false confidence 1 When we are proud of these things 2. Too much grief in their losse Fretting at crosses 3. When we contemn others that want them 4. Security Doc. It is a dangerous estate to trust in our selves 1. In respect of God 1. It is Idolatry 2. It is Adultery 3. It is falshood 4. Ignorance 5. Rebellion 6. Impatience 2. To our selves It brings us under a curse Jer. 71. False trust breeds despairs We must not trust our own graces Not in the humanity of Christ. Not in the Saements Creatures may be trusted subordinately Worldlings trust creatures above God Against God How to cure false confidence Why God seldom works by great meanes Why God carries our salvation by contraries Learn to know our selves St. Paul to learn to trust in God Comfort for weak Christians Doct. God to make us trust in him casts us out of our selves Simile Reas. One contrary must be removed to make way for another Use. Not to murmure at Gods work Use 2. To examine what effect afflictions work Use 3. Not to judge amisse of the afflicted Vse 4. To lament our stubbornnesse of heart Doct. God in all outward things that are ill in tends the good of the soul. Reas. The soule the better part Obser. The soul must have somewhat to trust to The soul made for God Doct. God is the object of trust God in Christ the object of trust Use. To see the vanity of all other confidence A great favour that God will be trusted by us Doct. Trust in God is a main duty Tryals of trust in God 1. Seeking to him in extremity 2. To use the meanes 3. To be quiet upon use of meaâ—…s 4. Not to despair in want of meanes 5. To keep God our friend 6. To trust threatnings as well as promises 7. To trust God for all things Helpes to trust in God 3. The promises of God 1. Generall 2. Particular Outward things promised with condition Trust how exercised in great afflictions We are beaten from all other help 2. Put the promises in suit 1. The promises of presence 2. Of mitigotion Trust how exercised in the hour of death Use. Ground of patience and content Effect of afflictions To Gods children To the wicked To desire God to draw us neer him by crosses God to strengthen our trust hath given us 1. His promise 2. His seale 3. His oath 4. Earnest 5. A pawne 6. Seizon Object Answ. Meanes of trust to unbelievers Objectâ—… Prayer to God Doct. The resurrection an argument to strengthen faith Doct. God will raise from the dead Gods manner to work when there is no hope Use. To answer Gods worke with our faith Luther How to argue in extremity To extract contrary principles to Satan To carry our selves as expecting the resurrection Doct. 1. God doth not at the first deliver his children Reason 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Doct. 2. God delivers after he hath done his work Use. To wait Gods time Gods time to deliver is 1. When we are low 2. When we are inlarged to pray Grounds of waiting Doct. Gods Children alway need deliverance 2. Spiritually An inward guard God delivereth us from our selves Christians have deliverance in troubles Providnce what Use. To carry our selves reverently to God Doct. A Christian may rely on God for time to come 1. Upon the Name of God 2. His properties 3. His covenant 4. Experience of Gods Children 1. Tim 4. 18. Objct. Gods Children miscarry in afflictions Answ. God delivers them 1. So as they desire 2. He delivers them in afflictions Deliverance open secret Deliverance partial to all Deliverance by death Promises of outward things with reservation Doct It is a good argument from former experience to future deliverance Used by the head of the Church Of the Church Use. To lay up observations of Gods dealing 2. Consider the promises 3 To have sanctified memories to remember deliverances How to argue in spiritual troubles Wicked men cannot argue from former experience of deliverance Use. To be constant in our service to God The happinesse of a
worthy pieces as a Monument of their graces and zeal for the publick welfare whether it be out of a modest sense of their own endeavours as being loath upon choice or of their own accord to venture abroad into the world or whether it be that being occupied and taken up with other labours or whether it be in a conformity to Christ who would not leave his Spirit till his Departure or whether it be out of an hope that their Works would find a more kindly reception after their death the living being more liable to envy and reproach but when the Authour is in heaven the work is more esteemed upon earth whether for this or that cause usually it is that not only the life but the death of Gods servants hath been profitable to his Church by that means many useful Treatises being freed from that privacy and obscurenesse to which by the modesty of the Authour they were formerly confined Which as it hath commonly falne out so especially in the Works of this Reverend Authour all which some few onely excepted saw the light after the Authours death which also hath been the lot of this usefull Comment onely it hath this advantage above the rest that it was perused by the Authour during life and corrected by his own hand and hath the plain signature and marks of his own spirit which will easily appear to those that have been any way conversant with his former Works this being signified for further commendation it needeth none I commend thee to God and to the word of his grace which is able to build thee up and to give thee an inheritance among the sanctified remaining Thy servant in the Lords work THOMAS MANTON A COMMENTARY upon the first CHAPTER of the second Epistle of S. PAUL to the CORINTHIANS 2 Cor. 1. 1. Paul an Apostle of Jesus Christ by the Will of God and Timothy our Brother unto the Church of God which is at Corinth with all the Saints which are in all Achaia Grace be to you and Peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. THe Preface to this Epistle is the same with other Prefaces Our blessed Apostle had written a sharp Epistle to the Corinthians especially reproving their tolerating of the incestuous person that his first Epistle took effect though not so much as he desired yet it prevailed so far with them that they excommunicated the incestuous person and likewise reformed divers abuses Yet notwithstanding it being a proud factious rich City where there was confluence of many Nations being an excellent Port and Mart-Town there were many proud insolent teachers which thought basely of St. Paul and thereupon he writes this second Epistle the scope whereof is partly Apologetical Exhortatorie Apologetical to defend himself Exhortatorie to instruct them in several duties as we shall see in the passages of it The general scope of it is this to shew That the Ministerial labour is not in vain in the Lord. The fruit of the first Epistle to the Corinthians is seen in this second the first Epistle took effect Therefore we should not be discouraged neither we that are Ministers of the Church or those that are Ministers in their own families as every man should be be not discouraged at unlikelihood there is alway some successe to encourage us though not so much as we look for in this world because there is a reprobate Generation that are alway set upon Cavilling and opposing yet some successe there will be as there was here A second thing in general out of the whole scope is this to teach us to vindicate our credit when the truth may be wounded through us as the Apostle stands here upon his reputation and labours to free and to clear himself from all imputations but especially he doth this by his life for that is the best Apology But because that would not serve it would not speak loud enough therefore he makes an excellent apology in this Epistle But to come to the particulars Paul an Apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God and Timothy our Brother THis Chapter is Apologetical especially after the Preface He stands in defence of himself against the imputations First that he was a man neglected of God he was so persecuted and oppressed with so many afflictions And the second is the imputation of inconstancie that he came not to them when he had made a promise to come This Chapter is especially in defence of these two In an excellent heavenly wisdome he turnes off the imputation of afflictions and inverts the imputation the clean contrary way and he begins with thanksgiving Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of mercies the God of all comfort who hath comforted us in all our tribulations As if God had done him a great favour in them as we shall see when we come to those words For the Preface it is common with all his Epistles therefore we make it not a principal part of the Chapter yet because these Prefaces have the seeds of the Gospel in them the seeds of heavenly comfort and doctrine I will speak something of it Here is An Inscription and A Salutation In the Inscription there are the parties from whom this Epistle was written Paul an Apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God and Timothy our Brother And the persons to whom To the Church of God at Corinth and all the Saints in Achaia The Salutation Grace and Peace in the form of a blessing Grace and Peace From whom From God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul an Apostle c. In this inscription he sets down his office an Apostle and an Apostle of Jesus Christ. How Apostles differ from other Ministers it is an ordinary point St. Paul was called to be an Apostle by Christ himself in 1 Cor. 9. 1. Am I not an Apostle have I not seen Christ It was the priviledge of the Apostles to see Christ they were taught immediately by Christ and they had a general commission to teach all and they had extraordinary gifts All these were in St. Paul eminently And this was his prerogative that he was chosen by Christ in heaven in glory the other were chosen by Christ when he was in abasement in a state of humiliation Paul an Apostle of Jesus Christ. By the will of God By the appointment of God by the designment of Christ For every man in his particular calling is placed in it by the will of God St. Paul saith he was an Apostle by the will of God not by the will of man This is the same word as is in the beginning of the Epistle to the Philippians In a word it teacheth us this first Observation That we should think our selves in our standings and callings to be there by the will of God And therefore should serve him by whose will we are placed in that standing Let every man consider who placed me here God if
favour and grace of great persons alway And as the favourable aspect of the heavens upon inferiour bodies promiseth good things and men promise themselves from that favour and good so the favour and grace of God enlarge the soul with joy and comfort And there is that measure of joy in those that are in the free favour of God that they will honour God freely to cast themselves upon his mercy And it is with a disesteem of all things in the World besides it is such a joy as works in the soul a base esteem of all things else St. Paul esteemed all drosse in comparison of the knowledge of Christ and the favour of God in Christ. So in Psal. 4. David saith of some There be many that will say who will shew us any good any good it is no matter but saith the Holy Spirit in David Lord lift up the light of thy countenance upon me He goes to prayer he saith not who will shew us any good it is no matter what or how we come by it any earthly good worldly men desire No saith he Lord shew us the light of thy countenance he desires that above all things So he saith Psal. 3. The loving kindnesse of the Lord is better then life it self Life is a sweet thing the sweetest thing in the World but the grace and favour of God is better then that For in this when all comforts fail the Children of God have assurance that neither life nor death nor things present nor things to come nor any thing can separate us from the love of God in Christ which shews it self better then life it self When life fails this favour shall never fail Nothing shall be able to separate us from the favour of God in Christ it is an everlasting favour and therefore everlasting because it is free if it were Originally in us it would fail when we fail but it is an everlasting favour because it is free God hath founded the cause of love to us in himself so much for that Grace be unto you And peace All that I will say of peace in this place is this to shew That True peace issues from Grace It is to be had thence Peace we take here for that sweet peace with God and peace of conscience and likewise peace with all things when all things are peaceable to us when there is a sweet successe in all businesse with a security in a good estate It is a blessed thing when we know that all will be well with us This quiet and peaceable estate issues from grace peace of conscience especially I observe it the rather It hath been the errour of the world to seek peace where it is not to seek peace in Sanctification to seek it in the work of Grace within a man Not to speak of worldly men that seek peace in outward contentments in recreations in friends and the like alas it is a poore peace But I speak of Religious persons that are of a higher straine they have sought peace but not high enough True peace must be selected from Grace the free favour in Christ. This will quiet and still the clamours of an accusing conscience God reconciled in Christ will pacifie the conscience nothing else will do it For if our chief peace were fetched from sanctification as many fetch it thence in error of judgment alas the conscience would be dismaid and alwaies doubt whether it had sanctification enough or no. Indeed sanctication and grace within is required as a qualification to shew that we are not Hypocrites but are in the state and covenant of Grace it is not required as a foundation of comfort but as a qualification of the persons to whom comfort belongs Therefore David and St. Paul and the rest that knew the true power and efficacy of the Gospel they sought for peace in the grace and free favour of God Let us lay it up to put it in practise in the time of dissolution in the time of spiritual conflict in the time when our consciences shall be awakened and perhaps upon the rack and Satan will be busie to trouble our peace that we may shut our eyes to all things below and see God shining on in Christ that we may see the favour of God in Christ by whose death and passion he is reconciled to us and in the Grace and free favour of God in Ghrist we shall see peace enough It is true likewise besides peace of conscience of all other peace peace of successe and peace of state that all creatures and all conditions are peacable to us whence is it It is from Grace for God being reconciled he reconciles all when God himself is ours all is ours when he is turned all is turned with him when he becomes our father in Christ and is at peace with us all are at peace besides so that all conditions all estates all creatures they work for our good It is from hence when God is turned all are turned with him He being the God of the creature that sustaines and upholds the creature in whom the creature hath his being and working he must needs therefore turn it for the good of them that are in covenant with him All that are joyned in covenant with him he fills them with peace because they are in Grace with him This should stir up our hearts above all things in the world to pray for Grace to get Grace to empty our selves of self-confidence that we may be vessels for Grace to make Grace our plea to magnifie the Grace of God We must never look in this world for a peace altogether absolute that is reserved for heaven our peace here is a troubled peace God will have a distinction between heaven and earth But when our peace is interrupted when the waters are come into our souls what must be our course when we would have peace go to Grace go to the free promise of Grace in Christ. Grace and Peace From God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The spring of Grace and peace are here mentioned After the Preface he comes to the Argument which he intends and begins with blessing One part of the scope of this blessed Apostle is to avoid the scandall of his sufferings for he was a man of sorrows if ever man was next Christ who was a true man of sorrow the blessed Apostle was a man of miseries and sorrow Now weake shallow Christians thought him to be a man diserted of God they thought it was impossible for God to regard a man so forlorn so despicable as this man was What doth he before he comes to other matters he wipes away this imputation and cleers this scandal You lay my crosses and sufferings and disgraces in the world to my shame it is your weakness that which you account my shame is a matter of praise I am so farre from being disheartned or discouraged from what I suffer that Blessed be God the Father of
thee comfort that thou art much humbled in thy sicknesse and at the hour of death for it is hard for thee to determine whether it be true Repentance or meer sorrow for sin as it brings judgement Fear of damnation is not sufficient to bring a man to heaven thy nature must be changed before thou come to heaven thou must love Righteousnesse because it is Righteousnesse thou must love God because he is good thou must hate sin because it is sin How canst thou tell when thou hast been naught before affliction whether affliction have wrought this that thou repentest only out of hatred of judgement to shun that or out of hatred of sin because it is sin Therefore now a little repentance in thy health and in the enjoying of thy prosperity a little hatred of ill wayes now will more comfort thee then a thousand times more prayer and striving will then Although if thou canst do it truly then yet the gate of mercy is open but thy heart will scarce say it is truly done because it is forced Then again perhaps thou shalt not have the honour of it thou shalt not have the mercy thou that hast refused mercy and lived in a loose prophane course thou that hast despised mercy all the while God will not honour thee so much as to have a good word or a sorrowful word that even very grief shall not extort it from thee but as thou hast forgotten God in thy life and wouldest not own his admonitions thou shalt forget thy self in death and be taken away suddenly or else with some violent disease that shal take away the use of the parts that God hath given thee as inflammation of the Spirits or the like that shall take away the use of sound reason It is madnesse and no better to live as the most live to cry God is merciful c. thou mayest go to hell for all that repentance must be from a true hatred of sin and that that must comfort thee must be a disposition for the present for then it is unforced Therefore all these sweet comforts are to you that come in and leave your wicked courses if you have been swearers to swear no more if you have been deceivers to deceive no more if you have been licentious to be so no more but to break off the course of your sins as God shall enable you or else this one thing think of it that you now dawbe your conscience withall and go on in sin with that will be the most terror to you even Mercy nothing will vex you so much as mercy afterward Then thon shalt think with thy self I have heard comfortable of the promises and of the nature of God but I put off and despised all I regarded my sinful courses more then the mercy of God in Christ they were sweeter to me then mercy I lived in sins out of the abundance of prophanenesse that did me no good I lived in sins out of the superfluity of prophanenesse that I had neither profit nor pleasure by and neglected mercy The consideration of mercy neglected with the continuing in a wretched course it will more aggravate the souls torment Let us be incouraged to come in such as intend to leave their sinfull courses let them remember that then they come to a Father of mercy that is more ready to pardon then you are to ask it As you see in the prodigal Son which I instanced in before it is a notable sweet Story I have a Father saith he when he had spent all and was come to Huskes Affliction is a notable means to make us to taste and relish mercy I have a father and there is plenty in his house and he comes and confesseth his sin he had no sooner resolved but his Father he doth not stay for him but he meets him and kisseth him Let us consider of this description of God the Father of mercy it should move any that are in ill and lewd courses before In my Fathers house there are good things and in his heart there are bowels of mercy I have a Father and a Father of mercy I will go home and submit my self to him and say to him I have been thus and thus but I will be so no more you shall find that God by his Spirit will be readier to meet you then you are to cast your selves at the feet of his mercy and into the armes of his mercie he will come and meet you and kisse you you shall find much comfort upon your resolution to come in if it be a sound resolution The son fears his Fathers displeasure but saith the Father My thoughts are not as your thoughts Oh! I fear he will not receive me yes yes he is willing to imbrace you mercy pleaseth him and why will you perish O house of Israel Againe God is the Father of mercies This should stirre us up to an imitation of this our gratious Father for every Father begets to his owne likeness and all the sons of this Father are like the Father they are mercifull The Kings of Israel are merciful Kings saith the Heathen King Benhadad and the God of Israel is a mercifull God and all that are under God are mercifull his sons are mercifull as their heavenly father is mercifull Therefore if we would make it good to our own hearts and the opinion and judgement of others of us that we are children of this mercifull Father we must put on bowels of mercie our selves as in Colos. 3. 2. Now therefore as the Elect of God as you will make it good that God hath elected you put on the bowels of mercie Whatsoever we have from God it comes in the respect of a mercie and so it should doe from Gods Children every thing that comes from them to them that are in miserie it should be a mercy they should not only bestow the thing but a sweet mercy with the thing a child of God he poures out his bowels to his Brother as Esay saith Poure out thy bowels c. There is some bowels that is there is an affection in Gods Children they give not onely the thing the reliefe but mercie with it that hath a sweet report to the soule there is pittie that more comforts a sanctified soule then the thing it selfe We must not doe workes of mercie proudly it is not the thing that God stands on but the affection in the thing his benefits are with a fatherly pittie so should ours be with a pittifull respect with a tender heart The very mercies of the wicked are cruell If they be mercifull there is some pride of spirit there is some tast of a hard heart of an hypocriticall spirit somewhat is not as it should be their mercies are not mercies we must in our mercie imitate the Father of mercies Alas it is the fault of our time there is little mercie to those that are in miserie What a cruell thing is it that
else will Therefore let us every day be setting our selves in some good way for comfort is in comfortable courses and not in ill courses in Gods waies we shall have Gods comforts In those waies let us exercise the spiritual strength we have let us pray to God and performe the exercise of Religion with strength shew some zeal in it let us shew some zeal against sin if occasion be if it be in Gods work in Gods way Let a man set himself upon a good worke especially when it is in opposition for the honour of God and the peace of his conscience presently there is comfort upon it And that we may not be discouraged with the imperfection of our performances one way of daily comfort is to consider the condition of the covenant of Grace between God and us In the covenant of Grace our performances if they be sincere they are accepted and it is the perfection of the Gospel sincerity Sincerity will look God in the face with comfort because he is with the upright so much truth in all our dealings so much comfort And with sincerity labour for growth to grow better and better God in the Gospel meanes to bring us to perfection in heaven by little and little In the law there was present perfection required but in the Gospel God requires that we should come to perfection by little and little as Christ by little and little satisfyed for our sins and not all at once In the condition of the covenant of Grace we must live and grow by grace by little and little and not all at once The condition of the covenant of grace is not to him that hath strength of grace in perfection but if we believe and labour to walke with God if there be truth of Grace truth goes for perfection in the covenant of Grace We should labour for sound knowledge of the covenant of Grace that now we are freed from the rigor as well as from the curse of the law that though we have imperfections yet God will be our father and in this condition of imperfection he will be a pardoning father and lookes on our obedience though it be feeble and weak and imperfect yet being the obedience of children in the covenant of grace and he accepts of what is his owne and pardons what is ours And every day labour to preserve the comforts of the spirit that we have not to grieve the spirit for comfort comes with the spirit of God as heat accompanies the fire As wheresoever fire is there is heat so wheresoever the spirit of God is there is comfort because the spirit of God is God and God is with comfort wheresoever comfort is God is and wheresoever God is there is comfort If we would have comfort continually every day let us carefully watch that we give way to the spirit of God by good actions and meditations and exercises And by no meanes grieve the spirit or resist the spirit for then we resist comfort If we speake any thing that is ill we lose our comfort for that time conscience will check us we have grieved the spirit If we heare any thing with applause and are not touched with it we lose our comfort conscience will tell us we are dead-hearted and not affected as we should be there is a great deal of flesh and corruption that is affected with such rotten discourse And so if we venture upon occasions we shall grieve the spirit either if we speak somewhat to satisfie others that are nought or if we hear somewhat that is ill from others Want of wisdome in this kind doth make us go without comfort many times want of wisdom to single out our companie or else if we be with such to do that that may please them and grieve the spirit and hinder our own comfort These and such like directions if we would observe we might walk in a course of comfort the God of comfort hath prescribed this in the book of comfort These are the courses for Gods children to walk in a comfortable way till they come to heaven More especially if we would at any time take a more full measure of comfort then take the book of God into your hand those are comforts that refresh the soul single out some speciall portion of scripture and there you shall have a world of comfort As for example let a man single out the epistle to the Romans if a man be in any grievance whatsoever what a world of comfort is there fitting for every maladie there is a method how to come to comfort There St. Paul in the beginning first strips all men of confidence of any thing in themselves and tells them that no man can be saved by works Jewes nor Gentiles but all by the righteousnesse of God in Christ All are deprived of the Glorie of God Jewes and Gentiles every bodie And when we are brought to Christ he tells us in the later end of the third Chapter that by Christ we have the forgivenesse of all our former sins whatsoever he is the propitiation for our sins In the 4. Chapter he comforts us by the example of Abraham and David that they were justified without works by faith not by works of their own but by laying hold of the promises of comfort and salvation meerly by Christ and all that saith St. Paul is written for us But in the first Chapter especially because all the miseries of this life come from the first Adam because we are Children of the first Adam death and miserie comes from that he opposeth the comfort in the second Adam and he shewes that there is more comfort by the second Adam then there is discomfort by the first Righteousnesse in the second Adam reigns to life everlasting and Glorie Sin and miserie came by the first but there is the pardon of all sin by the second Adam he doth excellently oppose them in the latter end of that Chapter In the begining of the fifth Chapter he shewes there the method and descent of joy Being justified by faith in Christ we have peace with God Considering that by the righteousnesse of Christ we are freed from sin We have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. And we have boldnesse to the Throne of Grace and we rejoyce in tribulation knowing that tribulation brings forth patience and patience experience and experience hope He sets himself there of purpose to comfort in all tribulation and he saith in these things we rejoyce We rejoyce in tribulation I but for our sins after our conversion after we are in the state of Grace what comfort is there for them there is excellent comfort in the fifth of the Romans If when we were enemies he gave his son for us if he saved us by the death of Christ when we were enemies much more Christ being alive and in heaven he will keep it for us and keep us to salvation now when we are
yet we may build certainly upon them I hope stedfastly that if you be partakers of the sufferings you shall be partakers of the comforts A man cannot say so of any thing else but divine truths a man cannot say of any other or of himself I hope stedfastly to be rich I hope stedfastly to be great or I hope stedfastly to live long the nature of the thing is uncertaine the state of the world is vanitie and life it self and all things here will not admit of a certain apprehension For the certaintie in a mans understanding it follows the certaintie of the thing or else there is no adequation when there is an evenness in the apprehension to the thing then it is true but if we apprehend any thing that is here that either riches or life or favour will be thus or thus long it is no true apprehension we cannot build a certain hope upon an uncertain ground But of divine truthes we can say if we see the one undoubtedly the other will follow if we see the signs of grace in any man that he is strong to indure any disgrace for religion any discomfort then we may say Certainly as you partake of the afflictions of Christ and of the afflictions and sufferings of his people his body mysticall so undoubtedly you shall be partakers of the comfort of Gods people heaven and earth shall faile but this shall never faile Is not this a comfort to a Christian that when he is in the state of grace he hath something that he may build on when all things else faile In all the changes and alterations of this life he hath somewhat unalterable the certainty of divine comforts the certainty of his estate in grace though he be in an afflicted estate as verily as he is afflicted so verily he shall be comforted If we suffer with Christ we shall be glorified with him Upon what ground is this certainty built that if we suffer we shall be glorified It is built upon our union with Christ it is built upon the communion we have with the Church of God we are all of one body and it is built upon his own experience as verily as I have been afflicted and have comfort so shall you that suffer be comforted what I feele you shall feele Because in things necessary there is the like reason from one to all if one be justified by faith all are justified by faith if one suffer and receive comfort all that suffer shall receive comfort Divine comforts are from one to all from the head to the bodie from the body to every member If Christ suffered I shall suffer if I be of his body if Christ was comforted I shall be comforted Divine truths they agree in the head and the Members if it be true in one it is true in all St. Paul felt it in his own person and saith he as I have felt afflictions increase and comforts increase so shall it be with you you shall be partakers of the comfort now or hereafter And it is built likewise upon Gods promise which is surer then heaven and earth If we suffer with him we shall be glorified with him as the Apostle saith Rom. 8. All these are grounds to found this stedfast hope on And then the nature of God he is a just God a holy God and when we have taken the ill we shall finde the sweet as in 2 Thess. 1. It is just with God to render to them that afflict you trouble and to you comfort God hath pawned his justice upon it and he will observe this order where he begins in trouble he will end in comfort it is just with God and therefore I may be perswaded It should be a special comfort to all that are in any sanctified cross whether it be for a good cause or no. If a man find that he stands out for a good cause then there is more matter of joy it is matter of triumph then but if they be crosses common to nature if a man find them sanctified as they are onely to Gods Children they learn humility by them they learn heavenly-mindednesse they learn patience they learn more carefulnesse by their afflictions if it be thus sanctified then a man may say to such a one As you partake of the sufferings so you shall partake of the comfort though you feel it not for the present Is it not a comfort for a Patient to have his Physician come to him whom he knowes to be wise and speaks by his book to say to him Be of good comfort you shall never die of this disease this that I give you will do you good there was never any that took this potion but they recovered would not this revive the patient Now when the Physicians of our soules shall come and tell a man by discerning his state to be good by discerning signes of grace in his abasement Be of good comfort there is good intended to you your sufferings shall end in comfort undoubtedly we may well be perswaded of this God will never vary his order Therefore when we are in any trouble find God blessing it to us to abate our pride to sharpen our desire to exercise our graces when we find it sanctified let it comfort us it shall turn to our further comfort We find a present good that is a pledge of a further good It will make a bitter potion to go down when the Physitian saith it will do you good how many distastfull things do poore Creatures endure and take down to cure this carcase it were offensive to name what distastfull things they will take to do them good Let us take this cup from Gods hand let us endure the Crosse patiently whatsoever it be It is a bitter cup but it is out of a Fathers hand it is out of a sweet hand There may be a miscarrying in other Physick but Gods Physick shall certainly do us good God hath said it All things shall work for the best to those that love him he hath said it before-hand we may presume and build our perswasion upon this issue that all things shall worke for our good What a comfort is this in all the entercourses and changes of this life when we know before that whatsoever we meet with it hath a command from God to do us good it is medicinable though it seem never so ill to do us good to work ill out of us by the blessing of God But to proceed VERS 8 9. For we would not Brethren have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia that we were pressed out of measure above strength insomuch that we despaired even of life But we had the sentence of death in our selves that we should not trust in our selves but in God which raiseth the dead HEre Saint Paul comes to the particular explication of what he had generally spoken before he had generally said before that he had both comfort and
affliction but now he specifies what afflictions they were I would not have you ignorant of the troubles which came to us in Asia c. I would not have you ignorant of He knew it was behofull for them to know therefore to insinuate into their respect the more he tells them of it Indeed to know both together is very sweet and comfortable to know both the afflictions of Gods people and their comforts as here he tells them what ill he indured in Asia and how God delivered him to see how these are linked together in Gods people is very comfortable therefore I would not have you ignorant Now that they might not be ignorant he sets before their eyes the particular grievance that he suffered in Asia And see how he doth raise himself by degrees and represent it to them most lively First of all saith he We were pressed out of measure There is one degree we were pressed It is a metaphor we were pressed as a Cart is pressed under sheaves as a man is pressed under a burden as a Ship that is over-laden is pressed deep down with too much burden so it was with us we were pressed with afflictions afflictions are of a depressing nature they draw down the soule as comfort raiseth it up Out of measure There is the second degree they were not onely pressed but pressed out of measure Above strength Above my strength above ordinary strength And he riseth higher still the waters rise higher insomuch that we despaired of life we despaired of any escaping out of trouble at the present encounter nay we did not see how we should escape for the time to come Nay it was so great in the first place that we passed the sentence of death upon our selves It is a speech taken from malefactors that are condemned for even as they having the sentence pronounced upon them we account them dead men they esteem themselves so and so do others esteem them the sentence being passed upon them so I even passed the sentence on my self seeing no evasion or escape out of the troubles I was in the sentence of death passed upon me We had the sentence of death in our selves It was not passed by God nor by the World for they had not decreed to kill him but he passed it upon himself when he saw no way to escape He was deceived though as oft-times Gods Children are for he died not at that time And then afterwards he sets down the end why all this was a sweet end a double end That we should not trust in our selves what should we trust in then But in God that raiseth the dead First to speake of his grievance and then of the reason why God did thus follow him We would not have you ignorant He prevents all scandal by this I would not have you ignorant I am so far from caring or fearing or being ashamed that you should know of any affliction that I suffer that I would not have you ignorant of it for know this that when you know my afflictions you shall know my deliverance also St. Paul was wondrous scrupulous at this left they should take any offence at his sufferings indeed it is the state of Gods Children their worst crosse sometimes are censures upon them for the crosse the harsh censures of others in their troubles It was the last and the greatest of Job's troubles that and his wife together when his house was overthrown his Children killed his goods taken away himsef stricken with boiles then for his indiscreet friends to become miserable comforters those that should have comforted him to become censurers and judges of him as if he had been a man deserted and forsaken of God as if all had been from God as a punishment for his sins this was his grearest crosse as it was his last when his wife in his bosom she that should have comforted him most should solicit him to ill and his friends by their rash and vile censures to make his crosse heavier So it is with Gods Children in the world they cannot endure hardnesse in the World they cannot be used otherwise then their cause deserves but they must also undergo hard censures that grieves them more then the crosse it self It was the case of this blessed Apostle the Spirit of God in him therefore sets him to mention his affliction with boldnesse and confidence yea with comfort and joy I would not have you ignorant I am not of the mind of carnal men that would have it concealed nay I would not have you ignorant I pray understand it he laies it open to their view that they might be affected with it as he was for those things that we are affected with we are large in the discourse of them he shewes that the misery though it were past and were off yet he was affected with it We were pressed out of measure above strength This seems to thwart another place of scripture in 1. Cor 10. 13. God is faithful and will lay no more upon you then you shall be able to bear and yet here he saith we were afflicted above strength how can these hang together I answer God will not suffer his Children to indure any thing above strength above that they are able to bear especially in spirituall evils but for sickness and persecution or such sometimes he may lay more upon them then they have present strength to beare But put the case that St. Paul speaks of inward grievance and outward afflictions too as both usually accompany one another St. Paul's meaning is here undoubtedly We were pressed above strength that is above ordinary naturall strength that unless God had made a supply by a new supernaturall strength we had never been able to indure it therefore take it so above ordinary naturall strength for extraordinary crosses must have extraordinary strength and crosses with grievance of spirit must have more then naturall strength to beare them Again Where it is said Insomuch that we despaired of life as if he had cared much for his life this seemeth to cross another place Phil. 1. I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ and here he seems to be very carefull in a strait lest he should die I answer We must take St. Paul in diverse considerations and respects As St. Paul hath finished his course and done his work so Henceforth is laid up for me the crown of righteousness so he thinks of nothing but life and glory he cares not for his life but take Saint Paul in the midst of his course and so he had a care to his charge Take Saint Paul as he looked to glory so he desired to be dissolved take him as he was affected to edifie the Church so he laboured to live by all meanes and so he saith he despaired of life as desiring to live to do good to the Church Again It may be Objected against the last We received the sentence of
death in our selves St. Paul dyed not now and he had the Spirit of God in him to know what he spake how doth this agree then that he had the sentence of death passed I answer St. Paul spake according to the probability of second causes according to the appearance of things and so he might pronounce of himself without danger as being no sinfull errour that indeed I am a dead man I see no hope of escaping if I look to the probabilitie of second causes all my enemies are about me I am in the Lyons mouth there is but a step between me and death He doth not look here to the decree of God but he looks to the disposing of present causes So Gods ' children are often deceived in themselves in that respect it is no great errour for it is true what they speake in regard of second causes though it be not true in regard of Gods decree The Objections being satisfied we may observe some points of doctrine And out of the first part of St. Paul's tryall which some take it to be that in Acts 19. At Ephesus Dimetrins the Smith raised up a trouble against him when they cryed out Great is Diana of the Ephesians but those are but conjectures It may be it was some great sickness it may be some other affliction the Scripture is silent in the particular what it was To come then to the points themselves In the first part this is considerable in the first place that God suffers his Children to fall into extream perils and dangers And then secondly that They are sensible of it For the first God suffers his children to fall into great extremities This is clear here we see how he riseth by degrees We were pressed above measure above strength that we even despaired of life we received the sentence of death in our selves He riseth by five steps to shew the extremity that he was in This is no new thing that God should suffer his Children thus to be exercised It is true in the head it is true in the body and it is true of every particular member of the body It is true of our head Christ Jesus himself we see to what exigences he was brought in what danger of his life oft-times he was as when they would have cast him down from the mount Luke 4. and when in apprehension of his Fathers wrath he sweat water and blood in the garden and on the Crosse cryed out My God My God why hast thou forsaken me none was ever so abased as he was he humbled himself to the death of the Crosse nay lower then the Crosse he was in captivity in the grave three dayes They thought they had had their will on him there they thought they might have trampled on Christ and no doubt but the Divel triumphed over the grave and thought he had had him where he would but we see afterward God raised him again gloriously Now as the head was abased even unto extremity So it is true of the whole body of the Church from the beginning of the world The Church in Egypt was in extremity before Moses came therefore a learned Hebrician Capne that brought Hebrew into these western parts was wont to say When the tale of brick was doubled then comes Moses that is in extremity when there was no remedy then God sent them deliverance In what a pittiful case was the poor Church and people of God in Hesters time there was but a haires breadth between them and destruction it was decreed by Haman and they had gotten the Kings decree too they were as it were between the hammer and the anvil ready to be crushed in pieces presently had not God come between And so in Babylon the Church was in extremity insomuch as that when deliverance was told them they were as men that dream as if there had been no such matter they wondred at it And so in the times of persecution God hath suffered his Church to fall into extream danger as now at this time the Church is in other parts I might draw this truth along through all Ages It is true of the whole body of the Church It is true likewise of the particular members Take the principall members of it you see Abraham before God made good his promise he was brought to a dry body and Sarah to a dead womb that they despaired of all second causes And David though God promised him a Kingdom yet he was so straitned that he thought many times he should have died I said in my haste All men are liars they tell me this and that but there is nothing so he was hunted as a Partridge in the wildernesse It was true of St. Paul we see what extremity he was brought unto as the Psalmist saith Psal. 118. I was afflicted sore but I was not delivered to death Even as we say only not killed It is and hath been so with all the members of the Church from Abel to this day sometime or other if they live any long time they shall be like Moses at the Red-Sea we see in what a strait he and his company was there there was the Egyptians behind them the Mountaines on each side of them the Red-Sea before them what escaping was here for Moses so it is with the poore Church and Children of God oft-times there are dangers behind them and perils before them and troubles on all fides God brings them so low as deaths doore sometimes by sickness as there is an instance in Psal. 107. of those that go down to the sea in ships He brings them to deaths door saith the Psalmist What is the reason that by persecution and afflictions by one grievance or another God brings his Children to such a low ebb The reasons are many The first may be he will thus trie what mettle they are made of light afflictions light crosses will not trie them throughly great ones will Jonas that slept in the Ship he fals a praying in the Whales belly he that was pettish out of trouble and fals a quarrelling with God himself in trouble he fals to praying when he was in the bottom of hell as he saith himself Little afflictions may stand with murmuring and repining but great ones trie indeed what we are what we are in great afflictions he are indeed Againe To trie the sincerity of our estate to make us to know our selves to make us known to the world and known to our selves what good we have and what ill we have A man knows not what a deal of loosness he hath in his heart what a deal of falseness till we come to the cross to extremity Whereas before I thought I had had a great deal of patience a great deal of faith and a great deal of heavenly mindedness now I see I have not that store laid up as I thought I had And somtime a man is deceived on the contrary I thought I
uncharitable men judge amiss of the generation of the righteous Whereas they should set the Court in their own hearts and begin to censure there and to examine themselves they goe out and keep their Court abroad but I say passe not a harsh censure upon others or on thy selfe no not for extream dangers for God now is making way for great comfort let God go on his way without thy censuring of him Again This should teach us that we should not build overmuch confidence on earthly things on the things of this world neither on health of body or on friends or on continuance of life alas it is Gods ordinary course to strip us of all in this world we think of great reputation but saith God I will take that from you you shall learn to trust in me You think you have strong and vigorous bodies and you shall live long and therefore you will venture upon such and such courses I but God suffers his children to come to extream dangers and hazards that they think the sentence of death is passed upon them And since this is Gods course with the body and with the Members and with our head Christ himself shall we think to have immunitie and to escape and not looke to Gods order The Church is in great miserie and we are negligent in prayer we think there are many good people and there is strong munition c. As if when Gods people are in security and forget him and his blessings it were not his course to strip them of all to suffer them to fal into extream dangers have we not the Church before our eyes to teach us Let us trust therefore in nothing in this world So much for that point The second thing in the first part is this that As Gods Children are brought to this estate so they are sensible of it They are flesh and not steele they have not the strength of steele as Job saith they are men they are not stones they are Christians they are not Stoicks Therefore St. Paul as he was in extremity so he apprehended his extremity and with all his heart he would have escaped if he could he looked about to all evasions how he might escape death Gods children are sensible of their crosses especially they are sensible of death as he speaks here of himself We despaired even of life it self The word is very significant in the originall we were in such a strait that we knew not how to escape with life so that we despaired of life we would have escaped with our lives but we saw no way to escape To make this clear there are 3. things in Gods Children There is Grace Nature Corrupt nature nature with the tang of Corruption Grace that looks upward to glorie and comfort Nature looks to the present grievance nature looks not to things to come to matters revealed in the Word to supernatural comforts nature looks to the present crosse even nature without sin Corrupt nature feeles and feeles with a secret murmuring and repining and heavinesse and dulnesse as indeed corrupt nature will alway have a bout in crosses it will alway play its part first or last There are alway these three works in the Children of God in all extremities Grace works and that carries up up still trust in God it looks to heaven it looks to the end and issue that all is for good Nature it fills full of sense and pain and makes a man desire remedy and ease Corrupt nature stirs a man up to fret and say what doth God mean to do thus it stirs a man oft-times to use ill meanes indirect courses St. Paul was sensible from a right principle of nature and no doubt here was some tang of corruption with it he was sensible of the fear of death Adam in innocencie would have been affected and exquisitly sensible no doubt if his body had been wronged for the more pure the complexion the more sensible of solution as Physicians say when that which should be knit together if any thing be loosed by sicknesse or by wounds that should by nature not be hurt but continue together it breeds exquisite pain As to cut that which should not be cut to disjoyn that which should be together this is in nature The Schoolemen say and the reason is good that Christs paines were the greatest paines because his senses were not dulled and stupified with sensuality or indirect courses he had a body of an excellent temper and he was in the perfection of his years when he died therefore he received such an impression of grief in his whipping and when he was crowned with thornes that was it that made him so sensible of grief that when he sweat he sweat drops of blood and upon the crosse it made him cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Gods Children out of a principle of nature are sensible of any grievance to this outward man of theirs to the body especially in death as we see here St. Paul And there is most patience where there is most sense it is stupidity and blockishnesse else Why are Gods Children so sensible in grief especially in death Oh there is a great cause indeed in some regards they are not afraid of it for death is an enemy to nature it is none to Grace but when I speake not of Grace and Glory but of nature hath not nature great cause to tremble at death when it is an enemy to nature even to right nature It is the King of fears as Job saith it is that Tyrant that makes all the Kings of the earth to tremble at him when death comes it is terrible why because it strips us of all the contentments of this life of all comforts whatsoever we have here Nature without â—…n is sensible of earthly comforts that God hath appointed for nature and when nature sees an end of them nature begins to give in and to grieve Again death parts the best friends we have in this world the body and the soul two old friends and they cannot be parted without exquisite grief If two friends that take contentment in each other common friends cannot part without grief how shall these bosom-friends these united friends body and soul part without grief This marriage between the soul and the body cannot be disunited without exquisite pain being old acquaintance Again nature abhors death it hinders us of all imployment it hinders of all service of God in Church and Common-wealth And so grace which is beyond nature doth a little desire the continuance of life But nature even out of no sinful principle it sees that now I can serve God no longer I can do God no more service I can do good no longer in this World and therefore it takes it to heart Our Savour saith While you have light walke the night cometh when no man is able to work the night of sicknesse and death So
strongly that we live in an estate that we are ashamed to die in Come to some men and aske them how it is with you have you repented of your sins past have you renewed your purposes for the time to come Yes we doe it solemnly at the Communion but we should renew our repentance and renew our Covenants every day to please God that day Do you do so now If God should seize upon you now are you in the exercise of faith in the exercise of repentance in the exercise of holy purposes to please God are you in Gods wayes do you live as you would be content to dye But Satan and our own corruption bewitcheth us with a vaine hope of long life we promise our selves that that God doth not promise us we make that certain that God doth not make certain indeed we are certain of death but for the time and manner and circumstances we know them not sometimes we think we shall dye when we doe not and sometimes we dye when we think we shall not Oh will some say If I knew when I should dye I would be a prepared man I would be exact in my preparation Wouldest thou so thou art deceived Saul knew exactly he should die he took it for exact when the Witch in the shape of Samuel told him that he should dye by to morrow this time and yet he dyed desperately upon the swords point for all that he did not prepare himself It must be the Spirit of God that must prepare us for this if we knew never so much that we should die never so soon we cannot prepare our selves our preparation must be by the Spirit of God let us labour continually to be prepared for it And let no man resolve to take liberty a moment a minute of an houre to sinne God hath left it uncertain the day of death what if that moment and minute wherein thou resolvest to sin should be the moment of thy death and departure hence for it is but a minutes work to end thy dayes what if God should end thy dayes in that minute Let no man take liberty and time to sin when God gives him no liberty in sin If God should strike thee thou goest to Hell quick thou must sink from sin to Hell It is a pittifull case when as eternity depends upon our watchfulness in this world But to come to the end and issue why he was thus dealt with by God carrying him through these extremities That we might not trust in our selves but in God that raiseth the dead Here is the end specified that God intended in suffering him to be brought so low even to deaths door that there was but a step between him and death the end is double That we should not trust in our selves but in God that raiseth the dead It is set down negatively and positively First That we should not trust in our selves and then that we should trust in God And the method is excellent for we can never trust in God till we distrust our selves till our hearts be taken off from all confidence in our selves and in the creature and then when our hearts are taken off from false confidence they must have somewhat to relie on and that is God or nothing for else we shall fall into despaire The end of all this was that We might not trust in our selves but in God that raiseth the dead The wisdom of heaven doth nothing without an end proportionable to that heavenly wisdom so all this sore affliction of the blessed Apostle what aimed it at To pull downe and to build up to pull downe selfe-confidence That we might not trust in our selves and to build up confidence and affiance in God but in God that raiseth the dead We being in a contrary state to grace and communion with God this order is necessary that God must use some way that we shall not trust in our selves and then to bring us to trust in him so these two are subordinate ends one to another We received the sentence of death that we might not trust in our selves From the dependance this may be observed that The certain account of death is a meanes to weane us from our selves and to make us trust in God The sentence of death the assured knowledge that we must dye the certain expectation and looking for death is the way to wean us from the world and to fit us for God to prepare us for a better life you see it follows of necessity We received the sentence of death that we should not trust in our selves c. The looking for of death therefore takes away confidence in our selves and the creature Alas in death what can all the creatures help what can friends or physick or money help then honours and pleasures and all leave us then This the rather to note a corrupt Atheisticall course in those that are to deale with sick folk that are extreame sick that conceale their estate from them and feed them with false hopes of long life they deserve ill of persons in extremity to put them in hope of recoverie Physitians that are not Divines in some measure what doe they against their conscience and against their experience and against sense Oh I hope you shall doe well c. Alas what do they they hurt their souls they breed a false confidence it is a dangerous thing to trust upon long life when perhaps they are snatched suddenly away before they have made their accompts even with God before they have set their souls in that state they should doe Therefore the best way is to doe as good Isay did with Hezekiah set thy house in order for thou must dye that is in the disposition of second causes thou shalt have a disease that will bring thee to death and God had said so God had a reservation but it was more then Isay knew at that time Set thy house in order for thou must dye So they should begin with God to tell them as we say the worst first It is a pittifull thing that death should be accounted the worst but so it is by reason of our fearfulness deal plainly with them let them receive the sentence of death that so they may be driven out of themselves and the creature altogether and be driven to trust in God that raiseth the dead Put thy soul in order you are no man of this world lest they betray their souls for a little self-respect perhaps because they would not displease them It may be in some cases discreet to yield to make the means to work the better but where there is nothing but evident signs of death they ought to deale directly with them that they may receive the sentence of death It wrought with St. Paul this good effect I received the sentence of death that we might not trust in our selves but in God that raiseth the dead It is Gods just judgment upon Hypocrites and
upon many carnall wretched persons that are led with a false confidence all their life that trust in the creature trust in friends and riches that will not trust in God and will not be taught to number their dayes in their life time it is just with God to their very death with false confidence when they come to death to suffer them to perish in their false confidence and so to sink into hell It is just with God to suffer them to have Atheists about them or weak persons that shall say Oh you shall do well enough and then even out of a very desire to live they are willing to believe all and so they dy without all shew of change and as they live so they dy and are wretched in both The life of a wicked man is ill his death worse his estate after death worst of all and this is one way whereby God suffers men to fall into the snare of the Devill when he suffers not those that are about them to deale faithfully St. Paul received the sentence of death that it might force him not to trust in himself but in God that raiseth the dead The second thing that is observable hence out of this first part which is the negative part is this that Gods children are prone to trust in themselves The hearts even of Gods deare children are prone in themselves if they be left to their own bent and weight to self-confidence and will not hold up in faith and affiance in God further then they are lifted and kept up by a Spirit of faith which God puts into them It was not in vain that God used this course with blessed St. Paul here is an end set downe that he might not trust in himself What was he in peril to trust in himself Alas St Paul though he were a holy excellent man yet he was a man and in the best man there is a double principle a principle of nature of corrupt nature and a principle of grace and he works according to both principles there is an intermixture of both in all his actions and in all his passions too in his sufferings Corruption shews it self in his best deeds and his best sufferings in every thing That we should not trust in our selves that is in any thing in our selves or out of our selves in the creature it is all one We see by the example of S. Paul that the best are prone to trust in themselvs All this hard usage of S. Paul that he received the sentence of death it was that he should not trust in himself What was there danger in St. Paul to trust in himself a man that had been so excercised with crosses and afflictions as he had been no man more one would think that he had been scoured enough of pride and self-confidence the whippings and misusings the stocks the dungeons c. would not all this work pride and self-confidence out of the Apostle No so deeply it is invested into our base nature our trusting to present things that we cannot live the life of faith we cannot depend upon God whom we cannot see but withother eyes then nature â—…h it is so deeply rooted in our nature that the blessed Apostle himself must have this great help to be taught to go out of himself and to depend upon God we see in what danger he was in another place to be lifted up with the revelations he was fain to have a prick in the flesh a Messenger of Satan to buffet him Hezekias his heart was lifted up as the Scripture speaks in his treasures that he shewed to the King of Babylons Ambassadours as if he were such a rich Prince And so holy David in numbring the people to shew what a mighty Prince he was it was his vaine confidence therefore God put him to a strange cure he punished him in that that he gloried in he took away so many of his people And so Hezekias was punished in that he sinned in he was fain to have a purge for it his treasure was taken away and carried to Babylon I said in my prosperity saith holy David I shall never be moved The best are Subject to false confidence to trust in themselves One reason partly because there is a mixture of corruption in us while we live here and corruption looks to this false principle in us that will never be wrought out with all the afflictions in the world till death make an end of corruption there will be a false trust in our selves and in the creature we cannot trust God perfectly as we should doe Again The reason is because the things of this life are usefull and commodious unto us and we are nouzelled up in the use of them and when Satan doth amplifie them in our fancie to be greater in goodness then they are opinion sets a greater worth on them if there were no Devill but he presenting these things in all the lusture he can he helps the imagination which he hath more to doe with then with all the parts of the soul and the soul looks in the glass of opinion upon these things and thinks they are goodly great matters learning and wisdom honour and riches looking upon them as they are amplified by the false fancie of others and the competition of the world wherein we live every man is greedy and hastie of these things All men have not faith for better things therefore they are mad of these So the competition of others and the inlarging our conceits upon them above their worth these make us put greater confidence in them and then we come to trust in our selves and in them and not in God Naturally we cannot see the nothingness of the creature that as it came out of nothing so it will turn to nothing but because it is sensible these good things are sensible and present and necessarie and usefull and naturally we live by our senses therefore we place our delight in them that when they are taken away all the soul goes with them As he that leans upon a crutch or any thing when that is taken away down he fals so it is with a man by nature he trusts to these things when they go his soul sinks together with the things Even as it is with those that are in a stream when they are in a running stream they are carried with the stream so all these things go away they are of a fleeting condition we see them not in their passage when they are gone we see them past we see not our selves vanish by little and little out of this life we see not the creatures present we see not death and other things beyond death as we should by the eye of faith so things passe and we passe with them the stream and we run together it must be a great measure of faith that must help this We are prone to trust to sensible things naturally we know what it is
be at the cost with us to exercise us It is a ground not onely of patience but of thankfulnesse when God humbles us be not discontent man grudge not murmur not God doth a work that seems strange to thee and which is not his own proper work that he may do his own work that he may bring thee nearer to himself why dost thou murmur at thy own good The Patient cries out of the Physitian that he torments him he hears him well enough but he will not be advised by his patient he means to advise him and to rule him he would faine have comfort he is in pain and cries for ease but his time is not yet come So let us wait and not murmur under crosses God is doing one work to bring to passe another he brings us out of our selves that he may bring us nearer to himself And another Use that we may make of it let us examine our selves whether our afflictions and crosses have had this effect in us to bring us to trust in him more if they have all is well but if they make us worse that we fret and murmur and feel no good by them it is an ill sign for God doth bring us low that we may not trust in our selves but in him Quem praesentia mala non corrigunt c. Whom the presence of ill and grievance amends not they bring to eternal grievance This is Ahaz saith the Scripture a strange man a wicked King that notwithstanding God followed him with judgements yet he grew worse and worse This is Ahaz he might well be branded When a man belongs to God every thing brings him nearer to God when a man is brought to be more humble and more careful and more watchful every way to be more zealous more heavenly minded it is a blessed sign that God then is working a blessed work to force him out of himself and to bring him nearer himself to trust in him This we cannot too much consider of It should teach us likewise this that we judge not amisse of the generation of the righteous when we see God much humbling them when we see him follow them with sicknesse with troubles and disgraces in the world perhaps with terrour of consience with descertions be not discouraged if he be thy friend censure him not add not affliction to his affliction is not his affliction enough thou needest not to add thy unjust censure as Job said to his friends The more we are afflicted of God the more good he intends to work to us the end is to bring us from our selves to trust in him It is a wicked disposition in men that know not the wayes of God they are ignorant of the wayes that he takes with his children when they see men that are Christians that they are humbled and cast down and troubled they think they are men forsaken of God c. alas they do not know Gods manner of dealing he casts them down that he may raise them up they receive the sentence of death against themselves that he may comfort them after that he may do them good in their latter end Let this therefore keep us from censuring of other men in our thoughts for this hard course which God seems to take with them And let us make this Use of it when we are in any grievance and God followes us still let us mourn and lament the stubbornsse of our hearts that will not yeeld God intends to draw us near to him to trust in him if we would do this the affliction would cease except it be for tryall and for the exercise of Grace and for witnesse to the truth When God afflicts sometime for tryall and for witnesse there is a spirit of Glory in such a case that a man is never afflicted in mind but I say when God followes us with sicknesse with crosses with loss of friends and we are not wrought upon let us censure our hard hearts that force God to take this course And justice God in all this Lord thou knowest I could not be good without this thou knowest I would not be drawn without this bring me near to thy self that thou mayest take away this heavy hand from me The intemperate man that is sick makes the Physitian seeme cruel It is because I set my affections too much on earthly things that thou followest me with these troubles we force God to do this A Physitian is forced to bring his Patient even to skin and bone an intemperate Patienr sometimes that hath surfetted upon a long distemper he must bring him to Deaths doore even almost to death because his distemper is so setled upon him that he cannot otherwise cure him So it is with God the Physitian of our souls he must bring us wondrous low we are so prone so desperately addicted to present things to trust to them and to be proud of them and confident in them that God must deal as a sharp Physitian he must bring us so low or else we should never be recovered of our perfect health again and all is that we might trust in God Observe we from hence another point that God in all outward things that are ill intends the good of the soul. He takes liberty to take away health and liberty and friends to take away comforts but whatsoever he takes away he intends the good of the soul in the first place And all the ills that he inflicts upon us they are to cure a worse ill the ill of the soul to cure an unbelieving heart a worldly proud carnal heart which is too much addicted to earthly things We see here how God dealt with St Paul all was to build up his soul in trust and confidence in God all was for the soul. The reason is other things are vanishing the soul is the better part the eternal part if all be well with the soul all shall be well otherwise at last If it be well with the soul the body shall do well though God take liberty to humble us with sicknesse and with death it self yet God will riase the body and make it glorious a good soul will draw it after it at last and move God to make the body glorious But if the soul be naught let us cherish and do what we will with the body both will be naught at last This life is not a life to regard the body we are dead in that while we live the sentence of death is passed we must die we are dying every day The body is dead because of sin we are going to our grave every day takes away a part of our life This is not a life for this body of ours it is a respite to get assurance of an eternal estate in heaven God takes our wealth and liberty and strength c. That he may help our souls that he may work his own blessed work in our souls that he may lay a foundation of
Paul was in these two The point is very large and I will take it onely according to the present scope How doth a Christian exercise trust in extremity in extream crosses for then he must go to God he hath none else to go to he is beaten from the creature and as I said before the soul will have somewhat to go to The poor creatures the silly conies they have the rocks to go to as Solomon saith the Soul that hath greater understanding it is necessitated to trust in God in afflictions Then the soul must say to God Lord if thou help not none can as Jehosaphat said in 2. Chron. 20. We know not what to do but our eyes are to thee In great afflictions we exercise trust because we are forced And because then we are put to this we put the promises in suit the promises made to us for extremity In Isay 43. 2. he hath promised to be with us in the fire and in the water There is a promise of Gods presence and the soul improves that Lord thou hast promised to be present in great perills and dangers as there are two of the greatest specified fire and water Thou hast promised thou wilt be present with us in the fire and in the water now Lord make good thy promise be thou present And when God makes good this promise of presence then the Soul triumphs as in Psal. 23. Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death I will not fear because thou art with me Lord. So in Psal 27. he begins triumphantly The Lord is my shield whom shall I fear of whom shall I be afraid Let us exercise our trust this way in extremity God is with us and who can be against us saith the Apostle Thus the Christian soul lives by trusting in God in all extremity of crosses whatsoever the soul is forced to God and claimes the promises of presence And not onely the promise of his presence but the promise of support and comfort and of mitigation There is a promise in 1. Cor. 10. 13. God is faithfull and will not suffer us to be tempted above our strength Here faith is exercised Lord I am in a great crosse now I am in afflictions thou hast promised that thou wilt not suffer me to be tempted above that I am able to bear Now make good this promise of thine be present and be present by way of mitigation either pull down the crosse and make it lesse or raise up my strength and make that greater for thou hast promised that thou wilt not suffer us to be tempted above our strength And then the soul lives by faith of the issue in great extremities I am in great extremity but I know all shall end well Thus we trust in God in all extremity of afflictions whatsoever in the houre of Death when we receive the Sentence of Death how do we then exercise trust in God In Psal 16. My flesh shall rest in hope because thou wilt not suffer thy Holy one to see corruption Because God did nor suffer Christ to see corruption who is our head therefore my flesh likewise shall rest in hope when I die Our head triumphed over Death and is in Heaven and I die in Faith I trust in God that raised him from the Dead who was my surety I know my debts are paid my surety is out of prison Christ who took upon him to discharge my debts he is out of the prison of the grave he is in heaven therefore my flesh shall rest in hope If it were not for this that Christ were risen when we have the sentence of Death we over-look the grave we see our selves in Heaven as David saith I should utterly have failed but that I looked to see the goodnesse of the Lord in the land of the living Then faith lookes beyond Death and beyond the grave it looks up and with Stephen it sees Christ at the right hand of God we see Christ ready to receive our souls Then we trust in God that raiseth the dead nay we see our selves as it were raised already Thus we see how we should trust in God in great crosses and in the sentence of Death This in a word should be another ground of Patience not only of patience but of contentment in extrream crosses in the hour of Death that all that God doth is for this that we may exercise trust in him And if the Soul clasp to him who is the Fountain of life the chief good it cannot be miserable but this it doth by trust our trust makes us one with him it is that which brings us to God and afflictions and Death it self force us to exercise faith in the promises and drive us to him So God hath overpowered all crosses extream crosses even Death it self that he hath sanctified them to fit us to trust in him and who can be miserable that trusts in God What construction should we make of crosses and afflictions Surely this is to take away false confidence this is to drive me to God shall I be impatient and murmur at that which God hath ordained to bring me nearer to himself to trust in him to take away all false confidence in the creature No this should cut the sinewes of all carnall confidence and make us patient and thankful in all crosses Because God now is seeking our good he is drawing good out of these crosses he labours by this to bring us nearer to himself Blessed is that crosse blessed is that sicknesse or losse of friends whatsoever that brings us nearer to God Why doth God take away our dear friends that we might clinge nearer to him because he will have us to see that he is al-sufficient VVhat doth a man lose when he trusts in God though he lose all the world hath he not him that made the world at the first and can make another if he please If a man lose all and have God as he hath that trusts in him and in his Word for God will not deny his Word and truth he that trusts in God hath him and if he have him what if he be stripped of all he can make another world with a Word of his mouth Other things are but a beame to him what need a man care for a beame that hath the Sunne All the afflictions of this world are to draw or to drive us to God whether we will or no. As the Messengers in the Gospel to force the guests to the banquet with violence so afflictions they are to force us to God this blessed effect they have in all Gods Children But those that do not belong to God what do they in the hour of death and in extremity they are either blocks as Nabal was senslesse creatures or raging as Cain Achitophel and Judas either sots or desperate in extremity Saul in extremity goes to the Witch to ill meanes David in all extremity
he goes to prayer he goes to his rock and shield to God who was his all in all He knew all this was done to drive him to trust in God Why art thou disquieted O my soule why art thou vexed in me trust in God all this is to make thee trust in God he checks and chides his own soul. A Child of God doth check himselfe when his base heart would have him sink and fall down and go to false means then he raiseth himself up trust in God O my soule But such as Saul proud confident hypocrites when all outward things are taken away they go to the Witch to the Devill to one unlawfull meanes or other and at the last to desperate conclusions to the sword it self As we desire to have evidence of a good estate in grace that we belong to God so let us desire God that we may find him drawing us so neare to him by all crosses whatsoever that we may see in him a supply of whatsoever is taken from us If we lose our friends that we may trust God the more As St. Paul speaks of the widow 1 Tim. 5. when her Husband was alive she trusted to him but now she wants her former help to goe to she gives her self to prayer she goes to God she trusts in God So it should be with all when friends are taken away we should go to God he will supply that which is wanting Those that are berest of any comfort now they should go to God What do we lose by that we had the stream before now we have the fountain we shall have it in a more excellent manner in God then we had before And that makes a Christian at a point in this world he is not much discouraged whatsoever he lose if he lose all to his life he knowes he shall have a better supply from God then he can lose in the world therefore he is never much cast down he knowes that all shall drive him nearer to God to trust in God As St. Paul saith here We received the sentence of Death that we might not trust in our selves but in God that raiseth the dead One meanes to settle our trust the better in God reconciled to us in the Covenant of grace through Christ his beloved and our beloved is the blessed Sacrament and therefore come to it as to a seal sanctified by God for that very purpose to strengthen our trust in God How many wayes doth God condescend to strengthen our trust because it is such an honour to him for by trusting in him we give him the honour of all his attributes we make him a God we set him in his throne which we doe not when we trust not in him how many waies doth he condescend to strengthen our trust We have his promise If we believe in him we shall not perish but have everlasting life We have a seale of that promise the Sacrament and is not a broad seale a great confirmation If a man have a grant from the King if he have his broad seal it is a great confirmation though the other were good yet the seale is stronger So we have Gods promise and in regard of our weakness there is a seale added to it If that be not enough we have more we have his oath he hath pawned his life As I live saith the Lord c. he hath pawned his being as he is God he will forgive us if we repent We have his promise seale and oath whatsoever among men may strengthen trust and faith God condescends unto to strengthen our faith because he would not have us perish in unbeliefe Besides that he hath given us earnest a mans trust is strengthened when he hath earnest Every true Christian hath a blessed earnest that is the Comforter he hath the Spirit in him the first fruits where God gives and an earnest he will make good the bargain at the last where he gives the first fruits he will add the harvest God never repents of his earnest where he hath begun a good work he will finish it to the day of the Lord. An earnest is not taken away but the rest is added And the same Spirit that is an earnest is also a pawn and pledge we will trust any runnagate if we have a pawn sufficient now God hath given us this pawn of his Spirit Christ hath given us his Spirit and hath taken our flesh to heaven our flesh is there and his Spirit is in our hearts besides many evidences that we have in this life as pawns Indeed in extremity sometimes we must trust God without a pawne upon his bare word Though he kill me yet will I trust in him saith Job but God ordinarily gives us many pawns of his love The Sacrament is not onely a Seal of the promise but likewise it hath another relation to strengthen our faith it is a seizon as a piece of earth that is given to assure possession of the whole as a man saith Take here is a piece of earth here is my land here are the keyes of my house so in the promises sealed by the Sacrament here is life here is favour here is forgiveness of sins here is life everlasting what can we have more to strengthen our faith God hath condescended every way to strengthen us if we will come in and honour him so much as to trust him with our souls and our salvation Therefor let us come to the Sacrament with undoubted confidence God will keep his credit he will not deceive his credit he will never forsake those that trust in him Psal. 9. But to answer an Objection Oh! all these are confirmations indeed if I did believe and trust in God but my heart is full of unbelief Indeed all these are made to some that believe already in some measure they have this seale and oath and earnest and pawnes and first fruits and all if they believe but I cannot bring my heart to trust in God What hinders thee I am a wretched creature a sinfull creature Doest thou mean to be so still It is no matter what thou hast been but what thou wilt be The greater the sickness the more is the honour of the Physitian in curing it the greater thy sins the more honour to God in forgiving such sins Retort the temptation thus upon Satan God works by contraries and whom he will make righteous he will make them to see their sins and before he will raise us up he will make us rotten in our graves before he will make us glorious he will make us miserable I know that God by this intends that I should despaire in my self God intends that I should despaire indeed but it is that I should despair in my self as the text saith here that we should not trust in our selves when we have a sight of the vilenesse of our sins but in God that raiseth the dead that raiseth
death yet I shall sleep in the Lord as when I goe to sleep I hope to rise again so I trust when the resurrection shall come that my body shall waken and arise I trust in God that raiseth the dead because he raiseth the dead he can recover me if he will if not he will make this body a glorious body afterward so every way it was a strong argument with Saint Paul I trust in God that raiseth the dead The Apostle draws an argument of comfort from Gods power in raising the dead And it is a true reason a good argument he that will raise the dead body out of the grave he can raise out of miserie out of captivity the argument is strong Thus God comforts his people in Ezek. 37. in that parable of the drie bones that he put life in So the blessed Apostle St. Paul he speaks of Abraham Rom. 4. 17. He looked to God who quickneth the dead who calleth things that are not as though they were What made Abraham to trust in God that he would give him Isaac again he considered if God can raise Isaac from the dead if he please he can give me Isaac back again and though Isaac were the sonne of promise yet he trusted Gods Word more then Isaac the sonne of his love Why he knew that God could raise him from the dead though he had sacrificed him he trusted in God who quickneth the dead The resurrection then is an argument to stengthen our faith in all miseries whatsoever It strengthens our faith before death and in death I will not enter into the common place of that point concerning the resurrection it would be tedious and unjust beause it is not intended here but onely it is used as a special argument Therefore I will but touch that point God will raise us from the dead Nature is more offended at this then any other thing But St. Paul makes it cleare that it is not against nature that God should raise the dead 1 Cor. 15. To speake a little of it and then to speake of the use the Apostle made of it and of the use that we may make of it Saith the Apostle in that place speaking to witty Atheists that thought to have cavilled out the resurrection from the dead Thou fool thou speakest against nature if thou think it altogether impossible Look to the seed do we not see that God every spring raiseth things that were dead We see in the silk-worm what an alteration there is from a flie to a worm c We see what men can doe by Art they make glasses of what of Ashes We see what nature can doe which is the ordinary providence of God we see what it can do in the bowels of the earth What is gold and silver and pearle is it not water and earth excellently digested exquisitely concocted and digested That there should be such excellent things of so base a creature We see what Art and nature can do If Art and nature can do so great things why do we call in question the power of God if God have revealed his Will to do so why do we doubt of this great point of Gods raising the dead The Ancients had much adoe with the Pagans about this point they handled it excellently as they were excellent in those points which they were forced to by the adversaries and indeed they were especially sound in those points I say they were excellent and large in the handling of this but I will not stand upon that it is an Article of our Creed I believe the resurrection of the body Indeed he that believeth the first Article of the Creed he will easily believe the last he that believes in God the Father Almighty maker of heaven and earth he will easily believe the resurrection of the body But I will rather come to shew the Use of it God will raise the dead Therefore Gods manner of working is when there is no hope in extremity as I touched before he raiseth us but it is when we are dead he doth his greatest works when there is least hope So it is in the resurrection out of troubles as in the resurrection of the body when there is no hope at all no ground in nature but it must be his power altogether that must do it then he falls to work to raise the dead Therefore our faith must follow his working he raiseth the dead he justifies a sinner but it is when he is furthest from grace a sinner despairing of all mercie then he hath the most need of justification He raiseth the dead but it is then when they are nothing but dust then it is time for him to work to raise the dead He restores but it is that which is lost God never forgets his old work this was his old manner of working at the first still every day he useth it he made all of nothing order out of confusion light out of darkness This was in the creation and the like he doth still he never forgets his old work This St. Paul being acquainted with he fastneth his hope and trust upon such a God as will raise the dead Therefore make that use of it that the Apostle doth when the Church is in any calamity which is as it were a death when it is as in that 37. of Ezekiel drie bones Comfort your selves God comforted the Church there that he would raise the Church out of Babylon as he raised those dead bones the one is as easie as the other So in the government of the Church continually he brings order out of confusion light out of darkness and life out of death that is out of extream troubles when men think themselves dead when they think the Church dead past all hope then he will quicken and raise it so that he will never forget this course till he have raised our dead bodies and then he will finish that manner of dispensation This is Gods manner of working We must answer it with our faith that is in the greatest dejection that can be to trust in God that raiseth the dead Faith if it be true it will answer the ground of it but when it is carried to God it is carried to him that raiseth the dead therefore though it be desperate every way yet notwithstanding I hope above hope I hope in him whose course is to raise the dead who at the last will raise the dead and still delights in a proportion to raise men from death out of all troubles and miseries Well this God doth and therefore carrie it along in all miseries whatsoever in soul in body or estate or in the Church c. God raiseth from the dead therefore we must feel our selves dead before we can be raised by his grace What is the reason that a Papist cannot be a good Christian he opposeth his own conversion what is conversion It is the first resurrection the resurrection of
and perhaps I shall have better occasion to speak of it afterward I onely apply it to the present purpose how it strengthens faith in misery and in the houre of death A man is strengthened in his faith when he thinks now I am going the way of all flesh I am to yield my soul to God and death is to close up mine eyes yet I have trusted in God and do trust in God that will raise my body from the grave This comforts the soul against the horrour of the grave against that confusion and darknesse that is after death Faith seeth things to come as present it sees the body after it hath a long time been in the dust clothed with flesh and made like the glorious bodie of Christ faith sees this and so a Christian soule dies in faith and sowes the body as good seed in the ground in hope of a glorious resurrection And that comforts a Christian soule in the losse of children of wife of friends that have been dearest and nearest to me I trust in God that raiseth the dead that he will raise them again and then we shall all be for ever with the Lord it is a point of singular comfort for the maine Articles of our faith they have a wondrous working upon us in all the passages of our lives it is good to think often upon the pillars of our faith as this is one That God will raise us from the dead But I go on to the next verse VERS 10. Who delivered us from so great a death who doth deliver us in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us SAint Paul sets down his troubles to the life that he might make himself and others more sensible of his comforts and of Gods grace and goodness in his deliverance These words contain his deliverance out of that trouble his particular deliverance out of a particular trouble And this deliverance is set down by a triple distinction of time as time is either past present or to come so God who is the deliverer for all times he hath delivered us for the time past he doth deliver us for the present in whom we trust that he will deliver us for the time to come Who delivered us from so great a death After St. Paul had learned to rrust in God after he had taken forth that lesson a hard lesson to learn that must be learned by bringing a man to such extremity I say after he had learned to trust in God that raiseth the dead God gave him this reward of his diligence in the blessed school of afflictions he delivered him who hath delivered us and who doth deliver us continually he will not take his hand from the work and for the time to come I hope he will do so still St. Paul here calls his trouble a death It was not a death properly it is but his aggravation of the trouble that calls it a death because Gods mercy onely hindred it from being a death it was onely not a death it was some desperate trouble some desperate sicknesse the particular is not set down in the Scripture We know what a tumult there was about Diana of Ephesus Acts 19. and in 1. Cor. 15. He fought with beasts at Ephesus which is in Asia after the manner of men Whether it were that or some other we know not whatsoever it was he calls it a death he doth not call it an affliction but a death a great death to make himself the more sensible VVherefore have we souls and understandings but to exercise them in setting forth our dangers and the deliverances of God to consider of things to affect us deeply The Apostle here to affect himself deeply he sets it down here by a death And oft-times in the Psalmes the Psalmist in Psalme 18. and Psal. 11. he calls his afflictions death and hell and so they had been indeed except God had delivered him But to come to the points that are considerable hence First of all we may observe this that God till he have wrought his own work he doth not deliver he brings men to a low ebbe to a very low estate before he will deliver Secondly After God hath wrought his own work then he delivers hischildren Thirdly he continues the work still he doth deliver me Fourthly That upon experience of Gods former deliverance Gods children have founded a blessed argument for the time to come He hath he will deliver me God is alway like himself he is never at a loss what he hath done he doth and will doe reserving the limitations as we shall see afterward God doth not at the first deliver his children He delivered St. Paul but it was after he had brought him to receive the sentence of death and after he had learned not to trust in himself but in God that raiseth the dead God deferres his deliverance for many reasons To name a few God doth deferre his deliverance when we are in dangers partly as you see here to perfect the work of mortification of self-confidence to subdue trust in any earthly thing St. Paul by this learned not to trust in himself And then to strengthen our faith and confidence in God when we are drawn from all creatures to learn to trust in him And to sweeten his deliverance when it comes to indear his favours for then they are sweet indeed after God hath beat us out of our selves Summer and Spring are sweet after Winter so it is in this vicissitude and intercourse that God useth favour after affliction and crosses is favour indeed That makes heaven so sweet to Gods Children when they come there because they go to Heaven out of a great deal of miserie in this world And partly likewise God defers it for his own glory that it may be known for his meer work for when we are at a losse and the soul can reason thus God must help or none can help then God hath the glory therefore in love to his own glory he defers it so long Again he useth to defer long that he might the more shame the enemies at length for if the affliction be from the insolencie and pride of the enemies he deferres deliverance till they be come to the highest pitch and then he ariseth as a Gyant refreshed with wine and smites his enemies in the hinder parts he is as it were refreshed on the sudden And as it is his greatest glory to raise his children when they are at the lowest so it is his glory to confound the pride of the enemies when it is at the highest if he should do it before his glory would not shine so much in the confusion of them and their enterprises against his children One would think he should not have let Pharaoh alone so long but he got him glory the more at the last in confounding him in the Red-sea So Haman came very farre almost to the execution of the decree he
long then we see ere God deliver and why and at the last he will deliver one way or other and therefore let us waite quietly and this the Saints of God have practised in all ages Psal. 62. Yet my soul keep silence to the Lord. He had a shrewd conflict with himself when he saw how good causes were trampled on and he saw the insolence of wicked persons how they lift up their heads Yet my soul keep silence to the Lord. So he begins Psal. 73. Yet God is good to Israel for all this And God chargeth it upon his people that they should waite If I tarry wait thou Hab. 2. 2. And the blessing is promised to those that can wait and not murmur as in Psal. 147. 11. It is a duty that we are much urged to and very hardly brought to the practice of therefore we are to hear it pressed the more Psal. 147. The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him in those that hope in his mercy in those that trust in his mercy The like you have in many places Isay 30. 18. Therefore will the Lord wait that he may be gracious to you therefore he will be exalted that he may have mercy upon you he is a God of judgement Blessed are all that wait for him So in Lament 3. The Church still waits upon God How oft doth David charge himself Wait and trust in God O my soul Let us learn this upon these grounds that God is long ere he deliver but at last he will deliver and that is sufficient to force this to wait still upon God with patience and silence Well thus we see God doth deliver Who dilivered us c. What will he do for the time present he hath delivered and doth deliver and he will deliver From all joyntly together you see that Gods people in this World stand in need of deliverance alway They have alwayes troubles when one is past another is present deliverance supposeth dangers There have been dangers there are dangers and there will be dangers Our life is a warfare a temptation we are absent from God we are alway exposed to dangers We live in the middest of Divels and of Divellish-minded men we have corruptions in us that expose us to sin and sin drawes on judgments we are alway in danger one way or other while we live in this VVorld But our comfort is that as there have been dangers and are dangers and will be dangers so there hath been deliverance there is deliverance and there will be deliverance It is a trade that God useth it is his Art God knoweth how to deliver his as Saint Peter saith he hath alway exercised it he is excellent at it he hath delivered his Church he doth deliver his Church and he will deliver his Church and so every particular member he hath and doth and will diliver them VVonderfull is the entercourse that God useth with his people and their estate Even as in nature there is a change and entercourse of day and night of light and darknesse of morning and evening of summer and winter of hot and cold so in the life of a Christian there are changes dangers and deliverance There is a sowing in tears and a reaping in joy there is a night of affliction and a morning of joy and prosperity Heavinesse may be in the evening but joy commeth in the morning And thus we go on till we end our daies till we be taken to Heaven where there shall be no Change where all teares shall be wiped from our eyes If we had spirituall eyes eyes to see our danger to see how full the World is of Divells then to consider how many dangers this weak life is subject to how many casualties we cannot go out of doores we cannot take a journey but how many dangers are we subject to we are invironed with perpetual dangers the snares of death compasse us almost every where abroad and at home in our greatest security But our comfort is that God doth compasse us with mercy as it is Psal. 32. As dangers are round about us so God is a Wall of fire about us we have dangers about us Divells about us we have a guard about us we have God about us we have his Angels about us we have all his creatures about us All things are yours saith the Apostle c. It is God that hath delivered us that doth deliver us Who restraines the divels from having their wills of us they are enemies not only to our souls and to our salvation but to our bodies they are enemies to our health as we see in Job we live in the middest of Lyons oft-times in the middest of enemies who restraines their malice we are preserved from dangers day and night who shuts in the doores who watcheth over us but he that keeps Israel It is God that delivereth us Without his deliverance all deliverances were to little purpose all shutting in were to little purpose except he shut us in that shut Noah into the Ark he must watch over us It is God that delivereth us But doth he deliver us onely outwardly No he hath delivered and he doth deliver us spiritually He hath delivered us from the power of hell and damnation he doth deliver us from many sins that we should commit and when we have sinned he delivers us from despair he delivers us from presuming by touching our hearts with saving grief for sin if we belong to him one of the two wayes he delivers either from the sin or from the danger of the sin either from the committing of the sin or from despairing for the sin or presuming in a course of sin Who delivereth us from our inbred corruptions Should we not run every day into the sins that we see others commit Who cuts short our lusts and suppresseth them that we are not swearers that we are not licentious persons that we are not Godlesse persons are we not hewn out of the same rock Who keeps us from sin Is it any inbred goodnesse Are we not all a like tainted with originall fin Children of wrath Who puts a difference between us and others It is God that hath delivered us and that doth deliver us It is his mercy that we do not commit sin it is his preventing deliverance and when we have committed sin it is his mercy to pardon it there is his preserving deliverance from despair after the committing of sin All are beholding to God for deliverance those that have committed sin that he delivers them from the wrath to come from the damnation that they deserve and those that have the grace not to commit sin they are beholding to him that he delivers them from that which their corruptions else would carry them to if he should take his government from their hearts We have an inward guard as well as an outward an invisible guard We are kept by the Spirit of God through Faith to salvation
will tell them that it is another manner of sin and that it is the fountain of all sin And so for Justification by works conscience it self if there were no Book of God would say it is a false point And then they plead for Ignorance they have blind consciences their Clergy being a subtile generation that have abused the world a long time because they would sit in the conscience where God should sit they sit in the Temple of God and would be respected above that which is due to them they would be accounted as petty gods in the world therefore they keep the people from the knowledge of the true rule and make what they speak equal with Gods word Now if the people did discern this they would not be Papists long for no man would willingly be cozened Let us labour therefore for a true rule And when we have gotten rules apply them for what are rules without application Rules are instrumental things and instruments without use are nothing If a Carpenter have a rule and hang it up by him and work by conceit what is it good for So to get a company of rules by the word of God to refine natural knowledge as much as we can and then to make no use of it in our lives it is to no purpose therefore when we have rules let us apply them In this those that have the true rule and apply it not are better then they that refuse to have the rule because as hath been said an Ignorant man that hath not the rule he cannot be good But a man that hath the rule and yet squares not his life by it yet he can bring the rule to his life there is a near converse between the heart and the brain such a man he hath the rule in his memory he hath it in his understanding and therefore there is a thousand times more hope of him that cares to know that cares to hear the word of God and cares for the meanes then of sottish persons that care not to hear because they would not do that they know and because they would not have their sleepy dull and drowsie conscience awaked there is no hope of such a one It should be our care to have right rules and in the application of them to make much of conscience that it may apply aright in directing and then in comfort If we obey it in directing it will witnesse and excuse and upon witnesse and excuse there will come a sweet Paradise to the soul of joy and peace unspeakable and glorious The last thing I observe from these words is this that The testimonie and witnesse of conscience is a ground of comfort and joy The reason of the joyning these two the witnesse of a good conscience and joy it is that which I said before in the description of conscience for conscience first admonisheth and then witnesseth and then it excuseth or accuseth and then it judgeth and executeth Now the inward execution of conscience is joy if it be good for God hath so planted it in the heart and soul that where conscience doth accuse or excuse there is alway execution there is alway joy or fear the affections of joy or fear alway follow If a mans conscience excuse him that he hath done well then conscience comes to be enlarged to be a Paradise to the soul to be a Jubile a refreshing to speak peace and comfort to a man For rewards are not kept altogether for the life to come hell is begun in an ill conscience and heaven is begun in a good conscience an ill conscience is a hell upon earth a good conscience is a heaven upon earth therefore the testimony of a good conscience breeds glorying and rejoycing Again conscience when it witnesseth it comforts because when it witnesseth it witnesseth with God and where God is there is his Spirit and where the holy Spirit is there is joy for even as heat followes the fire so joy and glorying accompany the Spirit of God The Spirit of glory Now when conscience witnesseth aright it witnesseth with God and God is alway cloathed with joy he brings joy and glory into the heart Conscience witnesseth with God that I am his And it witnesseth with my self that I have led my life thus Our rejoycing is the witnesse of our conscience It is not the witnesse of another mans conscience but my own other men may witnesse and say I am thus and thus but all is to no purpose if my own conscience tell me I am another man then they take me to be But when a man 's own conscience witnesseth for him there followes rejoycing A man cannot rejoyce with the testimony of another mans conscience because another man saith I am a good man c. unlesse there be the testimony of my own conscience Now it is a sweet benefit an excusing conscience when it witnesseth well Let us see it in all the passages of life that a good conscience in excusing breeds glorying and joy It doth breed joy in Life in Death at the day of judgement In life in all the passages of life in all estates both good and ill In good the testimonie of conscience breeds joy for it enjoyes the pleasures of this life and the comforts of it with the favour of God conscience tells the man that he hath gotten the things well that he enjoyes that he hath gotten the place and advancement that he hath well that he enjoyes the comforts of this life with a good conscience and all things are pure to the pure If he have gotten them ill conscience upbraids him alway and therefore he cannot joy in the good estate he hath If a man had all the contentments in the world if he had not the testimonie of a good conscience what were all What contentment had Adam in Paradise after once by sin he had fallen from the peace of conscience none at all A little that the righteous hath is better then great riches of the ungodly because they have not peace of conscience And so for ill estate when conscience witnesseth well it breeds rejoycing In false imputations and slanders and disgraces as here it was insinuated into the Corinthians by false teachers and those that followed them that St. Paul was so and so saith St. Paul You may say what you will of me My rejoycing is this the testimony of my conscience that I am not the man which they make me to be in your hearts by their false reports The witnesse of conscience is a good and sufficient ground of rejoycing in this case Therefore holy men have retired to their conscience in all times as Saint Paul you see doth here So Job his conscience bare him out in all the false imputations of his comfortlesse friends that were miserable comforters they laboured to take away his sincerity from him the chief cause of his joy Yeu shall not
is alway in their eares an ill Conscience when it is mingled with ill newes when there are two feares together it must needs be a great fear And a good conscience when it hath laid up grounds of joy in life in the worst estate and condition of life then it makes use of joy in death for when all comforts are taken from a man when his friends cannot comfort him and all earthly things leave him then that conscience that hath gone along with him that hath been a Monitor and a witnesse all his life-time now it comes to speak good things to him now it comforts him now conscience is some body at the houre of death when nothing else will be regarded when nothing will comfort then conscience doth The righteous hath hope in his death as the Wise man saith Death is called the King of feares because it makes all afraid It is the terrible of terribles saith he Philosopher but here is a King above the King of feares a good conscience is above the King of feares death A good conscience is fo farre from being discouraged by this King of feares that it is joyfull even in death because it knowes that then it is near to the place where conscience shall be fully enlarged where there shall be no annoyance nor no grievance whatsoever Death is the end of misery and the beginning of happinesse therefore a good conscience is joyful in death And after death at the day of judgment there the witnesse of conscience is a wondrous cause of joy for there a man that hath a good conscience he looks upon the Judge his Brother he looks on him with whom he hath made his peace in his life-time before and now he receives that which he had the beginnings of before then he lifts up his head with joy and comfort So you see how the witnesse of conscience causeth glory and joy in all estates whatsoever in life in death after death it speaks for a man there it never leaves him till it have brought him to heaven it self where all things else leave a man Therefore how much should we prize and value the testimony and witnesse of a good conscience And what madnesse is it for a man to humour men and displease conscience his best friend Of all persons and all things in the world we should reverence our own conscience most of all Wretched men despise the inward witnesse of this inward friend this inward divine this inward Physician this inward Comforter this inward Counsellour It is no better then madnesse that men should regard that every thing else be good and clean and yet notwithstanding in the middest of all to have foul consciences But to answer an objection and to unloose some knots It may be said that when the Hearts of people are good yet there a good conscience concludes not alway for comfort VVhere there is faith in Christ and an honest life conscience should conclude comfort here is the Rule this I have obeyed therefore I should have comfort Now this we see crossed oft-times that Christians that live exact lives are often troubled in conscience how can trouble of conscience stand with joy upon the witnesse of conscience I answer the witnesse of Conscience when it is a good conscience it doth not alway breed joy It is because our estate is imperfect here and Conscience doth not alway witnesse out of the goodnesse of it sometimee conscience is misled and so sometimes good Christians take the errour of conscience for the witnesse of Conscience These things should be distinguished Conscience sometime in the best erres as well as gives a true witnesse If we take the errour of conscience for the witnesse of conscience there will come trouble of conscience and that deservedly through our own folly Now conscience doth erre in good men sometimes when they regard Rules which they should not or when they mistake the matter and doe not argue aright As for instance when they gather thus I have not grace in such a measure and therefore I have none I am not the Child of God What a rule is this This is the errour of conscience and therefore it must needs breed perplexitie of conscience A good conscience when it is right cannot witnesse thus because the Word doth not say thus Is a nullitie and an imperfection all one No there is much difference in the whole kind A nullitie is nothing an imperfection though it be but a little degree yet it is something This is the errour of conscience and from thence comes trouble of conscience which makes men reason ill many waies As for instance I have not so much grace as such a one hath and therefore I have no grace Now that is a false reasoning for every one hath his due measure If thou be not so great a rich man as the richest in the Towne yet thou mayest be rich in thy kind Again when conscience looks to the humour you are to live by faith and not by the humour of Melancholy When the Instrument of reason that should judge is distempered by melancholy it reasons from thence falsly Because melancholy perswades me that I am so therefore conscience being led by the humour of the body saith I am so Who bid thee live by humour thou must live by rule Melancholy may tell thee sometime when it is in strength that thou art made of glasse as it hath done some it will deceive thee in bodily things wherein sense can confute melancholy much more will it if we yield to it in matters of the soule it will perswade us that we are not the Children of God that we have not Grace and goodnesse when we have Again hence it is that conscience doth not conclude comfort in Gods Children because it looks to the ill and not to the good that is in them for there are those two things in Gods Children there is good and ill now in the time of temptation they look to the ill and think they have no good because they will not see any thing but ill They fix their eyes on the remainders of their rebellious lusts which are not fully subdued in them and they look wholly on them Whereas they should have two eyes one to look on that which is good that God may have glorie and they comfort Now they fixing their eyes altogether on that which is naught and because they doe not or will not see that which is good therefore they have no comfort because they suffer conscience to be ill led that it doth not its duty And conscience in good men it looks sometimes to that that it should not in others in regard of others It looks to the flourishing of wicked men and therefore it concludes Certainly I have washed my hands in vain since such men thrive and prosper in the world Psalme 37. and Psalme 73. VVho bade thee look to this and to be uncomfortable from thence that thy
good demand It is not baptisme but the demand of a good conscience When the conscience hath fed on Christ it demands boldly as it is Rom. 8. of Satan and all enemies Who shall lay any thing to our charge it is God that justifieth it is Christ that died or rather that is risen again It boldly demands of God who hath given his Son the bold demand of conscience prevails with God and this comes by faith in Christ. Now this is strengthened by the Sacrament here are the visible representations and seales that we are incorporate more and more into Christ and so feeding upon Christ once our conscience is pacified and purged from all dead works and we come to have a continuall feast Christ is first the Prince of righteousnesse the righteous King and then Prince of peace first he gives righteonsnesse and then he speaks peace to the conscience The Kingdom of God is righteousnesse peace and joy in the Holy Ghost So that all our feast and joy and comfort that we have in our consciences it must be from righteousnesse A double righteousnesse the righteousnesse of Christ which hath satisfied and appeased the wrath of God fully and then we must have the righteousnesse of a good conscience sanctified by the Spirit of Christ we must put them together alway we can never have communion with Christ and have forgivenesse of sins but we must have a Spirit of sanctification There is mercy with thee that thou mayest be feared Where there is mercy in the forgivenesse of sin there is a disposition to fear it ever after Therefore if for the present you would have a good conscience desire God to strengthen your faith in the blood of Christ poured out for you desire God to strengthen your faith in the crucified bodie of Christ broken for you that so feeding on Christ who is your surety who himself is yours and all is yours you may ever have the feast of a good conscience that will comfort you in false imputations that will comfort you in life and in death and at the day of judgement This is our rejoycing in all things the testimony of our conscience first purged by the blood of Christ and then purged and sanctified by the Spirit of Christ that we have had our Conversation in simplicity and sincerity c. Our rejoycing is this that in simplicity and sincerity This is the matter of this testimonie of Conscience that is simplicity and sincerity Saint Paul glories in his simplieity and sincerity And mark that by the way it is no vain glorying but lawful upon such cautions as I named before but to add a little A man in some cases may glory in the Graces of God that are in him but with these cautions First if so be that he look on them as the gifts of God Secondly if he look on them as stained with his own defects and so in that respect be humbled Thirdly if he look upon them as fruits of his justification and as fruites of his assurance of his salvation and not as causes And then if it be before men that he glories not when he is to deale with God When men lay this and that imputation upon a man he may rejoyce as Saint Paul doth here in the testimony of his conscience in simplicity and sincerity The matter of the testimony of Conscience wherein he glories is simplicity and godly sincerity or as the words may well be read in the simplicity and sincerity of God such as proceeds from God and such as aimes at and looks to God and resembles God For both simplicity and sincerity come from God they are wrought by God and therein we resemble God and both of them have an eye to God a respect to God so it is in the originall in the simplicity and sincerity of God There is not much difference between simplicity and sincerity the one expresseth the other if you will have the difference simplicity especially respects men our conversation amongst men Simplicity hath an eye to God in all things in Religion opposite to hypocrisy in Religion Simplicity that is opposed to doublenesse where doublenesse is there is alway hypocrisy opposed to sincerity and where simplicity is there is alway sincerity truth to God But it is not good to be very exact and punctuall in the distinction of these things they may one expresse the other very well Simplicity Saint Paul's rejoycing was that his conscience witnessed to him his simplicity in his whole conversation in the world his whole course of life which the Scripture calls in other places a walking Saint Paul meanes this first of himself and then he propoundes himself an example to us How was St. Paul's conversation in simplicity Not onely if we consider Saint Paul as a Christian but consider him as an Apostle his conversarion was in simplicity It was without guile without seeking himself without seeking his owne for rather then he would be grievous to the Corinthians the man of God he wrought himself because he would not give any the least scandall to them being a rich people he had rather live by his own labour then to open his mouth he did not seek himself In a word he did not serve himself of the Gospell he served Christ he did not serve himself of Christ. There are many that serve themselves of the Gospell that serve themselves of religion they care no more for religion then will serve their owne turne Saint Paul's conversation was in simplicity he had no such aime he did not preach of envy orof malice or for gain as he taxeth some of the Philippian teachers Some preach Christ not of simplicity and sincerity but of envy c. Then again as an Apostle and a teacher his conversation was in simplicity because he mingled nothing with the Word of God in teaching his doctrine is pure What should the chaffe do with the wheat Jer. 20. What should the drosse do with the Gold he did not mingle his own conceits and devices with the Word for he taught the pure Word of God the simple Word of God simple without any mixture of any by-aimes So the blessed Apostle was simple both in his Doctrine and in his intentions Propounding himself herein exemplary to all us that as we look to hold up our heads with comfort and to glory in all estat es whatsoever so our consciences must bear us witnesse that we carry our selves in the simplicity and sincerity of God Now simplicity is when there is a conformity of pretention and intention when there is nothing double when there is not a contradiction in the spirit of a man and in his words and carriage outwardly That is simplicty when there is an exact conformity and correspondence in a mans judgement and speech in his affections and actions When a man judgeth simply as the truth of the thing is and when he affects as he judgeth when he loves
is unsettled Again by terrours of conscience a double-minded man that will please God and yet be a worldling is unconstant in all his wayes If his eye were single then all his body would be light that is if a man had a single judgment to know what is right to know what in life and in death to stick to all would be single the judgment and intentions go together when a mans judgment is convinced of the goodnesse of spiritual things upon judgment followes intention When a man desires and resolves to serve God and to please him in all things then all the body and his affections are lightsome his affections and his outward man goes with a single eye A man that hath a false weak judgment and thereupon a false weak double intention his body is dark he hath a darksome conversation A double-minded man is unconstant in all his wayes Therefore we should labour for this simplicity in all our conversation Again we should the rather labour for this simplicity because it is part of the Image of God therein we resemble God in whom is no mixture at all of contraries but all is alike And as it resembles God so it bears us out in the presence of God and our own conscience as he saith here Our rejoycing is this the testimony of our conscience that in simplicity c. Now God is greater then conscience A man that carries himself in simplicity and in an uniform even manner to God and to men that man hath comfort in his conscience and comfort before God And of all other sins the time will come that none will lie heavier on us then doubling both with men and with God when it will appear that we have not been the men that we carried our selves to be The reason is the more will there is in a sin and the more advisednesse the greater is the sin and the greater the sin is the greater the terrour of conscience and the greater that is the more fear and trembling before God that knowes conscience better then we do Now where there is doubling where a man is not one in his outward and inward man in his conversation to men when there is a covering of hatred and of ill affections with contrary pretences there is advisement there is much will and little passion to bear a man out to excuse him but he doth it as we say in coole blood and that makes dissimulation so grosse hecause it is in cold blood The more will and advisement is in any sin the greater it is so the aggravation of sin is to be considered and where temptations are strong and the lesse a man is himself so there is a diminution and a lesse aggravation as when a man is carried with passion with infirmitie or the like But usually when men double they plot David he plotted before and after his sin he doubled before and after his sin that was laid to his charge more then all that ever he did in his life He was a man after Gods own heart except in the matter of Uriah Why Because in that he plotted We see before what many shifts and windings and turnings he had to accomplish it He sends Uriah to Joab and gives him a letter to place him in the fore front and useth many projects And after it was committed how did he cover it and when it was hid from men he would have hid it from God a great while till God pulled him from his hiding place and made him confesse roundly Psalme 32. till he dealt directly with God My bones were consumed and my moisture was turned into the drought of summer He did it from men and would have hid it from God Therefore because there was much plotting in that sin that is set down as the onely blemish in all his life He was a man after Gods own heart except in the matter of Uriah Many other faults are recorded in the Booke of God of David but because there might be some excuse they were from infirmity or out of passion or oversight c. they are not so charged on him But this was with plotting it was in cold blood there was much will and advice in it therefore this is doted for a great sin And if it be in our dealing amongst men we should consider who it is we deceive who it is we go beyond in doubling who it is that we circumvent and who it is that doth it Are we not all Christians we are or should be all new creatures And who do we do it to to our fellow-members and to our brethren Therefore in 1. Thess. 4. when the Apostle disswades the Thessalonians from this from double dealing and double carriage to men saith he You are members one of another Let us consider who we are and whom we deal with Now there be some persons and some courses that are likelier and more prone to this doubling then others for want of this grace of simplicity Wherethere is strength of parts there is oft-times a turning of them against God and against our brethren where Grace hath not subdued strong Imaginations strong thoughts and brought all under it there is a turning of those parts against God and against our brethren And as it is in particular persons So some callings are more prone to double-dealing to this carriage that is not fair and commendable before God nor comfortable to the conscience As we see now adaies it reigns every where in every street We see amongst men of Trade Merchants and the like there is not that direct dealing they know one thing and pretend another So likewise in the Lawes there are many imputations I would they were false that men set false colours upon ill causes to gild a rotten post as we say to call white black and black white There is a woe in Esay pronounced against such as justifie hard causes such as call evill good and good evil it is a greater sin then it is usually taken for So go to any rank of men they have learned the Art of dissimulation in their course they have learned to sell wind to sell words to sell nothing to sell pretexts to overthrow a man by way of commendations and flattery such tricks there are which are contrary to this simplicity To cover hatred with fair words to kill with kindnesse as we say to overthrow a man with commendations To commend a man before another who is jealous of the vertues he commends him for To commend a man for valour before a coward to commend a man and thereby to take occasion to send him out of the way To commend a man and then to come in with an exception to marre all To cover revenge and hatred with fair carriage thereby to get opportunity to revenge such tricks there are abroad which oft-times discover themselves at length For God is just he will discover all these
hidden windings and turnings for plotting makes it more odious of all men doublers are most hateful How shall we come to attain this Grace to converse in the world in simplicity First of all take it for a rule though many think it no great matter to be a dissembler our nature is full of dissimulation since the fall the heart of man is unsearchable there is deep deceit in man Take a Child and see what dissimulation he learns it is one of the first things he learns to dissemble to double to be false We see the weakest creatures what shifts what windings and turnings they have to save themselves It is a vertue to be down-right for therein a man must crosse himself It is no thanks for a man to shuffle and to shift in the world nature teacheth this to dissemble to turn and wind c. A man need not to plough to have weeds the ground it self is a mother to them though it be a stepmother to good seed So we need not teach men to dissemble every man hath it by nature but it must be strength of grace that makes a man down-right Take that for a ground There are a company of sottish men that take it for a great commendation to dissemble and rather then they will be known not to dissemble in businesse they will puzzle clear businesse when a thing is fair and clear they will have projects beyond the Moon and so carry themselves in it as if they desired to be accounted couzeners and dissemblers Alas poor souls nature teacheth men to be naught in this kind well enough Know therefore whosoever thou art that studiest this Art of dissembling and doubling thy own nature is prone enough to this and the divel is apt to lead thee into it This being laid for a ground how may we carry our selves in the world in holy simplicity that may yield comfort to our conciences in life and in death First consider that the time will come that we shall deal with that that will not dissemble with us Let the cunningest dissembler hold out as long as he can he shall meet with sicknesse or with terrour of conscience he shall meet with death it self and with the judgement of God and hell torment although now he carry himself smoothly and dance in a net as we say and double with the world though he make a fair shew yet ere long thou shalt meet with that that will deal simply with thee that will deal plain enough with thee Thou shalt be uncased and laid open to the world ere long let us consider this We see a Snake or Serpent it doubles and winds and turns when it is alive till it be killed and then it is stretched forth at length As one said seeing a Snake dead and stretched out so saith he it behoved you to have lived So the Divel that great Serpent that ancient old Serpent he gets into the Snake into the wilely wit and makes it winde and turn and shift and shuffle in the world but then some great crosse comes or death comes and then a man is stretched out at length to the view of the world and then he confesseth all and perhaps that confession is sincere when it is wrung out by terrour of conscience then he confesseth that he hath deceived the world and deceived himself and laboured to deceive God also If we would have comfort in the hour of death labour we to deal plainly and directly and of all other sins as I said before remember this is that which will lie the heaviest on us as comming nearest the sin against the holy Ghost For what is the sin against the holy Ghost when men rush against their knowledge in malice to the truth known Where there is most knowledge and most will there is the greatest sin Now in lying and dissembling and double-dealing a man comes near to the sin against the holy Ghost for he knows that he doth ill he plots the ill that he knows and when there is plotting there is time to deliberate a man is not carried away by passion Consider the time will come when you will be uncased when you will be laid open and naked and then at that time of all sins this will lie heavy on thee thy dissembling in the world Therefore every one in his calling take heed of the sins of his calling among the rest of this one of double-dealing And therefore that we may avoid it the better labour for faith to live by faith What is the reason that men live by shifts and by doubling in the world They have not faith to depend upon God in good and plain down-right courses Men are ready to say If I should not dissemble and double and carry things after that manner hwo should I live why where is thy faith The righteous man lives by his faith and not by his shifts not by his wits God will provide for us are we not in Covenant with God Do we not professe to be Gods Children Do children use to shift No a child goes about to do his fathers will and pleasure and he knowes that he will maintain him It is against the nature of the Child of God as farre as he knowes himself to be a Child of God to use any indirect course any windings and turnings in his calling let us depend upon God as a Child depends on his father and of all others God will provide most for them that in simple honesty in plain downe-right dealing depend on him in doing good For God accounts it a prerogative to defend and maintain them that cast themselves on him he will be their wisdom that can deny their own wisdom and their own shifts by nature and in conscience labour to deale directly he will be wise for them and provide for them It is his prerogative to do so and not to suffer his Children to be deserted A little faith therefore would help all this and would make us walke in simplicity If we could make God our alsufficiencie once then we should walk uprightly before God and men For what makes men to double This certainly makes men to double they think they shall be undone if they be direct for if they deale directly they shall lose their liberty or their lives or their opportunity of gaining c. Well come what will deale thou directly and know this for a rule thou shalt have more good in Gods favour if thou be a Christian then thou canst lose in the World if upon grounds of conscience thou deal directly in what estate so ever thou art If thou be a Judge if thou be a Witnesse deale directly speake the truth If thou be a divine speak directly in Gods cause deale out the Word of God as in Gods presence come what will whatsoever thou losest in thy wealth or liberty c. thou shalt gain in God Is not all good in him what is all the
say we did nothing to God we have not obeyed him how can we answer him we must needs yield to the tempter But when we can say with Peter Lord thou knowest that I love thee thou knowest I have laboured to approve my heart to thee and that I have prosecuted this desire with endeavours this will comfort a man in the time of temptation therefore let us labour to have our conversation in sincerity It will afford us much comfort in this life as it did S. Paul S. Paul here was in some grievous sicknesse even to death and he was disgraced as a person that regarded not his promise of coming to them Now what doth he do in all this sicknesse and disgrace what doth he answer to them he comforts himself in this My rejoycing is that my conscience doth testifie my sincerity He runs to God and to his sincerity as his strong hold he approves himself to God Some thing we shall have in this life first or last afflictions or disgraces and troubles will come What is then the strong hold of a Christian Then he runs to his sincerity What would Hezekias have done when he received the sentence of death that he had walked before God in uprightnesse and sincerity Sincerity then is worth more then the world And he that will not labour for that which is worth more then all the world it is a sign he is ignorant of the worth of it A man at the hour of death he would lose all the world if he had it for sincerity Therefore let us not part with our sincerity Let us not offend against sincerity and truth by falshood in our carriage and in our tongues or conversations any manner of way since it will yield us so much comfort in temptations and afflictions and at the Tribunal and Judgment-seat of Christ. Let us not have false aimes and ends and do things in a false manner It is not action onely that God requires but the manner If we regard not the manner God will not regard the matter The matter of the Pharisees performances was very good for stuffe but their hearts being naught God regarded it not Let us look to the manner of doing all that we do that we do them to God that we do them in sincerity in a holy manner The Scripture requires this receive the Sacrament but thus Examine your selves Take heed how you hear Let your conversation be in the world but thus in simplicity and godly sincerity S. Paul doth not say that he rejoyced in miracles or in the great works that he had done in converting of Nations c. which yet were matters of joy but when he comes to joy indeed here is his joy that his Conversation had been in simplicity and godly sincerity And Christians must take heed that they reason not against sincerity another way that is to conclude they have no goodnesse because they see a great deal of corruption and imperfections for imperfections may stand with truth Asa as I said had many infirmities in his life yet notwithstanding it is said that he walked in sincerity So Hezekias it is said he walked before God uprightly yet he had many infirmities and imperfections Nay a man may well retort this upon such poor soules that are witnesses with Satan against themselves in the sight of their sins that their sins being known by them especially with hatred of them it is a sign of sincerity Again others are ready to say I am not sincere because God followes me with afflictions and distresses Reason not so for he therefore followes thee with afflictions because he would have nothing but sincerity in thee he would make thee wholly sincere and purge thee as metal is purged in the fire from the drosse Therefore take heed thus of sinning against sincerity Do nothing in hypocrisie and when we are once sincere let us not sin against it by yielding to the Devil This comforted Job when his friends alledged his corruptions Well saith he you shall not take away my sincerity from me He looked to the eye of God that saw him to whom he approved his heart and that consideration made him sincere and thence he comforted himself So let us comfort our selves in our sincerity against Satan's allegations as a condition of the Covenant of grace which respects not perfection but truth To adde one thing more As there is an order of other graces so there is an order in this sincerity which we should labour for There is this order to be kept We must digg deep we must lay a sincere foundation What is that A deep search into our own hearts and waies by sound humilition We say of digestions if the first be naught all are naught if the first concoction in the body be naught there can never be good assimulation there can never be good blood so if there be not a good a sincere foundation there can never be a sincere fabrick Therefore many mistake and build Castles in the Ayr comb Downes as we say they build a frame of profession that comes to nothing in the end because it is not sincere in this order they were never truly humbled they had a guilefull heart in the cnofession of their sins they never knew what sin was throughly and feelingly Blessed is the man in whose spirit there is no guile Psal. 32. The Psalmist especially means and intends there in regard of down-right dealing with God in the confession of sins For he himself when he did not deal roundly and uprightly with God in the confession of his sinnes with detestation and with resolution never to commit the same again he was in a pitiful plight both of soul and body his moisture was turned into the drought of Summer But when without guile he laid open his soul to God then he came from sincere humiliation and sincere confession to sincere faith Therefore for the order let us first labour to be sincere in the sight of that which is ill in us in the confession of our sins and then we shall be sincere the better to depend upon Gods mercy in Christ by faith And from thence we shall come to sincere Love when we believe that God is reconciled in Christ we shall love him Our love is but a reflexion of his love to us when once we know that he loves us we shall love him again The Spring of all duty is sincere love coming from sincere faith as sincere faith is forced out of the sincere sight of our sins of the ill and miserable estate we are in A man will not go out of himself so long as he sees any hope in himself and therefore sound knowledge of the evil condition we are in it forceth the grace of faith which forceth a man to go out of himself And then when he is perswaded of Gods love in Christ he loves him again Love is that which animates
many times but by the power of the Spirit he checked it and kept it under it was not his rule Now the reasons of this Doctrine That the godly guide not themselves by fleshly wisdome which hath worldly aimes and carnal means to bring those aimes to passe they are First Because Gods Children will not cherish that in them and make that their rule which is contrary to God which is enmity to God but this carnal wisdome which proules for the world and looks for ease and profit and pleasure it is enmity to God Rom. 8 6 7 8. the Apostle proves it at large They being subject to God Children of God being under him in all kind of subjection as servants as Children as spouses they will not cherish that which is rebellion to God which is not subject to God neither can be as we may say a Papist that is Jesuited he is neither a good Subject nor can be so the wisdome of the flesh neither is it subject to God nor can be subject in the nature of it it is rebellion It is Gods enemy it withstands all the Articles that he hath given us to believe fleshly wisdome hath some opposition against all truth it opposeth every command that God gives us to obey there is something in flesh and blood to withstand every command it is the greatest enemy that God hath And as it is an enemy to God so it is to us it is contrary to our good It is death the wisdome of the flesh Rom. 8. Saith the Apostle Rom. 7. The flesh deceived me and slew me There is no wise man will cherish that which is death and which is Gods enemy and his own too The wisdome of the flesh as it is opposite to Gods Spirit a rebel and an enemy to him so it is death to a Christian and therefore be will not frame his course of life by it It brings us to eternal death it betrayes us to Satan Sampson could have had no harm had not Dalilah betrayed him so the Devil could not hurt us unlesse it were for fleshly widome the Devil is not such an enemy to a man as his own fleshly wisdome Again a Christian knowes that as it is contrary to God and contrary to his good so it is base and unworthy as well as dangerous It is base and unworthy for a Christian that is an heir of heaven that is raised to be a Child of God to abase his wits to proule for the world how base and unworthy is it for him to seek the things below that is born again to an inheritance immortal and undefiled that is reserved for him in Heaven How unworthy is it for him that hath his understanding and all his inward parts and powers dedicated and consecrated to God to make his understanding a bawd for the base purposes of the flesh The high indignity of the thing makes the Child of God ashamed to be ruled by the flesh to prostitute the strength of his soul to the flesh to make his soul that should carry the Image of God to carry the Image of the Devil to make his wit and understanding a bawd to accomplish earthly things which God hath sanctified to attain grace and comfort in this world and to live as a Christian should do that he may die with comfort and enjoy heaven Again Gods Children will not be ruled by that which they should mortifie and subdue but this wisdome of the flesh is the object of mortification they are redeemed from it A Christian as he is redeemed from hell and damnation so he is redeemed from himself he is redeemed and set at liberty from the slavery of his soul to Satan to the world and worldly projects he is redeemed from the base conversation he was in before What hath he to do to be ruled by him from whom he is redeemed These things might be amplified at large but you see the truth evident what ground a Christian hath not to be ruled by fleshly wisdome But to make it a little clearer A Christian hath no reason to be ruled by earthly wisdome for the yielding to it doth all the mischief in the world it is the cause of all the misery in the world unto Christians especially God catcheth the wise in their own 〈◊〉 though they be politick and wise especially if a Christian give way to carnal politick wisdome God will universally shame him I never knew a Christian thrive in politick courses When he hath secret conveyances for the world God crosseth him every way in his reputation in his projects and purposes But consider to amplifie that which I gave in a branch before what reason hath a Christian to be ruled by fleshly wisdome when it hinders him from all that is good if he yield unto it and keeps him in imperfect good I speak especially now to those that are not in the state of grace What reason hath any one of you to be ruled by fleshly wisdome when it keeps you in the state of unregeneracy It keeps you perhaps in some good but it is imperfect good You think you are good enough and that all is sure and God will be merciful c. when as a Reprobate may go beyond you It hinders from good actions with pretences for fleshly wisdome will tell us there will be danger you shall be reproached if you do this and that you shall be accounted thus and thus and run into obloquie It hinders from doing good There is a Lion in the way it forecasts this and that danger it keeps us in imperfect good that will never save us it objects dangers the sluggard that will not set on his spirit to labour he thinks himself wondrous wise in forecasting dangers Oh I shall want my self c. It dulls and distracts us in good he that hath a carnal projecting head it eats up his soul that when he comes to pray or to hear or to meddle with spiritual matters the marrow and strength of his soul is eaten up with carnal projects and he doth things by halves Nay Carnal Wisdome as far as it is in us unmortified it sets it self against good by depraving good that we may seem to be mischievous and ill and wicked with reason Men are loath to go to hell without reason there was none that ever went to hell yet without wisdome a great deal of wisdome And how doth their wisdome bring them to hell as in other respects which I named before so in this it whets the poysonfulnesse of their nature to invent and to raise scandals or to be willing to take scandals when they are offered A carnal wise man when he knowes that such a degree of Religion is contrary to his carnal projects he fastneth all the disgrace on it that he can that he may be the lesse observed Religious he would be but with a limitation with a reservation and restraint as far as may stand with his
the conscience in sound principles in good courses in the faith of Christ in holy obedience things that will hold out in life and death If I were to speak to Ministers I would inlarge the point further Let us all in our Conversations labour rather to approve our selves to the consciences of men that they may acknowledge us to be honest downright faithful men rather then to please their humours and fancies for as Solomon saith he that tells a man the truth shall have more favour at the last then he that dissembleth for his conscience will witnesse that he hath dealt rightly and faithfully with him that he is an honest man and goes on in the same principles still Let us therefore first look to our own conscience and then to the conscience of others and if we cannot approve our selves to our own conscience and to the conscience of others alas what will become of us how shall we approve our selves to God and to Jesus Christ at the day of Judgment There is no man but a sound Christian that approves himself to the conscience of another man For any other man it is just with God in his Judgment to find him out first or last he may wind himself into the conscience for a time as the superstitious Papists do but first or last he is found out to be a dissembler and to bring false wares And so for Civil conversation there is none that will have place in the conscience of other men to think them and their courses good but those that are sound Christians For the most those that are not led by the grace of Gods Spirit all mens consciences condemn them they are smitten and censured there and judged there Besides their own conscience which perhaps they will not give leave to tell them somewhat in their ear that they would be loath to hear This you are this you did and this you spake amisse they will not suffer conscience to speak but drown it in sensuality and stifle it they take this course they think they are well enough and they would never be themselves A carnal man will hardly give conscience leave to speak till it will whether he will or no at the hour of death and the day of Judgment when God lets it loose upon him but let them take this course as long as they will yet in the conscience of other men they have no place for they live not as S. Paul saith here in simplicity and sincerity not by carnal wisdome but by the Grace of God This is the benefit that a good man hath in this life that howsoever he have the ill words of carnall men sometimes and their humour is against him yet notwithstanding if they be in the Church and have any illumination any judgment he hath their conscience for him Nay I say more they cannot but think reverently of a man of God of a good Christian I speak not of Ministers onely they cannot but think reverently of them and reverence them in their consciences do what they can for it is not in mens power to frame what conceits they will to frame what opinions they will of men but as there is a necessity of reason as the principles we say are so strong rhat a man cannot say they are false do what he can because the light is visible to the understanding as a man cannot say the Sun shines when it is night when it is dark because it is a sensible falshood so a man cannot deny the principles of any Art if they be principles because there is such a light of truth that over-powers him and as it were compells the inward man So it is here there is such a majestie in grace and good courses of a Christian that another man that lives a wicked life he cannot think of him what he would He may force himself to speak what he list and force odd opinions of him but when he is him sober self he must needs if he have any reliques of conscience in him if he be not altogether a sot he must needs think well in his conscience of such a mans courses This is the majestie and honour of good things that however they may have the humour and passion and fancy of men against them yet they have their conscience for them yea of wicked men when they are themselves Take the wickedest man at the hour of death if he have himself at command that his spirits be not disturbed and ask him whether he justifie the courses of such and such men he will answer Oh yes I would I had led them my self What is that that besots them Sensuality and such courses for men that are not led by the Grace of God are led with outward things which besot the judgment for a time but when that dulnesse is past when a wicked man is stripped of all and is best able to judge then he likes such courses If the worst men shall in their conscience acknowledge the best persons and the best things one day nay they do now if they will suffer themselves to be themselves then let us take such courses as our own consciences may justifie as S. Paul saith here This is my glorying the testimony of my conscience and likewise the conscience of those I live with I write no other thing but what you acknowledge in your consciences your selves And I trust you shall acknowledge to the end This word Trust doth not imply as usually it doth in common speech an uncertainty of a thing a moral conjecture I trust or hope it may be so it may be otherwise but I hope well it is not an uncertain conceit with the fear of the contrary but the word implies a gracious dependant disposition upon God I trust in God as it is so exprest in some other places Now you acknowledge me and I trust in God you shall acknowledge me to the end So here Saint Paul sets down what he resolved to be by the Grace of God and what in the issue he should be because holy resolutions are seconded with gracious assistance And likewise he sets down what they should judge of him to the end I trust as you acknowledge me now so to the end you shall have grace so to do and I shall have grace so to be I shall be as I am and have been I have led my life in simplicity and sincerity and as you have acknowledged me to be such a one so you shall have grace still to acknowledge me I hope or trust I will not enter into any common place onely I will speak that which the Text puts to me I trust you shall acknowledge to the end Here he begins with his hope of their judging of him to continue so to the end Saint Paul here takes a good conceit a good opinion of his children whom he had begotten to the faith in Corinth I hope as you are and as you do judge of
therefore he is not constant Or if times do not fall out so crosse he is not constant in his disposition and God looks on him as he is in his disposition and so he will judge him at that day now being led with the flesh his disposition alters and varies How shall I know whether I consult according to the flesh or no In a word examine two things The ground and the aime of our actions whence they rise and what they aym at Spring they from self-love aym they at our self-contentment and private interest then a man is led with the flesh To use a familiar instance In Marriage when a man looks more to wealth then to Religion he adviseth according to the flesh And so for a Minister to respect his living more then any thing that might weigh with his conscience otherwise if he were good he is led with respects according to the flesh Those that leave their former good acquaintance and choose such as they only hope to gain by and forsake those acquaintance that they cannot gain by though they be never so good otherwise they are led according to the flesh How shall we know that we do not things and consult not of things according to the flesh Some men may know it easily as when men are of pregnant parts when the strength of their wit leads them one way and Religion leads them another way yet in the awe of God they do not go that way that politick respects would carry them they could be as errant Politicians as the best but they dare not here now is a man that is led by the Spirit when it is not for want of parts but out of conscience he doth not so miscarry by his enemy Many times an honest man could be rich by ill means as well as another he knowes the way it is not for want of wit but because he dares not the awe of conscience and the awe of God lead him to better rules and aymes so it is easily discerned in eminency of parts And likewise in fitnesse of opportunities if there be not parts when a man hath all outward advantages to satisfie the flesh to yield to it to have his aimes and yet he will not If a man have power and yet doth not revenge himself he consults not with flesh and blood for he might be revenged if he would So I say when there is something that might sway us another way and yet notwithstanding out of meer conscience and better rules we will not it is a sign we purpose not we advise not things according to the flesh but according to the Spirit we are led with better rules then the world is In strong suggestions a Joseph can say How shall I do this and offend against God Doth not God see it saith Job so a Christian in the strength of Temptations and solicitations and opportunities to do ill he considers Doth not God see How shall I do this and offend against God Shall I break the peace of my conscience for the gaining of this and this why no then a man is not led with Carnal wisdome Again we may know this that we are not led by the flesh and advised by the flesh when we are humble in all our consultations It is a perpetual concomitant of carnal wisdome to be proud knowledge mingled with corruption puffeth up But how shall we labour to overcome this because we have the flesh ready by us in all our consultations we have this counsellour alway ready at hand as S. Paul complains Rom. 7. That when we would do well evil is present it is present at our elbow nay it is nearer the flesh is mingled in all the powers of our soules and with heavenly wisdome there is a mixture of carnal wisdome how shall we do that we may not be tainted with it I will give a direction or two First of all have a prejudice of it Cave time c. saith the holy man S. Austin Take heed of the evil man thy self take heed of carnal reason be jealous of it it is an enemy and the issues of the wayes it adviseth to are death There is a way that seems good to a man in his own eyes the issues whereof are death not temporal onely but eternal death It is a deadly enemy have a prejudice of it and conceit of it to be as it is have a jealousie of it and of our own selves especially in things that concern our selves What is the reason that a man is an incompetent Judge in his own cause This because there is natural self-love and flesh that drawes all to it self Consult not with it therefore consult with higher rules and principles what may make most for the chief end for the glory of God for the assurance of our comfort while we live here and a better estate hereafter that which may make most for the common good let us labour to live by right rules and principles God will value us by that Put the case a man by passion be led another way what is his rule what is his aym his aym is not carnal he may fall by passion c. God judgeth not by passion but by the tenour of our life God esteems us not by a single particular exorbitant act that by passion or incogitancy a man falls into but by the tenour of our life Therefore let us labour to have our rules and aimes good though we fail in particular yet that our way may be good though we step awry yet our way may be good that when Judgment shall come when death shall come it may not find us in an ill way in an ill course Therefore let us consult with God consult with his Word consult with those that are led by the Spirit of God labour to be under the government of Gods blessed Spirit to be guided by the Spirit of God and by the Word of God This should be our care to labour that God would guide us by his good Spirit in those wayes that may lead to our comfort that of all other enemies in the world he would not give us up to our own flesh to guide us but that he would take the guidance of us to himself that as he hath right to us by his Covenant so he would take us into his government And desire Christ that as he is our Priest to die for us so likewise he would be our Prophet to instruct us to subdue all in us And let Divine truth be our counsellour to bring our inner man into subjection as it is 2 Cor. 10. The weapons of our warfare are mighty to bring all into captivity to subject all high devices and reasonings How shall I do this I shall misse of my ends I shall misse of my projects O but Religion when it comes and brings down all it makes not a man to cast away reason but brings reason under and brings
was the creditor for the payment of that 4000 years after let them go so Christ was yea to them they had benefit by Christs death Hereupon the Prophets spake of him as a thing present To us a son is born to us a Child is given Faith mounts over many years 600 years before Christ in the Prophet it mounted and made the time of Christs coming and his death to be present because they had benefit by him as if he had been present Onely with this difference in the time present when Christ came in the flesh they had some comfortable inlargement of Grace When he came in the flesh I say there was a new world as it were there was grace poured out in abundance So you see that all the promises concerning Christ they were performed They were Yea and Amen and the good things by Christ. Saint Paul saith excellently Heb. 13. Christ yesterday to day and the same for ever Yesterday to the Patriachs to day for the present time he is Yea and for the time to come he is Yea the same alway He is yea to all ages he is yea to us as well as to those that were in Christs time Christ is then crucified to thee when thou believest in Christ crucified If we now by faith look to Christ crucified and sent from his Father to take our nature on him we have as much benefit by Christ as those that beheld him crucified As they before looked forwards by the eye of Faith so we look backward we have benefits by Christ he is yesterday to day and the same for ever All the promises are yea in him that is they are constantly yea for all ages The promises of Christ as the spirits in the body they run through all ages of the Church Without him there is no love nor mercie nor comfort from God as I said before God cannot look on our cursed nature out of Christ therefore whosoever will apprehend any thing mercifull in God must apprehend it in Christ the promised seed All the promises in him are yea He is called Logos the Word why is he so both actively and passively Actively the Word because how should we ever have known the mind in the breast of God hidden and sealed there unlesse Christ had been the Logos the Word For a word is exprest from reason and there is a word that is essentiall that is reason Logos and so the word coming from it speech the issue of reason So Christ is the essentiall Word by nature and by office the Word to discover the inward will and purpose of God to us All the promises of God are discovered by Christ as the Angel of the Covenant And passively he is the Word Logos of whom all the Prophets spake as Peter saith Act 3. who was fore-signified by all the types as I shewed Christ he is truly all in all It is a comfortable way to study Christ this way to see him foretold in the Old Testament and to see the accomplishment in the New to parallel the Old and New Testament it is an excellent way of studying the Gosspel For we know men are delighted to know divers things at once when a mans knowledge is inriched diverse waies at once it delights him as when a man knowes the history of a thing and the truth with it when he knowes a promise and the truth a type and the ttuth how doth it delight When a man sees the type in the Old and the truth in the New the history there the promise and the accomplishment here it is a wondrous delightfull thing For why doth proportion delight the eye but because it is an agreement of different things a sweet harmony of different things Why doth musick so please the ear because it is a harmonie of different things When we see a type different from the truth performed and a promise different from the performance and yet a sweet agreement from agreement a man is delighted A man is not delighted with colours at colours but as they hold proportion with the rest of the body he is not delighted with a limb as a limb but as it holds proportion with the man if there be no proportion and comelinesse it delights not So in this case it is good to consider both together God therefore for this end and purpose would have truths conveyed in the Old Testament by way of types and prophecies and promises that it might delight us now to hear them and to study them the more for as I said when we know many things at once it is delightful That is the reason why comparisons and allusions are so delightful because we know the comparison and the thing to which it is compared And that is the reason why our Saviour Christ besides types and figures and promises and prophecies is set out by whatsoever is excellent in nature in the Scriptures There is nothing in nature that is excellent but there is something taken from it to set forth the excellencie of Christ. He is the Sun of righteousnesse he is the water he is the way he is the bread he is the vine he is the tree of Life Whatsoever is excellent in nature either in heaven or earth it serves to set forth the excellencie of Christ why to delight us that we may be willing and chearful to think of Christ that together with the consideration of the excellencie of the creature some sweet meditation of Christ in whom all those excellencies are knit together might be presented to the soul. When we see the sun oft to think of that blessed Sun that quickens and enlivens all things and scatters the mists of Ignorance When we look on a tree to think of the tree of righteousness on the way to think of him the way of life of him that is the true life When we think of any thing that is excellent think of Gods love in Scripture to set out Christ that he would shadow him in all for he is the true Sun all creatures must vanish ere long and whatsoever is excellent in the creature and what will stand then only he in whom all these excellencies are comprised in one All the promises in him are Yea and Amen If this be true then that the promise of Christ himself who is the chief good promised is in the New Testament Amen all of him is Yea and Amen then comes this as a deducted truth all other promises must needs be Yea and Amen for God he that performed the grand promise in giving Christ in the fulness of time will for Christs sake perform all other promises Therefore the incarnation the life the death and resurrection of Christ our blessed Saviour it is a pawn and pledge to us of the performance of all things to come God promised to the Jewes that they should come out of Babylon he promised that he would deliver them from the enemy and he usually prefixeth
of Christ why He hath nothing but present things with a great deale of addition of misery and his greatnesse makes him more sensible of his misery it makes him more tender and apprehensive then other men The other he wants many comforts of this life he wants the performance he is rich in bills and bonds God is bound to him he hath promised he will not forsake him but he will be his God in life to death and for everlasting he hath title to all the promises Godlinesse hath the promises of this life and of that which is to come 1 Tim. 4. Happie man he hath so much performance for the present as is usefull for his safe conduct to bring him to heaven he shall have daily bread he that will give him a Kingdom will not deny him bread he that will give him a countrey will give him safe conduct And besides that he hath here by performance he hath rich and precious promises and they are all Yea and Amen they are certain His life is uncertain his estate in the world is changeable here his life is as a vapour and the comforts of life are lesse then life when life it self the foundation of these comforts is but a vapour so uncertain what are all the comforts of life yet a Christian hath comfort here the promises are invested into him and lodged in his heart and made his owne by faith Faith hath a wondrous peculiarizing vertue it makes a man own that which is generally propounded in the Gospell Now faith making the promises his own and they are certain a Christian take him at all uncertainties he hath somewhat to build on that is Yea and Amen that is undoubtedly constant and certain that will stick by him when all things fail him I speak this to commend the estate of a believing repentant Christian to make you in love with it In all the changes and varieties in this world a Christian hath somewhat to take to And likewise in all the dangers of this life he hath a rock to go to a hiding place God hath chambers of Providence as it is Isay 26. he bids the Church come into thy Chambers God hath a hiding place and secret roomes to hide children in when it is good for them in the time of Pestilence and War in the time of publike disturbance when there is a confusion of all things Come into thy Chambers God is a resting place and a hiding place he is stiled so every where in the Psalmes Psalme 18. My Rock and my shield as if David had said I have many troubles in the world but in God is my defence for he is my Rock my Shield and all whatsoever is defensive I have it in him What a comfort is this in all dangers a Christian knowes either he shall be safe here or in heaven and therefore he doth rest He dewells in the secret of the Almighty Psalme 91. that is in the love and the protection of God Almighty and as Moses saith Psalme 90. Thou art our habitation from everlasting to everlasting that is God is a dwelling place for him that builds on his promise for God and his Word are all one Thou art our dwelling place c. He saw they dropped away in the wildernesse by the wrath of God as we do now by the Pestilence and Moses made that Psalme he took occasion to meditate of the frailty of mans life We are as grasse as a tail that is told but what is our estate in God in the promises Thou art our habitation from everlasting to everlasting We dwell not long in the world sicknesse may come and sweep us away but thou art our habitation we dwell in God when we are dead when we are out of the world we dwell in God in Christ for ever Our estate in Christ is an everlasting estate Therefore in Psalme 112. the Psalmist saith of the righteous man there That he is not troubled for ill newes He is not senselesse he is very sensible but yet notwithstanding he is not shaken from his rest from his rock and stay for no ill newes or tydings why The Psalmist gives the reason his heart is fixed upon what foundation upon the promises and providence of God God hath promised to provide for him he is his Father and therefore he is not afraid of ill tydings What a blessed estate then is it to be in Christ and to have promises in Christ to be protected and preserved here so as is for our good and to have such a state in God for him to be our habitation and hiding place from everlasting to everlasting If our hearts be fixed here let us hear of ill tydings of war of this sicknesse and contagion let it be what it will if our hearts be fixed blessed men are we But if we have nothing to take to when trouble comes we are as I said before as a man in a storme without a hiding place Now every Word of God saith the Psâ—…lmist is a tried Word as silver tryed in the fire The promises are tryed promises that we may rest on them and as we are Christians what are we but men of promise the best is behind and what is our comfort in this world God lets down his love to us in gracious promises and he gives us a taste of the performance as Children have somewhat of their inheritance in their nonage to keep them so somewhat of heaven to comfort our soules we have but the main is to come and the performance is left till then therefore we cannot too much consider of this comfortable point Consider how many promises we have in the Word the certainty of them that they are Yea and Amen and in whom they are founded in him that is Amen himself for Christ is Amen the true and faithfull witnesse Revel 1. these are comfortable considerations Are the promises of God in Christ Yea and Amen Let us divide men who may make any use of them all men they are either such as are in Christ or such as are not in Christ. All the promises being made in Christ what comfort or what good can those that are not yet in Christ have by the promises I answer till they be in Christ none at all for a man out of Christ is out of the favour of God God cannot look on such a man but as the object of his wrath and as fuell for his vengeance and therefore there is no hope for such a man till he be in Christ. All other things in the world cannot comfort such a man for alas his being in the world his being rich his being in favour with such or such what are they fading beings that fail and himself with them he stands on the Ice they slip and he slips with them What are all beings in death ifa man have not a more stable being in Jesus Christ What comfort is there then for such a man by
yea and amen to be yea and nay We make truth a lie and do rather believe our own lying hearts then Gods immutable and unchangeable Promises Therefore let us see the fulnesse of our hearts and complain of them to God and desire him to cure it and redresse it and he will do it This is to give glory to God indeed we cannot honour God more then to believe his Promises and build on him This will breed love when we feel the comfort of the Promises Foolish men think to honour God by complements by dead performances filly men consider that the principal honour in the world to God is to seal his truth that thou shouldest not make him a liar Hath he promised all things in the world get faith that will honour him and he will honour thy faith What makes God honour faith so much He that believes he will bring him to heaven Faith honours him it gives him the glory of his truth the glory of his goodnesse of his mercy of his truth c. as it honours him he honours it The Believer shall come to heaven when the idle fashionable Christian shall vanish with his conceits that thinks to serve God with empty vain shadowes Honour God with the obedience of faith man cast thy self upon him trust in him in life and death and then thou givest him the honour that he requireth at thy hands For as the honour of his mercy is the greatest honour he will have in this world more then that in the Creation so thou honourest him more in the Gospel to cast thy self on him for forgivenesse of sins and life everlasting and for the guidance of thy daily course of life thou honourest him more then by looking on the creature or by doing him any service He is honoured more by faith in Christ then by any other way Let faith go to him as faith honours him so he will honour it Let it be according to thy faith Let not all be lost let us bring vessels for the precious Promises the vessel of a believing heart Shall all this be lost for a vain heart that will not lodge up these promises shall we have a rich portion and neglect it shall we have so many promises and not improve them and make use of them Therefore I beseech you let it be our practice continually every day of all portions of Scripture make the Promises most familiar to us for duties follow promises if we believe the Promises with our heart they are quickning Promises we will love God and perform other duties Faith works by love If we believe love will come kindly off Therefore he saith here All the Promises are Yea and Amen insinuating that all is included in the Promises Let us empty our hearts of confidence in any thing and fill them with the Promises in Christ that are Yea and Amen Let us stablish our hearts with the Promises let us warm and season and refresh our hearts every day with these In these times of infection what do we those that are careful of themselves that go abroad in dangerous places they have Preservatives they take something to preserve their spirits and to strengthen them against the contagion abroad and it is wisdome so to do it is folly to neglect it and to tempt God not to be careful in this kind it is very well done But what is this if thou do not fence thy soul and thy spitit and take a draught of the Promises every day afresh Let us take out our pardon of course every day of the forgivenesse of sins We sin every day let us go for our pardon If we sin we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ and he is the propitiation for our sins And the blood of Jesus Christ shall purge us from all sin And he is in justifying us still every day he is acquitting our soules and there is a pardon of course to be taken out every day Let us renew and refresh our hearts with the Promises of pardon and forgivenesse of sins every day Let us strengthen our soules with renewing the Promises of grace for that day to walk comfortably before God that he will keep us by his Spirit from sin that he will be a shield and a Sun to us that he will give us wisdome to carry our selves as we should and he will give us his holy Spirit if we beg it Let us every day take these Promises to be Cordials in these dangerous times and then come life come death all shall be welcome why because we are in Christ and have imbraced the Promises and Christ and all in Christ is Yea and Amen it shall go well with us What a wondrous comfortable life would a Christians life be if he could yield the obedience faith answerable to the promises What a shame is it that having such rich promises we should be so loose so changeable that we should be cast down with crosses and lift up with prosperity It is because we believe not the promises of better things therefore we are proud of present things and cast down with present crosses and are fast and loose Now we have good things for the present afterward the devil comes between us and the promises and makes us let go our hold Religion stands on this which makes me to presse it the more If this were well taken to heart and digested we should know what Religion means if we know Christ and the promises all other things will come off All others are but formalities they will never comfort without the confideration of knowing God in Christ and the rich promises to us in Christ. Likewise if this be so that the promises of God in Christ are Yea and Amen This teacheth us how to make use of all former examples of others and of all former goodnesse to our selves Was God merciful to Abraham and to David Our father 's trusted in thee and were not confounded Psal. 22. Therefore he reasons If I trust in God I shall not be confounded for the Promises are Yea and Amen they are true to one as well as another And whatsoever was written afore was written for our comfort Rom. 15. And this is a singular good use we may make of reading of the stories of the Scripture and of holy men that the same God he lives for ever his arm is not shortened he that was is and is to come and therefore we should read histories with application Did God make sure his Promises to them surely he will make sure his Promises to us Had David forgivenesse of sins upon his confession surely so shall we Abraham believed and it was accâ—…ed to him for righteousnesse and â—…o it shall to us if we believe It is alledged for that end Rom. 4. And S. Paul prefixeth his example to all posterity God was mercifull to me and not so onely but to all that believe in him 2 Tim. 2. This is an Use
with reasons discovering an absolute necessity of geting into Christ and of having him to be our Husband except we will lye under the wrath of God and be damned and withal discovering the fulnesse and excellency that is in Christ. Again it is God onely that must stablish the soul all the parts of it both judgment and conscience For I beseech you what can any humane creature what can any thing under God work upon the soul I mean so firmly as to stablish it and therefore our controversie with the Papists is just and good We say The reason and ground of our believing the Word of God to be the Word of God must not be the testimony of the Church and the authority thereof for alas what can the judgment of man what can the judgment of the Church do It may incline and move the will by inducing arguments and so cause a humane consent but to establish the soul and conscience and to assure me that the Word of God which is the ground of my faith is the Word of God it must be God by his Spirit that must do it the testimony of the Church will never do it The same Spirit that inspired holy men to write the Word of God works in us a belief that the Word of God is the Word of God The stablishing argument must be by the power of Gods Spirit God joyning with the soul and spirit of a man whom he intends to convert besides that inbred light that is in the soul causeth him to see a Divine Majestie shining forth in the Scriptures so that there must be an infused establishing by the Spirit to settle the heart in this first principle and indeed in all other Divine principles that the Scriptures are the Word of God And to go on a little further this is a fundamental errour in our practice For what is the reason we have so many Apostates what is the reason so many are so fruitlesse in their lives what is the reason that men despair in death but even this because men are not built and stablished aright Gods Spirit never stablished their soules in Divine truths For first concerning Apostasie ask them what is the reason they are of this or that Religion They will say they have been taught so they have been brought up to it the company with whom they have conversed have been devout men and have been alwayes led with this opinion and they see no reason to thwart it Is that all Hath not the Spirit wrought these things in thy heart hath he not given thee a taste of them hath he not convinced thee in thy judgment that it is so hast thou not found the power of the Spirit working upon thy soul changing of thee raising of thee drawing of thee out of the world nearer to God hast thou not I say felt the power of the Spirit this way No but thus I was catechized and thus I have been bred and thus I have heard in the Ministery And no otherwise Alas it will never hold out there will be a falling away for when a man believes not that which he believes from the Spirit of God he will be ready when dangerous times come when there is an onset made by the adversaries to fall and to fall clean away as we see it was in the time of Popery for whatsoever is not spiritual whatsoever knowledge is not Divine and from the Spirit of God never holds out Therefore I beseech you what 's the reason that you have many illiterate men that set upon the truth and hold out to the end and on the contrary many great seeming Scholars that are skilful in school-learning and in other Authours do not The reason is the one hath the truth from the Spirit discovering all the objections that the heart of man can make against it and the strength that is in the truth to answer and silence all those objections The other man hath onely a discoursing knowledge an ability to gather one thing from another and to prove one thing by another by strength of parts But the Spirit of God never discover'd the sleights and the corruptions of his heart never fastned and settled his heart upon the truth he never had experience of the truth For indeed nothing doth stablish so much as the experience of the truth on which we are stablished Again what is the reason of that unfruitfulnesse that is amongst men but because truths were never settled in the soul by the Spirit of God That which men know out of the Word of God concerning Christ and the priviledges by him they were never perswaded of it in their hearts therefore they come not to a fruitful conversation It is impossible but that men should be abundantly fruitful that have spiritual apprehensions of Divine things of Evangelical truths Hence comes all our unthankfulnesse and undervaluing of the Gospel The Gospel of it self is an unprized thing however we esteem of it God values it highly we value it not because our apprehensions of it are customary and formal gotten by breeding and education and discourse and not by the Spirit we feel not the spiritual and heavenly comforts of those truths we think we know How comes likewise Despair in time of temptation and in death but onely because men want this stablishing by the Spirit of God Men go on in evil courses trusting to a formal dead humane knowledge gotten by humane meanes and not settled in them by the Spirit of God that hath not sealed the truth in their hearts and hereupon when sharp tryals come they despair because they have no feeling of the truths of the Gospel and so when conscience is awakened and smarts it clamours and cryes out upon all their formall and humane knowledge For they having not a spiritual sense of the mercies of God in Christ and the perswasions of comfort are not so near to support the soul as the tentations and vexations and torments are how can they but despair Now who can still the conscience but the Spirit of God Why now if the knowledge that men had were spiritual and heavenly in all accusations of conscience it would set conscience down and still it I am a sinner indeed I am this and this but I have felt the sweet mercies of God in Christ God hath said to my soul I am thy salvation he hath intimated to my spirit by a sweet voyce Son thy sinnes are forgiven thee Where there is I say a knowledge and an apprehension of these Evangelical truths wrought by the Spirit it sets down Conscience and stills it though the heart rage at the same time There are thousands in the very bosome of the Church that miscarry because of this resting in a literall outward formall knowledge gotten onely by discourse and by reading and commerce with others and never labour to have their hearts stablished in Christ by Gods Spirit You see here then a
have it in Psal. 1. As the chaffe that the wind driveth to and fro because it hath no consistence it is a light body or as the drosse Psal. 119. God shall destroy the wicked as drosse see how the Scripture compares men not onely for their wickednesse but for their misery that have no certain being but on earthly things though they be never so great and as they think deeply rooted when troubles come they are as drosse they are as chaffe that hath no firmnesse before the wind when the wind of Judgment comes they are as stubble presently wasted and brought to nothing I beseech you therefore without deceiving of our own hearts let us enter into our own soules and examine for our knowledge first and then for our boldnesse What doest thou know in Religion that thou wouldest die for or die in we are stablished in no more to purpose then we would dye for Are those truths thou knowest so firmly wrought in thee by the Spirit of God hast thou such experience of them such spiritual sense and taste of the goodnesse of them that thou wouldest be content to part with thy life rather then to part with them thou art stablished then by the Spirit of God in Christ. I do not speak of every little truth it needs not that a man should die for that but I speak for fundamental truths canst thou prove them so out of the Scripture and doest thou find the testimony of Jesus Christ witnessing to thy heart that they are true then thou art confirmed and stablished in these truths I beseech you let us often examine upon what grounds and how firmly we know what we know For have we not many that if the Adversaries should come would conform to Popery and joyn themselves to Rome because they cannot back their principles with Scriptures and because they have not a spiritual understanding and apprehension of Divine truths Now he that is stablished stands firm against temptations and against arguments he will not be won away from his faith but remains unmoveable Therefore I say let us often examine our selves in this particular I believe this and this against the Papists and others I but how shall I stand out for this If tryals should come am I able to prove this from the Scriptures so clear as if it were written as he saith with a Sun-beam The temptation and assaults of the Devil by mens subtile wits and arguments will shake our judgments will hurt more and if time should come try us better then fire and fagot Those Spies that brought an evil report upon the Land of Canaan we see that though the Land when it was won was fruitful enough and the conquest of it honourable c. and therein those Spies discovered their own weaknesse yet when they had made that shrewd Oration and brought subtile arguments to the eye of flesh and blood we see I say how the people were discouraged and how they staggeted So a man that is not stablished he may sometimes have shrewd men to deal withal perhaps Atheists Papists Jesuites and the Devil joyning with them to unsettle men and they will prevail if men be not well settled and stablished before And so for the course of our life and conversation amongst men we should examine how we are stablished in that for we are not onely to stand firm in cases of Religion but for causes of honesty John Baptist was as good as a Martyr though the cause he dyed for was not Religion but a bold telling of Herod when he thought he took an unlawful course in keeping his brothers Wife An honest man may dye and suffer much for civil matters Therefore examine your selves in this I have undertaken this cause upon what ground in what confidence how far would I willingly go in it could I be content to lose the favour of great ones to dye in the quarrel if need be So far as a man is stablished by Gods Spirit so far is he settled also in this You have had Heathen men that would stand out firmly even to the death against all disfavours against all losses and crosses for evidence of Civil truths as you have it storied of Papinian an excellent Lawyer that in the defence of right stood forth to the losse of his life and many other the like examples have been But much more doth the Spirit of God stablish men this I understand this cause is good this I will stand in come what will when I am called to it Let us oft call our selves to an account what we believe and upon what ground what we do and upon what ground we undertake it whether on grounds of conscience or out of spleen and passion When a man undertakes things on natural grounds in great temptations if God do not assist him he will sink Take the strongest courages that are if they have no more but nature though they may stand out sometimes to the shame of Christians yet in some cases they will shew themselves to be but meer natural men And therefore labour for the Spirit to stablish us It is not necessary that we should enjoy our wealth nor the favour of men nor our life it self but it is necessary that we should keep a good conscience it is necessary that we should be saved it is necessary that we should look upon our Judge with confidence at the day of Judgment It becomes Christians who besides the light of nature have the Spirit to stablish them to be settled in their courses to look that the conscience be good the cause good the aym good If such a one give over when the cause is clear and good it is a sign that his heart is not stablished by the Spirit of God in Christ he hath either corrupt aymes or else he is weak and understands not the grounds of Religion and the vanity of this life as he should do There are none that flinch and give over in a good quarrel but either it is from hypocrisie that he pretends to believe in Christ and life everlasting and yet he doth not or else it is from extream and wonderful weaknesse which if he belong to God he shall recover as Peter did and shall stand more strongly another time It is but a forced a false encouragement and stablishing when a man that hath not the Spirit of God shall set light by death though perhaps he die in a good quarrel and with some comfort For when a man shall know that after death there is a Judgment and that God hath many things to lay to his charge when his conscience shall tell him that he is guilty of a thousand deaths if he be not in Christ and his pardon sealed by the Spirit of God in the blood of Christ is it not madnesse to be couragious in that which he cannot conquer It is good for a man to be couragious in time of conquest It is a dastardly thing for
his bowels that is in his affections he can love and joy in God and hate sin and overcome revenge c. The Spirit sheweth him Divine things by a Divine light he sees heavenly things with a heavenly light and Divine spiritual knowledge is a working knowledge of the same nature with the things known The poorest Christian in the world having this anointing sees good things with such a convincing light and evill things with such a convincing hatred that he is doing and acting whereas a Christian that hath not the Spirit he may know heavenly things by a natural light by a discoursive knowledge he may know what he should do and so perhaps he may talk but he cannot do he may talk of death but he cannot dye he may talk and discourse of suffering but when it comes he cannot suffer he may speak much of patience but he cannot act patience when occasion is A true Christian hath the knowledge of doing things And likewise he is able to speak a word in due season to reprove to admonish to comfort Every member in the communion of Saints hath some qualification in regard of knowledge when he is put to it But especially he hath received this anointing as a Priest and a King As a Priest to stand before God and to offer up prayers for himself and others Every Christian is a Favourite in heaven he hath much credit there he hath Gods ear open at all times and he improves it for the good of the Church for the good of others as well as for his own And as to pray for our selves and others so to blesse our selves and others that was one part of the Priests Office and so as the Scipture saith we are called unto blessing and therefore those that are given unto cursing are not Priests And again a Christian that hath received this anointing as a Priest he keeps himself unspotted of the world You know the Priests were to touch no unclean thing nor to defile themselves with any manner of pollution so every Christian in some measure is enabled to abstain from the common pollutions of the times to hate even the garment spotted with the flesh he is not carried with the stream of the times he will not converse amiably with those that may stain him but as his calling leads him lest he contaminate his spirit And likewise a Christian hath his heart alwayes as the Holy of Holies that so he may offer up thanks and praise to God there is a disposition in him alwayes to praise God As the fire in the Sanctuary must never go out so the fire that is kindled by the Spirit of God in the heart of a Christian it never goes out the Holy Ghost maintains it continually he is ready to praise God upon all occasions ready to offer up himself unto God as a sacrifice The sacrifices of a Christian are a broken heart and as in the Law the sacrifices for sin must first be killed and then offered so now in the Gospel it is the work of every Christian to mortifie to kill and slay those beasts those corruptions that are in him contrary to God A Christian must not offer himself to God as a sinner but he must first slay his corruptions he must mortifie his sins and then offer up himself slain to God Therefore our care must be to mortifie every corruption every faculty of the soul and every part of the body we must circumcise our eyes that they behold not vanity and our eares that they hear not and delight not in unchaste things and our thoughts and every part our wills and affections and then offer up soul and body as a living sacrifice unto God that all may be dedicated and sanctified unto him and then it is a sweet sacrifice then when a Christian hath dedicated himself to God it is an easie matter to give him his goods when he calls for them then he will be ready to let all go as the Apostle saith of the Corinthians they first gave themselves to God and then to others other sacrifices will follow when we have first given our selves to God therefore the first sacrifice is to kill our corruptions to offer our selves to God and then we shall be ready to offer our estates and to have nothing but at Gods disposing Oh Lord of thy hand I have my body and my life and my goods and all I give them unto thee if thou wilt have me to enjoy them I do but if thou wilt have them sacrificed I am a Priest I am willing to offer my self as a burnt-sacrifice to thee even to the death and all other things when thou shalt be pleased to call for them and indeed all other sacrifices of our goods and thankfulnesse in words they will easily come off when we have offered our selves as I said before What is the reason that men will not part with a penny for good uses They have not given themselves as sacrifices unto God therefore in the Scripture we are pressed to give our selves unto God first and it useth arguments to that purpose as that we are not our own but bought with a price c. And so for the Kingly office Every Christian by this anointing is made a King Rev. 1. 6. He hath loved us and washed us and made us Kings c. But how are we Kings to take away an Objection that ariseth in the hearts of carnal men Oh say they they talk that they are Kings when perhaps they have not a penny in their purse they talk they are Kings when in the mean time they are underlings in the world here are Kings indeed think prophane conceited persons Indeed all other things are but shadowes these be realities this is a Kingdome to purpose Thou livest by sense and by fancy or else if thou haddest the spiritual eye-salve if thou haddest thine eyes open to see the dignity of a Christian thou wouldest judge him to be the onely King in the world and therefore I do not enlarge the Point to set colours upon matters but indeed I rather speak under there is no excellency that we can think of in this world that riseth high enough to set out the state of a Christian he is indeed a King For I beseech you what makes a King Victory and Conquest that makes a King Is not he a Conquerour that hath that in him that conquers the world and all things else others that are not Christians they are slaves to lusts and pleasures A Christian that is chief Conquerour in the world he conquers the world in his heart and all temptations are inferiour to him he sees them as things that he hath gotten the mastery of He subdues the principal enemy a Christian fears not death he fears not Judgment he fears not the wrath of God he knowes God is reconciled in Christ and so all things are reconciled with him God being at peace all things else are at peace so
he is a Conquerour he hath a Kingdom in himself others have Kingdoms out of themselves and in themselves they are slaves he is such a King as hath a Kingdom in himselfe he hath peace and joy and rest from base affections and terrour of conscience Is not he a King that is a Lord and Master of all things A Christian is Master of prosperity he conquers it he can make it serve his turn to be thankfull to God to be ready to distribute he is Master of adversity I can want and I can be abased I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me saith blessed Paul He is an omnipotent King in some sense he can do all through him that strengthens him He hath conquered the King of fears death that that makes the greatest Monarch in the world to shake and tremble a Christian can think of with comfort He can think of Gods wrath with comfort appeased in Christ stenched with his blood he can think of the day of Judgment with comfort that then his Saviour shall be his Judge and that he shall stand at the right hand of God He can think of afflictions with comfort he is sanctified to all things and all things are sanctified to him and all things shall work for his good nothing shall be able to separate him from Gods love to him in Christ neither things present nor things to come That which amazeth the Belshazzars of the world and makes their knees smite one against another as that hand-writing did him that which makes others quake to think of a revenging God before whom they must appear and answer for all their miscarriages and their neglect of precious time and abuse of their places they can think of with joy and comfort He hath conquered himself and his own heart he can subdue the carnal part of him and bring it under the Spirit all others though Kings if they be not Christians are slaves to some reigning lust or other He is a King likewise in regard of possession which is a second thing which makes a Christian an excellent person as he is a great Conquerour so he is a great possessour for All is yours saith the Apostle things present and things to come life and death afflictions and crosses and all is yours How to help him to heaven things present are his comforts are his if they be present afflictions are his to purge him and to fit him for heaven things to come are his heaven is his and terrours to come all serve him Even evil things are his in advantage and successe though in disposition they be not his but have an hostile disposition in them they are all over-power'd by the love of God And Christ the King of heaven and earth over-rules all to the good of his And so all good things are his though not in civil possession but as far as the great Governour of all things sees fit what a King is this and therefore the word is not too great to say a Christian is a King he is indeed the most excellent person in the world And he hath likewise a Kingly spirit that is he doth things with love and freedome of spirit that others do upon compulsion for he hath the royal Law of love as the Apostle saith written in his heart what is that the royal Law of love is this when a man doth that which he doth from love and from a Princely spirit when he is not compelled that which others do not at all or by force is wrung from them he doth out of a Princely spirit that is in him because his spirit is enlarged and anointed by the Spirit of God to every good work These things might be enlarged but a taste of them is sufficient and they are very useful to raise our hearts to consider that there is another manner of State then the world thinks of there are spiritual and excellent Kings and Priests and this will stand by us when all other excellencies will fail All flesh is grasse and as the flower of the grasse but this dignity this anointing which we have by the Spirit and by the Word of God it endures for ever and abides to all eternity Now not to go on in more particulars but to make some Use of this Surely this is true in some degree of every Christian that he is a Prophet to discern of things that differ and he hath a supernatural heavenly light answerable to the things a spiritual light to judge of spiritual things And he is a Priest to stand before God continually And he is a King by conquest by possession by qualification I say this undoubtedly is true of all spiritual persons that are anointed As it is said of Saul that when he was anointed he had another Spirit so God never makes a Christian but he gives him the Spirit of a Christian Gods calling is with qualification it is not a meer titular anointing but there is another Spirit goes along with this anointing then there was before calling though men be trained up from their infancy in the truth yet when they are anointed by the Spirit of God there will another manner of Spirit appear in them then ever was in them before or then that which is in the world I beseech you therefore for dignity prepares and stirres up to duty a man never so carries himself in his place and condition as when he thinks of his condition oft think of the excellent estate we are advanced to in Christ it will put us in mind of a qualification and disposition answerable that as the Apostle oft presseth it we may walk worthy our calling that we may walk worthy of this dignity When we are tempted therefore to sin and to base courses let us say as good Nehemiah when he was moved to flie What shall such a man as I flie so should we say to any temptation to base courses of life what shall such a man as I do this Why if I be a Christian if I be not onely a titular Christian which is onely sufficient to damne me and not to do me good but if I be a real Christian I must be a Priest I must keep my self unspotted of the world and undefiled and not touch any unclean thing I must be in a state and condition to pray to God Shall I regard iniquity that God should not hear my prayer If I be a Christian I am a King shall I debase my self shall I cast my crown in the dirt God hath raised me and made me an heir of heaven shall I abase my self to sins and to base lusts so that I cannot rule my own members and yet professe my self to be a King For a Christian that is a King that hath a guard of Angels about him that is the most excellent creature in the world for him to abase himself to the world he that is bred from heaven for him to have no higher thoughts then the things
errours of the times Thus we have unfolded to you the sealing of the Spirit and you see the Spirit of God not onely anoints but seales Now we should labour to have our hearts thus sealed by the Spirit Can we desire and never be at quiet till our Instruments be sealed till our acquittances till our Charters be sealed and shall we be patient not to have our soules sealed Let us labour by all means to have the Image and likenesse of Christ stamped upon our soules especially that is wondrous comfortable when we can find somewhat in us like to Jesus Christ. To encourage us to this let us consider that death and Judgment will come and God will set none at his right hand but his sheep that have his mark those that he sets his stamp and Image upon those he will set on the right hand in the day of Judgment And how comfortably in the hour of death can the soul commend it self to God when it sees it self stamped and sealed by the Spirit of Christ when he can say to Christ Lord Jesus receive my soul that thou hast redeemed by thy blood that thou hast sealed by thy Spirit and that thou hast set thine own stamp upon acknowledge thine own likenesse though it be not as it should be what a comfort I say hath the sealed soul at the hour of death and so in all other extremities and in times of trouble and danger those in whom God sees his own Image and likenesse he will own and to those he will alwayes shew a distinct and respective love in hard times What a difference is between that soul and others in the time of affliction as in the time of pestilence and war the soul that is sealed knowes that he is marked out for God for happinesse in the world to come whatsoever befalls him in this world and he knowes that God in all confusion of times knowes his own seal those that are sealed God hath a speciall care of I say therefore in Ezek. 9. they are said to be marked in their foreheads not that there was any visible mark on them but it is a phrase to signifie what speciall care God had of his people specially in times of destruction God will as it were set them out in those times and make special provision for them thus Josiah was taken away from the evill to come and Lot was taken out of Sodom when fire and brimstone was to come from heaven and Pella a little Village was delivered when the general destruction came upon Jerusalem So that I say God hath a speciall care of his little ones in this life and if he take them away yet their death is precious in his sight He will not part with them but upon special consideration he sees if they live it will be worse for them he sees it is better for them to be gathered to himself and to the soules of men made perfect in heaven And as he hath a special care of them in regard of outward miseries and calamities so in regard of spiritual contagion and infection as Rev 7. there Gods holy ones were sealed so many of such a tribe c. which is to signifie to us that God hath alwayes some that he will keep and preserve from the universal infection and contagion of Antichrist in the worst times God hath alwayes a Church in the worst times in the obscurest ages of the Church eight or nine hundred years after Christ especially nine hundred years when Egyptian darknesse had overspread the world and there was little learning and goodnesse in the world God had alwayes sealed ones marked ones that he preserved from the danger of dark times and so he will alwayes have a care of his own that they be not led away with that soul-hurting errour Popery another manner of mischief then men take it for The Scripture is more punctual in setting down the danger of those especially in lighter times of the Church that are carried away with that sin then any other sin whatsoever they have a contrary mark those that have the mark of the Beast it is contrary to the mark of Christ it is far from being the mark and seal of the Spirit that implicite bloody faith Theirs is the bloody Church pretend what they will and they stand out to blood in the defence of all their cruel superstitious and bloody decrees Those persons I say that are deeply died in Popery that have the mark of the Beast they are in a clean opposite condition to those that are marked with the Spirit that Christ marks for his Let us not fear therefore I say if we have the Spirit of God stamped upon us though in a little measure if it be true let us not fear death Christ knowes his own mark even in death and out of death And let us not fear afflictions nor evil times Christ will know his seal He hath a book of remembrance for those that are his Mal. 3. for those that mourn for the sins of the times and when he gathers his Jewels those shall be his he will gather his Jewels as a man in his house gathers his jewels he suffers his luggage to burn in the fire so God in common calamities he suffers luggage wicked men to go to wrack but he will free his own Let us labour therefore for this seal to have our soules stamped with the Spirit of God to have further and further evidence of our state in grace that in the time of common calamity we may be free from danger free from errour and destruction But you will say What shall I account of it if there be but a little sign of grace Be not discouraged when the stamp in wax is almost out it is currant in Law put the case the stamp of the Prince be an old coyn as sometimes we see it on a King Harry groat yet it is currant money yea though it be a little crackt So put tbe case the stamp of the Spirit be as it were almost worn out it is our shame and ought to be our grief that it is so yet there are some evidences some pulses some sighes and groans against corruption we mourn in our spirits we do not joyn with corruption we do not allow our selves in sin there is the stamp of the Spirit remaining though it be overgrown with the dust of the world that we cannot see it Sometimes Gods children though they have the graces of the Spirit in them yet they yield so much to their corruptions that they can read nothing but their corruptions when we bid them read their evidences they can see nothing but worldlinesse nothing but pride and envy c. though there be a stamp on them yet God holds the soul from seeing it so that they can see nothing but corruption this is for their negligence God gives them up to mistake their estates because they will not stirre up the graces of the Spirit
because they grieve the Spirit and quench the Spirit by doing that which is contrary to the Spirit Let us therefore that we may have the more comfort preserve the stamp of the Spirit fresh by the exercise of all grace and communion with God and by obedience and by faith honour God by believing and he will honour thee by stamping his Spirit on thee more and more And let this be our work every day to have the stamp of the Spirit clear Oh what a comfort it is to have this in us at all times if a man have nothing in him better then nature if he have nothing in him in regard of grace if he have not Christs Image upon his soul though he be a King or an Emperour yet he shall be stript of all ere long and be set on the left hand of Christ and be adjudged to eternal torments It is the folly of the times come up of late there is much labouring for Statues and for curious workmanship of that kind and some pride themselves much in it and account it great riches to have an old Statue Alas alas what a poor delight is this in comparison of the joy that a Christian hath by the seal of the Spirit and what is this to the ambition of a Christian to see the Image and representation of Christ stamped in his soul that he may be like the second Adam that he may be transformed more and more by looking on him and seeing himself in him to love him considering that he hath loved us so much for we cannot see the love of Christ to us but we must love him the more and be transformed into him Now this transforming our selves into the Image of Christ is the best picture in the world therefore labour for that every day more and more There is besides the common broad seal of God his Privy Seal as I may call it It is not sufficient that we have the one that we have admittance into the Church by Baptisme but we must have this privy seal which Christ sets and stamps upon the soul of the true Christian Alas for a man to build onely on the outward seals and outward prerogatives which in themselves are excellent yet the standing upon them betrayes many soules to the Devil in times of distresse It is another manner of seal then the outward seal in the Sacrament that will satisfie and comfort the conscience in the apprehensions of wrath at the hour of death or otherwayes It must be this privy seal and then comes the use of those publick open known seales the broad seales then a man with comfort may think upon his Baptisme and upon his receiving the Communion when he hath the beginnings of faith wrought in him by the Spirit of God when a man finds the beginnings of faith in him then he may make use of the broad seal to be a help to his faith We must not be so prophane as to think slightly and irreverently of Gods Ordinances they are of great and high consequence for when Satan comes to the soul and shakes the confidence of it and saith Thou art not a Christian and God doth not love thee Why saith the soul God hath loved me and pardoned my sins he hath given me promises and particularly sealed them in the Sacrament here is the excellency of the Sacrament it comes more home then the Word it seales the general promise of God particularly to my self I am sealed in the Sacrament and withall I find the stamp of the Spirit in my heart and therefore having the inward work of the Spirit and God having fortified the inward work and strengthened my faith by the outward seal I can therefore stand against any temptation whatsoever They are excellent both together but the speciall thing that must comfort must be the hidden seal of the Spirit Let us labour therefore to be sealed inwardly and observe Gods sealing-dayes as we use to speak which though it may be every day if we be in spiritual exercises yet especially on the Lords Day for then his Ordinance and his Spirit go together Now as there is a sealing of our estates that we are the children of God so there is of truths and both are in the children of God as for instance this is a truth Whosoever believes in Christ shall not perish but have everlasting life now the same Spirit that stirred up the soul to believe this seales it in the soul even to death and in all times of temptation and likewise there is no promise but upon the believing of it it is sealed by the Spirit upon the soul for those truths onely abide firm in the soul which the Spirit of God sets on What is the reason that many forget the comforts and consolations that they hear because the Spirit sets them not on the Spirit seales them not What is the reason that illiterate men stand out in their profession to blood whereas those that have a discoursive kind of learning they yield the reason is this the knowledge of the one is sealed by the Spirit it is set fast upon the soul the Spirit brings the knowledge and the soul close together whereas the knowledge of the other is onely a notional swimming knowledge it is not spiritual Those therefore that will hold out in the end and not apostatize those that will stand out in the hour of death against temptation and those that will hold out in the time of life against solicitations to sin they must have a knowledge suitable to the things they know that is they must see and know heavenly things by a heavenly light spiritual things by the Spirit of God And therefore when we come to hear the Ministers of God we should not come with strong conceits in the strength of our wit but with reverend dispositions with dependance upon God for his Spirit that he would teach us together with the Ministers and close with our soules and set those truths we hear upon our soules we shall never hold out else And it must be the Holy Ghost that must do this for that which must settle and seal comfort to the soul must be greater then the soul especially in the time of temptation when the terrours of the Almighty are upon us and when the hell within a man is open when God layes open our consciences and writes bitter things against us and our consciences tell us our sins wondrous near they are written as it were with a pen of Iron and the point of a Diamond upon our soules now I say those truths that must satisfie conscience that is thus turmoiled must be set on by that which is above conscience the Spirit of God who is above our spirits can onely set down our spirits and keep them from quarrelling and contending against the truth and quiet the conscience and this the Spirit doth when it sets the truth upon the soul. And therefore when our soules are disquieted
insinuates as if he should say What can I give you better then the Holy Ghost and yet this will I give you if you ask him that is the good thing that God gives for indeed that is the seed of all graces and of all comfort and therefore a world of promises are included in that promise that he will give the Spirit to them that ask him Labour by these and such like means for the Spirit and then if you have the Spirit the Earnest of the Spirit and the seal of the Spirit then mark what will come of such a temper of soul that will go through all conditions whatsoever come what will for the Spirit is above all and the comforts of the Spirit are above all earthly comforts and the graces of the Spirit are able to encounter with all temptations So that a man that hath the Spirit stands impregnable the work of grace cannot be quenched because it is the effect and the work of the Spirit all the powers of all the Devils in hell cannot stirre it God may hide his comfort for a time to humble us but to quench the work of the Spirit once wrought in the heart all the power of all the Devils in hell cannot quench the least spark of saving grace it will carry us through all opposition whatsoever Let a man never baulk or decline in a good cause for any thing that he shall suffer for the seal and the Earnest of the Spirit is never more strong then when we have no other comfort by us but that when we can draw comfort from the Well-head from the Spring therefore we should labour for the Earnest of the Spirit for it will fit us for all conditions whatsoever What makes a man differ from himself what makes a man differ from another Take a man that hath the Earnest of the Spirit you shall have him defie death the world Satan and all temptations Take a man that is negligent in labouring to encrease his Earnest you shall have him weak and not like himself The Apostle Peter before the Holy Ghost came upon him the voice of a weak damsel astonished him but after how willing was he to suffer any thing Therefore let us not labour much to strengthen our selves with the things of this life or to value our selves by our dependance upon others if thou hast grace thou hast that that will stand by thee when all other things will fail for all other things will be taken away but the Comforter shall never be taken away it goes along with us continually First it works Earnest in us and then it stamps upon us his own mark and then it leads us from grace to grace and in the hour of death then especially it hath the work of a Comforter to present to us the fruits of a good and holy life and likewise the joyes of heaven when we are dead the Spirit watcheth over our bodies because they were the Temples of the Holy Ghost and at the day of judgement the same Spirit shall knit both body and soul together and after the same Spirit that hath done all this shall be all in all to us in heaven for ever and then our very bodies shall be spiritual where as now our souls even the better part of them is carnal Even as the fire when it possesseth a piece of Iron it is all fire So our bodies shall be all spiritual What a blessed thing is this to have the Spirit what are all friends to the Holy Ghost which will speak to God for us The Spirit will make request with sighes and groans and God will hear the voice of his own Spirit What prison can shut up the Spirit of God Above all labour to have more of the Spirit of God this will make us more or lesse fruitfull more or lesse glorious in our profession more or lesse willing to dye Labour to encrease this Earnest that the nearer we come to heaven the more we may be fitted for it Consider but this Reason if you want this alas we can never be thankful to God for any thing if by the Spirit we have not assurance that our state is the state of grace for otherwise we might think that God gives us all in anger as a etrnal man he alwaies fears that God fatts him as an oxe to the slaughter what a fearfull case is this that a man cannot be thankful for that he hath Labour for the Spirit that we may be thankfull to God for every thing that we may see the love of God in every thing in every refreshing we take that that love of God that fits us for heaven and that fits heaven for us it gives us daily bread the Earnest of the Spirit will make us thankfull for every thing Again labour for the Earnest of the Spirit that we may be joyfull in all conditions how can a man suffer willingly that knowes not that he is sealed with the Spirit that knowes not that God hath begun a good work in him Alas he is lumpish and heavy under the Crosse. What makes a man bear the Crosse willingly but this assurance what makes him deny himself in temptations and corruptions Oh saith the child of God the work of the Spirit is begun in me sealing me up to life everlasting shall I grieve and quench this Spirit for this base lust But a man that hath not the Spirit saith I had as good take this pleasure as have none at all for ought I know I shall have none he sees no greater pleasure then the following of his lust So that none can resist temptations but he that hath the Spirit giving him Earnest in a comfortable measure and it is a good sign when we resist temptations for spiritual reasons that the Spirit works it Again unlesse we have this Earnest of the Spirit in our hearts we can never be content to end our dayes with comfort he that hath the Earnest of the Spirit is glad of death when it comes there shall be then an accomplishment of all the bargain then the Marriage shall be consummate then shall be the year of Jubile the Sabbath of rest for ever then is the triumph and then all teares shall be wiped from our eyes But now let a man stagger and doubt whether he be the child of God or no that he cannor find any mark of the child of God in him that he cannot read the evidences of a Christian state in his soul they are so dim he sees nothing but corruption in him he sees no change no resistence of corruption he hath no Earnest Alas what a miserable case is such a man in when he comes to dye death with the eternity of misery after it who can look it in the face without hope of life everlasting without assurance of a happy change after death Therefore we should labour for the Spirit that howsoever we grow or decay in wealth and reputation let
part of happinesse in this world and in the world to come Now the end of the Ministery is to set the peoples hearts into a gracious and blessed liberty to bring them into the Kingdome of grace here and to fit them for the Kingdome of glory to help forward their joy This is the end both of the Word and of the dispensation of the Word in the Ordinances of salvation in the Sacraments and all that our joy may be full as our blessed Saviour saith These things have I spoken that your joy may be full It is the end of all our communion with the Father Son and Holy Ghost and with the Ministery and one with another as it is 1 Joh. 1. These things have I written that your joy may be full you have communion with the Father Son and Holy Ghost and with us that your joy may be full all is for spiritual joy We are helpers of your joy The meaning is we are helpers of your faith from whence joy comes more especially for he doth not repeat the word again We have not dominion over your faith but are helpers of your faith but instead of that he names joy as that that doth accompany true faith The Points considerable in this clause are these That joy is the state of Christians that either they are in or should labour to be in because the Apostle names it for all happinesse here All that have given their names to Christ should labour to rejoyce either they do rejoyce or they should labour to come to it that is supposed as a ground I will be the shorter in it The second is That the Ministers are helpers of this blessed condition The third is They are but helpers they are helpers and but helpers they are not authours of joy but helpers We are but helpers of your joy saith the Apostle These three things I will speak of briefly out of these words First Joy is that frame and state of soul that all that have given their names to Christ either are in or should labour to be in For this Doctrine is fetched from the principle of nature We do all with joy all in our callings is done with joy What do men in their Trades but that they may have that that they may joy in when they have it It is an old Observation of S. Chrysostome We do all that we may joy Ask any man why he doth take so much pains and be a drudge in his place it is that he may get somewhat to rejoyce in in his old dayes So out of the principle of nature this ought to be the scope of all to joy Now those that are Christians God requires it at their hand as a duty Rejoyce alway again I say rejoyce And he doth prepare and give them matter enough of joy to those that are Christians For whether we consider the ills they are freed from the greatest ills of all they are freed from sin and the wrath of God they are freed from eternal damnation they are freed from the sting of death from the greatest and most terrible ills Or whether we regard the state that God brings them in by believing being in the favour of God they enjoy the fruits of that favour peace and joy in the Holy Ghost And then for the life to come they are under the hope of glory The state of a Christian is a state of joy every way whether I say we regard the ill he is freed from or the good he is in for the present or the hope of eternal good for the time to come A Christian which way soever he look hath matter of joy God the Father is his Christ is his the Holy Ghost is his Comforter the Angels are his all are his life or death things present or things to come all are his Therefore there is no question of this that every one that hath given his name to Christ is in a state of joy if he answer his calling or he should labour to be in it he wrongs his codition else Why should they labour to be in that state Among many Reasons one is That God that gives them such matter of joy may have glory from them For what should the life of a Christian be that is freed from the greatest ill and advanced to the greatest good his life should be a perpetual thanksgiving to God and how can a man be thankfull that is not joyful Joy is as it were the oyl the anointing it makes a man chearful it makes the countenance of his soul to be chearful it makes him active in good when he is anointed with the oyl of gladnesse Now every man should have a desire to be good to be diligent and expedite in all that is good Therefore we should labour for this spiritual anointing that we may be ready for every good work Vessels of mercy prepared for every good work And then for suffering we have many things to go through in this world how shall a man suffer those things that are between him and Heaven with joy unlesse he labour to bring himself to this temper of joy And then for others every man should labour to encourage others We are all fellow-passengers in the way to Heaven therefore even to bring on others more chearfully we ought to labour to be in a state of joy Those that do not rejoyce they bring an ill report upon the way of God as if it were a desolate disconsolate way As the Spies brought an ill report upon the Land of Canaan whereupon the people were disheartned from entring into it So those that labour not to bring their hearts to spiritual joy they bring an ill report on the wayes of God and dishearten others from entring into those wayes which way soever we look we have reasons to encourage us to joy That God may have more glory and that we may do him more service that we may endure afflictions better and encourage others and take away the reproach of Religion from those that think it a melancholy course of life which indeed do not understand what belongs to the state of a Christian for the state of a Christian is a state of joy And if a Christian do not joy it is not because he is a Christian but because he is not a Christian enough because he favours the worse principle in him he favours himself in some work of the flesh God in the Covenant of grace is all love and mercy he would have us in our pilgrimage to heaven to finish our course with joy and he knowes we can do nothing except we have some joy It is the oyl of the soul as I said to make it nimble and fit for all actions and for all sufferings It gives a lustre and grace to whatsoever we do Not onely God loves a chearfull performer of duties but it wins acceptance of all others and makes the worker himself wondrous
and delivers him from going to the pit I have found a ransome c. The messenger one of a thousand the man of God that hath the tongue of the learned he hath shewed him where his ransome is to be had he hath shewed him his righteousnesse Thus did S. Peter after he had brought them to Men and brethren what shall we do to be saved then he points them out to Jesus Christ. Therefore the Ministery is called the Ministery of reconciliation and the Ministery of peace they are called Messengers of peace You know joy comes from reconciliation with God in Christ joy comes from peace Now the Ministers they are Messengers of reconciliation and Messengers of peace and therefore Messengers of joy They bring glad tydings of joy You see how Ministers are helpers of joy by shewing to man his ill and then by shewing to man his good and comfort in Jesus Christ they shew that where sin hath abounded grace abounds much more They dig the Mine to let people see what riches what treasure they have in the Word of God and what comfort they have there And then in the continual course of life they are helpers of joy For what do Ministers if they be faithful in their places but advise in cases of conscience what people should do so their Office is to remove all scruples and hindrances and obstacles of spiritual joy by advising them what to avoid and what to do We know that light is a state of joy The Ministery of the Gospel is light it sets up the light of Gods truth it shewes them the way they should go in all the course of their life and thereupon it rejoyceth them The Word of God is a Lanthorn especially in the Ministery Spiritual liberty and freedome that doth make people joyful but the end of the Ministery is to set people more and more at liberty both from the former estate that I named and likewise daily by office to set them at liberty from corruptions and temptations and snares to bring them to an enlarged estate Victory and Triumph is a state of joy Now the Ministers of God teach Gods people how to fight Gods battels how to handle their weapons how to answer temptations how to conquer all and at length how to triumph therefore in that regard they are helpers of their joy they encourage them against discouragements against infirmities and afflictions against Satans temptations shewing them grounds of joy out of the Scriptures Then they are helpers of their joy by forcing it as a duty upon them Rejoyce evermore and again I say rejoyce saith S. Paul They are as guides among the rest of the Travellers that encourage them in the way to heaven Come on let us go chearfully As the Apostles in all their Epistles they stirre up to joy and chearfulnesse so should those do that are guides to Gods people Travellers they need refreshments of wine c. Now thus the Ministers of God help the people of God in their spiritual travel to heaven if the people of God faint at any time then as it is Cant. 2. they refresh them with apples and wine with the comforts of the Holy Ghost they are ready to support and comfort them in all their spiritual falls when they are ready to sink We see by experience in all places where the Ministery of the Word is established how comfortably people live and dye and end their dayes above other people that sit in darknesse and in the shadow of death so we see this is true That the Ministers help joy because they help that that breeds joy not onely at the first but continually help the joy of the people of God even to death And then in death it self the end of the Ministery is to help joy to help them to heaven to help them to a joyful departure hence to give them a good and comfortable loose out of this world drawing comfort out of the Word for this purpose for whatsoever the Minister doth it is by drawing comfort out of the Word shewing them that the sting of death is taken away that now death is reconciled and become a friend to us in Christ that it is but a passage to heaven that now it is the end of all misery and the beginning of all happinesse Blessed are those that die in the Lord so they assist and help them in those last agonies There is special use of the dispensation of the Word in all conditions while we live and at the hour of death You see it is clear I need not further enlarge the Point that the Ministers by reason of the Word which indeed is the main thing that comforts they are helpers of the joy of Gods people But you will say They help Gods people to sorrow and they vex and trouble them oft-times Indeed carnal men think so as the two Witnesses in the Revelations it is said They vexed the men upon the earth so indeed the faithful witnesses of God they vex the earthly-minded base men as Ahab said of Elias Thou art he that troubleth Israel he accounted him as one that troubled Israel when it was himself that troubled Israel these Ministers they are accounted those that marre all the mirth in the world that a man that is given to pleasures and delights he trembles at the sight of them as men opposite to his delights and carnal course he cannot brook the very sight of them so it is with a carnal man But we may make an Use hence to judge of what spirit they are that judge and think so they are not true believers for there is no man that hath given his name to Christ and makes it good by his life that he is a good Christian but he accounts the Ministers helpers of his joy Those that do not so are in an ill course and which is worse they resolve to be in an ill course Therefore let us make much of the Ordinances of God as that which is the joy of our soules not onely make much of the Word of God but of the Word of God in the ministerial dispensation of it for oft-times we find that comfort by the opening of the Word of God that our own reading and private endeavours could never help us to experience shewes that We see when the Enuch was to be converted it was he that read but Philip was sent to open the Word to him and then he went away rejoycing And so the poor Jayler when the Word was opened and applyed to him then he rejoyced therefore as we intend our own comfort let us regard the Ministery Many object that that Naaman the Assyrian did I can have as much comfort by reading I would they were so well occupied but God gives a curse to private means when they are used with neglect of the publick And joy comes from Gods Spirit God will not attend our pleasure to giveus joy
their worst if you will needs fear I will tell you whom you shall fâ—…ar Fear him that can cast both body and soul into hell So if we be forced to suffer the losse of any thing that is good in the world or be cast into any ill condition what saith S. Paul The troubles and afflictions of the world are not worthy of the glory that shall be revealed Let us set that glory before us and that will prevail against that all the world can threaten or take from us what is all to it nothing Therefore by faith we stand we keep our own standing and withstand all oppositions whatsoever Oh but what if there come more subtile temptations end the Lord himself seemes to be our enemy that we have sinne and God is angry and we see he followes us with afflictions that are evidences of his anger how shall we stand now and keep our selves from despair This is a fiery dart of Satan when a man hath sinned and conscience is awakened to make him sink in despair O but faith will make the soul to stand in these great temptations against those fiery darts faith puts a shield into the hand of the soul to beat back all those fiery darts For faith will present Christ to God Indeed I have been a sinner but thou hast ordained a Saviour and he is of thine own appointing of thine own aâ—…ting a Saviour of thine own giving and thou hast made a promise that Whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life I cast my self upon thy mercy in him hereupon faith comes to withstand all such fiery temptations whatsoever nay against God himself Lord thou canst not deny thine own Saviour thou â—…mest to be an enemy and though I be a sinner and have deserved to be cast into hell yet I come to thee in the Name of thy Son that is at thy right hand and pleads for me by vertue of his blood shed for me I came in his Name thou canst not refuse thy owne Son For all temptations when a man hath faith in him it will send Satan to Christ to answer for him Go to Christ he is my husband he hath paid my debts he hath satisfied for my sins So that whatsoever the temptation be make it as subtle as you will there is a skill in faith to stand against it and to beat back all the fiery darts of Satan Therefore to end all we see here what an excellent estate a Christian is in above all others that he hath a better standing then others have not onely a better standing in Religion then the Papists have but in the profession of Religion he hath a better standing then common professors why he stands by faith by sound faith He stands not upon opinion or because he hath been bred so he stands not upon his wit because he sees reason for it he stands upon faith and faith stands upon divine authority he stands partly upon his own experience that seconds faith Those then that care not for Religion what standing have they those that stand only in pleasures and profits and in the favour of great men what standing have they They stand as the Psalmist saith in slippery places There is no man but if he nave not faith he stands slippery though he be never so great if he be a Monarch alas what is it to stand a while all these things are but uncertain though they yield present content they are but uncertain contentments the Wise-man saith they are but vanity they are like the reed of Egypt that will not uphold they will not sustein the soul in the time of trouble there is nothing that a man can stand upon and fasten his soul upon if he be not Religious that will hold scarce the fit of an ague that will hold in the pangs of death even in the entrance of it that will hold in terrours of conscience How little a trouble will blow away all those that stand on so weak a foundation as an earthly thing is For they have but an Imaginary good to speak of and that Imagination is driven out by the sense of the contrary Let contrary troubles come and all their fooles Paradise and their happinesse they had before is at an end it goes no deeper then Imagination All the things in this world stablish not the heart Those that do not stand by faith in the favour of God in Christ let their standing be what it will it will soon be over turned by any temptation they can stand out against nothing Therefore let us labour above all things in the world to have that faith strengthened by which we stand and let us often be encouraged to strengthen our faith by all means that we may stand the better upon it and try our faith before we trust it it is that that we must trust to and stand to in life and death Therefore let us often think Is my faith good is it well built Let us oft put this query to our soules I believe the Religion I professe but upon what grounds I believe the truths in the Word of God but upon what grounds have I a clear understanding of them because they are divine doth the Spirit of God open them and shew a light in the Scripture that is divine doth the Spirit of God give me a relish of the Scriptures above all the pleasures in the world Do I find God speaking to my heart in the Word do I find the Spirit of God with his Ordinance then my knowledge and my faith will hold out I can stand by that faith in the Word that is wrought by the Spirit and fastened upon the Word with the Spirit But if I believe the Religion I professe only because the State doth so and if the King and State should do otherwise I would change my Religion or if it be because my parents were so or my friends and Patron is of that religion whom I depend upon or because I see greater seeming reason for this then for the other I can hold argument for this and not for the other Alas this will not hold But labour to know the truth of the Word of God by experience as much as we can and by the Spirit of God giving evidence to our soules from the inward grounds of Scripture that it is the Word I know whom I have trusted I know the promises are good I have felt them in my soul the Spirit hath reported them to my soul they are sweeter then all the things in the world It is a sure Word I bottome upon it I have found the comfort of it before therefore I will build upon it We can never stand unlesse we can make our knowledge spiritnal it is but acquisite knowledge else We fall in three things vilely we labour that our knowledge of Religion be spiritual and fetched divinely out of the Word of God together with the Spirit We
See Hope Opinion Confidence Certain account of and looking for death is a not able means to draw us from self confidence p. 136 Gods Children prone to self confidence p. 137 See Trust. Conformity A threefold conformity with Christ p. 118 Conscience Conscience what p. 219 220 c. Three things joyned with Conscience p. 221 God hath set up a Court in man wherein Conscience is 1. Register 2. Witnesse 3. Accuser 4. Judge 5. Executioner p. 222 Conscience Gods Hall wherein he keeps his Assizes ibid. Judgment of Conscience a forerunner of the great and general Judgment ibid. Conscience beareth witnesse p. 223 What manner of witnesse Conscience is viz. 1. Faithful 2. Inward ibid. How to have Conscience witnesse well p. 224 227 An ignorant man cannot have a good Conscience p. 225 Why men have bad Consciences ibid. Papists cannot have a good conscience why p. 226 The witnesse of a good Conscience the ground of joy why p. 227 235 A good Conscience breeds joy 1. In life p. 228 to 232 2. In death 3. At the day of Judgment A good Conscience comforts in all estates and conditions whatsoever p. 228 229 230 Why a good Conscience doth not alwayes witnesse comfort p. 231 232 Means how to joy and rejoyce in the witnesse of Conscience p. 233 Nothing worse then a bad Conscience p. 236 237 238 239 Labour for a good Concience ibid. Commenâ—…atior of a good Conscience ibid. How to have a good Conscience p. 240 Gods Children have place in the Conscience of others p. 320 Contraries God is able to raise comfort out of contraries p. 42 43 God carries on the work of our salvation by contraries why p. 146 Conversation Conversation what p. 266 Christianity may stand with conversing abroad in the world p. 267 Keligion makes a man converse abroad in the world untainted ibid. A Christians Conversation is best where he is best known p. 273 Corinth Corinth a very wicked City yet ever there God hath a Church p. 4 What is now become of the Church of Corinth p. 5 Corinth the Metropolis or Mother-City of Achaia p. 6 See Achaia D. Danger God suffers his Children sometimes to fall into extream perils and dangers why p. 125 126 c. Day Christ hath a Day p. 339 There be two special dayes of Christ ibid. The measure of a Christians joy is as it will be esteemed at the day of Judgment p. 340 We should often think of the day of the Lord Jesus p. 341 See Judgment Death Gods Children are sometimes very sensible and much afraid of death why p. 130 131 How and in what respect the Saints desire death p. 133 Christ was afraid of death and yet thirsted after it how p. 132 133 Gods Children are often deceived concerning the time â—…f their death why p. 134 Death uncertain how ibid. The time of death uncertain why p. 134 135 Certain account of and looking for death is a means to draw us from self-confidence and from the world and to make us trust in God p 136 Physicians fault in flattering the sick and feeding them with false hopes â—…f long life at the point of death taxed ibid. Affliction called Death p. 171 Deliver God doth not deliver his children at the first but suffers them to be brought to a low ebbe to a very sad condition and why p. 171 172 God delivers after he hath done his work p. 172 Gods time to deliver when p. 173 Gods children alway stand in need of deliverance p. 175 God delivers both outwardly and inwrdly p. 176 180 Christians have deliverance from trouble p. 177 A double deliverance of God p. 178 Experience of Gods deliverance in time past a ground of confidence to expect the like for time to come p. 172 178 182 Objection against the Doctrine of Gods delivering his people from trouble answered p. 179 Deliverance various or manifold p. 180 God will deliver his people out of all trouble p. 181 Dispense No dispensing with Gods Law p. 399 Dissembling Dissimulation Grounds of Dissimulation p. 244 A threefold Dissimulation 1. Before the project p. 224 2. In 3. After Objection for dissembling answered pag. 247 Man naturally prone to dissemble p. 244 250 Dissembling to be avoided and declined p. 371 372 A Christian is no Dissembler p. 317 See Simulation Dominion No man hath dominion over anothers faith p. 519 What is no domineering over the faith of others p. 520 What is domineering over the faith of others ibid. Who are guilty of domineering over other mens faith p. 521 The Church of Rome guilty of domineering over the faith of others how and wherein ibid. Grounds from whence this domineering over other mens faith ariseth p. 527 Double Doubling a great sin p. 247 Man by nature is prone to double and the grounds of it p. 250 Some persons and callings are more prone to doubling then others ibid. A Christian is no doubler p. 317 E. Earnest VVHat the Spirit is an Earnest of p. 486 The Spirit resembled to an Earnest in fiv e particulars p. 486 487 How to know whether we have the Earnest of the Spirit p. 493 494 495 How to get this Earnest of the Spirit pag. 501 502 503 Motives to labour for this Earnest pag. 504 505 End Holy men work for holy Ends p. 347 Equivocation Popish Equivocation odious and abominable p. 246 372 516 Errour How Prophets and Apostles were subject to errours and mistakes and how not p. 374 See Infallible Mistake Experience Former Experience a ground to expect like mercies for the future p. 182 to 188 Extremity God sometimes suffers his children to fall into great extremities and why p. 126 127 Gods people are sensible of their extremity p. 129 See Afflictions Sufferings Tribulations F. Faith Difference between Faith and Presumption p. 441 A double act of Faith 1. Direct pag. 488 2. Reflect Of standing by Faith See Standing To have dominion over the Faith of others See Dominion The foundation of Faith must be out of a mans self p. 544 True Faith is built upon the Word or the Scriptures not upon unwritten Traditions p. 544 545 546 Popish Faith not built upon the Scriptures but upon Traditions p. 545 546 Faith sure and certain p. 546 True Faith will persevere and hold out to the end ibid. It 's by Faith that we stand and withstand all opposition whatsoever ibid. Faith a Christians victory by it he conquers all adversary powers ibid. The Sacrament a means of strengthen Faith p. 550 Falshood Falshood to be declined p. 371 372 Father God as the Father of Christ to be praised p. 21 See Praise God the Father of Christ our Father and the Father of mercies how pag. 21 22 Why God is called the Father of mercies p. 23 Why not the Father of mercy but of mercies ibid. Uses to be made of this Title of God The Father of mercies p. 25 26 27 28 29 30 See Mercy Flesh. Flesh what 276 364 Carnal wisdome why called
27 28 Men are prone to presume of Gods mercy p. 26 27 28 See Presumption All Gods Attributes without mercy are terrible p. 23 Objection of a poor dejected soul against the Doctrine of Gods mercy or mercifulnesse answered p. 30 To whom Gods mercy is unlimited viz. to repentant soules not to presumptuous sinners p. 27 How to be made fit for or capable of mercy p. 36 How to improve mercy daily p. 37 Kinds of Gods mercies p. 24 25 Merit Against Merit p. 202 Minister Ministery Ministers must win by life as well as by doctrine p. 274 Ministers joyned are with Christ in acceptance and neglect p. 333 A faithful Minister is the joy of the people ibid. The Ministery is a great gift and blessing of God p. 334 346 347 348. The peoples proficiency in grace is the Ministers joy p. 336 All the good we have by Christ is conveyed by the Ministery p. 39 Consent of Ministers is a help to faith p. 391 Ministers are to be prayed for by the people See Prayer Mistake Holy men are subject to Mistakes pag. 374 See Errour N. Name MEn have oft their name and denomination in Scripture by that which they are ruled by p. 275 365 New Popery is a new Religion p. 396 397 O. Oath OAth what p. 376 515 An Oath lawful p. 516 517 Kinds of Oathes p. 376 514 515 A Christian life is a kind of Oath p. 518 Conditions of an Oath pag. 376 514 515 An Oath not good unlesse necessary p. 376 515 516 517 Qualifications of an Oath ibid. None but good men should take an Oath p. 515 Parts of an Oath ibid. An Oath to be taken onely in serious matters p. 515 517 See Swearing Occasion A good man must take all occasions to do good p. 354 Oil Ointment The Spirit with its graces compared to Oil or Ointment p. 464 c. Old Our Religion is the old Religion p. 394 395 c. Popery no old but new Religion p. 396 397 Onenesse A Christian man is one man he doth act one mans part p. 317 There is but one Faith p. 394 One Catholick Church ibid. Opinion It 's good to cherish a good Opinion of others p. 323 344 See Conceit Hope P. Partake THose that partake in other mens sins shall also partake in their sufferings p. 119 Paul St. Paul's prerogative above other Apostles pag. 2 St. Paul's modesty and humility p. 3 S. Paul had a good opinion and conceit of the Corinthians p. 322 How S. Paul could be deceived in his journey and not in his doctrine pag. 373 374 How Timothy is called S. Paul's brother p. 4 S. Paul's course to hold out in holy resolution to the end p. 324 Peace True Peace issues from Grace p. 14 Persecution They that persecute the Saints persecute Christ p. 81 See Affliction Suffering Tribulation Perseverance Resolution to persevere and hold out in a good course to the end p. 323 S. Paul's course to persevere in holy resolution to the end p. 324 Gods Children may be assured that they shall persevere and hold out to the end pag. 489 c. He that is in the state of Grace shall persevere in it to the end p. 490 Physician Physicians do ill in flattering the sick and feeding them with hopes of long life when they are at the point of death p. 136 We should open the case of our soules to our spiritual Physicians p. 535 Policy A Christian should avoid the imputation of carnal Policy p. 365 Not to subordinate Religion to State Policy p. 294 295 Pope Popery Popery crosses the Word of God p. 385 386 The Popes Treasury what p. 107 Popery founded upon Traditions p. 545 546 Popery a rotten and unsound Religion ibid. Popish Religion is full of Contradictions p. 386 Popish Religion is full of uncertainties p. 386 387 How and wherein Popish and Protestant Religin agree and differ p. 395 398 It's safer to be a Protestant then a Papist p. 397 Whether a Papist may be saved pag. 397 398 Popery to be detested because it teacheth men to trust to their own works and satisfactions p. 142 Praise God the object of Praise how p. 20 God to be praised as he is the Father of Christ p. 21 Praise follows prayer or After prayer praises are due p. 204 The praises of many are gratefull and acceptable to God ibid. How the unreasonable creatures praise God p. 206 We are to praise God for others for all sorts of men ibid. Wherein praise consists p. 207 See more in Blesse Thankfulnesse Prayer Prayer is a means to convey all good and deliver from all ill p. 188 Gods children can pray for themselves p. 190 Christians ought to help one another by prayer p. 191 People ought to pray for Ministers p. 193 200 201 What is to begg'd of God or pray'd for for Ministers ibid. Christians have not the Spirit of prayer at all times alike p. 193 Prayer is not a work of gifts but of grace p. 194 Divers gifts in prayer ibid. Prayer is a prevailing course with God and why p. 195 c. How to know whether our prayers help the Church p. 199 It 's an ill condition not to be able to pray p. 200 God will deliver the Ministers by the peoples prayers ibid. It 's a good thing to beg the prayers of others in sicknesse p. 203 The more eminent men are the more they are to be prayed for p. 215 Preach Christ is the main Object of Preaching p. 388 See Ministery Word Presence Personal presence hath a special power p. 346 Presumption Against presuming upon Gods mercy p. 27 28 See Mercy Difference between faith and presumption pag. 441 Pride Pride is a sin against all the Commandments pag. 219 Priest Christians are Priests how pag 467 468 Promise God deales with men by Promises pag. 402 Promise what p. 403 All Promises made in Christ pag. 403 All the Promises are Yea and Amen in Christ p. 407 408 c. Several kinds of Promises p. 413 Till a man be in Christ he hath no good by the Promises p. 418 What right a man out of Christ hath to the Promises p. 419 Comfort from the Promises to them that are in Christ pag. 420 421 c. How to make use of the Promises and to have comfort by them pag. 424 425 c. What to do when in trouble we cannot call to mind any particular Promise p. 425 We should make the Promises familiar to us p. 428 Signes or Evidences of believing the Promises pag. 432 433 434 c. to 438 Promises are Legacies as well as promises p. 435 Gods Promises called a Testament a Will ibid. Necessity of application of the Promises to our selves p. 440 None have interest in the Promises but such as find a change in themselves p. 473 Prophets How Christians are Prophets pag. 468 Prophets and Apostles how subject to errour how not p. 374 Providence Providence what p. 177 R. Rejoyce See Joy Religion NOt to
sincerity by pleading corruptions By pleading afflictions Order in sincerity 1. A deep foundation 2. Faith 3. Love Simile Sincerity extends to all a mans life Wicked men have fits of goodnesse God judgeth by the tenour of our life Observ. Christianity may stand with converse in the world Observ. Religion makes a man converse in the world untainted Reason A Christian hath a spirit above the world Grace increased by opposition Not to tempt God by rushing into ill company Object Answ. Times appointed by God Halting in Religion brings danger Observ. We must have our conversation in sincerity while we live here Depravers of goodnesse blamed Observ. A true Christian best where he is best known Christians substantial not painted Use. To approve our selves most where we are best known Simile Ministers win by Life as well as Doctrine Wisdom either 1. Natural Simile Politick wisdome 3. Spiritual 4. Fleshly wisdom Wisdome what Carnal wisdome what Why fleshly wisdome Flesh what The Soul placed between good and evil Wisdome according as the man in whom it is All carnal men have not fleshly wisdome Observ. Fleshly wisdome where there is not sincerity Doctr. Gods Children noâ—… ruled by fleshly wisdome Reason 1. It is Gods enemy 2. It is our enemy Reason 2. It is base Reason 3. They must mortifie it Reas. 4. It doth all the mischief in the world It hinders from good It sets it self against good It hinders from reforming of ill It hinders from suffering It provokes to evil It keeps in ill Carnal wisdome mistaken Ground of Credulity Jealousie Use. To disclaim fleshly wisdome A great Judgement to begiven up to our selves August Use 2. To get our hearts changed Get assurance of salvation See the vanity of earthly thingse Not to walk by fleshly wisdome breeds joy To repent of carnal devices Gods Children not led onely by the rules of reason Christians renouncing fleshly wisdome have a better guide Quest. Why tâ—… Apostle names Grace not Wisdome Answ. Wisdome not from our selves but Gods Grace 2. We are guided not only by wisdome but other Graces 3. Our want of wisdome supplyed by grace Gods wisdome for us more then in us Why weaker christiani are sometimes safer Obser. A Christian needs wisdome 1. To avoid dangers 2. Because of the likenesse between good and evill 3. In regard of hindrances and helps to good 4. Good is not good without it 5. Good is hid under evil Wisdome may be bad Use. To go to God for wisdome God gives wisdome for the things of this life Men leaving Gods wisdome miscarry Use. Reprooâ—… of those that subordinate Religion to State-Policy Observ. True wisdome toucheth Conversation Use. Bad livers no bodies in Religion Grace two-fold 1. The favour of God 2. Something wrought in us 1. A Change 2. Particular graces 1. Heavenly light 2. Love 3. Hope Patience 4. Faith 3. Exciting applying strengthening Grace Doctr. All our wisdom from Grace Every thing necessary to heaven a grace Use. Not to ascribe any thing to our selves God ready to give Grace Reason Christ hath undertaken it Presumption Against Despair Consider our parts and duty Beg assistance of God Go to Christ. Go to the Promises Renounce Carnal Wisdome Incouragements to be guided by Grace Quest. Answ. Signes of being led by Grace 1. To renounce carnal wisdome Sign 2. Simplicity Sincerity Sign 3. The strength of Grace Sign 4. In men of great parts By abasing his gifts and parts In men of weaker parts Sign 5. From the ground of his actions Sign 6. Graces are together Every Grace of use to a Christian Sign 7. When a man provides for his best good Help 1. Submit all to the Spirit of Grace Self-denyal 〈◊〉 Humility 3. High esteem of wisdome 4. To acquaint our selves with God 5. To meditate on the free love and Grace of God 6. Challenge the Covenant of Grace Popery founded on carnal wisdome 1. In the Government 2. In their Worship 3. Opinions Best Statesmen who Observ. A Christian uniform Abuse of signes Observ. God is wise for those that walk by Grace Observ. Gods Children have place in the conscience of others Use. To approve our selves to mens consciences Trust what S. Paul's good conceit of the Corinthians Reason 1. Reason 2. Reas. 3. To entertain good conceits of others Saint Paul's resolution to hold to the end S. Paul's sourse to persevere How the Corinthians were S. Paul's rejoycing To imitate S. Paul in this Resolution The glory of a good life To take God in our resolutions Saint Paul's comfort Things of the world uncertain To examine what we acknowledge Men deceived in the death of others Danger of ill company Aggravation of Hell-torments Ground of ill mens cruelty To be constant in good courses Observ. A sign of a good estate to acknowledge him that hath told us of our sins Use. Tryal Acknowledgment what Christ acknowledged in the Minister Acknowledge Christ what Who acknowledgeth not Christ. To acknowledge the Word To acknowledge the Minister Ministers joyned with Christ in acceptance and neglect Doctr. A faithful Minister the joy of the people Reason He brings Christ the cause of joy Original of our joy Christ must be opened by the Ministery Use of the Ministery Ministers wooers for Christ. Ministers a gift of God The Ministery a great blessing Why God brings men to heaven by men Gods benefits come by the Ministery Use. To rejoyce in enjoying Gids Ordinance Doct. The peoples good is the Ministers joy 1. The matter of his joy 2. A meanes to increase his joy 3. The seal of his Ministery 4. To evidence that he was a good man Use. To be good under the Ministery Good communicative Wicked men draw others to sin Use. To labour to make others good The misery of opposers of goodnesse Not to leave Churches for some corruptions Observ. Christ hath a Day Simile Doctr. Christians rejoycing as it will be at the last day What will avail at the last day who take the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Application to the Sacrament How we are acquainted with Christ. To acknowledge Christ in the Sacrament what Thoughts of Judgment make us painful Observ. Good as far as may be to cherish a good opinion of others Reason 1. Reason 2. Not to cast off men for infirmities Use. Encouragement to inferiours to give occasion of good hope Observ. Personal presence hath a special power Use. To esteem Gods Ordinance Object Answ. Saint Paul's end in coming to Corinth Observ. Holy men work from holy ends Use. To look to our aimes in our actions Doctr. The preaching of the Gospel a special grace Reason It is the means to work all good in us Use. To esteem the Word as a Grace How to come to be thankful Doctr. Those that are in the state of Grace need a second grace Reason 1. From inward opposition Reas. 2. From without Reas. 3. From new temptations Reason 4. From the time to come Reason 5. From Satan Reason 6. From the capacity of the soul.
abuse Promises of this life 2. Gods Promises wondrously performed 3. God deferreth his performance To wait Gods time Believe contraries in contraries To have Amen for Gods Amen Complaint of Unbelief Faith in the Promises honours God Why God honors faith so much To make the Promises familiar How to make use of former examples What use to make of the story of our own lives Comfort in the false dealing of men To deceive trust odious Comfort in all changes in the world How the Word of the Lord endures for ever To rely constantly on the constant Promises To observe how God daily fulfills his Promises 1. For temporals 2. For spirituals Turn Promises into Prayers Labour to know the Promises Work the Promises on our hearts Evidences of believing the Promises 1. They breed joy 2. They quicken to obedience 3. They purge 4. They quiet the soul. 5. A staying of tâ—…e soul when all iâ—… contrary 6. Faithfulnesse in our Promises to God Quest. Answ. God gives grace to perform the Covenant God promiseth the things be requires Promises Legacies Covenant a Testament Threatnings of God Amen as well as Promises 7. Opposition of flesh and fleshly men Carnal men despise those that trust in Gods Promises To go to God in Christ to perform the promises How to think of Christ. All in the world nothing without Christ. Observ. Gods glory manifested in the Gospel More then in the Creation Our estate in Christ better then Adam's Glory of Gods Justice His Mercy Wisdome Power Truth To see Gods Attributes in Christ. To honour God by believing the Gospel Glory of God by the Ministery Observ. A double Amen 1. In Gods Promises 2. In our Faith Necessity of application Difference between faith and presumption Observ. Stablishing grace necessary Reason 1. In regard of our indisposition 2. In regard of oppositions Difference between true Christians and others Degrees of faith Observ. Christ the foundation of our stability 1. Our Judgment stablished in Christ. 2. Our Will 3. Our affections A Christians stability more then Adam's or Angels None are firm but Christians Observ. God onely can stablish the soul. 1. By shewing our misery and Christs excellency The ground of believing Gods Word Reason of Apostasie The reason of unfruitfulnesse The reason of Despair Spiritual knowledge necessary Observ. God will stablish us 1. Because he is constant All of Grace from God Ground of a Christians not falling away God stablisheth bâ—… working stablishing graces Fear Wisdome Faith Peace To value all good Christians The Spirit works as we are in the body Bond of communion of Saints Use. To give God the glory of our stablishing Strengthen radical graces 1. Humility 2. Faith 3. Knowledge Knowledge must be spirituall 1. Be acquainted with Gods Word 2. Take no scandal at those that shrink 3. Retain the truth in love 4. Practise truths â—…nown 5. Be frequent in holy conference 7. Pray to God to stablish us 8. Be spiritually poor 9. Hate lukewarmnesse Use 2. Examination of our stablishing 1. When it is grounded on the Word 2. When weak men overcome strong temptations 2. By freedome from base fears cares c. Examine our knowledge Examine our course of life None but a Christ an truly couragious in death 2. Desire of Christs coming Why God useth so many several words to secâ—… us What the Spirit is an Earnest of The Spirit an Earnest 1. For security 2. It is part of the whole 3. An Earnest is little to the whole 4. It serves the party receiving it 5. It is never taken away Observ. A Christian man be assured of his estate in grace All in the work of Redemption is for that end Christians not alike assured at all times Double act of saith 1. Direct 2. Reflect The reflect act may be hindred Naughty hearte content with a state of doubling Observ. Gods Children may be assured they shall held out to the end Grace and glory differ but in degrees Observ. Those that look to be happy must first be holy Observ. We may be assured from a little measure of grace The Spirit appears not in all graces at once A Christian is a mixed creature Use 2. To examine the truth of grace We may know grace is true though little 1. The soul mournes that it is little 2. Wait 3. To wait with Patience 4. Constancy 5. To purge our selves 6. Desire of accomplishment Cautions 1. When conscience is wounded 2. Have been carelesse 7. Growth in grace 8. Quieting of the soul. 9. True gold will endure the tryal 10. It will persevere Christians get strength by their falls To labour for assurance Earnest given for our sakes To labour against unbelief Earnest the work of the Spirit 1. He proceeds from Father and Son 2. He only can quiet the soul. How to know we have the Spirit 1. By life and motion 2. By transforming us 3. By Conflict 4. By supernatural obedience 5. It dwells in us 6. It mortifies sin 7. It leads us 8 It is a Spirit of adoption 9. It teacheth to pray 10. And to wait Directions to have the Spirit 1. Attend Gods means 2. Not to grieve the Spirit 1. By cherishing Lusts. 2. Obey the Spirit 3. Pray for the Spirit The Spirit makes impregnable No thankfulnesse without the Spirit No joy without the Spirit No willâ—…ngnesse to dye without it Parts of the Verse Observ. Mans nature prone to suspition Grounds of suspition 1. The infirmity of men 2. Guiltinesse 3. From Probabilities Suspition more then fear lesse then judgment Suspition what Suspition makes the worst construction Why the Devil cherisheth suspition Mischief from suspition Observ. To labour to avoid suspition Suspition a Canker That that is suspected is made unprofitable God labours â—…o free himself from suspition Christ labours to be freed from suspition Sin must be censured and judged Doctr. Gentle courses first to be used Reason 1. It is suitable to â—…ns nature Reason 2. To Gods disposition Reason 3. To the carriage of our salvation Reason 4. Gods course Reason 5. It is most successeful Reason 6. It is tasting Use. To deal gently with others Doctr. When gentle means prevail not severe must be used Reason Men must not spare that God may Against selfrâ—…spects in reproos of sin Use. People to be willing to bear of their sins How to prevent severity in others Vexation in hell to those that were cherished in sin Three-fold correction 1. Private admonition 2. Before others Definition of an Oath None but good men should take an Oath To swear by none but God Invocation in an Oath Imprecation Oath to be taken onely in serious matters An Oath must be 1. In Truth 2. In Judgment 3. In Justice Against equivocation An oath only in matters in determinable Oath lawful Ordinary Swearing forbidden Object Answ. Swearing without good life nothing Object Answ. Custome no plea for swearing Object Answ. Company no excuse for swearing Swearing ordinarily argues a vile heart Original of common swearing 1. Atheisme 2. Cherishing passion 3. Affectation 4. Shame Men should abstain swearing in love to the Kingdome For love to theâ—…r own sam lies Conscience of lessâ—…r oathes Ordinary Swearers curse themselves A Christians life a kind of oath Doctr. No man hath dominion over anothers faith 1. What it is not to have dominion over the faith of others What â—…ranny over the faith of others is Quest. Answ. The Church of Rome domineers over the faith of others 1. By Traditions 2. Will-worship 3. That the Pope cannot erre A grand lie that hinders their Reformation 4. Church Judge of Controversies 5. In the intentioâ—… of the Minister in the Sacrament Confession Satans malice to sit in Gods throne Popery would subdue all Use. To be thankful for freedome from this tyranny How to think of Popery Grounds of spiritual Tyranny Salvation termed joy why Doctr. 1. The state of a Christian is joy Nature teacheth it God gives matter of joy 1. Freedom from ill 2. The good they are brought to Reason 1. That God may have glory Reason 2. It makes active in doing good Reason 3. And able to suffer ill Reason 4. To encourage others Doctr. 2. The Word unfolded helps this joy To comfort what The Ministers helpers of joy 1. By shewing people their ill 2. By shewing the remedy 3. By advice Light Liberty Victory 4. By forcing it as a duty 5. In death Object Answ. Ministers trouble the joy of carnal men Object Answ. Private means will not comfort when publick are neglected Object Answ. The sorrow caused by the Ministery tends to joy Simile Object Answ. Simile Comfort what Use. To esteem the Ministery To open the case of our soules to spiritual Physitians Doctr. 3 Ministers but helpers not the authours of joy Simile Gods Spirit only specks comfort 1. He only knowes our hearts 2. He only can set down the soul. Use To look for comfort from the Spirit by the means Not to idolize the Ordinances why S. Paul varies the phrase Observ. Faith breeds joy 1 Faith takes away all that may discourage 2. It shewes Gods love in Christ. Pedigree of joy Use. To try if our joy be good 1. If it spring from the Word 2. It springs from faith 3. It is above discouragements or allurements 4. It is with humility Standing what meant by it Quest. Answ. Why our stand ing is by faith Four degrees of assent 1. Opinion 2. Knowledge 3. Believing 4. Experience How we stand by faith Quest. Answ. What faith it self stands on God our Father The nature of God Observ. The foundation of faith out of us Faith withstands opposition Quest. Answ. How we stand by faith when conscience is awakened for sin The firmnesse of a Christians standing If our knowledg of Scripture be not spiritual 1. We fall into sin 2. To despair 3. To Apostasie The Sacrament strengthens faith Faith the radical grace