matter Thus we are by nature of no more reason than a wilde Ass and yet as unturnable as that Creature The old Man is proud and wilful yea presumptuous yea of enmity and despight if resisted as Lions and Dragons are spitting their some and poison as Cats in the face of all that contradict 'T is said of Judas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he became head-long Act. 1.18 He was so in his life for he would on in his work of betraying Christ though convinced by Christ's own preaching and told to his Face that he should betray him And so are the ways of corrupt nature carried head-long He taketh the wise in their own craftiness and the counsels of the froward are carried head-long Joh. 5.13 And all this continually as the Blackamore that cannot change his skin No place better sets out the bad property of natural corruption then that Gen. 6.5 God saw that the wickedness of man was great and that every imagination of the thought of his heart was evil and only evil and that continually For such a visible as well as audible Sermon as Noah preached of 120 Years long would surely have turned them from their sins had they not been desperately obstinate and so continually of which God was sensible and complain'd and was grieved at his heart that he made man And shall God so much lay to heart the depraved state of a man and man himself not lay it to heart at all Fourthly We should be deeply sensible of natural corruption in the consequence of it It is a body of death a body of this death that is it disposeth us to all the wrath of God both in this World and in the World to come And therefore doth the Apostle cry out here in my Text as one utterly loft O wretched man that I am Who shall deliver me c. And they likewise who were prickt at heart by the Apostle Peter's preaching with the sense of their sinful state Cryed out Men and Brethren What shall we do to be saved Which are Scriptures of purpose to shew that we should be deeply sensible of the evil consequence of corrupt nature as it will destroy Soul and Body Judas is called a Childe of Perdition and so are we called Children of wrath by nature that is such as are not under mercy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not pitied as the expression is rightly rendered in the Queens translation 1 Pet. 2.10 Now how are Malefactors affected with the consequence of their evil way when they are going to the Gallows especially when they have no hope of mercy when they be not under talk of mercy and pardon Now our natural state is death without all mercy that is the sentence pronounced upon it if the state so abide a carnal state it is death without all mercy and every carnal man should speak of himself as the Apostle Peter doth as one not under mercy or as one that hath not yet obtained mercy but lies lyable as a Prisoner condemned every hour to Execution I take it that their attonement day spokeâ— of Levit. 23.27 Wherein they were to afflict their Souls upon pain of death had principal reference to their state of sin by nature that body of sin which they brought into the World with them which exposed them and us all unto death and all misery in this World and that to come and if it be so then you have the Point in hand proved and the reason of it why we should be deeply sensible of corrupt nature as well as of all that flowes from it because God commands it and commands it upon great penalty We die for it else unless we afflict our Souls under the sense of our fallen state and Gods displeasure belonging thereunto that Soul which doth not so well die for it their afflicting day was a day to go to the Root and to cast salt and brine upon the springs of wickedness which if they did not the wrath of God seized on their Roots Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord we perswade Men saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 5.11 We perswade Men. To what Answ To look well about them that they be not found in their carnal state when Christ cometh to Judgment So that the deepest sense of this thing should be upon us that can possibly be as if we were now going before the Judgment of quick and dead and all in our sins or as if we were going to the Wedding of a great Prince and had not one rag on our backs to cover our nakedness Vse I Learn from hence that if we should be sensible of natural corruption then of all actual transgressions which are but as streams from this Fountain If we should mourn over the evil Womb then over all the evils which this VVomb brings forth And yet what twins and what tens and what great man-sins and provocations doth this evil VVomb bring forth every where at this day and yet who lays to heart either Mother or Children I hearkned and heard but they spake not aright no Man repented him of his wickedness saying What have I done every one turns to his course as the Horse rusheth into the Battel Jer. 8.6 Vse 2 Woe and alas how much are the most liberal reproved who are past feeling as to both natural corruption and all actual transgressions yea even the fowlest and greatest Giving themselves over to lasciviousness to work all iniquity with greediness and drink in all abominations as the Fish doth Water So far from sense of all sin either in the heart or in the life that all such frame of spirit is scoffed at If a man do but cast the least discountenance on the greatest sin What you are a Phanatick and ready as Swine to turn and tear and rent such as cast such Pearls before them as wholesome and seasonable reproofs and are as the wilde Ass that snuffeth up the wind and in the heat of her lust cannot be turned away Febris accedit the mad Feavour will and must have its course though Heaven or Hell bear upon breaking off or going on They say in the pride and stoutness of their hearts to morrow shall be as this day and much more abundant To talk of a body of death Lord what strange language would this be now adays and if a Man should chance to sigh as the Apostle O wretcheà man that I am What will become of me that Hellish cordial I doubt would be readily administred God dam-me thou wilt do well enough Never was it such a God-daring time for wickedness If it be such a God-damning time as persons pâ—ay Hell will be full of Souls indâ—ed for many Ages surely as this Men have made their hearts as an Adamant that they may not repent and seared their Consciences with a hot Iron that they may be sin-proof and not fall before the greatest wickedness nor the greatest judgment of God That capital curse I fear is inflicted
this glory a defence will make States and Nations blessed Surely if we the Lord's People were but as zealous to use liberty and priviledge well as we are to have it it would come faster than it doth Let us look more into our selves and more up to God as the readiest way to all good These are the thoughts desires and prayers of Him who is Yours ever in the Lord. N. L. Rom. vii xxiv O wretched Man that I am Who shall deliver me from the body of this Death THe great weight of sin and misery and the want of one to remove well both is the cause of this dolefull complaint O wretched man that I am Who shall deliver me from the body of this death or from this body of death as it is put in the Margent The weight of sin is groaned under in this terme of my Text body which is a word of quantity nomen quanâ—itatis and means the corruption of our nature to be a very extensive thing that the whole state of man in all the powers of his Soul and Body is depraved and vitiated and made utterly unfit to serve God and most fit to serve sin and Satan with all Organs and Instruments within and without Secondly This terme in my Text body is also Nomen qualitatis a word of quality that means the naturalness of this general pravity to us it lay with us as Mr. Rutherford saith in our Mothers Womb as Twins as one body lieth with another It took us fast by the heel in the Womb and we could never kick it off since And Thirdly For as much as there is this Epethite given to this Body calling it a Body of Death and a Body of this Death it notes not only the weight of sin but also of misery death being here put to signifie guilt and punishment Our depraved condition casteth us under all guilt and under all punishment that is actually under much misery and lyable every moment to all misery in Soul and Body in this World and in the World to come not only liable to death as 't is a dissolution of Soul and Body and all the sicknesses and diseases which prepare unto it but liable to this death that is a separation of both Soul and Body from God for ever Now to deliver us from the Body of this death a Body of corruption which exposeth us to such a death as this There no Man nor Angel is able no all the Angels did they joyn to do us service in this thing to change our natures to take off guilt to rectifie the Image of God which we have lost they cannot stir this Body as to any of these in the least nor any member of it they are not able to remove one sin or satisfie for the guilt of it nor draw one line an eye or an eye-brow or one finger of the new man This great weight of sin and misery and this utter impotency of all created strength to help out of it maketh the Apostle to cry out thus O wretched man that I am Who shall deliver me c. There be several things very profitable to be observed in these words as First this That every one is in a wretched and miserable condition by nature Depraved in all powers of Soul and Body and exposed in both to the utmost displeasure of God O wretched man that I am c. He doth not mean himself alone but speaketh as personating the best of men and so consequently all men for that he did thus complain of a corrupt state who was so holy who else but hath cause much more to complain For this death which my Text speaketh of hath passed over all Men for as much as all Men have finned in Adam And this Apostle which speaketh but of himself in this case in my Text speaketh generally elsewhere That by nature we are the Children of wrath as well as others Eph. 2.3 Secondly This may be learned from these words That our state by nature is not a safe state to be rested in That our state as we come into this World is not such as we should be contented with but a state much to be complain'd of by the best and much cryed out upon and much strugled under to be freed from O wretched man that I am Who shall deliver me c. Flesh and blood cannot enter into the Kingdome of God They which rest in their state as they come into this World and think that they attain to be moral and civil just and righteous to men and little or nothing complain of that which the Apostle doth here in my Text a Body of Death do not know their own danger Thirdly We may here learn That the best are not so good as they should be That the best in this World are much burdened and much endangered with natural corruption The Apostle Paul though regenerated found much of the rebellion of an evil nature of which he knew not how to get rid carrying him Captive to what he would not and so exposing him continually to the displeasure of God I know that in me that is in my Flesh dwelleth no good thing for to will is present with me but how to perform that which is good I finde not for the good I would I do not but the evil I would not that I do Corrupt nature as it easily besets us so it as easily overcomes us for any strength that we have of our own Such as so feelingly complain as Paul here doth will not easily be brought to drink in the Popish Doctrin of Perfection Fourthly We may here learn That our state in this World at best is but a wretched state for though a little grace be given unto us it is so over-matched with a great body of sin that we rather undo than do any thing that is good Is it not a wretched state to be so hampered with an ill Inmate Night and Day that when one pulls one way 'tother pulls stronger still the wrong way To see two Dogs coupled a little one and a great one What a woful condition is the little one in how he is pulled and haled up and down this way and that way not which way he would go but which way the great one will go or else he grins his teeth on the little one and bites him and abuseth him much just so is the condition of the most regenerate in this World And therefore he that is best and hath best in this World can say no better of it than he findes and daily feels that his condition is but a wretched condition O wretched man that I am c. The Point which I would stand on Doct. is this That we all ought to be deeply sensible of natural corruption Or we all ought much to lay to heart our fallen state by nature The Apostle Paul was a holy Man yet very sensible of much unholiness a body of it of which he was
his bosom then Christ doth the helping of poor wretched burdened sinners the binding up and mollifying their maladies Some are bound fast enough to a business by their word but not at all by their affection and these though they keep their word yet it is in such a rough churlish way as is much discouraging but it is not so with Christ because he is under the bond of his bowels and affections as well as under the bond of his word and therefore trust in him that your case shall be helped and very carefully and compassionately helped Finally Confider the danger of not believing in this able One. You become debtors to the Law to fulfill it and debtors to your own desperate wretched condition as not self murderers to deliver your selves from the body of death in which you are and from the wrath of God to which this obligeth you You frustrate the Ordinance of God which he hath anointed and appointed for your good You cast your selves under the Covenant of works as that young Man which said to Christ What shall I do to be saved As if he could have saved himself and so made himself a debtor to fulfill the Law and Christ put him upon it seeing he would that way be saved and so he will serve you and them Confider whether you be able to keep the Law in every point and so restore your own state some are at the Doctrin of Perfection but they make void the Gospel and Christ and will as the young Man miâ—s perfection in one thing at least one thing will be wanting and he that fails in one Point is guilty of all and will bring the curse of the breach of the whole Law upon him Confider that by nature you are the Children of wrath and Transgressors from the Womb and how soon may the curse of this state be executed Wherefore I conclude all with the repetition of the promise again to you Isa 25.6 7 8. And I beseech you heed it well and take hold of it for your good And in this Mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make a Feast to all People a Feast of fat things a Feast of Wine on the Lees of fat things full of marrow and he will destroy in this Mountain the face of the covering cast over all People and the Vail that is spread over all Nations and he will swallow up death in victory and the Lord God will wipe all teares from all Faces and the rebuke of his People shall he take from all the Earth for the Lord hath spoken it and let me add his heart and soul is in it Jer. 3â— 41 What is the Vail that covereth all Nations Ans The Vail of natural corruption the Body of Death as the Apostle here calleth it and as this Prophet in this place calls it Death and saith it shall be swallowed up in victory yea he hath engaged to wipe all teares from all Mourners eyes who sigh and take on as this Apostle because of their wretched condition and to give them victory over the body of this death and the triumphs of this great victory in this World or in the World to come Comfort your selves all ye that groan under the Body of Death with these words FINIS SERIOUS CONSIDERATIONS OF DEATH Being A SERMON ON Isaiah 57.1 The righteous Man perisheth and no Man layeth it to heart and merciful Men are taken away none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come Isaiah 57.1 The righteous Man perisheth and no Man layeth it to heart and merciful Men are taken away none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come THe general Mortality of Man-kind and the Holy Use that should be made thereof by all the living are the two principal things of this verse Death takes away the wicked and doubtless the wicked and others too should lay this to heart for Death is no partial Visitor if it fetch off one wicked Man and send him to his place it will fetch down another nothing is more naturally the wages of wickedness than death and yet no worse enemy to any wicked Man than death therefore one wicked Man should be startled much at the death of another But Death sometimes taketh away all Men and then all Men bad and good should be much moved then all should lay to heart this i.e. should be sensible of their sin and the displeasure of God and speedily make peace with him by repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ that so present evils and also future presaged by present strokes may be turned away which thing this People could not be stirred up unto which was the reason of the complaint of this Prophet he preached the Funerals of the dead the best dead to the living good and bad but no man laid it to heart that is not held themselves deeply concerned to look about them to search their Souls to set House and Heart in order to die but kept on every one in his wonted pace of sin and wickedness and formality in Religion and so fell most of them in the common calamity The Doctrines which may be observed in these words are these First That God sometimes by common calamity taketh away the good as well as the bad Moses and Aaron as well as the mixed Multitude which murmured Did the Lord take off and would not let them come in to the good Land The righteous Man perisheth as if the Prophet had said the Lord strikes more mortally than any one is well aware he plucks up the stakes in the Hedg he pulls down the Pillars of the whole Nation and yet Men do not fear that all will fall about their Ears Hence it is that another Prophet calls upon the best People to look about them and to labour to be much better yet gives them but a may be for their safety Seek meekness all ye meek of the Earth ye which have wrought his judgments seek meekness seek righteousness it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord's wrath As if the Prophet had said I cannot ensure the life of the best Man because God sometimes destroyeth the righteous with the wicked for ends best known to himself This should make us all fear and tremble much in this dying Day and to give all diligence to make our Calling and Election sure and to be getting Oyl into our Lamps yea and to keep them trim'd and to stand guirt and ready to go in with the Bride-groom if call'd at Mid-night by the destroying Angel that is now abroad A Second Doctrin that may be observed in these words is this That gracious Men and merciful are the likeliest to scape best in times of common calamity The Prophet seems to note it in these words of my Text as very severe Justice that gracious and merciful Men should not be distinguished from others in the Day of evil The righteous Man perisheth and
on many of judicial hardness of heart Isa 6.10 11 12. Make the heart of this People fat and their ears heavy and shut their eyes lest they see with their eyes and hear with their eares and understand with their hearts and convert and be healed Then I said Lord how long and he answered till the Cities be wasted without Inhabitants and the Houses without Men and the Land be utterly desolate and the Lord have removed Men far away and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the Land This will be a strong reproof indeed if this should be the reproof upon us and yet very pleasing Vse 3 Try your selves by this Doctrine Are you deeply sensible of natural corruption If so then it is your only burden Of all perils and distresses though Paul had many did the Apostle complain as here of the Body of Death Do you any where read him say O wretched man that I am I am poor I am in Prison Who shall deliver me out of these sad conditions Alas he made nothing of hunger of nakedness of stripes of deaths oft but gloried in them But the body of this death that made him fetch deep sighs O wretched man that I am he never called himself so for any bodily evil whatsoever The Israelites were enjoyn'd when they came with their first fruits to make a solemn confession of their great unworthiness of God's great bounty and goodness A Syrian ready to perish was my Father and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there with a few Deut. 26.5 If you be deeply sensible then this is the allay in all your glory still in all your mirth this is the qualm that comes over your heart that makes it sad what a wretch ready to perish came I into this holy and good Land And why should such a dead Dog as I be treated thus with grace which abuse all that is bestowed on me Thus you look back to the hole of the Pit out of which digged daily and sigh if deeply sensible Secondly If you be deeply sensible of natural corruption then are you very vile in your own eyes I am more vile saith Agar than any man David calls himself a Beast and the Cananitish Woman owns her self to be a Dog and if Christ had called her a Viper a Toad a Monster no doubt she would have owned it If I wash me with Snow water and make me never so clean yet shall thou plunge me in the ditch and mine own cloaths shall abhor me Job 9.31 If ye be indeed sensible of your naughty state by nature ye are Persons of low eyes ye think the Cloaths ye wear too good for you because ye defile them the Meat you eat too good for you because to the unclean all things are unclean and the Earth too good to bear you because you are such a great load of filth such a going Dunghill If ye be indeed sensible of natural corruption ye are poor in Spirit unworthy that Christ or any good thing should come under your root This Apostle means all this when he calls himself a wretch labouring under a Body of Death The Leper under the Law and the Person with a Running Issue how low and loathsome were they in their own eyes loath and ashamed to come neer nay to come in fight of any one Thirdly If ye be deeply sensible of natural corruption then ye are as this Apostle in my Text at an utter loss in your selves what to do for deliverance from the guilt and power of it O wretched man that I am Who shall deliver me I am utterly to seek to save my self so is all the Creation I cannot deliver my self and who of all the Creatures of God in Heaven or in Earth that can deliver me To which of the Saints or Angels shall I turn So the Prophet Isaiah saw himself at an utter loss upon the sense of his vile condition Then said I woe is me for I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips Isa 6.5 He saw no way but one with him I am cut off So is the reading in the Margent I am gone and lost utterly now the holy God hath seen what an unholy wretch I am he hath got a view of me and a sent of me and surely he will think on it for ever what an ugly sight he saw and what a filthy smell he smelt Do you feel your selves undone by sin by reason of this Running Issue and that in your nature Are ye a burden to your selves because a burden and grief to the Holy Spirit of God Or are you not clean and pure in your own eyes and cock-sure ye shall go to Heaven when you die you have lived so well amongst all your neighbours and have done so much good and every one speaks so well of you Can such a state do amiss Our Saviour saith the whole need no Physician and that he came to save lost ones such who are so deeply possessed with the signe and sense of their sinful state by nature and life and conversation that they cry out Who will deliver me wretched me most sinful and forlorne me Isaac was at a loss for an Offering and doubtless thought at last that he must be burnt Fourthly If ye be deeply sensible of the body of death then ye prise deliverance from it above all this World Naaman the Syrian how he prised any Person or means that could cure his Leprosie And the Man-slayer how he prized and pursued the City of refuge And what would not one of those pursued Man-slayers have given for but one Foot within the Gate of the City of refuge To them that are under the deep sense of sin the Redeemer that is come from Zion to turn away ungodliness from Jacob is very precious O how precious was Christ to this Apostle which my Text mentioneth as you read in the next Verse O wretched Man that I am Who shall deliver me I thank God through Jesus Christ As a Man almost drowned having some one that can swim leaping in and taking hold of him O how doth he thank God for this friend I The Apostle Paeul being deeply sensible of his wretched state by nature did so esteem Christ that the truth is he esteem'd all else in comparison but as dung and dross Nebuchadnezar which was brought as a Beast from grass from creeping upon all four O how he magnified the true God for a while So doth that sinner magnifie and extoll Christ Dan. 4.34 that is brought from crawling like a Toad upon all four in the filth and poison of his natural corrupt on The black crabbed Tree of the Cross hath made Christ and my Soul very entire saith Mr. Rutherford He is my Song in the Night So I say the black Crab-stock of natural corruption maketh Christ and that sinner very dear and entire and his Song in dark Night who is in the pains and travels of natural corruption The
Spring as it is foolish so it is an endless work How can a clean thing come out of an unclean If the heart remain still filthy How is it possible to make the life holy Hence it is that the heart is so much called for to be cleansed and that sinck to be well lookt after because there is the seat of natural pravity and the very Core of all corruption Cut off branches as you would lop a Tree cut them off all and leave the roots through the sent of mud they will grow as Job saith every occasion and temptation so long as the nature remains unrenewed and unlookt to will make sin break out afresh and the Dog will return to his own vomit The Queens Daughter is therefore called upon to forget her Father's House or else she would be hankering to be there again They which came out of Egypt in body and did not come out spiritually as to their souls how unsteadfast were they and their righteousness as the morning dew and in their hearts went back again to Egypt If any Israelite having taken in War a Heathen Woman and beautiful that he had a desire to marry he was first to bring her home to his House and shave her Head and pare her Nails and was to put off the raiment of her captivity and then she was to bewail her Father and her Mother a full Moneth c. That is her Heathenish state wherein born and bred she was to bewail and taught by this paring of her Nails and changing the Raiment of her Captivity to look after deliverance from her inward captivity and for a new state a new Father and Mother and all new her hands yea her very Nails and all this but little enough to make her forget her Father's House and to forsake old haunts and customs and ways Who knoweth not but that Nails and Hairs and such excrements are most apt and ready to grow again and yet not more apt and ready than sin is though pared and shaved if it be not dealt throughly with in the heart and in the root Finally Without this deep sense of our natural condition Christ will not be precious to us nor indeed desirable who is the only Physician for this great cure We shall be righteous in our own eyes as the Pharisee and not care for any righteousness else but our own though we may talk of faith and of the righteousness of Christ as many Christians do We shall be as Country-people which are whole as a Fish and laught at all Physicians Till the Apostle Paul was smitten down from Heaven and his eyes opened to see this body of death of which he complains in my Text he was alive and brisk and who but he for a holy and a happy man But when the Commandement came in Authority upon him which he thought he had perfectly kept sin revived and he died 'T is the poor and blind and wretched and naked that Christ counsels to come and buy of him Eye-salve and Garments to cover their nakedness Rev. 3.17 18. As we are Proselites i.e. Comers to Christ so we are cured of our spiritual Leprosie and such Proselites we will never be but as we see and feel our lost state by nature and our great necessity of him Who looks after the things which they do not need Ho he that thirsteth c. and such will prise Milk and Water I cannot get a House in this Town wherein to leave drink-silver in my Masters name saith Mr Rutherford There is no sale for Christ in the north meaning at Aberdeen he is like to lie long on my hand ere any accept him Thus it is with all unsensible and unheart-broken sinners though at the brink of Hell yet will not come unto Christ that they may be saved from their sins and from the wrath of God FINIS THE REMEDIE OF NATURAL Corruption Being A SERMON ON Rom. vii xxv I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Rom. vii xxv I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. THese words are an Answer to a sad Question the Question is in the words foregoing Who shall deliver me from the body of this death v. 24. That is from natural corruption the guilt and the dominion and Power of it This Apostle was at an utter loss in himself and as to all others and then God revealed an able Physician to him as these words of my Text tell us I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Christ is revealed to Sinners which dispair of all help in themselves or in any other Creature Such will thank God for him as here this wretched Man doth Mr. Rutherford speaketh of a sorrow that hath no eyes This Apostle's sorrow was such for a time Wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death He knew not of any deliveâ—er and then God became eyes to the blind and helped the sorrowful sinner and the blind sinner to eyes to see a Saviour and an All-sufficient one I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. When Isaac was at a loss for an offering and Abraham also when the sorrow of both had no eyes God was sight and help to them both Here is the wood but where is the Sacrifice i. e. One to die My Son God will provide And he did so Donatum non petitum gratius est saith the Civilian A gift not asked is the most free So did God provide that offering for Isaac and so did he provide this offering for this Apostle and wretched Man and so he doth for every wretched Man which hath the benefit of him he is Donatum non petitum to every fallen Son of Adam that is raised by him He was found of him that asked not after him Secondly This may be further observed in these words That God doth not barely shew us the means of our good the proper means of our Souls good but enable us to make effectual use of them to that end If I should paraphrase upon this Text it would be to this effect Wretched man I am burdened much with a body of sin and death which is so heavy that I think oft it will one time or other sink me to the lowest Hell and I am as helpless as to all â—thers as impotent and miserable in my self O doubly wretched man that I am and am like to be who will who can deliver me Yet I have some help shewed to me I thank God but no body else he hath in my blinde and wretched conditiâ—n shewed me an able Physician by name Jesus Christ our Lord anointed and allowed under his own hand to help all such wretched Creatures as I am and he doth enable me to make use of him to my burdened Souls ease and rest This Scripture and such like shew that there is full and effectual relief for all burdened sinners who are ready to sink under the burden of their sin and misery Doct. The Doctrin
both as to God and as to his Son but of none as to him I thank God all is in a good way of cure now through Jesus Christ Donatum ob causam non est donatum sed potius permutatio A gift given for some cause is not a gift but rather an exchange of one thing for another but when very costly in it self and yet of no cost to us then it sparkles in the eyes of the receiver such a gift is Christ in this great work of the cure of our carnal state And doth the freeness of this love sparkle in your eyes and lay bonds upon you and make you go bound with holy affection and admiration No man that was ever cured of a desperate disease wherein he gave himself up for death but it was much obliging to him as to the instruments used for his Cure Naaman the Syrian thought himself bound to choose the God of Israel for his God that had cured him of his Leprosie If you be cured of your filthy Leprosie which is Christ's Priestly work and Kingly work too your Cure is between them both Do you choose him and own him for your Jesus and Lord as the Apostle here doth I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Christ by kindness conquers as Jeptha did If I do thus and thus for you slay your Enemies deliver you from slavery Shall I be your King And will ye chuse me to rule over you and they consented willingly If Christ hath cured your Soul diseases then are you under the Law of this great kindness and willing that he should be your Lord and to Rule you in all things according to his Word Secondly The Apostle was taken as with the love of Christ so with the love of the Father in this matter I thank God he hath found out a way to do me good a new and living way through his Son So the Apostle Peter Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Christ from the dead to an Inheritance incorruptible 1 Pet. 1.3 He saw an abundant mercy in the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ as well as in the Son our Lord Jesus Christ That having no more Sons should part with him out of his Bosom in Heaven to lodge Him in a Manger yea worse to lodg Him in Hell nay in a Place worse than that the filthy heart of the fallen Sons of Adam So the Apostle Paul again writing to the Ephesians saith But God who is rich in mercy for the great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sin and trespasses hath he quickned us together with Christ that in the Ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus Ephes 2.4 5 6. He saw rich mercy and great love exceeding riches of grace in God that by his own Son and not by any lower hand he should quicken Men dead in trespasses and sins And surely some thing of this is where this great Work is wrought a confessing that Jesus is the Lord To the glory of God the Father Vse 3 The last Use is for Exhortation seeing Christ is the proper remedy of our fallen state let this draw us to him to attend his Word and Ordinances and to attend the Angels stirring of these Waters Christ doth open Prison doors and deliver Captives but he doth it according to his Commission Now well observe the termes of his Commission Is 61 The Lord God hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek To which agrees 1 Pet. 3.19 By the which also he went to preach to the Spirits in Prison which were disobedient in the Days of Noah Preaching how lightly soever esteemed and how much soever opposed and suppressed is the great Ordinance by which Christ frees Captives and Prisoners and therefore this Ordinance which is the most general Ordinance to convince and convert should carefully and tremblingly be attended upon They that make light of preaching make light of their own depraved state of their Captivity to sin and Satan these groan not with this Apostle under the body of death Christ did create every day orderly by his Word he could have done it without but he did all as his Father appointed him and did not Movere per saltum make hast and pursue his own will or his own infinite and absolute Power so he doth in the new Creation and therefore wait upon wisdomes Posts Whoso is simple let him turn in hither where he will have Line upon Line now a little and then a little to touch and turn his heart Presently after the Creation was finished the Creator takes to himself the Title of Jehova Gen. 2.4 These are the Generations of the Heaven and of the Earth when they were created in the Day that Jehova Eloim made the Heaven and the Earth When you do approach to the Preaching of the Word Remember this Name of Christ that he is Jehova and able to give Being to his Word That what he bids you to be that he makes you to be Be exhorted when you attend Ordinances to pant for this thing that Christ as Jehova would Preach to you as one giving Being in your heart to every Word which he speaketh in your Ear That Christ would so speak that you might hear and believe all that he saâ—th as they at Iconium Act. 14.1 Take an Harp go about the City thou Harlot that hast been forgotten make sweet melody sing many Songs that thou mayest be remembred Isa 23.16 This spake the Lord to Tyrus a filthy sinful City and their punishment fore-told and the time for Seventy Years and then counselled to bemoan her self that she might be remembred and it is observable how holy bemoaning our selves is called and holy panting for deliverance from the slavery of sin and wrath it is called sweet melody and singing many Songs So indeed is such panting under the body of death and to be delivered from it as here the Apostle doth The mourning Doves note under the sense of our wretched state with a panting after Christ to cure it no Musick is such melody in the Ears of God to make him to remember us Thus crie and be ye all pained to be delivered Thirdly Take to you words and tell your great Physician how it is with you And if you want words help your selves with those Ephes 4.18 This I say and testifie in the Lord that ye walk not as other Gentiles in the vanity of your minds having your understandings darkned being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in you because of the blindness of their heart being past feeling c. Take up these words and apply them to your own depraved condition saying O wretched man that I am what a vain mind I have and how I walk in the vanity
honourable in thy House 1 Sam. 22.14 Did not his most tender and natural affection beget him and render him rather a brother than a friend to David in this strait The like instance is Ittai the Gittite an alien Return saith David to him why shouldst thou go up and down with me seeing I go whither I may 2 Sam. 15.20 And Ittai answered the King and said as the Lord liveth and as my Lord the King liveth in what place my Lord the King shall be whether in death or life even there also will thy servant be What Brother or what Child or Father could more tenderly and naturally have spoken and done Had not his friendly affection begotten him a neer Kinsman a Brother to David in his adversity Plato endeavoured that meum and tuum mine and thine might not be heard of in that Common-wealth wherein he was And this was the friendship of the Primitive Churches and Christian World without which they could not have subsisted under such bloody Persecutions And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one foul neither said any of them that ought which he possessed was his own but they had all things common and so with great power gave the Apostles witness Act 4.32 The Historian saith that Queen Elizabeth commanded the whole Ocean and laid out all to the support of the Protestant Interest against the Papists every where By this tender and friendly love to the poor persecuted Protestants she was in that season of the Churches adversity born a Sister or a Mother in Israel as Debora is called for like reason Vse Learn from hence these things First That friendship is more than complement a how do you vain visits frothy foolish diversions as carrying to Stage-Playes which make calamity return more heavy when Persons are gone which know to fhew no better friendship And Joab fell to the ground on his Face and thanked the King and said now I know that I have found grace in the sight of my Lord the King in that the King hath fulfilled the request of his Servant 2 Sam. 14.22 Absalom was a banished Man and Joab was his hearty friend and he did not understand Court-complements But when things were done that might fully answer the distresses of his friend there he understood it Now saith he I know that I have found favour now thou hast fulfilled my requests and done things that may fully relieve the distressed Joab was born a Brother as it were to Absalom in his adversity by his friendly love and this written doubtless by the Holy Ghost to let us know that friendship had much more than slight service in it It hath much and through following and serving distressed causes and conditions till Petitions with God and Men be granted and some thing to purpose done that will arise to full relief The Heathen when they would make one another believe that there was more than words in what they said would use to cite their strong god Hercules as their Author Vt de Hercule accepimus as we have heard from Hercules therefore surely it will be accomplished A friend is a distressed Man's Hercules My friend hath said he will take care for me in this and in that distress therefore surely it will be done he will never cease petitioning God and Man he will never rest Night nor Day till he hath done some thing and some thing to some purpose to relieve my distress We have found a friend no where so deficient as where it hath been supposed to be most abundant saith Seneca Some have all their best gifts in their tongue these are unfit to make friends and yet the forwardest to pretend it Mephibosheth which had not dressed his Feet from the day that David fled till he returned and came so undressed to meet him is a fit Reproof of Complemental friendship Secondly Learn from this Description of a Friend that a Friend is a rare Jewel If we have hit the Description of a Friend rightly we doubt we shall not easily finde the Person All of you have conspired against me this day and there is none that sheweth me that my Son hath made a League with the Son of Jesse and there is none of you that is sorry for me or sheweth unto me that my Son hath stirred up My Servant against Me 1 Sam. 22.8 To him that is afflicted pitty should be shewed by his friend yea by any body by an Enemy but ye do nothing but play the censorious Persons against me said Job And truly in great distresses this is the Vinegar Gall and Wormwood which even Friends give in stead of Cordials in stead of compassions and pains and expence to make relief A great many severe enquiries How did he come into such want surely he is an ill husband he did not follow his business How did he come into all this trouble Surely he was a busie body he medled with that which he needed not have done His Wife and Children go too fine A thousand holes are pickt in the Man's Coat quickly and the reason because so poor and needeth some to help him and none of these holes found in his coat whilst it had a good nap upon it as long as he had no need of friends So that they that go for Friends are the worst of Enemies and afflict in stead of comfort and more afflict than an Enemy would do And yet alass this is commonly the friendship of this World yea of such too much whom God hath called out of this World and off of this World which is as if one should see a Man or Woman in the Field and bleeding to death and should spend nis time in curious enquiries how it came and who did it and why would he go that way alone and be out so late and never do any thing to stay the Man's bleeding or do any thing to save his life All People almost make distress and calamity the subject of censure and not the object of compassion and friendship Either it is thus or else it is I will shew kindness to Hanun as his Father shew'd kindness to me 2 Sam. 10. I will invite such for they invited me and I will visit such for they visited me and these kind of Friends there be and few at any higher rate A Samaritan is a rare Man who though a stranger and upon no account in the World but as the wounded Man needed him fell in with him unasked and gave him a full relief and what is more needed put that upon my account said this stranger And now saith Christ which is the neighbour and friend Such a Neighbour now and Friend I fear is hard to be found A Friend saith Seneca is not only rare in a House but in an Age. Aliter de amore atque est accipis saith one Thou thinkest otherwise of love than it is and so we think otherwise of friendship than it is we think it a
no other way to do it so doth God imbitter our conditions in this World that so all the sweets which we have here we may use them as if we did not and possess them and they not possess us and our hearts David had many bitten upon his condition before he could say I have behaved my self as a weaned Child When the World was first crucified to Paul then at length he became crucified to the World when God whips us in this and whips us in that takes away this and takes away that then by degrees he takes away our hearts too and sets them upon better things but usually good things first die from us before we become so good as to die from them There is no labourer in Egypt that lifts up his eyes to Heaven they are almost angry with the Sun it doth so scorch them Few labourers in and after this World do lift up their eyes to Heaven much whilst the Sun-shine of prosperity is hot upon them but rather angry and vexed and cumbred with one thing or other that the World doth not tumble in fast enough Few in health and wealth are heavenly In those days was Hezekia sick unto death Isa 38.1 In those days When was that see the Chapter foregoing Assoon as he had obtain'd that great deliverance from the Assyrian by Prayer and all quiet now least he should grow as David when his War was ended sensual and wanton God smites him with the Plague and bids him set his house in order for he must die David being hunted up and down as a Partridge and poured from Vessel to Vessel what a Heavenly Man is he and when this is over what a carnal Man is he I am tossed to and fro as the Locust mark what follows My Knees are weak through fasting Psal 109.23 When we are tossed much then we fast and pray and go to Heaven much upon our Knees We read in History of an Emperor strangled putting on his Royal Robes nothing more choak the seeds of Grace and Heavenly life than the prosperity of this World and therefore usually one way or other God kills all things here to kill us throughly to all here The Apostle bids us endure hardness as good Souldiers In hard states and conditions grace best thrives and the most noble things and souls to be found Vse 1 Learn from hence what a great God we have to do with who can flat our conditions with all miseries in a moment as the Sea sometimes makes breaches upon the Land and swallows up Towns and Cities no more to be recovered I will have mercy upon the House of Juda and save them by the Lord their God and will not save them by bow nor by sword nor by battel by Horse nor by Horse man Hos 5.7 As God saves without bow or sword so he can destroy without bow or sword even with his own hand from Heaven many ways Of which I will say as one doth of Mary's being with child by the Holy Ghost Mirari licet rimari non licet Such dealings of God may be wondred at but curiously search'd into they may not It may be said of God and the Engins he useth against Men as Hushai saith of David and his followers Thou knowest that David and thy Father be mighty Men and they be chaffed in their minds as a Beat robbed of her Whelps in the Field 2 Sam. 17.8 God sometimes when he sets upon the Sons of Men is as fierce Creatures chased and chafed and robbed of their young very fierce and so are all the Engins which he useth How fierce was Shimei against David and threw Stones and cursed him God hath set him on saith David We are made a spectacle or Theater saith the Margent to Angels and to Men and I think God hath sent us forth last for this sad service as appointed to death and slaughter in all that is dear 1 Cor. 4.9 It may be God hath appointed the best of Men in these last Days to the worst of deaths and calamities to close up a long and evil Day and that the Pit should as it were shut its mouth upon the Christians of these last times as the Whale upon Jonah Which should make us tremble and stand in awe daily to consider what a great and holy God we have to do with Secondly Learn what need we have of grace who are lyable to such floods of Evils yea of much grace Noah moved with fear being warned of God prepared an Ark and went into it and where else could he have lived in those great storms and floods which came upon the World Surely Gods storms and waves will beat much in these last Days If all of them may come over any Man then all of us need an Ark and to hast unto it that we be in a state of favour with God by Jesus Christ All our estates may fail us a Fire of God from Heaven may consume them All our Friends may fail us yea all our hearts may fail us Mens hearts failing them for fear What then will be a Cordial to keep us but the favour of God and a state of grace that the Lord Jesus Christ be with our Spirits Nine several times in the Ten first Verses of Pauls first Epistle to the Corinthians is Jesus Christ named saith one that hath well observed to note who it is that is all in all in storms for a Saviour yea indeed in all conditions It is Jesus as the same Observator saith that is made Mel in ore Bernard melos in aure Jubilum in Corde Jesus Christ in all conflicts is hony in the mouth Something like that terrible Monarchy of the Greeks 〈◊〉 bâ—fore Christ's coming in the Flesh will be before his coming again harmony in our ear a Jubile or great joy in our hearts when all the waves and billows of afflictions beat upon us yea when these Waters come into our Souls when Prophesie and prosperity failed the state of the Jews they had nothing to live upon but that promise that the desire of all Nations should come The Echo and the Pool of Bethesda under the great Tirannies of Antiochus and the Greek Monarchy these were the stays of their hearts that Christ would come and so by faith did bear up and he did come Floods may yea red Seas may break out and we may flote in our own blood therefore an Ark is very needful and that we be in it well in it by faith nothing but Christ can be a Jesus a Saviour to us all other things will but rather hasten and heighten the Floods upon us as the more riches and honour and the things of this World we have the more shall we be a fit prey for evil times and Persons What got the Caesars by their high advances Nisi ut citius interficerentur Grace therefore is necessary and speedily necessary The Flood which swallowed up the first World is called a Dart. Methusalah the
Dart cometh so I believe will the Flood of these last times surprise and come as a Dart as a Wall swelling out to use the Scripture expression Actus morientium non possunt esse in suspenso 'T is the speech of them that study Nature Death when once it begins to knock beats down all apace and cannot be stayed Learn what need we have to beg that God would not lead us into temptation Extremities are terrible charges When Jona was beat upon with all God's billows and likewise Job how they both broke out and cursed the day wherein they were born and how David in like plunge fained himself mad and drivel'd at Gath. A tempted Soul with all temptations will have much adoe to bite in blasphemy I said in my hast all Men are lyars yea even Samuel which from the Lord had told him that he should be King Some dead Mens bodies putrified turn into Serpents See holy Ainsw in Gen. 3.19 Truly the better we are when overborn with temptations we become much the worse what Serpents and Scorpions some have become by these things in these times more fiery and worse than others who yet knows what may be in their hearts as to the main we know not How earnestly Christ desired that the Cup might pass and yet was not in danger of sin as we are how much more should we so desire who have not a body to bear being so crackt by sin but much less not such a Soul to bear trials as Christ being so wholly defiled and immersed with sin This on which I am now makes me think of David's speech to Jonathan who as you know he loved dearly If there be iniquity in me slay me thy self 1 Sam. 20.8 as if he had said let me dye by the hand of one that loveth me and then I shall dye but one death but if I dye by the hand of such as hate me I know not how many deaths I shall die There is a kindness in the Hang-man nor how many sins I may commit under such cruelties and inhumanities If the Cup may not pass ye◠beg that you may be deliver'd from the evil I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the World saith Christ but that thou shouldst deliver them from the evil Upon this insist that you may have the benefit of Christ's intercession that no Wave may over-whelm any Grace or hide the face and favour of God a moment from you Peccatum tametsi non bonum tamen in bonum c. saith Augustin Sin though it be not good yet it may be ordered to good So afflictions though in themselves not good nor joyous yet God can order them to work about the peaceable fruit of holiness and so to make them very good and very joyous Learn from hence what great cause we have to be full of pitty and tender-heartedness one to another and what Monsters of Man-kind they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which are hard-hearted close fisted without Man-friendship such as you read of Psal 69.26 They persecute him which thou hast smitten and talk to the grief of him whom thou hast wounded they gave me gall for my meat and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink Job's friends sate down by him Seven Days and said nothing to him for they saw that his grief was great and when they did speak it had been better much they had held their peace they did so talk to the grief of him whom God had wounded A sore evil we are apt unto when all God's billows pass over any to have many hard things to say against them but very few merciful deeds to do for them May not their case become yours May not you whole become sick and you rich become poor and you Londoners may not you be driven here and there as well as they in the Country See therefore and take notice of all the lurking places of David and see where he hideth himself and come tell me saith Saul to the Ziphits 1 Sam. 23.23 You Londoners have been some lurking places for the Lord 's hunted ones long May not some Ziphits discover these lurking places and make you run and lurk for it too where you may And would not you then be glad when such billows beat over you to be pittied and shelter'd then think how much it becomes you to shew pitty to wounded souls and distressed bodies and to pour out your spirits and Purses to them whilst ye can A storm fulfils its course in a round and then bursts with its own violence saith Seneca and indeed the storm which hath been in divers parts of the Country will I believe fulfill its course in a round in which Circle this City will have its share and therefore take heed that that be not true of you which David complains of some when in his Cave Psal 142.4 I look on my right hand and behold but there was no man that would know me refuge fail'd me and none cared for my Soul Several bleed in soul and I doubt but few of you care for these bleeding sinking Souls to support them with your experiences and with your prayers Many flee to Caves and Dens to hide here and there and have not to put bread in the heads of them nor theirs and few I doubt visit David in his Cave Learn from hence that we should not sentence our Eternal condition by our temporal All God's Waves may pass over the best Man in this World Christ was exercised with all trials and miseries in this World was poor was hated was murthered was inwardly tormented his Soul was heavy to death and in a great Agony and so was Job and therefore were judged hypocrites and deceivers and accursed of God Paul when the Vipers was on his hand they judged him a Murtherer and when he threw it off and had no hurt then they would have worshipped him for a God There is no judgment of God's love or hatred by the things of prosperity or adversity but rather by our carriage in them Many will say who will shew us any good but Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance and thou shalt put more joy into my heart c. Many can make no other estimate of Mans eternal felicity but as he is so and so prosperous in this World Crowns which begirt the Sun or the Moon last not long saith the Philosopher All the Crowns and adventitious Raies of riches and honours which begirt the Saints in this World to give light and conduct to it by Day and by Night they last not long some tempest or other blows them away and then when those painted Crowns are vanished away to judg and censure that therefore their Eternal Crown and Glory is gone too is to judg amiss of the Generation of the righteous Discord in the matter of exhalations maketh storms and tempests so discords in the matters of God's dispensations make storms not discover'd in his
to give way to unbelief They that do not wait on the Lord will surely not keep his way and they that do not keep his way will not be exalted to inherit the good Land Heathenisme began at Babel when the Hebrew Tongue was lost at the confusion of Tongues only to one Family was God and Salvation preached And when this was lost Religion was lost with it and all the Earth became strangers to God and so lay 2203 Years till the gift of Tongues at Zion began to be given to preach the Gospel in every Language we may in this Glass see our black face at this day So I may say that all transgression even unto Heathenisme begins at unbelief What will not an unbeliever be drawn unto and consequently all misery begins here too and neither the one nor the other begin to be removed till God begin to work faith in the Soul And therefore I say again and say some thing more than I did you cannot give way to unbelief and be innocent you cannot give way to unbelief but you give way to all sin and unto all misery See Rom. 11.23 And they shall be graffed in again if they abide not still in unbelief Try your selves therefore by this Point Do you believe Do you look thoâ—â—â— the dark matters oâ— your conditâ—oâ— And behold a Woman which was diseased with an issue of blood Twelve Years came behind Christ and touched the Hem of his Garment for she said within her self if I may but touch his Garment I shall be whâ—le Mat. 7.21 What talk within your selves have you touching your dâ—stâ—â—sses inward and outward whereâ—n you are If I could lean in the â—â—ast on this woâ—d of promâ—se surely I should enter into rest surely I shou'd be maâ—e whole of this wickedness and that Running issue which hath run in my nature above Twelve Years without Cure I will name only one Promise for instance Rom. 11.26 And so all Israel shall be saved as it is written I here shall come out of Zion the Deliverer and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob for this is my Covenant with them when I shall take away their sins What a deal of scarlet guilt is upon the Jew And as for natural corruption how wilfully blind how stubborn in and their sins and yet the Apostle Paul by vertue of the Promise looks 〈◊〉 wall and seeth the condition of these forlorne sinners a condition remed able that 't is â—â—t Immedicabile Vulâ—us Do you in your reading the Scriptures make a stand at any promise or â—â—uâ—able word to your condition and say within your selves O that I could but touch this Hem of Christ's Garment If I could but believe in this word I should be whole I should overcome such a sin which hath so oft overcome me all my ungodliness both of guilt and filth would be turned away Whiâ—st Simeon he just lived the Fire on the Altar ever burnt pleasantly but when he dyed its force abated saith the Jewish History Simon the just was a great believer and did Miracles saith Euschius and very Holy and Heavenly Where faith indeed is that Heavenly Fire of love and zeal to God will burn in the heart very bright and clear according to that excellent speech of David I have hoped for thy Salvation and do thy Commandement Psal 119.166 And as faith fails so this Heavenly Fire on the Altar goes out so a Mans skill and his conscience to please God dye both together Secondly Are you able to look thorow outward troubles and difficulties and dark matters as they lye now in these and other Nations Can you stand on your high places and see now beyond this thick Cloud of the Pestilence and other evils that are upon us Can you say O thou Enemy destructions are come to a perpetual end or saith the margent The destructions of the Enemy are come to a perpetual end Theâ—r Cities hast thoâ— destroyed Psal 9 6. The wicked shall be turned into Hell and all that forget God there they will be quite out of the way For the needy shall not alway be forgotten the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever v. 17.18 The Ticle of this Psalm is Muth Labben the Death of some great Enemy which Ainsworth saith to be Anti Christ Anti-Christ is now more alive than ever in all the parts of Christendom he is a man of good eyes that now can see his death and downfall and all his Cities even Rome it self that great City which Ruleth the Nations The first thing that dyed in the World was Christ in the offering of our first Parents whose skins cloathed them And the last that dyeth in the World will be Anti-Christ who cloatheth himself in scarlet with the skins of the Saints Hence was Christ called a Lamb slain from the beginning and therefore may Anti-Christ be calleâ— a Bear or Beast slain in the end of the World But who seeth now in this dark and dismal Hour the death of this Monster I remember not long since in the days of the great Armies then we all talkt of the downfall of Anti-Christ But who seeth his downfall now There is no Rain so great that watereth the Earth above so far Ten Foot deep saith the Naturalist I think the storms which have fallen of late in these parts have soakt our Souls and Bodies and Estates and all that is dear clear thorow yea our faith and all our graces for we can scarce look through any thing well But when exhorted to trust in the Lord at all times as David saith we are ready to say as the Princes of Succoth to Gideon are Zeba and Zâ—lmunna now in our hands that we shouâ—d do so and so Judg. 8.6 Who saith Although the Fig Tree shall not blossom neither fâ—uit be in the Vines thâ—ugh the labour of the Olive shall fail and the Fields shall yield no meat the Flocks shall be cut off from the Folds and no Herd in the Stalls yet will I rejoyce in the God of my Salvation Hab 3.17 8 Yet this is no more but the proper acts oâ— faith If you say you do not thus believe so as to look thorow dark condâ—tâ—ons and things neither spiritual nor temporal Let me ask you do you not thuâ— sometimes No not at any time can I thus believe Elian compares Tyrants to Swine which if a Man but touch they cry thinkâ—ng they shall be kiâ—led Is it thus with you when God doth but touch you in this and that Do ye cry as if he mâ—ant to kill you in alâ— What do you do then in your trials throw off alâ— David was not wont to do so but when all things failed to call upon his Soul to trust only in God I willâ—â—g in the stâ—ength of the Lord God I will make mention of thy righteousness even of thine only and will hope continually and will yet praise thee more and more Psal 71.14 15 16. Whether the Gods be pleased