yea all grace abound that you should have all things and all-sufficiency in all things yea and alway have it so that you may abound O brethren there is more riches in such a promise then in a thousand worlds if we could but live by faith in such a promise we should be fuller handed and freer hearted and more abound in good works of all kinds Well this is the sixth Seventhly He will present them to his Father without spot or wrinkle or any such thing a glorious Church as there it is now alas Brethren the Saints sometimes lye among the Pots here the Apostle speaks of the top of the Saints perfection that which is due or which they are capable of There shall be no privation any more we are now but changing into his image from glory to glory then he will bring us to his father in full brightness of glory If the Church on earth brethren the glory of the Bride be so great as to be compared in her primitive purity to the glory of the Sun a woman cloathed with the Sun what will it be when Christ shall appear with him in glory No deformity shall there then be brethren but the Church shall be altogether lovely But here further by spot or wrinkle are meant the stain and deformity of sin onely or else the deformity of sin and suffering both Of sin if so then by spot we may understand any greater stain or blemish by wrinkle any less deformity by spot a gross sin by wrinkle an ordinary infirmity Or else by spot any sinful work by wrinkle any failing even in good works there shall be nothing but uprightness or else as some even Mr. Caryl making a double Metaphor yet to the like purpose there shall be no deformity which usually followeth age in things and persons In things an old garment is usually spotted and defiled In persons wrinkles use to deform them you know the moisture consuming the skin shrivels up and the beauty is gone now saith the Lord there shall be none of all this no such deformity no old things all shall be done away and all things shall become new they shall be like the purest garment in its gloss and lustre like the purest face in its flower no deformity at all Or else by spot we may understand sin and by wrinkle sorrow and so we know that sorrow will dry up the bones and marrow and moisture my flesh and my skin he hath made old that is to say by reason of sorrow it wrinkles the face breaks the beauty sarrows the Cheeks brings deformity upon the greatest beauty now there shall be no such thing sin there shall be none all pardoned yea all far removed none inherent as you heard before all glorious no deformity no vileness and then no sorrow neither to abate our fulness of joy but a merry heart a joy to swallow up now the wings shall be covered with silver and feathers with yellow gold yea those very afflictions wherewith we have been racked shall work out an exceeding and far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory specially if they be for Christ here is a priviledge indeed brethren nor any such thing any thing which themselvs or others may suspect to be a spot c. But then his presenting them to his father this is after the manner of men you know Isaac took his spouse and presented her to his father and brought her into his mothers Tent so will the Lord Jesus present his Church to his father here is my spouse now in that glory which I have put upon her the price of my blood this is my glory and he will not be ashamed to confess his people to own them for his Bride before his father at that day and then he will bring them into his fathers house there to abide with the Lord forever there to be swallowed up of his love and likeness forevermore O blessed soul that labours now under a body of sin and death and art loathsom in thine eyes lift up thy head this day draweth nigh every spot shall be done away yea there shall be nothing like a wrinkle upon thy soul O what will this be to the soul that is weary of sin indeed 4. Vse of the Doctrine shall be then to teach us the Dignity and Duty of a Gospel-Ministry Their dignity they are such as are intrusted with this great work to fit a spouse to Jesus Christ to reconcile her to him to espouse her to him they are no ordinary servants the Lord sends about such works yea even you see Eleazer was no mean servant the ruler of the house Princes send their Embassadors to treat about Marriages for them So we saith the Apostle in Christs stead as if he did beseech you To be the friends of the Bridegroom is no small priviledge but I will not stand upon this but rather a word or two of the Duty you may see how great it is that you may be the more moved to pray for them 1. Then the Duty lyes in this that we woo for Christ and not for our selves he that hath the Bride is the Bridegroom saith John but the friend of the Bridegroom envyeth him not that happiness but would further it what he can and that is his rejoycing this my joy is fulfilled saith he that people come in to Christ It is a sad thing brethren when we shall be found at the day of account to have spoken it may be but one word for Christ and two for our selves the Apostle tells us of some that should arise in the Church of Ephesus speaking perverse things to draw Disciples after them I pray you mind to draw Disciples after them not after Christ It is sad I say when men shall compass the Sea and Land to make a Proselyte to an Opinion much pains laid out this way and when all cometh to all it shall prove but Copper and not gold but Jesus Christ is little beholding to them or if we preach Jesus Christ and intend our selves to lift up our own names and not the name of Christ O this is great unfaithfulness saith the Apostle Paul speaking of that Corinthian Church much like ours I am of Paul c. were you baptized into the name of Paul was he crucified for you c. Alas saith he I have done nothing but wooed you for Christ espoused you to one Husband and not to so many The children of the Bride-Chamber are never called together to prostitute the Bride to them but to rejoyce and celebrate the Marriage with more solemnity Yea by how much the greater honor it is to have the charge of the Bride by so much the greater sin it is to deal falsly with Christ in it and to draw them after our selves when we should draw men after the Lord Jesus 2. Their Duty is to present them to the Lord Jesus as a pure virgin having espoused
not think of him until he first think ofâ—hee nor work towards him until his heart hath been working towards thee and is not that demonstrate that he is willing to receive thee to make a match with thee though we be worms and no men have cause to cry out if we were never so holy Lord what is man that thou art so mindful of him as to visit him with such salvation make him so near thy self in thy son Yea surely he is willing he would not have moved towards thee else he doth not use to mock poor Creatures to make them believe his heart is towards them and when their heart echo again and say thy face Lord will we seek then to shut up his bowels and shut out their desires Brethren take heed of too much being alive to the Law for that seemeth to be the savour of our spirit while unworthiness is the obstruction to our coming to Jesus Christ we must be dead brethren to the Law and the righteousness thereof all our performances and best duties else we cannot live to Jesus Christ The Lord Jesus never matched with a Creature because it was worthy of him of so near an union with him for alas what creature being but a creature can be wotthy of such an union with the Lord of life and glory No no he â—akes an Ethiopian and washeth her clean from her filthiness before he hath done with her nothing but that fullers sope will fetch out the spots Yea I will say one thing more that the Lord Jesus never Matched with any that thought themselves worthy of him there is an encouragement to such poor drooping soâ—lâ— did Paul think himself worthy of Christ nothing less nor any of the Saints He that will not have Christ freely is never like to have him I will love them freely saith he No saith many a proud sinner thou shalt not love us freely we hope to approve our selves worthy of thy love I tell you brethren such a soul hath not known what the meaning of grace is to this day Well then remember be you as unworthy as you can in your own apprehension all the mercies of God purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ they are freely offered and tendered to you this day to thee man to thee woman that art viler then the earth in thine own eyes yea to hard hearted sinners that see not themselves they are tendered to melt them down and if this will not do it nothing will do it O that I could speak of these bowels with such bowels as some of your hearts might be stirred and moved this day but so much for this second 3. Motive the Lord Jesus is not only willing thus to communicate himself to poor sinners but it is his delight so to do It is the satisfaction of the soul of Jesus Christ when he beholdeth the precious mercies purchased by his blood accepted of by poor sinners and to work mightily in them and to them He shall see his Seed and shall be satisfied the father is satisfied and the son is satisfied when they behold this this is all that they expect the father for his love such a love as the world cannot paralel a Sic without a Siout God so loved the world It is all he expecteth that those mercies which he hath purchased should be freely be bestowed upon and freely accepted of by poor sinners and it is the satisfaction of Jesus Christ also it is all he expecteth of us I say the continual streaming of that fountain opened for sin and for uncleaness they are as if he had said I have enough for all my pains my sweat my agony my eclipsing for the pangs of hell in my soul for my death and blood and burial all the contempts powred out upon me and the sorrow â—endured though there was never grief like mine yet this is enough saith he he shall be satisfied if he do but see poor sinners to receive him and so become his Seed close with him and so become his spouse for it is the same thing though clothed with a diverse Metaphor Brethren iâ— may be you would satisfie Christ another way you would do this and that for him Labour as abundantly as you can be as holy as you can perform your duties in as lively a manner as you can but when you have done all if you hang your peace and comfort upon this and not in your free acceptance of Christ and with Christ you seem yet to be marryed to the Law and not to Christ or at least you turn aside to your former Husband a Covenant of works this is a dissatisfactiou to Jesus Christ as if there were not riches of grace in him to swallow up all your unworthiness O Brethren that the Lord would perswade your hearts this day what a delight and satisfaction it is to him to see poor sinners come and lye at his foot and willing to receive him to match with him notwithstanding their unworthiness 4. Consider but how little a thing will do the deed and espouse thee to the Lord Jesus Alas you will say you find it a hard thing to believe as hard a thing as to keep the Law It is so in respect of our strength but many they mistake and think except they have such and such a strength of faith they have none at all nor do not close with him nor he with them If they could say with Thomas my Lord and my God or with the spouse my beloved is mine and I am his then there were some encouragement indeed Brethren if it be but as a grain of Mustardseed it will do the deed look upon me all ye ends of the earth and be ye saved A look upon a woman to lust after her is Adultery in heart it is a heart union of two to one flesh for it is yet the heart the mind that seeth more then the eye the eye may look upon many things and discern nothing distinctly if the mind be upon another thing so here why should not a look after Jesus Christ to desire him when the soul hath a sight of him passing by in his Glory O that he were my Husband O that I were Marryed to him that he would accept of me O happy souls that enjoy seeking communion with him This Brethren at the first is enough to make a Match between us As the Lord Jesus is willing to have thee art thou willing poor trembling soul to have him have him thou shalt yea thou hast him already though this saith must grow up to a greater measure happily before thou cast discern it or have the comfort of it Only lest any should be mistaken I will here give a word or Direction or Caution First take heed of thinking thou art willing when thou art not for as there are many poor drooping souls who think they are not willing to have Christ when it is that their souls do ever break for
up any of them instead of Christ But enough of this The Second thing or point of wisdom is in keeping that which we have the good we have that is a chief point of wisdom indeed Nonminor est virtus do you not count him a fool that takes great pains to get an estate to get much and is as lavish of it takes no care to keep it when he hath done lets one run away with one pâ—râ— another with another part why now here is the case an hypocrite a formal professor a foolish virgin hath something he hath common grace happily he hath many duties and services but all these will be taken away from him he cannot keep his garments nor doth he take the course to keep them for he that would keep these things must look after somewl at more the power of Christ within to inable to improve these to his glory else he that hath not from him shall be taken even that which he hath you have leaves of profession these shall be taken away But the Third thing is more considerable and that indeed I think will prove comprehensive of the two points and of wisdom and that is to avoid carefully the evil which they fear the greater the evil the greater should be the fear of it if he be a wise man Now the evil which we will speak of shall be the Soul-Evil which must needs be the worst corruptio optimi est pessima and evil by how much the more destructive it is by so much the more wisdom is requisite to avoid it and by how much the more eminent it is hanging our head this evil brethren is not the loss of outward things which are perishable not the suffering of temporal troubles these may run into the soul of a Joseph and a Job and they triumph over them their blessedness will be above all these they have oyl at top but what is it then 1. The Malum damni the great evil of loss is the loss of a precious soul that nothing is able to purchase but the blood of Jesus Christ if the blood of Jesus do not deliver thy soul there remaineth no more Sacrifice for sin if thou fall short of this which is already offered O what shall a man give in exchange for his soul when it is once lost shal he give ten thousand Rivers of oyl or golden Mountains or the fruit of his body Alas all this is nothing to the loss of the soul and what is the loss of the soul but the loss of the face and favour of God in Jesus Christ for ever that is the death of the soul which is the souls loss to be separated from him the loss of the beauty of the soul and the end of it to serve him and be glorifyed with him 2. The inflicting of the heaviest suffering is the poena sensus that is to say when God poureth out the burning coals of his wrath upon the naked Conscience whipping the naked and galled Conscience with Scorpions to eternity O this dwelling with devouring fire and everlasting burning without a shadow will make the sinners in Sion afraid and fearfulness surprizeth the hypocrites O it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God Heb. 10. 31. According to his power so is his wrath as is the man so is his might said he of Gideon as is the ability so is the arm to lay heavy stroaks not to dispatch us as he said but to sink for ever he is able to destroy both soul and body in hell Now the means to avoid this evil are the same that before no other way in the world but to get into the City of refuge if they rest and stay by the way this evil will seize upon them and their blood wil be upon their own heads But wherein doth a formal professors folly and a Saints wisdom appear in reference to this 1. He that foreseeth not an evil coming upon him is not so wise as he should be the prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself this providence is a great part of prudence for a man to see a mist no further then under his feet like the beast is a great folly a wise man hath his eye in his head do you think that man that buildeth his house upon the sand did foresee the showers c. a house they must have somewhat to shade them from the weather but here is the folly to build upon such a foundation not foreseeing what is like to befall it O that my people were wise that they would consider their latter end they sit not down and consider c. 2. If they have now and then a hint of it yet they make no provision against it as it is likely Hypocrites have some grudgings sometimes and some discoveries of their hypocrisy rottenness of their houses they have builded and yet they heed it not this is worse is not this great folly yea how often are you warned and awakened and yet you will not stir if a man should see a storm coming that will destroy his house except he fortifie it and should not care were not he a fool they will not hide themselves from the storm 3. It is folly rather to run a hazard of a greater evil that is future though certain then to undergo a much less evil though present as for instance a man would rather venture his life unavoidably then he would take such a bitter potion the young man in the Gospel that went far he would notwithstanding venture his soul rather then his estate and is not this the Condition of many formal Professors Alas brethren if a little reproach or persecution for Christs sake come and the way of Christ be a disgraced way they count the riches of Egypt greater treasure then their souls and heaven and therefore venture all upon it O this is folly 4. Yea a man that would lose a far greater good to gain a less is a fool and what shall a man gain if he get the world and lose his soul and what shall an Hypocrite get by his close ways of unrighteous gaining if he lose his soul will it countervail it if laid in the balance together What will you gain if you have never so much reputation for wise and holy men which is the thing you seek likely many of you seek honour one of another and lose the soul in the mean time gape at the shadow and lose the substance O this is a folly with a witness that will part with Gold for Counters with Pearls for Pebbles and yet such is the Condition of a formal Professor of Christ If this be so then a man that contents himself with a profession of Christ without the enjoyment of him is a fool and the contrary is a wise man then First We see that God and the world are of two minds O that men would be but perswaded
shortness of our patience alas it is very short the Apostle to the Hebrews doth exhort them to hold out against persecutions to hold fast their confidence which hath recompence of reward Alas but it is tedious thus to run through fire and water to have wave upon wave and billow upon billow why it is true saith the Apostle But you have need of patience that when you have done his will you might receive the promise the promise of his coming the apearing of Christ who is our life Alas but can we endure it O it is long No saith the Apostle for yet a little while and he that shall come will come do not think it long think not he is slack he will not tarry O brethren a man under a hard bondage groaning as the Israelites did in Egypt thinketh every day seven until he be delivered and therefore the Prophet exhorts them to wait for the vision which was for an appointed time it would not tarry by the medicine you may gather the nature of the malady it was impatience under their bondage and trouble and therefore you find so many sad complaints in the Psalmist how long Lord c. how long wilt thou forget me for ever c. and so the souls under the Altar how long Lord holy and true wilt thou not avenge our blood And so under spiritual pressures suppose temptations from without or inward pressures a body of sin and death we are ready to cry out how long Lord how long How did Job long for death he had such wearisom nights and moneths of vanity when God made him possess the iniquities of his youth Well in this respect also he may be said to delay according to our apprehensions 4. In respect of the importunity of our desires as well as impatientcy under afflictions this is an impatiency too and might be a branch of the other but a man that hath not that pressure upon him yet if he be deeply in love with Jesus Christ and with his appearing O how importunate are his desires after it so that as the Apostle calls it there is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a looking out after it with a neck or head stretched out as a man that looks for a thing stirring up himself stretcheth out his neck lifteth up his head that he may see as far as he can looking many a wishly look after the thing he desires or person he desires The proverb is true in this case etiam celeritas in desiderio mora est And in this case now a man is ready to think there is a delay when there is most swiftness when God is a most swift witness for or against such a person our desires run before it usually and so it seemeth to slack and come behind O when shall I come and appear before him in Sion Not only Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart c. but O how long wilt thou thou keep me prisoner in this Tabernacle of clay Now in all these respects he may be said to delay his coming but so much for the opening of the Doctrine Now for the Arguments I shall speak a little to them And the First may be this The time is appointed for his coming he hath appointed a time wherein c. which he will not anticipate so neither will he stay beyond it the Second shall be this it is to excercise his peoples patience to inure them to bear patience works experience and experience hope the richer the patience is the richer the experience is and the nearer we come to a full assurance of hope the riches of it Now the exercise of patience the spirit breathing in it to his people is that whereby it groweth and increaseth with the increases of God the patience of the Saints is one of their greatest exercises and therefore the Lord takes much pains with his people to make this jewel in their Crown shine gloriously Consider the patience of Job c. behold here is the patience and faith of the Saints and in another place it is ushered in with a Behold Now God will have our patience have its perfect work be as long and as broad as the tryals are And therefore he delaies his coming in that sense as you have heard this waiting for the reward after we have done the will of the Lord is harder then the other of bringing forth fruit with patience Another ground shall be 3. That the measure of the sufferings of Christ may be filled up in us the Apostle is said to fill up in his body the measure of the sufferings of Christ that is to say there is a proportion of sufferings for the body of Christ to undergo and he in his body filled up his measure in a great part not as if they were more righteous but his people being so nearly united to the head as that they and he make one Christ therefore the sufferings of his people are called the sufferings of Christ now there is a means to be filled up and this he will have filled because these less afflictions which are but for a moment they work out saith the Apostle not meritoriously a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory he was made perfect through sufferings and so must his sâ—ns which he bringeth to glory be made perfect through sufferings and drink of the brook in the way and so lift up their heads suffer with him and then be glorified with him now if there were not such a time as we count a delaying of his coming there would be no room for this 1. That the fulness of Christ may come in for there is a fulness of Christ as the Apostle cals it both of Jews and Gentiles as the several members of his body make up the fulness of his body and it is not compleat if any of them be wanting there is some of its perfection wanting indeed it is a glorious honour he puts upon the Saints and dear affections he sheweth and a near union that he accounteth himself not perfect without them until they be come in so this is the answer the importunate cry of the souls under the Altar receive how long Lord holy and true dost thou not avenge us and judge our enemies there were white robes given them and it was said to them they should rest yet for a little season until their fellow-servants also and their brethren also which should be killed as they were should be fulfilled If a man bid many guests to a Feast they must stay until they all come to sit down together As Christ is imperfect that is to say without his fulness with his body so is the soul in a sort without its body and as the Lord desires the work of his hands as Job speaks touching the Resurrection thou shalt call and I shall answer c. the soul may desire also that work of his hands to be re-united
Judas when he pleadeth for the poor yet alas God knew the bottom of the business but I say they making such a profession now when they fall asleep it is as much to the dishonour of God as if a real Saint do fall asleep as now for instance suppose two one wise one foolish they fall into some giddy opinion of the times O let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall or else both grow worldly covetous griping or vain indeed cast off the ways of Gods worship the great Apostacy of our times Now I say this is alike dishonourable to God but it is not alike dangerous for the one he sleepeth and his sleep proveth the sleep of death as the foolish Virgins did for though they were roused with the Cry Conscience was a waked it may be yet their hearts were never roused up out of their sleep they were dead-hearted from the beginning and so they remained they never did arise from the dead that Christ might give them life the one when he waketh hath neither oyl nor Lamp neither reality nor profession the other hath both though the Lamp want triming there is not that lively expression of Christ in their Conversations as should be and therefore the light needeth snuffing the one hath the root under ground but the other neither root nor branches so that you see there is a difference between the sleeping of the Child of God and the son of Satan the wise and the foolish Virgins The third Vse of the Doctrine may be this If so be the people of God may thus sleep Then brethren It may be a warning word to us all to take heed of it to avoid it if it fall upon us I mean the people of God it will prove bitterness in the latter end Do you believe this that you are lyable as well as others to sleep that you have the seed within you have those Lusts such foul hearts which with their steam are in danger to benight you every morning every day do you believe this and do you believe it is a part of folly the folly of the wise Virgins to sleep what need more to be said to you concerning these things will not you avoid that which you judge evil But because we have to do with poor sleepy Creatures whose souls it may be are roady to drop asleep even when they are hearing this let me a little sot it on the Lord make the impression by his own spirit and bore your ears seal instruction to all our hearts 1. Then consider brethren that if once we fall asleep we lose our discerning between good and evil in a great measure the Saints that are of experience they have their fenses exercised to discern between good and evil you may happily wake in your sleep but your eyes are shut brethren and it is a wonder of mercy if you do not dash your selves to pieces upon this rock of offence or that rock of offence this stone of stumbling c. as men in their sleep sometimes will get up and climb indeed to the top of the house and are they not in great danger of breaking their necks would you not pitty such a man O such is the Condition of a Child of God that hath a sleepy soul a soul in a deep sleep thou wilt be ready to judge evil good and good evil Jonah his soul was asleep that sin of his laid him asleep though a good man and do you not know how sadly he missed it I do well to be angry yea even to the death what could Gain almost have said worse then he did in this fit A man in a sleep cannot discern light from darkness neither of tasts nor smels all is one to him when once Peter was asleep he could deny and forswear the Lord-Jesus David in a sleep he cannot discern between the chance of war and down-right murther between shewing kindness to his faithful servant one of his worthies in Israel and making his Neighbour drunk a sad Condition Asa in such a time when he was asleep as appears clearly a little before his saith was lively and he could relie upon God for the ruin of the Ethiopians Lybians yet now he relies upon Benhadad King of Syria to help-him against the King of Israel even Basha he was asleep sure that forsakes God to relie upon an enemy and takes such an evil Course to wish him to break his Covenant Then the Lord sent Hanani the Prophet telling him plainly he had done very foolishly he would not bear it he would not be roused out of his sleep brought to repentance Claps the Prophet in Prison oppresseth the people O what will a man stick at brethren when he cannot discern between good and evil where the senses are closed what will not a blind man run upon and yet a good man also and this leads to a second 2. When a man is once asleep alas brethren the passages between head and heart they are obstructed that nothing almost that he heareth will awake him So David when he was asleep you see how sadly he carryed it he went to the Ordinances questionless in the house of God from time to time or likely he did so and yet he lay in that condition for all that alas the word of God sunk not with him at all you know you may call upon a sleepy person that is fast many times again and again and and he answers not or if it move him a little or stir him alas he understands it not he heareth a sound which troubles him but he understands it not and so returneth to his rest again this is the very case of a poor soul asleep you hear indeed but as if you heard not as a man that hath his mind taken up with another thing he heareth but he heedeth not so a poor soul asleep goeth from Ordinance to Ordinance from Sermon to to Sermon and heareth but the word sticks in the ear it reacheth not the heart ordinarily and is not this sad brethren Who would willingly be in this Condition that knoweth what it is to have a fellowship with God heart-Communion with God in his Ordinances 3. Another Motive may be this The poor service God is like to have from us then when we are asleep some indeed he may have but it will be so poor as if none at all what kind of service will that man do his Master that is ready to drop asleep every step he goeth as David what service did he do the Lord while he lay in that deep sleep alas his mouth was stopped he was not able to shew forth the praise of God until he had opened it And the reason is plain because the graces of the Spirit though they be within us it may be there is the root of the matter there are the habits yet we cannot exercise them A man asleep hath life and he breatheth but what Acts can he
though he profess never so much love to Israel And O if he would give me a house full of gold and silver I cannot go beyond the Word of the Lord And O that my latter end might be as his Yet the Lord can see he is but a wretch for all this therefore Brethren I beg of you that it may be a searching word to us all Whether ever we have known him or be known of him have you ever touched him with the touch of faith for the pardon of your sins for the healing of your corruptions and have you found healing come from him yea or no have you known him the power of his death the power of his life and Spirit yea or no If you have not the Spirit of Christ you are none of his whose ever you be and he will not own you be sure Brethren for his sons for his friends to admit you to the feast except you be his indeed Ah dear friends I doubt many of us will be found with the foolish Virgins following after the creature resting in somewhat else beside the Lord Jesus Do not think your crying Lord Lord will do it this you may do and fall short did not Judas come with his hail Master and kiss him and yet his heart full of treason against him was this his kindness to Jesus Christ and do not many of us kiss him salute him with a kiss of love and homage or obedience in shew and yet in our lives deliver him up to be scourged by our loosness of carriage that there is no difference between us and other men open the mouths of the wicked and this constantly and without a returning to him will he own such a soul think you O how can we be contented to be uncertain in our conditions lest when all is done we should be disowned shut out at that day Thirdly Then Brethren let us all labour and be exhorted to it to study to approve our hearts to God more then to men a needful lesson to us all and it will be our wisdom surely for alas what if men know us and own us and favour us as Saints and precious people and Jesus Christ will not know our souls will this countervail O Brethren see to it that your praise be not of men but of God! O how apt we are to be lifted up and cheared if men think well of us and dejected if we suffer in their breasts if they disown us to be cast out of their hearts would go to our hearts it may be and we could not be quiet Alas what is this to that fearful sentence I know you not If Christ disown us what is it if all the Saints should own us and if he own us what should it discourage us though they none of them own us O labour to be more inward Christians and build your comforts upon the sure mercies of David in Jesus Christ No matter what is the rising way in the world which is the rising Sun Look to the mind of Christ keep a conscience void of offence toward him and make this your work to be found in him when all is done not in your gifts not in your duties not in your graces but in Christ O such a soul knoweth the Lord Jesus and such a soul is known of him and shall be known to all eternity Fourthly Here is an encouraging word to poor doubting souls It may be they are ready to pass this fearful sentence upon themselves sooner then many a wretched hard-hearted hypocrite to whom it properly belongs No matter man though thy gifts be not so great as another mans thou canst do little or hast not those sweet refreshings and enlargements which another hath Is thy heart approved to Jesus Christ canst thou approve thy soul to him that thou lovest him as Peter Lord thou knowest that I love thee though it may be not so much as other Saints do nor so much as the great things he hath done for thee call for yet thou lovest him and wouldst fain love him more be of good 〈◊〉 for thou art known of him If any man love God he is known of God A Judas may be an open professor of Christ and come to him in the day And a poor Nicodemus at the first dare but come in the night it may be and was a very shallow Scholar in Christ's School which is the discouragement of many a poor soul And Judas in the mean time a renowned Teacher of others and yet behold how the one betrayes the Lord Jesus and the other sticks to him when he was dead and professeth him openly at such a time as that when there was most discouragement against it O therefore Brethren though your grace be weak and little at the first if there be the root of the matter in thee if thou canst approve thy heart thou lovest him there is nothing in heaven nor in earth thou wouldest have in comparison of him though thy infirmities be many temptations be many thou art a poor wearied creature it may be with thine own heart be of good comfort the Lord Jesus hath already owned thee and he will own thee in that day And me thinks Brethren as on the one hand when such bold confident souls that make no other reckoning but of salvation but they reckon without Jesus Christ when they meet with so sad a disappointment in stead of an admittance they meet with I know you not O how will their hearts dye within them So on the other hand when a poor trembling doubting Thomas that it may be knoweth not what to think of himself nor his condition he is searching and trying and praying and fasting and humbling running and pressing hard forward and can get little ground of his corruptions which much discourageth him O he walks tremblingly lest he should receive this fearful sentence at the last that the Lord Jesus knoweth him not hath never had any thing to do with him notwithstanding all his profession sin is in strength corruption prevails though it is the bitterness of his soul O when such a poor doubting creature that haply many times looks for nothing but a fearful sentence depart from me shall have this pronounced O come thou poor soul I know thee I have known thee from the beginning of the world though thou hast been doubting of my love yet I know thee though thou hast been made black with affliction and thy visage so marr'd as others knew thee not refuge failed thee no man cared for thee for thy soul yet I know thee though thou hast been wounded with many sins many temptations and walked under many a discouraged heart yet I know thee O how will this be as everlasting life from eternal death to such a soul So that the soul shall now have now more place for doubting the satisfaction shall come with a mandamus he will speak salvation to the heart that it cannot
healed what if the Lord then say to you your iniquities shall never be healed you shall dye in your sins what will become of your presumption then Secondly it concerneth the people of God that have had it may be some experience of this healing vertue of Jesus Christ that have a long time been groaning under the loathsomness and anguish of their wounds and now at the last are healed through abundant grace O take heed of returning to folly any more will you make bold with sin that have known what it cost our blessed Saviour and what it cost your selves what it cost him when as he would himself purge our iniquities he took the Physick and thou enjoyâ—st the cure but is it no more to us Brethren the heaviness of his soul to the death must he bleed to death that we might not bleed to death that our bloody issues might be stopt did it cost him an ecclipse of the light of the countenance of his Father and wilt thou make so light a matter of it walk so watchlesly as we do to go on to grieve him as we do some of us O it is the want of keeping that fresh upon our hearts what the cure of it cost that is the great cause of our so often relapsing And so we forget what it cost our selves it is strange that the burnt child doth not dread the fire dost thou not remember when the Lord came to search thy wounds what it cost thee when he went to the bottom of them O dost thou not remember the stench of them when he came to pluck off the hard crust grown upon them and let thee see and be sensible of the filthiness in them is this forgotten that thou makest no more of sin O dost thou not remember the time when thou wast even weary of thy self a burthen to thy self thou couldst not rest many a weary day and night it cost thee many an aking heart and yet now so soon art making wounds again making work again for Christ Surely this is very ill requital of all that riches of grace Or what can we heal the breaches we make upon our peace by our recidivations when we please It is true if a man had his panacea in his pocket that whatever disease he fell into whatever wound he should make upon himself he could cure it again when he pleased it were somewhat like there were some colour but have you the treasuries of grace in your own keeping have you or hath any man a pardon in a box as the poor deceived Papists are grievously mocked Surely no Alas we can make wounds but we cannot heal them we can make a shift to break our faces and bones but we cannot heal them again it is in his hand and will it be for our comfort then to grieve him by such careless walking what if he resolve to grieve thee and give thee enough of thy back-slidings Will it not be bitterness in the latter end though he may heal it it may cost thee many a throb and much smart for this wantonness Brethren take heed of this O sickness is chargeable it may cost thee mourning all thy daies Seventhly Then let it be for Exhortation to us all that we get under the influence of this Sun of righteousness Sinners we have all of us need of the Physitian for there is never a whole soul among us though to our own apprehension some of us think it is well with us yet it is not we are full of wounds the whole head is sick the whole heart is faint the Lord Jesus hath sent me to tell you where you-may have healing and to perswade you to come to him but alas I am a child and cannot speak Where is there healing to be had you will say you know that as well as you can be told why then how cometh it to pass that you come not to Jesus Christ he hath set open the Store-house the Treasuries of pardoning-mercy and healing-mercy inviteth all that will to come and yet you come not Surely either you do not believe this report or else you do not believe your need of Jesus Christ O consider what hath been said to that part and the Lord help you to believe and perswade you to come to him for indeed it is he that must draw and make poor sinners willing to come or else they will never come to him only he doth draw one way is by proposing the object by holding out a crucified Christ for them And therefore let me a little propose something to you to perswade you to come to Jesus Christ 1. Your need of Christ you have seen for we are all wounded yea even to the death bitten with fiery Serpents the venom whereof inflames our souls and therefore a Physitian we must have or else dye Now there is no healing in any other but through his stripes if you know of any other Saviour that can deliver can heal you take him follow after him but I must tell you when you have spent all you must be fain to come to Jesus Christ for healing and is it not better to come before you have spent all upon other Physitians that cannot cure when all is done O that sinners could but believe this I tell you truth Brethren a Plaister of any thing else made of our own sorrow or tears or righteousness or good works or whatsoever it is so far from being a healing that it will venom the wound more and maketh yet further work for Jesus Christ if rested in as a cure I say you may make a shift to stop the Orifice of the wound with a balm of your own procuring but all the while the sore eats into the soul so much the deeper wrankles within O now the Lord Jesus he beginneth at the bottom and so heals it up say not then Are not Abana and Pharpar Rivers of Damascus better then all the waters of Israel when we must go and wash in Jordan if we be healed 2. Consider this the longer you conceal your wounds and hold off the worse will it go with you for either the Lord will let you go on and never heal you but let you languish away in these waies of sin you please your selves so much in or else if he do the longer the wound is wrankling the worse it will be the harder it will go when it cometh to be searched when David had turned his back upon Christ for so long in the matter of Vriah it cost him somewhat it made him roar when the Physick came to work the Lord withdrawing from him haply as long O that while you are called to day sinners now while healing is tendered you would accept of it the Lord make you willing 3. Do but consider what thronging there was to Christ for healing of their bodily distempers they brought them from all parts to him such as could not come themselves and would there not be the
this terror and this bondage a means to their inlargement Ah blessed Prison that is only to make poor creatures willing to be at liberty well now this the Lord Jesus when he cometh and revealeth himself to a soul he brings him out of these labyrinths of fears and terrors letteth the poor creature see that himself is the way and the only way he hath undertaken the work for his people only if they will believe though they have no strength in them to do any thing nor to extricate themselves from the difficulties they find themselves in by reason they cannot fulfil the Law yet he is the mighty one upon whom help is laid and withal letteth them understand how his bowels do yern over them and how his heart is open ready to inlarge them and so perswadeth them to close with him and then they go forth when faith cometh so Christ is the end of the Law and the â—aw a School-Master to bring us to Christ But that is but the Sixth Seventhly Another part of this bondage is those after-claps of fears and terrours that after Christ hath been revealed to and in a soul may befall the creature alas you find it so they may be clapt up afterward in the pit of noise the horrible pit and be in the deeps and in darkness and like Jeremiahs dungeon sink in the mire where there is no standing they feel no bottom of their misery their fears are overwhelming or like Jonahs Whales belly they are in the belly of hell and all the waves and billows of God go over them O this is sore bondage however it be true that the Spirit of God is never any more a spirit of bondage to them to witness to them they are children of wrath afterward yet he doth not say but they may have bondage again and all fear hath torment and is bondage to the Spirit it doth fetter it and shut up and contract the spirits exceedingly Now I say the darkness of a mans own heart which doth naturally gender fear and Satan to help and the frowns of Gods displeasure for the present though he do not witness any more that a man is a child of eternal wrath and displeasure these may bring the poor creature into sad perplexities Well yet the Spirit of the Lord Jesus when he cometh brings also liberty with him from this bondage David will tel you so and Heman will tell you so do but consider what conditions they were in how came they to be delivered O lift up the light of thy countena nce upon me Son of God arise upon me shine upon my soul and then I shall be healed O restore to me the joy of thy salvation make me to hear joy and gladness c. Well the Promise doth extend even to this bondage also and to this may we refer the next I will speak of it distinctly Eightly There is another Bondage and that is the fears of death and judgement whereby many a poor creature is kept in Bondage all the days of their lives as the Apostle saith in that to the Hebrews to which I will speak a few words He came saith the Text and took part of flesh and blood that through death be might destroy him that hath the power of death that is to say the Devil and deliver them that through fear of death were all their life-time subject to Bondage Brethren death it self is a terrible thing the Simplex could say but hardly could he tell the reason of it for them that have no fear of God before their eyes but have put out the eye of reason and live like Beasts giving up themselves to commit wickedness with greediness though while they can keep off the apprehensions of death they may go on merrily but when that seizeth upon them it marrs their mirth it maketh a change in their faces and they are not now truly death is not so terrible in it self considered but that the stoutness of a mans spirit specially where there is no other consideration of it he may overcome it and live above the fears of it as the Heathens some of them did but now a man that knoweth indeed what death is not only a dissolution of the union between the soul and body taking down this mouldring Tabernacle but a Serpent with a sting it is where sin and guilt lies upon the soul it is the beginning of sorrows the arrest of the soul to judgement to come to receive its doom for all its bloody evils he hath been guilty of The wordling is not willing to give up his soul O he knoweth he can never answer for his wasting of his spirits and spending his time to lay up treasure here and in the mean time neglecting his soul and Jesus Christ and tenders of Grace he knoweth this well enough and therefore he will not yield up his Spirit they shall take it from him as it is in the Parable This night shall thy soul be taken from thee and so for any other sin and now I say this maketh death terrible and by reason of these fears of death men that have any sight or sense of their condition they are in Bondage all their lives long yea even the people of God themselves are in some measure under this bondage and according to the measure of the discovery of Christ to them and the power of faith in them is this fear and this bondage broken and the Lord Jesus came for this end to deliver them alas before his coming the Saints may be specially meant here who had indeed the knowledge of Christ to be crucified for Sinners and beheld him crucified though darkly in the sacrifices c. and in the promise from the foundation of the world but yet notwithstanding they had not that confidence usually but there was more room for doubtings and fears because they died still without the accomplishing of that promise now though such as had an extraordinary measure of faith and a prophetical spirit might see this clearly and so it might raise them much what above this bondage yet ordinarily I believe it was not so that they had such clear conviction of the freeness of grace and the abundance and riches of it in Jesus Christ and therefore it did not so fâ—lly quiet their Spirits in respect of fears of death and judgement they did not so clearly see the sting pluckt out therefore the Apostle saith those Sacrifices though they did hold out Christ could not make the comers thereunto perfect and therefore they were often repeated But now the Lord Jesus he hath by once offering for ever perfected compleated their salvation and therefore you shall find that the Apostle and others do so triumph over death and the grave and sin as we hardly find any before the coming of Christ and it must needs be so because now the Spirit which is the liberty of the Saints was poured out in a
trifle away one Sabbath wherein this grace is offered for fear that it never be offered more to us If the Servant did neglect to take the opportunity of the Jubilee he must be in bondage he and his until another Jubilee and so he himself was like to perish in that service There were only three things that did hinder their going free in that acceptable year 1. Either they were strangers and of the cursed Canaanites who were doomed to bondage now there was no going forth for them Or else 2. The Matters would not let them go free Or else 3. They themselves had no minde to go free and so bound themselves for ever to their Masters First I say The Strangers alas the Jubilee was not proclaimed to them and therefore though they might he willing to go free yet they could not they were as good never think of it it concerneth them not and the Masters knowing this would never let them go free surely this is not our case though the time was when we were sinners of the Gentiles and afar off and the year of Jubilee was not proclaimed to us yea the Lord Jesus forbid his disciples to go into the way of the Gentiles If this were our case then there were some excuse for our continuing in bondage and thus it is with many a poor people under the Sun this day the Lord Christ hath never said to them that sit in darkness go forth else haply Tyre and Zidon would have done it sooner then Coraz and Bethsaida Secondly then the unwillingness of him to whom we are in bondage to let us go free it is true sin is unwilling to let the sinner go alas how shall lust be satisfied and served then And so is Satan as long as ever he can he will hold his hold but doth not the Lord threaten the hard hearted Jews since they would not let his people go out of bondage that he would proclaim a Liberty to them to the sword and to the famine and to the pestilence Pharaoh was very loth to let Israel go as long as he had a being therefore he was destroyed And so sin and Satan they will not let the sinner go O how a mans lusts do cling about him then when he should go free what will ye forsake me now have I not brought you in so much content so many sweet hours you have had of repose in my lap so much gain and advantage have you not lived by me and will you now leave me these will stratle the soul and then for Satan either he multiplyeth his baits maketh the best of every thing in the way of sin that now beginneth to be laid open to find colours and glosses to put upon them or else he rageth and tells the soul thou go free dost thou think that now thou hast served sin so long Jesus Christ will accept of thee and indeed all that his wit or power can do he bestirreth himself now he seeth his kingdom going down and his yoak breaking I but remember this that the Lord will break him to pieces tread him under-feet if he refuse to let you go the Lord will pluck you out of his hands destroy his power Thirdly Our own unwillingness for if the servant said he loved his Master and his Masters service and he would not go free then the Jubilee served him in no stead he must have his ear bored to the door-post by the Magistrate and so be his servant for ever either this might be as a punishment of his contempt of liberty now he might have liberty which is rather to be chosen as the Apostle saith and the Lord out of a tender respect to them as his people that he hath bought out of bondage would not have them kept in bondage by their Brethren Now if he would not go free but loved his Master so well that he preferred his service before freedom he should have this torment and publike shame to be bored through the ear And I tell you Brethren it will not be the piercing of the ear that shall be the recompence of your refusing of this liberty but the piercing of your hearts as with a sword when you come to see what your bondage will bring you unto or else secondly That now they must never go out of their Masters doors without his leave the servitude must be stricter then ever it was and so truly I do believe Brethren that now where the acceptable year of the Lord is preached to sinners they have liberty offered and they will not accept of it that now they are more fully under the command of Satâ—n and sin then they were before Thirdly that hereby might be signified the willingness of their service for the time to come that they had as I may say their ears opened now to what ever their Master should command them and so in that Psalm Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not but mine ear hast thou bored or digged so the words may be read that is to say thou hast made me willingly obedient to thee to the death that obedience is better then sacrifice and truly this is the saddest of all the rest when men shall give up themselves with a fuller will to serve Sin and Satan then ever they did before in steaâ— of going forth O let us fear and tremble before the Lord lest while liberty is proclaimed we in stead of going forth be bored in the ear and become Satans servants for ever never go forth from our bondage Again Consider yet further that the day if liberty is proclaimed it is the day of the vengeance of our God also as the Prophet hath it as if he had said if it be not a day of liberty and of going forth to you it will be a day of vengeance to you as well as to the enemies of Christ for what desperate love is this to sin against Christ that when he hath been at so much pains and cost to purchase a liberty for us and we refuse and reject it will not part with our chains will rather rot in prison then come forth what can be expected but wrath to the utmost to come upon such a soul O surely the Gospel will be the savour of death to death to such a soul a savour of bondage to bondage and everlastâ—ng chains of darkness will be their bonds for ever Brethren think of this before the prison doors be shut and barred before you be sealed up unto this destruction Lastly Consider how sweet and precious Liberty is even civel libetty how sweet a thing it is else men would never expend so much treasure and blood as we have done for it Ah this is nothing to a freedom from sin and from other bondages which arise upon sin unto the soul Ask but any poor creature that is newly come out of the dungeon out of the horrible pit where there was no standing will they not
them to one Husband now to watch over them to take such care of them and pains with them that having escaped the pollutions of the world they may not return any more to them but be kept pure and holy to the Lord and therefore saith the Apostle I am jealous over you with a godly jealousie jealousie is a kinde of fear sorrow and anger It is the rage of a man saith Salem indeed it doth as it were raise a man above himself carry him out of himself therefore saith the Apostle bear with me if by reason of my earnestness I seem to be out of my self it is for your sakes I am jealous for you saith the Apostle And what was the matter they were in danger to be seduced by false Apostles to be corrupted from the simplicity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and this was that the Apostle was jealous over them for and surely brethren it is commendable and imitable I plead not for passion and wild-fire but a holy zeal for the glory of Christ the well-fare of souls we ought not to be cold but zealous jealous for you brethren if in danger of seducing at any time this is a large duty indeed we are apt to sleep especially if sang asleep by the delusions of weakness and mildness and love falsly so called and then the mischief is done but enough of this I hope you see there is cause enough to pray for us 5. Another Vse then shall be tending to the wooing of some poor souls this day to accept of the Son of God the Lord Jesus and of his love and to make up the match with him this is our work indeed And O that it might prosper in the hand of a poor unworthy servant and friend of the Bridegroom this day you have heard Who he is and What he is you have heard already the glorious priviledges which arise from a closure with him yea how often have you heard these things and yet you are coy and hang back I am come this day brethren to tell you the sum of the message is that the Lord Jesus is willing to have you if you be willing to have him How long shall the Lord Jesus follow you with these mercies the price of his most precious blood and yet you slight him What can you desire that is not to be had in Jesus Christ If you would have beauty he is the chief of ten thousand If you would have riches you shall have all things with Christ how shall he not with him give us all things Would you be honourable those are truely honourable that God honours now he will honour them that will honour him and honour his Son And wherein is he and his Son honoured but in this if we believe in his name give him the glory of his mercy and faithfulness 〈…〉 at I were able to speak of him so as that you might some of you fall in love with him this day Shall I a little stir you up to this First If you have him not you are like to live and dye under that cruel husband the Law and Sin the Law as it is the strength of sin which is the cruellest bondage in the world the Law 1. It commands a most absolute obedience and conformity to it self there must not be the least turning aside to the right hand or to the left not a lota be missed all things obeyed and continued in and that upon pain of an eternal curse cursed is every one that continueth not in every thing which is written to do it it is a most rigorous exacter of obedience to its cominands there is no pitying no sparing as there is now in Jesus Christ he pityeth and spaâ—eth as a father his son as a husband his spouse If a man could from his youth up keep all and but miss it in a word in a vain thought all his life time there is no pity no sparing it condemneth to the lowermost â—ell O what a condition are you in sinners upon whom all your breaches of this Law doth lye 2. It is a cruel bondage because it giveth no strength if it did impose never so much if it did give any strength it were something It is true we had strength which God gave us at the first until we wantonly fell and broke our bones so brought weakness upon our selves but now in this condition yet we are under the Law as a husband which will command peremptorily but giveth us no power like the the Egyptians task-masters they would have them make bricks and yet give them no straw and yet the Law is holy just and good Now the Lord Jesus what he commandeth he giveth strength to perform 3. It admitteth of nosurety we must do it our selves obey to the utmost our selves or else be ruined to the utmost perish to the utmost cursed is every one that continueth not in every thing one man cannot be accepted for another the soul that sinneth it shall dye And 4. Yea more then all this It provokes us as we are corrupt to break it as a bank against a strong stream it maketh it swell and rage the motions of sin which were by the Law this is by the Law but not from the Law but from our corrupt hearts but sin takes occasion by the commandment nitimur in vetitum cupimusque negata like wild Asses Colts when the law cometh to yoak us and hamper us we break the yâ—ak and the bands as the Prophet speaks will not endure to be held Now is not this a sad condition to be under such a hus 〈…〉 d as this and yet how many of us are in this case and contented so to be Well remember brethren the end of these things will be bitterness and death that is the wages 2. Another Motive may be this he is ready to close with you if ye be ready to close with him be you what you will never so vile in your own eyes for it may be this is the discouragement of many they would rather then their lives have the Lord Jesus for a husband but alas there is no beauty in them he is the chief of ten thousand and they are the vilest of ten thousand the chief of sinners he altogether lovely they altogether loathsom He is white and ruddy they are black and bloody lying in their blood and filthiness cast out to the loathing of their persons and what hope can they have that he will accept of them very great hopes brethren for this is the tenour of the Gospel to be preached to every Creature without exception or Limitation and every one that believeth in him cometh to him he will in no wise cast out if he would what had become of Paul or Manasseh say not then Alas I am poor and miserable and naked yea Leprous and filthy and therefore it is not for for such a one as I to think on Christ indeed thou canst
Rejoyce in the Lord saith the Apostle and again I say rejoyce it is a duty of that moment he cannot leave it he goeth over and over with it do not think I am mistaken when I bid you rejoyce because happily your condition may be afflicted other ways again I say rejoyce I am still of the same mind The Lord Jesus rejoyceth over you as sad thoughts as you have concerning your selves he rejoyceth over you he is glad to communicate his love and shall not we rejoyce then in the receiving of it Can the Children of the Bride-chamber mourn while the bridegroom is with them saith our Saviour it is not sutable to their condition when he shall be taken away then they shall mourn I deny not Brethren but if the Lord do withdraw himself we should lament after him and seek him sorrowing as Mary the Mother of Jesus did and the more love we have received if we grieve him this will be the more grief of heart but if you that have his presence in a sweet manner and yet hang the head and droop as if our joyning to the Lord had been the undoing of our souls So pensively and sadly we many of us walk that indeed we are a shame and dishonour to the Lord Jesus If you should see a Virgin espoused to a man and should from that day forwad never hold up her head but walk heavily what would you think sure she apprehends she hath made an ill choice her expectations are frustrated therefore Brethren look to it that we rejoyce if the Children of the Bride-chamder cannot mourn but rejoyce to hear the voice of the Bridegroom much more then the Bride The Lords takes pleasure in the prosperity of thy soul and why shouldst not thou â—ake pleasure in the prosperity of thy own soul being made one with Jesus Christ 5. Look to it that you be faithful to the Lord Jesus as a Bride when once espoused if she turned aside to another it was death they were looked upon as in a marryed state and condition indeed the truth is when the Lord hath truly espoused his soul to himself he hath done it in faithfulness and maketh the soul faithful to him that in the great Article of the Covenant they never deal falsly with Jesus Christ that is to say they choose not another Saviour another Lord under whose dominion to put themselves constantly yet there may be sometimes to Jesus Christ even in his own people If that once it cometh to this that we imbrace sin and consent to it and take any delight in it this is to play the harlot with Jesus Christ O take heed of this brethren indeed the heart is all that he looks at how we stand affected to those evils which yet remain if Paul have a body of death yet he delights not in it but groans being burtheued this he accounts not unfaithfulness but when a mans heart beginneth to sit loose from the Lord Jesus to be almost indifferent he could sometimes in a fit of wretched carnality be content to have another Lord to rule over him to be free from Christ O! this the Lord looks at and he will search out this will move him to jealousie therefore take heed of this a woman may do as much service and seemingly as readily to her husband as before but yet her heart be gone and she could be contented to be loose this is heart-Adultery this the Lord Jesus in us brethren looks at as such if we serve him and do duties but in such a manner that we could even be contented to be at liberty it is not right take heed of provoking the Lord Jesus lest it prove in the end that he never knew us indeed Labour to be faithful then in this in the main Again In managing all he puts into our hands be faithful The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her It is the commendation of a woman of a thousand in the Proverbs she will be improving It may be you have not so much to turn as others have others have ten times more parts and opportunities to do good let them look to it they have ten times as much to answer for and must do ten times as much but thou mayst be as faithful in a little as they in a great deal One servant is a Steward in the family hath all under his hand and another he is a poor under-servant hath some mean service committed to him why now he may be as faithful in his place as the other in his Moses was faithful in all the house of God he had a great command Caleb might be as faithful for what was committed to him following God fully as the Text hath it say not then If I were a Magistrate a Minister a publike person had such opportunities to do good I might do much but I am an obscure person Well be thy condition what it will be thou mayst do good and be faithful in thy place according to what thou hast received thy lips may drop like a hony-comb and feed many and like choice silver and inrich many though thou be never so mean and so for the Family and up and down where ever thou comest look that thou be faithful to do all from Jesus Christ and to do all to him that thou rob him not of the glory of what he hath done for thee and by thee for then thou art not faithful 6. Another Exhortation shall be then to desire the coming of the Bridegroom the Spirit and the Bride say come the spirit in the bride breathing in her as it is in the Revelation they say come We looke upon the day of death as if it were the day of divorce from the Lord Jesus for the most part truly for them that are out of Christ it is no marvel if it be a King of terrors to them but to the Saints me thinketh who look for the appearing of the Lord Jesus to consummate the marriage between them it should not be so terrible as it seemeth to be to the most of us and to this end take ye here brethren at the marriage feast he turns our water into wine but in heaven our wine into spirits and setteth them a flaming our love flaming to all eternity 7. Exhortation which is to look to our Ornaments to get them ready why do we hang back but because we are not ready we have somewhat or another unready still our work is not done can a maid forget her Ornaments or a Bride her attire yet my people have forgotten me As a Bride adorneth her self with her Jewels so he hath cloathed me with the garments of salvation he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness Eleazer put jewels upon Rebecca before she came to Isaac and therefore the spouse is called Callah in the Original because of her perfect adorning therefore look to this brethren that you be adorned O every
tardiness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who reckon it according to Days and Months and Years and Ages no saith the Apostle alas a thousand years are but as one day to the Lord to eternity eternity doth not bid us with the unjust Steward sit down and write 50 for an 100 but a thousand for one 366000 for one for it is to one day that a thousand years are compared to in eternity and so one day as a thousand years it is as long as a thousand years with him which we cannot conceive of because we are not able to reach to eternity Now if Sentence against an evil doer be deferred but a day we count this a swift witness against such a mans sin as in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye the death but if it be a thousand years it is all one with God So that though to us poor finite Creatures who number actions according to days and months it may seem a delay yet to God it is not for all times past present and to come are present to him it is but one eternal nunc or now and therefore there is no delay in that respect 2. Yet further there is no delay but he cometh quickly suddenly very speedily in another respect Because he doth not stay longer then the appointed time Hab. 2. 3. the vision is for an appointed time it will not tarry then we are said to delay properly when there is a time prefixed for such a thing and we keep not touch but stay longer this is properly delaying Now you know there is a day appointed wherein he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained there is a a day an hour which no man knoweth indeed and therefore men but do proclaim their vanity in guessing at it the times and seasons it is not meet for us to know which the Father hath kept in his own power Well then this day now he will not out-stay not a day longer will he stay but come quickly very speedily the very self same day as the very self same day he came to deliver Israel and to judge their Enemies The people might indeed think it long whiles they were in bondage groaning that he delayed his comin yet he did not for if the day appointed before had come sooner he had delivered them sooner he keeps touch to a day 3. He doth not delay his coming that is to say so as to omit the season of it for every thing is beautiful in its season there is a season to suffer the enemies of his Church to ride over their heads and there is a season to bring them under their feet again and give them their necks to trample upon there is a season to permit them to eat up his people as they eat bread and to make themselves drunk with the blood of the Saints and there is a season to give them blood to drink for they are worthy You know if a man omit his season for any thing he may never have another he is lookt upon as a slack negligent person as now he that puts off his gathering of harvest from Summer to winter so to day if you will hear his voice there is a time limited a season of getting grace which if omitted and put off by delays we shew much hardness of heart and little wisdom to think we shall do that to morrow which we have not heart to to day men think God is slack when indeed he is onely patient and they are ignorant and see it not but for the season he doth it most opportunely for his own glory and the good and salvation of souls as will appeare in the Arguments of the Doctrine But I will not anticipate my self 4. He doth not delay as some men may count delays or slackness as if he would never come they are ready to think because judgement is not speedily executed â—ush the Lord seeth not he regardeth not what they do he watcheth not over their sin he will not bring them into judgement for these things and so think he is just such a one as themselves Why because when they are offended happily except they take revenge when they are moved at the first they forget it afterwards and never set themselves in cold blood to it though many mens malice is much more durable a little tract of time will not do it out though we should go to school as children in this respect but I say If it be not presently we judge the Lord and measure him by our own thoughts if he hold his hands for any while our hearts are fully set in us to do wickedly we are ready to think he will not come at all to witness against our wickedness or formality and luke-warmness in his ways but thus he will not delay And so much for the Negative Secondly then for the Affirmative In what sense he is said to delay his coming and 1. In respect of the long time between his first and second coming his appearing it is long enduring many ages and generations many believers dying in faith and not receiving this promise of his second coming as those did who were before his first coming they lookt for him from age to age and the Prophets searched what and what manner of sins those were which they spake of they did a little pierce into them as much as they could they might think it long that the promise made to Adam so many ages before should yet be unfulfilled And so the coming of Christ the second time it is long between 1600 years already but this is not so properly a delaying but surely his delaying of his coming is to be understood according to our apprehensions of it and not according to his determinations who hath appointed the time and staies not a jot longer and hath appointed it according to the Counsel of his own will with admirable wisdom in the best season 2. Then he is said or may be said to delay his coming because our daies are short and we are ready to reckon upon it according to our daies it is many daies indeed and many years before he cometh to take a poor weary soul to himself and because he is poring upon the daies and upon the years and moneths therefore he thinketh it is very long and tedious the delay and therefore the Apostle doth meet with this covertly in that of Peter be not ignorant of this one thing saith he that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day Alas if we number by daies which are short and nothing it will seem a delay indeed but if we look upon eternity wherein a thousand years are but as a day then it is but short but this is understood by the opposition it hath to that which went before therefore the less of it here 3. Because of the
though it be delayed and you know not how soon it will come upon you Now your waiting must be of another sort 1. With fear and trembling that which a man fears he expecteth in some sort as well as what he hopeth for O that this dreadful sound were but in the ears of Sinners wherever they went there is a day coming which will pay for all your pleasures of sin when God shall pluck your sweet morsels out of your belly and turn your stolen waters and bread eaten in secret which were pleasant and sweet to you into the poyson of Asps O do not say you are at an agreement with hell and with the grave for alas that agreement shall be broken the grave shall receive you and reserve you for this day of wrath and then give you up it will not hide you from the wrath of the Lamb hell will open for you Faelix trembled when Paul disputed of righteousness and temperance and judgement to come this day of Christs coming how terrible will it be to foolish Virgins O that all such would tremble before the Lord fear it fear it it is coming upon you it lingers not he is not slack 2. In order hereto you must labour to believe it it is an Article of our faith we profess the resurrection of the dead which is either to life or condemnation and thou that livest in sin canst expect no other but a resurrection to Condemnation But alas men do not believe this Devils are afraid of that day to which they are reserved in chains of darkness when they shall have their full cup given them to drink Ah dear friends that the Lord would single out such as he would perswade this day from the terrors of the Lord to fly-from this wrath to come to make ready for this day that is a coming wherewith I shall wind up all I shall say to this doctrine The last word therefore is of Exhortation since Jesus Christ doth delay his coming That we would make good use of the time he giveth us time and space to repent The people of God they have need to make use of this time have we not work enough to do before we can expect to be glorified with him how many of us have a world of iniquity to subdue how far are we from being as little children in malice and humility such we must become our Course is far from being finished O brethren Jesus Christ will adopt us to himself and we by the Spirit are to do it that we may be meet spouses to him then it will appear that we desire his coming indeed if we lay out all your might to prepare for it if the heart be â—luttish and so we let it lie if we neglect our ornaments are careless put them not on be not decking our selves how can we say we love his appearing even the appearing of the Bride-groom But then 2. How much more have Sinners to do It is true he delays his coming and so he hath a great while in respect of thee how many years hath he waited upon thee to be gracious to thee and yet thou are where thou wast at first Ah dear friends if Jesus Christ find you that profess his name in your blood at that day what will become of you Will you have time to repent if you repent not it will not be the time of love but of displeasure it had been better for you you had never had such warning O do not despise the riches of his goodness and long-sufferings towards you O consider your ways and the Condition of your souls at the last and turn to the Lord your God with all your hearts and not feignedly close with Jesus Christ get oyl into your Lamps and into your vessels for why will ye die why should that day come upon you before you are ready for it O make hast Brethren you are this day warned to fly that is to say with all speed to haste away from the wrath to come for judgement lingers not it will not stay beyond the appointed time even your own appointed time for the number of your moneths are with God it will not stay a jot longer now you do not know whether this may be the day the night this Sabbath the last this warning the last therefore lay hold upon the opportunity O that the Lord Jesus would seize but upon some of our hearts that we might make a good Vse of this delay And O bless his name and let us all admire his goodness to us that he doth delay his coming that we have time and space to repent to work out our salvation in and that until all the fulness of Christ be come in It is his long-suffering not willing we should perish but come to repentance O that we were thus wise that we could thus consider our latter end But so much for this Doctrine THEY ALL SLVMBRED AND SLEPT Here I say you have the occasion which the flesh took from the delay or carrying of Christ to slumber and sleep all of them both wise and foolish Some have understood it of the sleep of death that they al dyed good as well as bad but this cannot be so for it is not true understand the coming of Christ which way you will If for his coming to the universal judgement it is not true for all shall not sleep but some shall be changed as the Apostle hath it If we understand it of his particular coming to summon us to appear before him It is less true for when the summons cometh it is before we dye Death indeed is his Messenger or Serjeant and therefore they are not dead before he cometh to fetch them besides it is not so usual to set forth death by a double expression of slumbring and sleeping but rather sleeping onely Besides this slumbring and sleeping here is noted as a failing in the wise virgins as well as the foolish if I understand it aright for it is the privation of that watchfulness which is injoyned and wherewithall is wound up in the close and by this parable he sheweth us the sad inconveniences of sleeping and slumbring and the incidency of it to us and therefore exhorts us to watch Now sure to dye is not any fault when we are called to it but an appointment of God for us to dye to submit to which to be willing to which is a grace and not a sin Again in this parable there seemeth to be some time for the getting of oyl or at least for them to use some endeavours to get it though it be in vain which may be indeeed after a summons to death there may be some little time which a hypocrite may think to improve to get grace though it prosper not but after death there remaineth nothing but judgement The particular first and afterward the general The time of their sleeping is considerable indeed
world What comfort had Judas of his thirty pieces of silver when God opened his conscience and let him see his condition what an hypocritical dissembling wretch he had been to betray the Lord of life and glory with a kiss a sign of love and a bloody traiterous heart to sell his Saviour whom he had followed so long and acted by commission from him so long and his Master that had never done him hurt but good to sell him the Lord of life and glory for thirty pieces of Silver O this could not but gall and cut him to the heart the Devil helped him to a booty indeed but God added this sorrow with it Indeed of all sins God hath not revealed himself so terribly against any in Scripture as this and therefore when the soul cometh to see it that hath any knowledge of the terrors of the Lord displayed against it he must needs be for the present in a hell above ground this shall they have of my hand saith the Lord they shall lie down in sorrow Yea and sometimes he anticipates their death and they live in sorrow and wo and misery God doth as I may say set a mark upon them as upon Cain Secondly That they might be warnings to others for ever to take heed of Hypocrisie for when men that regard the work of the Lord and consider the operation of his hand shall behold a Judas hanged up in Gibbets being made a Magor Missabeb to himself doth it not preach aloud this Caution to take heed and beware of hypocrisie these things saith the Apostle were written for our ensamples that we might not do as they did so are these things acted for our ensamples that we might take heed or if they have not such terrors but their professions are blasted only and wither and they prove fearful creatures their latter end worse then their beginning is not this a warning written in Capital Letters that he that runs may read O take heed of rottenness at the root for all our fruit will give up as the dust as the Apples of Sodom we shall wither and come to nothing and go out like a snuff as well as them if we be not sound at the heart Thirdly It may be a stumbling block to some others who are ready to receive any prejudice against the ways of Christ and therefore they shall have a block to stumble upon O here you see what becometh of this preciseness and flourishing profession of Religion it is all but rotteness at the root it is better to take on fair and softly a soft pace in religion saith the Moralist or civil honest Man as good continue in a meer wallowing as being washed to enter into it again yea better saith the profane man and therefore he satisfieth himself in his carnal state which is wosul for suppose some professors wither yet do all Some they keep their leaf it shall never fail some lose their verdour but recover it again and what if some wither will you therefore offend against the generation of the upright saying they are all of the same stamp God forbid It is a sad thing to consider how many poor hearts are hardened in sin upon this very account which addeth to the Hypocrites doom but what if a discovered Hypocrite be so vile the condition so dangerous is not their own as dangerous if thou be prophane and a worker of iniquity there is no more entrance into glory for a Dog or Swine then for a Goat no more for workers of iniquity that professedly commit iniquity then for them who profess longer do much in his name and yet when all cometh to all they are found but workers of iniquity though secretly but so much for the second The third and last thing considerable in the Observation is That many times it is too late when Hypocrites are discovered to themselves this is plain in the Parable for the foolish Virgins all the time of the getting oyl in their vessels they complain not not see their want of it nor the going out of their Lamps but only when it was too late for before they could get it the gates were shut We must not here understand it generally of all Hypocrites as if none might be discovered to themselves while there is hope and so as to recover themselves for then it would follow they should none of them be pardoned for the Lord Jesus is the Prince exalted to give repentance and remission of sins Now if they never come to know themselves to be guilty of this great evil even their hypocrisie how should they repent of it and if they repent not of it how should it be pardoned It is true indeed there may be hypocrisie in a Child of God which he may acknowledge only in the general among his secret sins which he knoweth not of but I think where hypocrisie is so raigning a sin as to denominate a man an Hypocrite he must surely come to the knowledge of it and acknowledge it before the Lord or else how can he hope of pardon for it now I say there is pardon for all manner of sins only that against the Holy Ghost excepted and therefore sure some Hypocrites God doth uncase and unmask and rip up and shew them the abominations of their hearts that they may mourn over them and mourn after Jesus Christ and loath themselves for it and so be pardoned therefore remember this lest if God should come now and open any painted sepulchre any rotten-hearted Hypocrite among us when we see our wound we should faint away for though many times it is so that God discovers it not to Hypocrites until it be too late yet sometimes he doth and the sin in it self is pardonable therefore there is hope concerning this thing in Israel But for the making good this assertion consider either they are discovered not until judgement or else not until death or else not until their day of grace â—e expired many times though it be before death 1. If they be not discovered to themselves until judgement God never reproveth them of their hypocrisie and sets it in order with all its circumstances and aggravations until the day of judgement when the secrets of all hearts shall be displayed and all the nasty corners of sinners souls all the hidden things of darkness then surely you will all acknowledge there is no remedy it is past help there remaineth nothing then but a fearful looking for of their doom and some may go down in peace to the grave that is to say not a peace of God but of Satan a security and stupidity of conscience knowing nothing of their fearful condition which others also which are not so much as Hypocrites may do 2. If it be not discovered until the day of death or the time of deaths approach then though not alway yet ordinarily I believe it is too late and that is not a time that ordinarily God is
to this readiness a making the calling and election sure by adding faith to faith and grace to grace as it is in that place of the Apostle Peter Then when Simeon had gotten Jesus Christ into this arms of his faith as well as of his body and saw his salvation with the eye of faith as well as of the body then he cryeth out Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace Now he was ready to enter into glory And so the Apostle Paul had such a perswasion and therefore he was ready henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of glory c. 2. There goeth many times if not alway to this abundant entrance as a readiness or preparation to it an earnest waiting of the soul for its change a desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ which is far better There is many a poor heart when the body of death weigheth them down and tryeth them groan earnestly and could be contented to dye that sin might dye with them As Sampson said let me even dye with the Philistians if no other way will destroy their lusts But alas when they are to seek in point of assurance they look upon death as a dark passage that leadeth them they cannot tell whither this maketh them fly back this kills those desires nippeth them as soon as they put forth they come to no maturity But now when a man hath the right art of believing notwithstanding his body of death he groans under as the Apostle that yet he is perswaded through Christ it is pardoned and shall be utterly dissolved and not hinder him then he can bless the Lord and desires with Paul to be dissolved So many of the Patriarks it is said of them they dyed full of daies satisfied with daies that is to say they lived as long as they desired they had now a desire to be at home knowing that while they are present in the body they are absent from the Lord from that near and sweet and full Communion with him whereof they have had a little taste and earnest but if they know not that they shall be present with him by departure but for ought they know more separate from them no marvel if they go to death with drawing back Yet I deny not but a child of God may be ready before he desire it And may desire it before he be ready for this entrance I say a child of God may be ready before he desire it as in the case before mentioned and upon other grounds as Hezekiah and David that I may declare thy power to this generation may be ready and not have such an assurance but he is not ready for an abundant entrance until the Lord come with a full sealing of his love to his heart 2. He may desire it before he be ready as in some passionate impatient fit as Elijah 1 King 19. 4. weary of his life the King persecuting him and thinking he should fall by his hand would have God take away his life from him but he had not yet done his work And so Job God had not yet done with him he must pass through more changes and prosper and flourish again and hold forth his name to that generation before he departed he had not done his work But I speak of the serious settled well-grounded frame of a Believers heart upon a sound perswasion of the Love of God in Jesus Christ and a knowledge that he hath finished his course then for such a one to wait for his change when the blessed hour will come is a part of readiness for an entrance an abundant entrance into glory But this is not the portion of every child of God many Suns set in a Cloud c. For the second thing which are the arguments of the point they are such as these First because else Gods work would be in vain he hath prepared an inheritance for the Saints a Kingdom prepared before the world was and his work upon our hearts what is it but to prepare us for this Kingdom as the Apostle speaks he that hath wrought us to this self-same thing is God he hath wrought us to it there is no suitableness between heaven and an ungracious heart a glorious Kingdom and a vile filthy spirit therefore the Lord takes much pains with us to purge us to himself to purifie us to adorn us with the rich graces of his Spirit and all is to work us to heaven to salvation to prepare us for this entrance and therefore when God hath done this shall his work be in vain surely no not a soul that is so wrought up by the Lord to a heavenly frame and temper and nature that shall miss of an entrance when it is thus prepared else Gods work were in vain the greatest work of God 2. Because else the Lord Jesus would fail of his purchase and prayer for his poople who did buy us at so dear a rate as his own most precious blood was it think you to suffer us for ever to be at such distances from him whom he so dearly loved did his love to us draw him out of heaven to us and will it not think you draw us to heaven to him he will not have his Spouse that he hath redeemed with his blood to be absent from him any longer then is needful for his Fathers glory and their good It is a fruit of his death and of his prayer Father I will that where I am there they may be for they are the fulness of Christ and he accounteth himself as I may say imperfect without them and therefore he will have them there Indeed Brethren so dear is the heart of Jesus Christ to his people that he would not suffer so long an absence at so great a distance from them but that there is a necessity in it though at his first pitching his love upon us he looks at nothing but notwithstanding all blackness and deformity and loathsomness his love overcometh all Yet before they come to this Communion and fellowship with him they must be purified with spices and odors as those were for the King of Assyria and for other holy ends 3. Because else the promise of God and hope of the Saints would fail and heaven and earth shall sooner fail then the word of promise Christ hath promised not only to give life but eternal life God hath promised to give not only grace but glory there is a Crown laid up in the purpose and promise of God and if they should miss of this they would be made ashamed of their hope now this cannot be the Psalmist prayeth that he might not be ashamed of his hope which is virtually a promise it shall not be never any yet were disappointed that hoped upon right grounds Indeed if men make Promises to themselves of heaven let them live after the imaginations of their hearts or whether they truly believe or
they come to see to it in some measure 2. Others are ready and know it but are not so thankful for it have not the sweetness of their condition so fresh upon their spirits because they do not oftentimes review their condition 3. There are many that are unready and think themselves ready and O how is it likely it should be better with them until they come to know how the case stands with them will any go to buy Gold that they might be rich or white Rayment that they might be cloathed untill they see they are poor and naked surely no. 4. Others are unready and though their hearts misgive them they are unready yet they care not much for it or else they know not how it is with them and they are contented to be ignorant Now except the Lord perswade us all brethren to look into our state it is never like to be better with us such as we are such shall we be found at the appearing of Christ yea every day farther and farther off Therefore shall I beg of you brethren that you would consider it set some time apart it is the weightiest business you have to do in the world you will have a time for all other necessary things your eating drinking managing your civil affairs and is the soul-concernment the least that you should so slight it Well then wil you this day retire your selves deal effectually with your hearts what if this night you should be taken away or you should never see Sabbath more are you ready for the coming of Jesus Christ I doubt our hearts would answer no alas our work is to do alas how many poor souls that have not a week a moneth haply to live yet have not one dram of Grace O put that question have you this oyl have you the Spirit of Grace and Supplication given to you have you Christ dwelling in you and transforming and changing you into his image from Glory to Glory Ah dear friends what mean our loathsom conversations then what mean the vileness of our hearts the fulness and rottenness and sin that is there are you mortified in any good measure or no It may be you have forsaken the pollutions of the world but is the heart of sin killed hath it its deaths wound out of which continually the life and spirits of sin are emptying are you weary of it do you loath it and your selves for its vileness O do not deceive your selves Again Are your Graces lively It may be thou hast a spark but it is buried in the ashes Indeed I doubt brethren these times of prosperity to the Church bury more Christians alive then any days that ever we saw why now are we ready are our Lamps burning our loins girded O how active and stirring and lively are the Graces of the Spirit in some over they are in others you are so far unready for the coming of Jesus Christ and so far it will be uncomfortable to you besides do ye live by faith above all this for righteousness else we are not ready Is this the top of all that we might be found in him saith the Apostle search and see take heed you have to do with desperately wicked and deceitful hearts Again Are we ready for the abundant entrance how few of us have this perswasion our calling and election is not made sure we do not know what would become of us if God should call for us how can his coming be comfortable to us we are so far from waiting for his coming that every thought of it goeth cold to our hearts that which should most warm us refresh us O brethren let me beg of you for Jesus sake no longer to slight this great and necessary work give your hearts no rest until you see whether you be ready or no. Suppose you shall find your selves unready it is better to know it in time then when it is too late now there is hope if you be not ready you may obtain mercy you may make the more haste to get ready that that day may be a blessed a comfortable day to your souls 3. Then brethren If we be not ready for his appearing shall I beg of you brethren for Jesus sake and for your poor souls sake that you would now resolve whatever business be done you would not leave this at six and sevens It is the one thing necessary you have to do nothing will yield you a dram of comfort nor arm your hearts against the fears of death but this nothing will give you entrance into Glory but this Indeed if riches would be an entrance or he that keeps the doors and openeth and no man shutteth could be bribed with the multitude of gold it were somewhat for men to heap it up as the dust and raiment as the clay if men were admitted according to their glorious apparrel or if the riches of the head and treasuries of humane knowledge would do it Scholars might do well to spend all their time in searching after that and none or little or none to make ready for the appearing of Jesus Christ but surely brethren surely you will find nothing will find an entrance but readiness for his coming The Lord give you believing hearts this day how unwearied are men for other things which are trifles and will not profit and not one hour in an hundred spent seriously with their own souls And though some men have more time then others yet surely brethren he that is most busie must find time for this great work or misearry O therefore labour press hard after it use all means possible you must take pains brethren such unready hearts as we have will not be had in readiness without much and constant pains-taking As a Garden that is quickly overgrown with weeds it must be taken pains with again and again so here c. And so in keeping an house clean and ready there must be pains taken with it Ah brethren except your souls follow hard after Christ you will never find him to your comfort The Lord touch your hearts and then you shall find him Again you will say Why I hope I am ready Well then labour to maintain this readiness Alas how soon is the sweetest frame lost think not I have now done the main work therefore you may take more liberty then other men now you may indulge your selves take more ease more liberty about the world then other men Alas brethren how soon will the world and cares of it overcharge you how hard a thing is it to buy as if you possessed not to use it as if you used it not and if you be overcharged with the cares of the world this day will overtake you at unawares Yea I tell you brethren if that day take you at unawares as I doubt if it should come at any day upon us it would take many of us when we are overcharged O ease your selves of some of your burthen have
many a sight of Jesus Christ sitting with his people at the round table and thou knowest not what thou losest yet if it be meer tenderness of Conscience which keepeth thee off and not perverseness thou hast sure much of the inward fellowship and communion with Christ otherwise he can if he please supply it otherwise but however though not admitted among men thou shalt enter in with Christ unto the Marriage-supper for ever and this will make amends for all Though far be it from me to strengthen any mans hands in the neglect of the Ordinances of Christ on earth and take heed that our excuses will speak loud enough for us in Gods ears whatever they do in mans But if thou canst not be admitted to the pipe Is it not a comfort that thou shalt be admitted to the fountain to the sea O methinks this should put on such above others make a vertue of necessity and so much the more long for his appearing to thee that thou mayst enter in with him to the Marriage-feast Fourthly and lastly It may serve to allay the bitterness of death It is a bitter thing not only to the wicked it is bitter it must needs having the sting of sin in it and being a trap-door as I may say to let them sink or drop into the everlasting flames this must needs be bitter But to the Saints it is in some sort bitter also nature is dissolved by it it is the fruit of sin and we find by continual experience of the Saints that there is a hanging back But methinks this consideration that it is an entrance into this Marriage-feast should much sweeten it to a child of God Our Saviours death was the bitterest that ever was endured O it was a deadly cup but this was it that sweetned it the consideration that he should drink this new wine with his people in his fathers kingdom there feast with him for ever for the joy that was set before him he endured the Cross so brethren do but set before you continually this joy this pouring out of this love of Christ upon your souls those immediate sincere full constant and eternal delights of your souls in the light and love of the Father and of the Son and see if it swallow not up the bitterness of death unto you But so much for this Doctrine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Here is the second Consideration of this coming of the Bridegroom a doleful consideration it is to all such as were not ready for the door was shut what is the sence of shutting the door in the Parable I suppose is easily understood that is to say an entrance is denied to them that were without as well as they that were within were shut in by the shutting of the door But I conceive that is the thing meant here the scope of the Verse being to shew the different end of a believer and an hypocrite the one is received into the Marriage-feast the other is shut out the door is clapt against them The Doctrine will be a sad word it is this That the Gate of heaven or the door will be clapt against all formal Professors and foolish Virgins that are not ready to enter with Christ for this is implied in the other part of the words they that were ready entred with Christ into the Marriage and the door was shut upon whom surely upon them that were not ready for that his coming whatever hopes they are big with now they prove abortive There is a door of entrance into Heaven and an outer door as I may say which I may call a door of hope which the Hypocrite hath not when it cometh to a pinch not a well-grounded hope The wicked is driven away in his wickedness but the righteous hath hope in his death There is a door of hope to him but none to the wicked but his hope which he had before many times at death is like the giving up of the Ghost without are dogs c. either filthy persons such as with the Dog returneth to the vomit again after their sorrow and vomiting up their sweet morsels such as with the Dog are sometimes sin-sick and seem to repent to vomit up the bottom of their stomacks but return to it again with delight after their repentance and tears and prayers these are shut out Dogs also who are they but such barking biting foul-mouth'd false Teachers such as the Apostle speaks of Beware of Dogs evil workers of the concision beware of such as would bring in the circumcision as necessary to Salvation beware of these they are Dogs though they may seem never so zealous and holy have a sheep-skin upon them they are Dogs and Woolves and all manner of workers of iniquity as Sorcerers Whoremongers and Idolaters and whosoever loveth and maketh a lye Why you will say these are not Hypocrites sure they are down-right profane persons brethren a man may live in these sins many of them and yet carry a fair shew but the gate shall be shut against them whoever they be As for Adultery or whoring though men be not guilty of the outward act is there not heart-adultery is there not contemplative wickedness against which Job resolveth I made a Govenant with mine eye why should I think upon a maid he that lusteth after her beauty in the heart commits adultery with her in his heart yea brethren by the thoughts the very spirits as I may say and oyl of sin are squeezed out or extracted as in a Limbeck and that is more deadly and dangerous a man may eat a thing and do him no great hurt but the oyl of it is deadly haply So the Murtherer it may be many a man that hath a form of Godliness never imbrued his hands in blood but his heart hath been steeped in blood full of envious and malicious thoughts he can with wishes and desires of revenge and malice murther and bury all his neighbours And so though it may be we make no pictures of Images or fall down before them to give them any absolute or relative worship yet we have Idols in our hearts we love money are covetous it may be and this is idolatry and fall down to our own parts our own gifts and live in this like it well these brethren shall have the door shut against them and such as love and make lyes though officious lyes to help others nothing more ordinary in mens Callings and Shops then to lye and speak falsly for a little advantage and yet it may be have a colour and a shew of Profession and allow themselves in these things They shall be shut out the door shall be clapt against them many shall seek to enter but shall not be able No marvel for the Gate is not only strait but shut against them it is strait when it stands open in mens lives and they will not strive and therefore fall short
upon us no man desires that he knoweth not We think we are in health and strength of soul in as good a condition as any need nothing and yet are poor and miserable and blind and naked just like a poor man the strength of his disease works him off his senses as we say he thinkeeh he is well as ever in his life when alas he is drawiâ—g nigh the chambers of death his disease is so much the more dangerous Brethren sin 〈…〉 s our heads with such fumes of pride and self-confidence and carnal reasonings that we are ready to conclude all is well with us and I doubt many of us whom this concerneth will put it away from us upon this very account We are whole need not the Physitian so we have no desire to be healed the tender of a plaister by another to a man that thinketh he hath no wounds it is ridiculous they are more ready to mock at it then receive it so far are Sinners from providing an healing for themselves because they are not sensible of their need of it they desire it not Depart from us we desire not the knowledge of thy ways we are well enough without it yea more we have no desire to be healed because we are in love with our diseases not as a man that hath an issue he knoweth doth him good would not have it stopt but we have many bloody issues of sin and because of the pleasure and delight or proâ—t or humour or some things we please our selves with them for we are loath to part with them Augustine himself was loath to be healed so soon of his lust not yet Lord not yet said his heart when he prayed for healing the disease hath seized upon the will it self so that it is pleased and taken with the sickness the ill savour of our wounds the stench of them is sweet to us while we have a stinking nostril and therefore no marvel if we can never heal our selves there is need of this Lord Jesus to come with healing under his wings Thirdly We do reject healing and the Physitian When he would have healed us we would not be healed therefore much less can we do it our selves I would have purged thee and thou wast not purged c. Brethren how often hath the Lord Jesus called upon us all and have we not many of us as often refused Hath he not stretched out his hands all the day long all the day of Grace which hath continued long with us and we have been a rebellious a disobedient people we would none of his counsel either it is too mean as Naaman said when he was bid to go and wash in Jordan seven times and he should be cleansed What are not Abana and Pharâ—ar Rivers of Damascus better then all the waters of Israel so proud dust and ashes the Lord opens a fountain for sin and uncleanness proclaimeth to every poor sinner who ever will let him come let his disease be what it will bathe in this Fountain he shall be healed what saith the proud sinner are there not waters of our own will not our own repentance do it we are very backward through the pride of heart to receive even gratis as that proud Papist said He would not have heaven gratis this Pope is in all our bellies therefore the Apostle calls it a submission they would not submit to the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ So we look upon the blood of Jesus Christ as an unholy a contemptible thing will not trust wholly to this grace or else if not too mean yet the way that God goeth to work with a sinner to heal him it is too severe a bitter potion they must take down what must we so much bewail our selves must we search and try our ways rake in our wounds this we cannot indure this will cost us much smart and anguish as it did David and Peter and Ephraim poor foolish creatures we had rather dye of our wounds then to have them searched far from that temper of David we are Search me and try me though some of us I hope have been so exercised in the work of searching and mortification that we can many times say with the Psalmist Lord search us but alas many of us it is otherwise with we come not to the light lest our deeds should be discovered it would shame us you know Ahab could not indure to hear of his sins he hated Mâ—caiah and that cursed principle is in all our hearts we would be humored and daubed and have the hurt of our souls healed slightly because we cannot digest the severity and sharpness of the medicines we are afraid of the wrings and gripes the Prayers the Fastings it will cost us and therefore we are enemies to it 4. If we were never such friends to it if we would never so fain be healed it is not in our power it is above the sphere of our activity if the stripes had been laid upon us which were laid upon Christ when he was whipped with Scorpions alas every blow would have cut us in sunder and given us our portion in that lake that burns with fire and brimstone for ever You see brethren that they fetched blood at every blow of our blessed Saviour who was equal with his Father having an infinite Power and Spirit to uphold him and yet O how he ran down with blood dropping upon the ground when the world was to be drowned and overwhelmed all the veins of the earth were as I may say opened so now the Lord Jesus when his Spirit was overwhelmed and amazed as I may say and the Lord in a manner would now swallow him up My God why hast thou forsaken me all the voins the channels of his body were opened O how the blows did even almost fetch away the soul of our Saviour witness that Out-cry what had become of poor man iâ— this had been laid upon him Beside who can pardon our sins is there any but God that can pardon sins and is not this a great part of healing who can speak peace but he He will speak peace to his people he can do it with one word of his mouth he createth the fruit of the lips peace peace assuredly he createth it peace who can subdue a lust all the maceration of the body that the frame of Nature will bear will not do it as it is said of Hierom though his hair did even stand upright with fasting and lying upon the ground yet all would not do to subdue concupilcence he should have taken Gods way and then his help would have come in no no I will subdue their iniquities they are too stiff-hearted for any but the Lord Jesus none could break the heart of sin but he by being broken himself for our iniquities nor can any do it to death though wounded and bleeding and the heart be broken but he himself
heart and see could he do so for his child though a Mother may take down much bitterness for her child yet would she be content to open a vein to bleed to death to redeem its life when ready to perish I know David in his passion said Would God I had dyed for thee but if Absalom had been alive and in cold bood he had been put to it I question though his affections were strong to his Son but they would have been as strong to himself Self is a mans nearest friend but now the Lord Jesus you see did it for his poor sinful people yea for strangers for enemies Brethren consider of it If any of us were Physitians here is a poor wounded creature lies in the way as the poor man in the Gospel fell among thieves left wounded and half-dead which of us now could find in our hearts to open our own veins and be emptied of all our blood and liâ—e that such a poor wretch might be supplied now this the Lord Jesus doth for such Sinners as we are Brethren if there must be pouncing and pricking he endures it lancing he endures it contusion he endures it For he was wounded for our transgressions bruised for our iniquites the chastisement of our peace was upon him and through his stripes we are healed his stripes are not the bodily buffetings his crown of thorns and such things were nothing in comparison no it is the lashing of his spirit the wounding of his soul the travel of his soul the agonies wrestlings with his Fathers displeasure to an agony when God laid on him so heavily that he was ready to faint and sink and his soul almost fetched at every blow O dear Saviour that ever the cure of such sinfull dust and ashes should cost thee so dear and we so little prize it But 2. That which he prescribes to us though there be some bitterness in it yet no more then must needs it may be a sprinkling from the top of the cup of trembling which may put us into a fear and trembling so much as he seeth needfull to imbitter sin to us it is true if love were perfect here below while graces are imperfect and our ingenuity perfect the looking upon a crucified Christ for us would be the greatest imbittering of sin to us in the world but we are very dull an 〈…〉 ow of heart and therefore a little taste we must our selves that we may gather from thence what the Lord Jesus indured for us we that never felt what a wounded Spirit meant and what the clouding of the face of God from us meant though we may hear of the sufferings of Christ we are not able to be sensible of them and so not to prize that love as strong as death but when a poor creature hath had a drop or two of scalding wrath fall upon his conscience a lash or two though gently upon his spirit that maketh him roar in the disquietness of his â—oul O thinketh he then if a drop or two be so full of terror and amazement what then was the whole Cup what was the dregs how should I have born that if my blessed Saviour had not taken it off for me That which did so parch him who was the Green Tree that he said he thirsted surely would have consumed the dry If he were as a Bottle dryed in the smoak it would have consumed us to ashes If it made Him sweat in such a manner it would have altogether dissolved our frame that we should have perished for ever O if a little wrath when God hideth his face be such a Hell in many souls What a Hell then had Jesus Christ in his soul when wrath was poured out to the utmost for he was not spared a jot And then to make us out of love with sin wherein doth lie the very heart of the core and of the cure surely such are the bowels of God in Christ that as he delighteth not in the death of a sinner so neither doth he delight in bringing the creature to life through so much bitterness and grief if any other means would so effectually work us out of love with sin as this for the Wise God surely would take the most effectual course it is all needfull else he would never do it Why but you will say that hatred of sin is never kindly except the love to Jesus Christ be the ground of it ye that love the Lord hate evil this takes the ingenuous spirit off from Omissions and Commissions It is true but yet consider brethren wherefore do we love Him but because he loved us when his love is revealed and manifested this warmeth melteth the heart indeareth the soul to him until the Lord Jesus be pleased to open and unfold his bowels of love to a sinner he will never love him now whereby should we estimate the love of Jesus Christ to poor sinners but by the unsearchably rich 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he paid for them O the price of every drop of that blessed blood that run trickling down to the earth especially if it be considered by what means it was squeezed out of him this setteth a rate upon his love it is not love in word but in deed and in truth if nothing else will be a price to redeem them but his blood it shall go he is not dear of it to the last drop yea not to part with it by opening a vein but to have it extract out of the veins by the pores of his body O by the unspeakable weight of wrath upon his Spirit Now how can we judge of this except we have had a little taste of it our selves when we are put into a little sweat in our own wrestlings with the displeasure of God O then we see what our Saviour indured for us If a man would set the highest estimate upon love among men this should be the rate of it would they willingly have the face of God in Christ hidden from them for a year or two for the dearest friend they have in the world you that have felt what this lashing of your Spirit is that your breath was even gone at every blow and you were ready to perish and you had fainted except you had believed some secret undiscerned support Tell me would you redeem the life yea the souls of your dearest friends that you had in this world by lying under a wounded Spirit having a Hell kindled in your souls that should burn all your days I cannot tell I know dear Friends will do much one for another O saith one I could lay my hands under their feet to do them good O I could redeem their lives with my own Would God I had died for thee and haply because he saw he was in such a sad condition for his soul but David wouldst thou have been content to roar all thy days in the disquietness of thy soul to have his waves and billows to
Servants or to deliver all such relations no but it is meant here surely of a spiritual Liberty a freedom of the soul from its thraldom nay himself cometh to be a servant did he not rather sanctifie such a condition and relation then abolish it Secondly Then taking it for spiritual Liberty that is to say a freedom from Spiritual evils the subjection whereunto is a bondage to the poor creature we must know yet further that we may take it either in a larger or in a more restrained sense in a more restrained only for that liberty and freedom which the Saints have ever had through the Lord Jesus since the Covenant of Grace was preached to them and they closed with it for we must know that ever before Christ came in the flesh Believers believed in him to come they had a liberty through him as to the main parts of it and necessarily to salvation though haply not in that degree that now ordinarily Believers indeed have that freedom but there were some yoaks upon them then which now we are delivered from they are broken from off the necks of the Saints yea and such as were pinching yoaks indeed but yet less considerable by far then those from which they were delivered and set free so that now we see there is a larger liberty and more glorious which the sons of God have which will better appear when we come to speak to the parts of it only this I thought good to premiâ—e lost any should think that liberty began only when Christ was revealed in the flesh for it was the smallest part that then was added though I say the other liberty from the sore condemning destroying bondage of the soul they had before haply is now heightned to believers and so much by way of premise For the opening of this spiritual Liberty we shall consider 1. It s Subject 2. Its Causes 3. Its Parts extensive and intensive if we may so speak that is to say the degrees of it First then for the subject of this Liberty they are all Christians that are so indeed therefore it is called Christian Liberty not only from Christ the Author but from the Subjects they are Christians Believers both Jews and Gentiles Bond or Free Male or Female Jerusalem saith the Apostle which is above is free which is the Mother of us all all such then as receive the Gospel as the poor are said to do all those upon whom the Sun of righteousness doth arise they are set free they do go forth for the partial subject of this liberty that will better appear when we come to speak of the parts of this liberty some are for the freeing the minde some the will some the conscience some the whole man but of this afterward Secondly Then for the causes of this liberty which is here promised we shall speak to some of them First then The principal efficient cause is the Father Son and Spirit the work of the Trinity ad extra are individed the Father it is that cals us to liberty Ye are called to liberty saith the Apostle use it not as a cloke to the flesh I marvel saith the Apostle that you are so soon removed from him who hath called you into the Grace of Christ unto another Gospel The Apostle meaneth the calling to liberty which he cals the Grace of Christ and that Doctrine of the false teachers that would subject them again to the Law and Ceremonies and to that bondage subvert their liberty he cals it another Gospel And for the Son we have it If the Son make you free you shall be free indeed and stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free false Brethren came to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus that they might bring us into bondage And for the Spirit it is as clear The Law of the Spirit of life in Jesus Christ hath made me free from the Law of Sin and Death the mighty powerful working of the Spirit is called the Law of the Spirit as the powerful operation of Sin is called the Law of Sin and so in that place where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty and so the Spirit of Adoption it is that succedeth the Spirit of Bondage and setteth us free from that Bondage Secondly The impulsive cause is meerly his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his good pleasure yea his tender mercy his bowels So it is in the Original The bowels of our God whereby the day-spring from on high hath visited us there is the arising of the Sun of rightousness upon us and the effect of it you have before That we being delivered from the hands of all our enemies might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness c. It is not misery is the motive only else he would do it for all as well as some for we are all of us in the same bondage naturally one as well as another Thirdly The meritorious cause is the blood of Jesus Christ no less then the blood of the Kings son is the price of the liberty of poor Slaves in bondage this must needs be tender mercy indeed rich love indeed so saith the Apostle That through death he might destroy him that hath the power of death that is the Devil no less then a Kings ransom is paid for the liberty of every poor creature that is made free and therefore he took upon him flesh and blood because the children were partakers of the same that he might die for them and to deliver them that for fear of death were in bondage all their life-time of which more afterward we are now speaking to the meritorious cause the price of his pretious mercy even the blood of Jesus Christ Fourthly The means of conferring or conveiging this liberty to poor Sinners is the Gospel of liberty the Covenant of Grace held out in the Gospel is the means and this is plain in many places As in that of Isaiah The Spirit of the Lord is upon me therefore he hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek to bind up the broken-hearted to proclaim liberty to the Captives if ever any preaching was the Gospel Christs preaching was and the Covenant who himself was given to be the Covenant to the people sure he would preach nothing but that or in subordination to that as he doth preach the Law too as would easily appear but we may not digress and so in thaâ— other place of Luke where either that or some of the fore-cited places in Isaiah are quoted Ye shall know the truth saith our Saviour and the truth shall make you free by truth there I take it is not meant indefinitely any truth whatever no nor a scriptural truth but the Gospel of truth which is called the truth Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ it is such a truth so pure and precious For his word is like
of us free-born if any by nature should have been free-born surely the seed of Abrahâ—m according to the flesh but our Saviour tells them their liberty was but imaginary if the Son did make them free they should be free indeed this is the third Fourthly by tenure and usurpation there is a bondage also as we see it in the case of Israel in Egypt they were bond-men in Egypt and they made them serve a hard bondage it is called the house of bondage they made them serve with rigour so saith the text in all manner of service the design of the King being to weary them out by degrees and yet to advantage himself by their service while they were wearying out this was their wise dealing with them lest they should be too hard for them and truly of this nature is the bondage wherein the people of God themselves are in part though the Devil have no title to them the price being paid for them to the justice of the Father yet he as a tyrannical â—aylor loath to let them go and therefore he loads them with chains laies heavy temptations upon them and sin rageth to lose its servant and therefore tyrannizeth and the Law in the members carryeth captive to the Law of sin and this is one great grief to the poor child of God that though sin do not raign in their mortal bodies yet it tyrannizeth over them and with a strong hand many times holds them down so as that they are not able to stir hand nor foot but more of this afterwards Now for the parts of this bondage with which the parts of that liberty or freedom we are to speak of will run parallel We shall devide this bondage into these two general parts it is either to sin or else to the black concomitants which are very many we shall particularize some of them and thereby our liberty will the more plainly appear First then for sin it is clear we are in bondage to sin either totally or in part all of us by nature altogether in bondage for we are sold under sin and though it be true that sin is only a privation of good and disposition to evil and so properly cannot be said to rule over us yet by a prosopopeia we are said to be in bondage to it therefore we are said to be sold under sin sold under it and therefore in Scripture it is that sin is called an old man corrupt according to deceitful lusts and this old man it is that hath the poor sinner under his power and ruleth him with subtilty O they are deceitful lusts â—he counsels of sin the fetches and tricks and devices depths and methods of a sinful heart who knoweth Brethren he carryeth it so slily that many think themselves at liberty as free-men as any the world hath yea so free as to promise to others liberty and yet themselves in the mean time are the servants of sin and not only so but theâ—â— are Laws of sin which carry a strength with them and the poor creature under them must obey them and these Laws are nothing else but the wills of the flesh as the Apostle calls them an arbitray government here beginneth and takes it rise Hoc volo sic jubeo c. saith the imperious person If a sinner begin to question what reason there is in such an act he is prompted to sin bloweth out the candle hoc volo c. let my will be a reason I will have it so So many lusts so many wills and is it not a bondage to be under these Ye were saith the Apostle the servants of sin but now ye have obeyed from the heart the form of Doctrine delivered unto you and so in several other places whosoever committeth sin saith our Saviour is the servant of sin You talk of being Abrahams seed and never being in bondage this is nothing to my purpose I speak of a bondage to sin and he that commits it is the servant of it he that works it industriously is a drudge to his lusts as alas how many of us are and he that curiously works it is an Artist O with what art can some mon lye and cheat and cozen and play the hypocrites these are the servants of sin O when one fulfills the lusts of the flesh and of the mind maketh provision for the flesh to satisfie the lusts thereof This man is a servant of sin the lusts of the flesh the lust of the eye the pride of life the love of profits the love of pleasures and the love of pride when men give themselves up to satisfie these study their lusts how to fulfill them this is a bondage under sin with a witness Now blessed be the Lord the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath delivered us as many as believe from this bondage so the Apostle breaks out pathetically Thanks be to God that ye were the servants of sin but ye have obeyed from the heart the form of Doctrine delivered unto you now saith he being made free from sin ye became the servants of righteousness and this is set forth by our death to sin ye are dead saith the Apostle to the Col. and your life is hid with Christ in God now death puts an end to all bondage 〈◊〉 as Job speaking of it the small and great are there in the grave and the servant is free from his Master A woman saith the Apostle speaking of sin of the Law with respect to sin as afterward we shall speak somewhat she is bound to her husband as long as he liveth but if he be dead then she is free So it is in this case death breaks all the iron yoaks and brazen gates therefore saith the Apostle he that is dead is freed from sin not as the vulgar and some read is justified as if our justification and sanctification were confounded for here the Apostle is speaking of our Sanctification or the death of sin crucifying the old man of being buried with Christ in body and so dead to sin now saith he he that is dead is free from sin the Con. is comprehended in the Antecedent he is freed actually from sin Sin shall not have dominion over you saith the Apostle no iniquity shall have dominion over you Thus believers are freed from sin whereas before we were under a cruel bondage you that have experience of this liberty what it is to be freed from your former lusts which you served foolish and hurtful lusts the Lord teach you to prize it But secondly now for the Con. of this bondage to sin there are many and very dreadful which every poor sinner is under which are also as parts of this bondage First then hence it is that we are in bondage unto Satan that we are under his power that we are in bondage by nature to him as the Jaylor it is clear the Spirit that now
with us at all but then when we do actually thus pollute our selves he takes occasion to depart to leave us to those evils and to fill us with our own back-slidings Thirdly Take heed of sinning against conviction against light this is dangerous indeed you may come to be shut up in darkness for this to be bound in affliction and iron to endure sad things upon your spirits for if the Spirit of Christ who convinceth you this or that is a sin be so far slighted as you heed it not what if he then forbear and is it not righteous he should forbear to shine upon your graces that you should see any thing that is ought in you So that you shall walk in darkness and see no light will not this be a paying of you home in your own coyn David could not be ignorant what his sin was before he committed it and yet you see he ventured upon it and what it cost him Fourthly Take heed of deliberate sinning when a man hath time of consideration of his sin to argue the case pro and con as we use to say and doth revolve with himself O this is sinful if I do it I rebell against God I do what in me lies to undo my self O but saith lust man it shall be satisfied God is merciful there is time enough to repent or it will easily be healed afterward Now upon such deliberations as this if a man will sin there is much of the will in it and so much the more wicked and therefore now the spirit must needs be grieved what can such a poor creature expect but to be brought under bondage as you see it in David his plotting and contriving the death of Vriah these sins in cold blood when a man is not under the sudden violent heat of a temptation and yet will sin O this grieves him much if a pot be on the fire and the scum rise we throw it out we expect it would rise but if no fire be under and yet a scum arise O this is so loathsom it is not to be endured Fifthly Take heed of Ranker and Malice of grudgings of heart one against another as the Apostle saith grudge not one against another prejudices heart-burnings grudgings upon injuries real or conceived and imagined O this grieveth the Spirit who is a Spirit of pure love and will have them that look to enjoy him to be a people of love to cover much bear and forbear and forgive in love for love will cover a multitude of offences Sixthly Take heed then of pride of being lifted up for the Spirit of Christ is a Spirit of humility O he loveth to dwell in the lowly spirit if we be lifted up we rob him of his honour to arrogate that to our selves which he hath been working for us to think we are something of our own of our selves he will let us know to our sorrow that we have nothing in our hearts but darkness and bondage and sin and that all was from him Seventhly Take heed of unthankfulness for what he hath done for us when the Spirit of the Lord Jesus shall be at all this pains with us contest with the quarrellings and disputings of our own hearts against our own peace and comfort and answer all our objections and still our complaints and seal up love upon our hearts remove our trembling and fears dispell our darkness cleanse our loathsom hearts in a great measure of those lusts that did so much prevail against us and we shall forget this now and not return to him the praise but either to grow into carnal security and when we have rest from that which galled us with the nine leapers go our waies never mind whence we received it or else so much pore upon the remainder of our sins as not to exalt that grace whereby we are in so great a part delivered O this grieveth him and therefore he may justly let us step back again or let loose upon us again those lusts that we were delivered from their strength and never prized the mercy that we learn to admire that grace much more might be added but this shall suffice The next use of the point shall be for satisfaction to some doubts since we are delivered and set free from the Law as you have heard from that It may be thought First that the Law was an evil that it is such a priviledge of the Saints to be delivered from it Secondly It may be doubted how far we are set free from it and therefore I will speak a little to each of them for the first First the Apostle meeteth with it or rather prevents it for seeing that carnal reason would be so ingenuous as to find out that cavil among others against the Doctrine of faith and of freedom from the bondage under the Law as the strength of sin specially What shall I say then saith the Apostle is the Law sin that we are said to be delivered from it and that sin hath its strength from it and so deliverance from sin is a deliverance from the Law as the strength of it Or is the Law death since sin by this means doth work death No saith the Apostle the Law is holy just and good the Law giveth no occasion to sin but sin takes occasion sin will not endure to be contradicted it sucks poyson out of that holy and good Law of God meeting with opposition it swells and rageth so that indeed it is sin that is the evil the Law is holy and good O but the Law it works wrath and works death and can this then be good and how can it be such a mercy to be delivered from it is it a favour to be put into golden fetters supposing the Law to be good and holy yet since it is as we may say ginns and fetters and bolts though of gold to hold the poor soul in to keep him in and up as in a prison is this so good then To this I answer It is true by the Law is the knowlege of sin I had not known lust except the Law had said thou shalt not covet whether in the last command or in each command now I will not dispute but the first motions thoughts risings and bubblings of corruption I had not known them to be sin but that the Law hath said thou shalt not covet Why but was that then that was good made death to me saith the Apostle You must know the Apostle speaks here of a death which is the receiving as I may say the sentence of condemnation in his own spirit by conviction for this is all his knowledge of sin that sin by the commandment might appear to be exceeding sinful this is the dying there mentioned sin revived and I dyed which is in order to liberty to make the poor creature see his necessity of Jesus Christ that so he might make out after him to make a pardon welcome therefore he casts poor sinners
into fet ters under this Law So that if you look upon it in this subserviency to the Gospel though the creature may be put to much grief by it yet it is good when pardon is proclaimed that a Prince should cast those rebells into prison to make them willing of a pardon the Gospel is a savour of death to death you know and yet it is a sweet savour in them that perish and them that are saved the Gospel is never the worse for that and if the Law prove fetters to a poor sinner to keep him under bondage for ever and bind him over to everlasting Judgement this is through his own wickedness that he will not accept of deliverance in the Gospel where it is preached the Law is never the less good and holy But the second is the main thing how far we are said to be freed from the Law of God and how we are not freed from it First we are delivered from it as a Covenant of righteousness do this and live that is to say be thou exactly conformable to this Law for ever 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 want of suitableness to this Law is a sin and every sin the wages of it is death if thou break it but in one thou art guilty of all Alas Brethren the Law was weak through our flesh and could not justifie it could discover sin as a glass but not purge it it could work wrath work it out but it could not pacifie therefore the Lord Jesus came and took upon him that name the Lord our righteousness and he is now saith the Apostle the end of the Law for righteousness It was a School-master to whip us to fright us out of our selves to Jesus Christ therefore every soul in Christ now is delivered from the Law as a Covenant of life that is clear but this was mentioned before Secondly Now from the rigorous exacting of obedience for according to the Law nothing is obedience except perfect if a man miscarry in one thing he is guilty of all there must be a doing of every thing written yea in the fullest most spiritual sense of it yea a continuance in every thing to the end or else it is not obedience but now the Lord accepteth of the desires of the upright heart he heareth the prayer of such as desire to fear his name the will now goeth for the deed where the poor soul striveth to do and is not able Dear friends how sad a condition were we in many times if the Lord did so rigorously exact our obedience how often do we come to pray and can say nothing in his presence can scarce sigh or groan and in hearing and speaking his Word though we do stir up our selves to watch O how often do vain thoughts run away with our hearts now if we were under this exacting of the Law what would become of us what had become of Paul when he did the things he hated the things he would not c. if he had been under the rigour of the Law If there be first a willing mind that imprimis Brethren doth legitimate all the following Items though never so weak now the Law is in the hand of Christ as a Father who pittieth and spareth us alas what had become of the best of us else long since thus we are delivered Thirdly From the curse of it Gal. 3. 18. our Saviour being made a curse for us so that the curse of it doth not lie upon us to sink us that is to say the weight of the wrath or displeasure of God Nor yet as a compulsion to obedience to this Law as slaves and very wretched sinners may do much for the fear and dread of this curse of God but this the Lord delivered his people from he maketh them a willing people he now sheweth them greater reason against sin then ever they saw now opens to them the grave they see the rottenness of it which they saw not before now he opens his treasures of rich grace in Christ and so by mediation of the understanding works upon the will sweetly inclining it to God though there be a moral swasion by apposition of object as a Lamb is led by a green bush up and down yet this is not all there goeth more to the taking away the stone in the heart and giving a heart of flesh which doth most what lie in the making the will flexible and plyable not so much in sorrow and tears and meltings which doth many times accompany it and sometimes not at all or very little Pharaohs heart was hardened for he obeyed not he was stiff and stubborn and therefore said to be a stone Now I say a moral swasion will not reach to this a man may use much oratory to a stone and yet it remaineth a stone still a Preacher may hold forth sin to be sin and exceeding sinful and hold forth Christ crucified by them and for them before their eyes and yet alas all will not do they remain stones still No no an enclining of the heart he turns the hearts of men whithersoever he will as he did the heart of Esau to Jacob upon his prayer there was more then a swasion and as he did the thief upon the Cross in the midst of his torments and agonies of death then to think upon a Christ then to have his heart towards him that never regarded him in his life-time and in the midst of a people reviling him as you know and upon the Cross suffering and dying and yet then to be wrought upon argues a wonderful divine power put forth upon the will Well then when the will is overcome we are made free to the service of Jesus Christ now we can delight in the Law of God after the inward man it was a weariness to a sinner to hear the Word specially if it came near to him he could not endure to be grated upon and a weariness to pray now he delights in these things So far we are delivered from the curse as the great inforcement of Obedience Fourthly From the provoking power of the Law as you have often heard now that Law that was the occasion of the rebelling of lust is hid in the heart that we might not sin against him this is a great change indeed in a child of God from the former condition when before God would put his yoak upon our souls we writhed and pluckt away our neck would not endure it now it pleaseth us to be under it it is sweet and easie to us now it is a provocation to obedience that before was a provocation unto sin But now on the other hand we are not set free from the Law as a Law a rule of holy walking of new obedience our Saviour did not by fulfilling the Law destroy it but accomplish it because we were not able of our selves to do it he under went the rigour of it and took away all the condemnation of
in the Gospel inculcate this upon the Disciples fear not him that can kill the body but fear him that killeth soul and body And so if ye live after the flesh ye shall dye but if by the Spirit ye mortifie the deeds of the flesh ye shall live these threatnings surely would not have been written to Believers except they were to make some use of them to be as an awe upon their spirits to keep them from sinning to be a quickning to their souls Now on the other hand it is true that there ought not to be in us such a fear as to distract us to drive us from to weaken our Spirits to disable us from duty to cloud and drown all our delight in his waies to blot out our apprehensions of his loveliness and compassion and bowels so as to beget hard thoughts in our hearts of God which will produce hatred of him such a fear ought not to be in us and though there may be a spice of it sometimes even in the best when they are not themselves yet this is not the prevailing principle in the soul but an holy fear of offending him which ariseth from a mixture of love towards him and holy reverence and awe of him and of his Majesty and Greatness and truly Brethren this is no enemy to spiritual liberty But I must not dwell so long upon things But secondly the main thing that I know most troubles a gracious heart is that he finds himself so much under the power of sin O I find not this freedom this liberty you speak of I am a wretch then under the power of my corruptions O the sad complaints to Christians to men continually from some poor disconsolate souls and to speak a little for their consolation if the Lord breath in it First Brethren you must know this that as sin hath had a time of settling and rooting there will be a time of unsettling it thou art of yesterday it may be and dost thou think to be so free the first day as they that have many years been wresting and fighting and praying and fasting and mourning and believing down their lusts This is a great mistake it is infinite mercy that thou hast thy hands let loose and thy feet out of the mire and clay and that thou art set upon a Rock that thou hast now a standing and liberty to fight thou must not expect a liberty from fighting and conflicting with sin while thou art in the flesh mind you the Apostles two or three verses of the same Epistle to the Romans he saith the Law of the Spirit of life the powerful working of the Spirit of life hath set him free from the Law of sin and death and yet a few verses before O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of sin and death thou groanest under the burthen whereby it appears thou art delivered in a great part thou art willing to be freed and when the will is disintangled the man is free in a great part Secondly Brethren know this for your comfort that your labour is not in vain striving against sin fighting with it you are sure to overcome though sin lie hard upon you you shall overcome it First the Lord he is able to break all the bonds if he will deliver Peter out of prison what shall hinder his chains shall fall from his hands the Iron-gates shall open of their own accord before him nothing shall be able to hold them It was somewhat hard for Israel to believe that they should be delivered out of Egypt and somewhat a strange Message of Moses at the first even as one should be sent to the great Turk to tell him the God of the Christians commands him to let them go but God tells him and them that he is that he is I am hath sent me the great God who is being it self and from himself he is what he is he is able to destroy the Egyptians dost thou believe this that he can subdue thine iniquities thy strong impetuous violent lusts Secondly then he will do it he heard Israel groaning under bondage and came down to deliver them he remembered his Covenant it was his faithfulness Brethren that brought him out the self-same day the Lord delivered them and the Lord will keep time to a day with thee that groanest under this bondage if thou werâ— but humbled if it had done its work upon thee for that and such like ends he would not suffer sin to prevail upon thee any longer for he letteth not lusts loose upon a soul to woorry it but to humble it make it out of love with sin to drive it to himself to make it for ever cleave closer to him now there is promise upon promise for this you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free he speaks this to his Disciples who did already know it in part know himself the truth the way and the life and the truth in opposition to shadows grace and truth came by Jesus Christ and it shall make you free how many promises are there as in the text therefore surely he will do it Now what an encouragement it is to fight when we are sure to overcome yea to endure hardship in this conflict But thirdly consider it is the very office of Jesus Christ the work which he received of his Father is to destroy the works of the Devil to destroy strong holds to lead captivity captive therefore he came into the world if it had not been for such poor creatures as are under bondage there had been no need of Christ he came to give himself a ransom for many and to preach deliverance to them and the opening of the prison to them that are bound you have heard already and therefore he was annointed of his Father and received the Spirit that he might set open the prison doors Now poor burthened souls if any such whose body ofsin and death presseth them down sore and they walk heavily goâ— to him spread your condition before him put him in mind wherefore he came into the world to set open the prison to loose the prisoners and thou hast an infirmity and haply been bound with it many years beseech him to exercise his Office towards thy poor soul the Lord loveth to hear his people earnest and importunate to plead it thus with him but if thou canst not yet be sure he will do the work which his Father hath given him to do and what is that but to set at liberty such prisoners as thou art that groan under the burthen and bondage of their lusts Fourthly Consider how pittiful a heart he bears to his people labouring under corruption when we are weak it may be sometimes the spirits of a poor creature are spent in labour in other services and he thinketh he should be as lively then as at another time but it is not likly so to be