day THe Lord doth here reprove or rather shew his indignation against hypocrites Here is their description they say stand by thy self come not near to me for I am holier then thou yet they were a rebellious people as we see before the Lord spread out his hands to them all the day long and they walked in their own wayes after their own thoughts The thing I drive at is to acquaint you with this How hatefull how abominable hypocrisie is to God Their hypocrisie was that they thought and they said Hypocrisie a hatefull thing to God to their brethren stand off I am holier then thou come not near me c. yet it was but outward holinesse and the Lord saith they are a smoake in my nostrills all the day long The meaning is not as if God had nostrills though usually where you read of the anger and wrath of God in the Hebrew It is said Gods nose God tooke this to his nose when he was angry But when he saith they are a smoake in my nostrills God takes the comparison from man as it is oft in the proverbs a sloathfull messenger is as vinegar to the teeth and smoak to the eyes that is very sore So God saith hypocrites are as a smoak in his nostrills all the day long that is as smoak in a Kiln or in a smoaky house where there is a bad chimney it is a wondrous troublesome thing especially if a man be driven to continue all the day a man is not able to bear it the smoak will fill his eyes and his nose God takes the expression from men to shew his indignation and displeasure a gainst hypocrisy My aime is to make you sensible how displeasing to God hypocrisy is Hypocrisy take it in the grossest sense though there be a hundred degrees of it is when men seeme and are not when you say and do not as some expresse it when you pretend to be that you are not or pretend to be more then you are for so it is here I am more holy then thou That is hypocrisy when you seem what you are not or in degree more then you are yet that lesse degree is as a smoak in Gods nostrills all the day long It is abominable to God and that is the reason that Christ eight times in the same Chapter Mat. 23. pronounceth Wo to you hypocrites Wo to you hypocrites It may be the Lord may call an hypocrite for an hypocrite is but a sinner though he be the worst of sinners but hypocrisy is abominable to God The reason is because such a man Idolizeth every Proved from two reasons 1. The hypocrite honours the creature above God creature and makes every creature more then God he honours every creature more then God For he knows that God deales with his heart he knowes that God deals with his heart he knows that God sees his heart and men and children and every thing sees his outward life now he is more carefull to please men and creatures and to carry himself religiously and devoutly as a Saint before men then he cares how to carry his heart before the Lord which is as if he should say I do more honour and respect every creature that seeth my outside then the Lord God that views and sees my heart What can more provoke God when God is put below every creature and every creature is advanced above him That is one reason Another reason is this because that the name of God is more dishonoured and his Gospell and his Kingdome 2. Hypocrisy contributes most to Gods dishonour more scandalised by them then by all the world besides The Saints sometimes dishonour God by weaknesse but carnall men usually know in their consciences that it is but weaknesse in such a Saint looking on the course of his life and the frame of his spirit but hypocrites the world seeing sometimes their base doings are ready to curse them Here are the men that go to such Lectures and such Sermons and thus they cozen and over-reach and all their Religion is of the same stamp they are all hypocrites as this sanctified brother cheaters they are This doth transfigere nomen Jehovah as blasphemy signifies it makes men pierce through the name of God and of Christ God hath so fastned it on my heart how abominable it is that it cannot out of my thoughts therefore God may have an end in it to reach some of you at this time though you have been as a smoak in his nostrills though you have kept God no a kilne as it were by your villany by seeming what you are not or to be far more then you are For take it from God for it is from him in a speciall manner let us all look to our selves let us all consider our wayes and let all take heed that we seem and pretend not to be any thing in Religion more then we are in our closets That we may be able to say O Lord if I were at thy tribunall this is true I desire thy glory I seek thine honour and the welfare and advancement of thy people and so whether I be well or ill or live or die I care not Look to it and wo wo wo to those among us whosoever they are let them be Magistrates or Ministers I leave them to the Lord to point them out that drive on Iesuiticall designs under the pretence of Religion They talk of Reformation and I know not what and a blind man almost may see their covetousnesse and self-seeking and oppression of the Saints Whosoever thou art thou hast the worst end of the staff be sure The hearts of the Saints are touched with the same loadstone as the heart of God they judge as he judgeth and as God saith such people are a smoak in his nostrills so they are in the eyes of the Saints they curse such They pity wicked men when blindly they go against the Saints but when thou puttest the best side outward and pretendest to be holy and thou knowest thou couldst eat all the Saints of God and throw down the Worship of Christ O there are many prayers against thee and there is a harmony between the hearts of the Saints and the heart of God God saith ye are a smoak in his nostrills and so say the Saints It grieves me more at the Jesuiticall designes of some then all the proceedings of the Cavaliers Wo be unto them there is nothing done in secret but it shall be open there is nothing spoken in the ear but it shall be published on the house top all their villany shall come out And so in trading a man must take heed of many professors I hope the generation of the Saints shall not suffer by it in buying and selling a man were better deal with carnall men then with some professors in the City that I have knowen I speak this to thy comfort that art such a one though thou be the very heir
and he wondred that there was no intercessor That is God suffered all this truth to faile and Justice to fall back and every thing to go to wrack and ruine God would see if any man would intercede any man among our Magistrates or Ministers or Citizens if any man would plead for God and for his people and for his truth but he saw none and wondered Truly God wonders and men may wonder to see what abundance of people follow God and good lives in the time of prosperity and when adversity comes and wicked men and al the powers of hell conspire against godlinesse to see how few shew themselves for God God wonders at it Therefore his arm brought salvation unto him and his righteousnesse it sustained him he put on righteousnesse as a breast-plate and an helmet of salvation upon his head and he put on the garments of vengeance for cloathing and was clad with Zeale as a cloak The Lord comes and Arms himself just as valiant souldiers in the wars when a party is gone forth they stand to see what they do how they come off but if there be none that will stick to it but run away they buckle on their armour So the Lord stands to see where is the man that will stick to it in these cases and if there be any God rejoyceth in it if there be none God himself comes in Therefore be sure of this when the Lord suffers his Son or any thing that belongs to him to come to these low conditions when truth failes in the street and equity is perverted it is not that God means to suffer the wicked to have their wills for God hath sworn that Christ shall reign but to trie us a little space whether we will couragiously stick to God and his cause or basely for fear of men comply with the world 3. For the compendious destrution of the it enemies There is a third reason God as it were keeps silence and holds his peace in the middst of the greatest troubles to this end that God may as it were gather the wicked into one fagot into one bundle that they may be destroyed together There is a great deal of ado to gather the Saints in this world and truly there is some ado togather the wicked So God withdraws himself from his people yet he hath a hook in their hearts he holds them up secretly by his Spirit that they shall not leave him yet the world shall not see but that God hath quite left them and all their Ordinances and his Gospell and every thing and then the wicked come together and insult whereby God may come upon them at once and destroy them as we finde ten Nations in this Psalm And so in Genesis God stirs up the Nations against Abraham and his posterity and there are ten Nations that God promiseth to cut off before Abraham at once the Perrezites and the Iebusites and the Canaanites c. So God heaps them together and burns them like stubble Those that burn stubble have rakes and they gather it to heaps and then they fire it This is the way of Gods keeping silence among his people and sitting still in the midst of their miseries thus God gathers their enemies on heaps as stubble that he may burn them together Therefore from this that I have said I have three words to say to you and to my own soul Vse 1 The first of all is that if the Lord should take any such course in our dayes that you would learn hence to awake God to call upon his Name to be earnest with him Truly there are a generation of people now I leave them to the Lord to judge them as I shall alway for we have all one master but there is a people that throw away the ordinance of prayer and they professe to live immediately upon God without ordinances without prayer and without all the rest I do not know what their perfections may be therefore I cannot judge but this I know as far as ever I had experience that the chiefest way of communion with God is spirituall prayer Build up one another on your holy faith and Pray in the Holy Ghost saith Iude. And therefore though you be ancient Christians and grow spirituall and see a great deal of formality in your prayers as some pray so many times a day and that out of forme not that they should not pray so oft in a day that is well take heed that out of any pretence you be not remiss for truly it is the readiest way to heaven and to attaine happiness and the clearest conduite to bring grace to the soul and the love of God and the shining of his face that I have yet known I yet know no better therefore take heed of the temptations of Satan that you do not upon any pretence either throw away prayer or be remisse in it Vse 2 Secondly if the Lord should leave his Church and people as we know not what he will do it may be God is going to take a napp let me warne you from the Lord and his word for that is the excellencie of the word by it thy servant is forewarned take heed of distrust and unbelief and impatience towards God God doth take a napp sometimes it is for his glory and for your good but yet cleave to him say as it is here in the Psalm O Lord who is like unto thee Do not think that the Lord will leave his people for God hath you know made a Covenant with his Son that he shall inherit all nations he shall subdue all his enemies under his feet All the enemies hitherto that have risen against his Church God hath subdued them and either our Gospell is vaine and our preaching vaine and our faith vaine and all vaine or else God will exalt his Son and his people and Saints and ordinances maugre all enemies though ten Nations as it is in this Psalm fight against them nay though ten thousand if there were so many in the world God will awake and subdue them and if there be no man in the world that will plead their cause God will do it Therefore live by faith and not by sense take heed of living by sense there is nothing that more poysons and imbitters our hearts and spirits and lives then the beholding of things by sense that as one good man speaks I wish saith he sometimes that I were quite bereft of reason that I might exercise faith We are used to sense and such a man doth this and this and here is conspiring in this and that place and all to overthrow Christ and the power of the Gospell What of all this Look by faith what God hath said and Covenanted and promised and keep up your spirits by faith Vse 3 Then lastly I would admonish all in the bowels of Iesus Christ to take heed of betraying Gods cause or people or your own salvation by your fleshlinesse I
own mercies as Ionah saith to imbrace some lust or other either to imbrace the world or to fall to wantonness or drunkenness or any thing else and so to bargain as Esau that sold all his blessed title in the new Testament and in Jesus Christ for a mess of pottage Beware of that prophaneness for prophaneness is not onely when men commit gross evils as we say but this is a prophane man though he be a Professor and walk civilly that though but in his heart is willing to exchange the blessed estate that God hath called him to for the best happiness in the world There are many prophane men that are not whoremongers and drunkards but are ready every day if the devil come to cheapen to give up their birthright for a mess of pottage Take heed you sell it not if you did understand it rightly you would not sell it for ten thousand worlds that condition and happiness that God hath called you to All the things in the world that can be presented to you are nothing to the peace of the Kingdom of heaven be they what they will in themselves and yet you hanâ—er after ambition or lusts or somewhat and go sell your birthright for a root of bitterness for a mess of pottage for base things I say and I am sure there is no Saint here that knows what the happiness of a Christian in the new Testament is but will say so that all the glory and riches and happiness in the world is no more in comparison of the riches and happiness of a man estated in Christ in the new Testament then a mess of pottage is compared with an inheritance Therefore beware of it desire the Lord to deliver you from a prophane heart Thirdly here is another Use that the Apostle 3. To encourage weaklings makes of it therefore this should encourage poor weak Professors that are every day ready to faint Wherefore saith he lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees and make strait steps to your pathes least that which is lame go out of the way The meaning is poor souls that are beaten out as it were as a ship in the sea all the week with temptations and afflictions and injuries and reproaches and threatnings and persecutions that their hands almost fall that they are ready to say as David I have washed my hands in innocencie in vain This is the way to keep up thy spirit Labor as Paul prays Phil. 1. to know the riches of thy calling to understand the glorious condition that God hath called thee to here I speak not of that in heaven hereafter but the glorious estate here if thou hadst eyes to see it and a heart to judg of it then you would not be so tormented all the week long with a few temptations and afflictions and so be ready to give up as David said I shall one day perish by the hands of Saul so I shall one of these short days prove an hypocrite a prophane man I am so haunted with temptations and so followed with sins and lusts No beloved study that blessed estate what Mount Sion what the heavenly Ierusalem is that City of the living God that God hath called you to and that will support thee Then that I may conclude Lastly this is the use 4. To study peaceableness the Apostle would have us make of it to follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see see God That is if you do understand aright your spiritual condition the happiness of it which is unspeakable then surely you will be peaceable people you will be at peace with all men for this is a general truth to me that our frowardness doth generally arise from some distemper of our own souls within I mean when a man sees that God is angry with him he is angry with others that is certain alway if God look strangely upon him he will look strangely upon others if God quarrel with him he will quarrel with others but if God smile upon the soul and shed his love into the heart and set his love upon him he will not be angry with any that are without I mean with a carnal anger that is the reason that when a mans ways please God the stones of the street shall be at peace with him Did you ever see the stones of the street angry with you but the meaning is when a mans ways are cross with God and he hath a guilty conscience a guilty soul hath no true peace he is ready almost to fall out with the stones in the street he quarrels with his servant with his horse with every thing because he hath an unquiet spirit within when a man pleaseth God the stones shall be at peace with him that is he shall be at peace with every thing Why so because there is an infinite unspeakable quiet in his own soul That is the reason we have so many Professors among us that are so bitter and cruel to others some they call Presbyters and some Independents and divers other Professors you may pick them out in every Congregation that are so sharp and terrible to others if they cross them or dissent from them never so little What is the reason because there are abundance of Professors that have one foot on Mount Sinai they walk by the Covenant of Works they have patched a feined rotten peace in them with God in Christ and so many times there is blackness and darkness within therefore they are ready to wrangle and quarrel with others without But God hath called us to Mount Sion where is that where the swords are turned into Pruning hooks and the speares into Ploughshares sighing and sorrow is gone away and there is no ravenous beast there meaning the glorious estate of the Saints in the purity of the light of the Gospel all our ravenous spirits shall be taken away for it is impossible that soul that hath the love of God shed into it and the peace of God rightly planted in it it is impossible but that soul should be milde and calm and meek and merciful and loving and courteous to all and be at peace with all and peaceable to all And for holiness Follow holiness saith the Apostle this would make you holy if you did understand your condition rightly O if you were perswaded that God did love you from eteruity and that his Son did die for you and that you and he are as really one as he is one with his Father and that all the treasures that are in Christ are yours c. this would inevitably work in us a holy frame of heart and disposition Therefore the Apostle usually calls on us to be holy from such motives I beseech you by the mercies of God and by the consolations of the Spirit do this and that and leave that and the other evil That is the reason we are lame in holiness because our principles are so
flesh of his flesh that I may walk all the day thus cloathed with these reflexions then when we come to sin when temptation is offered it may be the devil will say such a one did it that is wiser then thou and such a one that is a fellow of the same calling then this positive actual reflexion upon the soul that thou art in Christ this would make thee say O but how shall I do it Jesus Christ died for me Jesus Christ hath washed me in his blood I am one with him What if the children of darkness do so is it fit for a childe of light what if sinners do so is it fit for a man that God hath called out of sin and out of the world is it fit for him to do so We seldome carry those reflexions about us when The Saints should reflect upon their high condition we go abroad among the snares of the world therefore we fall into sin for the older we are in grace the more full of snares the world is I could shew that you can name no place in the new Testament where our priviledges and relations are mentioned but as the holy Ghost mentions them to raise up the soul for comfort so expresly to stir us up to holiness 1 John 3. 1. Behold what manner of love God hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God! I am perswaded that the Primitive Saints in the new Testament did generally look upon themselves distinct as a Common wealth and a people redeemed out of the world and in the light of that they did so walk they did alway speak so of themselves We are the first fruits of the spirit we are the sons of God we are redeemed and bought with a price We are the sons of God but it doth not appear what we shall be but when he shall come we shall be like him O this gives comfort but what then what follows He that hath this hope purifieth himself as he is pure This hope is somewhat like that reflexion I am speaking of when there is an actual hope in the soul of being with the Lord and an actuall positive perswasion that I am the Lords then a man will purify himself as God is pure I might mention a hundred places in the new Testament 2 Cor. 6. Come out from among them seperate your selves and touch no unclean thing and I will receive you and I will be your father and you shall be my sons and daughters saith the Lord Almighty This is very comfortable that we shall be his sons and daughters and that he will be our Father What then In the beginning of the next Chapter Having therefore these promises let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God If we be the sons and daughters of God and he be our Father therefore we should be holy in soul and body and spirit I remember a little Story of a great Monarch though I do not much trouble you with them but it doth a little illustrate what we speak of walking with his son a Prince the great Emperor seeing little poor children to play and tumble in the dirt he said to his son Why dost not thou go and play with them Saith he I would if I did see any Kings and Princes children play with them he reflected upon himself that he was a Prince a Kings son and it was not fit for them to tumble in the dirt So you may say when you see Drunkards and Whoremongers and Extortioners if the devil tempt you in your hearts and say Why dost not thou do so why dost not thou get money as yonder man doth or labor to be great in the world O say do the sons of God use to do so to cozen and cheat and be drunk and lie If the Saints did so then it were another thing but shall I that am a Prince that am a son of God shall I be a Scullion and wallow in the dirt Therefore I say it is enough to an honest heart to propose a pitch that is above him that he never attained and what will he do he will seek and not give over till God have wrought it God wrought it in most of the Saints of old therefore let us labor with the Lord that we may have such considerations alway about us O how gloriously should we walk if we had still actuall considerations I am a son I am a daughter of God! How humbly should we walk towards our brethren how weaned from this world what Pilgrims would we be here upon earth doubtless we run and lanch into the world by forgetting of our relations and stations so that as in Gen. 6. The sons of God married the daughters of men We walk as the sons of men and miscarry as the sons and daughters of mem If we did alway walk and look upon our selves as the sons and daughters of God we should in some poor measure express something of the sons and daughters of God in every word and carriage and action towards God and men c. Expositions and Observations on PHILIPPIANS 2. 1 2 3. If there be therefore any consolation in Christ if any comfort of love if any fellowship of the Spirit if any bowels and mercies Fulfil ye my joy that ye be like minded having the same love being of one accord of one minde Let nothing be done through strife or vaine glory but in lowliness of minde let each esteem other better then themselves THe Lesson that the Lord gave you and me lately to consider of and to do was rightly to love the Saints to love Saints ought to love though they be not beloved our brethren and the way you remember was that we should not make that the ground of our love to our brethren because they love us but because we are beloved of God we should love though we be not beloved of men He that will not love his brethren till he be loved of them nor no further nor no longer then he is beloved he shall never love them much nor love them rightly at all because all goes upon a wrong ground and by a false rule And therefore we should set upon the practice of that duty in these times of division that whatsoever man I look on as a Saint or see the Image of God in him I should indeavor to bring my heart to love him If he love not me let him look to that I shall not answer for that that shall be laid on his score but if I love not my brother that shall be laid on my score and as my account so my comfort I mean true spiritual comfort both here and hereafter it is not in this that I am much beloved but that I love much I spake to you of that more at large then and I hope you will indeavor to bring your souls to be doers of this blessed truth as
well as hearers There is one thing more which is here laid down in this Scripture that we must indeavor to do though when I speak of doing when we teach you any spiritual Gospel duty you must understand it in a Gospel way not as though I say we can do this or that but we through the grace of Christ may do any thing that is commanded in the Gospel Therefore go not home and say we are dead and can do nothing c. To what end are all these precepts laid on us but that we by the power of the holy Ghost may do them Therefore I say there is one thing more for us to do before we can come rightly to love the brethren truly there are many things but that that I am now upon is the foundation what is for the building of us up I meddle not with now for till we come to do this we cannot love at all we cannot go one step in this blessed work and that is it I shall indeavor to tell you now saith the Apostle Fulfil my joy and be like minded If there be any consolation in Christ or any comfort of love if there be any fellowship of the Spirit if there be any bowels and mercies The meaning is the Apostle exhorts them to these duties upon these motives to the following duties upon the foregoing motives As if he should say for the consolation sake that you feel in Christ Jesus that is sweet and dear for the comforts sake that you feel when you love how ful your souls are of comfort for the sake of that sweetness and pleasure that you have in the fellowship of the Spirit If there be any bowels of mercy in you any sweetness of the mercy of God in your souls or any workings of mercy or pity or affections in you grant me one desire at which I shall exceedingly rejoyce that is be like minded and have the same love c. The Apostle doth here as it is usually his manner when he exhorts to any thing he tells them not Do this or you shall be damned do this or else you are hypocrites or else the curse of God will fall on you for he carries that clearly in all his Epistles that there is no damnation to them that are in Christ and you are are not appointed unto wrath saith he but he presseth them unto it out of the sweetness and dearness of spiritual things that they apprehended Indeed to press them from arguments of hell or the curse that would have fastned a spirit of bondage on them To press them from worldly things those vanities would never have moved them therefore he takes the choisest things always as Iob saith I spake to my servants and to my wife and she answered not though I besought her for the children of my body that is the dearest thing between man and wife so the Apostle desires them by such things as these by the coming of the Lord Jesus that is the sweetest thing to a Saint saith he by these sweet and dear things I talk not of hell and it is in vain to talk of worldly motives but for the sweetness that is in spiritual things and for that price sake and the dearness that is of them and in them I beseech you grant me this request that is that ye Be like minded and have the same love That is mutual love each to other and be of one accord and of one minde This is the Motive that I Mutual love enjoyned shall open But how shall we come to love one another or to love mutually O saith he Let nothing be done through The means to attain it strife or vain glory but in lowliness of minde let each esteem other better then themselves I told you a man is to lay this as the foundation of his love to love because God loves him not because he is beloved of men Now that he may do so he must lay this also as a general rule in his soul by the grace of Christ that he account himself and lookt on himself as less then any other of the Saints every man must account another better then himself A man must look upon himself nay I say more he must be content that others look upon him as the least Saint or else he will never love his brethren aright Beloved this above all things I finde it may be you finde more to be the greatest enemy to love high-mindedness that you look upon your selves either as the greatest of Saints you think you are some body or else you look upon your selves as of the second form near to the greatest Therefore you shall observe by experience that when you come to love any Saint if you finde that though he love you yet if he love another better and account more of the Image of God in â—â—other then in you you alway account that love no better then hatred you say such a man hates you why so because he loves three or four better then you This is pride of heart in a man he had as lieve a man should hate him as love one Saint in the world better or before him it is a sign of a devillish heart If there be a Saint or two in the Family or a woman or a servant in the Congregation that is more respected then he he thinks such a one doth not love him he concludes I am not beloved There is such a desperate pride as pride is a desperate thing alway in spiritual and in earthly things in the heart of man that makes him so desperate that if he be not loved to the height above all others that he accounts all love hatred You will not be right till you come to this that Paul saith 1 Cor. 15. I am the least of all Saints saith he and 1 Tim. 1. 7. I am the greatest of all sinners you will never be in a right frame in a Gospel frame to love your brethren till when you look on sinners you account your selves the greatest and when you look on Saints you reckon your selves the least Therefore this is a plain short Lesson I mean not to speak much of it but truly it needs a large comment on your hearts it needs a great deal of setting home upon your spirits Therefore let us every one look to our selves in this let us consider our condition my condition that I stand in and yours where you are Is not this the frame of my soul and the disposition of your souls that you never love another nor never esteem anothers love for both go together in a proud heart unless he look principally upon you â—â—â—ve all others Beloved it is much for thee and me if we understand our selves what we are and rightly judge of our selves and our course and how things are really in us and before the eyes of him that searcheth the hearts it is much for me if the poorest Saint give me but a smile or