the Flame to increase his Indignation The most part of Christians are guilty here We come to the Ordinances as it were to discharge a Custome and perform a Ceremony that we may have it to say to our Conscience that it is done and there is no more intent and purpose We do not seek to have Soul communion with God We come to Sermon to hear some new thing or new truth or new fashion of it To learn a Notional Experience of Cases But alas this is not the great purpose and use of these things It is to have some new sense of these things we know We know already but we should come to get the Truth mâ—re received in our Love to serve God in our Spirits and to return to him our selves in a Sacrifice acceptable This is the greater half if not the whole of Religion Love to Jesus Christ who loved us and living to him because he died for us and livihg to him because we love him Now all our Ordinances and Duties should be Channels to cary our Love to him and occasions of venting our Affections Thirdly the Lord rejected this peoples services because they were exact and punctual in them and neglected other parts of his Commandments And this is clearly expressed here I will not hear your prayers though there be many of them Why Your hands are full of blood Ye come to worship me and pray to me and yet there are many Abominations in your Conversation which you continue in and do not challenge in your selves Ye have unclean hands and shall your prayer be accepted which should come up with pure Hands They took his Covenant in their mouth and offered many Sacrifices but what have ye to do with these things sayeth the Lord since ye hate to be reformed since ye hate personal Reformation of your Lives and in your Families what have ye to do to profess to be my people Psal 50 19 17 The Lord requires an universality if ye would prove sincerity If ye have respect to any of his Commands as his Commands then will ye respect all If ye be partial and choose one Duty that is easy and refuse another harder ye will come to the Church and hear but ye will not pray at home Ye will fast in publck but not in private Then sayes the Lord ye do not at all obey me but your own humour ye do not at all fast unto me but unto your selves As much as your interest lyes in a Duty so much are ye carried to it And I take this to be the reason why many are so Eager in pursuing publick Ordinances following Communions and Conferences with Gods people ready to Pray in publick rather then alone If ye would follow them into their secret Chamber how much indifferency is there how great infrequency how little fervency VVell sayes the Lord did ye pray to me when ye prayed among others No ye prayed either to your selves or the company or both Did ye seek me in a Communion No sayeth the Lord ye sought not me but your selves If ye sought me indeed with others ye would be al 's earnest if not more to seek me alone Zech. 7. 6. And again the Lord especially requires the weightier matters of the Law to be considered As it was among the Jews their Ceremonies were commanded and so good but they were not so much good in themselves as because they were means appointed for another end and use But the Moral Law was binding in it self and good in it self without relation to another thing And therefore Christ lays this heavy Charge to the Pharisees Ye tithe mint and anise Mat. 23. 23. Woe unto you for ye neglect the weightier matters of the Law Judgement Mercy and Faith these ye ought to have done and not left the other undone Are there not many who would think it a great fault to stay away from the Church on the Sabbath or Week day and yet will not stick to swear to drink often VVoe unto you for ye strain at a gnat and swallow a camel Therefore are the Prophets full of these Expostulations The people seemed to make Conscience of Ceremonies and External Ordinances but they did not order their Conversation aright They did not execute Judgment and relieve the oppressed did not walk soberly did not mortify sinful lusts c. Alas we deceive our selves with the noise of a Covenant and a Cause of God we cry it up as an Antidot against all evils use it as a charm even as the Jews did their Temple and in the mean time we do not care how we walk before God or with our Neighbours Well thus saith the Lord Trust ye not in lying words Jer. 7. 4 5 6. If drunkenness reign among you if filthiness swearing oppression cruelty reign among you your Covenant is but a ly all your professions are but lying words and shall never keep you in your Inheritances and Dwellings The Lord tells you what he requires of you Is it not to do justly and walk humbly with God Mic. 6. 7. This is that which the grace of God teaches To deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly righteously and godly towards your God your neighbour and your self Tit. 2. 11 12. And this he prefers to your publick Ordinances your Fasting Covenanting Preaching and such like Is not this to know me saith the Lord Jer. 22. 15. 16. You think you know God when you can discourse well of Religion and intertain conferences of practical Cases You think it is knowledge to understand Preachings and Scripture But thus saith the Lord To do justly to all men to walk humbly towards God to walk soberly in your selves is more real knowledge of God then all the Volumes of Doctors contain or the heads of Professors Is this knowledge of God to have a long flowrishing discourse containing much Religion in it Alas no to do justly to oppress none to pray more in secret to walk humbly and soberly this is to know the Lord practice is real knowledge indeed it argues that what a man knows he receives in love that the Truth hath a deep impression on the heart that the Light shines into the heart to inflame it What is knowledge before God As much as principles Affection and Action as much as hath Influence on your Conversations If you do not and love not what you know is that to know the Lord Shall not your knowledge be a Testimony against your practice and no more SERMON X. Isai 1. 16. Wash ye make you clean put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil c. IF we would have a sum of pure and undefiled Religion here it is set down in opposition to this peopleâ— shadow of Religion that consisted in External Ordinances and Rites We think that God should be al 's well pleased with our service as we our selves therefore we choose his commands which our humour hath no
illimited desires toward Riches Pleasure Preferment And all that we have spoken is inclosed within the narrow compasse of mens abode here which is but for a moment so that if it were possible that all these forementioned desires and delights of men could attend any man for the space of an hundreth years though he had the concurrance of the streames of the Creatures to bring him in satisfaction though all the world should bow to him and be subject to the beck of his authority without stroak of Sword though all the Creatures should spend their strength and wit upon his satisfaction yet do but consider what that shall be within some few years when he shall be spoiled of all that attendance denuded of all external comforts when the fatal period must close his life peace health and all and his poor Soul also that was drowned in that guif of pleasure shall then find it self robbed of its precious Treasure that is Gods favour and so remain in everlasting banishment from his presence Do ye think I say that man were happy Nay O happy Lazarus who is now blessed in Abrahams bosom who enjoyes an eternity of happinesse for a moments misery But my beloved you know that it is not possible even to attain to that imagined happinesse here All the gain that is found is not able to quit the cost and expense of grief vexation care toyling and sweating that is about them But if you would be perswaded there is that to be found easily which you trouble your selves seeking elsewhere And believe me though the general apprehension of men be that peace plenty preferment and satisfaction in this life to compense their pains is more easily attainable then fellowship and communion with God Yet I am perswaded that there is nothing more practicable then the life of Religion God hath condemned the World under vanity and a curse and that which is crooked can by no art or strength be made straight But he hath made this attainable by his gracious Promises even a blessed life in approaching near to himself the Fountain of all Life And this is a certain Good an universal Good and an eternal Good It will not disapoint you as other things do of which you have no assurance for all your toylings This is made more infallible to a soul that truely seeks it in God It is al 's certain that they cannot be ashamed through frustration as that he is faithful And then it is an universal Good one comprehensive of all one eminently and virtually all things created to be joyned to the infinite all-fulnesse of God This advanceth the Soul to a participation of all that is in him This is health Psal 42. last Prov. 3. 8. This is light Jo. 8. 12. It is life Jo. 11. 25. Liberty Job 8. 36. Food and Raiment Isai 61. 10. And Jo. 4. 14. And what not It is profit pleasure preferment in the superlative degree and not scattered in so many various streames which divide and distract the heart but all conbined in one It is the true Good of both Soul and Body and so the only Good of man And lastly it is eternal to be coaetaneous with thy Soul Of all other things it may be said I have seen an end of them they were and are not but this will survive time and all the changes of it and then it will begin to be perfect when all perfection is at an end Now from all this I would exhort you in Jesus Christ to ponder those things in your hearts and consider them in reference to your own Souls that ye may say with David It is good for me to draw near to God That which all men seek after is happinesse and well being Men pursue nothing but under the notion of Good And to compleat that which may be called Good there is required some excellency in the thing it self and then a conveniency and sutablenesse to us And these joyntly draw the heart of man But the great misery is that there is so much ignorance and misapprehension of that which is truely Good And then when any thing of it is known there is so little serious consideration and application of it to our selves And this makes the most part of men wander up and down in the pursuit of divers things which are not that true Good of the Soul and set their hearts on that which is not until they find their hearts fall down as wanting a foundation and then they turn about again to some other vanity And so the wanderings and strayings of men are infinite because the by-wayes are innumerable though the true way be but one Yea the turnings and toylings of one man are various and manifold because he quickly losses the sent of happinesse in every way he falls into and therefore must turn to another And thus men are never at any solid setting about this great businesse never resolute wherein this happinesse consists nor perremptor to follow it But they fluctuat upon uncertain apprehensions and divers affections until the time and date of Salvation expire and then they must know certainly and surely the inevitable danger and irrecoverable losse they have brought themselves to who would not take notice of the sure way of escaping both wrath and attaining happinesse while it was to be found Well then this is the great businesse we have here to do yea to make the circle the larger it is that great businesse we have to do in this world to know wherein the true well being and eternal wellfare of our Souls consists and by any means to apply unto that as the only thing necessary in regard of which all other things are Ceremonies Circumstances and indifferent things And to guide us in this Examination and Application here is one man who having almost made shipwrack upon the Rocks which men commonly dash upon and being by the Lord led safely by and almost arrived at the Coast of true Felicity he sets out a Beacon and lights a Candle to all who shall follow him to direct them which way they shall stirre their course Examples teach more effectually then Rules It is easie for every man to speak well upon this Point in general and readily all will acknowledge that here it is and no where else But yet all this is outcryed by the contrary noise of every mans practice These general grants of Truth are recalled in the conversations of men Therefore they cannot have much influence upon any man But when we hear one speak and see him walk so too when we have the example of a most wise man who wanted not these worldly expectations which other men have So that he not only propones it to us but after much serious advisement after mature consideration of all that can be said of the wickeds best estate and the godlies worst setting down resolute conclusions for himself It is good for me to draw near to God Yea so determinate
may be a lawful kind of Gloriation Rejoycing in the Works of God consequent to the first which is a little stream from that greater River which runs out from it and flows in to it again A Soul that truely apprehends God will take delight to view the Works of God which make such an expression of him and are a part of the magnificence of our Heavenly Father But this is all in reference to him and not to our selves for then it degenerats and loseth its sweetnesse when once it turns the Channel towards the adorning of the Creature True boasting in God hath necessarly conjoyned with it an humble and low esteem of a mans self Psal 34. 2. The humble shall hear thereof and be glade As humility and self-emptiness made David go out of himself to seek satisfaction in God and having found it he boasts and triumphs so there were none capable of understanding his triumph or partaking with him in his delights but the humble Souls Now you may perceive how far this boasting here spoken of is degenerated from that and so how far manâ— nature is spoiled Boast not thy self c. The truâ— boasting we were created unto hath â— sufficient foundation even such as will beaâ— the weight of triumph but that which menâ— spirits are now naturally set upon cannot cary cannot sound such Gloriation And therefore this boasting makes men ridiculous If you saw a man glorying in rags setting forth himself to be admired in them or boasting in some vain despicable and base thing you would pity him or laugh at him as one distempered The truth is Natural man is mad hath lost his Judgement and is under the greatest distraction imaginable since the fall That fall hath troubled his brains and they are never setled till the new Creation come to put all right again and compose the heart of man I say all other distractions are but particular in respect to particular things But there is a generall distraction over all mankind in reference to things of most general and most eternal concernment Now fools and mad persons they retain the same affections and passions that are in men as anger love hatred grief joy c. but it is so much the worse since the judgement which is the only directive and guide of them is troubled Now they are set on wrong Objects they run at random and are under no kind of Rule and so they hurry the poor man and put him in a pitiful case Now indeed so it is with us since sin entered the Soul is wholly turned off God the only true Object of delight in which only there can be solid gloriation The mind of man is blinded and his passions are strong and so they are now spent upon empty vanities and carried headlong without judgement Oftentimes he glories in that which is his shame and boasts in that which is his sin and which will cause nothing but shame the more weight be laid upon it There is in man an Oblivion and forgetfulnesse of God and in this darknesse of the ignorance of God every thing is apprehended or misapprehended as present sense suggests and as it fancies a conveniency or excellency thither the Soul is carried as if it were something and then it is but the east Wind There is nothing beside God that is a fit matter of boasting because it laikes one of the Essential Ingredients Either it is not suitable to the Soul or it is not truely our own There wants either proportion to the vast capacity and void of our desires and so cannot fill up that really but only in a deluding dream or imagination and therefore will certainly make the issue rather vexation then gloriation Or there wants property and interest in them For they are changeable and perishing in their own nature and by Divine appointment that they cannot be conceived to be the proper Good of the immortal Soul They cannot be truely our own because they will shortly cease to be and before they cease to be they may in a moment cease to be ours Thaâ— tye of Interest is a draw-knot whatsoever catcheth hold of the end of it looseth it The Object of degenerat and vitious boasting is here held out Boast not thy self oâ— of thy self Whatsoever be the immediat matter of it this is alwayes the ultimat and principal Object Since man fell from God seâ— is the center of all his affections and motions This is the great Idol the Diana thaâ— the heart worships and all the contention labour clamour and care that is amonâ— men is about her Silver Shrines so to speak something relating to the adorning or setting forth of this Idol It is true since the Hearâ— is turned from that direct subordination to God the Affections are scattered and parted into infinite Channels and run toward innumerable Objects for the want of that Original Unity which comprehends in its bosâ—â— universal plenty must needs breed infinite variety to supply the insatiable appetite of thâ— Soul And this might be enough to convince you that your Souls are quite out â— course and altogether wandered from the waâ— of Happinesse because they are poured out oâ— such a multiplicity of unsufficient unsatisfâ—ing things every one of which is narrow limited and empty and the combination and concurrance of all being a thing either impossible or improbable to be attained But we may conceive that mens Affections part themselves into three great heads of created things One of which runs towards the Goods or Perfections of the Mind Another towards the Goods or advantages of the Body And a third towards those things that are without us hona fortunae Riches and Honour c. Now each of these send out many Streams and Rivulets as so many Branches from it But all of them though they seem to have a direct course towards other things yet they wind about and make a circular progresse to the great Ocean of self estimation whence they issued at first You may find all of those Jer. 9. 23. falling under a Divine Interdiction and Curse as being opposite to glorying in God While men reflect within themselves and behold some Endowments and Abilities in their minds beyond other men of which Wisdom â—â— the Principal and here stands for all inward advantages or qualifications of the Soul In that secret reflection and comparison there is a tacite Gloriation which yet is a loud blasphemy in Gods Eares It is impossible almost for a man to recognosce and review his own Parts such as Ingine Memory Understanding Sharpnesse of Wit Readinesse of Expression Goodnesse and Gentlenesse of Nature But that in such a review the Soul must be puft up apprehending some excellency beyond other men and taking complacency in it which are the two Acts of Robery that are in gloriation and boasting Commonly this ariseâ— from unequal comparisons we please our selveâ— that we are deterioâ—ibus meliores better then the worst and builds self-estimation upon