of request with him self and others of the Lords people Ye know it is said 2 Cor. 5.7 That here we walk by faith not by sight we must always have to do with the graces of Faith and Hope as long as we live In all the times of our life they will never be useless nor out of fashion and consequently these graces should never be out of esteem with us To deduce the constant need that we have of Faith and Hope and so the constant obligation that lyes upon us to esteem of them I shall branch the point in five particulars 1. Consider that whenever the people of God get any good account of their Faith and Hope in God when they attain to any proofs of his help by Faith and Hope then without all peradventure they are engaged to praise God and will have an high esteem of these graces It 's no small part of God's praise when he hath done his people a good turn to speak it out to the commendation of God as the Psalmist doth Psal 28.7 The Lord is my strength and my shield my heart trusted in him and I am helped And Psal 2. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him And with that Messenger to Mary Blessed is she that believed If all the proofs of kindness that folks get by the exercise of Faith and Hope were well improved it would be no small part of their improvement to cry up to Gods praise these noble graces of Faith and Hope in him 2. Consider that even when the Saints are put to exercise their Faith and Hope in him in trouble more Faith and Hope to believe more and hope more is and will be found an out-gate and delivery in its own kind To love the way of believing and hoping in God better is no small part of an out-gate Thou it may be mistakes the success of thy endeavours thou cryes to God from under thy pressures and thou hopes in God yet thou sees no out-gate but art thou helped to believe and hope on There thou hast an out-gate till more come If thou do not weary to believe if thy Anchor of Hope be not come home but keeps ground And I shall add were thou falling more in love with Faith and Hope thou were more delivered When a man goes to God under his pressures and puts Faith and Hope in exercise and comes away content to believe and hope on till delivery come he gets a double answer of his Prayer and when he goes to God again and comes away with a greater love to Faith and Hope he is yet more delivered though he get not an out-gate It 's like Elijah's Meal in the strength whereof he walked 40 days 1 King 19.8 And that was an out-gate when Christ said to the poor woman Luk 8.50 Fear not only believe and she shall be made whole So when David can say Ps 56.3 What time I am afraid I will trust in thee He is a saved man for all the fears and perplexities that assaulted him that 's all a matter he hath an out-gate So long as he can trust in God he will not fear what flesh can do unto him So ye see there will be a constant need of Faith and Hope to the Saints and a constant obligation lyes on them to esteem of them as a Plank to carry them to the Shore and as an out-gate in themselves Several other things would be touched for the clearing of this which I remit to the Afternoon SERMON XXXII Psalm 130. Vers 7. Let Israel hope in the Lord for c. FRom what is supposed in this Exhortation and from the general scope thereof already ye have heard partly that there will be a good account of all the exercises of the Saints particularly of waiting on God and partly that it is an evidence of blessed exercises and issues when the Saints are publick-minded and communicative of what is betwixt God and them for the edification and good of others I came in the morning to speak to the second Head of Doctrine to be gathered from this Exhortation that is the duty recommended to hope in the Lord. From which without any large repetition I proposed to deduce two Notes The first on which I brake in was That Faith and Hope are Graces that the Saints will constantly need and which therefore they will constantly esteem of or at least should prize highly for all the issues the Psalmist himself or the people of God before or in the present Generation had gotten he will have Faith and Hope in God looked on as constantly necessary I deduced this first in shewing how many proofs of Gods help attained to by Faith and Hope should be an engagement to praise God by highly commending of these Graces And 2. By shewing that in the greatest pressures of Gods people to get grace to believe more is a blessed out-gate I proceed now to deduce the Point further and in the third place this presses the constant necessity of Faith and Hope and our obligation to esteem of them that no issues no deliveries or out-gates warrands us to lay them by as if we had no more need of them It is true as it is 1 Cor. 13. Love is the great Grace because of the longest continuance and Faith and Hope will be laid by in the next life as to the way of exercising them now but that says not that they will ever be unnecessar to us while we are here upon earth David took a wrong measure when Psal 30.6 He said in his prosperity he should never be moved Therefore when God hid his face he was troubled When the most glorious issues to be had here-away are afforded the Believer and hoper in God must make for new storms when he hath gotten a Harbour he must look upon it but as a Creek to take in new refreshment and he must weigh Anchor and make to Sea again and exercise his Faith and Hope 4. If we consider the relation that Faith and Hope have to Duty it will discover the constant need that we have of them and consequently the esteem that we should have of them The Fountain of all acceptable doing of duty is by abiding in Christ by abiding in him we bring forth fruit Joh. 15. and we abide in him by Faith The fountain of all our doing duty is Faith and Hope Therefore saith Paul 1 Tim. 1.10 We both labour and suffer reproach because we trust in the living God Would a man have his heart purged from pollutions It 's faith that purifies the heart Acts 15.9 Would a man go about any duty in Religion he must draw his Furniture out of Christ by Faith To go about duty with discouragement is the way not only to render duty unacceptable but to cut the throat of it Not only a man must make use of Faith for furniture to do duty but when duty is gone about he hath work for Faith to renew his strength to
Particularly I have laid Jacob the first Israelites prayer before you that ye may learn to write after his copy that ye may feed on it and bring the first fruits from Heaven by intercourse with God in Prayer rightly regulated and ordered God bless his Word to you for this end SERMON XXXV Psalm 130. Verse 7. Let Israel hope in the Lord for c. THE Psalmist as ye have heard when he sees through his own wrestling he cannot will not be but publick-minded to the Lord 's Israel and if he hath gotten any good in wrestling with God under difficulties guilt and delays of comfort or issue the very good he hath gotten enlargeth his heart and makes him publick-minded towards others and what ever be the hight of his own enlargement he doth not forget that Faith and Hope will be still necessary neither doth he forget that there is a constant warrand for Faith and Hope in God and that they are of so universal and constant use and what-ever others may think of that exercise or whatever it might be he himself thought of it when he was in the midst of the trial yet he now in his practice makes it out that these who try Faith and Hope most will esteem them most and will be most confident in recommending them to all others of the Lords people That which now I am upon is the consideration of the persons to whom hope in God is recommended it is to Israel whether we take them Collectively or Distributively one by one ye have heard that hope in God is the common allowance of all the people of God Not only is Israel a society that may still hope however matters go or what-ever their case be but hope in God according to the nature and tenor of the promises is the common allowance of all and every one of them and in pursuance of this I broke in upon that great point and our duty that seing however hope be the coÌ„mon allowance of all every one of Israel yet it is their allowance only who are Israelites indeed Therefore these that would claim to that allowance of hope in God they would make it sure that they are Israelites indeed that though they be not all Israel that are of Israel yet that they are Israelites in the spirit though not in the letter whose praise is not of men but of God And forbearing to speak abstractly of the marks of regeneration I offered two things to be spoken to for clearing up who they are who are Israelites indeed and may claim to this allowance One is the occasion of Jacob's getting this name of Israel when he was with God in Prayer to which I have spoken and led you through some Characters of Israelites indeed who have ground of hope in God which I gathered from his Prayers Now I am to touch a little upon that other thing I proposed to be spoken unto to find out these Israelites to whom hope in God belongs and that is the Character given to them by way of Explication who they are Psal 73.1 Truly God is good to Israel and who are there Even such as are of a clean heart I shall not offer to make any common place of this but in reference to my scope in following forth this point as ye heard the last day that the Israelite indeed is a praying man so ye would take a look here of an Israelite indeed First as a self-purifying man one that purifies his heart An Israelite indeed his great work is about his heart he is one that desires to look as God doth 1 Sam. 16.7 Man looketh on the outward appearance but God looketh on the heart and so doth the Israelite indeed he desires to have that Character Rom. 2.28 Not to be a Jew outwardly or to have that circumcision or baptism which is outward in the flesh but to be a Jew or Christian inwardly and to have that circumcision and baptism of the heart to be one in the spirit and not in the letter to be one whose praise is not of men but of God An Israelite indeed is one whose great study is to keep the heart with all diligence as Solomon enjoyns Prov. 4.33 for out of it are the issues of life 2. A true Israelite in looking after his heart is a man that finds very much pollution there and that needs to be cleansed and purged He is a man that the further he goes in searching after himself he finds still the greater and the greater abominations He is a man that though he bless God as he hath reason that he is kept from outward out-breakings yet when he looks within himself he never wants that which makes him humble and to carry a low Sail so long as he finds his heart a Cage of unclean Birds He is a man in whose ears doth sound aloud that word which ye have Jer. 4.14 O Jerusalem wash thine heart from wickedness that thou mayest be saved how long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee He is one that abomâ—nats and is sensible of the manifold pollutions of his heart not only upon the account of the many and gross evils that he finds there of the suspitions of hypocrisie and formality in the performance of duties that he is afraid he please himself with or on this account that his heart should be Gods Throne and kept at the Brides Chamber for the Beloved and he finds it no such thing but further upon this account and consideration that he finds his heart can act more wickedness in a short time than many bodies could commit for a long time 3. The sense that the Israelite indeed hath of his heart-pollutions appears in his endeavours to be cleansed from them that he may have his heart washed from wickedness He is a man that will not pay God with a sighing and going backward he is not satisfied that his pollutions he knows them and his uncleannesses are with him No no he must be further benn nothing but bosomewashing heart-cleansing will satisfy and he must be set seriously on work to that and whereas other folk take their Faith their Hope and Confidence to play them with all the stock that he hath of Faith Hope and Confidence or that he can win to he puts it out to help to purge his heart according to that word Act. 19.5 Purifying their hearts by faith It not only imports that the Israelite indeed finds that there is no way of purging he heart but by Faith in Christ But further if he get any Faith he sets it on work to purifie his heart And 1 Joh. 3.3 He that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure If he get any hope of being made like Christ his sense of the pollution of his heart is such that it sets him on work to purify the heart 4. This endeavour of a true Israelite will not be altogether in vain and without success but he may win
his salvation yet pray on there is nothing formidable in a Supplicants condition so long as he is not driven from Gods Footstool but he prays on 2. Another direction is that repulses or delays should promove humility in Supplications and Supplicants It 's here supplications that he puts up when he pleads for audience Now the poor uses supplications supplications are the Beggers are the Dyvours Language many Supplicants when they have cryed long and are not heard may be in peril to fret to quarrel to repine to bark but that 's a wrong method to come speed with God in Prayer thou ought to be the more humble the longer thou art delayed thou ought to creep the nearer the dust and come in among the poor that speak supplications And a third direction shall be from the Phrase and Metaphor in the Text as I explained it in the entry that is that there be a believing that the Lord hath an affectionat ear to listen unto and hear the cry of humble Supplicants This is imported in the very terms of the Prayer put up to God as an affectionat Parent ready to notice the cry of his Child when he is in hazard and crys for help and this is a needful direction when the Supplicant is held at the door that beside diligence and humility he entertain Faith that bods well of God Faith that when God was seeming to destroy Job made him say These things hast thou hid in thine heart I know that this is with thee Job 10.13 I know thou hast a kindness for Job though thou appear terrible to me so must Faith reckon when answers to Prayer are delayed I know he will do me good though I seem not to be noticed Now I come to the third and fourth Verses wherein we have the second Branch of the Psalmist's wrestling and that is a wrestling with guilt that might hinder audience and to give you a general view of these two Verses ye shall take this Branch of his wrestling in these three 1. Ye have a very sensible and humble acknowledgment of the desert of sin in the most godly vers 3. If thou Lord should mark iniquity O Lord who should stand That is iniquities are so hainous a thing that if thou wilt mark them as a severe Judge and according to the Covenant of Works proceed with men none would be justified 2. Ye have the Psalmist's relief being thus humbled in Gods pardoning mercy on which he lays hold in the beginning of the 4. vers But there is forgivenness with thee 3. This pardoning mercy in God is amplified from the end he hath before him in letting it forth That thou mayest be feared that is not only in general because thou art a merciful and pardoning God in Christ men have access to worship and serve thee who otherwise art a consuming fire but in particular thy pardoning mercy will excite men to fear and worship so good a God that freely pardons iniquity under the weight and burden of which they could not stand For the first of these his sensible and humble acknowledgment of the desert of sin in the most godly I may touch it the more cursorily now because it will fall in when afterward I come to speak of the right way of applying pardoning mercy where I shall take a view of this Verse as it points out the right method of obtaining pardon and the qualification of the pardoned sinner calling upon God in trouble what I would say now upon it ye shall take up in these three 1. Ye have the sense of sin and guilt joyned with the sense of trouble 2. Ye have the sense of guilt meeting a godly man in the teeth when he is sent to God by Prayer in trouble 3. Ye have guilt meeting him with a terrible Aspect that if God marked it he nor none is able to stand For the first I shall give it to you in this brief Observation That in right exercise the sense of sin and guilt should go along with the sense of distress and trouble the Psalmist rests not on his being sensible that he was in the deeps but he is also lying under the sense of sin and guilt a man that hath the meer sense of trouble without the sense of sin he is no more than a beast that will feel a smart and so it is a bruitish thing to be houling under the sense of trouble without the sense of sin Hos 7.14 They have not cryed unto me with their heart when they houled upon their beds They houled for their trouble but they called not sincerely unto me And vers 16. They return but not to the most high they are like a deceitful bowe And hence Micah 6.9 The Lords voice calls unto the City hear ye the rod and who hath appointed it There must be a hearing of the Appointer of the Rod as well as the Rod it self To evince the truth of this point I shall shortly hint at some consequences that readily follows the sense of trouble without the sense of sin Not to stand upon this that readily they choise a new sin to an outgate Job 26.1 This hast thou chosen rather than affliction I shall name these three 1. Where the sense of trouble is without the sense of sin folks expects to win soon out of it There are readily a world of conceity folk that think they will win soon and easily out of their trouble Judah found the weight of trouble but not the weight of sin and when they were going to captivity they were filled with dreams of outgate Jer. 12.4 They said he shall not see our last end And Jer. 2.25 They said because I am innocent surely his anger shall turn from me And when they were brought very low that delusion did not leave them Ezek. 11.15 They say Get ye far from the Lord unto us is the land given in possession And Ezek. 33.24 These of them that did inhabite the wastes said Abraham was one and he inherited the land but we are many the land is given us for inheritance Whence it is clear that deluded confidence is one of the wofull fruits of the sense of trouble without sense of sin A 2d is woful bitterness and carnal distempers of Spirit if not when the trouble comes on because they trust to be soon delivered from it yet when it continues long How find ye that people Jer. 5.19 and the parallel places who are brought in saying Wherefore hath the Lord our God done all these things unto us What 's our iniquity And what 's our sin And Isa 51 20. Ye may take up the temper of such a people Thy sons have fainted they ly at the head of all the streets as a wild bull in a net they are full of the fury of the Lord the rebuke of thy God Ye will not tame a wild Beast by putting him in a Net but mad him the more and so are they who continue long under the
them There is a fear of God as a plague and punishment and that 's the fear of Devils James 2.9 Thou believest there is one God thou dost well the devils also believe and tremble There is a servile and slavish fear which however it may be in a Child of God especially at his first Conversion while under the spirit of bondage yet it is much of the nature of that fear that is of God as a punishment of sin that tormenting fear the Apostle speaks of 1 Joh. 4.18 That perfect love casts out that fear that is not afraid of offending God but of punishments only is that which is in Devils and that fear that apprehends punishments not as they are separat from God the chief Good but as painful and grievous to a mans self is slavish and servile but right fear is when apprehensions of the Majesty Greatness and Goodness of God fills the heart with holy awe and reverence towards him and the Faith of his Greatness seasoned with the Faith of his Condescendency makes the soul afraid to offend him or lose his favour on any terms All that I shall say from this shall be to exhort and perswade you to get some stamp of this reverential fear on your heart that ye be not of them of whom it is said Psal 36.1 O dreadful Character The transgression of the wicked says within my heart there is no fear of God before his eyes consider and think upon this the fear of God is the only Antidote the only preservative against an evil course the fear of God will make a man that when it is in the power of his hands to do evil he dare not do it Gen. 42.18 Joseph when his brethren in ward are afraid of him says to them This do and live for I fear God I might soon cut you off and who would challenge me for so doing but I fear God Nâ—hem 5.15 He would not be burdensom to the people as the former Governours had been they were chargeable to the people but so did not I says he because of the fear of God among Heathens there may be many Motives to keep men from this and that ill but all will be like Samsons cords if the fear of God be wanting ponder Gen. 20.11 when Abimelech says to Abraham What sawest thou that thou hast done this thing Abrâ—ham answers because I thought surely the fear of God is not in this place and they will slay me for my wifes sake There is no protection for me here for I see no fear of God among this people what will men not be if a suitable Temptation come in their way if they want the fear of God and how calm will the fear of God make men that have it It will make a Lion a Lamb a Boar a Calf O how tractable will it make the wild humours of men to have a stamp of the fear of God and therefore I say it again seek for it that it may not be said of you such a mans or such a womans walk says within my heart There is no fear of God before their eyes A 2. Word from the words abstractly considered is That as fear is due to God so this fear is eminently to be exprest in the service and worship of God For that thou mayest be feared is not to be understood as that folk should make a Bogâ—e of God but that their fear of him should bring them to worship and serve him and that their worship and service should be seasoned with an holy awe and dread of God I might touch here on several things on the one hand among other Characters of base and servile fear this is one when it drives from God and his worship and service which was the result of Adam's fear after his fall Gen. 3.8 When he heard God's voice in the garden he was afraid and hid himself This was the Sinai fear at the giving of the Law Exod. 20.18 When the people saw the thundring and lightning and heard the noise of the Trumpet they removed and stood a-far off they went further away from God that is never right fear that makes a Scar-crow of God that is only right fear that chases in to him But on the other hand how should service and worship to God be loaded and ballanced with fear of God when Jacob had some intercourse with God in a vision Gen. 28.17 He was afraid and said how dreadful is this place this is none other but the House of God and this is the gate of Heaven If we speak of the service of God in general and would serve him acceptably it must be with reverential and godly fear Heb. 12.28 Not with presumption yea the greatest on Earth as they are commanded to kiss the Son lest he be angry and they perish from the way so they are bidden serve the Lord with fear and rejoyce with trembling Ps 2.11 and that King Dan. 6.26 could see that much though he came not a full length when he made a decree That in every dominion of his kingdom men should tremble and fear before the God of Daniel and for fear in duties of immediat worship such as ye are now about how is it pressed Psal 89.7 God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of his Saints and to be had in reverence of all that are about him and Psal 5.7 we will find those to be the two stilts so to speak that David walked on going to the publick Ordinances As for me I will go into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple The faith of Gods Mercy ballanced with Fear that it turn not in presumption and fear again under proped with Mercy that it degenerat not into despondency and there are many Considerations to press the seasoning and ballasting of the service and worship of God with fear whether partly we consider the Majesty of God compared with our baseness There are few folk that converse with God at Abraham's rate Gen. 18.27 Behold now says he I have taken upon me to speak to the Lord who am but dust and ashes and Solomon's rule Eccles 5.1 is keep thy foot when thou goes into the house of God and be more ready to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools be not rash with thy mouth and let not thy heart be hasty to utter any thing before God for God is in Heaven and thou upon Earth therefore let thy words be few When there is a ladder betwixt Heaven and Earth such as Jacob had how dreadful a place should such a Sanctuary be Or whether partly we consider the Holiness and Purity of God compared with our Impurity This made Isaiah Isai 6.5 to say Wo is me I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips and dwell among a people of polluted lips for mine eyes have seen the King the Lord of hosts And further the Consideration of the
he had not done without cause all that he had done in it And doth not the evil improvement of Trouble and folks security and negligence under trouble justifie God in the long continuance of trouble when we are ready to cry how long Lord how long shall this calamity last The Lord may retort it upon us Why will ye die O house of Israel For as it is Jer. 44.10 The Lord may say They are not humbled even unto this day neither have they feared nor walked in my Law A sight of this that God keeps a sincere serious godly man so long waiting on under delays for comfort and out-gate may silence the clamors of them who are not yet begun to think on a suitable walk under their troubles and the right improvement of them But 3. If the Lord for the ends before-mentioned may long delay his people and keep them waiting in trouble take heed that Faith the great support of Patience fail not in that exigent as I told you in the deducing of the Doctrine the great thing tryed in the people of God under delays is their Faith whether they will believe his word and therefore when Faith is tryed look that it be not found drossie when Faith is weighed see that it be not found light I speak it because I find the Faith of the Saints has gotten sore shakes under delays when they have been put to wait on Psal 116.11 I said in my haste all men Samuel Gad and others that had told me I should come to the Crown and Kingdom are liars And Jer. 15.18 while speaking to God hath a dreadful word when he reflects on the Promises God made to be with him in his Ministry says he Wilt thou be to me altogether as a liar and as waters that fail When we find so strong Cedars so shaken we would look well to it that our Faith be not brangled and that Faith be not brangled we would beside be looking well to the Atheism of our hearts for there is a seed of Atheism in every bosom that if the Lord put us hardly to it and make not out that Promise Isai 48.10 I have refined thee but not with silver I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction It may put us to tremble what stuff may boil up in our hearts and they are not sicker in the matter of their Faith that are not mourning over their heart-atheism but beside that I say we would guard against wrong conceptions of the Promise as that wherein the great stumbling lies as to this matter when we conceive more to be in the Promise than we are allowed and make a carnal Commentar on a Spiritual Text and as the saying is The Bell to clink as the fools think As also we would beware of limiting God to our time but give him his own time to make good his Promises These that are not mourning over the Atheism of their heart that are not cautious in understanding the Promises a-right and are not leaving God to his own time for performing them may take a snapper in their Faith when tryals are continued But a fourth word of Use shall be this That ye would learn to read Gods delays aright delays make discoveries and that is the exercise of many folk Jer. 8.15 We looked for peace but no good came and for a time of healing but behold trouble But if thou would read aright Gods delays I shall shortly offer thee these four and wise confiderers will find them to be the work of the generation 1. If thou read delays aright thou will find that God calls thee to exercise and that the best thing within thee as in a storm best Anchors and Ropes and the best things of the Ship are brought out so in a Trial when he delays he calls thee to exercise the best things in thy bosom and if God call thee to exercise Grace bring not out Corruption though at first thou may cast a scum of Corruption Grace is to be brought out afterwards If he call for Affection meet not his Call with Bitterness if he call to Diligence do not intertain that Call with Idleness remember God by delays calls for the exercise of Graces affections and diligence in his people 2. If thou read delays aright Thou will read That every days delay is a new Tryal and I may add every moments delay is a new Tryal When thou art carried through the day thou must not take that for surety that thou wilt through the next day without Self-denial and needy dependance The day may discover that which the foregoing day did not discover and the morrow may discover that which lies hid this day and therefore though thou may set up one Ebenezer at every step of thy way and say hither to hath the Lord helped Remember that thou art not yet off the stage and thou must not think because thou art hasted with the Tryal thou art better buckled to bear it but know there is still a necessity of Self-denial and needy-dependance lest the length of Trial discover that which the greatness of the Trial did not discover 3. If thou would read delays aright read in them a Call as I said in the Explication of the Doctrine to die to and to be above Time and the Consolations in Time then men go through Afflictions rightly when they read Their light afflictions which is but for a moment worketh for them a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory while they look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen 2 Cor. 4.17 Then men will be patient and stablish their hearts when they consider that the coming of the Lord draws near Jam. 5.8 In a word when God exercises with delays that is an useful Preaching which ye have 1 Cor. 7.29 This I say brethren the time is short he touches the Glass and lets them see it is near run out It remaineth that both these that have wives be as though they had none they that weep as though they weeped not they that rejoyce as though they rejoyced not One serious look of Time and Eternity will break many a snare that mens Corruptions expose them to while under trouble they meet with delays But 4. If ye would read delays rightly this is to be read in them that well improved delays are full of rich advantages Thou art keeped under continued difficulties and delayed as to comfort or satisfaction external in thy personal and privat concerns and as to what relates to the publick and it may be thou wins not to inward sensible comfort but if thou were thrifty thou mayest find many things granted in the delay or denyal of that which thou would be at as much humility mortification to Time and the things of it communion and fellowship with God and though some particulars be delayed if these were pursued after and in any measure attained times of delay would not be looked on as
on and not be hasty under delays I shall offer four considerations to perswade you to it And the 1. which relates to what I spoke before of Faith is that ye would remember that delayed success is not denyed success so long as the Word speaks good news That the needy shall not always be forgotten that the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever Psal 9.18 There is no cause why our hearts should envy sinners but that our hearts should be in the fear of the Lord all the day long For surely there is an end and our expectation shall not be cut off Prov. 23.17 So long as the Word speaks thus we are to bless our selves in it that delayed success is not denyed success and that therefore all that God hath promised were it never so long betwixt the promise and the performance will certainly come to pass as is marked in the Book of Joshua 23.14 That of all the good things which the Lord had promised to that people and many a time there seemed to be an utter impossibility of the performance of it not one thing had failed but all did come to pass A man that hath good things laid up for him in the Scripture though he be put to wait for them he needs not make a cheap Market of them they will be found forth-coming to him And Isai 60 22. The Lord will hasten it in his time which is alway the best time the Lord will afford mercy and grace to help not when we will but in the time of need Heb 4. ult He will make out his mercies in the time when they will be found double mercies for their seasonableness Psal 94.18 When I said My foot slippeth thy mercy O Lord held me up And as he will thus in due time make out all that he hath promised so in the mean time he will not deny support to them that wait on him it may be he let temptations such as are common to men ly on But 1 Cor. 10.13 He is faithful and will not suffer them to be tempted above what they are able to bear but will with the temptation make a way to escape that they may be able to bear it It may be when they are crying for a good account of a messenger of Satan sent to buffet them that he remove it not but he will make out that My grace is sufficient for you my strength is made perfect in weakness 2 Cor. 12.9 That then is one Consideration to perswade you to waâ—t on That delayed success is not denyed success 2. This may press and perswade to on-waiting that if we be doing our duty we may very safely trust the love and wisdom of God with the time of doing us good There are three things which I have had occasion sometimes to hint at to you that I shall now resume in reference to this We may and ought to wait 1. Because God never comes out of time look things never so desperat-like to make up all that was looked for men may come out of season but God never comes out of season although it were come to that that there were nothing but dry bones in a Valley he can make these dry bones to live Ezek 37. Although there were no Witnesses left And O but it 's sad to see a decay of a faithful Ministry and few laying it to heart many going off the Stage and few coming in their room though they were killed after three days and an half they shall rise again and ascend up to Heaven in a Cloud and their enemies shall behold them Rev. 11.11 When thou hast said thy strength and thy hope is perished from the Lord it is as easie for him to make all things well as when thou hast all probabilities that things shall be well 2. We may safely remit the proofs of Gods love to himself if we consider he never delays so long but we may be getting good of delays It 's true thou may be ready to tyre fag and weary and look on thy continued trial as a lot thou wilt get no good of and thereupon turn idle or ly down and die but the longest trial if improven shall yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby Heb. 12.11 If we were thrifty we might be getting good of every moments delay 3. We may and ought to wait and submit to the wisdom and love of God and trust him for good under our delays on this account that he never delays so long but he is able to give a satisfactory account of his delays Thou wilt say Why doth he delay so long from comâ—ng to comfort or give an out-gate But he can convince thee with satisfying reasons that his delays were needful When as it is Hab. 2.3 sense says The vision tarries he can make thy faith say Tarry for it because it will surely come and not tarry he can make thy self say he doth not tarry even when thy sense says he doth tarry This for the second Consideration for perswading you to wait on God under delays and not to be hasty 3. A third Consideration to perswade to waiting in opposition to making haste is That they that are sweet to wait would look if they be busie at work and at the work they are called to This is a needful diversion which I would offer to such folk were they busie in making use of long and feeding storms they would make less dinn in waiting for an issue of them but they would be ready to say rather Alas let him tarry never so long he will come ere I be ready for him ere I have reaped the blessed fruit of the dispensations of his providence that I am under And therefore a wearier and a hasty person under delays doth proclaim that he is an idle person not about his work for not only as ye know work is a mean to take away langour but in particular the thrifty improvement of a hard lot would make folk wonder that God should come to them at all 4. To perswade you to wait and that ye would not be hasty if none of the former Considerations will press you to it remember the Soveraignty of God and that ye are his Creatures when thou wearies to wait consider what thou art a bit of nothing a dependent bit of beeing to be made or not made formed or marred at his pleasure if he hath given thee a back why may he not lay on a burden and continue it on so long as pleases him Wherefore serves thy beeing in the world but to be at his disposing and to be what seems good to him This Argument prevailed with Job that was put otherways to it than any of us he was stripped in an instant of all that he had and sitting down on the dust he says Chap. 1.21 Naked came I out of the womb and naked shall I return God gave and God hath taken blessed be the Name
yet he is born up in waiting on God for an out-gate he cannot quite nor give over he cannot go to another door for relief that 's a good evidence that there is ground of hope in such a mans lot For certainly Psal 9.18 the needy shall not always be forgotten the expectation of the poor shall not perish for â—ver And he that never said to the seed of Jacob seek ye me in vain Isai 45.29 he never engages a heart to wait on him in vain Their very waiting on and not giving over is if they could but discern it a sufficient refutation of their temptation to diffidence and despondency But I shall leave this and look on the words another way and these two principal Doctrines are obvious from them to any capacity 1. That waiting on God needs the support of Faith and Hope 2. That Faith or Hope must have the Word of God for its ground The first of these is clear in that he says I wait because I hope The other is clear from that he says in his word do I hope For the first of these That waiting on God needs the support of Faith or Hope Patience and On-waiting will never be gotten well cherisht without Hope or Faith a man that would keep waiting on God would keep Faith and Hope on foot So doth the Psalmist here while he tells that he waits because he hopes And hence it is that in Scripture we find a frequent conjunction of Faith and Patience as Heb. 6.12 The followers of them who through faith and patience have inherited the promises Rev. 13.10 Here is the faith and the patience of the Saints they must go together Rom. 8.25 If we hope for that we see not then do we with patience wait for it It 's hoping for that which is not seen that draws along a patient waiting for it 1 Thess 1.3 True patience is called the patience of hope that patience which is the product of hope And to add no more ye have them conjoyned Heb. 10.35 36. Where in the first place the Apostle says to them Cast not away therefore your confidence which hath a great recompence of reward and then he adds to good purpose Ye have need of patience that after ye have done the will of God ye may receive the promise Intimating it is to no purpose to speak of patience if folk cast away their confidence thus ye see how these two Faith and Patitience or Patience and Hope are linked together in Scripture to tell that patient waiting on God hath need of the support of Faith and Hope And if we should follow out this a little more distinctly we will find that the brangling of Faith and Hope cuts Patience short when a mans Faith or Hope fails he gives over waiting on God his Patience is gone as in that wicked King 2 King 6.33 Who when God by the Prophet had promised delivery would not believe it but says This evil is of the Lord what should I wait for the Lord any longer Fraâ— once he cast off confidence he gave over waiting on God And to clear this further see Jer. 2.25 and 18 12. In the one place when the Lord is perswading his people to keep his way they say There is no hope and what follows on that They say We have loved strangers and after them will we go And in the other place when they say There is no hope they add But we will walk after our own devices and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart Thus ye see how on the one hand the brangling of Faith and Hope cuts the throat of patient waiting for God and on the other hand Faith and Hope entertained keeps life in patience to wait still on God Ye know what is said of Hezekiah 2 King 18.5 He trusted in the Lord God of Israel so that after him was none like him among all the Kings of Judah nor any that was before him Trust in God made him singular and in nothing doth the singularity of a Christian appear more than in this the drawing forth of his Faith in patient waiting on God in difficulties 1 Sam. 27.1 When David gives over confidence he gives over patience and waiting and goes down to the Land of the Philistines but look upon him again as a Believer holding fast coâ—fidence what says he Psal 27.13 I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living Nothing but Faith kept me from giving over But now as Psal 116.10 I believed therefore have I spoken attaining to believing he dare subjoyn as v. 14. Wait on the Lord and be of good courage and he shall strengthen thy heart wait I say on the Lord. Thus ye have the point generally cleared that patient waiting on God needs the support of Faith and Hope To break it a little smaller and bring it nearer you I shall branch it out in these two 1. That the trials of the people of God may be such as only Faith can see an out-gate And 2. When they are so Faith will see an out-gate and enable a man to wait on God for the out-gate For the first I say The trials of the people of God may be such and so ordered for their greatness sharpness darkness and continuance that an out-gate will be the object of Faith only and not of Sense nor Reason A mans trials may be such that if he will betake him to Sense and carnal Reason to see if there will be an end of the Lord he will give it over if Faith step not in and take him off the hand of both A waiter for God here under difficulties must be a hoper else he will not wait on we are generally called in the whole course of our life to walk by Faith 2 Cor. 5.7 We walk by faith and not by sight but especially in great and eminent trialls and difficulties when they are of a long continuance to prove that we are among the just that live by faith Hab. 2.4 with Heb. 10.38 I might instance this both in the greatness and in the long continuance of trials In the greatness of trials which may be such as Faith only can see an issue 3 Cor. 1.8 In the trouble that came to us in Asia we were pressed out of measure above strength in so much that we dâ—spaired even of life and had the sentence of death in our selves And why That we should not trust in our selves but in God that raiseth the dead We were put to it to imploy Faith in our deadly difficulties else we had been gone So Jonah 2.4 is put to say I am cast out of sight till Faith holding a grip of God bids him look again towards his holy Temple Sâ— Abram Rom. 4.19 hath all probabilities his own dead body and the deadness of Sarahs womb against the thing promised and what gave the issue only this he was not weak in the
faith he staggered not at the promise through unbelief but was strong in faith giving glory to God And Paul Rom. 8.24 when he had told that we are saved by faith adds but hope that is seen is not hope for what a man seeth why doth he yet hope for Hope and Faith are only for things invisible to any other sense or faculty And for the continuance of trials it is clear that it's Faith must see the issue as Hab 2.2 with Heb. 10.37 Write the vision and make it plain on tables that he may run that readeth it speak out my promise why For the vision is yet for an appointed time but at the end it shall speak and not lie though it tarry to sense wait for it c. And how shall this be done The just shall live by faith If it be enquired how it comes to pass that the Lord puts the mercies of his people so far out of sight by the greatness and long continuance of trouble That it is only Faith that can discern the issue I shall briefly clear this to you in four words 1. He doth it that he may acquaint his people with the solid truth of his promises that he may let them see and bring them to know experimentally that his promise is not a blaâ—lume but though all things in the world were against us it 's a true word it 's a tryed word like silver purified seven times in the furnace Psal 12.6 and shall have an accomplishment The longer folk rest on the Bible and the more they try it they will esteem of it the more It 's of Divine Authority to which I shall speak a word afterwards when I come to that of the Psalmist where he calls it his Word 2. For this end the Lord gives this work to the faith of his people that he may acquaint them more and more with himself in whom they believe that when they are put to the Bible to live by faith in his Word they may study his Divine Attributes his Veracity that cannot lie his Omnipotency that in greatest difficulties can commad deliverance to his people his infinite Wisdom that can by contraries bring out his Wisdom about their delivery and by this means they have a great advantage when they are brought to know God the Author of the Promises better Hence Psal 9.10 â—t's said They that know thy Name will put their trust in thee They that know him will put their confidence in him And Paul 2 Tim. 1.12 said For the which cause I suffer these things nevertheless I am not ashamed How is that For I know whom I have believed and am perswaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him to keep against that day therefore I am not ashamed therefore my confidence succumbs not 3. The Lord by giving Faith this work brings his people experimentally to know the worth of Faith and that 's a necessary Lesson we will not â—y get Sailing near the Shore within sight of Land but must Lanch forth into the deep that Faith may be put to it and in this case what advantage is it to know the worth of Faith Psal 27.13 I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living What had become of me if I had not believed And that gave him to know the worth of Faith which had an excellent advantage And Psal 28.7 My heart trusted in him and I was helped I never tryed Faith but it brought me some ease and relief though not a compleat out-gate And 4. The Lord give faith this work that he may get much glory of his people by their dependance hoping and believing Thus Rom. 4.20 Abraham was strong in the faith giving glory to God Thou thinks it would honour God much if thy mouth were filled with songs for deliveries sweet comforts love-blinks c. I grant these are sweet and speaks his praise but God is more honoured by believing when thou wants these and hath only his naked word to lean to thou then glorifies God more eminently though not so satisfactorily to thy self when thou sticks by believing in continued difficulties when thou art tempted to cast away confidence All I say from this Branch and come to the 2d shall be to tell you that were these things believed we would not be so ready to stumble whatever our difficulties were when sense and carnal reason were laid by and non-pluss'd with want of all appearances and probabilities of an issue But who are they who when they are left on a word of God do not find themselves at a loss and as ye use to speak at the next best whereas if we considered that this were God way to exercise his people with such great and continued Trials that their Issues and Out-gates from them may be the Object of Faith and not of Sense or carnal Reason and particularly were this studied our being holden long at work hinging on would not tempt folk to weary and give over waiting on God a thing which many of us have cause to mourn for and many fear that if God refine us with silver we will discover more than we thought had been in us O consider it that ye stumble not weary not fret not quite not your confidence in great continued troubles it is an evil not so much to be dung from your confidence as to take the pet to cast it away and give way to discouragement and lie down and die But to press this I come to the second Branch in the Point That as the Tryals of Gods people may be such as only Faith can see an out-gate so when they are so Faith if it be chearfuly employed will apprehend a promised delivery in greatest difficulties it will make a man wait on God in the saddest exercises without succumbing and to say this with the Psalmist I wait c. for I hope in his word If a man be living by Faith and so a just man Though the Vision tarry to sense it will make him wait for it and expect it because at the appointed time it will speak and not lie And for the grounds on which this truth is founded amongst others take these three 1. That let Tryals be never so great and long continued they alter not the ground of Faith the ground that Faith goes on still continues the same Whatever befal the people of God they get not a new Bible or a new God all the gloomy days that past over them has not blotted out one Promise or Attribute of God and these things they see in God and his Promises in a fair day they may see them to be the same in a foul day now if the ground be the same if the Promises be the same if God be the same if our Rock have not sold us Faith closing with that ground must wait for a delivery were the Tryal never so great and long continued
that would live by Faith he must not say in his heart Who shall ascend into heaven to bring down Christ or an issue from above or who shall descend into the deep to bring up a Christ or an issue from the dead But the word is near thee even in thy mouth and in thy heart The Word of Faith the Word in the Gospel which we preach This Point because there are several things in it of special concernment for us I shall deduce and branch out to you in four Heads 1. That really needy Saints who are put to live by Faith ought to be and will be much conversant with the Word that they may know what is for them and suitable to their case there 2. That as really needy Saints will be much conversant with the Word so they will judge of things according to the Verdict of the Word 3. That to fix them in that Resolution to judge of things according to the Word they must fix this Principle That the Word is of Divine Authority 4. That having fixt this That the Word is of Divine Authority the Believer must send out his Faith to believe and his hope to look for all that he finds in so Divine and sure a Word For the first of these I say That really needy Saints who are put to live by Faith ought to be and will be much conversant in the Word that they may know what is for them there and suitable to their case This is clearly imported in the Text while he saith I hope in thy Word He must know what is in the Word to lean his Faith and Hope upon for except he know he cannot lean his Faith and Confidence on it Hence David a great liver by Faith was much conversant with the Scriptures they were his meditation his meat his delight the men of his counsels his guides as ye may read at length what his esteem of the Scriptures was in that 119 Psalm And this being so it will infer not only that really needy saints should attend upon the Word preached but more especially that they should and will be much at the privat serious reading of meditation on and perusal of the Scriptures a duty that in the first place I would prove to be a duty And 2dly press it on you 1. I say it is needful to prove that it is a duty that the Scriptures be read by all in opposition to that cursed Popish principle that will not allow any laick or privat person without a peculiar licence to read the Scriptures whereby they turn that in a priviledge and confer on some only which God hath imposed as a duty on all yea further so Tyrannical are they in this that though they permit some to read the vulgar Latin or Translations according to it as they have turned it in English where Protestants are lest if they shuld hinder them in the use of that they should read other Translations without their liberty yet in other places as Spain and Italy they are sparing of these Licenses This is a damnable error not only contrair to the way of the ancient Church wherein they glory so much wherin privat persons were so well acquaint with the Word that they would make it the subject of their discourse while they were about their ordinary callings but is clearly repugnant to Scripture and principles deduced therefrom both in the Old and New Testament I shall not insist on controversial things but lay down first some instances from Scripture to which I shall add some Scripture arguments for clearing that Truth For Scripture instances look to the Old Testament it is marked Acts 15.21 That in old time Moses had in every City them that preached him being read in the synagogues every sabbath day and not the Books of Moses only but the Prophets And therefore our Lord in his solemn Sermon Luke 4.17 Read out of the Prophecy of Isaiah that Book being delivered to him Beside publick reading of the Scriptures we find privat reading enjoyned Deut. 17.18 The King was to have a Copy of the Law in a Book out of that which was before the Priests and Levits to be with him and he was to read therein all the days of his life Josh 1.8 The Commander of the people was not to let the book of the Law depart out of his mouth but to meditat therein day and night It was also to be read by mean persons for Deut. 6.6 These words commanded to the Jews they were to teach them diligently to their children to talk of them when they sat in their houses when they did walk by the way when they did ly down and when they rose up and this they could not do in all the ages of their Church unless they read the Books of Moses when Moses was gone We find that Eunuch in returning from Jerusalem in his journey reading the Scripture Act. 8.30 We find Timothy from a child instructed in the Scriptures 2 Tim. 3.15 drinking it in with his milk and in a word Psal 1.2 We find the blest man in those days and in all ages of the Church to be that man who hath his delight in the Law of the Lord and in his Law doth meditate day and night If again we turn to the New Testament we find that Christ commands the Jews to search the Scriptures Joh. 5.39 We find the Bereans commended for comparing Christ Apostles Sermons with the Scripture searching the Scriptures whether these things were so Act. 17.11 We find it required That the word of Christ a well in us richly in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another Col. 3.16 which necessarily requires frequent reading of the Scriptures we find the Apostle supposing the Corinthians read them 2 Cor. 1.13 We wrote none other things to you than that you read and acknowledge and Eph. 3.4 Whereby when ye read ye may understand my knowledge We find him commanding it Col. 4.16 When this Epistle is read amongst you cause also that it be read in the Church of the Laodiceans and that ye likewise read the Epistle from Laodicea 1 Thes 4.27 He charges them by the Lord that that epistle be read unto all the holy brethren and if the Apostle John Rev. 1.3 pronounces them blest who reads the words of that prophesie which is a dark obstruse Book It is not the purpose of the Spirit of God that other plain Scriptures should be shut up from people But 2. Unto these Scripture instances we shall add a few Scripture Arguments as 1. For what end were the Scriptures plainly and legibly written and at first in a known language if not to be made use of and read when the Vision is written and made plain upon Tables Habakkuk tells the end of that is That he may run that readeth it 2. If the Prophets Christ and his Apostles did not spare to preach their Doctrine in the audience of all it cannot be rationally thought but that we may
God that works effectually in them that believe I proceed now to a 4 thing which I have yet to add and that is to put the two Points together Faith and Hope and hoping in his word That since we have the Scriptures and since the Scriptures are of Divine Authority we would put forth Faith and Hope to feed upon that which is contained there Faith to believe and Hope to look for all that we find in so divine and sure a word and that I may make something out of this and so have done with this Verse I shall hint at some things distinctly required both to Faith and Hope And 1. For Faith the Apostle tells Heb. 11.1 That faith is the substance of things hoped for The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly signifies that it is the subsistence of things hoped for Things hoped for being held forth in the Word Faith gives them a subsistence before they exist in themselves which is not to be understood absolutely for it is in the Promises of God revealing the purposes he hath concerning these things and the Power of God effectuating them that gives them an absolute subsistence before they be Faith gives them a subsistence instrumentally and relatively while it leads the believer to close with the Promises wherein those things subsists and while it gives them a subsistence in the heart of the believing man Now this subsistence Faith gives to things promised two ways 1. More absolutely while Faith enables the believing man to look on whatever God hath promised as no less certain than if it were in his hand like these that reckon their riches not so much by their present stock or that which they have in their hands as by what they have owing them by Bonds of responsal Debitors So the Believer reckons God's Promises as so many Bonds making the things promised as sure as if they were in his hands and this had need to be looked to by us for I know not if every man that hath the Promises among his hands puts forth his Faith vigorously to believe them a man may have the Promises and not contradict them nor doubt of them while he lets them ly by him and does not rouze up his Faith to actual exercise in closing with them and resting upon them and when folks are not actually doubting Christ finds it necessary to rouse up and quicken them actually to believe as Mark 11.22 Have faith in God saith he to the Disciples look that your Faith be on foot and in exercise that ye take not the Promises lying by you without contradicting them for Faith but rouze it up to improve them and Joh. 11.25 When Christ is holding out precious Promise◠to Martha That he is the resurrection and the life That he that believeth on him though he were dead he shall live he shall never die He finds it necessary to put her to it with this question Believest thou this I suppose thou wilt not doubt of it Martha but is thy Faith quickned and put forth to exercise on what I have said to thee actually to close with it and rest upon it as the true and faithful sayings of God But 2. Faith gives things a subsistence not only by way of contemplation in bringing the Believer to believe they are true but by way of application to himself that is it so gives a Subsistence to them as the believing man gets the substance of them as the word is Translated in that forecited place Heb. 11.1 for his present use comfort and encouragement till the performance come It gives them a subsistence when the substance of the things promised is made out to the believer as if they were performed ye use to account them dyvors and spend christs that forenail their rent continually but Faiths vertue stands in forenailing yet without diminishing the things promised the believer suspends not all the things in the Promises till he get them in his hand the beeing of the Promise is a foundation to him and Faith brings in the substance of the thing promised 1 Pet. 1.8 Though he see not Christ yet believing he rejoyceth with joy unspeakable and full of glory and it is a notable word which ye have Joh. 3.36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life He is not a man only that shall have everlasting life but he hath it already in several respects in right and tittle and in the first fruits his very believing puts him in a begun possession of everlasting life this is the unknown Art of the Life of Faith that it fetches its food from far to him that hath it it brings the first fruits of the promised Land to the wanderer in the wilderness a cluster of Grapes from the brook Escol to the barren desart it mounts up with wings as Eagles to bring down life and quickning to our creeping and wrestling motions here below Thus ye have a very brief hint of Faith of that Faith whereby ye are to live and feed on what is in the Word of Promise though it be not accomplished I shall only give you one instance of it which may discover to many how little they know of this Act of living by Faith closing with the Promise and feeding on it ere the performance come The instance is that of the Patriarchs who lived before Christs Exhibition in the flesh look upon it in Abraham of whom it is said Joh. 8.56 He rejoyced or as the word will bear he skipped for joy to see Christ's day and he saw it and was glad whether he saw it in the Promises only or generally in the Sacrifices also or particularly in that Providence of the Ram put in his hand to offer up in stead of his Son Isaak Gen. 22.13 It is all a matter he got such a sight of Christ in those and so closed with the thing Promised that he skipped for joy And the like instances we have given of all the Patriarchs in that word Heb. 11.13 which may make many blush when they read it These all says the Apostle died in faith They were not content meerly to have a life of Faith but they died in faith not having received the promises or though they received not the things promised But what did they Having seen them a far off to wit in the Promises and in the Types illustrating them What more They were perswaded of them the first thing I said before of Faiths giving a subsistence to things hoped for and what more They embraced them they hugged them and what more They confest they were pilgrims or strangers on the earth They saw as much by Faith in the Promises which were not to be accomplisht in all their lifetime as made them up and made them to confess that they were pilgrims here Try your selves by these measures and see what ye have won to like this Faith believing and putting forth Faith to exercise feeding on and fending by Faith in the word
to neglect it If ye speak of Faith for personal reconciliation and the influence it hath on Duty 1 Joh. 3.23 This is the commandment that we should believe on the Name of his Son Jesus Christ if ye respect Faith as it is exercised about the various lots and times that pass over Gods people it is a commanded duty at all times Psal 62.8 Trust in him at all times there is no time wherein ye are dispensed with not to trust in him yea even these times wherein ye will need God for a refuge and if I might insist I would let you see how Faith is a commanded duty in the most desperat conditions and lots Ps 46.1 2 3. God is our refuge a very present help in time of trouble Therefore we will not fear though the earth be removed and though the mountains he carried into the midst of the sea c. The Believer in God thinks himself in a surer posture than the course of nature The World may turn upside down but the Believer is then sure having God for a refuge and a present help Hab. 3.17 Though the fig-tree do not blossom though no fruit be in the vine c. yet he finds warrand to believe I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my salvation a fruit of Faith Many would have been ready to say What should I do believing if the tryal had come half that length but come what will come he finds ground to believe Luke 8. A man comes to Christ with his sick daughter and she is a dead daughter ere he come to the house and they say thy daughter is dead trouble not the Master But what says Christ verse 50. Fear not believe only Faith hath a warrand when trouble goes from sickness to death not to fear but only to believe David was tryed with formidable things as Psal 56. Yet that takes not away his warrand to believe Therefore verse 3. He says what time I am afraid I will trust in thee my fear shall feed my confidence and not drive me from it Look on him again as a man whose troubles and fears had confounded and run down yet he looks not on himself as a man that might quit Faith for all that Ps 61.2 When I am at the ends of the Earth says he when my heart is overwhelmed when I have perplexity like to make me swoun when I am surcharged and laid by with them yet from the ends of the Earth I will cry unto thee an act of Faith when my heart is overwhelmed lead me to the Rock that is higher than I my heart and my flesh failing shall not warrand me to cast away my confidence and the Acts resulting thereon and Job 3.5.14 Elihu says to Job Although thou sayest thou shalt not see him yet Judgment is before him Therefore trust thou in him and that was Abraham's practice who against hope believed in hope Rom. 4.18 when he could see no probability of the thing promisedâ— it is in that case in that Paroxism the Believer is to trust in God so ye see the Point is clear that Faith is the allowance of the Saints at all times in all conditions and Faith hath still a warrand to put forth it self to exercise The rich good will of God the immutability of God and his promise bottoms Faith in all times conditions it was a good word that David had when the sycophant Doeg came and told Saul of his coming to the house of Abimelech and flew fourscore five of the Priests Why boastest thou in mischief O mighty man the goodness of God endureth continually and seing it is so Faith hath continual ground to go upon For Use I would give you these three words from it The first shall be to represent this as a mercy 2. To press upon this ground constant believing and hoping in God as a duty And 3. To speak a word to them that are troubled because they cannot get this Command constantly obeyed 1. I wold represent this as a mercy that its thy duty to believe hope in God at all times though I fear I have but few to speak to on this score few would ever venture an hair of their head on Faith or on God if they could get any other fend so long as they could have any sinful shift ouâ— of hell I had almost said in hell it is to no purpose to speak to them of Faith But are there any of you sensible of the ill of Unbelief that when ye would sit down and take a lift of your self or of your condition or of anything that is dear to you your unbelief and discouragement is like to break you the discouragement of some through the prevailing power of Unbelief is so great that they turn like dyvors they dare as soon look on hell as on all the perplexities that are in their case I would say to such does thou in this case resent it as a mercy that thou knows it is thy duty to believe and a sin to give way to discouragement and unbelief O bless God thou may venture on Faith which if thou had not it is sad to think what thou would do next I am now speaking to them that have any thing to do betwixt God and their souls though I fear there be few that have ado with what I am now upon And O that I could lament over you and that ye could lament over your selves But are there any of you pressed with your souls condition and yet ye are too fool hardy in venturing upon unbelief and discouragement One of two either ye have never tryed these deep foords of discouragement and unbelief or otherways ye are under a dreadful tentation for of all the mercies next unto Christ a soul that is crusht with discouragement and unbelief will think this the greatest mercy that it hath a warrand to believe and if ye could bless him for that who knows what it would produce if ye would bless him that ye know ye have a command to believe and that it is a sin to misbelieve and give way to discouragement But 2. If it be a constant commanded duty to believe and hope will ye constantly obey that command Trust in him at all times Whatever ye read in your cases or lots or in the times read this never to cast away your confidence but to believe and hope in God Thou will say I have few motives to it but on what account does thou forbear murther or theft or any other gross sin Is it because thou wants temptations to them or because God hath forbidden them and hast thou not a command for believing Thou must not abstain believing till thy faith be budded but because he has commanded fall about it Thou thinks thy Faith little worth it is a blind guess like the blind mans gropping for the wall But shall I say Faith in obedience to a Command believing with the judgment against the
use to speak ye will find him in another tune Psal 116 10. I believed therefore have I spoken Not only esteeming of faith for his own use but a man that dare commend it to others as Psal 27.14 Wait on the Lord be of good courage and he shall strengthen thine heart wait I say on the Lord. All that I shall draw from this Head shal be first to recommend to the people of God who have hard pulls in time to assay this Trade of trusting in God and hoping in him it hath not an enemy but an ignorant one that 's a stranger to it that knows not the worth that is in it the rich advantages that follow it were it more tryed it would have more to commend it therefore let it be more your study and thou that would set about the Trade of believing and hoping in God must not take the report concerning faith and hope from every fit of a temptation thou must lay thy account to meet with many a fiery dart and with many a reproach cast upon thy confidence and to have thy self counted a fool for cleaving to that way but hold at it and the more thou do so thou shalt like it the better not only wilt thou not need any to commend it unto thee but thou wilt commend it to all that will take thy advice and counsel And 2. They that have been essaying faith and hope and have gotten good of it they would be afraid in any after-assault they may be put to to bring up an ill report upon the way of faith and hope thou may let these that never got good of it suspect it but thou that hast been helped to believe and wait on God and hast seen an end of the Lord and found the good of believing that can with the Psalmist Psal 28.7 say My heart trusted in him and I am helped How guilty must thou be if thy faith and hope be to seek in a new strait If after thou hast found the good of believing thou be put out concerning it in a new trial when that Song is cast up Psal 107.1 O give thanks unto the Lord for he is good for his mercy endureth for ever who-ever let that Note ly by the second Verse tells thee Let the redeemed of the Lord say so whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy Who ever have a slender opinion of faith and hope it ill becomes thee to have it who has tryed it and has found the good of it or to be to seek in esteeming of it in a new trial But now I proceed to the 4th thing I proposed to be spoken to from this Exhortation that is the consideration of the persons who they are to whom this hope in God is recommended Let Israel hope in the Lord saith he Hope in God is not an Anchor that will be budded on every one It 's true none are secluded from coming to seek a right to hope in the right method and due order but there is an hope of the hypocrite that will perish that will be like the giving up of the Ghost and that hope is only for fair weather and for little to do but this hope of the Saints is the peculiar allowance of the Saints at all times Now for what is mean'd by Israel here I shall not deny but in the first place we are to understand that Nation of Israel a peculiar people to God who in various Ages while they continued a Church and Nation were meeting with work for their hope and with many rich advantages and proofs of the good of hoping in God and in the latter days when as it is Rom. 11.26 All Israel shall be saved they shall find this made out to them that they may hope in God But it is not to be restricted to them only since their off casting there is an Israel come in their place as the Apostle tells us Rom. 9.6 That they are not all Israel which are of Israel all that Nation were not true Israelits in Gods account So Phil. 3.3 There is a circumcision even among the Gentiles who do worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Jesus Christ and have no confidence in the flesh And Gal. 6.16 he tells There is an Israel of God Gods peculiar people of whatsoever Nation upon whom walking according to the Rule of the new Creature given them there shall be peace and mercy Again we may consider Israel either Collectively or Distributively Consider Israel Collectively for the Church of God correspondent to the ancient Nation of Israel Then by Israel we are to understand the invisible Church the society of Gods converted Elect through the World yet not excluding particular visible Churches who partake of the priviledges of the true Israel of God according to their purity and the number of true Israelites that are among them Again Israel taken Distributively takes in every Child of God who in his own place according to the tenor of the promises made to Israel hath no less ground to hope in God than Israel taken Collectively hath In the prosecution of this Head three things occurr to be spoken to 1. That Israel is a Society that is allowed to hope in God 2. That this hope is the common allowance of all and every one that is indeed an Israelite as well as of the Body of Israel in general And 3. That it concerns every one that would claim to hope in God in all exigencies to make it sure that they are true Israelites indeed and may put their names in those passages and promises wherein Israels priviledges are contained For the first Israel are a people that however matters go have ground to hope in God however things fare in the world or whatever may be said of the desperat case of others Israel is a Society that may still hope in God Hence when Ezra Chap. 9 is laid by with mourning for that generation that had mingled with the abominable Heathen a godly man Chap. 10.2 comes and tells him It 's true we are guilty yet there is hope in Israel concerning this thing Had such a thing fallen forth among others it had been a presage of dreadful news but in Israel there is hope of pardon hope of redress hope of making up this breach in Israel things otherwise desperate are not hopeless Jer. 31.15 17. Though in Israel there be a Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are not She looks upon it as needless to offer to comfort her when her Children are gone yet even when they are not and she thinks that rationally she refused to be comforted Verse 17. There is hope in thy end saith the Lord that thy children shall come again to their own border It 's Israels priviledge that she can say that none else can say It 's Israels Song Psal 129. Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth up may Israel now say She might
in more than ordinary exigence we might say through Christ strengthning us we can do all things Lord bless his word unto you SERMON XXXVII Psalm 130. Verse 7 8. Let Israel hope in the Lord for c. YOU heard that these two Verses do contain the second part of the Psalm wherein after that the Psalmist in the first 6 Verses hath been wrestling partly with plunging perplexities represented under the notion of Depths vers 1.2 Partly with the Conscience of guilt verses 3.4 And partly with the delays of comfort and an outgate verses 5.6 After that I say the Psalmist comes to get some issue and outgate whereof he giveth not a direct and express account but any good he hath gotten he presently makes it appear in good news to Israel he hath an exhortation to them to hope in the Lord and hath Motives and Arguments pressing his Exhortation which are taken partly from what is in God to the behove of his Israel For with the Lord there is mercy c. And partly from what he will let forth of this for their good and behove not only is mercy and plenteous redemption with him but he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities For the Exhortation I spoke to it at length And at the last occasion I brake in upon the Motives The Instructions to be gathered from which I reduced to two general Heads 1. Something supposed concerning them that are put to hope and allowed to hope in God And 2. Something proposed concerning such as are called and allowed to hope and as a ground to their hope For the first That which is supposed in the Words it may again be reduced to these two Heads of Doctrine 1. That the man called and allowed to hope in God is one that is acquainted with misery in himself and is put to look out to what is in God or with him to do his turn For with the Lord there is mercy That there is mercy with God implys That the man that is called and allowed to hope in God is in himself miserable and put to look out to God for mercy and so it is one of the blessed and sure characters of a person that is called and allowed to hope in God that he is kept humble not conceity nor dreaming of any good in himself and the nearer he be to the dust he hath the more warrand to hope for the man that spears the right gate to hope is he that Lam. 3.29 Puts his mouth in the dust if so be there may be hope he creeps low in the dust to seek encouragement to hope and the man that is called to live by Faith is opposed to the man whose soul is lifted up in him and consequently to the man whose heart is not upright in him Hab. 2.4 And further the man that is called to hope and allowed to hope in the humbling sense of his misery he is put to look without himself to what is in God or with God for him he is called to hope on the account of mercy in relation to his misery It intimats that the humble sensible man the Israel of God can never be undone so long as God is to the fore and there is enough in him to do his turn though he be miserable and wants that he stands in need of yet if it be in God he shall not want If mercy be in and with God he is made up in the midst of his misery To this I have spoken already and shall not repeat I proceed to the second Observation implyed in that which is supposed concerning the man that is put to hope and warranted to hope in God That not only is he simply miserable and needing mercy but he is under such a bondage of sin and misery as he cannot extricat himself out of it except God interpose He needs not only mercy in God but redemption and plenteous redemption in God to rid him out of these bonds wherein he is fettered and bound and out of which he is not able to deliver himself Although the consideration of sin will come in to be spoken to on the next Observation by it self yet I shall on this touch a little in general both on the bondage of sin and misery under which the Israel of God are supponed to be lying As for sin all men by nature are bound slaves to it they are hurried away with every impetuous blast of temptation that blows upon their corruption but it is the Israel of God that are called and allowed to hope in God that feel this bondage Hence the Apostle Rom. 7.19 saith The good that I would I do not but the evil that I would not that I do And he finds a law in his members warring against the law of his mind leading him captive to the law of sin on which account he crys out O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death There is a captivity indeed under sin and he tells the Galatians Chap. 5.17 That the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these two are contrary one to another so that they cannot do the things they would So the Israel of God are under a bondage of sin when they would do good as the same Apostle hath it ill is present with them And for the bondage of their misery the Scripture is so full anent it and the experience of the Saints so amply confirms it that it is needless to stand on particular proofs and instances of it How often are they put to that Psal 107.11 Because they rebelled therefore he brought down their heart with sorrow and labour they fell and there was none to help In the Application of this I shall speak a word first to the wicked and ungodly and then to Gods Israel who are called and allowed to hope in him notwithstanding this bondage they are under For the first to wit the wicked They would from this look on it as a sad character to know little and be as little sensible of their bondage through sin and misery They look on a licentious way of living in sin when they have eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin as it is 2 Pet. 2.14 When sin reigns in their mortal bodies and they obey it in the lusts thereof and they yield their members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin Rom. 6.12 When they give themselves up to work all uncleanness with greediness Ephes 4.19 They look upon that as their liberty and they are never out of bonds except when they are glutting themselves with sin they slâ—ep not except they do ill O! that such knew what a madnes and distraction they are under while they glory in their chains as if a mad-man should glory in his fetters look to it assure thy self thou shalt find sin to be a bondage and need of looking to God for Redemption from it ere thou have a warrand to
hopelesness in thy condition runs away from God take heed what thou dost thou looks on thy case as incurable and what will thou do with it If thou run away where will thou go next Thy case must either break thee or thou will grow stupid under it and besides if thou run away thou reproaches the mercy of God so far as thou can while thou runs from him with any condition how desperat and irrecoverable so ever and will thou bring up an ill report on his mercy as if there were no cure in it for thy case When thou should rather sing as David Psal 13.5 In opposition to every hopeless like case But I have trusted in thy mercy my heart shall rejoyce in thy salvation O then take heed that thou reproach not nor bring not up an ill report on this rich full mercy in God by running from it whatever thy condition be 3. Come here all ye that are making mercy your refuge under all your pressures miseries troubles temptations desertion or whatever ail you that know no other door to knock at but mercy in God ye have no song but that one which David had Psal 13. before cited and that I can never often enough repeat though God seem to forget him for ever and hide his face for ever from him though when he takes counsel in his soul he hath sorrow in his heart daily though his enemies had exalted themselves and said they had prevailed over him and reâ—oyced and the sleep of death seems to approach he hath nothing to all that But I have trusted in thy mercy Take a look how richly thou art made up that trusts in this mercy Remember the song that follows in that Psalm â—nd thou will not find it an heartless shift My heart says â—e shall rejoice in thy salvation I will sing to the Lord because â—e hath dealt bountifully with me And the Psalmist sings Psal 31.7 I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy Why For thou hast considered my trouble thou hast known my soul in adversity I got acquaintance with thee in adversity which otherwise I had not been capable of therefore I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy and consider that sweet song Psal 136.23 Who remembred us in our low estate Why for his mercy endureth for ever or as Hezekiah hath it Isai 38.27 He loved my soul from the pit of corruption That is the word in the Original His love and mercy have an Adamantine vertue to draw a soul out of the pit of corruption when he remembers us in our low estate consider thou that hast made mercy thy refuge how sweetly it can kep a deep distress Psal 69.15 Let not the water flood overflow me hear me O Lord for thy loving kindness is good turn unto me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies And Psal 86.14 O God the proud are risen up against me and the assemblies of violent men have sought after my soul but thou O Lord art a God full of compassion gracious long suffering and plenteous in mercy and truth O turn unto me and have mercy on me Consider what a good account of very hopeless tryals mercy will give Jam. 5.11 Ye have heard of Jobs patience and have seen the end of the Lord and what was the end of the Lord even this That the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy O but they are sad difficulties which tender mercy and pity in God will not afford relief unto and therefore think not your self in a poor plight who have mercy for your refuge who have no song to sing But I have trusted c. 4. When ye have closed with and are made up by this mercy look how ye improve it and do not abuse it I confess the want of the faith of mercy in a strait is an estranging thing Zech. 11.8 My soul loathed them and their soul also abhorred me but when thou grips to mercy see what influence it hath on thy heart for warming it for putting it in a sweet and tender frame on thy part may I say it I defie folk to abuse mercy taken by the right handle O the alluring melting constraining perswading power that is in mercy rightly closed with and O that folk could win to this gate of making use of mercy Rom. 11.1 The Apostle in pressing holiness saith I beseech you brethren by the mercy of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice c. And I may allude to that Phil. 2.1 If there be any consolation in Christ if any comfort of love if any fellowship of the spirit if any bowels of mercy fulfil ye my joy If folk knew what overcoming mercy means they would let it be seen in a tender walk Thou talks of mercy yet thou art not overcome with it thou art not melted nor made more tender by it what a cheater of thy self and abuser of mercy art thou Remember the abuse of outward mercies will make a sad dittay Ezra 9. If after all these we break his commands But ah what shall be said when folk pretend to special mercy and abuse it But 5. Among other Uses that ought to be made of believed and closed with mercy this is one That we learn to be merciful Luke 6.36 We must be merciful as is our heavenly Father even in loving enemies c. Ye heard in the morning from Mat. 5.7 That it is the merciful that obtain mercy And that Parable of the man that had much forgiven him and would not forgive his fellow servant but cast him in prison Mat. 18.23 It was a sad evidence that he was not pardoned himself In a word thou who art much in mercies common it will make thee of a merciful meek temper which is that pressed Tit. 3.2 That we should speak evil of no man be no brawlers c. but gentle shewing meekness to all men seeing we our selves were sometime disobedient deceived serving divers lusts But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour towards man appeared not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of Regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost A boisterous malitious unmerciful temper in any is but a poor Evidence that such live under the drop of the multitude of the tender mercies that are with God But the time being ended I leave this great Point and you to the rich blessing of this merciful God To whom be glory SERMON XLI Psalm 130. Verse 7 For with the Lord there is mercy THe Songs of the people of God while they are within time are made up of very mixed Notes yet in this they are sweet that their over-word or last word is still the best of it Poor and needy are they and may they be yet they are thought upon by God Troubled they may be but not distrest perplext but not in despair persecuted but not forsaken cast down but
a Doctrine I shal briefly hint at some Scriptures which will give you some light in what it is The first is that Deut. 8.15 16. Wherein the Lord tells he led his people through a great and terrible wilderness wherein were fiery serpents and scorpions and drought and brought water to them out of the flint and fed them with Manna which their fathers knew not Wherefore That he might humble and prove them to do them good at their latter end These Dispensations were humbling and proving humbling not crushing for ye will get crushing without Prayer and discouragement without pains but humbling must be the product of Prayer and pains they are not humbled says the Lord even to this day Jer. 44.10 Every broken body is not an humbled body though from pride of heart they may be irritat cankered crusht and to help to this proving must be added which brings discoveries and folk would try what discoveries their being put to send by Faith brings forth and lays before them proving will often bring butt that which ye thought was not ther benn as ye use to speak passion pride fretting haste a legion of foul evils and it would bod well if when folks are put to fend by Faith amongst the Promises if they met with such discoveries and saw ugly bossoms and were bearing about their abominations and humbled under them Another Scripture that will hint a word of Direction to you what your work should be while put to fend by Faith is that Jer. 2.19 Thine own wickedness shall correct thee and thy backslidings shall reprove thee know then and see that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast forsaken the Lord c. This is it I was on in the morning Repentance Repentance O! how abasing is it when our wickedness and backsliding are sent to reprove and convert us not only in keeping up the performance of Promises but in the execution of threatnings when God makes all the world vvise of a peoples vvickedness vvhen he goes as it vvere to the street vvith their faults vvhen he spits in their face and shoots them vvith Miriam without the camp and it vvere a blest vvork if this led to Repentance And a 3d piece of vvork I vvould recommend to you is to see if ye can believe indeed Try if ye have Faith and a vvell breathed Faith a biding Faith that will sett its face to a storm remember that word that Christ hath to his disciples Mark 4.40 Why are ye so fearful O! ye of little faith Hovv is it that ye have no Faith vvhen they in a storm like to drovvn and cryed Master cares thou not that we perish vvhen he has rebuked the vvind and sea he gives them this check There are many vvho for all the times and exercises have past over them have had some dreilling and skirmishes for Faith vvhich are presently discust but God may see it meet to give them exercise for a fight of Faith to see if their Faith be a fresh-weather-Faith or a Faith that vvill venture on the Deep at his vvord and look that Christ have not that to say Why are ye so fearful how is it that ye have no faith He is learning his people to believe vvhen he puts them to live and fend among the Promises by Faith And a 4th word I give you vvhich I vvill not say should be vvritten upon gold Letters but upon your hearts vvho vvould fend by Faith amongst the Promises till the performance come and it is that Rev. 3.10 Here is the patience and faith of the saints Having spoken before of sore troubles vvhy is Patience put first and then Faith because many a time Faith may not have a turn to put its hand to but to vvait for God and see if ye can vvin to that Faith vvhich vvhen it has not a turn to do but patiently wait on God is about that And a fifth vvord I recommend to you is that spoken of David Acts 13.36 It is said After he had served his own generation by the will of God he fell on sleep Whatever may be the particular meaning of the place it may safely be taken up thus That David took his generation work as God put it in his hand he was not a carver or prescriber but a submitter to God if it was a generation vvork a work commanded by God and necessary for him to be studied vvhen the people of God are put to fend by Faith amongst the Promises till performance come O! what thoughts of heart will they have were they thus and thus employed how refreshful vvould it be to them but many have no more but that they are cast idle and necessitat to sit idle at Christ's feet and look up to him and their idleness is very unpleasant to flesh But thou vvho art in that posture vvould learn to believe thou can never be put out of Work A godly man can never be an idle man change his vvork he may but idle he cannot be were it but to bear and submit to want of work it is work And O! how sweet is that let the saint be tost as a ball in a large place they are always at work acceptable to God And then ye would learn to see beauty in a generation work be what it will that is the knack of it to speak so the main thing to be noticed If thou be serving thy generation by the will of God however it be in a work that is unpleasant to thee even thy idleset thy humbling work thou should learn to see a beauty in it that thou may lay it on his altar as an acceptable service to him as if thou were at work more refreshing to thee These are some few thoughts why the Lord on several accounts holds his people at the trade of Faith and sends them to fend by Faith among the Promises till the performance come I shall go no further The Lord bless his word to you SERMON XLV Psalm 130. Verse 8. And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities I Am now drawing towards a close of this Psalm upon which I have insisted so long upon the account of the constant and universal usefulness of the subject matter therein contianed From the Arguments encouraging Israel to hope in God which is the Exhortation in the 7 verse from these Arguments I say to press and invite to hope in God I have been marking somewhat that is supposed that is the case of God's Israel who are invited to hope and allowed to hope in God that they are under misery and bondage and particularly under the bondage of sin And I have spoken also to what is proposed for their encouragement as 1. That there is mercy with God 2. That with him there is plenteous redemption And 3. From the connexion betwixt the seventh and eighth Verses That what is in God and with God for the behove of his people will undoubtedly be put forth and
2. As the ground that Faith goes on does still continue the same so obedience to the Command of Believing is never dispensed with There is never a time wherein God says I will dispense with you to Believe he says not believe when the waters are at the ancles and I will dispense with you when they overflow the banks but go things as they will Faith is still a commanded and indispensible duty ye have this clear Luke 8.50 and the parallel places when that Ruler came to Christ about the curing of his sick daughter he is encouraged to believe while she is sick and not dead but when she is dead one comes from his house and says to him Thy daughter is dead trouble not the Master thou and we might have believed the more before she was dead but now the case is desperat therefore it is needless to thee to employ him any more But doth Christ homologat such a principle no but when he heard it he says to the man Fear not believe only for she shall be made whole when she is sick and when she is dead he is bidden believe only And 3. Consider That not only does the ground of Faith continue the same and the command of Believing indispensible but Trials eminent sharp and of long continuance are opportunities of eminent work for Faith He is not counted a man of courage that in a Muster will vapor and play the gallant but who in the Chock of the Battle kythes his stoutness and resolution as a famous Spartan said when it was told him the Persians arrows were so thick that they would cover the Sun all the better of that said he for us we shall fight the better in the cool so it is with Faith Eminent Trials and difficulties of long continuance gives to it opportunities of eminent service and work What is it to believe while thou art sailing alongst the shore but when thou lanchest out into the deeps and meets with a storm and neither Sun Moon nor Stars for many days appear when the tryal is hightned and lengthned and some falls off on that hand the day and others fall off on this hand the morrow and thou art like to be left alone that is an opportunity of eminent service and work for Faith And thou would remember that there is a favour conferred on thee when thy Faith is put to it at such a time what will thou do If thou will cast thy self and all thou hast over upon God put all in his reverence and wait upon him for an issue From these things that I have but superficially touched be exhorted to study the life of Faith better that ye may be fixt and strong in the Faith ye must not content your selves with putting out some acts of Faith but ye must learn to live by it to make it your food and subsistence which if well studied many a tentation and snare in snary times would be broken and God would be waited upon patiently It is true when ye are surcharged with bitterness ye will get enough of things to father it on your difficulties are many and great your delays are protracted but ye light not on the root of your distemper the weakness of your Faith O thou of little faith wherefore didst thou doubt where is thy faith for Isai 28.16 He that believes shall not make haste and consequently he that makes haste does not believe or is at a low pace as to the exercise of faith when impatience and bitterness prevails and therefore guard against your cankering fretfulness weariness fainting Do not tempt God to give you a relief by a change of your condition and being seen on the mount but rouze up your faith to exercise say how is it that I am so fearful how is it I have no Faith seek the issue of all your pressures by rouzing up your Faith it will discover to you Hagars well at hand when ye are casting down your Ishmaels to die for thirst it will bring noon day at night and of weakness it will make you strong when ye are faint and have no might it will bring in power to you and renew your strength when ye see no appearance of an issue it will bid you look again as Elijah said 1 King 18.43 Till ye see the cloud that will rain When that holy man Ezra is laid by in confessing and mourning over the sins of the people Chap. 9. There is a good man who Chap. 10 2. bids him look again arise from his heaviness and fall about a work of Reformation For there was hope in Israel concerning that thing So Jonah when he said I am cast out of thy sight rouzing up his Faith saith Yet will I look again towards thy holy temple and that man Psal 77.7 When he begins to question Whether the Lord will cast off for ever and will be favourable no more if his mercy be clean gone if his mercy doth fail for ever if he hath forgoâ—ten to be gracious and in his anger he hath shut up tender mercies and is laid by with that work he rouzes up his Faith and looks again And Verse 10. saith This is my infirmity I will remember the years of the right hand of the most high So would thou do when thou looks on the sadness of thy condition and many pressures and art tempted to give over rouze up thy confidence and that will give thee a satisfactory account of that which thou counted desperat and hopeless The Lord bless his Word SERMON XXVI Psalm 130. Verse 5. And in his word do I hope WAiting on God being a most excellent and necessary Subject and Duty in regard that only they that endure to the end shall be saved and that it is these whose Patience has had its perfect work that shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord we had need to study all these things which may either set Patience on work or keep it at work And here I am upon the great support of the Waiting Man He waits for the Lord because he hope in his word In the Forenoon I spoke to the first general Observation in these words That Patience and Waiting cannot be well cherished without Faith and Hope Which I branched out in two That the Tryals of the Saints may be such and so ordered for greatness and continuance that Faith only will be able to discern an issue of them and that faith chearfully employed will discern this issue Now the Lesson I am to fall upon in the 2d general Observation is That Faith enabling to endure hard lots and to endure without succumbing must take the Word of God for its ground and Faith having the Word for its ground so long as God alters not his Sentence in his Word Faith must believe and hope expect the accomplishment of that word I hope in his word saith the Psalmist hence it is to allude to that of the Apostle Rom. 10 6. That the man
through grace to be of a clean heart as the Psalmist suppones although he win not to perfection yet he may win to that commended in Nathanael Joh. 1.7 Behold an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile Do not understand it that there is any Israelite that hath not the seeds of hypocrisie and guile But he is an Israelite indeed that hath not approved of predomining or reigning guile and hypocrisie and that may be win at which I speak for their encouragment who are true Israelites And 5. This sense of inward pollution and endeavour to purify the heart through the exercise of Faith in Christ it will appear in the outward conversation if a man be an Israelite indeed in whom there is no approven guile that must accompany him which ye have Gal. 6.16 He must be a man that walks according to the Rule of the new Creature Now these are some brief hints which I have given you of the Characters of an Israelite indeed but when I have minted thus to decipher him I have not done with this point it 's a concerning point indeed to make it sure that ye are true Israelites who may lay claim to hope in God And therefore I would press it a little further in the doing of which if I should offer to you motives from what I said before of Israels having still ground of hope in God I should run in a round and come back upon that which ye have heard and therefore to press it another way I shall press you to consider what is said of the Israel of God which may help to stir you up to make it sure that ye are of that number that have ground of hope in God I find in that fore-cited place Gal. 6.16 Mercy and peace to be to their allowance peace be on them and mercy and upon all the Israel of God mercy for their miseries and peace for their disquiets and vexations And I find it said Psal 73.1 That truly God is good to Israels It is beyond all peradventure that he is good to them which goodness is a solid ground of hope in all exigencies that it shall be well with Israel And to press this motive if the Lord may please to bless it for your quickening and up-stirring to make it sure ye are of that number and so have good ground to hope in God I shall deduce this goodness of God to Israel in three or four steps only And 1. In the general consider that the goodness of God to his people is unquestionably so great and so satisfying that were it well known it could not but rationally invite all to share in it by becoming true Israelites I may say of Gods goodness to Israel as Christ said to that woman of Samaria Joh. 4.10 If thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that saith to thee Give me to drink thou wouldst have asked of him and he would have given thee living water If folk knew this goodness they would need no other motive to excite them to be Israelites that they might share in it That is remarkable which we find of it Jer. 31.12 They shall come and sing in the hight of Zion and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord for wheat and wine and for oyl and for the young of the flock and of the herd and their soul shall be as a watered garden and they shall not sorrow any more at all What a refreshful satisfying thing must the goodness of God be that hath such effects And vers 14. I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness saith the Lord. It 's beyond all peradventure that the goodness of God to his Israel is so satisfying and satiating that it hath not a slighter but he that is ignorant of it were it known mens reason would tell them that they were irrational if they should not seek to share in it But 2. For your exciting to enquire after it in general ye would consider that it is a goodness whereof little account can be given but by experience there is no describing of it but by feeling of it David when he is overcome with it Psal 34.8 says O taste and see that the Lord is good blessed is the man that trusts in him A man must experimentally taste of before he can see this goodness of God as it is And we find 1 Pet. 2.23 the Apostle lays a great stress on this that no man as a new born babe can desire the sincere milk of the word that he may grow thereby but he that hath tasted that the Lord is gracious If one should enquire what is all this goodness of God that should invite me to make it sure that I am an Israelite that I may share in it There is no answer comparable to this Taste and see that the Lord is good Speak of it to a stranger to it in experience he cannot take it up Prov. 14.10 The heart knoweth its own bitterness and a stranger doth not intermedle with his joy The world knows not what is betwixt God and his people either in their ups or downs And if it be thought that these who have tasted of this goodness can give an account of it ye will find them profess that the hight of the account they can give of it is to sit down and wonder at it to admire it as being surcharged and overcome with it What saith David of it Psal 36.7 8. How excellent is thy loving kindness O Lord therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy plâ—asure And Psal 31.19 O how great is thy goodness which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee c. He wonders at it as being overcome with it but he cannot well make language of that which he feels of Gods goodness to Israel so that experience is the only sit mean to bring folk to know and take up how good God is But yet 3. The Scripture is not wanting to give such hints of it as we are capable of and such as may tell us that it is a matchless goodness I shall not offer to enter upon this deep to speak of all the goodness and kindness of God to Israel from Election to Conversion from Conversion to Glorification To essay to find out or fathom this Ocean were to lose our selves in this Subject There are three general words which if we would ponder might give some hints of this matchless goodness of God to his people As 1. That in an appropriated and peculiar sense it is said That God is good to Israel Is he good to none else Yes Psal 145.9 The Lord is good to all and his tender mercies are over all his works Psal 104.24 The earth is full of his riches Psal 33 5. The