tender humble soft and relenting hearts and when we have got them to keep and preserve them so in and by the frequent use of the same and other like means and keep them so How and holy exercises of prayer meditation hearing reading conference with such as have been humbled through neglect of which we shall find ovr hearts insensibly to grow hard and through cold performance of duty to freez again Even as the water in the cold of winter soon freezeth into hard ice which once broken in some parts of it that cattell may drink thereat or for other uses is kept open by daily breaking of it which care being for some few dayes neglected requires greater pains to break and open it again Simile So a soft heart and Gods Spirit once had are easily kept by daily care but hardly recovered when through negligence we have lost them CHAP. XXIII Where is shewed what these Converts said and that the heart being once affected sheweth it self by words and thereby may be discovered It followeth And said unto Peter and the rest of the Apostles Men and brethren The second effect of Peters Sermon or What these Converts said What shall we do IT hath already been considered what these Converts heard and what they suffered we must next consider what they said And said unto Peter c. where me thinks I see them framing into true Christians and becoming like a well set and tuned clock where the heart which in them was pricked and moved is like the master-wheel They are compared to a clock moving by the weights of their own sin and of Gods wrath not without some sense allurement and hope of mercy their tongue like the bell on which the hammer after the moving of the first wheel doth strike which truely sheweth the inward disposition of the heart and how it is affected and then their hand like the pointer shews it self ready to do and put in execution whatsoever it according to Gods word shall be directed unto as being right in heart tongue and hand as we should be in all other duties as of thankfulnes for they being pricked in heart said What shall we do here is heart tongue and hand agreeing in a sweet harmony together in this first work of conversion as indeed they do and should do in all other parts and particulars of Christian practise and duty as in our thankefulnesse towards God where the heart must begin Non sola vox sonet sed manus consonet verbis facta concordent Aug. in Psal 149. and in the inward acknowledgement of Gods mercies and Attributes love God Psal 116.1 and the soul yea all that is within understanding memory will and affections must praise him Psal 103.1 Then accordingly our mouths must speak of and shew forth his praises Psal 51. and our hands work and shew us really thankfull which is the end of all mercies temporall Psal 105.43 44 45. Deut. 10.12 13. and spirituall Luke 1.74 75. So God would have us perform duty to men even to our enemies much more to himself as Matth. 5.44 45. where you will finde both a Diligite of the heart and of love of enemies Love your enemies a Benedicite of the tongue Blesse them that curse you and a Benefacite of the hand This their behaviour is a signe of the sincerity of their sorrow Do good to them that hate you And so here It was a good signe that they were rightly and savingly pricked in heart when in this humble and loving manner they spake unto the Apostles sought direction from them and offered themselves ready and willing to do accordingly Others being pricked are more hardened then before and kick against the prick hating that word and those persons that do rebuke them as those other Jews did Stephen Acts 7. which puts a manifest difference between such as are savingly pricked and such as are not Four particulars to be spoken of here by which we may and should examine and try our selves 1. Who thus spake and said Such as were pricked Here we will consider 1 Who thus said or spake 2 When. 3 To whom 4 What said they 1 Who Such as were pricked in heart No marvell if thus by the tongue they shewed the grief and sorrow of their hearts It s a signe they were now sensible of their own hatefull sins and of Gods just judgements due unto them of both which formerly they were insensible as indeed the greatest evils always are such as men are least sensible of as the heathen Philosopher instanceth in ignorance folly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist Rhet. 2. injustice c. Now that Gods word and grace began secretly to put some life into them and that they began to be at some distance with their sin having it now not so much in them as before them they become sensible of the same and shew so much by speech Where the heart is truely and inwardly affected in any kind especially where it is inwardly wounded and in anguish Doctr. The heart shews it self by words and thereby may be judged it shews vents and bewrayeth it self by the mouth and by words Words will burst our like fire which cannot be hid David resolving to keep his mouth with a bridle Psal 39.1 2 3. while the wicked was before him yet when by holding his peace his sorrow was stirred my heart saith he was hot within me while I was musing the fire burned then spake I with my tongue So in matter of joy where the heart rejoyceth Acts 2.26 the tongue will be glad so where faith is in the heart there wil be confession of faith in the mouth Rom. 10.10 where the heart boyleth bubleth up or as we English it enditeth a good matter there the tongue will be the pen of a ready writer Psal 45.1 The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdome and his tongue taketh of judgement Why The Law of his God is in his heart Psal 37.30 31. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good and an evill man out of the evill treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evill for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh Luke 6.45 This here appears in the passion of sorrow where being pricked in heart especially in sorrow and anguish the tongue expresseth truely the sorrow of it as the stroaks on the instrument or voice of the singer answers the notes that are prickt in the rules Dr. Featly So that by the quality and nature of the speech or words uttered the inward condition the sincerity and soundnesse or unsoundnesse of its sorrow is commonly discovered as we see differently in David David's conscience being inwardly troubled for sin whilest he kept silence he found Gods hand still more heavie upon him Then said he I acknowledged my sin unto thee and mine iniquitie have I not
in sin did my mother warme as it is in the Originall 5 For bosome sins or conceive me Psal 51.5 5 Is thy sorrow as much for thy beloved bosome and darling sins such as have brought thee in unlawfull gain delight and pleasure and have procured thee favour respect yea advancement it may be with and from evill men as for other sins not so much feeding thy corruption By this I beleeve many mens sorrow will be found too light whilest their hearts are not so much pricked and wounded for these their sins as that the Word and Ministers of God will not suffer them without galling their conscience and with quietness and false peace to enjoy them still 6 For sins of the first Table aswel as the second 6 Is thy sorrow for thy sins against the first Table or four first Commandments of the Law as well as for sins against the second Table respecting more immediately thy neighbour and against the second as well as first 1. It may be it would be thy grief if thou hadst offended dishonoured and disrespected thy father or thy mother thy Magistrate and thy Prince but canst thou as truly mourn for the dishonour done to God If thy father on earth shew his displeasure and spit in thy face Numb 12.14 it may be thou wouldst be ashamed seven dayes but art thou so when thou provokest God to anger I know if any of you should kill a man though uupurposedly it would trouble your conscience somewhat and be grief unto you but I doubt whether when you do that which God accounts an offence equal to murther as when the Jew killed an oxe in sacrfice to God trusting in the work done and living without faith repentance and reformation of life or as when the Christian comes unreverently and in his sins to the Lords table and eats and drinks unworthily you are any whit troubled in conscience for the same when of the one God said hee that killeth an oxe is as if hee slew a man Isa 66.3 and so he that prayeth heareth and offers other Christian sacrifices without an heart humble and contrite penitent and beleeving is the like and of the other S. Paul Whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord as if he had been the Judas or the Pilate or one of the Jews who crucified him Thou again maist perhaps be ashamed of adultery to do thy penance for it as in Popery c. but yet please thy self in thy spiritual adultery against God going a whoring from under him by thine idolatries and superstitions and shew no shame sorrow or grief for it And so on the other hand and for sins against the second Table as well as against the first Thou maist be troubled some way in conscience if thou shouldst worship an Idol frame ceremonies and superstitions of mens devising break out into blasphemy taking Gods name in vain or into open profanation of the Sabbath but yet makest no conscience and art not troubled for dishonouring thy parents and superiours speaking evill of lawfull authority or otherwise offending against thy neighbours life wife or chastity goods or good name either by sins of commission or of omission towards them Jam. 1.27 This is no true Religion nor is the other godly sorrow if thou sorrowest not alike for these 7 For evil cleaving to our best actions 7 Canst or dost thou as well sorrow for thy failings and imperfections or for thy unworthy and unprepared and unreverent medling with holy things in thy hearing preaching praying and communicating at the Lords Table as for thy omission of such duties or commission of evils and sins apparently forbidden There is an evill cleaving oftentimes to our best performances through distractions carelesnesse irreverence confidence in the doing of the duty do these things trouble thy conscience or not Grosse and open sins would perhaps trouble thee but are these things a trouble and burthen to thee I am sure they should and wee should put away by hearty sorrow and amendment the evils even of our best doings and sacrifices Isa 1.16 Dost thou judge thy self as thou oughtest even for want of due preparation to the Sacrament thou shouldst so do as well as for open profanenesse seeing there is sin and dishonour done to God in the one as well as in the other To conclude Thou must know that thou truely grievest not for any sin as it is sin and with respect to God if thou grievest not for all known sins and that particularly if as one well saith thy very unprofitablenesse idlenesse peevishnesse unconstancie trouble thee not yea I add if thy hardnesse of heart and thy want of grieving as thou shouldst grieve do not grieve thee 2 If thy sorrow be right and good for sin as sin it will also be thy grief to see and know others to sin against God 2 True sorrow is also for sin in others and by sin to dishonour him to disgrace Religion and profession and to cast away their own souls This is the property of true mourners Ezek. 9.4 Thus mourned David Psalm 119.136 and Lot 2 Pet. 2.6 So should wee mourn for the sins of the Land For the sins of the Land Town or place where we live especially if Gods judgements be upon the same or towards it and that more for the sins provoking God then for the judgements themselves as in the aforesaid examples Sometimes in case of Pestilence War Famine and other great evils and dangers wee meet and are called together to fast and pray to mourn and humble our selves and otherwise are much disquieted and vexed but what is the true cause of our mourning is it as it should be our own sins or the sins of the Land place or Kingdome Nay alas these are least thought of or at least but generally acknowledged and slightly bewailed a signe our sorrow is not for sin or with respect to God but to our selves So of our families if they be the sins of our own Families wee cannot approve our own sorrow for our own sins such as it should be if we do not also mourn for and bewail the sins thereof as of our own children as Job did Chapt. 1.5 of our parents and fore-fathers as Nehemiah did Nehem 1.6 and Daniel Chap. 9.8 and one of another of those that are neerest us every family mourning apart Zech. 12.12 and as the Corinthians were blamed for not mourning for the sin of Incest committed by one of them As wee are to shew a generall dislike of sin in all even in those that in other respects are neer and dear unto us as King Asa who allowed not his mother in her Idolatry 1 King 15.12 so should wee both shew our care and endeavour to reclaim others from their sins but however mourn to God for them if wee can do no more Such as regard not
righteousness these lose their souls through meer sloth and negligence through want of serious and strict examination of their ways courses yea righteousness and seeming graces so suffering Satan to cheat them of their souls and their own deceitful and false hearts to betray them into the hands and power of the Divell None of these as yet it seems are so inwardly touched or pricked in heart so truly apprehensive of their own sins and of Gods wrath as these here in my Text who could rest in nothing till they had the state and safety of their souls secured to them or were sufficiently directed what course to take and follow that they might be at peace with God and save their souls CHAP. XXXV How such as God will save must be qualified and first that they must question their estate and shake off security with Vses 3. In that they thus do consult we see how those must be qualified whom God will save NOw thirdly and lastly from this their consultation with the Apostles before they were truly or throughly converted or brought to Christ or at least saved by him wee may take notice how all they must be qualified whom God will convert and save which will appear especially in three particulars which as they are effects and signs of one truly humbled we have already considered and shewed We will now consider them as so many usefull observations 1. Observation They must consult and shew their care of the main 1. We may hence infer That those whom God meaneth to save he moveth to shew care about the estate of their souls and in their straits to deliberate what to do and so to come to some resolution So did these here There is little good to be expected from mens casting down if in distresse of mind they consult not seriously about their estate Nay generally Why men must shew themselves very carefull and solicitous that would walk worthy of God and attain to life and salvation Rashness doth nothing well Nothing no not in earthly matters of any moment is well done without care and consultation every mans experience will tell him this Ecclus 37.16 Vse 1 To condemn the careless So that we may easily see what to judge of secure and carelesse livers who without all care or fear doubt or distrust of their spirituall estate passe their time and leave all to God or to the last not knowing or caring much either what estate they are in for the present or in what condition they shall die they hope well and that 's all or else they cast all upon Gods Predestination and conclude to the certain hazzard of their souls that all their care is needless no care of theirs can alter Gods purpose These men overlook Gods word which is their only rule and so by prying beyond the Moon especially such as cast all upon Gods predestination cast away their souls carelesly and desperately by neglecting the meanes and course which God would have them take and use It is God indeed that saves us and that according to the counsell and purpose of his own will But he saves by meanes which he will have us to use and on which only to expect a blessing from him and so he calls on us to save our selves Save your selves saith Peter here to these from this untoward generation Acts 2.40 Now the meanes he had shewed them before in answer to this their question Repent and be baptized c. v. 38. So he that beleeveth and is baptized shall be saved Mark 16.16 So Beleeve and thou shalt be saved said Paul to the Jaylour Acts 16.31 And We are of them that beleeve to the saving of the soul Hebr. 10.39 So God will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth 1 Tim. 2.4 We are saved by hope Rom. 8.24 We are saved by well doing and by obedience as Noah by faith obeying God and by perseverance in the same Hebr. 11.7 He that endureth to the end shall be saved Mark 13.13 To what end is all this if we be not to shew care to save our selves may we at our pleasure neglect baptisme Means of salvation must be used the knowledge of God according to his word repentance faith hope new obedience and perseverance in the same and yet look to be saved or if we carefully labour to do and observe all these shall we not undoubtedly be saved Doth not God say in effect to us as Paul to Timothy 1 Tim. 4.15 16. Moditate on these things give thy self wholly to them take heed to thy self continue in them for in doing this thou shalt save thy self See 2 Pet. 1.5.6 c. 10. Such as are saved being capable of the means are brought by the word to see their need of salvation to apprehend nothing but wrath as their just desert and accordingly in doubt and fear of their estate to use all diligence to avoid and escape the same O generation of vipers saith the Baptist Mat. 3.7 to the Pharisees and Sadduces that came to his Baptism who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come The Lord looks that men being warned especially God requires this care in those he will save should in care to their souls question themselves concerning their estate and doings but in vain in respect of too many I hearkned and heard saith the Lord by Jeremy Jer. 8.6 7. but they spake not aright no man repented him of his wickednesse saying what have I done Every one turned to his course as the horse rusheth into the battel This is too harsh a work for them and loth they are to sift into their former courses they account it a trouble and torment and loth they are with the Divels to be tormented before their time In a foolish pitty and self-love to themselves they cast off all care and whatsoever might unsettle them in their false peace and so live at all adventures with God and indeed contrary unto him Levit. 26.21 And all this is because they never truly were in straits of conscience for their evill waies nor will be convinced of their damned condition and so they willfully run blindfolded and headlong to their own perdition their security being a certain sign nay a cause and certain fore-runner of their ruine Whereas when God will bring home a wandring sinner he giveth him an heart to suspect himselfe to question his estate course of life and doings as thus What is this I have been doing all my life time hitherto and that they question themselves I was made by God for God himself and his glory but have I lived to him and to his glory or rather not to my self how have I spent my time what good have I either done to others or got to mine own soul what glory have I brought to God Oh unprofitable wretch how have I spent my precious time in vain in the service of
their hearts melt in true sorrow and their tongue and outward behaviour expresse a great change wrought in them Note 1. Corversion brings a sensible change Hence note first briefly That Conversion where it is in truth breeds and brings with it a sensible and great change not only in the state and condition of sinners who formerly were not a people but now are the people of God and which had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy 1 Pet. 2.10 but in their hearts tongues and lives It being indeed a change from darknesse to light Why Ezek. 26.26 1 Cor. 15.51 52 Ephes 5.8 yea of stones into bread shall I say yea into flesh which is softer being a greater change then our last change shall be which is from grace to glory that is from one degree to another this being from sin to grace from nothing to something that is from one kinde to another Example in Paul and An instance of this change may be given and seen in Paul who once a child of wrath was made a vessell of mercy once ignorant Rom. 7.17 1 Tim. 1.13 but after not rude in knowledge 2 Cor. 11.6 12.14 In a word changed first in his judgment and in his estimation of things see Phil. 3. vers 4 5 6 7 8. and so secondly in his affections of love hatred 1 Tim. 1.13 c. and thirdly in his practise once a persecutor of Christ now a preacher once injurious to the Saints now ready to dye for them once a blasphemer of God and his people now a blesser of them The like in the Jailor in the Jaylour Act. 16.24 with 29 30 31 32 33 34. even now thrusting Paul and Silas into an inner prison making their feet fast in the stocks presently after being humbled by an earthquake and so prepared and withall hearing the word of the Lord preached to him he beleeved was baptized he and all his washed their stripes brought them out of the stocks into his own house set meat before them and rejoyced beleeving in God with all his house Vse Of triall whethâ—r we be converted or no. Vse Though the change in all be not alike palpable and sensible yet if we would approve our selves true Converts our own consciences at least must be able to witnesse with us and for us and to say with that young man in S. Ambrose newly converted and afresh tempted by an old acquaintance of his to return to former lusts she saying Know you not me It is I yea but said he Ego non sum Ego I am not the man I was And with S. Paul of Onesimus Once unprofitable Philem. 11. 1 Cor. 6.9 10 11. now profitable and of others Such were some of you that is Fornicators Idolaters Theeves Covetous Drunkards Revilers Extortioners But now yee are washed sanctified and justified When thus we finde it we have a blessed and comfortable testimony of the truth of our conversion if especially the change hath been wrought by the preaching of the word pricking the heart as here Whereas profane and civill men who can shew no such inward and outward change can have no such comfort as being the same now after so many yeeres profession if not much worse then they were ever still profaine formall resting in the bare outward performance of duty and so children of wrath Hence note God hath his times for the conversion of sinners Some he sanctifieth in the womb Note 2. God hath his times for the conversion of the Elect. some he calls at the last houre but all that belong to his Election shall at length be converted most certainly but when who knowes Joh. 6.37 SECT 2. Why Christ converted not so many as Peter Quest WHy did not Christ himselfe when he preached convert so many Question 1. or so visibly and miraculously Ans I answer Answer 1. first this was more for the glorifying of his grace and power which he reserved till after his death to make it manifest in by and after his resurrection and ascension for till then Jesus was not said to be glorified he was here on earth to execute his kingly office only moderately and not to put forth his divine power so fully till afterward to the end that he might be put to death which was the chief end why he came into this word which else they would not have done 1 Cor. 2.8 His power was thus more magnified after a seeming weaknesse if they had known him to be the Lord of glory It made more then for his glory now by his servants weake instruments and by an apparent signe from heaven yea and after a seeming weaknesse in dying to shew forth his power and grace then if he had done it formerly for it shews in what favour he was with God now who had been so despised of men and that though he died it was not of weaknesse but of will seeing he could have saved himself from death who gave life not only to the thiefe but now to so many Conversion is a glorious work This shews that conversion of souls by the ministry of men is a glorious worke in and by which the glory of Christ God-man doth wonderfully appear which seeing it tendeth also to the glorifying of the creature should by the converted be ever acknowledged Ephes 1.2 to magnifie the ministry of the Word by man not in word only but in deed to the glory of the praise of his grace c. 2 This was also done and thus referred that he might magnifie the Ministry of the Word and Gospel by man as he had said greater works then those shall ye doe Thus he was pleased yea is still pleased to do greater works by an instrument then immediately by his own sole and only power As we see his like providence wisedome and power in the Load-stone a darke dull and heavie stone which though he have imparted to it an attractive power yet that power is not put forth by the Load-stone it self alone which alone or unarmed drawes but a little but is as it were communicated to the steel or iron with which it is capped so that the same stone which alone could scarce take up seven ounces waight being capped with iron hath very easily and strongly taken up two and twenty pound waight saith he that saw it and hath written of it Mr. Samuel Ward in Magnet is Reductorie Theologico cap. 8. Thus Christ is willing to communicate the glory of this great worke of mans conversion to the weake Ministery of men telling us Whosoever receiveth them receiveth him and whosoever beleeveth in me he shall do greater works then I have done He converted not by any one Sermon that we read of an hundred yet by Peter he at once converted three thousand Thus we again see what a glorious worke the Ministery of the Word by man is what a glorious calling it is Vse 1. To
know of God or of his will concerning the meanes of our recovery and salvation till God in and by Christ declare it to us Joh. 1.18 neither know we the things of God or any saving truth as of our selves 1 Cor. 2.14 Nay Secondly such is our impotency that we cannot either know them or yet doe any thing for our selves in the businesse of our conversion 2 Our impotency both which he healeth us of till God by his word and spirit work the same in us God must create us anew by the same mighty power of his word by which at first he made the world Psal 33.6 John 3. We must be drawn Joh. 6.44 and born again of water and the Spirit as the ship cannot move it self but as it is first born up of the water Secondly set forward by the wind both being without her selfe Now this is done whilest we receive into our soules and affections the gales of Gods grace and blasts and breath of his Spirit by attentive hearing of his word by which his Spirit is ministred to us 2 How Let us then attentively hearken to Gods word and so seek and expect the good and profit of it Let us chuse Maries part Luke 10. 1 Take heed of lets and take heed of Martha's incombrances and of such lets as prove hinderances to the fruitfull hearing of it as of worldly cares pleasures and in a word of having our hearts set upon the things of the world as Oxen Farmes Wives c. 2 So hear as first meditate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now we cannot hear it aright unlesse we first seriously meditate on the things we do hear as the word here seems to carry a continued act when they had heard there was not an end the word still sounded in their ears that they were the Crucifiers of Christ that Christ whom they crucified was the Lord of life these nailes stuck in them whether they did eat drink lie down or arise Whilest the heart museth and meditates on an object it comes to be affected as Psal 33. Lament 3.19 20. 2 Pet. 2.8 Lot in seeing and hearing vexed his soul i. e. he pondered the evils done and was the more vexed with their unlawfull deeds 2 Apply it Secondly We must so hear as to apply particularly to our selves what we hear for so these here came to be wounded when the point of this sword was set to their breasts and they could not neither did offer to put it by This belongs both to the Preacher to doe who must not draw and only flourish his sword this sword of the Spirit but strike home with it his mark being only or chiefly the heart for so the word both hits soonest and pierceth deeper and becomes as nailes fastened by the Masters of Assemblies and also to hearers themselves who must help their spirituall Surgeons and Physicians to apply the plaister or potion by keeping the one close to the sore and the other in their stomack without casting it up But of these two On 1 Cor. 11.31 pag. 1332. c. Meditation and Application as meanes of Humiliation more largely elsewhere 3 Beleeve it Thirdly The word heard must be mingled with faith in those that hear it else it profits them not Heb. 4.1 2. 4 Obey it Yea fourthly it must be followed with obedience as here these both beleeved the things taught them to be true and being directed to repent and to be baptized they both repented beleeved and were baptized If then we would reap the fruit and benefit of hearing and be blessed thereby we must both hear and keep the word we hear Luk. 11. otherwise God will not hear us Zach. 7.13 Exhortation with other reasons In a word if we will be Christs sheep we must receive his mark and that must be in the eare John 10.3 27. Mat. 13.43 17.5 If we will be his servants for ever we must suffer him to bore our eares that the pearles of the Gospel may hang at them If we will either beleeve or pray aright we must hear aright the first link of that golden chaine of the Apostle is hung at the eare Faith cometh by hearing c. Rom. 10.14 17. And if we would find such saving effects of the word as these here we must so hear as they heard and as is said for when they heard they were pricked in heart and said Men and brethren what shall we do It s said of the Weasel Mustella concipit aure parit ore She conceiveth at the ear and brings forth her young ones at her mouth So the seed of Gods word received in at the eare and conceived there and in the heart bringeth forth the fruit of holy thoughts meditations and devotion and expressions of inward sorrow for sin at the mouth Vse 2 Vse 2 This being the profit of hearing and duty of hearers let us see what to judge Of reproofe 1. of scoffers 2. of enemies to hearing in others first of scoffers at the word c. Secondly of such as hinder and keep back others from hearing as Elymas would have done the Deputy such as are enemies to the spirituall good of soules and shew themselves children of the Devill Who are of the Devill whose office is to make the hearing of the word unfruitfull if he cannot keep them from hearing then he steales the Word heard out of their hearts as the birds pick up the seed after it is sown Luke 8. lest men beleeve and be saved but if he can he will keep them from hearing it herein like the Jaylour who though he suffered his Prisoners to have their hands and feet free yet he keeps the prison doore fast lockt and bard and so long he fears no escape of his prisoners so Satan lets such as he keeps captive it may be to have their hands at liberty to reach out an almes and sometimes their feet to go to Church to hear Prayers saith one but he will be sure to keep the eares Dr. Featly And under Gods wrath which are the gates and doores of their souls fast Yea such are also under the wrath of God 1 Thess 2.16 3. Of such as lightly account of hearing who to discountenance it prefer before it 3. Generally we see what to conceive of such as with whom Satan prevailes so far as either through meer negligence refuse to hear Gods word when they may preferring their ease and sloth or at least to hear it onely of such as are like themselves and will flatter them and are time-servers or through prejudice of the word to hear the voice of a man the Pope forbidding them to hear when yet God calls them to hear as our Popish Recusants or to stop their ears from hearing and lock up that door by breeding in them a contempt at least neglect of hearing not onely by pretending that we all know enough already practice is more needfull
have him to rule over us Thus in true account and as God takes it you say and do Then let me tell you who this is against whom you thus by and in your pride and stoutnesse and partly ignorance do sin It is Christ the Lord of glory a dreadful Majestie even against the mighty God and their Judge the Soveraigne Lord who is appointed to be your Judge and who shall come in flaming fire rendering vengeance to all that know him not nor obey his Gospel This is he whom you provoke against whom you have so long trespassed whom you have so much dishonoured whom you have crucified and persecuted in his Saints and people whom you as little know or respect as himself who yet are of price and worth to him and as dear as the apple of his own eye whose wrongs he is sensible of as done to himself and which accordingly he will avenge Isai 57.3 4. But do you consider this are you convinced of it Let the daunkard then which should be considered the unclean person and voluptuous the profaner of the Lords Name and Sabbath and every sinner know and that assuredly that God hath made this same Jesus whom ye thus crucifie and wound both Lord and Christ the glorious and dreadful Judge of quick and dead Doth not this strike terrour into your hearts doth it not prick wound and sting your conscience God expects it should If he have winked at the former times of your ignorance Act. 17.30 31 yet now he commandeth all men every where to repent because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousnesse by that man whom he hath ordained c. An dear brethren let us not mock when we hear these things or put off repentance as if ye cared not much whether ye perform it or no with the Athenians who heard these things from Paul and 32 and said We will hear thee again of this matter 34. but rather with Dionysius and Damaris there and others Let us cleave to Paul and believe and with these converts here cleave and cling to Peter out of true compunction of heart and repent saying to him and to such as now are in place of him even Gods faithful servants and our teachers who so tell us Men and brethren what shall w do Ah that I could see such blessed effects of the self-same doctrine And so having in a manner done with the instrumental cause of this Compunction and Conversion of these Jews which was their hearing of Gods word preached we come to the effects of the same the first whereof is to be considered in that which they suffered expressed in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They were pricked in their heart CHAP. V. SECT 1. The effect of saving hearing is pricking of heart THis pricking in heart notes an Inward Conviction of conscience 2. The effects of this their hearing 1. What they suffered whereby they came at once in the acknowledgement of Christ and his glory to see their horrible sin in murthering and crucifying of him and their own deserved condemnation thereby so bringing the curse of the Law home to their own consciences They were pricked in heart savingly as not able any longer to put by the thrust as I may call it or the dint of Peter's accusation which came as a dagger to the heart and struck them both with fear of wrath through a consciousnesse of this their hainous sin of murder and parricide and with hearty grief and sorrow for their sin not without some mixture of hope which made them enquire after a remedy and say What shall we do Wherein this pricking of heart differs from that cutting to the heart which was in others of the Jews Acts 7.54 who being alike charged by Steven as these were by Peter with the murder of Christ verse 52 yet as others by the same word were cut to the heart deadly Act â—â— 52 54-58 not convinced that Jesus was the Messiah or Christ and so that they were murderers of their Saviour they inwardly justifying themselves when they heard these things were cut to the heart and they gnashed on him with their teeth and cast him out of the city and stoned him to death as taking ill at his hands thus falsly as they conceived to be charged So that the same Word had a different effect in the Jews in regard of the issue though all of them were some way or other pricked in heart yea cut and wounded the same Word proving the savour of life to the one and of death to the other true compunction of heart in the one where was sorrow not onely in fear of punishment but also in desire general hope and some apprehension of goodnesse and mercy in God which asswaged their fears but in the other a senslesse security and benummednesse of soul not to see their sin and danger with grief and anger onely so to be charged And so in the one was true compunction of spirit or of heart whereby the Aposteme of it was opened as by the prick of a sharp instrument and the corruption of it discovered yea whereby the heart became sick of the love of God and desire after him as the least prick at the heart causeth a present fit of sicknesse and in the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 11.8 Isai 6.9 a spirit onely of compunction or remorse as it may be called or rather as it is translated in our Bible a spirit of slumber whereby God gave them eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear even a spirit of slumber sottishnesse want of spiritual senses and blindnesse not to see the light of Truth and of the Word which yet pricked their hearts as the light of the sun doth fore eyes yea cut them to the heart through the accusations if not convictions of it though they still remained stupid and accordingly perished It concerns us then to see how we hear that we melt by it as was and be not clay Now for this pricking mentioned in my Text it proved a saving and healing wound And we will now consider it according to three several Relations This pricking considered according to three Relations First to Peters Sermon as an effect of it Secondly to the sinners themselves as a fruit and consequent of their sin and so as an affection of sorrow in the subject or convicted sinner Thirdly and chiefly to the whole work of Conversion as the first degree and beginning of the same and as a preparative to Christ and to salvation CHAP V. SECT 11. Pricking of heart considered as the work of the word and of the best kind of preaching 1 To Peters sermon as an effect of it Note The best kind of preaching is that which pricks the heart 1 in what respects 2 For what reasons God himself useth this method 1 the Father 1 AS this
pricking in heart is an effect of Peters Sermon it will teach us this lesson that The best kind of teaching and preaching is that which pricks mens hearts and toucheth woundeth and convinceth their consciences I call it best and that both in regard of Gods glory whose word is thus by convincing men most magnified whether it prove the savour of life or of death seeing men once convinced by it God can more glorifie himself whether in his mercy or justice manifested towards convicted sinners and also in regard of our good and conversion and that for these reasons 1. Because this course is according to Gods own order in the conversion of souls 1 God convinced Adams conscience and so prepared him for the promise of the Messias 2 Christ began his Ministery by preaching repentance 2 Sonne Matth. 4.17 he so dealt with the Jews and with the woman of Samaria Joh. 4 18. 3 yea the comforter 3 Yea the first work of the Comforter is to convince men of sin to their condemnation before he convince them in their judgement of righteousnesse in Christ to their justification see John 16.8.9.10 for indeed there is no true consolation but out of deep humiliation no true joy and comfort but such as issues out of straits of conscience if we speak of men capable and legal convictions The spirit before it comfort it shakes a man and makes him fear see Hebr. 2.14 c. It s a course which God prescribes us his Ministers to use even to cry aloud and not to spare to tell men of their sinnes 2 God prescribes the use of it to cause them to know their abominations and to give them warning of their danger Isa 58.1 2. Ezek. 3.17 and 16.2 3 he blesseth it 3 Lastly its that method which God most blesseth as in Nathans plain dealing with David thou art the man and in other Prophets and in the Baptists preaching Vse 1 For Ministers thus to preach and to leave stings behind them Matth. 3.7 8.9.10 or Luk. 3.7.8 9. with 10 11 c. in his Apostles preaching here Vse 1. It is for the direction of us Ministers who as occasion serves must be full of the wrath of the Lord not preaching pleasing things to tickle the eare but sound saving and wholsome things to prick and wound the heart leaving stings behind us in mens hearts before we bring hony to please their tast first using corrosives by pouring in wine then lenitives oyl to supple heal The words of the wise saith Solomon are as goads and as nails fastened by the Masters of Assemblies whech are given from one shepheard Eccles 12 11. Jer. 23.29 yea Gods word in the mouth of his servants is like a hammer not onely to break the rock in pieces but to drive in those nails even to the head into mens not skins onely goads pierce the skin but flesh and hearts too thence to fetch and draw teares which Saint Augustine calls the blood of the soul Our manner of teaching should be such as not to seek applause to our selves but sobs and tears in you our prayse should be your teares your sighs not your hemms not the clapping of your hands To wring tears from their hearers or Plaudite as at a play but the knocking of your breasts and Plangite as at a funerall It was said of one after an oration made to the people of Athens that he left certain stings in their minds so did Peter here and so should we send you home as much as we can weeping to your closets Pericles in a sence of sinne and danger and so should we wield this sword of the spirit as to aim chiefly at your hearts and so stedfastly and strongly follow home the thrust like Masters of defence as not to suffer you to put it by And to convince 1 Sam. 15.13 14. c. Though such conviction prove not saving Gen. 4.7 Call to Newcastle or methods for discovery of sinne in the Ministers method by your shifts evasions excuses extenuations justifications no more if we had the skill then Samuel would suffer King Saul to evade him till he had convinced him and brought him to confesse his sin And this we must do though our reproofs and convictions do not alwayes prove saving so did not Samuels so did not Gods own reproof and conviction of Cain And Stephens reproof and conviction of the Jews to be the murtherers of Christ had not the same effect with Peters here it was the same sword or word of God but with the point it pricked the one savingly and with the one or both of the edges of it it being not kindly received cut the other to the heart and wōunded them mortally 2 For hearers 1 to submit meekly to the reproofs of the word but of this more elsewhere 2 This teacheth you to desire such kind of teaching not to be displeased with such as so faithfully deale with your souls and to learn of these here who though deeply charged by Peter yea pricked and wounded did not rise against him or say what or who is he this that thus boldly chargeth us but meekly receiving the word of reproof and as guilty persons convinced of their sinnes what shall we do its true alas we indeed are guilty neither should you shew your selves unwilling to have your wounds searched to the bottome 2 Therefore the law is now to be taught under the Gospel 3 It s a good sign to be pricked Treat on Ezek. 16.2 or Gods charge to his Messengers concerning conviction of sinners p. 237. c. or to have your sins discovered and brought to triall seeing all sinne is a traytor to God and his glory and by your unwillingnesse to have it found and brought to judgement you make your selves more guilty But of this as also other uses concerning the needfulnesse much more lawfulnesse of preaching the Law now in time of the Gospel not to justification but to the conviction of sinners and to prepare and bring them to Christ as also that it is no ill signe simply to be met withall netled pricked and troubled in conscience by the word so that we seek or accept of ease and help by the word I say of these and such like uses elsewhere more largely and purposedly CHAP. V. SECT 3. Pricking of heart considered as the fruit of sinne and that sin carries a sting with it 2 The second relation which this Pricking hath is to the sinners themselves and to their sinnes THE second Relation that this pricking hath is to the sinners themselves and to their sinne the fruit whereof we see is at best sorrow fear pricking and wounding of the heart and spirit The word they heard brought to remembrance their sinne and their sinne presented them with wrath and so their heart is struck with horrour fear amazement and confusion the conscience awakened would not suffer them any longer to rest
set himself against them yea them against themselves making them a terrour to themselves A wounded name estate leg or arm wounded or broken may be born but who can bear a wounded spirit saith Solomon when the bones within are broken will it not cause roaring ask David Psal 32.3.4 and 51.8 ask Hezekiah Isa 38.13 And yet what is all this to the eternall endlesse and easelesse torments of hell These things would be considered Oh consider this then in time you that are so secure and fearlesse that care not what you say or do how many oaths you swear how many Sabbaths and Sermons you neglect how many you cozen or wrong in their goods name chastity your sinne one day will shew it self in its colours and your consciences will prove burthens to you heavier then mountains your hard hearts shall be broken and you crushed punished and tormened for ever Rather in time chuse to be when ye hear these things and in the timely belief of them savingly pricked as these here were who in the apprehension of such effects of sinne as you have now heard did presently seek to prevent them and being thus pierced and pricked sought help and healing which accordingly they presently found becoming true converts and partakers of Christ And so leaving the consideration of this sorrow as a bare affection in the sinner The third Relation of this pricking of heart is to the whole work of Conversion as the beginning thereof and an effect of sinne we come to speak more of it in relation to this great work of conversion and as the first step and beginning thereof leading to Christ and to salvation So that taking these first words They were pricked in heart with those their other words following what shall we do and upon direction given them their doing accordingly verse 38.39 c. they will afford unto us this observation That a legal terrour of conscience and sorrow for sin through sence of misery thereby deserved is the beginning of Repentance and first step to Conversion So that we are occasioned here to take notice or at least to consider of the order of conversion and of the steps and degrees thereof and how men are brought to Christ to faith and to salvation which we will speak of in its place after some generals are first observed CHAP. V. SECT 4. Pricicking of heart considered as the first step to true Conversion And that Conversion must begin at the heart with reasons and uses of the point THe most generall observation which we will hence first raise is this Doctr. Conversion must begin at the heart that true and saving Conversion begins and must begin at the heart By heart in Scripture is generally meant the soul and all the severall powers and faculties of the same as understanding What is meant by heart here memory conscience will and affections joyntly and severally as might easily be shewed but for our present use we here by heart chiefly understand the Conscience and will with the affections which by this pricking came both to be pained and to be severed and parted from sinne which was all one with it and the corruption of the same to be let out Yet I take the Conscience here is more specially meant Especially the conscience as in Davids case when he came to see and to be convinced of his sinne of Pride in numbring of the people it is said and Davids heart smote him and David said as these here were pricked in heart and said 2 Sam. 24.10 c. and we shall anon see that this pricking issued out of the conclusion of that practicall syllogisme which being thus convinced their consciences made The heart in true conversion must first be pricked wounded and put to pain as David was in his repentance and as it was here with these Converts yea and as God requires of all true Penitents Turn you even to me saith the Lord by Joel with all your heart and rent your heart and not your garments Joel 2.12.13 c. Reasons why Reasons why Hebr. 3.12 The heart is the First and chief offender Math. 15.18.19 It hatcheth and harbours sinne Jer. 4 14. 1 The heart is the first and chief offender It first turns from God and by unbelief departs from him if the body or bodily parts act any evill that evil is first hatched and forged in the heart for out of the heart proceed evill thoughts murders adulteries fornications thefts false witnesse blasphemies which defile a man yea it is the heart that harbours sinne and evil thoughts as in a common June O Jerusalem wash thy heart from wickednesse how long shall thy vain thoughts lodge with in thee yea it is the receptacle and lodging of the Devil himself who takes up the chief rooms thereof And Satan and filleth the same Act. 5.3 Joh. 13.2 The whole imagination and all the purposes and desires of the thoughts of the heart are onely evil continually Gen. 6.5 It s a proud heart festered The heart of man is a proud heart swollen with pride as is a bladder and therefore stands need of pricking It is a festered heart full of corruption and putrifying sores and stands need of opening searching and lancing by the knife of the law and sword of the spirit which is the word of God It is a hard heart hard as a stone and stands need of breaking and bruising There is a stone in the heart and hard heart hard 1 as a stone the cure whereof is like that which is of the stone in the bladder there must be sharp incision and God must come with his pulling and plucking instruments ere sin and that hardnesse can be got out of it 2 as mettal Yea It is hard as mettal men being said to have their necks as iron sin news and their brow brasse Isa 48.4 Jer. 6.28.29 whereby is meant the hardnesse of their hearts and obstinacy and to be brasse and iron so that the founder often melteth in vain the bellows that is the lungs of the Preacher shall sooner be burnt then the wicked and their wickednesse plucked away Yet being so hard it must be not onely broken with the hammer of the Law but molten if it be possible with the fire partly of Gods judgements threatned by the Prophets and in part executed by God himself who threatens to blowe upon his obdurate people in the fire of his wrath Ezek. 22 18-20 21. and to melt them in the midst thereof but chiefly of his love in the Gospel ere it can be cast into a new mold It then especially musst be dealt withal in the first place 2. The heart is most acceptable to God 2 The heart of all other parts is the most acceptable sacrifice to God indeed seasoning all the rest God requires it as his sacrifice My son give me thine heart Prov. 23.26 It s that which every one accounts
highly of All delight to have the hearts of men The Pope giving his devoted servants leave for a while to go to our Church in England in the first yeers of Queen Elizabeths raign in the words now lastly mentioned required of his sons and children that so doing they should give him their heart He knew if he had their heart he could soon command all the rest So the devil is well enough pleased to let his devoted servants make shew of Religion or of some good duties as of alms good words c. so long as he can keep their hearts glued first to any one or more lusts The like I may say of lovers seeking chiefly to insinuate into the hearts love and affections of their beloved Yea great Kings on earth who stand not in much need of their meaner subjects yet like well to be loved of all and to have their hearts And even thus it is with God himself who chiefly requires the heart who knows if it be wanting nothing can be sincere or lasting and where it is it will bring on all the rest The broken heart is Gods sacrifice He requires the heart as his sacrifice for and in stead of a sacrifice yea before all sacrifice But what heart If the heart be a saccrifice then as other sacrifices it must be slain and mortified at least pierced and wounded It must be a broken heart else it is not right It is not whole or entire with God Non est Cor integrum nisi sit scissum till it be broken and cut Outward sacrifices where beasts were slain and offered were but types of this sacrifice of a contrite heart so that where the heart was not contrite the sacrifice was an abomination To this man will I look saith the Lord even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at my word But of others it is said He that killeth an ox as if he slew a man Isai 66.2 3. he that sacrificeth a Lamb as if he cut off a dogs neck he that offereth an oblation as if he offered swines blood c. God will none of such sacrifices where the heart which should give him praise and prayer is wanting Psal 50.9 10-14 15. I will take no bullock out of thine house c. Offer unto God thanksgiving and pay thy vows unto the most High And call upon me in the day of trouble and 51.16 17. So again Thou desirest not sacrifice saith David else would I give it thou delightest not in burnt-offerings The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit a broken and a contrite heart O God thou wilt not despise For as one noteth the visible sacrifice of beasts slain is but a Sacrament August l. 10. de civit cap. 5. that is a holy and sacred signe of the invisible sacrifice of the heart Even as in Circumcision God required chiefly and firstly the circumcision of the heart Deut. 10.16 by which is meant this pricking and cutting of the heart This is that true Circumcision which being in and from the heart Rom. 2.28 29. findes praise with God This circumcised heart is the truely humbled heart unto which a promise and a blessing doth belong Levit. 26.41 42. If their uncircumcised heart be humbled c. or bowed down or at the Chaldee hath it be broken and it is opposed to pride as when it s said 2 Chro. 52 26. King Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride or lifting up of his heart And so it implieth repentance and turning in heart to the Lord as 2 Chron. 32.26 Yet divers of Ashur c. humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem when others mocked as these here now were pricked when formerly they or others mocked Hence it is truely said by one God pours not the oil of his mercy Bern. save into a broken vessel Vse 1 This shews the preposterous course of Popish penitentiaries who professing compunction and pricking of heart and spirit 1. To confute Popish penitentiaries whip onely scourge and otherwise afflict the body and make that a matter of satisfaction and merit and so under such shew of austerity and humility Coloss 2. not sparing the body they become vainly puffed up with pride in their fleshly mindes They seem to shew a kinde of revenge which yet is not against their sins lodged in the heart which they spare yea and fatten it in pride but onely against their skins and carcases which without the heart have done little or nothing Let the flesh be tamed and outward senses restrained as cause shall require but first let the heart and inward affections be mortified and subdued else it is but a mock-repentance Pag. 34 35. But of this a little before 2. To instruct and direct us to begin at the heart So do true Converts 2 A second Use is to learn hence to begin our repentance and conversion at the heart so do true converts First King Davids heart smote him then he confessed saying I have sinned The poor publican smote on his brest and then said God be merciful to me a sinner he by so smiting aimed at the chief offender Their sorrow is in the heart before it be in the face or sowre countenance as in a like case of Nehemiah mourning for the afflictions of his people which the King took notice of saying Why is thy countenance sad Nehem. 2.2 this is nothing but sorrow of heart So it was with good King Josiah who in heart and soul first apprehending his and his peoples sins and the wrath of God due to the same then rends his clothes and weeps Therefore saith God 2 Chro. 34.27 Because thine heart was tender and thou didst humble thy self i. e. in heart first before God and didst rend thy clothes and weep c. As sadnesse of countenance in true penitents argues and presupposeth sorrow of heart and their sorrow is first in the heart before it be in the garment so it is quite contrary with hypocrites Not so hypocrites Joel 2.12 13. to such God speaks by his Prophet Joel saying Turn unto me with all your heart and rend your hearts and not your garments The countenances of hypocrites onely are sad but not their hearts like hired mourners Know we then Matth. 6. that outward expressions of sorrow are not further good then so far onely as they come from inward grief and affection as in these converts here who by saying What shall we do shewed much inward grief in the apprehension of wrath much fear care and anxiety of spirit but then they were first upon such apprehension and fear pricked in their heart 3 Exhortation to begin our reformation at the heart Why 3 Let us hence be exhorted to begin our conversion and reformation at the heart you have heard reason enough for it otherwise it were but to lop off boughs and to leave the corrupt and bitter root to purge
be throughly converted CHAP. VIII Shewing the reasons why God will have all Converts of age to be first brought under the spirit of bondage THese Reasons I reduce to these two generall Heads 3 The Demonstration or reasonâ— of the main Doctrine And why God will bring all Converts under the spirit of bondage This he doth with respect 1 to their good 1 To their profit 1 Mans own Good 2 Gods Glory 1 God will in his providence have our hearts to ake by bringing us in some measure under the spirit of bonage and have us thus wounded at least pricked before he receive us for our own Good who otherwise would neither know our selves aright nor acknowledge our want and need of Christ whilst we missed him not nor prize him aright For methods sake know the good which God intends his elect by thus dealing with them is according to that usuall division of good Profitable Comfortable Honourable 1 The Profit of this method which God useth with his so far as it is to be reaped in this life may be referred to their Justification and Sanctification 1 God thus brings home to himself wandring sinners as he did the Prodigall 1 To their Justification who never had any thought of returning to his fathter till all outward means and succours failed him and till he saw himself destitute of mony friends food yea of very husks the meanest of meats he like a man out of his wits and not himself never came unto himself neither thought of coming or returning to his father till then Luk. 15. Now in this prodigall every wandring sinner who proves a true Convert is meant who is also compared to a lost or wandring sheep after which the shepherd sends out his dog to bring it into the fold Particularly God will have us feel somewhat of our own burthen and see as it were the flashes of hell-fire Particularly and so he turns the Law loose upon us a while both in the strict commands of it 1 To cause them see their own guiltinesse as also in the curse annexed to the transgressours of it 1 That we might acknowledge see and be convinced of our own guiltinesse and of the infinitenesse of our desert and debt which our Saviour signifieth unto us in the parable of the debter who ought his Master ten thousand talents which howsoever he at length did graciously remit yet before he forgave it he strictly required the whole debt of him commanding all he had to be sold even wife and children that it might be paid yet this was but to bring him on his knees that he might desire beg sparing and compassion Matth. 18.25 26. God thus wounds the spirit and lets men feel the burthen of their sinne which who can beare that so they may cry out with Davd Mine iniquities are gone over mine head Psal 38.4 as a heavy burthen they are too heavy for me 2 God thus doth 2 To humble them in sight of their inability that in a sense of our burthen of our own inability to undergo it we might be humbled and have those proud high and lofty thoughts which we have had or have of our selves brought down and levelled with the ground Till this be done the sinner will ever find something in himself to oppose against the work of grace who els would never seek to Christ Luk. 8.43.44 either his own righteousnesse and morall vertues and civil life his own power of will or somewhat ese like the woman in the Gospel whom Christ healed of her bloody issue who so long as she had any thing of her own left to bestow upon Physicians she never thought of Christ onely when after twelve years she had spent all her living upon Phsicians neither could be healed of any she sought to Christ and was healed Man naturally is like the wild asse colt or like the asse used to the wildernesse Jer. 2.24 that snuffeth up the winde at pleasure which must first be taken down and tamed and like the wild young horse that must be ridden in deep and tough lands run against the wall and otherwise affrighted by being brought to the brow of some high hill and rock before it be tamed or made serviceable 3 To make them willing to seek after help 3 Thus God makes the heart plyable and bores the ear to receive instruction and to hearken after the means by which it may receive help or ease making it to seek help out of it self else where as Paul smitten down from his horse Lord what wilt thou have me to do and as the Jailour humbled by an earth quake What shall I do to be saved and as these in my Text who when they were pricked in heart said What shall we do as the hunted or shot hart flees to his harbour or to Dictamnum the herb which causeth as they say the dart to fall out or as the stout lion which sought to Androgeus a man to get the thorn pulled out of his foot 2 Cor. 12.4 Or to accept of it being offered as Paul having a thorn in the flesh sought earnestly and often unto Christ 4 At least men thus are made willing to accept of help when it is offered which so many daily having never been in such straiâ—s nor suffered any pangs of conscience do neglect the sick only not the whole do see their need of the Physician 5 To prize Christ 5 God will thus beat men off their own bottomes to see their accursed condition that they may more highly prize Christ and his benefits as thirst makes us relish our drink and by sickness we better know how to value health by imprisonment liberty and in a word as one contrary makes us better to judge of the other None can ever so truly prize the worth of Christs bloud as those that have groned under the burthen of their sinne and have been filled with Gods wrath God then by such stings in the conscience causeth men seek to Christ and make use of him as of old he sent fiery serpents Numb 21.8 that such as were stung by them might look to the brazen Serpent which was a type of Christ crucified and be healed as Absolom set Joabs corn on fire 2 Sam. 14 30. to cause him to come unto him 2 God takes this course with sinners 2 Their sanctification and to affright them from sin to make them weary of their sin and willing to part with it which otherwise would never be there is that nearnesse yea Onenesse between the soul and sin as hath been said The corruption of the soul would never be let out but for this pricking When are men willing to pluck out the right eye or When do they yield their hand or foot to the surgeon to be seared or cut off but when they see and are perswaded that they cannot retain these and their lives too when the Gangrene
qualifications or to derogate from free grace or to hold men to a legal faith c. And the main Doctrine repeated Such an order as this there is in the work of Conversion which I name not to bind the Lord to an order or to an uniform dealing with all converts some whereof he humbles more some lesse and accordingly comforts some sooner then others in some he works all these in a shorter time it may be at one Sermon whereas others are long held under the spirit of bondage before they come to hope or to any assurance some stick longer in the birth then others neither do I intend to tye every convert to give a strict account of all these particulars or of the severall degrees and steps by which he hath been brought along But my chief aim in naming these in this order is to shew and declare and withall to make good the former point of Doctrine which is that such as God will convert and save must first be pricked in heart that Conversion and faith is not wrought in an instant without some preparatory works going before and that in the generall God first humbles before he comforts there is constantly this Order first sight of sinne sense of wrath wounding pricking self-despair and then and not before or not without the other hope of mercy joy comfort true conversion faith assurance 5 The application and use of the said Doctrine perseverance and salvation So that now at length this main doctrine being explaned illustrated Demonstrated and both reasons of it given and the manner order steps and degrees of Conversion shewed It remains that it be applied and made use of CHAP. XI Containing an use preparative to the rest or of triall 1Vse of triall of our estate 1 THe first Vse shall be preparatory to the rest and it is for Triall and by way of Query I ask thee then whosoever whether thou ever hast been savingly or at all pricked in in conscience or wounded in spirt for thy sins thou mayest try thy self and know the state and condition of thy soul by that which hath been taught and proved at least negatively so that not finding such things and such effects of the word of God and particularly of the legal part of it wrought in thee thou hast just cause to suspect thy faith yea undoubtedly to conclude that as yet thou art no true Convert nor in state of grace and that thou hast not Christ as wanting faith for when all such effects of the Law are wrought in thee thou hast yet much to do but if these things be not done then art thou farre off from grace and if so in that state before thou be so humbled thou diest thou art for ever undone Now whereas these works are the effects of the Law and word 1 preached Foure Interrogatories put to each conscience whereby sinne both against the Law and Gospel is made known and discovered 2 Applyed whereby sinners are convinced and made guilty 3. Pressed upon them and followed home with curses and denunciations of wrath c. whereby 1 in the conscience follows self-judging and self-condemnation 2 In the Affections horrour sorrow shame self-despair Yea and 3 it may be hereupon in the understanding consultation what to do I ask first dost thou know thy self and thy wayes to be sinfull and vile Dost thou now see that evill by thy self which formerly thou knewest not 1 Concerning our knowledge Doth thine uncleannesse evill concupiscence covetousnesse appeare to thee no longer tricks of youth naturall desires good thrift and husbandy and thine excesse and abuse of Gods good creatures in and for company of others no longer good fellowship and neighbourhood and sociablenesse and so in other particulars where thou hast called evil good and good evil by condemning in thy self others and the good wayes of God of too much precisenesse humour folly and madnesse but do the aforesaid vices now shew themselves to thee in the glasse of the Law and word preached to be what indeed they are horrible sins of dishonour done to God provocations of the eyes of his glory pernicious to thy soul c. and hast thou another judgement then formerly of the good wayes of God and of his people This is a good beginning and signe that God intends further good unto thee and throughly to convert thee But if thou art not touched with a sight or sense of thy evill estate and wayes if yet through thy ignorance thou be alive in thine own conceit I must tell thee thou art dead in sinnes and in thy naturall and lost estate and so continuing shalt die in thy sinnes and perish for ever 2 Concerning the judging of our selves Revel 3.17 2 Hast thou yet never been made by the word and Law to judge thy self thine estate and wayes Hast thou never been made guilty self-convinced self condemned to be under wrath or at least to be most worthy of wrath I must tell thee thou must then be judged of God and that eternally Hast thou not been sensible of thine estate under darknesse under Gods wrath under the curse and damnation and so hast thou not been weary of thy naturall estate and condition I say then thou hast cause to fear eternal darknesse wrath and damnation Dost thou think thy self in good estate and wast thou never convinced or sensible of worser condition then thou art in Suspect thy self all is not well with thee He that dreams of a conversion or state of grace and of a fulnesse without some sense of his former estate shall when he a wakes prove hungry empty of grace deceived in and by a false birth yea and hardened to his destruction Judge then thy self in time that thou be not for ever judged of the Lord I exhort thee to take heed of security to arraigne thy self at thine own bar and to suffer the word to judge try yea and to condemn thee Try by it not onely thy cursed estate by nature and thy grosser sinnes but thy omissions yea thy best actions thy vertues and righteousnesse thy services and sacrifices in which thou restest and seemest to trust 3 Concerning our sorrow 3 Let me ask thee hast thou never yet sorrowed when thou hast heard and been wounded for thy sinne nor trembled at the voice Habbak 3.16 I must say and tell thee the more is behind and for the present thou art far from true joy know that sorrow must be in the evening before there be joy in the morning thou must sow in tears before reap in joy 4 Concerning our consultation Lastly hast thou never as yet either questioned thine estate or come so farre as to consult about the bettering of it and to come out of thine old and naturall condition I say do both the one and the other in time and know now till I tell thee more fully of it hereafter on this Text that God fills those mens heads with care
in the rest but in all through the breach of every Commandement and neglect of every duty though of some more then other 3 Continnance 3 For long continuance in thy sin til it may be thou art old in the same and hast given the Divel and thy lusts the best of thy time 4 Danger Yea 4. For Danger as bringing thee into hazrard of hardnesse of heart and final impenitency yea of hell torments and so in the apprehension thereof thou must feel thy sin to abound 5 Weight 5. For waight and burthen without making light of it as formerly II. From the curse and judgements due to sin Sin will have sorrow here or hereafter II. Come then tel me again Do not these thy sins bring thee under the Curse wil they not hale thee to judgement either going before thee or following after to judgement Wil not sin even thy sin have sorrow here or hereafter for ever Shall you always rejoyce Is not God of most pure eys Ah! who knows the power of his anger What are millions of men to him though they be never so great when hee is angry What are those glorious Angels of light which he made to him if once they provoke him shewed 1 In examples as of the Angels 2 Pet. 2.4 5 6. Doth hee not turn both Angels and men to destruction for their sin God spared not the Angels that sinned but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darknesse to be reserved unto judgement c. and that for their pride and it may be thou comest but little short of them in Luciferian pride thou man thou woman Yea he spared not the whole race of mankinde which sinning in Adam Of the whole race of mankind in Adam was with him cast out of Paradise into a state of damnation and what was his sin was it not the doing of that which was forbidden him a tasting of forbidden fruit And do thou think with thy self how guilty thou art not onely of that original and first sin of thy nature but of many actuall and wilfull transgressions since and that in the same kinde most eager after such things as of which thou art most restrained And was not the whole world of men women The old world and children eight onely excepted drowned for like lâ—sts violence excess and secure eating and drinking c. as thou art guilty of Did not God turn the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes for their lusts and uncleanness pride fulness of bread Sodom Idleness and uncharitableness And did hee not bring first the Captivity Ezek. 16. The Jews and since that fearfull dispersion and curse of Cain upon the Jews which lyeth upon them in soul as wel as body to this very day and all for their unbelief and rejection of Christ added to their other sins And in effect art thou not guilty of the same sins who rejectest Christ in his grace and in his offices Ah! think not onely on such hellish torments as often seize on wicked men here on earth 2 In the torments of hel in regard of terrours and horrours of conscience but of the torments of hell it self both endlesse and easelesse prepared for secure sinners when God shall unresistibly come in fury and judgement against them and against all such as now contemn or neglect the time of mercy when his wrath being once kindled shall burn to the bottom of hell into which they shall be cast where their worm dieth not Mark 9.44 and the fire is not quenched This shall be effected on all out of Christ when Christ shall come and be revealed from heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God 2 Thes 1.7 8 9 which would seriously be thought on by secure ones now and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord jesus Christ who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power Ah whose heart trembles not at these things ah that men would seriously think of that tearing of heart and gnashing of teeth which will be in that eternall separation The heart which is not now pricked will be gnawn and eaten yet not consumed which were a mercy by that worm of conscience when in those hellish torments which are endlesse easelesse remedilesse men shall consider how God every Sabbath did stretch out his armes of mercy to embrace them The worm which then will gnaw and they would not how Christ offered a plaister of his own hearts blood to cure them if they would have been but pricked in heart but they made light accout of it and trampled it under their feet The holy Ghost put good motious into their heart convincing them of sinne and judgement and inviting them to godly sorrow with hope of pardon but they rejected those motions and would not be interrupted in their ease joy and false peace The Minister pressed hard to have them yield but they withstood him Oh the deep wounds the grievous bitings and stingings and the hellish cries that these and like thoughts then but too late will work and fetch from such poor souls And what a grief is it now to the hearts of their godly and conscionable Ministers and others who wish them well parents friends and kindred that these men wil not lay any of these things now in time to heart or be perswaded or intreated to prevent their own everlasting ruine as if all were fables which we tell them and framed onely to scare them What fables and scarecrows Ah dearly beloved let neither the Devil or your own treacherous hearts delude you but know that God is truly displeased with your sins as being many wayes dishonoured grived and wounded in his name and glory by the same yea 3 In and by the sufferings of Christ and of Gods severity against sin appearing therein is infinitely just as as well as mercifull and that howsoever he gave his Sonne in the greatest mercy to become man for us yet his justice against sin did equally appear in subjecting him his onely dear and beloved Son to such a cursed shamefull and opprobrious and painfull death for sinners in whom thus dying we may see Gods severity which was shewed against this his beloved Son oncestanding in our stead His justice could not be satisfied with Gold or any thing corruptible not with thousands of rams or with ten thousands of rivers of oyl yea 1 Pet. 1 18 19 Micah 6 7. Psal 49.7 8. not with the death and sacrifice of our onely or first-born children The redemption of souls is precious and in regard of any humane or created power price or means ceaseth for ever It is not the death or intreaty of an Angel could do it no nor barely the intreaty of God the Son himself How Christ was pricked for us It must cost the price of his
that are written in this book shall lie upon him c. such an one shall be cursed with a witnesse Know then thou man thou woman thou rich man thou poor man thou young man thou old man even thou whosoever thou art as thou art a sinner yea a secure sinner even thou art such a wretch thou art under wrath and therefore thou must mourn thou must be pricked and wounded for thy sin let us reason it a little And they are reasoned withall according to such general propositions as both Law and Gospel will afford us The Law curseth every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the booke of the Law to do them Gal. 3.10 Deut. 27.26 Joh. 3 18-36 Generally all impenitent ones and unbelevers The Gospel doth no lesse for such as obey and beleeve it not He that beleeves not is condemned already he shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him so excepe ye repent ye shall all likewise perish here is no exemption of any then But now the conscience of the guilty will it cannot but apply but I have not continued to do all things written I as yet have not repented of my sins and transgressions of the Law I do not yet beleeve on Christ aright or bring forth the fruits of a true faith therefore will the conscience infer I am under the curse I am under condemnation and under wrath Now doth not this come to thy heart as the point of a sword to wound thee if not it s a signe of a seared heart sealed up for damnation Particularly 1. Swearers The Word of God saith more particularly The Lord will not hold such guilesse as take his Name in vaine but saith the conscience of the profane swearer and forswearer I have often and still do take Gods Name in vain by perjury or at least by rash swearing therefore it cannot smoother but infer I am a guilty person and holden in the guilt of that sin beside the custome of it as in cords unto condemnation what swearers heart doth not now quake that considers this So adulterers and fornicators God will judge 2 Adulterers this the word saith but I am an adulterer a fornicator and an unclean person I know not now whom I touch Heb. 13.4 but the conscience of the guilty will apply therefore God will bring me to judgement for this sin Now how can any thus infer without remorse of conscience and many others in a word know ye not saith the Apostle appealing to the conscience even of natural men informed yet with some knowledge of the word that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God be not deceived 1 Cor. 6.9.10.11 neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor abusers of themselves with mankind nor theeves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God Whom doth not the word now touch seeing there is the like reason of all other sins that can be named but saith the conscience of the guilty Such an one am I and as yet I am unwashed I have not yet mourned or been troubled for this my sin of Idolatry Adultery Covetousnesse Theft Drunkennesse Railing Extortion c. Therefore I shall not inherit the Kingdom of God Ah woful case of such a soul I how should it never rest till it bewail mourn and grieve for such sins and till at length with a good and true conscience it be able truly to say such I was but I am washed but I am sanctified but I am justified c. For conclusion of these motives though the thing exhorted unto namely sorrow and humiliation for sin be an unpleasant argument for every mans heart is in the house of mirth more and rather then of mourning Eccles 7.4 Amos 6.3 5 6. 3 The former exhortations urged also and men put far away the evil day and give themselves to mirth c. yet it is wholsome yea necessary if we will shew any care of our precious soules and if we were but truly sensible of our cause of sorrow as in bodily diseases as the stone toothach and agues we are as from examples so from Gods promise made to contrite ones and their priviledge we needed not be so much perswaded or urged to seek the true method for our cure But if neither our danger of Gods heavy judgements will move us which we might prevent by timely judging of our selves nor the examples of the elect and of true converts unto which we must be conformable and who lost nothing by their sorrow for by godly sorrow the heart is made better and it is the only way to true comfort and blessednesse and to have our prayers heard Psal 34.17.18 yet if there be any sparke of ingenuity in us or desire to partake of communion and fellowship with God let us be moved thereunto by this gratious promise and priviledge made and communicated to such Isa 57.15 for thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity whose Name is holy I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones for besides the assured promise of reviving and of comfort here is a wonderful priviledge that our hearts shall become as new heavens for God to dwell in which he doth as by our faith so by our contrition The great and holy God hath but two heavens to dwell in the heaven of heavens for his greatnesse and glory and the heart of a contrite sinner for his holinesse and grace for till this be done God and our soules will never close or dwell together Let these things be thought on by all on both sides both by true mourners in Israel which would be considered by all good and bad whose sorrow hence appears is not to be sorrowed for as being accompanied with Gods presence and ending in eternall joy and by our joviall Gentlemen and such as are all for their mirth to make themselves and others sport by breaking jests on Religion and on the servants of God whose end as lives now will be different who as Jeremy at their sitting down to drink and feast and at their rising up are their musick Lam. 3.63 and 64. these men are rewarded with sorrow of heart and with Gods curse upon them as Jeremy prayeth They cease from their musick and from their joy and dance their dance as hath been said is or will be turned into mourning Lam. 4.14 15. The word of truth hath pronounced true mourners to be blessed and all others to be cursed Blessed are ye that weep now for ye shall laugh And wo unto you that laugh now for ye shall mourn and weep Luke 6.21 and 25. Behold saith the Lord my servants shall rejoyce but ye shall be ashamed Behold my
from him Or otherwise as is said by a good but ungrounded conceit of thy self and of thine own estate being alive before the Law come closer and neerer home to thy conscience thou thinkest thy self safe and in good estate Rom. 7.8 and apprehendest no danger or judgement as belonging to thee but onely to others But in a word know and remember that though thou be thus partiall towards thy self yet God is not as hath been said though thou hide cover and conceal thy bosom sin neither searching it out thy self nor suffering the word to search thee yet God will search thee and finde it out Thy safest way were to judge and condemn thy self that thou mayst not be condemned and judged of the Lord and to imitate the poor and humble Publican who smote on his brest and heart confessing and craving mercy for his sin and to beware of the proud Pharisee his self-justification 5. Flattery of soothing Prophets 5. And as part cause of the former beware of smoothing and flattering teachers who howsoever sometimes they may make a flourish and declame it may be against sin and tell of Gods judgements yet they will have a care that they come not so neer as to offend thee or to touch thee in thy speciall sin if especially thou be one in place or who mayst come even with them again These men heal before they hurt and what stings others the faithfull servants of God have left in the mindes and consciences of any they seek to pluck out and to heal the wound with their oyly words being like the false Prophets of old of whom and of the Priests it was said They have healed the hurt bruise or breach of the daughter of my people slightly saying Peace peace when there is no peace Jer. 6. v. 14. And when Gods deerest servants tell the people of particular judgements belonging to them and so by wounding and pricking their consciences bring them on in a good way towards repentance these flattering Prophets strengthen their hands that they should not return from their wicked wayes by promising them life Ezek. 13.22 onely wounding and making sad the heart of the righteous whom God hath not made sad In this case I must say to you if you would be pricked and savingly wounded for your sins as the Lord in another case said to the Kings of the Nations Therefore hearken not ye to your Prophets nor to your Diviners c. for they prophesie a lie unto you to remove you far from your Land and that ye should perish Jer. 27.9 10. and Jer. 29.8 6. Lastly 6. Vnbelief take heed of unbelief want of faith to beleeve Gods true Prophets when they tell you of the danger of your sin keeps you from applying the threatnings of God to your selves so that you reap no fruit by the word but though fairly warned and called to repentance with hope of mercy perish through your own unbelief in his wrath as it was with those of the old world whereas Noah himself by faith being warned of God of things not seen as yet moved with fear prepared an ark to the saving of his house Hebr. 11.7 So wee read of Enoch Jude v. 7. though but the seventh from Adam and in the beginning of the world who yet set the end of the world or the day of judgement before him prophesying thereof whereas secure men through their unbelief never humble themselves if then till judgements be upon them being herein like such as hearing thunderclaps far off are not moved till they be as present over their heads and some hurt in their sight be done then with Pharaoh they tremble but not till then So want of faith in Christ keeps men from being sensible of their sin and from being pricked in conscience for it When was it that these Converts in my Text were pricked in heart It was when they heard and withall beleeved that Christ whom they crucified was the true Messias So it was foretold Zech. 12.10 that when they should look upon him whom they had pierced they should be pierced themselves and mourn bitterly and be sensible of their sin which shall be fulfilled especially at the conversion of their Nation but then they must no longer abide in unbelief Rom. 11.23 Seeing then faith is the gift of God we must earnestly pray for it and carefully attend to the ministry of the word by which it is begotten To withdraw from the hearing of the word either in regard of presence of body or attention of mind is to keep our selves out of the sphere and compasse within which onely the word of God that sword of the Spirit is active and operative and will reach and pierce us SECT 2. Le ts removed which make the soul senseless And first Sensuality and worldliness 2 Lets keeping the soul from being sensible of pricking BUt men who cannot avoid the stroke of the word the scorching of that fire the smiting of heart and conscience having such teachers as smite home and will not suffer them by their evasions shifts excuses and extenuations to put by the blow yet as experience sheweth shew themselves little sensible of the same neither are they truely made sorrowful thereby being like Jacob or Israel Mens senselsness for blindnesse deafnesse incredulity senselessness and stupidity on whom it is said the Lord poured the fury of his anger and the strength of battell and it set him on fire round about yet he knew not and it burned him yet he laid it not to heart Isa 42.25 or like the drunkard who may say They have stricken me and I was not sick they have beaten me and I felt it not Prov. 23 25. being past feeling Ephes 4.19 and of cauterized consciences 1 Tim. 4.2 Now there are divers things which bereave men of all spirituall sense and pain which accordingly if we would become true mourners for sin we must carefully beware of and see that wee give no way unto them Men have ways and means by which they for the while especially become insensible of pain by pricking Divers things bereaving men of the sense of bodily pain As Deep sleep Searing burning bone-setting incision cutting off a member and the like as by the use and application of narcoticall or stupefactive medicines and potions by being cast into a deep and dead sleep by which all their senses even that of feeling are bound up so by searing and burning whereby the part is mortified and the inward humidity dried up So I have heard and read Bewithching how in the body of witches in covenant with the Divel in the place where by sucking or otherwise he sets his mark or Sacramental signe the place is so benummed and deaded that a pin of a great largeness and length may be thrust in to the head without the grief or any sense of the party by which means if that mark or bewitched place can be but once found out
in the suspected party it is accounted detection sufficient So when a member of the body becomes once to be gangrained by excessive heat Gangrenes or upon a wound or hurt not looked to in time it becomes to be void of sense as being deprived of vital heat and spirit to be blasted and like wilde-fire some call it S. Anthonies fire to spread and so tends to the destruction of the party So when that uneven swelling or tumour called a Cancer possesseth any part Cancers that part comes to be black or wan and without all sense or pain In like manner where much fatness is or corruption Mcuh fatness corrupt matter the outward skin or rind once pricked or pierced the pin weapon or instrument being thrust further in is not much felt such corruption hath no sense in it and that part is so far without sense till the corruption be drawn or purged out Now if we would be truly sensible and mourn savingly for sin in a sense of Gods displeasure as also spirituall pain and grief when and after that the word meets with us Let us take heed of such things as in a proportionable manner stupifie benum and bereave the soul of all spirituall sense of sin or judgements Take heed then of these things 1 Sensuality and worldlinesse First of sensuality love of pleasures gluttony drunkennesse good fellowship to which also let me adde cares and too much minding of the world Some give themselves purposely to sensuall courses to stop the mouth and cries of their conscience and to prevent or put away heart-qualms as they will call them binds all the spirituall senses Howsoever such courses as these do besot and stupifie the conscience dull and fill the spirituall senses of the soul cast it into a dead sleep whereby through present delectation in sin and sensuall courses and through cares of the world Isa 6.9 they have not eyes to discern distinctly of any thing or object which concerns them not an eare for God or for his word and judgements so as to hear the rod and who hath appointed it when God calls them to mourning Micah 6. sensuall courses cry louder and more prevailingly with them Isa 22.12 and 5 11 12. Psal 34.8 1 Pet. 2.2 3. God and the works of his hand can have no attention they are so taken up with sensuall delights they cannot be brought to taste the things or goodnesse of God and of his wayes all wayes leading them to repentance are so distastfull to them all the good means used for their good humbling are the savour of death to them 2 Cor. 2.16 yea their hearts are fat and so brawny that they are past feeling and insensible herein like unto Idols and images Ephes 4.19 having eyes and see not ears and hear not c. Psal 115.6 Howsoever as outward heat abates the inward as the love of one thing lessens the love of another and as the distempered eye will not let a man see any thing in its own and right colour but like it self Simil. so mens love and affection to their lusts and other distempers of their souls will not suffer any thing to work upon or affect them but what is sensuall they are so taken up in their thoughts and affections with such things as that what savours not of the flesh or of the world doth no whit affect them Talk of Religion especially of duties of mortification to a voluptuous man he hath no eare for that and of like duties to the worldling and you shall find his soul so filled and taken up with the love of the world that you shall have him go a way sorrowfull from you indeed but not for his sin or covetousnesse but because you interrupt his thoughts and courses which he is not minded to leave as we see in that rich young man who upon that ground though he seemed to have an ear to obey in all things else Matth. 19. yet not in that his love to the world made the duty of self deniall unpleasant to him So generally wine women and the world steal away and besot the heart the immoderate use of yea or love to any earthly thing takes away all spirituall sense the more sensible the soul is of such things the lesse it is of spirituall and so the soul as well as the body becomes spiritually drunken and casts into a dead sleep and so farre senselesse when once it is drowned and drenched with the pleasures and cares of the world this casts it into a dead sleep which binds all the senses of the soul and possesses it with a spirit of slumber Isay 29.10 Rom. 10 7 8. The godly like the five wise virgins may sometimes slumber but yet their heart waketh but these mens hearts are asleep yea even in a dead sleep to whom that belongs Eph. 5.14 awake thou that sleepest and stand up from the dead they cannot be got awaked like such as be oppressed with soporiferous diseases Abernethy physick for the soul chap. 7. as with Lethargies Caro's Catalepsies Cataphoraes or Typhomanes which are all deadly except they be speedily cured Now to prevent senselesnes from sensuality I onely tell you of our Saviours advice and commend it to you The Remedy is watch fulnesse Take heed to your selves lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeting and drunkennesse and cares of this life and so that day come upon you unawares for so it came upon the old world Luk. 21 34.36 Matth. 24.37 watch ye therefore and pray alwayes c. yea the Scripture joynes fasting and prayer together Math. 17.21 that so we might take heed of bodily drunkennesse as well as spirituall All deadly sleeps proceed of a cold humor or vapor replenishing the brain and oppressing the animal spirits and senses so this deadly spirit of slumber is when men are frozen in the cold dregs of their sins and sensualitie and sobriety Jer. 48.11 whom God therefore will visit Zeph. 1.12 Take heed then of ebriety both corporall and spirituall and be ye sober and watch As ebriety causeth sleep 1 Pet. 5.18 so sobriety keeps men waking and sensible Let us be sober both in body and in mind that we also may be kept waking and affected with such things as do concern us even with sense of sin and wrath Let us not onely when we heare Gods word but at all times wholly put away the lusts of youth and for other delights and cares use a moderation The like let us spiritually do in all our joyes yea sorrows in our desires delights designes hopes and confidence take we heed especially of spirituall drunkennesse and of the immoderate love and use of the creature especially when we go about any good duties as this of hearing Gods word For my part I otherwise in handling this argument of godly sorrow compunction and conversion
be plyable and yielding both to God and man 1 It stands not out against or resists Gods word but quakes at threatnings melts at promises is humbled at judgements as 2 Chron. 30.10.11 not such as was in Zedekiah 2 Chron. 36.12 of whom it is said he did evill in the sight of the Lord his God and humbled not himself before Jeremiah the Prophet speaking from the mouth of the Lord or in Belshazzar framing to his will Dan. 5.21.22 who did not humble his heart though he knew all such evils and judgements as befell his father for hardening his mind in pride verse 20. In a word the soft heart yields like soft wax to the impressions of Gods grace word and spirit and like molten metal frames to the form and obeys that form of Doctrine whereto it is delivered as the phrase is Rom. 6.17.2 The tender heart shews it self also towards others by shewing forth bowels of pity to men in misery and man by pity and kindnesse Heb. 13.3 and of kindnesse and forgivenesse to such as do it wrong Ephes 4.32 2. This heard heart I speak of as it is stiffe stony and unpliable so it is also insensible void of all spirituall sense especially that of feeling this is through want of spiritual life 2 unsensible and without life where no life is there is no sense at all and where life is though other senses may be wanting yet not that of feeling that sense though it be not the most noble for so is the sense of sight and hearing yet it is the most necessary sense there being no life without it where it is wholly wanting or lost it of all senses alone is diffused throughout all parts almost of the whole body and it being lost there is no more intercourse of vital and animal spirits or influence of them by the nerves into other parts and consequently no longer any proportion or harmony of qualities or of temperament in which proportion the native moysture and heat is founded and consisteth So that feeling and sense of pain is needful to the very being of every creature arguing spiritu-death and so is spiritual feeling as necessary to the being of the new creature so that we may conclude that the heart which is an insensible heart is a dead heart Eph. 4.18.19 alienated from the life of God at least and that is bad enough possessed with a spirit of slumber and dead sleep whilest not one but all the senses of the soul are holden in it as the bodily senses in and by bodily sleep and that through a kind of dregginesse which stoppeth the passages of the spirits Or at least a dead sleep depriving men of their spiritual senses by which the whole heart and soul is made unsensible for hereby men are without 1 Hearing Isa 6.9 2 Seeing Isa 6.9 Ephes 4.18 3 without all spiritual Tast Rom. 8.5 4 Smel 2 Cor. 2.16 Lastly without feeling Ephes 4.19 having their hearts fat and insensible Isa 6.10 yea in a dead sleep and sleep of death and therefore insensible insensible of good and evil of mercies and of judgements of grace and sin without true love desire and joy in the one and without Fear Being contrary to the sensible heart 1 Kings 3.9 shame anger and godly sorrow in the other contrary to which heart is that which having a new life put into it and it awakened out of the Lethargie or rather death of sin begins spiritually and savingly 1 to hear for so we read of an hearing heart for which Solomon prayed 2 to see Ephes 1.18 1 Cor. 2.14.15 3 to tast 1 Pet. 2.2 3. with Psal 34.8 Cantic 4.11 4 to smel Cantic 1.3.13 16. 4.10 11. 2 Cor. 2.14.16 and 5 lastly to feele when by self-denial the fat of this grosse heart as it is called Mat. 13.15 which makes it also without sense Psal 119.70 Mat. 13.15 is consumed and offered in sacrifice to God according to the type Levit. 3.3 such a sensible heart was in these converts here who being self convinced self condemned and denying themselves were pricked in heart and through sense of pain cried out and sought help elsewhere then in themselves and accordingly found it I have thus set the benefit of the tender sensible heart against the other that by the opposition I might better shew the wofull condition and miserable estate of such as who being past feeling The miserable condition of senselesse and hard-hearted sinners give themselves over whether unto Laciviousnesse or to any other sensual and sinful course of life and who accordingly are given over in Gods most terrible but just wrath to this the worst of all evills on earth even the judgement of an hard and senselesse heart and all with this further aym that hereby the sinner that would attain to true compunction and pricking of heart for his sin and so to true conversion and salvation would above all be most afraid of this heavy judgement of hardnesse of heart and of whatsoever may cause or procure the same Such as are given over to it are irrecoverably left to the judgement of the great day seeing their judgement here is to be denied all sense of their dangerous and damned condition into which they have voluntarily brought themselves and so being left to themselves and to their own lusts as incorrigible Psal 81. and to Satan Hardnesse of heart the greatest Let to saving pricking 2 Pet. 2 4. and most to be laboured against as his prisoners to be reserved in chains of darknesse of mind and dedolent and final impenitencie kept and brought forth to that judgement wherein their case is now become like that of the devil and his angels whose judgement that is Of all lets then to this pricking of heart take heed of this of hardnesse of heart for where it is the judgement is to be deprived of all sense of sin and feeling of wrath till the soul be plunged into hell and become irrecoverably miserable and then lie under the sense of Gods severest wrath and eternall displeasure not to fear it is a signe of it Oh therefore get your hearts possessed continually with fear of this dismal evil and ever be afraid to be given over to it Now let me tell you not to fear it when you hear so much of it is a signe it hath already seazed upon you and benummed your spirituall senses especially if you have any long while lived fruitlesly or presumptuously under the means Young men especially to take heed of it and therefore especially it belongs to young men to take notice hereof who by reason of their age are not yet perhaps so hardened in sin through the deceitfulnesse of it There is a naturall tendernesse in us whilst we are young or a lesser degree rather of hardnesse which gets strength and proves habituall through use and age if it be not in time prevented Let such then
seeing nothing is more opposite or a greater enemy to this pricking of heart or to the tender plyable humble and contrite heart such as I desire and endeavour to bring you to then is hardnesse and senselesnesse of heart and soul And thus having according to my office endeavoured to prepare the way for you and to gather out the stones I will come a little nearer to direct you to the Means Isa 62.10 by the use of which with Gods blessing you may attain to true compunction of heart and contrition of spirit the thing I aim at CHAP XV. SECT 1. Of the means of true compunction and sensiblenesse and first of Gods word heard Meanes of compunction and sensiblenesse such as was in these Jews and shall be at their calling again recalled and applyed THis pricking of heart as we have heard doth imply first tendernesse and withall pliablenesse to Gods word and will Secondly sensiblenesse and sorrow for sin not excluding fear of Gods judgements such as was in these Converts in my Text who were 1 pricked in heart that is wounded in conscience and made sensible of their sin and danger 2 Pliable to Gods will saying what shall we do And such as shall be again in these Jews at their conversion when first they also being convinced and made sensible of their sin in piercing and crucifying their Saviour shall mourn bitterly for the same Zach. 12.10 and shall no longer be stiffe-necked or abide in unbelief Rom. 11.23 such a heart was that of King Josiah and such as was in good King Josiah which was both tender and humbled yea rent and sorrowfull which made him both mourn within himself and send to enquire of the Lord with readinesse of heart to obey 2 Chron. 34.19 21 27. That then which I desire to bring or at least to direct you to The divers phrases signifying this compunction of heart is that which the Scripture in variety of phrases signifies not onely by the tender heart and heart of flesh Ezek. 11.19 and 36.26 but thus to have the heart pricked as in my Text to be of an humble and contrite heart Isa 57.15 to be of a wounded spirit Prov. 18.14 of a broken heart Psal 51.17 and to have the caul of the heart rent as Hos 13.8 Joel 2.13 God onely can and doth soften the heart Now howsoever we are exhorted hereunto and directed to the means by which it may be wrought in us yet we must know it for an undoubted truth that it is God who onely makes the heart truly humble tender and senfible Ezek. 11.19 and 36.26 Jer. 23.29 I will give them an heart of flesh which he doth by the meanes of his word which becomes as fire and as an hammer by his Judgements Mercies which yet he doth by Meanes 1 by his word and Corrections c. which he requires we attend unto and make a right use of by hearing meditation application and prayer so that whilst we thus do we are said to humble our selves though it be God by whose hand and power such hearts are given us 2 Chron. 30.11 12. 1 by our hearing his word faithfully taught 1 Make conscience of hearing of Gods word as it is taught especially by such as Peter here and other the Apostles were who without flattery in a zeal of Gods glory and of the Conversion of those they preached unto in power also and demonstration of the spirit now more abundantly powred upon them told these Jewes and convinced them of their sins that they were the crucifiers of Christ whose glory also they set forth Such teaching convinceth and judgeth the harers yea makes them judge themselves fall down and worship God and whilst the secrets of their hearts are made manifest acknowledge a divine presence and power in the preacher 1 Cor. 14.24 25 So was it here with these Converts who found a greater and more effectuall power in the word preached and thus brought home to their consciences The power of Gods word in pricking the heart which Miracles did not in these Jews then in all the miracles which God shewed either before and at the death of Christ when yet the very stones and rocks and the vail of the Temple were rent asunder or now at this time when besides the mighty noise and shew of fire or fiery tongues from heaven they saw and heard the Apostles men of no note nor learning speak in all languages the wonderfull things of God Acts 2.13 so in David they mocked at that but were pricked wounded with this Thus David after his sin of numbring the people came to a sense of his sin and his heart pricked or smote him for it and brought him to confession of it but when after the Lord had sent the Prophet Gad unto him to convince him by offering him an hard choice for that is given as the reason so that a Sam. 24.10 11 12. I do not say the word is alwayes thus powerfull or in all some are more hardened by such a ministery as the anvile by the strokes of the hammer God justly denying them his grace and not working in power with his word onely I say if the word thus preached do not prick if the word do it not nothing will do it wound and mollifie the heart nothing will do it If God by his word and spirit breath not upon the soul the soul cannot breath out so much as a sigh for sin if that wind blow not the waters of repentance will not flow if he send not out his word Psal 147.17 18. Exod. 17.6 our icy hearts will not be thawen if Gods presence promise and power be not there mans indeavours are not of effect If God stand not upon the rock our rocky hearts though Moses smiting the same shall never bring forth water onely where God will soften and wound the heart he by such a Ministery as is named shews out his power and poures out his spirit and makes his word effectuall to that purpose Wherefore if indeed we would have such hearts wrought in us we must indeavour to live under such a ministery we must desire yea and strive to live under a searching and forcible Ministery where we may hear such doctrine and so handled and applyed as that the secrets of our soul our secret sins and our hearts may be ransacked sifted and tried we may be made known to our selves and become vile in our own eys the deceits of our false hearts discovered and our sin and danger fully revealed to us without all flattery and partiality Till we be within such a distance and compass as within which the word is onely except extraordinarily active wee can expect no such at least saving effect from it Buy the truth then and spare for no cost rather then want it and accordingly to spare for no cost that is such wholsome and powerfull teaching account
day of the general judgement when Christ shall come in flaming fire c. as 2 Thess 1.5 6 7 8 9. Matth. 25.31 32 to the end That so by serious thoughts thereof and by timely judging of our selves we may prevent the Lords judging of us O let the terrour of that day fall upon us that at the least fear of that judgement and true love to our selves may now bring us on our knees before Christ to seek our peace with him in time by hearty sorrow for our many and great offences before we come to be judged SECT 4. Others sufferings especially Christs should move us 2. 2 God would soften us by his judgements on others so that we are to go to the house of mourning Eccles 7.2 GOd would also humble us and teach us to mourne by looking on the afflictions and mournfull condition and dispositions of others like our selves but especially on the sufferings of his onely and beloved Son Jesus Christ for us That then we may be softened in heart made sensible and learne truly to mourne let us often repair and go to the house of mourning that is much better than in our securitie to go to the house of feasting and drinking Go to to the house of mourners both bodily and in practise go also in minde and in thy meditation and so go and consider the case and condition both of private Christians of the Churches of Christ yea and of Christ the head of all Christians and Christian Churches 1 To private Christians 1 Even Enemies And for private Christians 1. It were much to bid thee go to the house of such as other wise are thine enemies and yet thus to go or thus to consider of their evils and afflictions is both a meanes to humble us and hath been done by such as knew well enough what did belong to their dutie as by David Psal 35.12 13 14. who speaking of his enemies saith They rewarded me evil for good But as for me when they were sicke my cloathing was sackcloath 2 Friends Whether their trouble be 1 outward I humbled or afflicted my soul with fasting I bowed down heavily as one that mourneth for his mother 2. But howsoever go resort to such and consort thy selfe with such as be in sorrow for the hand of God upon them whether it be by outward crosses losse of friends estate libertie or health whom thou shouldest often visit in their sorrowes sicknesse and imprisonment if especially they suffer for Christ and his cause The constancie and comfort which such do manifest in their sufferings and death 2 in minde and as they are mourners in Israel So we shall profit hath been by Gods blessing an occasion of the conversion and like sufferings even of their persecutours as hath been said or whether it be from a fight or sense of their sinnes and through tender heartednesse for so thou mayest and by Gods blessing shalt be much furthered in this worke 1. By their example 1 By their example for thou wilt readily within thy selfe reason and say Doth such an one mourne for the neglects of Dutie and is his conscience so troubled for smaller failings and slips yea to see others sin so as to question the love of God and whether he be in the state of grace or no Doth he or she make such conscience of an Oath or of prophaning and neglecting the duties of the Sabbath in publike and private yea and doth he so mourne for the miseries of the Church O then what an hard heart have I that being guilty of many mo and much greater sinnes never yet shed a tear never yet was wounded in spirit for the same yea never sorrowed either for mine own or others sinnes and miseries 2. By their exhortation and encouragement 2 By their exhortation the benefit of which we get by conversing with godly and humble Christians what is that we are kept from departing from the living God but how It followes Hebr. 3.13 But exhort one another dayly while it is called to day least any of you be hardened by the deceitfulnesse of sin Mutual exhortation then is a good meanes to prevent hardnesse of heart and to keep us from securitie and from the prophanenesse of the Times and to work and preserve tendernesse and sensiblenesse of heart in us when in this manner we in evil Times especially fearing the Lord Mal. 3.16 do oft speak one to another And how were the Disciples hearts wrought upon and as it were melted even burning within them Luke 24.35 while Christ talked with them by the way 3. By their admonitions and reproâ—fs 3. By their admonitions and seasonable reproofes which as it is a Dutie Lev. 19.17 so it hath a blessing being ordained and sanctified of God to bring men to a saving sight and sense of their sin and to keep them from hardening their hearts therein as Matth. 18.15 16 17. 2 Thess 3.15 Count not his case desperate till this course hath been taken with him In a word and generally we must seek helpe to mourn from true mourners si vis me flere c. seeing the best men and Christians are generally though chearfull in God yet of mournfull dispositions and apt to weep its good to be much in their companie that we by them may learne and be excited to be of like temper and to weep by their example Christians and especially Ministers must shew themselves sensible and reprove sin fellingly and first mourne to those whom they would bring to mourne for their sin Matth. 11.17 And such as would so do must seek this helpe not onely in publike but in private from them and from such godly Christians as justly may be called mourners in Israel as in a like case the Lord provoking his people to humiliation and repentance bids them consider and call for the mourning women Jer. 9.17 18. to take up a wailing for them to what end but that their own eyes might run down with toares and their eye-lids gush out with waters Thus allusion is made to their custome in funerals and other mournfull occasions which was it seemes to hire certain women and why not men and minstrels skilfull in singing and playing dolefull songs to increase their heavinesse and to make them more apt to mourne By like proportion we are to make use of the best helpes to provoke our selves to mourne for our sinnes and to that end to associate unto us such as are true mourners in Israel 2. 2 We are to consider lay to heart and be affected with the miseries of other Churches Go in thy meditation and present to thine own thoughts the afflictions miseries and oppressions and dolefull condition of the Churches of God in other places by the incursions violence spoiles done and evils perpetrated by the enemies of Gods Church and people by Turkes and Turkish Pyrats violently taking divers of good note
sorrow is sound and good and such as God accepts of More for the present thou needest not to stay and assure thee and lesse will be too little SECT 2. The truth of sorrow shewed from two Properties seven Effects and six Concomitants of it 2. Particular Trials of the truth of our sorrow 1. By two properties of godly sorrow It is 1. Voluntary BUt now more particularly not to speak of the properties of godly sorrow which some observe as that it where it is is 1. Voluntary whereby men are not so much humbled so was Pharaoh as humble and humbling themselves as did Josiah 2 Chron. 34.27 working their hearts thereunto and grieving that they cannot more grieve yea turning their laughter into weeping making their fond and foolish mirth the matter of their sorrow Of which enough already when I shewed that it must be as well in prosperity as extorted by adversity and feares 2 Durable 2. Durable and a thorough humiliation not for a fit when they as some fitly compare it are only sermon-sick and therein like to such as are sea-sick who are presently well when they come to land or into calm water so when they turn their backs on the Church and preacher and come into merry company and among their old companions whereas true sorrow which is according to God Psal 51.3 is more constant and durable as was Davids My sin is ever before me and so it differs from unsound sorrow and such as is from naturall causes as hath been partly said already and this thorough humiliation is the thing now to bee tried 2 By seven effects of it Neither will I speak or largely discourse of those seven Effects of godly sorrow whereby was wrought repentance to salvation not to be repented of which the Apostle noteth in the Corinthians and which his former Epistle had wrought in them For behold saith he 2 Cor. 7.9 10 11. this self same thing that yee sorrowed after a godly sort what carefulness it wrought in you yea what clearing of your selves yea what indignation yea what fear yea what vehement desire yea what zeal yea what revenge Dyke of Repentance Chap. 14 15. I will rather refer the Reader to that worthy Treatise of Repentance where they are sufficiently handled and which is in many hands and easily procured Only as occasion shall serve I shall touch upon some of them 3. By divers concomitants and consequents of it Only now I shall mention such concomitants consequents and effects as I find elsewhere in Scripture to be coupled and joyned to such sorrow as God will accept of as sound and sufficient and which he both requires of all and hath accepted of in true penitents reserving such last as my Text will afford or occasion us to take notice of more specially 1. Acceptation of punishment 1. I find Acceptation of the punishment joyned to such humiliation as God looks for so that when we accept willingly of the one God will accept graciously of the other If they shall confesse their iniquity Levit. 26.40 41. c. and that I have walked contrary unto them and have brought them into the land of their enemies if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity then will I remember my Covenant c. This requires an humble not extorted only by an humble patience or yet simply a willing patience and submission unto Gods will and a willing and humble bearing of the indignation of God because we have sinned against him And it is the truer note of sound repentance Micah 7.9 with respect to sin because it brings some evidence with it that sin more then punishment doth trouble that soul and that we grieve and are pricked and broken in heart chiesly because we have grieved and peirced so good a God by our sins according to that in Ezekiel And they that escape of you Ezek. 6.9 shall remember me among the nations whither they shall be carried captives because I am broken with their whorish heart which hath departed from me And they shall loath themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations such as was in the good Theef Such a convert was he whose words on the crosse with Christ in reproof of his fellow who in his suffering only sought deliverance saying to Christ Save thy selfe and us were these Doest thou not fear God Luke 23.39 40 41. seeing thou art in the same condemnation And we indeed justly for we receive the due reward of our deeds But of this before when we spake of the procuring cause of godly sorrow 2 Weeping and other outward expressions 2 Chron. 34.27 2. With true sorrow and tenderness of heart and humiliation of soul before God I find that in good Josiah there went weeping and rending of clothes which were outward expressions of true inward and hearty sorrow which accordingly God graciously accepted Because thine heart was tender and thou didst humble thy self before me and didst rend thy clothes and weep before me I have even heard thee also saith the Lord. Whence we will conclude that though all cannot in their sorrow shed teares and that shedding of teares in some as in Esau is deceitfull as also rending of clothes a custome out of use with us now yet true sorrow of heart cannot be without some out-ward expressions of it Nehe. 2.2 Matth. 26.75 Luke 18.13 as sadness of countenance so it was in Nehemiah teares as in Peter smiting on the breast as in the Publican and such like so that though Hypocrites may counterfeit all these whose hypocrisie by other notes hath been and shall be discovered yet for such as give themselves either excessively to mirth laughter and carnall delights or constantly So that a sensuall life cannot consist with godly sorrow Luke 16.19 without the exercise of godly fasting and humiliation as Dives did who was clothed in purple and fine linnen and fared sumptuously every day they are far from true sorrow for sin whatsoever they may pretend It s but like the sorrow of some drunkards who never weep but when they are drunk their hearts are not so much at any time seemingly burthened with sin as when they are overburthened and oppressed with surfetting and drunkenness As in such as seek to put away sorrow by carnall mirth but then is the heart farthest off from true and godly sorrow yea they feeling some qualms of grief through conscience of sin to seize upon them have no readier way to be shut and rid of them then eagerly to pursue their pleasures that so they may forget their sorrow and stop the mouth of their pursuing Conscience as some when they are arrested get the Serjeant into a Tavern and make him drunke that so they may escape him So it was with those whom God colled to weeping and to mourning c. and
a lying tongue a deceitfull tongue as Psalm 109.2 and 120.2 3. Psal 50.19 and 52.2 4. such as God will cut out and as is but for a moment Prov. 12.19 a signe of a gross hypocrite and of a fool Prov. 10.18 -20 Such dissembling with God and man argues abundance of wickedness in the heart which if it were truly and sincerely affected would without all simulation and dissimulation accordingly vent it self to others as it did in these here who being soundly and savingly pricked in heart and humbled did in all humility meekness and reverence to the Apostles of Christ truly and sincerely beg their advice with full purpose of heart to follow the same which they also did See Deut. 5.28 29. Others perhaps purpose and promise fair but their hearts deceive them CHAP. XXIV Shewing that in trouble of Conscience for sin Means would presently be used 2 When Presently BUt secondly When did they this When sought they after ease and after the means of their cure forthwith presently and immediately It s said They hearing were pricked in heart and said They did not suffer the Apostles to depart from them till they had sought their advice and obtained it I know many seek ease too soon but I have fully I hope warned such of that deceit These here were truly and sufficiently humbled as hath been shewed from pregnant proofs from the Text and when thou findest thy self so then defer not to seek relief so thy joy and comfort shall be seasonable and not over-hasty as it is in many hypocrites signified by the stony ground who immediately without any touch of conscience or true humiliation going before receive the word with joy Matth. 13.20 Note Means would presently be used for the cure and ease of consciences truly touched The Observation hence is That when mens Consciences are truly pricked and wounded by the word good means would presently be sought after and used as we see here in Paul Acts 8. and in the jaylor Acts 16. and in King Josiah 2 Chr. 34.19 20 21. It s not enough that a man be sensible of his pain but he must also seek to the Physician as it is not enough that a man that is wounded in a fray complain of his sore cry out of brawling and repent of his anger rashnesse and hastiness yea and resolve not to be so hasty again but it will behove him presently to seek to the Surgeon for help and cure So is it here in the prickings and woundings of conscience where a man must not desay to seek to Christ and to his word and Ministers for direction and comfort and afterward he must follow and practise the same Why 1 Wounds as of body so of soul neglected prove dangerous And good reason for it 1 Nature and experience tels us that green wounds are soonest cured if balsome be presently poured in an hurt breach or sore long neglected doth the more deeply fester and so may prove gangrained and deathfull so a bleeding upon a little wound or prick not stayed in time may prove mortall and desperate or as a bone dislocated or out of joynt the longer the setting of it is forborn the cure and setting of it will be with much greater pain to the Patient and with much more difficultie yea it may so long be neglected that no skill or art of man can bring it right again So it is in the cure of a wounded spirit and of a bleeding conscience 2 The heart being sofined is fittest to be wrought upon 2 The heart being newly pricked softned and made sensible is more plyable and soft to receive the impressions of grace as the ground is fittest to receive the seed after it is newly riven up and plowed and wax the impreffion of the seal when it is once softned and molten We use to say It is good striking while the iron is hot for as iron after heating being suffered to cool is less malleable and frameable then before and as water once heated will sooner cool and freez into ice then other water so is it with the heart of man if being once softned through sense of sin we take not the time to bind it up and to work upon it it will be more uncapable of cure and comfort 3 To neglect or defer cure 3 Yea men once touched in conscience for sin if they neglect to seek for remedy or to submit unto it when it is shewed as they are apter to forget their sorrows and to be carried away by many occasions and worldly affairs Psal 51.3 when sin newly committed is better known and remembred with all the aggravating circumstances of it so it is just with God to deny them cure that with Esan they shall find no place of repentance though they seek it carefully with teares provokes God to deny it Hebr. 12.17 and to reject them as he did the five foolish Virgins when they would inherit the blessing and to shut the door of mercy and of heaven upon them who when they stood in need and were some way sensible of their need of mercy seeing we so refuse his first offers yet neglected and deferred to seek it or to accept it when it was offered Now God by such prickings of the conscience comes near us and would awaken us out of the deep sleep of our sins which his mercie if we do neglect we provoke him to leave us to depart from us and must not expect he should come so near us again but leavens wholly to our own hardnesse even to perish in the same Use 1. Not to conceal our sin and anguish for it either through love to sin This is of Use 1. For such as in their anguish of conscience for some sin or sins of theirs do conceal and smother the same some through pride and love to their sins which they will though inwardly they smart for them desire to hide under their tongues as sweet morsels till at length they become as the gall of Aspes within them Job 20.11 12. They would be comforted but secretly in heart still cleaving to their sin they resolve not to confesse the same though to such as are both able to direct and comfort them and faithfull to conceal their shame Thus concealing the true cause of their inward maladie the wound festers and at length it may be on their deathbed if not sooner they are so overwhelmed with horror and despair and that by Gods just judgement that all the spirituall Physitians in the Town or City can afford them no true comfort or ease They may thank their love to their sin for this in that though they smarted inwardly for it yet they were loth to bewray it or make it known even then loving it when they were in torment for it Others 2. Or through shame fac'dness through shame and bashfulnesse keep close their sin which yet they both sorrow for and do hate and so
sound direction The word it self is every way as able to heal as to wound and so should the teachers of it also be Some they say can raise and call up spirits but not lay them Pharaohs sorcerers could by their inchantments bring blood and frogs so increasing the like plagues sent of God but they could not kill them or cause the plague they brought depart and cease no Moses must do that both for those brought by him and those brought by the Sorcerers Exod. 7.22 and 8.7 8. Vse 2. Being wounded and pricked in heart by the word in the ministery of it Use 2. thinke not the worse of the minister as if he intended your hurt or disgrace Being wounded not to conceive worse of the minister Each faithful minister though he seems to deal sharply with you yet aimes at your good if he wound you it is because he sees that course to be the only way to purge cleanse and heal you If they preach damnation to you it is to bring you to salvation If by discovery of your sin they seem to shame you it is to bring you to glory And when once they see you truly pricked and wounded they are both able by Gods assistance and as willing and ready to heal as they were to wound as ready with their oil as with their wine As the very mercies of the wicked are cruel so the wounds of faithfull Ministers and of the righteous generally are mercies their smiting a kindness their reproofs an excellent oyle Psal 141.5 3. To fly not from but to God though seemingly an enemy 3. Being wounded flie not from God from his word and ministers but to them Usually men fly from such as would wound them conceiving them enemies and in the hearers of the word it is too usually done by many who being touched by the sharp reproofs of the word forsake their teachers as either too saucy with them or too strict little thinking that thus flying from them they forsake their own mercies These converts here did otherwise betaking themselves and flying not from but to those that pricked them being indeed inwardly sustained by a secret power to expect help and direction from the same Apostles and no other If thou then or whensoever thou shalt be wounded in like case consult and say Come and let us return unto the Lord for he hath torn and he will heal us he hath smitten and he will binde us up After two daies will he revive us in the third day he will raise us up and we shall live in his sight Hos 6.1 2. If God by his word do wound If he help not all other help is in vain it is in vain to seek to any other for cure when he is displeased who can afford help if he deny it resolve therefore if thou must perish as thou art sure enough to do if God save not to die before the footstool of his mercy he may save thee though in seeming thine enemy at least if he do not no other can imitate the Lepers of whom we have heard 2 Kings 7.4 5 c. But if being wounded in conscience thou seek to any of the aforesaid uncomfortable means thou so forsakest the fountain of mercy and with Cain fleest from the presence of God Thus do many who as one saith well as they beleeve without repenting and therefore their faith is presumption so they repent without beleeving and therefore their repentance is desperation They mutter and murmure and are like the chaffe which when it is shaken flutters in the face of the fanner as angry with him as those Jews Acts 7. flying in Stephens face but the godly are as great wheat falling down at the feet of the fanner as these converts here humbling to Peter c. What shall we do And so we come to the third relation which may be considered between these Apostles and some of these Jewes if not all CHAP. XXVIII Shewing how Gods Ministers and people are and shall be sought to and honoured by those that disrespect them 3. The Third relation of these Apostles being the same who formerly were neglected if not mocked 3. UNto whom then did these here in their distress of conscience seek saying Men and brethren c. I answer unto those whom formerly they contemned or at least neglected and accounted meanly of and in likelihood some of these were in the number of those that in the morning of the same day mocked and derided if not reviled them v. 13. saying These men are full of new wine But now that they are truly touched and pricked in heart they seek unto them with all submission and prostration of themselves and of their own wisedome and wills desirous to be directed and willing to be commanded by them by those that now seek unto them They are now taken down off the high conceit they had of themselves and in an high esteem of these Apostles they make their moan and requests unto them seeking comfort and direction from them whom formerly they so lightly accounted of if not railed on and mocked Howsoever they now thus honour those whom they formerly contemned Note The godly shall be honoured of those that contemn them 1. Often in this life which their enemies do 1. Either willingly as being converted Thus shall it be done to the man whom the King of heaven delighteth to honour Even such as seek their disgrace shall be made to honour them at one time or another 1. In this life Or 2. hereafter They shall be made to do it either willingly or against their wills 1. Willingly in and by their conversion and alteration of judgement concerning the faithful servants of God So that whereas they have spoken evill against them as evill doers they shall now by the others good works which they shall behold glorifie God in the day of visitation and so acknowledge them the true servants of God Thus the Jaylour having thrust Paul and Silas into an inner prison and made their feet fast in the stocks came not long after trembling and falling down before their feet seeking help and comfort from them washed their stripes and so did them honour Acts 16.24 -29 30 c. This is according to the promise Isa 60.14 The sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet and they shall call thee the City of the Lord the Zion of the holy One of Israel 2 Vnwillingly As 1 It may be Or 2. Unwillingly 1 By command of others as in Haman by command of higher powers So proud Haman who formerly despised good Mordecai and now had plotted his and the Jews destruction was commanded to honour him and afterwards all the Jews also in the person of Queen Esther a Jewesse before whom Haman stood up to make request for his life to her Esth 6.10 11.
3 Honourable 3 And as this Being in Christ is spirituall so you see it is also Honourable for hereby though otherwise never so mean in the world we become and are the sons of God John 1.12 4 Rich whereby we partake of his Annoynting he becoming to us a Prophet 4 It is also a rich Being whereby we becoming by it members of Christ and that both in regard of body and soul 1 Cor. 6.15 17. Rom. 12.5 do partake of his Annoynting that is of his Spirit Joh. 2.27 and of all the gifts of it Acts 2.17 18. as these in my Text did ver 38. by which he becomes to us a Prophet revealing in us and to us the eternall will and good purpose of the eternall Father concerning our salvation Priest John 1.18 a Priest to reconcile us by his blood to bring us into favour with God again and to keep us in the same by interceding for us and by pleading our cause at his Fathers right hand King A King to rule and guide us by his word and Spirit and to fight for us and protect us against all enemies bodily spirituall eternall and infernall in the mean time enduing us with the riches of all his merits And what are all earthly things to this Being 5 Blessed and much better then a sinfull Being 5. It is also a blessed holy and happy Being Eph. 1.3 and in that regard infinitely better then our being in sin and under wrath as wicked men are who being out of Christ are never well or to their content but when they are drunk merry secure proud in the fashion of the world and in their heart glorifying themselves as Babylon is brought in Rev. 18.7 saying in her heart I sit a Queen and am no widow and shall see no sorrow Such a Being is a miserable Being and as it is sinfull so is it temporary and shall end when endlesse sorrows beign whereas our Being in Christ as it is from eternity 6 Eternall even before our being in the world and before our effectuall calling namely in Gods election Ephes 1.3 4. yea and after our calling notwithstanding our falls which do not separate us from Christ after we once be truly in him though thereby wee have no incouragement to sin so it is to eternity Here in assured hope and right we even now being raised in our bodies and sitting together inheavenly places namely in Christ Jesus and hereafter in the full fruition and beatifying vision and sight of him In these regards wee are to deny our selves in the rest These things considered should we not for Christ and the injoying of him be content if need so require to deny our selves in all things else What shall we lose if forgoing all things else we gain him and such a Being in him which as is said includes a fulnesse of all things and is better then any being else out of him as being an estate and a Being most stable spirituall honourable rich and blessed even to eternity and to labour after this Being seeing hereby we 1 Get somewhat to oppose our naturall and carnal selves And this the rather should we now by self-denyall and seeking to become new-creatures in him labour for inasmuch as so we shall finde 1 That in us which will enable us to withstand and oppose our carnall sinful and naturall selves and Being which Being alone swayes all and carryes us from God and Christ to all evill Where there is nothing but a naturall or a sinfull Being it will never yea it can never oppose it self but being one with it self seeing nature wil not otherwise oppose or den itself will seek ever to maintain it self in its own proper Being as carnall wisdome will never oppose or deny it self but when Christ is once our wisdom and we are once made wise in him carnall reason and wisdom will finde opposition from spirituall wisdom so generally when we are all and onely flesh and carnall fleshly and carnall men and company without us and such like motions within us have us at command and no temptation is truly and spiritually unlesse upon carnall naturall worldly and base respects withstood But that then is no true genuine or full self-denyall nature or the flesh rules and commands all still Onely where we have a new being in Christ there we have that which truly and diametrally will oppose corruption and the fleshly part and self in us So onely it is with the truely regenerate where the spirit in them as a new and supernaturall principle doth lust against the flesh and though it lust and strive against the spirit yet the spirit in the end prevails There is no true self-denyall of a mans self but by the spirit of holinesse and of power This helps to enable us to deny our selves 2. Thus by becoming new creatures in Christ 2 Finde fâ—llâ—â— content we onely finde true full and every way satisfactory content which makes us willing to deny our selves and to forsake all whether sinfull or yet if need be naturall contentments for him and for God in him No content out of Christ which men in vain seek Whilest men want Christ and enjoy not God in Christ they seek contentment in and from every thing but finde it in nothing They know no sufficiency but such as is in themselves or in the creature or if you will in God and Christ injoyed and had in their own way and as carnall reason or proud nature shall dictate to them and direct them They want the fruition of God which now is had onely in Christ and so they want contentment yet because they would have it they seek it either in some base lust and sinfull way from their lusts whether open or more secret which to them is as their God and they know no other happinesse and so every hypocrite lives in some sin or other or from the creatures or from the creature as from riches favour of men friends honours c. unto which they flee for their comfort or otherwise for defence and protection or from themselves in whole or from themselves as from some worth or merit in them or at least in part so seeking salvation not from Christ alone as if he alone were not alsufficient and alone able to content them but from some supposed merit or satisfactory works of their own or other mens from some goodness of their own nature or some power of their own free-will or from their duties in which they rest or at least from their duties otherwise good and necessary to help us unto Christ and to assure us of our being in him in which they rest and with which being otherwise it may be with diligence and zeal performed they altogether take up and so for want of denyall of themselves in them come short of Christ Whereas if these men did apprehend the fulness of Christ and saw and
lost nothing in him thou hast all he to thee is in stead of all I am sure such a one is and will be Christ unto us if once we make him ours 3 In all our Wants And as in our losses so in our wants on earth all which are supplyed unto us from Christ and his fulnesse so that with one Attalus we may oppose the name Christian to all things else and with him say whilest others brag of their wealth honour friends c. But I am a Christian and with Paul in want I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content c. I can do all things both be full and hungry abound and suffer need through Christ which strengtheneth me Phil. 4.11 12 13. 4 In Death Yea and as in life so in death we by denying our selves may and should seek to be gainers by gaining him as Paul Phil. 1.21 For me to live is Christ and to die is gain Christ takes away the sting of death and of most terrible makes it desirable and changeth the condition of it so that one in Christ may desire with Paul to depart and to be with Christ and having once truly by faith seen Christ with Simeon say Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace for mine eyes have seen thy salvation Luke 2.29 30. In which regard death when especially we are called to suffer it for his Names sake should be no death to us so that by it we may more fully and immediately enjoy Christ and in death truly say 1 Cor. 15.18 1 Thes 4.16 as Peter of old and one Lambert of later times None but Christ Nothing but Christ For blessed are they that die in the Lord nay blessed are they being dead from henceforth saith the Spirit that they may nest from their labours and their works do follow them 5 After death where our gain is Glory Revel 14.13 Then our gain is glory and an eternall retribution then do wee enter into our Masters joy which like a sea is so great that it cannot enter into us Who need now fear who can but deny himself for such a Christ And if thus we can once truly conceive of Christ as these young converts in my Text began to do It will be no hard matter to us to deny our selves for him SECT 13. Shewing we are Thirdly to deny our selves in other things for the eternall good of our souls 3 Our souls are to be thought more precious then the whole world NOw in the third place Next after Gods glory and Christ our own Souls compared with all things of this life would be thought on and respected as more excellent then them all which all of them even the whole world it self must be denyed and lightly esteemed and accounted of in comparison of it which is to be denyed for it The world and things of it being unworthy that the soul should either be hazarded for them All things of this life are nothing to it for worth and price seeing Christs blood and not the world or ought in it could redeem it 1 Pet. 1.18 19. And therefore it should not either be hazarded or so much as imployed seriously about the things of this world and life which are not worth a mans labour Prov. 23.4 or that especially the soul being a spirituall and immortall substance should be made a drudge to earth or seek any happinesse from things mortall and momentany Man and the powers of his soul are made and redeemed by Christ as for other ends even for God and his glory who made man for himself and not for the world to love follow seek and serve it so for higher objects and that is himself too that the end of his labours might be the fruition of God himself in glory and of his own eternall happinesse in God or that either the noble faculties of it should be much imployed about worldly things as the Vnderstanding Memory How unworthy a thing then is it how dissonant and disproportionable that the faculties of the soul should be seriously imployed about the world or the best things in it that either the understanding and thoughts and so mans head should plot or be filled with cares of this life Luke 12.22 or that the memory should be so burthened that with the thought thereof a mans heart taketh not rest in the night Eccles 2.23 Or that the Conscience should be defiled therewith Conscience yea galled and secretly nipped in the guiltinesse of goods ill gotten and not by right or of our precious time mis-spent about earthly things with neglect of better Will Or that the Will of man whose object should be God should so absolutely and so resolutely propend and lean to such things 1 Tim. 6.9 Or that his Affections of Love Affections Desire and Delight should be so intensive towards and in the same 1 Tim. 6.10 Psal 4.6 Or or yet our Labour All which being rightly imployed would bring us to better things that the Heart should be set thereon Psal 62.10 Or lastly that a mans labour should so much be imployed about them Psal 127.2 when especially the things of this life so impensively sought and the Soul cannot both be enjoyed or had together each requiring the soul especially the whole man Matth. 6.24 33. 1 John 2.15 16 17. with Jam. 4.4 Yea and considering that the noble powers of mans soul being rightly imployed and mans labour and pains wisely ordered would with much lesse adoe bring him to much better riches honours happiness even to true wisdom and saving knowledge to righteousnesse joy in the holy Ghost and at length to eternall life and salvation Why then should we so over-value the world and under-value our precious souls as not to deny our selves in all things of this world rather then either mis-imploy our chief care or hazard the life of our souls for the gaining of the world This was the care of these self-denying Converts and should be ours who should ever oppose the excellency and preciousness of our souls against all worldly allurements temptations and offers which the world can make us But of our care of it I have spoken but lately SECT 14. Shewing Fourthly that the publick good of others of Church and Common-wealth is to be preferred before our own 4 The publick good of Church Common-wealth and publick persons is to be preferred before all private respects all which are to be denyed for the other FOurthly and lastly We are much to propose unto our selves the publick good of others especially of the true Church of God on earth which should of us in our thoughts and affections be preferred above our chief joy Psal 137.6 in respect to which all the enemies of it and of Gods people should be basely accounted of though otherwise and in other respects and references neer and deer unto us yea and prayed against as there ver 7. Nay our