their words and misusing their persons which stirred up the Wrath of God against his people so as there was no Remedy 2 Chron. 36.16 These were the Sins that Daniel meant in his Supplication which either symbolized or was contemporary with this Dan. 9.5 6. Now God is said to remember Sins when he doth actually punish persons for them and this is deprecated here simple Forgetfulness being a thing impossible to befall God who is uncapable of any defect but hath all things past present and to come in his view throughout all Eternity 2. Here is a Petition for Help Let thy tender Mercies speedily prevent us Wherein the thing desired is the coming of Aid for their Deliverance from their Captivity and the restoring of their City and Temple and that to be hastened the time seeming long to them in which they were oppressed by the Babylonian Kings and kept from the Land of their desires And this is begged as a product of God's tender Mercies or Bowels of Mercies by which Expression such Mercy as is wont to be in Mothers towards the Children of their womb whose Bowells earn towards them is attributed to God Though to speak exactly as the Schoolmen say Mercy is not in God secundùm Affectum he hath not any formal Dolour or Sympathy so as to be grieved with our Evills as we are when we pity others but secundùm Effectum in respect of the Effect because God in our Misery doth as we doe when we have Compassion on others afford Succour and Relief to those whom he is said to be mercifull to 3. The Petition is enforced with the mention of their low Condition For we are brought very low impoverished or made thin that is we are poor in Purse thin of People much diminished every way spoiled debarred of our Liberty of our Religion of our Peace burthened with imperious Commands heavy Yokes of the Lordly Tyrants of Babylon persecuted with a fiery Furnace for not adoring their Idol in danger of casting into a Den of Lions for calling upon the Name of our God destined to a Panolethry or a total Slaughter by wicked Courtiers proud Haman and his Complices and have none to help us but our God and therefore we pray Let thy tender Mercies speedily prevent us or as in the Verse next my Text Help us O God of our Salvation for the Glory of thy Name and deliver us and purge away our Sins for thy Name 's sake From whence though the occasion of the present business be somewhat different we may deduce these Observations usefull for this Day 's work 1. That it is God's Remembring of Sins which is the reason of the Calamities that befall a people 2. That the Removing of them is an effect of his tender Mercies 3. That God's Time of Help is the low Condition of Supplicants 4. That Bewailing of Sins and humble Supplication for Mercy are the proper and effectual Remedies against the Calamities which are incumbent on God's people Of these in their order I. OBSERVATION That it is God's Remembrance of Sins which is the reason of the Calamities that befall a people It is the Maxim of the Apostle Rom. 6.23 That the Wages or Stipend of Sin is Death Death and all the Evils tending to it were at first the adjudged Pay for Sin against God and Sin is still the Egge out of which all the venomous brood of Mischiefs incident to mankind are hatched By one man Sin entred into the world and Death by Sin and so Death passed upon all men for that all have sinned Rom. 5.12 Adam opened the Floud-gate whereby a Deluge of all sorts of Miseries hath drowned the world But though his Sin were the Fountain of all Calamities yet as Rivers swell by much Rain and overflowing cause particular Inundations of some places so it is with Man by reason of Sin besides the First man's Transgression there is such an increase of Sin in his Posterity that it provokes God sometimes to inflict such remarkable Plagues and Vengeance as are different from the common Death of all men The Uncleanness and Cruelty of the Old world in Noah's days brought the universal Floud on the world of the Vngodly The excessive Pride Filthiness Riot Bestiality of the Sodomites brought down on them from Heaven Fire and Brimstone to consume them The Oppressing of Israel with the Hardness of Pharaoh's Heart caused the drowning of him and his Army in the Red sea Yea the remarkable Sins of those who have been owned as God's own People have caused particular Judgments Achan's Sin made Israel fly before the Canaanites Saul's Sin caused three years Famine Hophni and Phineas by their profaning the Offering of the Lord brought on Eli's House the Loss of his Sons the Loss of the Ark and the Deprivation of his Posterity from the Priesthood Yea David's Sin in numbring of the people moved God to send a Plague on Israel which swept away seventy thousand men But when Manasseh had filled Jerusalem with Witchcraft Idolatry Cruelty and added an obdurate Heart against God's Messengers the Desolation by Nebuchadnezzar seized on them in a far greater measure But worst of all when the Jews killed the Lord Jesus and their own Prophets and persecuted the Apostles of Christ not pleasing God and being contrary to all men forbidding the Apostles to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved to fill up their Sins always then Wrath came upon them to the uttermost as S. Paul speaks 1 Thess 2.15 16. Yea were there no words of Holy Scripture to inform us whence wasting Wars Inundations of water great Famines consuming Pestilence and other effects of Divine Vengeance come on a Nation yet the Histories of such people as knew not God the Observations of considerate men the extorted or free Confession of notorious Sinners in all Ages were abundant evidence to inferrre that it is God's Remembrance of Sin that is the Source of Calamities it being usual for all sorts of Sinners to accuse themselves their own Consciences bearing witness against them when Evils are upon them Adonibezek could remember his Cruelty when the Lex talionis took hold on him Judg. 1.7 And Joseph's Brethren could then acknowledge that God had found out their Iniquity when they were in Distress themselves Gen. 42.21 and 44.16 Any remarkable Affliction that is not ordinary and common wrings out from guilty Consciences such expressions as that of the Widow of Sarepta 1 King 17.18 O thou man of God art thou come to call my Sin to Remembrance and to slay my Son Consonant hereto are God's Declarations of himself Isa 59.1 2. Behold the Lord's Hand is not shortned that it cannot save neither is his Ear heavy that it cannot hear But your Iniquities have separated between you and your God and your Sins have hid his Face from you Perditio tua ex te Israel O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self Hos 13.9 Your Iniquities have turned away these things and your
overcome when thou art judged or dost judge God forceth the Jews to acknowledge this when he puts the question to them Your Fathers where are they and the Prophets do they live for ever But my words and my Statutes which I commanded my servants the Prophets did they not take hold of your Fathers They returned and said Like as the Lord of Hoasts thought to doe unto us according to our ways and according to our doings so hath he dealt with us Zech. 1.5 6. 4. The Justice of God as well as the Veracity of God engageth God to inflict Anguish on men for Sin His eyes are upon all the ways of the sons of men to give to them according to their ways and according to the fruit of their doings Jer. 32.19 He is the Judge of all the World and therefore must needs doe right as Abraham pleaded Gen. 18.25 That be far from thee that the Righteous should be as the Wicked So in like manner we may say That be far from God that the Wicked should be as the Righteous Yea God complains Mal. 2.17 thus You have wearied the Lord with your words yet ye say Wherein have we wearied him When ye say Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord and he delighteth in them or Where is the God of Judgment And again Mal. 3.13 Your words have been stout against me saith the Lord yet ye say What have we spoken so much against thee He tells them vers 15. Ye call the proud happy yea they that work Wickedness are set up yea they that tempt God are even delivered See how God counts himself blasphemed when he is charged to favour Evil men by not executing Justice on them Justitia est perpetua constans voluntas suum cuique tribuendi saith Justinian in the beginning of his Institutions Justice is a perpetual and constant will of giving to every one his own And sure as Praise is due to them that doe well so Vengeance to him that doeth evil As Powers be ordained of God in his Ministers to reward well-doing with praise and to be revengers for wrath upon him that doeth evil Rom. 13.4 so God whose Deputies they are and bear his name will render to every man according to his works 5. It is from the Power of God that such Anguish befalls men for Sin as I have asserted He is great in power and will not at all acquit the wicked saith the Prophet Nahum 1.3 Moses therefore having bewailed the great Devastation of mankind by God's Anger that carries them away as with a Floud breaks out into these words Psal 90.11 Who knoweth the power of thy Anger even according to thy fear so is thy Wrath. Whereby he plainly intimates that the Power of God makes God's rebukes for Sin extreme and intolerable 1. Because they reach to all parts of a man He can punish Soul and Body yea and cast both into Hell-fire Matth. 10.28 2. He can make all or any of the Creatures his Instruments of Punishment he can arm the least Worm for Vengeance yea and that which makes it most unsupportable he can make a man 's own Spirit his Sword to wound him and this is of all the sorest it being true which Solomon saith Prov. 18.14 The spirit of a man will sustain his Infirmity but a wounded spirit who can bear 3. There is no way to escape from it or to avoid the Affliction he will bring on a person there being neither hiding-place where he cannot find a man nor remote place whither his hand cannot reach nor any auxiliary power to match or withstand him nor any Remedy but by him Qui vulnera fecit Solus Achilléo tollere more potest Which brings in the Second Observation II. PROPOSITION That Beds and Couches and other bodily Refections little avail to ease a Conscience or a Person that is oppressed with the weight of God's Stroke for Sin This Job found 7.13 14 15. When I say My Bed shall comfort me my Couch shall ease my Complaint Then thou scarest me with Dreams and terrifiest me through Visions So that my Soul chuseth strangling and death rather then life And the like we may say of any other Creature-help All the Artists Oratours Divines Angels and whatever there is in the Universe to cure or alleviate an afflicted Spirit are no more able to redress its Malady without God then the old World was to stay the universal Deluge or Sodom to prevent its Burning with fire and brimstone from heaven It is God's Prerogative to kill and to make alive to bring down to the Grave and to bring up to raise the Fiend of an awakened Conscience and to lay it again He that made the Spirit can by the Spirit and his Son's Bloud quiet and purge the Conscience from dead works to serve the living God and he alone APPLICATION To apply this then to your use 1. It should deterre you from sinning against God Though Sin may smile upon you before you commit it it will bite you when you have acted it It may sing you a fair pleasant Song like a Siren but it will destroy you if it entice you thereby S. James tells you the true brood of Sin 1.14 15. Every man is tempted c. Though the Pleasures of Sin be delightfull yet they are poisonous Quisquámne Venenum vult in Auro Will any man venture to drink Poison in a golden Cup You that are given to drink excessively consider while the Cup is at your mouth that there will be a Cup of Wrath given you to drink the Venome whereof will set your Bones on fire and drink up your Spirits You that are given to unclean and unlawfull Lusts of the body if you be not afraid of the Morbus Gallicus yet fear the Wrath of him who will judge such persons and burn you with a more unquenchable Fire then that which consumed Sodom and Gomorrah You that so love the Mammon of Iniquity that you serve it that regard not how you get Wealth per fas per nefas by right or wrong Rem Rem quocunque modo Rem Money any way though by Sacriledge publick Robbery Grinding the face of the Poor by Bribery Extortion Perjury Over-reaching in bargaining Defrauding Theft or any other way think of Zechariah's flying Roll the Curse Zech. 5.4 which God will bring forth and it shall enter into the house of the Thief and into the house of him that Sweareth falsely by his Name and it shall remain in his house to cut off or torture the Inhabitant and to consume the Materials of the house You that are profane Scoffers that deride the Word and Service of God or close Hypocrites that counterfeit Godliness know that God will not be mocked and cannot be resisted Let me say to you or any other Sinner who goes on in any sinfull way insensible of the Sting which is in the Tail the Terrours of Conscience and Wrath of God these will
man's Heart did entertain his Motions embrace his Suggestions Sin could not be engendred by them So that in vain doth the corrupt spirit of a man accuse things or persons without himself as the Authours or Causes of his sinfull Evils the Judge of Heaven will lay it at his own door and endite him as guilty of the Crime And so do all wise and holy persons We all do fade as a leaf and our Iniquities like the wind have taken us away Behold thou art wroth for we have sinned Isa 64.5 6. Nor do they lessen the Fault but aggravate it as David doth here which was the Second thing observable in an humble Penitent II. OBSERVATION The Penitent Sinner makes not a light matter of his Sin but acknowledgeth the Grievousness of it This is manifest by all the Examples of humble Penitents in the Scripture We have sinned saith holy Daniel Dan. 9.5 and have committed Iniquity and have done wickedly and have rebelled even by departing from thy Precepts and from thy Judgments And holy Ezra 9.6 O my God I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee my God for our Iniquities are increased over our heads and our Trespass is grown up unto the Heavens Thus when the justified Publican prays he dares not lift up his eyes to Heaven but smites on his breast saying God be mercifull to me a Sinner And S. Paul censures himself as the chief of Sinners for those Sins he committed in Ignorance and Unbelief He knows that God sees more evil in his Sins then he himself can discern that Sins are not to be censured according to mens estimation but God's most pure Law and righteous Judgment that God is of purer eyes then to behold Evil and that he cannot look on Iniquity with the least approbation or connivence that what is highly prized in mens eyes or made a venial Sin by men is counted a foul Abomination with God that the least Sin is against an Infinite Majesty and cost no less then the Bloud of the Son of God to expiate it that there is no Venial Sin in its own nature to say Raca Thou fool to our Brother makes a man liable to Hell-fire that every Sin is of the Devil who sinned from the beginning that the wages of Sin every Sin is Death even that Death which is opposite to everlasting Life Hence it is that David makes not a small matter of the Sins of his youth but prays God not to remember them and Job complaineth that God wrote bitter things against him and made him to possess the Sins of his youth And Christ makes idle words such as that for them men are to be accountable at the day of Judgment Popish Doctrine of Venial Sins Resolutions of Cases of Conscience after Popish Casuists Dictates are not found in the expressions of Scripture-Penitents much less Pharisaicall Vauntings of Self-righteousness or Monkish Ostentation of their own Merits or Quakers Opinions of Innocency and Perfection but Acknowledgment of their Transgressions and Sins with the hainous Degree and Circumstances of them Which was David's profession here and is an instance of an humble Penitent's practice III. OBSERVATION He freely confesseth and acknowledgeth his Sin at least to God and sometimes to men Though David often professeth his Innocency in respect of the Criminations which were cast upon him in Saul's Court as if he had conspired against him though he alledge his Integrity before God as being upright in heart in promoting God's Worship not going after any other gods but in the choice of his Soul preferring the Observance of God's Laws before any Ends of his own yet he still acknowledgeth his Sins to God without any arrogant vaunting of Perfection or opinion of unspotted Holiness I acknowledge my Sin unto thee and mine Iniquity have I not hid saith he Psalm 32.5 And holy Job although he could not be beaten out of his hold the conscience of his Integrity before God and his Innocence from any Oppression of men with which his Antagonists charged him yet disclaims the Covering of his Transgressions as Adam by hiding his Iniquity in his bosome Job 31.33 And Chap. 7.20 he bespeaks God thus I have sinned what shall I doe unto thee O thou Preserver of men And again Chap. 40.4 Behold I am vile what shall I answer thee I will lay my hand upon my mouth All Holy persons do subscribe to that of Bildad Job 25.4 5 6. that in comparison of God in his sight no man living can be justified How can he be clean that is born of a woman They know that God searcheth the Heart discerns the windings and turnings of their deceitfull Hearts that they have secret Sins which neither other men nor themselves perceive S. Paul once conceived himself touching the Righteousness of the Law blameless while he was ignorant of its Spirituality he observed not how the Law forbade Coveting the very first Motions of Lust But when he knew how holy and perfect the Law was how imperfect he was when he found a Law in his Members rebelling against the Law of his Mind and leading him into captivity to the Law of Sin which was in his Members he then cries out O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death Rom. 7. Such is the Affection of the most inlightned Saints who have been best acquainted with God's Purity the Perfection of his Law their own Impurity and the Defect in their ways that they have always cried out of themselves as the Lepers in the Law We are unclean we are unclean In their Supplications to God they have bemoaned their sinfull Thoughts their most hidden Transgressions yea in their Transgressions against men when doing right to them and giving glory to God hath required it they have not stuck in full Congregations to confess their Errours and to bewail their Transgressions Which thing hath been always necessary 1. To justifie God in his Sentence and Judgments that he might be justified in his sayings and be clear when he is judged as it is in the next verse to my Text. 2. To abase Man that he may lie prostrate at his feet and not proudly lift up his head before God Both which Ends are discernible in that humble Confession of Daniel and his speech to God Dan. 9.7 O Lord Righteousness belongeth unto thee but unto us Confusion of faces because of our Trespass committed against thee For which Ends as God sets our Iniquities before us so the humble Penitent always sets his Sins before his face as David did here IV. OBSERVATION He makes not this a short transient Action but his Sins are ever before him There is indeed a setting our Iniquities before our faces which is pernicious when we look upon our Sins as of so horrid a Guilt that they are unpardonable as when Cain told God Gen. 4.13 My Punishment is greater then I can bear or Mine Iniquity is greater then that it may be
become the Path of Life to them as at several times he declares Joh. 14.6 Jesus saith unto Thomas I am the Way the Truth and the Life no man cometh to the Father but by me Joh. 11.25 Jesus said unto Martha I am the Resurrection and the Life And indeed Christ is the Way of Life 1. As he is the Exemplary Cause of it All whom his Father hath foreknown being predestinated to be conformed to the Image of his Son that he might be the first-born among many Brethren Rom. 8.29 Wherefore Christ told his Disciples Joh. 14.19 Because I live ye shall live also The Life of Christ which he recovered by his Resurrection is the efficacious Pattern or Copy according to which God hath contrived our Life He is risen from the dead and become the first-fruits of them that sleep For since by Man came Death by Man came also the Resurrection of the dead For as in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive 1 Cor. 15.20 21 22. Hence the Apostle tells us Col. 3.3 that we are dead and our Life is hid with Christ in God it is deposited as a Treasure in Christ's hand who is the Trustee to whom our Life is conveyed ad opus usum nostrum for our use and behoof as the Lawyers use to speak he hath Livery and Seisin given of Life on our behalf and so his Life is the Pledge and Path of our Life 2. As Christ is the Way of our Life as he is our Pattern Depositary and Pledge so is he the Way of our Life as the procuring Cause thereof He is the Prince of Life Act. 3.15 the Cause or Authour of eternall Salvation Heb. 5.9 and that many ways First by his Preaching which moved S. Peter to say Lord to whom shall we go thou hast the words of eternall Life Joh. 6.68 The words saith Christ that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are Life vers 63. The Preaching of the Law was but the Ministration of Death of the Letter that killed 2 Cor. 3.6 7. but the word of the Gospel is the word of Life Phil. 2.16 Secondly by his Death for so he tells us Joh. 6.51 I am the living Bread which came down from Heaven if any man eat of this Bread he shall live for ever and the Bread which I will give is my Flesh which I will give for the Life of the world And indeed it was for this very cause that as the Children were partakers of flesh and bloud so he also took part of the same that by Death he might destroy him that had the power of Death to wit the Devill and deliver them that through fear of Death were all their Life subject to bondage Heb. 2.14 15. As by the Offence of one Judgment came upon all men to Condemnation even so by the Righteousness of one better rendred by one Righteous deed to wit his Obedience unto Death the free Gift came upon all men unto Sanctification of life That as Sin hath reigned unto Death so might Grace reign through Righteousness unto eternall Life by Jesus Christ our Lord as the Apostle saith Rom. 5.18 21. His Death procures our Life both removendo Prohibens by taking away the Sting of Death Sin disarming Satan of his Power and by meritoriously purchasing our Life by paying a Price for us Thirdly by his Resurrection whereby he becomes as the First-fruits that sanctifies the rest of the Lump and so obtains Resurrection and Life for those that are Christ's As also he is impowered to give Life upon his Resurrection as himself saith All Power is given to me in Heaven and in Earth Matth. 28.18 As the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them even so the Son quickeneth whom he will Joh. 5.21 Hereupon the Apostle argues thus Rom. 5.10 For if when we were Enemies we were reconciled to God by the Death of his Son much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his Life Fourthly by his Ascension whereby he is become an High Priest not on Earth but such as is set down on the right hand of the Throne of the Majesty in the Heavens Heb. 8.1 He is not as the Priests of the Law who were not suffered to continue by reason of death but continueth for ever and hath an unchangeable Priesthood or a Priesthood that passeth not from one to another being made not after the Law of a carnal Commandment but after the power of an endless or indissoluble Life and therefore he is able to save them to the uttermost or evermore that come unto God by him seeing he ever liveth to make Intercession for them Heb. 7.16 23 24 25. Fifthly He is the Prince of Life or Cause of our Life by shedding forth his Spirit after his being glorified which was as Rivers of living water as his own words import Joh. 7.38 39. This Gift of the Spirit of Christ is that whereby we are born again to a Spiritual Life That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit saith Christ Joh. 3.6 It is the Spirit that quickeneth the Flesh profiteth nothing Joh. 6.63 Neither indeed had Christ's Preaching or his Dying availed to bring us to Life had he not given us of his Spirit And therefore herein was the Prerogative of the Gospel above the Law that whereas that gave the Command but could not give the Spirit being a dead Letter by the Ministration of the Spirit or the Law of the Spirit of life Rom. 8.2 Christians are made alive 2 Cor. 3.6 The Gospel is become the Ministration of Righteousness vers 9. If Christ be in you the body is dead because of Sin but the Spirit is Life because of Righteousness But if the Spirit of him that raised up Christ from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortall bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you Rom. 8.10 11. Sixthly Christ's Appearing shall consummate the Life of a Believer Though he now be dead in Appearance to the World to their Rites Practices Hopes Injoyments and his Life is now onely hid with Christ in God yet when Christ who is his Life shall appear then shall he also appear with him in Glory as the Apostle speaks most comfortably Col. 3.3 4. 2. On our part the Path of Life is 1. In our Union to Christ which is by Faith whereby he is our Head and we are his Members and therefore partakers of his Life I live saith the Apostle Gal. 2.20 yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the Life that I now live in the flesh I live by the Faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me Joh. 11.25 26. He that believeth on me although he were dead yet shall he live and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die The Life of a Christian is conjoyned with Christ's as that of a Child with the Mother's 2. In our Conformity to
XXXI SERMONS Preached to the PARISHIONERS of Stanford-Rivers in Essex Upon several Subjects and Occasions BY CHARLES GIBBES D. D. Rectour of that Church and Prebendary of Saint Peter's at Westminster Never before made publick QVI SEQVITUR ME NON AMBULAT IN TENEBRIS LOâ—â—â—â— Printed by E. Flesher 〈…〉 most Sacred MAJESâ—◠〈…〉 To the well-beloved the PARISHIONERS Of Stanford-Rivers in the County of Essex Grace and Peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ be multiplied IN this Age and Nation abounding with Learned Men and Books of all sorts especially in Points of Sacred Theology I should not have thought any thing of Mine worth the Press being conscious to my self of mine own Unfitness for that Employment by reason of Age and other Imperfections had not your Importunity extorted these Papers from me which I now exhibit to you But that I might not be wanting in what I am able for your Edification in the Doctrine of Christ I have yielded to adventure an Impression of them whereunto I have been induced by a like Consideration with that of Saint Peter 2 Epist ch 1. vers 12 13 14. where his writing is declared to be out of an apprehension of his approaching Dissolution that after his Decease there might be that extant which might keep in their Remembrance that which he had taught them and wherein they were established It is part of my Rejoycing that I have had so much Ability as to hold forth the Word of God to you in any measure and that it hath found so ready Reception with you It is that which I pray for and earnestly exhort you to that you will never forget the Saving Truths you have been taught though I be buried in oblivion nor backslide to Errour or Profaneness But that you be still constant in the true Faith of Christ and the right Worship of God in publick and in your private Families seeking the Divine Benediction on your selves and Families and living in mutual Love and Helpfulness towards all as knowing that the saving Grace of God hath appeared to all men teaching us that denying Vngodliness and worldly Lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present World looking for that blessed Hope and the glorious Appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all Iniquity and purifie unto himself a peculiar People zealous of Good works Whereunto if this Writing or any Labour of mine may conduce I have my Desire who recommending both you and this Work to the Almighty's Blessing do yet remain Your truly loving and faithfull Servant in Christ CHARLES GIBBES A TABLE of the several TEXTS discoursed upon PSAL. VI. 6. I Am weary of my Groaning every night wash I my Bed and water my Couch with my Tears Three Sermons pag. 1 19 37. PSAL. LI. 1 2. Have mercy upon me O God according to thy Loving-kindness according to the multitude of thy tender Mercies blot out my Transgressions Wash me throughly from mine Iniquity and cleanse me from my Sin 57. PSAL. LI. 3. I acknowledge my Transgression and my Sin is ever before me 75. PSAL. LI. 11. Cast me not away from thy Presence and take not thy Holy Spirit from me Two Sermons 87 99. PROV XVIII 14. The Spirit of a man will sustain his Infirmity but a wounded Spirit who can bear Two Sermons 111 121. PSAL. CXXX 4. But there is Mercy or Forgiveness with thee that thou maist be feared 131. PSAL. LXXIX 8. O remember not against us former Iniquities let thy tender Mercies speedily prevent us for we are brought very low 153. HEBR. IV. 7. To Day if you will hear his Voice harden not your Hearts 173. ROM VI. 1. and part of 2. What shall we say then shall we continue in Sin that Grace may abound God forbid 185. LAMENT III. 22. It is of the Lord's Mercies that we are not consumed because his Compassions fail not 197. PSAL. LVI 13. For thou hast delivered my Soul from Death wilt thou not deliver my Feet from Falling that I may walk before God in the Light of the living Two Sermons 217 235. PSAL. CXIX 15. I will meditate in thy Precepts and have respect unto thy Ways 251. PSAL. CXXII 1. I was glad when they said unto me Let us goe into the House of the Lord. 263. PSAL. XXXVII 4. Delight thy self in the Lord and he shall give thee thy Heart's desire 275. 1 PET. III. 13. And who is he that will harm you if ye be Followers of that which is Good 287. PSAL. XVI 11. Thou wilt shew me the Path of life In thy Presence is fulness of Joy at thy right hand there are Pleasures for evermore Two Sermons 305 325. PSAL. LXXIII 24. Thou shalt guide me with thy Counsel and afterwards receive me to Glory 345. PSAL. XL. 8. I will both lay me down in peace and sleep for thou Lord onely makest me dwell in Safety 357. 1 JOHN III. 1. Behold what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the Sons of God 371. PSAL. CXIX 34. Give me Vnderstanding and I shall keep thy Law yea I shall observe it with my whole Heart 383. PROV XIV 2. He that walketh in his Vprightness feareth the Lord but he that is perverse in his Ways despiseth him Two Sermons 399 411. REVEL VII 15. Therefore are they before the Throne of God and serve him day and night in his Temple and he that sitteth on the Throne shall dwell among them 421. JOHN VIII 56. Your Father Abraham rejoyced to see my Day and he saw it and was glad 435. GEN. XII 1. Now the Lord had said unto Abraham Get thee out of thy Country and from thy Kindred and from thy Father's House unto a Land that I shall shew thee 449. Imprimatur Febr. 27. 1676 7. Guil. Sill R. P. D. Henr. Episc Lond. à Sacris Domesticis DAVID's GROANS Part I. The First SERMON PSALM vi 6. I am weary of my Groaning every night wash I my Bed and water my Couch with my Tears THIS Psalm is intituled to David and is styled by many One or the First of his Penitentiall Psalms And it is true it expresseth his Agony and dolour of mind for his Sickness undoubtedly for his Sins as the Cause of it in likelihood and so for both as in a Psalm parallel to this he complains Psal 38.4 which two make a heavy Burthen too heavy for any man to bear The Burthen of one onely to wit of Sin though not his own made the Mighty One the Mighty God to stoop under it when he bare the Sins of Men in his own body on the Tree insomuch that as in the Garden he told his Disciples Matth. 26.38 My Soul is exceeding sorrowfull unto death so on the Cross he cried out in the Anguish of his spirit Matth. 27.46 O God my God why hast thou forsaken me No marvel then that
as the holy Apostles and Martyrs were after Christ's Ascension and therefore bemoan their exclusion out of the Land of Canaan and their privation of naturall Life more passionately then seems to agree with the quietness and rejoycing which the Saints since Christ's Ascension have expressed in their Death 2. A Second Cause of David's excessive Grief is intimated here vers 7. Mine eye is consumed because of Grief it waxeth hold because of all mine Enemies and vers 10. Let all mine Enemies be ashamed and sore vexed let them return and be ashamed suddenly It seems he apprehended they would or knew they did if God took away his Life insult over him and reproach him for his often profession of trusting in God if God did not help him So Psal 42.3 My Tears have been my meat day and night while they continually say unto me Where is thy God vers 9 10. I will say unto God My Rock why hast thou forgotten me why goe I mourning because of the oppression of the Enemy As with a Sword in my bones mine Enemies reproach me while they say daily unto me Where is thy God The vilifying of his God and the deriding of his hope in him was more grievous to David then his Exile or Sickness or Death it self 3. Nor are we to doubt though it be not expressed in the Text that those Groans and Tears of David were also Penitentiall occasioned by the Remembrance of his Sins for elsewhere is the like Complaint Sin is that poisonous Herb which made his Affliction bitter and deadly to him like the wild Gourd that made the Sons of the Prophets cry out Mors in Olla There is death in the pot 2 Kings 4.40 Thus Psal 38.2 3 4. Thy hand presseth me sore There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine Anger neither is there any rest in my bones because of my Sin For mine Iniquities have gone over my head as an heavy burthen they are too heavy for me Psal 40.12 Innumerable Evils have compassed me about mine Iniquities have taken hold upon me so that I am not able to look up they are more then the hairs of my head therefore my heart faileth me Psal 41.4 I said Lord be mercifull unto me heal my Soul for I have sinned against thee Where he expresseth his Misery he doth often declare his Sin to be the Cause of it as he prays for the removall of the one so for the pardon of the other and as he complains of the one so he bewails the other And therefore it is to be so conceived here where he describes the vehemency of his Groaning and the redundance of his Tears which is confirmed by that which he saith here vers 8. Depart from me all ye workers of Iniquity for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping which implies a penitential frame of spirit to have been in David when he made this Prayer he abandoned the society of the workers of Iniquity which is one principal part of Repentance shewing displicency with our selves for Sins committed and resolution to avoid the Occasions of Sin to which we may be tempted there being no sign more evident of loving Sin then conforting with the workers of Iniquity nor any means more necessary to avoid it which is the chief part of Repentance then to shun the company of the practisers of Evil. And that his Tears were penitentiall is intimated in that it is said they had a Voice a praying Voice to God which what other can it be deemed to be then Confessing of Sin to God Complaining to him of his Misery be reason of it Deprecating of his Vengeance as vers 1. he expressed himself O Lord rebuke me not in thine Angor neither chasten me in thy hot Displeasure Sutably hereto he speaks Psal 39.8 10 11. Deliver me from all my Transgressions make me not a reproach to the foolish Remove thy stroke away from me I am consumed by the blow of thy hand When thou with rebukes dost correct man for Iniquity thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth Surely every man is vanity So that hereby we may well conclude without much straining of the Text That those Groans and Tears were mixt partly from the sense of Affliction and in that respect involuntary partly Penitentiall from the sense of his Sin and in that respect voluntary and that he mourned propter malum Culpae as well as propter malum Poenae for the Evil of Acting as well as the Evil of Suffering for both together as being concatenate and the one following the other And accordingly we may hence infer these usefull Propositions 1. That when God visits for Sin the Pain is extreme and intolerable 2. That Beds and Couches and other bodily Refections little avail to ease a Conscience or a Person that is oppressed with the weight of God's Stroke for Sin 3. That the want of opportunities of glorifying God is very grievous to a Godly man when he is under Affliction 4. That it aggravates his Affliction when by reason of his Suffering Reproach is likely to be cast upon God 5. The Groans and Tears and Disquietness of an Holy person are as well or more for his Sins then his Sufferings 6. In such sense of Misery or Sin the pious Penitent bemoans himself to God confesses bewails his Sins humbles himself before him deprecates his Wrath and earnestly seeks by Prayer and Supplication for Forgiveness of Sin Healing and Peace from God I shall consider each of these as they are placed I. PROPOSITION That when God visits for Sin the Pain is extreme and intolerable Be it Sickness Exile Restraint or whatever other Affliction the Almighty brings a man's Sin to remembrance by it will fetch Groans and Sighs from his Breast Tears Rivers of tears from his Eye The Anguish the Venome of his Indignation will drink up his Spirits Though as Solomon saith Prov. 14.9 Fools make a mock of Sin It is a sport to a fool to doe mischief Prov. 10.23 yet the conclusion will be when God visits for it Indignation and Wrath to them that are contentius and obey not the Truth Tribulation and Anguish upon every Soul of man that doeth evil Rom. 2.8 9. When Abner and his men and Joab and his men met by the Pool of Gibeon Abner said to Joab Let the young men now arise and play before us but when they had a while been at the sport Abner calls to Joab and says Shall the Sword devour for ever knowest thou not that it will be Bitterness in the latter end 2 Sam. 2.14 26. A man never thrives by Sin he may for a while be in great Power flourish like a green Bay-tree but in the conclusion Terrours take hold on him as waters a Tempest stealeth him away in the night saith Job 27.20 The lips of a strange woman drop as an hony-comb and her mouth is smoother then oil But her end is bitter as wormwood sharp as a
two-edged sword Prov. 5.3 4. Stolen waters are sweet and bread eaten in secret is pleasant Prov. 9.17 But after the mouth is filled with gravell Prov. 20.17 Though Wickedness be sweet in a man's mouth though he hide it under his tongue as men use to doe who would keep the tast of Sweet-meats long with them Yet his meat within him is turned into the Gall of Asps He hath swallowed down Riches and he shall vomit them up again God shall cast them out of he Belly saith Zophar Job 20.12 14 15. The whole Books of the Proverbs and Job yea and the whole Bible are so full of such expressions as that a man scarce reads a Chapter but something or other occurrs to this purpose yea all sorts of Writers sacred and profane have left upon record their Observations concerning the attendance of Punishment upon Sin the lying of Sin at the door when Evil is done within the avenging Eye of God the Terrours that are subsequent when Conscience is awakened the secret and silent Lashes and Tortures of a guilty Conscience when Affliction Trouble the apprehension of Death or God's Anger seize on the spirit of a man We need not instance in Cain Saul Judas Felix and such like which the Scripture mentions nor such as Nero Caligula and others of whom the Roman and Greek Historians speak nor of Spira and others of later Times The Confessions of David the Complaints of Job the Lamentations of Jeremiah yield us pregnant proofs of this Truth Besides the forealleged Texts David tells us Psal 32.3 4 5. that when he kept silence his bones waxed old through his Roaring all the day long For day and night the Hand of God was heavy on him his moisture was turned into the drought of Summer till he acknowledged his Sin Psal 31.10 My strength faileth because of mine Iniquity Psal 38.8 that he was feeble and sore smitten that he roared by reason of the disquietness of his heart Job speaks thus to God Job 13.26 Thou writest bitter things against me and makest me to possess the Sins of my youth And Jeremy Lament 1.14 The yoke of my Transgressions is bound by his hand they are wreathed and come up upon my neck he hath made my strength to fall and vers 20. Behold O Lord for I am in distress my bowels are troubled mine heart is turned within me for I have grievously rebelled This Anguish from the sense of Sin ariseth 1. From the nature of Sin which is really mischievous though seemingly pleasant Sin is of a Serpentine kind it hath a smooth Skin but a venomous Tail The sting of Death saith S. Paul is Sin 1 Cor. 15.56 It is a Sting and that deadly though it be hidden What Solomon saith of the Drunkard's Cup Prov. 23.31 32. though when the wine is red in the Glass giveth its colour in the Cup and moveth it self aright it is very delightfull yet at last it will bite like a Serpent and sting like an Adder is true of every Sin There is a deceitfulness of Sin which hardens men in the committing of it Heb. 3.13 Men are fearless and secure while the pleasure of Sin beguiles them the consequent upon it is hidden from them they discern not God's Eye to be on them they delude their Souls with blasphemous imaginations as if he saw it not had forgotten it were such an one as themselves But it is otherwise when he sets their Sins in order before them rouzes up their sleepy Consciences causeth their Iniquities to stare in their faces then they find that there is a Sting in Sin the sweet drink which they swallowed down pleasantly gnaws and frets their bowels torments and corrodes their spirits so that they sigh and groan and are ready to destroy themselves to be rid of that Venome which they so easily and greedily drank down before 2. From the Properties of God ariseth the Dolour that is consequent on Sin 1. The Omniscience of God which discerns all the most hidden ways of man which caused Job to say Chap. 31.3 4. Is not destruction to the wicked and strange punishment to the workers of Iniquity Doth not he see my ways and count all my steps We are foolishly apt to imagine that God sees not through the thick Clouds that he hath forgotten that he regards not what we doe and thus we befool our selves with such devices as in the end ruine us We are like that Bird that puts its head in a hole as if thereby it were safe from the Fowler like Children we wink our selves and think none sees us because we see none A deceived Heart thus turns us aside that we cannot say Is there not a Lie in my right hand Quod nimis miseri volunt hoc facilè credunt But what saith the Psalmist Psal 44.20 21. If we have forgotten the name of our God or stretched out our hand to a strange God Shall not God search this out for he knoweth the secrets of the heart Hence doth Moses derive the Affliction of Israel in the Wilderness Psal 90.7 8. We are consumed by thine Anger and by thy Wrath are we troubled Thou hast set our Iniquities before thee our secret Sins in the light of thy Countenance 2. The Purity of God makes God to hate Sin and so not to tolerate it Thou art of purer eyes saith the Prophet Habakkuk 1.13 then to behold Evil and canst not look on Iniquity Though he sees it yet he will not see it he knows it and looks on it yet turns away his face from it as we doe when we see some noisome unclean thing which we cause to be removed out of our sight And this must needs create Trouble As when the Sun shines not on the world Clouds and Darkness and Tempests quickly overspread the Heavens so when God hides his Face Sorrow and Anguish of spirit take hold on mens Souls Odium est Appetitus amovendi Hatred is a desire of removing of that which we hate from us I hate the work of them that turn aside it shall not cleave to me saith David Psal 101.3 It is much more true of God Psal 5.4 5 6. Thou art not a God that hath pleasure in Wickedness neither shall Evil dwell with thee The Foolish shall not stand in thy sight thou hatest all workers of Iniquity Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing God's Holiness moves him to inflict Anguish on men for Sin 3. So doth also his Truth He hath given us a Law and hath fenced it with many Threatnings that it might not be broken He is true in his Threatnings as well as in his Promises as he is engaged to make good the one so to verify the other We are sure saith the Apostle Rom. 2.2 that the Judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things and again Rom. 3.4 Let God be true but every man a Liar as it is written That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings and mightest
by reason of his Sin then his Sufferings that his Groaning and Tears are from the sense of his own Displeasing God more then from the sense of the Pain which God inflicts on him is apparent from the Instances we have of such Penitent persons In David's penitential Complaints it is his Sin that he still complains of Psal 31.10 My life is spent with grief and my years with sighing my strength faileth because of mine Iniquity and my bones are consumed Psal 38.3 4. There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine Anger neither is there any rest in my bones because of my Sins For mine Iniquities are gone over my head as an heavy burthen they are too heavy for me He saith not his Pain was too heavy a Burthen for him but his Iniquity which is indeed so heavy a Burthen that the Shoulders of Christ himself the Lord of Glory were so pressed with it as to make him cry out My Soul is heavy unto the death and My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Again Psal 40.12 he bemoans his case that innumerable Evils had compassed him about his Iniquities had taken hold upon him so that he was not able to look up they were more then the hairs of his head therefore his heart failed him It was not by reason of the multitude of his Evils but the multitude of his Iniquities that his heart failed him Outward Evils reach but the outward man Sins remembred lie heavy on the Conscience Now as Solomon saith Prov. 18.14 The spirit of a man will sustain his Infirmity but a wounded spirit who can bear Those Philosophers that could endure the greatest Tortures of body inflicted by cruel Tyrants while they had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tranquillity of mind within yet could not bear the least Pain when the Conscience of some foul Evil haunted them A great Burthen will be born by a whole Shoulder but the least Burthen pains intolerably when the Bone is broken or it lies on a Sore place A broken spirit drieth up the bones Prov. 17.22 My Sin saith David is ever before me and that brake his Bones Where Sin as it is said of Antipheron Oretanus that his Shadow was always before him is still before a man it haunteth and vexeth him as a Hornet or as the Poets feign of the Furies which the Oratour interprets of a guilty Conscience it still affrights him Lament 1.14 The yoke of my Transgressions is bound by his hand The yoke they felt they term the yoke of their Transgressions intimating that by reason of their Transgressions their Afflictions were as a yoke bound by God's hand and wreathed and came upon their neck And in like manner Isa 64.5 6 7. the afflicted Penitents pour out their Souls before God thus Behold thou art wroth for we have sinned We all do fade as a leaf and our Iniquities as the wind have taken us away Thou hast hid thy face from us and consumed us because of our Iniquities Herein there lies a great difference between the Sufferings of a meer Natural man and one Renewed or Regenerated by the Spirit of God The one complains of his Pain of his hard Fortune his ill Luck he frets and vexeth at his Disappointment his Sighs and Groans are that he is crost and cannot have his will he imputes his Misery to Chance Stars and the like If he weep as Esau it is not for his Profaneness but for his missing the Blessing Heb. 12.16 17. His Crying and Bitterness of spirit is not to God but Isaac Gen. 27.34 with a murtherous mind towards Jacob vers 42. Cain tells God Gen. 4.13 14. My Punishment is greater then I can bear Behold thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth and from thy face shall I be hid and I shall be a Fugitive and a Vagabond in the earth and it shall come to pass that every one that sindeth me shall flay me Not a word that shewed his Repentance for his devillish act in murthering his Brother It is otherwise with the Penitent S. Peter goes out and weeps bitterly not for his Danger but for his Sin The Regenerate bemoan their sinfull Corruptions not their Sufferings S. Paul that could take pleasure in Afflictions and Reproaches yet groans in his earthly Tabernacle by reason of the Sin that dwelled in him This indeed is the nature of true Repentance it begetteth a Sorrow after God such as produceth Carefulness Self-clearing Indignation Fear vehement Desire Zeal Revenge as they are said to be in the Corinthians 2 Cor. 7.11 When they remember their ways and their doings wherein they have been defiled true Repenting persons will not inveigh against others cry out of their Destiny nor censure others or impute their Evils to forrein Causes but take shame to themselves and loath themselves in their own sight for all their Evils that they have committed Ezek. 20.43 And the reason hereof is because it is their Sin which is indeed their Evil. It is that which is simply Evil their Affliction is but Malum secundùm quid Evil in some respect Evil that hath something of Good in it and which tends to some Good not onely to God's Glory and other Warning but also to his own good who is afflicted by humbling and bettering him that is truly Penitent It is good for me that I have been afflicted saith David that I might learn thy Statutes It is Sin that is the cause of all the Misery he feels and therefore that must be more evil then his Misery If a Potion be bitter by reason of Gall and Wormwood the Gall and Wormwood that makes it so must be more bitter Thine own Wickedness shall correct thee and thy Backsliding shall reprove thee know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God and that my fear is not in thee saith the Lord God of hoasts to the Jews Jerem. 2.19 And indeed this is the onely way for remedy of Afflictions to be sensible of the Sin more then the Sufferings to groan and shed Tears because we have offended God not onely because we have brought Trouble on our selves It is the way to take away the Cause of the Evil and so the Bitterness of the Affliction Death it self were it not for the Sting of Sin could not harm us take away the Conscience of Sin and the weight of our Sufferings will be removed If Sin be forgiven if the Conscience be purged from dead works either God will take away the Rod or the Smart of it Now the onely way to effect that is to be affected with the Sin and to loath it to be weary of it more then the pressure of the Cross If we take any other course though we houl on our Beds though we should be weary with Groaning every night and all the night make our Bed swim and water our Couch with Tears though we should wear Sackcloath cast
Ashes on our heads creep to a Cross whip our selves naked go on Pilgrimage to Jerusalem to weep at Christ's Sepulchre this would make but a palliated Cure our Wound would not be healed at the bottom but it would fester and break out again and gangrene and become mortall And therefore VI. PROPOSITION The Penitent pious person in the sense of his Sin and Misery bemoaneth himself to God confesseth and bewaileth his Sin humbleth himself before him deprecateth his Wrath and earnestly seeketh by Prayer and Supplication for Forgiveness of Sin Healing and Peace from God which is the last Conclusion deduced from the Vocality of David's Weeping vers 8. The Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping There was a Prayer in David's Tears and that God heard And we may see how effectual this course is by the example of Manasseh King of Judah who did evil in the sight of the Lord like unto the Abominations of the Heathen whom the Lord cast out before the Children of Israel yea he made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to erre and to doe worse then the Heathen And the Lord spake unto Manasseh and to his people but they would not hearken And the Lord brought upon them the Captains of the hoast of the King of Assyria which took Manasseh amongst the thorns and bound him with fetters and carried him to Babylon And when he was in Affliction he besought the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his Fathers and prayed unto him and he was intreated of him and heard his supplication and brought him again to Jerusalem into his Kingdom Then Manasseh knew that the Lord he was God 2 Chron. 33.2 9 10 11 12 13. By which Instance we may perceive what is the right course to be taken by any one whom God afflicts for Sin he is to seek the Lord to humble himself greatly and to make his Supplication also how efficacious a way this is to remove the greatest Evils from the greatest Transgressours Nor is this Case of Manasseh a singular Case but such as other passages of Holy Scripture warrant us to make a common Rule of both for Duty and for Success For Duty thus saith Jeremiah Lament 3.39 40 41 42. Wherefore doth a living man complain a man for the punishment of his Sins Let us search and try our ways and turn again unto the Lord. Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the Heavens We have transgressed and rebelled and thou hast not pardoned For Success thus speaks Elihu Job 33.27 28. He looketh upon men and if any say I have sinned and perverted that which was right and it profited me not He will deliver his Soul from going into the Pit and his life shall see the light For both the Prophet Joel speaks thus 2.12 13. Therefore also now saith the Lord Turn you even unto me with all your heart and with fasting and weeping and with mourning And rend your heart and not your garments and turn unto the Lord your God for he is gracious and mercifull slow to anger and of great kindness and repenteth him of the Evil. Whence may be gathered 1. That Complaints of our Punishments without Complaint of our Sins are vain and fruitless It was to no purpose for living men to complain of the Evils they felt while they were insensible of the Evils they did for in so doing they justified not God in his Judgments on them nor shewed any hatred of their own evil ways but either were insensible of their Afflictions as from God's hand and so gave him not the Glory of his Avenging act or being sensible hated God as an Enemy dealing unrighteously with them as not deserving it and fretting against the Lord in heart or blaspheming his Name because of their Plagues as those mentioned Revel 16.11 2. That the wisest and most successfull course that any can take in the time of God's Scourge upon them is to search and try their ways that is to find out their Sins which till they be discovered will be like Achan's Theft which caused Israel to fall before the Canaanites For if God set our Sins before him and we do not set them before our selves his Anger will burn us like fire and we know not where to cast water to quench it I confess there are some Errours that we cannot find out Psal 19.12 Who can understand his Errours And for those though we understand them not we may escape Vengeance if we know them in general are sensible that we have a vicious or imperfect Nature ignorant and heedless of what we should know and doe Yet those we should not be ignorant of nor slight them as Peccadillo's Venial sins in their own nature S. Paul doubtless cried out of these even the first motions of Concupiscence without Consent his very Lustings which he hated The Evil he would not doe that he did the Law in his Members warring against the Law of his Mind as a body of Death which made him wretched and of which he enquires Who shall deliver me from it When David speaks of his Sins as exceeding the hairs of his head doubtless he comprehends his Omissions his imperfect Performances of Duties Praying with distraction Praising God with coldness Hearing without attention of mind giving Alms with self-respect the Mixtures of Evil with what was Good his Vanity of thoughts his Ignorance Incogitancy Excess in words Jests Merriments and thousands of such Failings which though each of them be little yet the Multitude of them made them too heavy a Burthen for him Though Sand be but a small thing yet Heaps of it may sink a Ship So though Sins of Errour be but small yet being many they are to be known at least in the general though we be ignorant of each particular And accordingly David when he had said Who can understand his Errours adds Cleanse thou me from secret Faults These the Penitent must crave Pardon for and therefore take notice that he is guilty of them though he cannot make a particular Confession of them S. Austin often urgeth against the Pelagians that no man in this life is perfect without Sin because Christ teacheth us to pray as for our daily Bread each day so for Forgiveness of Sins each day thereby intimating that in the best who call God Father there are Peccata quotidianae incursationis Sins of daily incursion as Tertullian called them which have need of Pardon and that this must be begg'd of God Pelagian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Sinlesness Popish Merit and keeping of the Law Monkish works of Supererogation Quakers imagined Perfection are all proud and arrogant Dotages contrary to Christ and his Gospel We are to charge our selves with Sin in our daily Actions yea to count all our Righteousness as an Unclean thing yet that which we should especially consider should be our open and scandalous Sins as bringing most Dishonour to God and being most pernicious
your unmercifull and unrighteous dealings in your Closets regarding Pass-times more then holy Sermons reading in your Chambers rather wanton Comedies or light Poems then the Bible and Holy Writings Yea let me ask the devoutest of you whether at any time you do weep for your Sins of daily incursion Are you sensible of your too much Formality too little Fervency in your Prayers Do you weep for your vain Thoughts proud Imaginations inordinate Desires your Ignorance Forgetfulness of many Duties Slothfulness Passionateness Omissions of many Duties you should doe Uncharitableness Unthankfulness and many other Sins of Errour and secret Sins which God knows though men do not Sure a sincere Christian is a weeping Christian if God keep him from greater Enormities yet he will find cause enough to mourn for his daily Aberrations if he do as a true Penitent doth take notice of the Naughtiness of his own deceitfull Heart If you say daily the Lord's Prayer and be not sensible of your daily Sins do you not mock God when you say Forgive us our Sins Sure Christ when he directed the use of that Prayer appointed you to be examining and judging your selves every day to confess your Sins to bemoan them to ask Pardon for them to resolve and vow against them every day And Oh that God would give you a Heart of Flesh in stead of a Heart of Stone you that are guilty of more hainous Crimes such as I have named or any other your own Consciences can inform you of to imitate S. Peter to goe out immediately after this Sermon is ended and weep bitterly to break off your Sins by Righteousness as Daniel advised Nebuchadnezzar Dan. 4.27 And you that though unblamable towards Men yet are conscious of offending God by any privy Transgressions yea all of you who have any remainders of sinfull Corruption in you Oh that you would not defer but this day yea every day imitate holy David in his holy vocall penitential Weeping which hath been this day described to you And let every Affliction you feel or fear specially the thought of your Death bring you to a daily practice of Repentance and Supplication unto God that your Iniquities may not be your Ruine but that your Tranquillity may be lengthned here and you may be blessed for ever in the world to come Amen LAVS DEO THE PENITENT's PRAYER The Fourth SERMON PSALM li. 1 2. Have mercy upon me O God according to thy Loving-kindness according to the multitude of thy tender Mercies blot out my Transgressions Wash me throughly from mine Iniquity and cleanse me from my Sin WE find in this Text a Sinner struck with the sense of his Sins and pleading at the Mercy-seat of God for the Remission and Forgiveness of them If the Greatness of his Person or the Sacredness of his Function had been Antidote enough against Temptation Armour of proof against the fiery darts of Satan we had not this day heard of David a Sinner for he was a King and he was a Prophet and a man after God's own heart But since neither his Profession nor his Royalty could protect him from being a Sinner and that in so foul and crimson Crimes as Adultery and Murther which occasioned the penning of this Psalm 't is happy that we yet find him here a Penitent and a complaining one for we have him here a Supplicant at his Prayers on his knees with a Miserere mei Deus Have mercy on me O God c. What S. Paul said of himself that his Fall and Recovery was a Pattern to all that should believe in Christ may be as rightly said of David The Lord permitted him to sin that no man might presume but the strongest Saint might take heed lest he fall that none might be high-minded but fear and the Lord also recovered him by Repentance and hath left his Confession and Absolution upon record that none might despair but that his Example might direct them to return to God after their Wandrings and erect and keep up their spirits from sinking by the assurance of his Mercy so remarkably vouchsafed to so great a Transgressour And therefore if there be any Soul that hears me this day struck with a deep sense and horrour of his Sins lying groaning and trembling under the heavy pressure and burthen of them let him not despair of Pardon either by reason of the Quality or Quantity of them for here are Loving-kindnesses or kind Mercies a Multitude of tender Mercies well expressed by Zachary Luk. 1.78 the Bowells of Compassion of our God such as are in a Woman or rather exceeding the Compassion of a Woman on the Son of her womb Isa 49.15 Loving-kindness of God against Unkindness of Man Bowells of Mercy towards him who had no Compassion on himself mercifull Remembrance of him who forgat his God and himself awakening and saving him who in his insensible Lethargy of Impenitence would have destroyed himself Whoever thou art know that the Holy Ghost hath recorded this Story for thy Consolation not onely set David's Fall before thee but likewise the means of his Recovery the many and tender Mercies of his God As the Prophet Nathan was sent to David so David himself is sent to thee He extends and reaches out to thee the same Physick that he took himself And therefore distrust not thy Cure but come and hear David bitterly bewailing his Condition and with him bewail sadly thine own See him weeping and weep thou as fast Hear his Voice and Cry piercing the Clouds and be not thou dumb but as loud as he till thou hast awakened the Compassion of thy God Observe all this and say with him Have mercy upon me O God c. Which words are the main Petition of this Holy Supplicant in behalf of himself for pardoning Grace out of the deep sense of his great Sins and apprehension of God's great Mercies And they exhibit to us 1. David's Malady the Disease which pained him to the heart which made him groan cry out and be instant with the great Physician of Souls for Cure which is expressed with Aggravation in three words 1. Transgression a word that notes sometimes Rebellion or Revolt from God 2. Iniquity or Perverseness importing his Unrighteousness to Vriah his Wife Himself his Child by her his whole House and People who all tasted of the bitterness of his eating that forbidden fruit 3. Sin or Errour intimating the great Folly which he now deprehended in yielding so to his Lust as to erre from God's Command and for a little Pleasure to draw on himself the Wrath of God and the Horrour of Conscience now upon him He useth not mincing or diminutive terms as those that love their Sins as fond Parents do their Children and call their Monstrosities small Blemishes but paints out his Sins in their most ugly Deformity to shew his Hatred of them to the utmost and to justifie God fully Yea he useth those very terms to express his Sins by
thee Make the best thou canst of thine own Righteousness thou shalt find the way to Salvation by thine own Works a way unknown to the holy Saints untroden by them none there ever got thither that way That is not Scala Caeli the Ladder of Heaven by which the Saints climbed thither but Scala Gehennae the Precipice by which proud Pharisees superstitious Monks and Friers ignorant Quakers and formal Protestants that trust to their own Devotions and Good deeds tumble down to Hell I beseech you then as you love the Salvation of your Souls seriously examine your selves whether you that have sinned with David do repent with David Complain of your Sins be sensible of them as your most heavy Burthen confess them to God with detestation be instant for Cleansing from Sin through the multitude of God's Mercies hope for Pardon and Righteousness onely through Christ's Atonement by the Sacrifice of himself and his Intercession in Heaven have a settled purpose of Amendment of life be impatiently importunate with God for a new Heart and a new Spirit and expect these things and whatever Good your Souls want onely through the Loving-kindness and free Grace of God in Christ If it be so with you I may assure you of Blessedness and tell you from the Spirit of God that Blessed is he whose Transgression is forgiven and whose Sin is covered Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not Iniquity and in whose spirit there is no guile Psal 32.1 2. cited by S. Paul Rom. 4.7 8. to prove the Blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth Righteousness without Works I may tell you from him Rom. 8.1 There is no Condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit But if you be insensible of Sins unhumbled for them neither confess them freely nor bewail them mournfully fly not to the multitude of God's Mercies for Pardon trust to other things for Salvation then Christ's Merits find no change of your Hearts nor alteration of your Lives nor work of renewing Grace in your minds nor beg it of God as a thing most necessary for you I may truly say you stumble at the Stumbling-stone and that you will unless God awaken you and change your minds die in your Sins and perish for ever Be perswaded then to follow the Example of David S. Paul and other holy Saints find out by God's Law your Sins confess them to God bemoan them with hatred beg for Mercy in the Forgiveness of them trust to the Obedience of Christ in his dying for you his appearing with his Bloud before God magnify God's Grace and Christ's Love pray for a new Heart and study to live a holy Life and thou shalt be blessed Amen LAVS DEO THE TRUE PENITENT The Fifth SERMON PSALM li. 3. For I acknowledge my Transgression and my Sin is ever before me THIS Psalm is one of the Penitentials occasioned by the greatest Sins which David committed the greatest Rebuke which ever he underwent and therefore penned with the greatest Compunction of spirit and most vehement Deprecation of his Guilt and Punishment of any which he composed After the Inscription of the Psalm which shews that it was framed after his Conviction by Nathan the Prophet and the Denunciation of Divine Vengeance for his Adultery and Murther he instantly craves Pardon with variety of Expressions and most prevalent Motives doubling and redoubling his Petitions and adding this forcible Reason which the words of my Text yield For I acknowledge my Transgression c. Wherein 1. He professeth ingenuously his Agnition of his Transgressions as most hainous of deep dye Crimson Scarlet Sins Red Sins Bloud-guiltiness and damnable Uncleanness 2. That he did not slightly take notice thereof but that as his Sin stared in his face to his great Horrour so he set it before him for his deep Humiliation and that not onely for a fit while the Prophet's Conviction was fresh in his memory but for a continuance it was ever before him he mourned and intended to mourn for it all or most of his days to repent and abhor himself in dust and ashes God had set it before his face by his Prophet and he did set it continually before his face as an humble Penitent And therefore he importunes God with strong hope for mercifull Forgiveness In the Text we have many considerable things to be observed concerning the estate of an holy and humble Penitent As 1. He owns his Transgressions and his Sins as by and from himself My Transgression and My Sin 2. He doth not extenuate but aggravate them by various terms denoting their Criminousness Transgressions and Sin 3. He doth freely acknowledge and confess them to God and Men. 4. He makes not this a short transient Action but his Sin is ever before him He continues this Humiliation as just and equall by reason of the greatness of his Iniquity 5. He pleads this as a Reason to induce God to a compassionate relenting towards him and a gracious Condonation Of these briefly in their Order I. OBSERVATION A Penitent Sinner owns his Sin as from himself He doth not as Eve did father it on the Serpent or as Adam on Eve but imputes the acting of it to his own innate Pravity as the fountain and spring out of which it did issue And that is indeed a right derivation of it Every man saith S. James 1.14 15. is tempted when he is drawn away by his own Lusts and enticed Then when Lust hath conceived it bringeth forth Sin and Sin when it is finished bringeth forth Death Perditio tua ex te O Israel said God to Israel Thy destruction is of thy self And the same may be said of all Sinners The Providence of God orders the Occasions of Sin but it is Man 's own Free will that chuseth to sin upon these Occasions God ordered Bathsheba's washing her self and David's walking on the roof of the house but he put not Lust into David's heart or the wicked contrivance of her Defilement Vriah's assaulting Rabbah and the Souldiers falling upon Vriah were by Divine Providence but the Plot of David and execution of it by Joab were of humane Maliciousness Impenitent Sinners charge their Wickedness on their ill Fortune unhappy Destiny unlucky Planet which is done with the like reason as if the Knife were to be blamed for a man's Self-murther or the Bread he eats as the cause that he is choaked or the Girdle he wears that he was strangled by it Planets and other natural Agents though they have Influence on the Body which may provoke to Evil yet they cannot necessitate the Mind to assent to it or to act accordingly Casual Concurrence of things may prompt but not compell to Sin Evil Company bad Counsel cruel Tyrants may have power on the Members not the Will It is true the Devil is the Father of Lies He that committeth Sin is of the Devil but were it not that
III. OBSERVATION Penitent Sinners such as David was do beg earnestly against the Loss of God's Presence as their greatest Calamity and pray for its Continuance as their chiefest Happiness The Holy Writings are full of such Petitions as these Let my sentence come forth from thy presence Psal 17.2 Make thy Face to shine upon thy servant Psal 31.16 Forsake me not O Lord O my God be not far from me Psal 38.21 Awake why sleepest thou O Lord arise cast us not off for ever Wherefore hidest thou thy face Psal 44.23 24. Return for thy servants sake Isa 63.17 Take away all Iniquity and receive us graciously Hos 14.2 As it is with a Child who misseth his Father he cries after him till he appears to him or as a Traveller that is out of his way and knoweth not what way to take nor what may become of him calls for his Guide to direct for his Company to help him So it is with a Repenting person who hath wandered out of his way he is sensible that he hath done foolishly in leaving God's way fears lest he shall become a prey to Satan finds the want of God's Guidance the need of his Assistence hereupon he cries aloud to God not to leave him he wrastleth with God as Jacob did when he feared his Brother Esau's hostile approach so as not to let him goe untill he bless him he weeps and makes Supplication till he becomes an Isaac one that prevails with God his Eye trickleth down and ceaseth not without any intermission till the Lord look down and behold from Heaven he bewails his turning aside into crooked paths begs to be led into the way everlasting and to that end resolves to hold close to God for the time to come and to keep his way lest he by Recidivation and Relapse drive away God for ever For which purpose he begs God not to take away his Holy Spirit from him as being his best Guide and Guard in his Pilgrimage on Earth Which leads me to the consideration of the Second Petition in my Text but at present time will not permit me to handle it Of what hath been said give me leave to make some Application APPLICATION You that have fallen into any such gross Transgression as David's was remember to imitate him in his Return to God As his Sin was very great so this Penitentiall Psalm shews his Sorrow after God was very conspicuous working Repentance not to be repented of 2 Cor. 7.10 What the Apostle said of the Corinthians guilty of Indulgence to the Incestuous person For behold this self-same thing that ye sorrowed after a godly sort what Carefulness it wrought in you yea what Clearing of your selves yea what Indignation yea what Fear yea what vehement Desire yea what Zeal yea what Revenge in all things ye have approved your selves to be clear in this matter the same was true of David and ought to be verified in every one of you chiefly in these things 1. To be sensible of the great danger of the Loss of God's Presence to know and see that it is an evil thing and bitter that you have forsaken the Lord your God and that his Fear was not in you when either by Wantonness or Intemperance or Profaneness or Unrighteousness or any other kind of Leudness though committed in secret from the eyes of man ye did Evil in God's sight and rebelled and vexed his Holy Spirit so that he was turned away from you became your Enemy fought against you and left you to be insnared by the Devil and to be led captive by him according to his will 2 Tim. 2.26 Oh this is a thing you should mourn for as one mourneth for his onely Son and be in bitterness for his absence as one that is in bitterness for his first-born 2. For the time to come that with the spirit of Grace and Supplication you instantly press God to vouchsafe you his preserving guiding comforting aiding Presence that you may not be overcome by a like Temptation nor wander from God by Errour nor by Infirmity of your flesh yield to such Motions in you or Solicitations of others as may overcome you and prevail upon you to goe astray from God and leave him who is your Shepherd lest the Wolf of Hell catch you and tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver you Oh what-ever you doe watch and pray that God may lead you in the paths of Righteousness for his Name 's sake And what-ever Bait or Suggestion may be set before you yet remember that which Joseph thought on when he was enticed to Leudness by his Mistris How shall I doe this great Wickedness and sin against God Oh set God alwaies before you who being at your right hand you shall not be moved It will be your everlasting Comfort in life and death that you can say I was upright before God and kept my self from mine Iniquity While you live on Earth walk humbly obediently patiently with God Doe as Enoch did who had this testimony that he so walked with God as to please him and then you may be assured notwithstanding your former Falls yet at last to be translated if not as he was not to see death yet so as not to abide in death but to be with your Father for ever Which the Lord grant c. Amen LAVS DEO THE HEAVENLY GIFT Part II. The Seventh SERMON PSALM li. 11. Take not thy Holy Spirit from me IN this Penitentiall Psalm of David wherein he applieth himself to God for the recovery of his Favour after his great Fall in the matter of Vriah as he sincerely confesseth his Sin and humbly beggeth Pardon so he doth earnestly deprecate God's Dereliction of him as being the most sad presage of his everlasting Perdition and the taking away his Holy Spirit from him as the inlet to Satan's possession of him and so the forerunner of his extreme Ruine I have heretofore considered his Petition against Ejection out of God's Presence the regaining of which is a most desirable thing to a Penitent Sinner and though it be forfeited by Sin yet is it recoverable by humble and earnest Supplication It now remains that I consider the other Prayer in my Text against the Privation of God's Spirit in these words And take not thy Holy Spirit from me For explication whereof it is requisite that it be shewed 1. What is meant by the Holy Spirit or Spirit of God's Holiness which he feared might be taken from him 2. How it is taken away from a person 1. The term Spirit is meant sometimes of God the Father as Joh. 4.24 where it is said that God is a Spirit sometimes of the Son as 2 Cor. 3.17 where it is said The Lord is that Spirit and sometimes of the Third Person in the Holy Trinity as 1 Joh. 5.6 where it is said It is the Spirit that beareth witness who is termed the Holy Ghost or Spirit and is all one with the Spirit
loves or yields to Unholiness and therefore they consist not together And God doth also justly deprive persons of that great Gift of his Spirit when they resist it when they vex it so as to make it become their Enemy as Princes take away their Favours and Offices and Honours which they have conferred when they are contemned and abused against them And therefore a Penitent Sinner being sensible of his Danger deprecates the ablation of God's Spirit though deserved by his Sin as David in my Text which is the III. OBSERVATION That a Repenting Sinner is an earnest Suitour to God for the Continuance of his Spirit to him It is the dolefull Expostulation of the people of God Isa 63.17 who had rebelled and vexed God's Spirit so as to make him their Enemy vers 10. when they repented and discerned their Errour and begged his Return O Lord why hast thou made us to erre from thy ways and hardened our heart from thy Fear return for thy servants sake They at last find the miss of God's Spirit as that which yielded them the greatest Safety and chiefest Happiness They find that they by their not cherishing God's Spirit but unkind usage have driven away their best Friend They see that by their Security they have let in their greatest Enemy In a word when a Sinner hath found his Misery by acting that Sin which forfeits his interest in the Guidance and Assistence of God's Spirit he bewails it and fears left an evil Spirit should possess him and bring with it seven more unclean spirits worse then it self when his house is empty swept and garnished and dwell in him and so his end be worse then his beginning as it is Matth. 12.44 45. And therefore he begs for the Continuance of God's Spirit lest the unclean Spirit possess him as it did Saul David therefore so earnestly here deprecates the Loss of the Holy Spirit as remembring what befell his Predecessour Saul which all Penitent Sinners should likewise dread APPLICATION Now then it concerns us all to prize the Presence and Virtue of God's Spirit in us as the great Gift of Heaven and to take heed how we forfeit it by our Sins which if we have done let us by Repentance bewail our Forfeiture of it and beg of God the Continuance of it notwithstanding our desert to be deprived of it We count the Titles and Ensigns of the Favour of a King the Robes and Proclamations by which he honours a Subject of great worth Joseph's and Mordecai's riding and cloathing by the Kings of Egypt and Persia were highly accounted of and the Loss of such Advancement was terrible to Haman and others and Fear of like Disgrace makes men beg that they may not be deprived of them The having of God's Spirit is as the Seal of God as a Robe or Diadem as the Ensign of the Order of the King of Heaven as that which assures our instatement in the rank of Nobles which are as Angels before God Oh let us then value it far above all the Ensigns of Favour and Honour by which the greatest Kings on earth testifie their respect to their Favourites Let us take heed of rebelling and vexing the Holy Spirit of God lest he become our Enemy and sight against us If we have by Sin endangered our Loss of it let us beg earnestly its Restitution and take heed of Security and Remissness in sowing to the Spirit of Barrenness and Unfruitfulness in bringing forth the Fruits of the Spirit lest we lose its Comforts and Operations and our case be like Saul's that the Spirit of God depart from us and an evil Spirit from the Lord possess us for ever It is a very sad thing that any in mockery and scorn should deride the work of God's Spirit especially in fervent Prayer that any should counterfeit it that any should ascribe that to God's Spirit which is but their own Fancy Such Profaneness and Hypocrisie let us take heed of such Fanaticism is justly recompensed by a being possessed with Satan in stead of God's Spirit But however we be free from these Evils let us not content our selves without the feeling and experiment of the Guidance of God's Holy Spirit by the Fruits of it mentioned Gal. 5.22 23. by working out our Salvation with fear and trembling let us beware that a spirit of Slumber come not upon us that we do not by any sinfull Lust provoke the Spirit to leave us And if we have endangered our Loss of it Oh let us not give rest to our selves till by humbling our selves for our Sins and by fervent Prayers we recover its inhabitation its supporting and comforting Presence which will stand us in greatest stead in life and death Which the Lord grant c. Amen LAVS DEO THE POWER OF True Integrity Part I. The Eighth SERMON PROVERBS xviij 14. The Spirit of a man will sustain his Infirmity but a wounded Spirit who can bear IT was the immense Munificence of the Divine Goodness to his people the Jews that he not onely gave them the Treasures of Egypt but also the Riches of Heaven in such holy Precepts as he vouchsafed not to other Nations so that in respect of true Wisedom they might have exceeded the Egyptians or Greeks if they had applied their minds to observe them It was not altogether undeservedly that Pythagoras his Poem was said to contain Golden Verses that others of the Greek Poets and Philosophers were for their Sentences and Apophthegms magnified as wise above the common sort of men But none of them was comparable to Solomon nor any of their Sayings equal to his Proverbs amongst which this which I have pitched upon is very remarkable The Spirit of a man c. The former part of which presupposeth Man obnoxious to Infirmities which indeed all Experience proves true He hath Infirmities of Body in the outward Senses many Defects in the other Faculties many Imperfections Not onely his Eyes are dim his Ears deaf his Tast Feeling Smelling decay but also his Memory fails his Apprehension is shallow his Invention dull the whole Man is sickly withering and inclining to Corruption He hath worse Infirmities of Soul Ignorance of God of his Will proneness to yield to Seducements and Temptations of Satan Unteachableness and Untractableness Passionateness Inconstancy Prevalency of Lusts by reason of which God said of the Jews Ezek. 16.30 How weak is thine Heart seeing thou doest all these things the work of an imperious whorish woman Both these sorts may be well here meant Sickness and Sorrows Errours and Fears and both are supposed to be as Burthens which depress a man Heaviness in the heart of a man maketh it stoop Prov. 12.25 Age and Sickness cause the Keepers of the house to tremble and the strong men to bow themselves Fear to be in the way the Grashopper to be a burthen Desire to fail the silver Chord to be loosed the golden Bowl to be broken the Pitcher to be broken at
thou recover me and make me to live Behold for Peace I had great Bitterness but thou hast in love to my Soul delivered it from the Pit of corruption for thou hast cast all my Sins behind thy back Thus he creates the fruit of the lips Peace Peace to him that is afar off and to him that is near and heals them Isa 57.19 Men sin and then God scourgeth they cry and God sends his Messenger to teach them they are humbled for Sin and fly to the Bloud of Christ for Peace Believing in him they obtain Reconciliation being reconciled the Spirit of Christ as the Comforter is given them to make known the things that are freely given by God hence comes Joy in believing and Hope of the Inheritance of life by which they are supported which I was to demonstrate APPLICATION And now this belongs to you that so many of you as have by proof found the truth of this may be thankfull so many as do or shall need these directions may wisely make use of them You are all of you yet in the Body and this Body you bear about you is a Body of Sin and Death and perhaps you have been affected as S. Paul was when he cried out O wretched man that I am who shall deliver men from the Body of this death Rom. 7.24 If you have not found it already you may expect such a sense of your Infirmities as may perhaps make you tremble and quake bemoan God's Absence from you and from the words of your Roaring you may find Wounds in your Spirit and Breach in your Bones Conscience of Sin sense of God's Rod on your backs may make you cry out in the bitterness of your Soul for Ease and Help If any of you have already found your selves in this Case you are able to tell how weak your Spirit hath been either to avoid or bear the Blows of God's Hand Onely they are happy in such a case who can truly say I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Sure all others are Physicians of no value It is in vain to imagine any solid Comfort to your Spirit by a Pope's Pardon or a Priest's Absolution or any other Remedy which either your own Mind or others Wit can minister to you for your Ease or Recovery It is onely the Balm of the Gospell the Physician of Heaven that can make a perfect Cure Without these some Mountebanks may make a palliated Cure but the Sore will break out again Oh then be sure to take home with you this Receipt write upon it Probatum est No Medicine like God's Favour obtained by sound Humiliation true Repentance unfeigned Faith in the Bloud of Christ to heal your Plagues whether from God's Judgments or your own Fears Keep this as the onely Plague-water make use of it toties quoties as oft as you find need in life and death And when you have found Refreshing in your Spirits by it forget not to lift up your eyes to the Father of Spirits both by acknowledgment of what Support you have had and by seeking such farther Comfort from him as you may need I shall dismiss you with S. Paul's prayer 2 Thes 2.16 17. Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God even our Father which hath loved us and hath given us everlasting Consolation and good Hope through Grace comfort your hearts and stablish you in every good word and work To whom with the Blessed Spirit be ascribed c. Amen LAVS DEO PIETY THE DESIGN of PARDON The Tenth SERMON PSALM cxxx 4. But there is Mercy or Forgiveness with thee that thou maist be feared THIS Psalm is one of the Fifteen which are intituled Songs of Degrees For what reason they are so called is variously conjectured but not certainly determined It is also one of the Seven termed Penitentiall Psalms The matter of it is Supplication with a declaration of the Psalmist's Resolution or Practice v. 5 6. and an Exhortation to wait and hope in God as he did with assurance of God's Graciousness and Mercifull intention to Israel vers 7 8. The Supplication expresseth the state he was in De profundis Out of the Depths that is deep Mire or Waters by which are signified great Calamities Psal 69.2 14 15. such as those are in that are put into a Dungeon as Jeremiah was Jer. 38.6 or that are cast into a deep River Sea or Lake in which they are like to be overwhelmed It notes some great Affliction whether inward or outward private or publick is not certain though the words in vers 3 4. seem to intimate it to have been inward out of the sense of Sin and terrour of Soul by reason of it In this condition he saith he called or cried to God and his Cry was 1. In generall for Audience Lord hear my voice let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my Supplications vers 2. 2. With Confession of his Guiltiness vers 3. If thou Lord shouldst mark Iniquities 3. With imploring and confident application of Forgiveness in my Text But there is Mercy or Forgiveness with thee that thou maist be feared Whether the word be read Mercy or Forgiveness it is not much material saving that this latter is more agreeable to the words and to the Coherence with vers 3. and better expresseth the particular Mercy meant here The Greek hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with thee is Propitiation or Appeasing which is either the same with Forgiveness or connexed with it Nor is it of any moment whether we reade For or But save that this latter is more apposite to the matter And it is all to one purpose whether we reade with thee or from thee the Hebrew particle signifying both save that this latter is more expressive of the sense And the meaning is the same with that in Daniel 9.9 To the Lord our God belong Mercies and Forgiveness though we have rebelled against him The latter part of the verse is otherwise read by the Greek and Vulgar Latin upon mistakes which Learned men in their Annotations take notice of Doctour Hammond on this place But the reading according to the Originall is for thy fear which is all one with our Translation that thou maist be feared that is reverenced worshipped and obeyed which are usually comprehended under the Fear of God The Truths included in this passage are 1. That there is Forgiveness with or from God 2. That this Forgiveness engageth or encourageth men to fear him Of these in their order I. OBSERVATION That there is Forgiveness with or from God That God is a pardoning God is the Assertion of God himself in that Proclamation in which he told Moses he would make all his Goodness to pass before him which was thus delivered Exod. 34.6 7. The Lord the Lord God mercifull and gracious long-suffering and abundant in Goodness and Truth keeping Mercy for thousands forgiving Iniquity Transgression and Sin Conformable whereunto in that Prayer of Nehemiah 9.17
it is said Thou art a God ready to pardon or a God of Pardons gracious and mercifull slow to anger and of great Kindness And the Prophet Isa 55.7 exhorts the wicked to return unto the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon It is then one of God's Jewells which his Crown is set with that he is not as a cruell Tyrant or infernall Fiend with whom there is nothing but Cruelty and Mischievousness but as a gracious King or loving Father in whom is Clemency as well as Justice affectionate Forgiveness as well as severe Correction Which that we may the better conceive it being that on which our Life lies it will be requisite that we consider 1. What Sins God forgives 2. For what Motive 3. To whom he forgives them 4. Why he forgives them I. For the first our Saviour hath resolved it in express terms Mark 3.28 29. Verily I say unto you All Sins shall be forgiven to the sons of men and Blasphemies wherewithsoever they shall blaspheme But he that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost hath never Forgiveness but is in danger of eternall Damnation What this Sin is and whether any be at this day guilty of it is a Question that requires some disquisition The Schoolmen as Aquinas make six Species of the Sin against the Holy Ghost Despair Presumption Impenitency Obstinacy Impugning the acknowledged Truth and Envying our Brother's Grace Protestant Divines taking in other Texts out of the Epistles to the Hebrews and Titus and out of S. John's 1. Epistle have formed such a Definition as this That it is a Blaspheming against the Gospel of Christ testified by a clear Conviction of the Spirit of God in the heart of the Blasphemer arising out of a spightfull Hatred and obstinate Rejection of that Truth and Testimony of and by which he was convinced causing an oppugning of it and the Avouchers of it upon the strong possession Satan hath got in his Heart But the Text Mark 3.30 in which it is added Because they said He hath an unclean Spirit doth seem to restrain it to that spightfull belying Christ's Miracles done by the Spirit of God most evividently so as that they could not gainsay it as if they were done by the Prince of Devils and Christ were possessed and acted by an Unclean Spirit Which makes it very probable that none at this day can as things are commit it there being no such Miracles now done as can evidently shew the Operation of the Holy Spirit to be blasphemed as it was by the Pharisees Nor is Julian the Apostate sufficiently proved however so judged by some of the Ancients to have committed this Sin Much less have any of those doubting Souls who by reason of their Tenderness of Conscience which makes them very jealous and fearfull of their own Condition have been apt to charge themselves with this Sin any reason so to doe they being guilty of no such Blasphemy in words Rejecting of Christ Speaking evil of his Spirit or its Operations Oppugning of the Gospel or the Believers of it nor of any Obstinacy in any course of open Persecution or Disclaiming Christ and his Gospel Perhaps this which I have said may be of great use to some doubting and troubled Spirits who put themselves on the Rack through Mistakes arising from the Weakness of their Understandings and the Fearfulness of their Hearts As for any other Sins they are not in their own nature unpardonable other Blasphemies are pardonable Peter's Denying Christ though with Cursing himself if he knew him yet had Pardon Manasseh though notorious for his Cruelties as filling Jerusalem with innocent Bloud even of the Prophets of God though infamous for his setting up the most abominable Idolatries of the Gentiles though proceeding so far as to use Familiar spirits yet when he was humbled and prayed to God in his Affliction God heard him and forgave him 2 Chron. 33.12 13. I instance in these as seeming to come nighest to the Sin against the Holy Ghost the one sinning against Knowledge after Warning and solemn Promise to the contrary the other offending in the most hainous manner in Sins of the greatest Guilt with extreme Wilfulness and Violence Not to mention the Sins of David or Lot or Noah or Solomon If Cain meant it as the Vulgar Latin hath it Gen. 4.13 My Sin is greater then can be forgiven it might well be replied to him Mentiris Cain Thou liest Cain Thy Sin might have been forgiven if thou hadst had a penitent Heart and hadst begged Pardon from God Though in the Law God would not forgive some Sins as Blasphemy Murther Adultery Sins with an high hand so as to expiate them by Sacrifice and free the Sinner from death though God sware to Eli that the Iniquities of his House should not be purged with Sacrifice nor Offerings for ever 1 Sam. 3.14 though he never will pardon the Sin of Devils of Judas the Son of Perdition nor the final Impenitent and Unbeliever Yet Christ tells us plainly No kind of Sin or Blasphemy except one but is pardonable to the sons of men II. But then upon what Motive God forgiveth Sins is to be farther considered They that say that any Sins against God are venial ex genere suo the whole kind of them of their own Nature as having an evil or inordinate thing for their Object but not against the Love of God or our Neighbour or by reason of the Smalness of the matter in which or the sudden Motion by which they are done speak otherwise then the Scripture which makes the Wages of Sin simply and every Sin death Rom. 6.23 and him cursed who continues not in every thing written in the Law to doe it Gal. 3.10 They derogate from the efficacy of Christ's Bloud which alone is it that cleanseth from all Sin make it a light matter to sin against the Most high and infinite Majesty would excuse our First Parents Sin and harden men in Impenitency And when they make voluntary Works of Penance Satisfaction for such Sins Priests Absolutions Popes Pardons and saying of Divine Offices for the Sinner sufficient to take away the Guilt of Sin against God though they provide for their accursed Gain yet they derogate from the Necessity and alone Sufficiency of Christ's Bloud who is the onely Advocate with the Father and the Propitiation for our Sins and the Sins of the whole world 1 Joh. 2.1 2. We learn Heb. 9.22 that without shedding of bloud is no Remission and that though the Sacrifices of the Law might procure Forgiveness in respect of some Penalties and sanctify to the purifying of the Flesh yet that it is the Bloud of Christ alone who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God that can purge our Consciences from dead works to serve the living God vers 14. and that it is for Christ's sake whom God hath set forth to be a Propitiation through faith
harden themselves against Reproof hate him that deals plainly with them because he shews them the Sin which they will not leave are Enemies to him that tells them the Truth hate him that rebuketh in the Gate and abhorre him that speaks uprightly Amos 5.10 Such men are so far from obtaining Pardon that they fall into Judas his Curse of adding Iniquity to Iniquity and never come into God's Righteousness Psal 69.27 4. That Sin may be forgiven the chiefest Qualification of all must not be omitted Faith in the Lord Jesus who though he knew no Sin yet was made Sin for us that we might be made the Righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5.21 This is the tenour of the Gospel as Christ himself instructed his Apostles that Repentance and Remission of Sins should be preached in his Name among all Nations Luk. 24.47 And accordingly S. Peter saith to Cornelius Act. 10.43 To Christ give all the Prophets witness that through his Name whosoever believeth in him shall receive Remission of Sins And S. Paul Act. 13.38 39. Be it known unto you therefore men and brethren that through this Man is preached unto you the Forgiveness of Sin And by him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses He was delivered for our Offences and raised for our Justification Rom. 4.25 Christ died for our Sins according to the Scriptures 1 Cor. 15.3 He was wounded for our Transgressions he was bruised for our Iniquities the Chastisement of our Peace was upon him and with his Stripes we are healed All we like Sheep have gone astray we have turned every one to his own way and the Lord hath laid on him the Iniquity of us all Isa 53.5 6. His own self bare our Sins in his own body on the Tree 1 Pet. 2.24 These and many more places in Holy Scripture do evince that it is by the Death of Christ that our Sins are remitted And the Apostle Heb. 10.12 tells us that after he had offered one Sacrifice for Sins he sate down for ever at the right hand of God and Heb. 9.24 that he is entred into heaven with his bloud to appear for us in the presence of God and Heb. 10.14 that by one Offering he hath for ever perfected them that are sanctified And therefore they that reject that Sacrifice and stick to the Law and its Priesthood miss of Forgiveness of Sins It is impossible now without Faith in Christ his Death Resurrection and Intercession at God's right Hand to be free from Condemnation and to obtain Forgiveness But Faith is sufficient without the Figment of the unbloudy Propitiatory Sacrifice offered by a Priest in the Mass to expiate Sin and to obtain Remission Whosoever therefore believes not that Christ is he that was to come that doth not believe and trust to his Bloud and Intercession for Forgiveness with God that trusts in the Sacrifice of the Mass the Milk of the Virgin Mary the Mediation of Saints or any other thing besides Christ's Death and Intercession that man forfeits his interest in God's Pardoning Grace 5. That Sin may be forgiven there must be a Turning to the Lord. Let the wicked forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon saith the Prophet Isa 55.7 Wherefore doth a living man complain a man for the punishment of his Sins saith Jeremy Lament 3.39 and directs him the best course Let us search and try our ways and turn again to the Lord vers 40. And that is to be done 1. By humble Supplication Ibid. v. 41. Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the Heavens by Praying for it Matth. 6.12 by justifying God condemning our selves taking Shame to our selves and acquitting God from all blame deprecating his Severity imploring his Mercy for his Son's sake whom God sending in the likeness of sinfull flesh hath condemned Sin in the flesh and therefore there is no Condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus Rom. 8.1 3. 2. But then must be added the second thing wherein we turn to God to wit Newness of life There is no Condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit Wash ye make ye clean put away the Evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to doe evil learn to doe well seek Judgment relieve the oppressed judge the fatherless plead for the widows and then saith God Come now and let us reason together Though your Sins be as Scarlet they shall be as white as Snow though they be red like Crimson they shall be as Wooll Isa 1.16 17 18. It is not the plea of Innocency that prevails with God but the earnest Supplication for Mercy not the Tale of a vain-glorious Pharisee but the feeling Prayer of a broken-hearted Publican that obtains Forgiveness Nor will he that hath escaped the Pollutions of the world through the knowledge of Christ be safe if with the Dog he return to his vomit and the Sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire He that sins again sins more dangerously as he that falls into a Relapse is more desperately sick New Obedience is necessary to assure the Forgiveness of old Sins 6. There is yet another Qualification necessary to the Forgiveness of our own Sins that we forgive other mens Sins against our selves Our Saviour puts it into the Lord's Prayer that we should profess to God our Forgiveness of them that are indebted to us as a Reason why we expect Forgiveness of him when we pray him to forgive us Yea he allows us not to ask Forgiveness of God but according as we forgive others If you forgive men their Trespasses your Heavenly Father will also forgive you But if ye forgive not men their Trespasses neither will your Father forgive your Trespasses Matth. 6.14 15. Yea in the close of that Parable Matth. 18.35 he tells us that our heavenly Father will exact our Debts cast us into Prison deliver us to the Tormentours if we from our hearts forgive not every one his Brother their Trespasses He that bears a Grudge that reserves a purpose of Revenge in his breast that saies he will forgive but not forget that passeth not an Act of Indemnity and Oblivion of his Brother's Injuries doth but delude God play the Hypocrite with him when he prays the Lord's Prayer shews himself to be unlike to God of a venomous Toad-like Viper-like nature malicious like Satan and so doth the more provoke and enrage God against him as being an unthankfull virulent Devillish Wretch that deals so unworthily with him and abuseth him to his face And this ushers in the last thing I am to consider to wit IV. Why there is Forgiveness with God Of many Reasons I shall name one or two besides that in my Text. 1. From
So it is that the greatest part either openly commit the most horrid Sins monstrously Swearing as if they would dare God to his face Scoffing at the practice of Piety making no scruple of Deceiving spending their time in Drinking prodigally wasting their Estates by Luxury and the like which should be imployed to good Uses for the Relief of others and the publick benefit or they secretly practise some or all these Sins or worse if it may be under Disguises of Religion and other Vizors without Fear They that complain most of Sin are usually they that are most fearfull of Sin Yet to both it is needfull this Doctrine be taught of God's Forgiveness The most hardened Manasseh may be taken in the Thorns and humbled the most audacious Sinner among you may be awakened and his Eyes opened to see how evil and bitter a thing it is that he hath sinned against the Lord and his Fear hath not been in him Poverty Imprisonment Sickness or Death approaching may open his Ears to Discipline and make him remember God If these things happen let him remember though but then that there is Forgiveness with God And for any other perplexed person let him never forget to have this Cordial in the Closet of his Heart which may revive him in his Agonies and Faintings of spirit That there is Forgiveness with the Lord. But then 2. Let them not forget how and by what means it is obtained to wit by Repentance Confession Forsaking of Sin Faith in Christ's bloud humble Supplication to God new Obedience to him and Forgiveness of our Brother There must be another Heart a heart of Flesh not a heart of Stone in him that shall obtain Forgiveness He shall have Judgment without Mercy that shews no Mercy You must take heed of seeking Forgiveness by Popes or Priests supposed power to forgive Sins by their Authority by others officiating for you or by your own Satisfactions Works of Penance Fasting Alms or other laborious Works imposed or undertaken by your selves as meriting or procuring your Absolution But you must wholly rely on the Death and Intercession of Christ in Heaven and the Covenant in his Bloud Though in the mean time you are not to omit other Duties which I have shewed to be required of God in their place 3. Be sure not to forget to magnifie the Grace of God with whom is Forgiveness Stand and admire that infinite Goodness that after all the Sins of thy Progenitours Adam's Sin in Revolting from God his Maker and Benefactour the Sins of thy Pagan Ancestours in their horrid Idolatries and other Provocations the Sins of thy Popish Ancestours in their perverting the Gospell of Christ imitating the Vices and Superstitions of Pagans corrupting Christianity and destroying Myriads of holy Souls who in their Generations opposed their Abominations and contended for the Truth of Christ besides thy own Sins of Idleness Pride Wantonness Envy Covetousness Ungodliness Profaning holy things living without God in the world he should yet have Mercy on thee pardon thy Sins and save thy Soul Oh say with David Bless the Lord O my Soul and all that is within me bless his holy Name Psal 103.1 4. Forget not to fear him for the time to come It is the End of his Forgiving that thou shouldst fear him If God miss his End thou wilt lose thy hopes of Forgiveness Mark what our Saviour saith Joh. 5.14 Behold thou art made whole sin no more lest a worse thing happen unto thee Surely saith Elihu Job 34.31 32. it is meet to be said unto God I will not offend any more That which I see not teach thou me if I have done Iniquity I will doe no more If pardoning Grace do not better thee it will leave thee more inexcusable and thy Damnation more certain and just If thou become not obsequious to God and mercifull to others thy Pardon will be null'd Oh do not forfeit thy Pardon by After-disobedience but as thou hast God to remember thee in Mercy be sure to remember him by Dutifulness to him all thy days That when thou shalt meet with thy Father in Heaven thou maist be ravish'd with his Grace and he may welcome thee as his obedient Son into his everlasting Joy Amen LAVS DEO THE EFFECTUAL REMEDY The Eleventh SERMON PSAL. lxxix 8. O remember not against us former Iniquities let thy tender Mercies speedily prevent us for we are brought very low THE Message which was sent from Hezekiah that good King of Judah to the Prophet Isaiah This Day is a Day of Trouble and Rebuke Wherefore lift up thy Prayer for the Remnant that is left Isa 37.3 4. is by His MAJESTIE's Proclamation sent to us We are minded by our Gracious King That this Day is a Day of Trouble such as that we may call it Magor-Missabib Terrour round about us a Day of Rebuke wherein the great Correctour of the World rebukes us in his Anger and chastens us in his hot Displeasure Haeret lateri lethalis Arundo The Arrow of the Almighty flies by day and night among us sticks fast in us and drinks up our Spirit so as that we are consumed by his Anger and by his Wrath we are troubled And therefore it is now a Time for us to lift up our Prayer for the Remnant that is left and to betake our selves to our Litany in good earnest From Plague and Pestilence good Lord deliver us Hitherto are we led by this Precedent which I have read to you O remember not against us c. The Argument of the Psalm sufficiently intimates the Time and the Occasion of penning it The first Verse being a Complaint to God that the Heathen were come into God's Inheritance that is the Land of Judaea had defiled or profaned his holy Temple by casting it to the ground and had laid Jerusalem on heaps Which was done by none but Chaldaeans when this Psalm was composed and therefore it was composed after and upon occasion of the Demolition and Conflagration of Jerusalem and Solomon's Temple by Nebuchadnezzar's appointment of which we reade Jer. 52. which moved either Ezra or Daniel or some other Holy person of that Time to address himself to God with Complaint Expostulation and Petition in the words of my Text O remember not against us c. Wherein are 1. A Deprecation O remember not c. By former Iniquities some understand their Idolatry in making the Golden Calf in the Wilderness concerning which the Jews have a Tradition That in all the Miseries which came upon that People there was some Remembrance of that Sin according to that which is said in Exod. 32.34 Nevertheless in the Day when I shall visit I will visit their Sin upon them But more probably are meant the Sins of Manasseh and other Kings whereby they polluted the Temple with Heathenish Abominations filled Jerusalem with bloud brake their Oath to Nebuchadnezzar were obstinate against all the Warnings of the Prophets whom they mocked despising
and Power of God in his proceedings concerning it S. Paul in this Epistle written to the greatest and most intelligent People of the Gentiles declares both the extreme Corruptions of the whole World and the Wrath of God impendent on them for that reason as also the unparallel'd Longanimity of God in bearing with such a provoking Generation whom Hell had long waited for and especially the incomprehensible Philanthropy or Loving-kindness of God towards men whom though Enemies though weak to resist him he not onely spareth but also reconcileth to himself by the Bloud of his own Son and proclaimeth his free Pardon to all that receive him by his Apostles But lest Mercy abused should inflame the Wrath of God so much the more lest the sweetest Meat undigested through a Surfeit should be putrefied in the Stomach and turn to the most deadly Poison he in this and the following Chapters warns us of the ill Inference which men may make from so great Goodness and he begins at the words now read unto you What shall we say then shall we continue in Sin that Grace may abound God forbid In which words are two Questions the former whereof is onely a form of Transition propounding it to the consideration of those to whom he writes that they with him should bethink themselves what Determination to make upon his former Declaration What shall we say then If this be the state of affairs between God and us it concerns us to heed what thereupon we resolve to doe The other Question is more particular Shall we continue in Sin that Grace may abound Shall this be the Inference we make from it The Answer is negative Absit God forbid Let no so absurd so unworthy an Abuse of so rich Mercy be yielded to though it be never so plausibly urged by our carnal Reason and our corrupt Affections would incline us to embrace the Motion In this passage of Scripture these following Conclusions are couched 1. That God's dealing with Sinners according to the Gospel of Christ is out of his abundant Grace 2. That the corrupt Heart of man is apt thereupon to harden it self by Continuance in Sin 3. That such a Determination is a most foolish and pernicious Abuse of God's superabundant Grace Of these in their order I. OBSERVATION That God's dealing with Sinners according to the Gospel of Christ is out of his abundant Grace That abundant Grace which is here supposed is the same with that which he speaks of Rom. 5.20 21. Moreover the Law entred that the Offence might abound but where Sin abounded Grace did much more abound That as Sin hath reigned unto Death even so might Grace reign through Righteousness unto eternal Life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Which elsewhere Ephes 1.7 he terms the Riches of his Grace In whom we have Redemption through his bloud the forgiveness of Sins according to the Riches of his Grace And Eph. 2.4 5 7. God who is rich in Mercy for his great Love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in Sins hath quickened us together with Christ That in the Ages to come he might shew the exceeding Riches of his Grace in his Kindness towards us through Christ Jesus And Eph. 3.8 it is termed the unsearchable Riches of Christ All which Expressions are true without an Excess of speech if we consider either the State of mankind antecedent to the exhibition of this Grace or the Effects thereof or the Means of exhibiting it For what more deplorable Condition except that of Devils could the World be in then it was in before the exhibiting of the Divine Evangelical Grace of Christ to the sons of men They had all sinned and came short of the Glory of God they were concluded as Malefactours condemned under Sin under the Curse of the Law dead in Trespasses and Sins they were alienated from the Life that is in God Enemies in their minds by wicked works foolish disobedient serving divers Lusts hatefull and hating one another children of Disobedience of Darkness who walked after the course of the Prince of the power of the Air they were carried away after dumb Idols were Vassals of Satan and children of Wrath by nature And yet even to such did the Loving-kindness of God towards Man appear so as to reconcile the world unto himself not imputing their Trespasses to them He made him to be Sin for us who knew no Sin that we might be made his Righteousness in him and committed the Ministry of Reconciliation to chosen Vessels which might bear his Name to the Gentiles and bring Light and Salvation to such persons It was no small Testimony of his Goodness that even then when they were such when they walked in their own ways he gave them Rain from Heaven and fruitfull seasons filling their hearts with food and gladness that he caused his Sun to shine upon such unjust people as were both Jews and Gentiles The former of which were degenerated from the Integrity of Abraham and though claiming the privilege of his Children yet in reality were of their Father the Devil whose works they did except a few names that waited for the Consolation of Israel the rest of them were a Generation of Vipers full of Hypocrisie and Cruelty Unpeaceable Ambitious seeking the Praise of men not the Honour that cometh of God such as would compass sea and land to make one Proselyte and having wone him to them made him twofold more the child of Hell then themselves The other were filled with all Vnrighteousness Fornication Wickedness Covetousness Maliciousness full of Envy Murther Debate Deceit Malignity Whisperers Backbiters Haters of God despightfull proud Boasters Inventers of evil things disobedient to Parents without Vnderstanding Covenant-breakers without natural Affection implacable unmercifull Rom. 1.29 30 31. Yet even such as these he washed he sanctified he justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus and by his Spirit It might rather have been expected that he should have repented that he had made them and have executed his Wrath on them as he did on the world of the ungodly in Noah's time by a Deluge of water to wash away from the Earth that Dunghill and filth of evil Imaginations and wicked Works that had polluted the whole Earth or should have rained Fire and brimstone from Heaven to burn up and so to take away those unclean Sodomites those brutish Dogs and Swine which filled the World He might justly have caused the Earth to open its mouth and swallow up the Inhabitants of the world so as that they should go down quick into Hell as it did the Families of Korah Dathan and Abiram He might have sworn in his Wrath as he did concerning the Rebellious Israelites that they should never enter into his Rest They and we in all Generations succeeding might have expected to suffer the Vengeance of eternal fire But O Altitudo O the depth of the riches both of the Wisedom and Knowledge and Love of God! how
which a Bee would convert to the sweetest Hony In the end this course is most pernicious to him that follows it there being nothing that more alienates Affection from a person then his abuse of Kindness God's Love abused turns to Rage and none have God more incensed against them then those that having tasted of the good Gift of God fall away into sinfull Courses that are so unthankfull for so great a Favour as the offer of Reconciliation the Sacrifice of Christ the Invitation to his Supper to the Marriage of the Son of God as that they chuse rather to be at home with their Oxen and Wives and Farms or to come without a Wedding-garment then to accept of his Motion and accommodate themselves to his Kindness that having had ten thousand Talents forgiven them take their Brother by the throat for an hundred pence When men despise the Riches of God's Goodness and Forbearance and Long-suffering not knowing that the Goodness of God leadeth them to Repentance after their hardness and impenitent Hearts they treasure up to themselves Wrath against the day of Wrath and revelation of the righteous Judgment of God Rom. 2.4 5. APPLICATION Oh then let me in the most tender Bowells of Compassion my Heart can be touched with with the most serious Importunity that my words can express with the deepest Adjuration by the most affecting things that I can mind you of instantly press you to take heed of this most vile ugly dishonest irrational and damnable Abuse of the Divine Grace so as to continue in Sin that Grace may abound It is most meet yea natural that Love should beget Love Grace should beget Observance Is not he a most egregious Villain that hates his own Father that begat him that kills him that gave him Life Is not the Lord the Rock who begat thee the God that formed thee And wilt thou then be so unnatural as to hate God as thou dost if this be thy Requital for his Grace to persevere in Wickedness He tells thee that he is hated when thou lovest any thing more then him givest his Glory to another makest thy Belly thy God gloriest in thy Shame mindest earthly things And wilt thou thus recompense so great Goodness with such extreme Badness He saith he will not hold him guiltless that taketh his Name in vain And wilt thou pollute the Holy Name of thy Holy Father with thy impure Swearing The earnal mind is Enmity against God as being not subject to his Law but inconsistent with it And wilt thou suffer vain Thoughts to lodge in thee fleshly Reason to sway with thee carnal Lusts to rule over thee All Benefits received engage to answerable Duty What art thou then but a very Miscreant that having so much taste how gracious God is how amply he hath vouchsafed to be bountifull to thee in giving Christ for thee how profusely he hath bestowed on thee the Riches of Heaven in the largess of Spiritual Blessings in heavenly things in Christ dost yet side with Sin and Satan his profest irreconcilable Enemies that canst harbour that Enemy which thy Allegeance to God binds thee to pursue zealously unto death Oh that rather the Sense of God's Goodness might make us good the Taste of his Grace might make us gracious Surely none are worse Enemies to God then such as have been acquainted with the excess of God's Grace in Christ yet exceed in their obstinate perseverance in Evil such as when God's Grace should draw Tears from their Eyes Sighs from their Breasts cause Dejectedness in their Spirits by reason of their Sinning against so incomprehensible a Love as that which he vouchsafes to the Sons of Adam in Christ have yet a Forehead of brass that cannot blush glory in their Wickedness boast of their Lewdness and are secure in their Impenitency Greater Woe was to Chorazin and Bethsaida then to Tyre and Sidon because they repented not upon such Proofs of Christ's Excellency as would have wrought on the other As they had been lifted up to Heaven so Christ foretells their casting down to Hell No people in the world are likely to have a greater degree of Torment in Hell then profane and unrighteous men among us who have the greatest Proof of God's Grace of any people on the Earth As then you either stand in fear of so great Damnation or are desirous of that abundant Grace which the Gospel of Christ exhibits abhorr the thought of Continuing in Sin that Grace may abound Let the Mercies of God lead you to present your Bodies a living Sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable Service for that will procure his Favour here and your Blessedness hereafter Which he grant c. Amen LAVS DEO THE DIVINE COMPASSIONS The Fourteenth SERMON LAMENT iij. 22. It is of the Lord's Mercies that we are not consumed because his Compassions fail not I Have read to you a passage out of a most dolefull Poem composed by that Holy Prophet Jeremiah with much Art in the four first Chapters the order of the Hebrew Alphabet being observed in the initiall Letters of the Verses yet with a very deep sense of God's Judgments on Judah and Jernsalem and a tender Sympathy with them in their Affliction He had long and often foretold those Evils would befall them which he now saw come upon them quorum pars magna fuit and in which he had a great Share and he might well say Quis talia fando temperet à lacrymis Who could think or speak of such things with dry Eyes or an insensible Spirit This set may I say his Muse I should say rather his Prophetick spirit on work to endite and leave to the Church this Poem In which with much Compassion towards his Country he bewails their Desolation yet with much Piety towards God justifies him as punishing them according to the Demerit of their Sins and magnifies his Goodness as punishing them less then they deserved Both which are expressed in the words of my Text It is of the Lord's Mercies that we are not consumed because his Compassions fail not And sure we may say the like It is of the Lord's Mercies that London and all England are not consumed by the Pestilence because his Compassions fail not And therefore the handling of this Passage will be apposite to the present Face of things with us and the Occasion of this Day In it 1. The Prophet takes notice of the Mitigation of God's Wrath in that they were not consumed 2. He assigns the genuine Cause of it the Lord's Mercies or Benignities great Mercies which is exclusive of any other procuring Cause that might deserve it and intimates that there was sufficient reason did not his Mercies interpose why he should have consumed them 3. These Mercies are described 1. By the kind of them they were Compassions in the Original Bowel-mercies such as a tender Mother hath to the Child of her womb in God Pardoning Mercies Relieving
all ye that fear God and I will declare what he hath done for my Soul And in a word He uses all the ways he can to demonstrate his sense of God's Goodness to him to keep a Memorial of his Loving-kindnesses to affect others with his Experiments that both he and all others as much as in him lay might be moved to pray unto to trust in to praise and obey God as one that delivereth from death The like Instance we have Isa 38. concerning Hezekiah A Message was brought to him that he should die He betakes himself to Prayer turns his face towards the Wall and weeps God hears his Prayer sees his Tears adds to his days fifteen years Being recovered he writes an Hymn of Praise sets out his Danger and Deliverance with his Resolution to praise God all his days in the most solemn manner he was able Even the Light of Nature taught the same to the Mariners Jonah 1.16 All people whatsoever that have acknowledged a God have still ascribed their Deliverances from Death to their God and have still performed their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Thank-offerings to their Deities upon their Preservation Nor was this done by them without great and just Reasons 1. For first Death is the chief of all Evils it deprives of all Good Omnia appetunt Bonum saith the Philosopher in the beginning of his Ethicks It 's natural to all to desire their own Good Beasts will struggle much with the Slayer before they will die Skin for skin and all that a man hath will he give for his Life The most sickly needy person would fain preserve his Life Death is most resisted as the most terrible Nature apprehends it as the Privation of all Good Even our Lord Christ would fain have had this Cup pass from him and therefore in the days of his Flesh he offered up Prayers and Supplications with strong Crying and Tears unto him that was able to save him from Death Heb. 5.7 Though he had no Sin of his own to gall his Conscience yet he had a natural sense of the Evil of Death and earnestly desired Deliverance from it The Being he had as a Man he so prized that if his Father's Will had not engaged him to it he would never have parted with it Life is sweet it is a pleasant thing to behold the Sun but there is Bitterness in Death as the King of the Amalekites speaks 1 Sam. 15.32 Many Circumstances make it indeed more bitter to some then others yet to all it hath its exceeding Bitterness O Death saith the Son of Sirach how bitter is the Remembrance of thee to the man that liveth at rest in his possessions unto the man that hath nothing to vex him and that hath Prosperity in all things yea unto him that is yet able to receive meat Ecclus. 41.1 I deny not but some to avoid the fury of Tyrants have killed themselves yet not without fretting and indignation Some to gain an immortal Name and others by Satanical Delusions or Philosophicall Charms have of themselves embraced Death but I cannot say they have done it without any Reluctancy at all though to avoid a worse Evil or obtain a better Good as they conceived they have parted with their Lives There were some Circumstances which might have made Death more bitter at this time to David then it was to him when he fell asleep and was gathered to his Fathers To be killed in the Land of the Philistines by the hands of the Uncircumcised when he fled from Saul out of some distrust of God's Preservation in his own Country to have died with the Disappointment of his hopes of being King of Israel to which he was anointed by Samuel and had God's Promise for it had been a greater Grievance then to die in his Bed full of days and in a good old age Violent Deaths and dying by pestilential Diseases are the more terrible in regard a person is then deprived of all Help Society Conference with others all shun him even his nearest Relations as an instrument of Death when dying he kills others with his Breath his Plague-sore takes away the Life of his Child whose Life he prizeth above his own the Life of his Friend yea his Wife that is as his own Soul These and many other such Concomitants of Death do make it more dreadfull to a man But there is yet something besides that makes it most terrible The Consideration that Death is the Wages of Sin adds greater weight to the pressure of Death for then Death becomes not onely the Burthen of the Body but also of the Spirit While the Back is whole it will bear much but when the Skin is flayed off or the Shoulder-blade broken then to have a Load laid on the Back is intolerable So it is in the case of Death When there is Peace of Conscience it is not so heavy news but that Faith and a good Conscience can bear the tidings of it but when Death is presented as the Fruit not onely of the first Sin of Man but also of our own particular Sins so as Conscience tells a man My Excess in Drinking hath shortened my Life I have hastened my Death by my Riot and Intemperance by my Quarrelling my Disloyalty my Eagerness to get Wealth by my Wilfulness and Rashness in venturing into infected houses by a pragmatick humour in meddling with that which did not concern me by these and such like practices Oh then how doth Death bite as a Serpent and sting as an Adder The Sting of Death is Sin when it lies on the Conscience it kills as a Scorpion tortures as well as kills makes a Fire in the bones kindles Hell-fire in the Soul Especially when the Soul remembers how Sin hath been committed presumptuously with an high hand against Instructions of Parents Warnings of Friends Admonitions of Preachers Offers of Grace Invitations to Repentance that all these have been slighted and even the Gospel of Christ hath been neglected that the Sin remains unpardoned that after the first Death the second Death is expected after Death Judgment follows which ushers in Wrath and Vengeance When the Conscience of Unmercifulness Neglect of the poor Members of Christ wasting our Estate in Luxury spending our precious Time in vanities which should have been employed in Prayer and other holy Exercises and Meditations and in Self-examination flies in our Faces frights us like the sight of Furies when the thought of Christ's Coming to Judgment of that dreadfull Sentence Goe ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devill and his Angels still runs in our mind then is Death the King of Terrours The man not onely sings Adrian's Ditty Animula vagula blandula Hospes Comésque Corporis Quae nunc abibis in loca but he roars out for the Disquietness of his Soul and cries out with Cain My Punishment or Iniquity is greater then I can bear Then will he wish the Mountains and Rocks to fall on
him and hide him from the Face of him that sitteth upon the Throne and from the Wrath of the Lamb For the great day of his Wrath is come and who is able to stand Rev. 6.16 17. Now then Deliverance from Death must needs deserve Praise and Thanksgiving Deliverance from the greatest Evil should be received with the greatest Gratitude Deliverance from natural Death causeth Holy persons to bless God but Deliverance from Sin the cause of Death from the Wrath to come eternal Death much more This makes the Deliverance most compleat and the Thankfulness should be most ample To which is to be added 2. That the Deliverance is by God it is He that delivers the Soul from Death Now what comes from God's hand is most acceptable to them that love God A Deliverance from Death by a man doth ingage our Affections to him we think our selves obliged to him while we live who hath preserved our Life especially if he be a person of great Quality To have our Lives saved by the King whom we had provoked to be pardoned our Treason exceedingly heightens our valuation of the Benefit There is much more cause to magnifie the Goodness of God who saves his people from Death by pardoning of their Sins by advancing them to Nearness with himself who so saves from Death temporal as to give Life eternal Behold saith Hezekiah Isa 38.17 for Peace I had great Bitterness but thou hast in love to my Soul delivered it from the Pit for thou hast cast all my Sins behind thy back The Forgiveness of Sins which occasioned Death is a greater Benefit then the prolonging of Life And then it is Happiness accumulated to the height when there is not onely length of days on Earth but eternal Life in Heaven conferred upon the saved Bless the Lord O my Soul saith David Psal 103.1 2 3 4. and all that is within me bless his holy Name Bless the Lord O my Soul and forget not all his Benefits Who forgiveth all thy Sins and healeth all thy Diseases Who redeemeth thy life from destruction and crowneth thee with Loving-kindness and tender Mercies All which Mercies are the more joyfull to the believing Soul because they are not so much the fruit of our Prayers as of God's free Grace in Christ The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ so loved the World the sinfull World even when they were Enemies to him that he gave his onely-begotten Son to death even the death of the Cross that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting Life This Deliverance from Death proceeding from God's special Love that great Love wherewith he loved us when we were dead in Trespasses and Sins quickening us together with Christ saving us by Grace is that which makes it incomprehensibly welcome and encourageth the Soul to expect farther Preservation as David doth here which brings me to the Second Part of my Text now to be handled viz. II. David's Postulation Wilt thou not deliver my Feet from falling The Expression seems to be expostulatory but is to be conceived to include a Petition He demands of God Wilt thou not c not as one that challenged it as his due desert but as assured of the Continuance of God's Goodness He deprehends in God a Fountain of Love which is still running over flowing down in farther Streams of saving Mercy We have an exact and ample Paraphrase upon the words of my Text in that passage Psal 36. from vers 5. to the end where having set out the Wickedness of men and his own Danger he breaks forth in extolling God's Goodness in an assurance of a constant Current of Mercies and then is instant with God for the Continuance of his Preservation This part of my Text is a most precious passage of great Use for your Meditation in times of Danger by reason of Pestilence or War and it shews this to be the customary practice of Holy persons to gather Arguments of Assurance of future Help from God from their experience of his former gracious Deliverances So did David 1 Sam. 17.37 when he was to fight wïth Goliah he argued thus The Lord that delivered me out of the Paw of the Lion and of the Bear he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine And after him S. Paul 2 Cor. 1.9 10. We had the sentence of death in our selves that we should not trust in our selves but in God that raiseth the dead Who delivered us from so great a death and doth deliver in whom we trust that he will yet deliver In his former Deliverance he perceived the Power of God that he could deliver from Death he deprehends his watchfulness over him in the Continuance of his Deliverance his Love to him and Care of him which confirms him in the expectation of farther Help for the future As they say all Vertues are concatenate in Prudence so all Mercies are linked together in God's Love and Care of his Servants And indeed so the Apostle inferrs Rom. 8.32 He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things He that preserves our Lives will keep our Feet Thou hast delivered my Soul from Death wilt thou not also deliver my Feet from falling Surely thou wilt But then this Deliverance must be sought for at his hands which is also implied in this Expression When Christ cured the lame Cripple he bade him take up his bed and walk God when he saves our Life from death expects that we should walk before him Our Life is a Pilgrimage we walk from one Stage of it to another as the Sun runs its course so doth Man The Emanations of our Minds the Actions of our Members are our Steps If we walk not uprightly if we heed not what we think what we speak what we act our Feet will quickly fall first into Sin and then into Mischief The Psalmist Psal 73.2 tells us out of his experience of himself that his Feet were almost gone his Steps had well-nigh slipt He had stumbled at the Stumbling-stone to wit the Prosperity of the Wicked This begat Envy in him and that drew him on to a kind of Affection to their ways to a condemning of his own Course and offending against the generation of God's Children And had not God mercifully caught him when he was falling by directing him to the Sanctuary of God where he might see the End of the wicked that however they stood on smooth yet they were but slippery places they walked on Ice which would suddenly break under them and then they would sink for ever he had certainly perished Therefore he recovers himself and applies himself to God vers 23 24. and stays himself on the Manutenentia Divina Thou hast holden me by my right hand Thou wilt guide me with thy Counsel and after receive me to Glory As for me saith he in another Psalm 41.12 thou upholdest
me in mine Integrity and settest me before thy face for ever Faith in God's sustaining Grace is the onely sure Preservative against falling into Sin and thereby into Misery Thou wilt keep him in perfect Peace whose mind is stayed on thee because he trusteth in thee saith the Prophet Isa 26.3 He that trusteth in his own Heart is a fool but whoso walketh wisely shall be delivered saith Solomon Prov. 28.26 He that leaneth on his own Free will his own good Purposes his own Reason his own good Merits shall be sure to fall S. Peter when he was confident of his own Strength that he should die rather then deny his Master and was so venturous thereupon as to go into the High Priest's Palace was so affrighted with the words of a Maid that he not onely denied him but forswore him Israel which followed after the Law of Righteousness attained not to the Law of Righteousness Wherefore Because they sought it not by Faith but as it were by the Works of the Law for they stumbled at the Stumbling-stone saith the Apostle Rom. 9.31 32. We are like little Children we love to be on our Feet not knowing our own Weakness and then we venture without God to guide and stay us and so we fall and wound our selves Our safest way is to distrust our selves to work out our Salvation with fear and trembling as knowing that it is God that worketh in us to will and to doe of his good pleasure Phil. 2.12 13. And accordingly to betake our selves to him as David did here that he may keep our Feet from falling having the same designed End that he had that we may walk before him in the light of the living Which leads me to the Third Part of my Text David's Aim in his Commemoration and Postulation but time will not now permit the handling of it Onely an Application of what hath been already spoken remains to be added APPLICATION What you have heard David did it concerns you to doe You that are here now alive may say God hath delivered your Souls from Death I wish I might say truly that God hath delivered your Souls from the Death of Sin that God hath given you Repentance unto Life that you were none of you such as should die in your Sins but by believing in Christ should see the light of Life I wish that he were to you the Resurrection and the Life so that though you were dead yet you might live that living and believing in him you might never die as our Saviour said to Martha Joh. 11.25 26. I hope the best of you However while you are yet alive especially you that have been in danger by reason of the Contagion of late endeavour to walk in the steps of David Remember what your Prayers were in your Perils what Vows and Promises you made when you expected Death what Perplexity and Anxiety seized on you when the Remembrance of your Sins filled you with Horrour when you looked for Death to attack you and cast your Body into the Grave and perhaps your Soul into Hell when you expected a Summons to the Bar of God's Judgment there to be tried and to have your Doom passed on you Call to mind I beseech you what secret Meditations what Purposes you had what pass'd between God and your Souls in those Streights you were in And then resolve as David did here to address your selves to God as he did saying Thy Vows are upon me O God I will render Praises unto thee for thou hast delivered my Soul from Death O remember what God hath done for you in giving you your Lives in bringing you back from the depth of the Earth again When thousands have fallen on your right hand and on your left hand yet the Evil hath not come nigh you If it have entred into your Houses lighted on your Persons yet it hath not taken away your Breath so that though the Lord hath chastened you sore yet he hath not given you over unto Death Chiefly if God have awakened you that slept that you might stand up from the dead and Christ might give you light O then rejoyce in God's Goodness to you let the Remembrance of it make the Thoughts of God delightfull to you quicken you to run the ways of his Commandments mind you to perform the great Duties of Reformation of your Lives and new Obedience to God that preserved you according to all the Vows Resolutions and Engagements which were upon you when you were in Trouble Yea if you were then insensible of your Condition and thought not on the accursed estate which would have befallen you if you had died in your Sins now at least begin to lay it to heart Sure though you have escaped out of the hands of Death now yet it will overtake you at last All the means you can use all the Advantages all the Privileges you have cannot avoid it or exempt you from going the way of all flesh Oh then that you would now become in your Life-time what you would willingly be found to be at the hour of Death If you would not be found of Death Swearing Lying Deceiving or engaged in any ungodly and unrighteous way then be not so now If you would then be found Praying Meditating on God's Word Praising God inure your selves to such Exercises now It will not be easie to doe it then if you be not accustomed to it now You will then have the Comfort of a happy Death if you be acquainted with the practice of a holy Life now If your Remembrance of God's Goodness towards you puts you on such Resolutions the Remembrance that you have tasted how gracious the Lord is how he hath redeemed your Souls from the nethermost Hell by the Bloud of his Son which you are to remember with the greatest Thankfulness when you come to receive the Holy Communion and preserves you from the second Death you will then be animated to expect of God that he will keep your Feet from falling Take heed that you stumble not at the Prosperity of the wicked so as to approve and chuse their ways Take heed that Christ be not a Stone of Stumbling and a Rock of Offence to you that you stumble not at the Word disbelieving the Gospel being disobedient to the Precepts of the Word lest ye be appointed unto Wrath and not to obtain Salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ Take heed of ordering your Steps by your own Reason by the imagined Light within you which is for the most part an Ignis fatuus a dangerous Meteor that will bring you into Pits and Bogs Take heed of trusting to your own Free will your own good Purposes they will prove but a broken Reed which when you lean on them will run into your hands and pierce them Get your Feet shod with the Shoes of the Preparation or as it may be well read the Pavement of the Gospel of Peace as firm ground upon which you may
hath not the Son of God hath not Life Joh. 3.36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting Life and he that believeth not the Son shall not see Life but the wrath of God abideth on him But Jus in re or the Consummation and full Possession of this Life is after the Resurrection in the World to come which therefore Christ by way of Excellency terms eternall Life Mark 10.30 And this is that Life in the assurance whereof Christ laid down his Life with so much quietness when he commended his Spirit into the hands of his Father Luk. 23.46 And upon the promise of Life which is in Christ Jesus 2 Tim. 1.1 not onely of the Life that now is but also of that which is to come 1 Tim. 4.8 S. Paul did both labour and suffer Reproach vers 10. In hope of this eternall Life Tit. 1.2 he exposed himself to daily danger of Death which he terms dying daily 1 Cor. 15.31 as being sensible as he saith vers 19. if in this life onely he and other Christians had hope in Christ they were of all men most miserable Now in hope and assurance of this Life Christ duram serviit Servitutem underwent the hardest Service that ever was undertaken he emptied himself took upon him the form of a Servant was made in the likeness of Men and being found in fashion as a Man he humbled himself and became obedient unto Death even the death of the Cross Phil. 2.7 8. Though the Cup he was to drink of were a very bitter Cup a Cup of deadly Wine such as had in it the Dregs of God's Anger and was mingled with the Sins of men for whom God made him Sin or a Sacrifice for Sin yet he drank it off yielding to his Father's Will as knowing it to be true which he himself taught the two Disciples that Christ must suffer these things and rise from the dead the third day and so enter into his Glory Luk. 24.26 46. And the Promise of this Life animated all the Holy Apostles Martyrs and Saints in their severall Generations to give all diligence to deny themselves to take up their Cross and so to follow Christ even to Death not counting their own Lives dear to them but being zealous to doe and suffer for Christ though with the Loss of all as having learned that whosoever will save his Life shall lose it and whosoever will lose his Life for Christ's sake shall find it Matth. 16.25 What things were gain to me saith S. Paul Phil. 3.7 8 9 10 11. those I have counted Loss for Christ Yea doubtless and I do count all things but Loss for the excellency of the Knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord for whom I have suffered the Loss of all things and do count them but dung that I may win Christ and be found in him that I may know him and the power of his Resurrection and the fellowship of his Sufferings being made conformable unto his Death if by any means I might attain unto the Resurrection of the dead Which occasions them to seek the Path of this Life which is the next thing enquired into and is now to be considered II. What is the Path or what the Ways of this Life The Ways or Path of Life is a Metaphor taken from Travellers who have a certain Track in which they are to tread and by going in which they are guided to the place to which their Journey tends and by its direction are ascertained of coming thither if they hold on their Motion Here in this passage it can be taken for no other then the Means of assurance of their attaining this Life Which in respect of Christ are 1. On God's part the Engagement of his Father to him Isa 53.10 11. that when he should make his Soul an Offering for Sin he should see his Seed he should prolong his days and the pleasure of the Lord should prosper in his hand He should see of the travail of his Soul and be satisfied Christ undertook the great Business of doing his Father's Will which was written in the volume of his Book by offering that Body which his Father had prepared him upon a Contract between them when he came into the world as it is described Heb. 10.5 7 8. And this was that he should so lay down his Life as to take it up again as Christ himself declareth Joh. 10.18 I have power to lay down my Life and to take it up again this Commandment have I received of my Father Which thing made it impossible that he should be holden of the pains of death Act. 2.24 And therefore it is said He foresaw the Lord always before his face as being on his right hand that he should not be moved with the fear of Death vers 25. being firmly assured by his Father's Covenant upon which he put himself on that great Expedition of Coming into the world to save Sinners by the offering of himself that he should not lose by his Adventure but should after his Sufferings enter into his Glory To which is to be adjoyned the Love that his Father bare to him for this reason as he expresseth it Joh. 10.15 17 18. As the Father knoweth me even so I know the Father and I lay down my Life for the Sheep Therefore doth my Father love me because I lay down my Life that I might take it up again No man taketh it from me but I lay it down of my self This unparallel'd Dutifulness of Christ to his Father in yielding so freely to his Self-exinanition and Humiliation unto Death did obtain a singular Love from his Father to him and engage his Truth and Power to revive and superexalt him 2. On Christ's part his ready Obedience to his Father's Will was the Path to Life which therefore he allegeth in that Prayer of his wherein he opened his Bosome to his Father Joh. 17.4 5. I have glorified thee on Earth I have finished the Work thou gavest me to doe And now O Father glorifie thou me with thine own self with the Glory which I had with thee before the World was In respect of Believers the Path of Life to them is 1. On God's part the free Love of God in chusing them to Life termed the writing their Names in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world Rev. 17.8 which because they are given to Christ is said to be the Lamb's Book of life Rev. 21.27 and our Saviour tells them their names are written in Heaven Luk. 10.20 Hereby is Christ engaged to give Life to them as he himself testifieth Joh. 6.39 And this is the Father's will which hath sent me that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing but should raise it up again at the last day And accordingly he saith Joh. 17.2 As thou hast given him power over all flesh that he should give eternall Life to as many as thou hast given him Hereby it is that Christ is
quieting of his Spirit by remembrance of God's Covenant of Grace in Christ the Love of Christ in giving himself for him in the assurance of his Perseverance to the end and the knowledge of his Integrity Yea Holy persons do often go mourning all their days charging themselves with Hypocrisie with Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost with Apostasie condemning themselves as Reprobates uncapable of Pardon destitute of all Grace and so no better then Fire-brands of Hell and this even while they pray for Pardon repent of Sin are of so tender Consciences that they fear to sin against God and would rather die a thousand Deaths then once speak the least evil of Christ or God If none of these Clouds do darken the Joys of Holy men here yet there are other things which do and will certainly while they are on Earth much diminish them The Sins which they see committed by others are no small Vexation to Holy men Just Lot was vexed with the filthy Conversation of the Wicked for dwelling among the Sodomites in hearing and seeing he tormented his righteous Soul from day to day with their unlawfull deeds 2 Pet. 2.7 8. The Sufferings of the Saints are no small Affliction to their Fellow-members If one Member suffer all the Members suffer with it as if one Member be honoured all the Members rejoyce with it 1 Cor. 12.26 Much more are their Sins The incestuous Corinthian's sinfull taking his Father's Wife was matter of Mourning to the whole Church So the Schisms in that Church the Disorders in their Assemblies their Yielding to communicate with Idolaters in their Idolatries their going to Law one with another before Infidels and not composing their Differences between themselves were matter of Affliction to S. Paul I fear saith he 2 Cor. 12.20 21. lest when I come I shall not find you such as I would lest my God will humble me among you and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already and have not repented of the Vncleanness and Fornication and Lasciviousness which they have committed The Ignorance Unteachableness Unfruitfulness of his Hearers much more their falling away into Errours and scandalous Practices is no small Grief to a Godly Pastour which makes him walk heavily and complain to God serving him with many Tears and Temptations Yea the deferring of a Christian's Hope makes his Heart sick he is weary with waiting so that he cries Come Lord Jesus come quickly Our selves which have the First-fruits of the Spirit even we our selves groan within our selves waiting for the Adoption to wit the Redemption of our bodies Rom. 8.23 In this we groan earnestly desiring to be cloathed upon with our house which is from Heaven For we that are in this Tabernacle do groan being burthened not for that we would be uncloathed but cloathed upon that Mortality might be swallowed up of Life Being confident and willing rather to be absent from the Body and to be present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5.2 4 8. But they that are in the Presence of God have all Good They have the most high Descent as being born of God the most perfect Beauty in Soul having the Image of God perfectly restored and at the Resurrection their Bodies fashioned like unto the glorious Body of Christ They become fully Rich being made Heirs of God Joynt-heirs with Christ Rom. 8.17 When they have overcome they shall inherit all things God will be their God and they shall be his Sons Rev. 21.7 They have advancement to Honour and Greatness To him that overcometh saith our Saviour Rev. 3.21 will I grant to sit with me in my Throne even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his Throne I will not say that the Blessed Saints and Angels that stand in God's Presence are omniscient They know not the Secrets of Mens hearts much less the secret Counsels of God whose Ways are unsearchable and whose Paths past finding out That Conceit of some of the Papists about the Speculum Trinitatis the Glass of the Trinity as if by seeing God they could see all things in him according to that saying of Gregory Videt omnia qui videt Videntem omnia is most false though some of them make use of it to excuse their abominable Invocation of Saints deceased whom they absurdly and foolishly pray to for all sorts of Good things though they know neither them nor their Necessities much less their Hearts But I may safely say with the Apostle 1 Cor. 13.9 10 12. Now we know in part and we prophesie in part But when that which is perfect is come then that which is in part shall be done away Now we see through a Glass darkly or in a Riddle but then face to face now I know in part then shall I know even as also I am known The Beatifical Vision of God will perfect our Holiness and Wisedom so far as to free us from all Errour and Folly which now do miserably mislead us from all Ignorance which now doth sadly perplex us it will enlighten us with that Knowledge which will be sufficient to glorifie our God and satisfie our selves As the Light of Heaven exceeds the Light of the Sun so the Light of the Soul in those that are with God exceeds all the Light that was in Adam by Creation in Moses S. John S. Paul or any other of the most inlightned Saints on Earth by Revelation In a word there is no kind of Good which is meet for a created Being and an adopted Child of God to have but it is conferred on those Holy persons that are in the Presence of God which makes their Joys unspeakable and full of Glory But they are still more sweetned from the consideration of the Fountain whence they flow which is next to be considered III. What is the Cause and Motive from whence these Good things these Joys do proceed And that is the Love and Purpose of God which is immutable Ointment and Perfumes rejoyce the Heart so doth the sweetness of a man's Friend by hearty Counsell saith Solomon Prov. 27.9 The Love and hearty Welcome that a man meets with makes the Feast the more pleasant Eat not thou the Bread of him that hath an evil Eye neither desire thou his dainty Meats For as he thinketh in his heart so is he Eat and drink saith he to thee but his heart is not with thee The Morsell which thou hast eaten thou shalt vomit up and lose thy sweet words Prov. 23.6 7 8. Oftentimes men are invited to a great Feast but it is not out of Love but for some sordid Ends to engage them in something which they will find cause after to repent of it is not with True-heartedness which makes many sad at Feasts as fearing an After-reckoning Joseph's Brethren when they sate at meat with him marvelled one at another Gen. 43.33 not well knowing whereto that Invitation tended When men believe they are welcome indeed and that they are feasted in
besides him yea when there are very many very potent very malicious Enemies against them yet even then God makes them dwell in Safety and Confidence The Lord saith David Psal 27.1 2 3 5. is my Light and my Salvation whom shall I fear the Lord is the Strength of my life of whom shall I be afraid When the Wicked even mine Enemies and my Foes came upon me to eat up my flesh they stumbled and fell Though an Hoast should encamp against me my Heart should not fear though War should rise against me in this will I be confident For in the time of Trouble he shall hide me in his Pavilion in the secret of his Tabernacle shall he hide me he shall set me upon a Rock The many Experiences he had of remarkable Evasions and Deliverances when he was as it were in the Lion's mouth how he killed Goliah alone with a Sling and a Stone and cut off his Head with his own Sword how he slew the Lion and the Bear how he avoided Saul's Javelin cast at him escaped Apprehension in his Bed by his Wife Michal's Cunning Saul's Fury by his Rapture and Prophesying at Ramah the Treachery of the men of Keilah the Malevolence of the Ziphims the Design of the Philistines in the Court of Achish King of Gath these made him full of Confidence of God's Assistence in the greatest imminent Perils though he were Single and had none that he could trust to It was no news to David that God's Power is no whit abated by the Multitude of Enemies and the want of Helpers Abraham's Victory over the Kings that took Sodom Pharaoh's Overthrow at the Red Sea Sampson's Slaughter of the Philistines with the Jaw-bone of an Ass his carrying away the Gates of Azzah Shamgar's slaying of 600 Philistines with an Ox-goad Jonathan and his Armour-bearer's Victory over the same People were such Examples as made his Heart to be fixed and not to shrink at evil Tidings The like Assurance of God's Might made Asa when he was invaded by Zerah the Ethiopian with an Army of a Thousand thousand and 300 Chariots to cry unto the Lord his God Lord it is nothing with thee to help whether with many or with them that have no power 2 Chron. 14.11 And of this Deliverance then Hanani the Seer minds him when he let go his Faith in God and relied on the King of Syria Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubims a huge Hoast with very many Chariots and Horsemen yet because thou didst rely on the Lord he delivered them into thine hand For the Eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole Earth to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose Heart is perfect towards him 2 Chron. 16.8 9. Elisha was not dismaied at the Army of the Syrians which besieged him in Dothan he knew there were more with him then against him though his Servant's eyes could discern none to be present but Enemies Hezekiah was not terrified by the proud Vaunts of Rabshakeh or the reviling menacing Letter of Sennacherib He knew that the God of Israel was the Lord even he onely that the everlasting God the Lord the Creatour of the ends of the Earth neither fainteth nor is weary there is no searching of his Vnderstanding that he giveth Power to the faint and to them that have no Might he increaseth Strength Even the youths shall faint and be weary and the young men shall utterly fall But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their Strength they shall mount up with wings as Eagles they shall run and not be weary they shall walk and not faint as it is Isa 40.28 29 30 31. The same Spirit in a more ample measure was in the Holy Apostles when they were brought before the Jewish Sanhedrim S. Paul when it was foretold by Agabus that he should be bound at Jerusalem when he was brought before the Council of the Jews the Roman Governours Felix Festus and King Agrippa knew in whom he believed that he was able to keep the Depositum that which he had committed to him When he received the Sentence of death in himself he trusted in him that raiseth from the dead Thus S. Stephen when stoned commended his Spirit into the hands of his Saviour and fell asleep And this brings me to the III. OBSERVATION That in Assurance that God onely makes them though alone and destitute of Help from any else to dwell in Safety Confidence or Hope Holy Believers can quietly take their Repose lie down and sleep though environed with Enemies even the chiefest Hell and Death and him that hath the power of Death to wit the Devil This frame of Spirit Holy David did discover in many of the Psalms especially in the 31. where having avouched God to be his strong Rock and his House of defence to save him vers 2. he thereupon without any Commotion of mind deposits himself with God Into thine hand saith he I commit my Spirit Thou hast redeemed me O Lord God of Truth vers 5. He was assured that he was his God that his Times were in his hands that great was his Goodness which was laid up for them that fear him that he would hide them in his Presence from the Pride of man that he would keep them secretly in a Pavilion from the strife of Tongues that he preserveth the Faithfull and therefore exhorts them to be of good Courage and God should strengthen the Heart of all them that hope in the Lord vers 14 15 19 20 23 24. But in none was this Composedness of Soul so eminent as it was in our Lord Christ who though it pleased the Lord to bruise him to put him to Grief though he were injured more then any man he was inclosed with the assembly of the Wicked they pierced his Hands and his Feet though his Heart like wax was melted in the midst of his Bowells and he cried out O God my God why hast thou forsaken me why art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my Roaring though his Soul was made an Offering for Sin yet did he then pray for his Enemies Father forgive them for they know not what they doe and when he had cried with a loud voice he said Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit and so gave up the Ghost Luk. 23.46 He did no Sin neither was Guile found in his mouth when he was reviled he reviled not again when he suffered he threatned not but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously 1 Pet. 2.22 23. The same Tranquillity of mind did S. Stephen shew at his death And after the Example of the chief Shepherd of their Souls and the Protomartyr of the Christian Profession have the Holy Martyrs and Confessours in all Ages with the greatest Fortitude and Undauntedness of spirit conjoyned with Serenity and Calmness of mind unconquerable Patience and Submission to God's Will far beyond the Philosophers Insensibleness or Roman Stoutness which
out It is Goodness and not Greatness we are desirous to see and do freely remember and pleasingly celebrate We sometimes are willing to hear of the Exaltation of another and are ready to magnify it but not without Regret of mind unless there be a Complication of Goodness with Greatness The Magnificence of a great Prince is a pleasing Object to us when we know him to be gracious kind mercifull and bountifull otherwise what-ever we doe with our Eyes and Knees and Tongues yet our Hearts are averse from him But when these concurre when Power is tempered with Love and that Love is a cordiall Benevolence as it is in my Text then it deserves a Videte as here Behold what manner of love c. Which leads me to the next thing II. The Authour it is the Love of the Father The Love of a Friend is highly valued by us How doth David celebrate the Love of Jonathan to himself My Brother Jonathan very pleasant hast thou been unto me thy Love to me was wonderfull 2 Sam. 1.26 And indeed his Love was admirable who preferred a Friend before a Father who endeavoured to preserve him whom his Father sought to destroy yea then stuck fast to him when he might and perhaps did understand that David's Advancement to the Throne of Israel would be his and his Posteritie's Ruine Yet this Love is not comparable to the Love of a Father A Father loves his Child though his Child loves not him A Father loves his Child and will doe him good before himself will like Zalencus pluck out his Eye to preserve his Child's venture and cast away his Life to save his Child's Fathers care little what they eat wear undergoe how they labour so as their Children be well and well provided for And such is the Love that S. John calls to us to behold Behold what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed on us God is the Father by way of excellency the Father of Fathers the Universall Father who hath formed all things the Father of all Men for we are all his Off-spring Act. 17.28 But in a peculiar manner he is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of his Love Col. 1.3 He proclaimed from Heaven Matth. 3.17 This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased His orient brightest Love shines most directly in its Zenith on Christ he is under the Line but it shines also on us from him He hath made us accepted or Favourites in the beloved Eph. 1.6 And so he is become the Father of all the Saints adopted in Christ Jesus and made the Children of God by Faith in Christ Jesus Gal. 3.26 'T is this Father's Love that is here presented to be seen His who is styled the Father of Mercies the God of all Consolation 2 Cor. 1.3 the Father of Lights from whom every good and every perfect Gift cometh with whom is no Variableness or shadow of turning Jam. 1.17 the Father who is Love it self in the abstract 1 Joh. 4.16 God is love It is not an Accident in him but his very Essence so that if he cease to love he ceaseth to be Dulce nomen Patris The Name of a Father is a sweet Name especially of such a Father I will goe to my Father said the Prodigall Son when he knew not what to doe being brought into great Extremities Though he had wasted his Estate by playing the Unthrift yet he saith I will arise and goe to my Father and say unto him I have sinned against Heaven and in thy sight and am no more worthy to be called thy Son and his Father meets him hath Compassion on him runs to him falls on his Neck and kisses him puts on him the best Robe a Ring on his hand Shoes on his feet kills the fatted Calf eats and drinks and is merry with him after all his Miscarriages Luk. 15. So forcible so free so indulgent so active so constant and so unalterable is the Love of a Father If there be so much Water in a River there is more in the Ocean if so much Love in an Earthly Father there is infinitely more in the Heavenly Father Be you perfect saith our Lord Matth. 5.48 as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect As he is perfect in all his Attributes his Wisedome Power Truth Justice so also in his Love Whence it is that his Love is an everlasting Love I have loved thee with an everlasting Love therefore with Loving-kindness have I drawn thee saith God in the Prophet Jerem. 31.3 His Love is an unchangeable Love his Gifts and Calling are without Repentance Rom. 11.29 His Love is a preventing Love bears date afore ours 1 Joh. 4.19 We love him because he first loved us His Love is a most pure Love it hath no sordid End no mercenary Motive I doe not this saith God for your sakes O House of Israel but for my Holy Name 's sake Ezek. 36.22 It is pure Goodness meer Love that sets God on work to doe good to us it is the Love of a Father which hath no reason from without him but from his own nature it is a most active Love not in shew onely but in deed and in truth it is an immense Love that hath a Height and a Depth a Length and a Breadth without bounds a rich Love God who is rich in Mercies for his great Love wherewith he hath loved us even when we were dead in Sins hath quickned us together with Christ Eph. 2.4 5. a Love so ample and full that he gave his own Son for us and with him hath freely given us all things Rom. 8.32 And all is done gratis without Fee or Compensation which is next to be observed III. The Freeness of it it is given or bestowed Donatur say the Civill Lawyers quod nullo Jure cogente conceditur That is said to be given which cannot by any Law be enforced Sure that Love which the Father vouchsafes to us is such as there was no Reason to demand it no Title whereupon to claim it It was Love to us before we thought of it I was found saith God Rom. 10.20 of them that sought me not I was made manifest to them that asked not after me Yea God commendeth his Love towards us in that while we were yet Sinners Christ died for us When we were Enemies we were reconciled to God by the Death of his Son Rom. 5.8 10. There was nothing in us but Hatred of God when he loved us and we were so far from any Merit de Condigno of Condignity or de Congruo of Congruity that indeed there was the greatest Demerit in us So far were we from deserving God's Love that we rather merited to be rejected by him by reason of our many Provocations of him to Anger as the proper Fruit of our Demeanour The Wages of Sin is Death but the Gift of God is eternall Life through Jesus Christ our Lord Rom. 6.23 Nor could
Desire of all Nations and that he was the Person whom the Godly did delight in and expect for what Reason appears by the III. OBSERVATION That the Certainty of the coming of Christ's Day was the Spring of Joy the Basis of Comfort the Stay and Support of their Spirits to Believers of old in the days of their Pilgrimage on Earth For this we have the words of S. Peter Act. 2.25 26 30. That David being a Prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an Oath to him that of the fruit of his Loins according to the flesh he would raise up Christ to sit on his Throne spake concerning Christ that therefore did his Heart rejoyce and his Tongue was glad and his Flesh did rest in hope And Heb. 11.26 it is said that by Faith Moses esteemed the Reproach of Christ greater Riches then the Treasures in Egypt And of Simeon it is said that he waited for his coming in the Flesh as the Consolation of Israel and accordingly when he had seen him he took him up in his Arms and blessed God and said his Nunc dimittis Lord now lettest thou thy Servant depart in peace according to thy word for mine eyes have seen thy Salvation Luk. 2.25 28 29 30. And conformable to these was also the frame of Spirit in all the Holy Believers when he appeared in the Flesh As persons over-joyed they were in a Rapture of Comfort so as that they could not contain themselves but must break out into holy Hymns of Praise My Soul doth magnifie the Lord said his Mother and my Spirit hath rejoyced in God my Saviour For he hath regarded the low estate of his Handmaiden And Blessed be the Lord God of Israel said Zacharias for he hath visited and redeemed his People and hath raised up an Horn of Salvation for us in the House of his Servant David When the Wise men of the East saw his Star they rejoyced with exceeding great Joy Matth. 2.10 And when the Angel had told the Shepherds that he brought them good Tidings of great Joy which should be to all People of the Birth of Christ in the City of David upon which there were with the Angel suddenly a multitude of the Heavenly Hoast praising God and saying Glory be to God in the highest and on Earth Peace Good will towards men the Shepherds in hast went to view Christ in the Manger and upon their Return glorified and praised God Hallelujahs were then the Exercise of all that knew of his Birth and so they were of all the Holy Patriarchs and Prophets when they did by Divine Revelation foresee and by Faith wait for his Coming And the same spirit of Joy shewed it self after in all those that saw his Day either with their bodily Eyes or by the Eye of Faith When Andrew finds Peter as over-joyed he tells him We have found the Messiah which is being interpreted the Christ When Philip finds Nathanael he is in the same tune We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and the Prophets did write Jesus of Nazareth the Son of Joseph Joh. 1.41 45. And of succeeding Believers S. Peter saith 1 Pet. 1.8 Whom having not seen ye love in whom though now ye see him not yet believing ye rejoyce with Joy unspeakable and full of Glory So that I may by an Induction of Particulars raising the Observation from the Hypothesis to the Thesis conclude universally That the Day of Christ is to all Believers the Spring of their Joy the Basis of their Comfort the Stay and Support of their Spirits in the days of their Pilgrimage upon Earth The Reasons whereof are common to all Believers Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to day and for ever Though the Mystery of the Gospell was not so clearly nor so fully revealed before as it was by the Apostles Preaching but from the beginning of the world was in a sort hid in God yet in no Age was there Salvation in any other none other Name under Heaven given among men whereby they must be saved He onely hath been the Way the Truth and the Life so that none come to the Father but by him Abel Enoch Noah Abraham Moses David and all the rest of the Holy Saints in foregoing Generations had Salvation by Faith in Christ as really as S. Peter and S. Paul or any of the Holy Martyrs and Confessours in the Catholick Church It is true the Knowledge of Christ was not so clearly revealed to the sons of men before his Coming in the Flesh as it was after when the Day-spring from on high visited us to give Light to them that sit in Darkness and in the Shadow of Death to guide our feet into the way of Peace And therefore John Baptist exceeded all the Prophets foregoing he being the man that could say Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the Sins of the World Yet the Apostles yea the least in the Kingdom of Heaven that can preach Christ Born Baptized Preaching Dying Rising Ascended into Heaven is greater then John the Baptist as having seen and heard that which many Prophets and Kings desired to hear and see but did not The Knowledge the Patriarchs had was Vespertine the Apostles and ours comparatively Meridian Besides before Christ's Ascension the Knowledge of him was not so amply revealed for though a few of the Gentiles found Christ yet the Way of Salvation was not prepared before the face of all People so as that Christ became a Light to lighten the Gentiles as well as to be the Glory of his people Israel But when S. Paul was made the Apostle of the Gentiles Christ was set to be a Light to the Gentiles that he might be for Salvation unto the ends of the Earth Act. 13.47 S. Peter was taught to call none common or unclean but to preach to the Gentiles as being those to whom also God had granted Repentance unto Lefe Act. 11.18 Whence the same way of Salvation was vouchsafed to Cornelius that was to Abraham Cornelius had his Faith imputed to him for Righteousness as well as Abraham God put no difference between them and us having purified their Hearts by Faith saith S. Peter Act. 15.9 He was the God not onely of the Jews but also of the Gentiles seeing it was one God which should justifie the Circumcision by Faith and Vncircumcision through Faith Rom. 3.29 30. And hence as Abraham rejoyced to see Christ's Day so did the Wise men of the East and in all that were made Holy Converts by the preaching of the Gospel there was the same Joy for the kind which was in Abraham all with the same Spirit of Faith glorified Christ though some with more enlarged Hearts then others In the Effects of this Joy Praising God Loving Christ and Adhering to him there is the same Mind in all the same Hope the same Expressions though not to the same degree in all In some Ages the Joy was more extensive then in others in
Vexations from those unruly People which he had led out of Egypt And all this onely because it was thus appointed him by God and having respect unto the Recompence of Reward which he should give him And indeed God would have all his Saints to be thus minded It is that which all the Seed of Abraham by Faith in God must and do expect an uncertain and ambulatory Estate in this World no immutable or fixed Habitation no Paradise upon Earth David saith of himself and his Ancestours Psal 39.12 I am a Stranger with thee and a Sojourner as all my Fathers were And to shew that the matter is not mended in this respect since Christ's Coming in the Flesh As Christ had no place certain not so much as a place whereon to rest his head but went up and down and at last suffered without the Gate of Jerusalem so saith the Apostle Heb. 13.13 14. it is God's determination that we goe forth unto him without the Camp bearing his Reproach for here we have no continuing City but we seek that one to come even the New Jerusalem that cometh down from God out of Heaven Rev. 21.2 10. And indeed there are very urgent Reasons wherefore God so ordereth the Estate of his People that it should be thus changeable and unsettled both in respect of his own Glory and their Good On both which accounts they comply with God in his Design as being regulated in their Resolutions and Motions by Faith in God whom they apprehend as their best Friend and most faithfull Guide 1. For first hereby God refutes that malicious Slander which the Devil suggested to God against Job as if he feared and served God onely because God had made an Hedge about him and about his house and about all that he had on every side had blessed the work of his hands and his Substance was increased in the Land Job 1.10 But God though he permitted Satan to bereave Job of his Goods and Children and Ease yet proved the Devil a Liar and Job true-hearted whom no Sufferings could make to curse God And in the like manner he suffers the Patience and Obedience of his Servants to be tried whom though he keeps low yet they own God stick to him and shew themselves to be sincere-hearted and find him in the conclusion to be a God to be trusted And by this their Adherence to God and Experience of his Fidelity they become Witnesses for the Lord that he is God as it is said Isa 43.12 2. By this way of God's Providence in disposing thus of his People their Spiritual and Eternal Good is greatly promoted for they learn hereby not to love the World and the things that are in the World so as to chuse their Portion in them not to conform themselves to the men of this World As standing Pools gather Mud when running Springs yield clear Waters so it is with men who are at Ease that have no Changes who live at Rest and in Pleasure They surfeit of these earthly Dainties are infected with worldly Thoughts have no taste of the Rivers of God's Pleasures are settled on their Lees as not emptied from Vessell to Vessell their Taste remaineth in them and their Sent is not changed A Dives a man that hath his Goods encreased minds nothing but building his Barns and taking his Ease thinks not on his Death on Judgment to come or being rich towards God But the Lord to prevent this Danger whereas the men of this World become as Beasts fed to the full as kept onely for the day of Slaughter orders his Sheep to be removed from Mountain to Mountain to be in bare Pastures yet to have sufficient and which is the chiefest of all Acquaintance and Communion with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ and his Holy Spirit And indeed the Enjoyment of these Spirituall Blessings doth make abundant Compensation for the Want of that Ease and Pleasure which the Grandees of the Earth have For should God let them enjoy brave Palaces with much Abundance and all those Delights that others are Masters of yet these would be found as Solomon proveth them to be Vanity of Vanities not without their mixture with Cares and Fears concerning the future if not with Vexation of Spirit for the present Diseases and Discontents being incident to such a state of Life And that which would most annoy God's Children in such a Condition is that a full Estate breeds much Sin as Ulcers of Pride and a Spirit of Slumber in forgetting God besides the Evil to which worldly Society exposeth them Abraham lived at more Ease with much more Content and Delight in his Tents on the Hills of Canaan then Lot did in Sodom which he chose to dwell in where he was made a Prisoner first and when rescued by Abraham he vexed his righteous Soul from day to day with the unclean Conversation of the Sodomites in hearing and seeing their unlawfull deeds though at last he were freed out of that cursed Place And therefore every one of us is to conceive God speaketh so to him as he spake Mic. 2.10 Anise and depart for this is not your Rest because it is polluted Nor can we be partakers of the Divine Nature without escaping the Corruption that is in the World through Lust 2 Pet. 1.4 Saul's Court was not so good to David as the Wilderness in which he was hunted as a Partridge on the mountains Then he made the sweetest Psalms and sang them with the most pleasant Melody when forced to leave Saul's Court he fled to God as to his Sanctuary Yea it was better with him when he was in the Field against the Philistines then when being at home at Rest and Ease he walked on the Roof of his house and saw Bathsheba Sure this present Estate with all its Advantages is but a transitory Condition The World passeth away and the Lust thereof and therefore it is not so eligible as the Favour of God here much less as the beholding of his Face in Righteousness hereafter And the worst Condition a Saint can be in who depends on God and follows him as Abraham did is but a Storm Nubecula est citò transibit it will quickly blow over as that Holy man said of the Arian Persecution This light Affliction which is but for a moment will work for us if we walk humbly with our God a far more exceeding and eternall weight of Glory While we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen for the things which are seen are Temporall but the things which are not seen are Eternall 2 Cor. 4.17 18. APPLICATION And now I beseech you take this matter into your serious Consideration If you be indeed Children of Abraham and expect to be in Abraham's Bosome the Course that God took with Abraham must not be unpleasant to you If you will have your Good things in this Life you must expect to have the Rich