to cite they invite you to permit ravening Woolfs freely to enter your streets and tear in peeces all they meet with to come into your Houses and Chambers to devour the souls of your best beloved Wives Sons Daughters Servants and Friends to lead them all out to a ditch and drown them yea which is infinitely worse to cast them all in the pit of damnation These were hard expressions if they were our own and not our betters I mean Christ and his Apostles Would you permit any whom you were able to hinder to rent the Coat of Christ to tear his Skin to cut his Flesh to pull his Arm from his Shoulder These are the things which too long have been done in our eyes It were good that such impious actions so grievous to God so hurtfull to the souls of men at last were stopped Would you count him a gracious parent who should wink at any who brought into his house Vipers and Serpents Woolfs and Tigers to destroy his Children who brought in Boxes of Pestiferous Cloaths and boldly spread them on the Beds and about the Table where himself and family were to sit and lie This is the office and onely exercise of all our Hereticks and Patrons of errour All Christians are obliged to the uttermost of their power to quench the fire of Heresie and Schism but above all other we have a speciall obligation for this duty we have lifted up our hands to the most high God vowing to him in the sight of all the Neighbour-Nations our endeavours in the sincerity of our hearts to extirpate Heresie and Schism and whatsoever shall be found contrary to sound Doctrine without respect of persons If herein we should be negligent would not God avenge our solemn Perjury If respect to any person should make us ever think of breaking that Bond and expressely contrary thereto to begin once to tamper about the toleration of errours contrary to sound Doctrine what might we and the posterity expect from the hand of the God of Justice and Truth Let none object the example of the States of Holland to us in this point The example of Holland an swered For first Where the Will of God is evident the contrary example of men is not to be regarded Secondly The evill example of one State is not to be followed against the good example of all other Protestant Churches Thirdly These States were never bound to God by such a Covenant as we are Fourthly In these States there hath been a connivance at Errours by particular Magistrates for their private gain but to this hour was ever any Sect among them so impudent as to offer a Petition for a Toleration by Law when lately some assayed to do it they repented ever since of that folly Lastly Hath not the Magistrates connivance without any Legall Toleration so much multiplied Sects among them that for this one thing though for many other their renown be great they have become infamous in the Christian World The godly among them have been more grieved with this scandalous sin then with any other and those of them who are wise do see their State this day in greater civill danger by this peece of impious policy and from it apprehend greater hazards of commotion and ruine to their State then from any other ground However the connivence there at Sects and the multiplication of Sects by connivence is no wayes comparable to what is among us but we trust that this kinde of our erring from the wayes of God is near a period and shall shortly be remedied So much for the first part of the Churches complaint The second part of the Complaint exponed followeth the second And hardned our heart from thy fear Not onely they had wanderd out of the wayes of God in divers by-paths of sin but in these sins they were obstinate their hearts had been hard the fear of God moved them not to repentance This was a worse evill then the first so they acknowledge the hand of God and his sore punishment into it and of this make a heavy regrate to him The originall word that here is turned harden What is hardnesse of heart is but once else in Scripture Job 39.16 spoken of the Ostridge She is hardned against her young ones or is removed from her young ones she leaveth them alone It signifies two things To harden or to remove Some of the best Latin Interpreters translate it here Why removest thou our heart from thy fear The Chaldee Paraphrast takes it so also but the Septuagint and the most of other Interpreters old and late translate it as we have it The words will bear both but for shortnesse I shall hold with our own translation onely Hardnesse of heart is a metaphor importing the wilfull obstinate and rebellious disposition of the Spirit against the fear and counsells of God As hard Wax refuseth the stamp while the soft receives the impression A hard Wall puts back the Ball which the soft Ayr letteth passe through A Corslet of Iron holds out the Bullet which the softnesse of the flesh receiveth The way how God hardneth the heart against his fear How God hardeneth the heart is not by infusion of any hardnesse or any evill disposition into the heart but by three other actions First By withdrawing of his gracious spirit whose operation it is that softens the heart and makes it plyable to the Counsells of God and subject to his fear Deut. 29.9 The Lord hath not given you a heart to perceive eyes to see and ears to hear to this day That all they had seen in Egypt and in the Wildernesse had not pierced their heart with the love and fear of God Of this wonderfull hardnesse of the peoples heart this reason is rendered by Moses God had not given them a heart to perceive Beside this negative action of God in hardning the heart he hath two positive He gives over the heart to its own naturall hardnesse that it may be more and more hardened Thus the Lord hardened Pharaohs heart He not onely withheld all the gracious motions of his spirit from him but let his naturall obstinacy work it self to an acquired habit of hardnesse And so what was before naturall became habituall and judiciall This is the judgement spoken of the twelfth of John from the sixth of Isaiah Make the heart of this people fat for their rejecting of my former counsels let their rebellious heart become-worse and worse so that thy ministery do them no more good Thirdly God gives over the heart judicially hardned by it self to Satans tentations whereby it becomes more blinde dead and hard then of it self alone it could be He sent evill Angels among the Egyptians for this evill among others Psal 79.49 2 Thes 2. He sends out Satan to work with Antichrist for to blinde the eye and harden the heart with strong delusions By all this you understand why the Church regrates it here to God
weighty a difficulty upon such a meer Grammatication Holding therefore to our vulgar translation The matter of a sinfull action must be distinguished from its form How does God cause us to erre and yet is not the Author of our errours For the understanding hereof we must distinguish sin and the actions of God about sin In sin there are two things albeit inseparably joyned yet essentially distinct The matter and form the act and its pravity the one is naturally good the other morally evill This is visible in two actions whose matter is the same but the forms much different For example the stoning of Naboth and the stoning of Achan the substance of the actions the casting of the stones at both was the same but the forms was much different The casting at an innocent man and at a man condemned by God and all Israel the one form makes the stoning of Naboth an act of unjust murder the other form makes the stoning of Achan an act of just punishment The acts not of Gods will and decrees Three acts of Gods effectuall providence about sin for such concern not the words in hand but of his actuall providence about the matter and form of sin are many The most considerable of these to us for opening of our Text are three His concourse his efficacious permission his judiciall tradition so to speak For the first 1 An active concourse in the substance of the action the Lord hath an actuall yea an active concourse and if you will an efficiency in every act of sin so far as concerns the substance or matter of the sinfull action for in him we live we move and have all our being in the most sinfull action the matter of the act being a positive entity it must be a naturally-good thing and have its existence from the first and universall mover the fountain of all Being Without this kinde of efficiency and concourse Shimei could not have moved his tongue to curse David nor Doeg drawn his sword to have killed the Priests When God denies this kinde of concourse sin is necessarily stopped When he removes the life of the two Captains they cannot oppresse Eliah When God leaves the life but takes away the sight from the Sodomites at Lots door and the power from the arm of Jeroboam their sin is impedite When by suspending of his operation he takes away the will from David to kill Nabal though both life and power remained the sin is marred But for such kinde of working in the sinner and cooperation with the sinfull act Sin uses not to be ascribed to God more then the generation of living Creatures to the motion and influence of the Heavens for effects are denominate from the second and particular causes not from the first and universall though their efficiency and concourse be never so necessary and certain The next action of God about sin is 2 An efficacious permission of the sinfulnesse of the act his efficacious permission This for its object hath not onely the matter and substance of the sinfull act but its very form its pravity its anomy its sinfulnesse This malignant quality is a morall evill and so cannot be of God who is goodnesse it self it s a privation and defect and so the cause of it is not efficient but deficient If we would render the cause of a lame mans crooked walking we behoved to distinguish betwixt the walking and its crookednesse The walking we would ascribe to the motive power of the mans soul and to the instruments of motion in his body but the crookednesse of it to the defect and hurt of some instrument of motion not to the soul or to the faculty or to the instrument of motion but onely to some defect of the instrument So the finfulnesse of sin is to be ascribed not to any efficiency of God but to the deficiency of mans will which now is sinfull and before sin was weak as being made of nothing and so able to change it self from good to evill but however the sinfulnesse of sin cannot be charged on Gods either efficiency or deficiency yet it must exist by his free permission for nothing can have any existence in the world any being in the dominion of God without the leave and permission of the great Lord and Master of the World That action of God which in respect of sin is called a permission in regard of the sinner is a desertion This is really one thing with desertion This considered will help to clear that which is the hardest knot in this matter the efficacy that is said to be in the permission and yet without all efficiency of the permitter in the sinfulnesse permitted This matter which naturally is exceeding dark will be best seen in similitudes When the Sun goes down the darknesse of the night necessarily doth follow when the Sun declines towards the Southern signes of the Zediack the Winter blasts certainly do come on the Sun the fountain of light and heat in propriety of speech cannot be called the cause of the nights darknesse or of the Winters cold yet these as ordinary and necessary consequents are usually ascribed to the Suns removall Hot water removed from the fire becomes incontinent cold A ruinous Wall when its props are removed falls quickly to the ground The coldnesse of the water flows not from the fire but from its own nature the falling of the Wall comes from the naturall heavinesse of the stones which without the impediment of a supporter makes them to fall downward It is so with God and man when he withdraws we become dark as midnight cold like Ice we fall to the ground These effects necessarily follow his desertion but not as effects onely as consequents their proper cause is neither in God nor his removall but in our nature which of it self since the fall is full of these malign qualities This kinde of providence about our sins is expressed in words of the active form of blinding the eyes and hardning the heart Not that the Lord infuses any darknesse or hardnesse in the heart which is not its own but because upon the removing of his illuminating and softning Spirit the naturall blindnesse and hardnesse of mans spirit lurking before doth then appear The third action of God about sin Gods third action is a Judiciall Tradition is that which I did call a Judiciall Tradition when God as a just Judge punishes sin by sin when he gives over men not onely to their own heart but to the devil and his instruments to be tempted seduced and drawn away to commit wickednesse with greedinesse However all the sinfull actions be immediately the works of the sinner alone and the upstirring to these actions be from the devil and his instruments laying arguments objects and occasions as baits and snares in the way of the sinner yet God as a just Judge sending out Satan and men as his executioners and making way for
That he had hardened her heart from his fear Hardnesse was naturall to her heart yet they found Gods judgement causing in justice that naturall evill to increase upon them From this part of the Complaint observe The Doctrine Judicial hardnesse is the godlies greatest grief Judiciall hardnesse of heart from the fear of God in the times of trouble is the godlies chiefest grief and complaint to God The troubles and calamities of the Jews were great at this time their sins also were great But behold here they complain to God more then for either their calamities or other sins that God had hardened their heart from his fear in the midst of all their sins and judgements This was it that made the Prophet Jeremy amazed The Proof Jere. 5.3 O Lord thou hast stricken them but they have not grieved thou hast consumed them but they have refused to receive correction they have made their faces harder then a rock The Reason why this condition of a people is most lamentable is first It is a presage of destruction The first Reason When strokes humble not a people and soften not their heart to the fear and obedience of God then it cometh to this Why should ye be stricken any more After correction is obstinately refused then cometh rejection 2 Kings 17.18 God is very angry with the ten Tribes and removes them out of his sight the great cause we have Verse 14. They hardned their necks like the necks of their fathers that did not beleeve in the Lord their God This same was the cause of the ruine of Jerusalem Jere. 19.15 I will bring upon this City all the evill that I have pronounced against it because they have hardned their necks that they might not hear my words Jere. 26.29 The Lord hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath because they had hardned their necks and did worse then their fathers Another Reason The second Reason This is such an evill as draweth on eternall perdition after temporall ruine Rom. 2.5 After thy hardnesse and impenitent heart thou treasurest up to thy self wrath against the day of wrath There is a treasure and heap of everlasting wrath from this hardnesse Heb. 3.7 To day if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts as in the provocation Wherefore I was grieved with that Generation and sware in my wrath They shall not enter into my rest Meaning such grief and anger in God against this evil as holds out of heaven Thirdly The third Reason This sin hath extraordinary malignancy in it though neither eternall nor temporall wrath followed on it The hand of an angry God of a working devil and high degree of corruption are into it in its production all these three have place Before any be hardned in sin and become obstinate the corruption of the heart must be great and highly advanced Also Satans hand is in the blinding of the eyes and searing with the hot-iron in stupifying and making senslesse the conscience of the hardned person and God as a just Judge putting on the executioner must be also about this action So that this hardning is very oft the signe of a Reprobate to whom God shews no mercy Whom he will he hardens and sheweth mercy on whom he will shew mercy albeit it s not ever so as in our Text and elsewhere God hardens the hearts of some for a time whom thereafter he softens and to them sheweth mercy Yet oft being the case of Reprobates and ever very like to it and in it self a degree to that wofull condition it affrighteth the godly when they see it in themselves or others and becometh a great part of their complaint to God The Use is for Exhortation The Vse That we be carefull to grieve and complain to the Lord for this great evil wherever we see it in our selves or others Not onely the most faithfull of Gods Watch-men in all the three Kingdoms but also those of the people who by the anointing of God have the eyes of their minde opened to see the Spirituall estate of their own or their neighbours souls bear witnesse with an unanimous testimony that notwithstanding all the Judgements which lie on the Land yet this hardnesse of heart is greater and more universall then ever they have seen it This cannot be but the hand of God adding this Spirituall Plague as the worst and greatest of all our evils For this we have great reason to mourn and intreat the removall of it above all our Woes Motives to the Duty we need no other then the Reasons of the Doctrine If thou finde this evil crept in thy heart as I doubt not but it lodgeth sensibly in some hearts that hear me or though the Lord had blessed thee with the tender heart of Josiah to mourn for the sins and calamities that are already and to tremble for what further is coming yet if thou see this Mischief proclaiming it self in the countenances and lives of the most of thy neighbours as truely an observing and conscientious eye will remark too much of it where-ever he will look even in the days and places of most solemn Humiliation when hardnesse of heart should be banished farthest away this evil I say wherever found in thy self or others should be complained of to God For having in it so much of an angry God a busie devil and of a high degree of humane corruption it being also a presage and certain forerunner if not remedied of greater Temporal Judgements then yet we have seen albeit we have seen and heard of as much wo as our fathers in these Kingdoms have felt for some hundred yeers though all their sufferings were put together Yet the hardnesse of our hearts if it continue will make all we have suffered but the beginning of evils yea this hardnesse of heart poisons and envenoms all our sufferings with a cursed quality Pestilence wounds spoiling of goods death are all sanctified and sweetned to a softned heart but to a hardned heart they are the first acts of a wofull Tragedie there is a treasure of wrath and lake of fire and brimstone at their end attending them If we were able on these days set apart for this end above all other to attain the blessing of a soft heart and the Judgement of a heart hardned by God removed we would quickly be secure of damnation we would becom certain of the removall of all these Judgements which have very long so heavily lien both on the Church and State and on the backs if not of our persons yet of many in whom our interest is great we should be assured of heavenly consolations against all evils that for the time were on or hereafter might befall us Let it therefore be our earnest endeavour to finde this blessing by the Word by the Sacraments by publike by private Prayer by Reading by Conference by Meditation At this time I will point at some Scripturall helps towards
it First The first cure of hardnesse is The embracing of the word by faith believe the Word of the Lord. Gods Word is the means that softneth the heart like the Sun that melteth the wax likethe Hammer that breaketh the stone the Fire that softneth the Iron the watry cloud that moistneth the dry and parched ground With all care and conscience set thy heart under the beams of that Sun the stroke of that Hammer before the heat of that fire under the droppings of that cloud The contempt the neglect the misbelief of this holy instrument of the Spirit is a great cause of all the hardnesse of heart we speak of Heb. 3. To day if ye will hear his voice harden not your heart Take heed there be not in any of you an evil heart of misbelief Who will not hear the voice or doth hear but with an evil heart of misbelief they harden their heart The Word which should melt them as the Sun doth Wax hardneth them as the Sun doth Clay that Word which to the believer is the loud voice of the Trumpet of God to waken them when sleeping to quicken them when dead becomes to the unbeliever and carelesse hearer the song of a pleasant voice to sing them asleep and to keep them sleeping To such the most powerfull Ministery of a Prophet of an Apostle of Christ himself serveth to make the heart more hard and fat and dead then it was before as from the sixth of Isai and twelfth of John it is manifest That which to the faithfull is a quickning Spirit to the misbeliever is a killing letter What to the one is the power of God to salvation to the other is but as sounding Brasse and a tinkling Cymbal Let it therefore be your earnest endeavour in all holy exercises about the Word private or publike be it preaching or reading or conference to embrace it with an honest heart with all attention reverence and faith Particularly Especially the promise of a soft heart embrace and lay up in thy heart the promise of a soft heart as it is set down Ezek. 36.26 there the people of God were in a worse condition then we yet The fury of the Lord was so far kindled against them for their sins that they were cast out of their Land they were swallowed up on every side as it is in the third verse They were taken up in the lips of talkers they were an infamy of the people and the reproach of the Nations and for all that were not reformed but continued to profane the Name of God and to encrease their provocations in the midst of all their Judgements Yet even then the Lord doth promise For my own Names sake not for your sake will I do this A new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and will give you an heart of flesh Let this Word as a pickle of good seed be laid up in the heart it will in time break up to good fruit This is a part of the new Covenant as appeareth from Jer. 31 and 32. and Heb. 8. which belongs to us as to any other which we would embrace humbly waiting till the Lord perform it to us A second help to softnesse of heart will be a Catalogue of sins for which we ought to mourn The second Cure of hardnesse is A clear sight of sin for softnesse of heart is either the same thing or proceeds in a great part from grief and forrow for sin as hardnesse of heart and impenitency are the same or are always conjoyned Thou from thy hardnesse or impenitent heart The tendernesse and melting of Josiahs heart was his mourning for the Lands sin The softning of the Jews heart from their long Plague of induration is when they are weeping and in bitternesse for their sins as one for his first-born The clear sight of sin being a help to grief sorrow and repentance must be so towards the softnesse of heart The speciall end of these solemn Humiliations is for registrating in clear and legible letters in the hearts of the godly the sins both of the Land and of their own persons The Tables of our conscience have been so oft impressed with these Types that I need no more but to remit every one to the books of their brests There you may read in capitall letters the cause of our Woes the matter of our Mourning While the Lords Candle did shine over our head What are the sins of the Land and we washed our steps in butter while to all the Neighbour-Nations for a great number of yeers we were a wonder of Prosperity and with abundance of all Temporall blessings we had likewise plenty of the Gospel How did we meet the Lord Great numbers of all ranks and estates were obstinate in Idolatry and known Papists Of them who professed the Truth how many were altogether void of knowledge void of fear without any conscience of God The most did pollute the Service and Church of God with manifold Superstitions and Prelaticall Tyranny persecuting all who had the least zeal to oppose their Corruptions True Piety was mocked The Sabbath by publike Authority profaned Covetousnesse Pride Oppression Pampering of the flesh Uncleannesse like a flood did overflow the Land In these very times when the Lords patience is broken off and he from heaven is revealing his wrath against our wickednesse yet where is our Repentance How many have an ear to hear more what the present Rods of God do speak then what his former Favours How many Popish and Prelaticall spirits have yet mourned for their old ways How many upon conscience have left any of the named abominations How great an addition have we made to our old heap of sin How much have we put to our old treasure of wrath Rather then to be reclaimed from their ways Hath not a great part run to the Sword and covered the Land with more innocent blood more Rapines and Ravishments then this Isle did see for many Ages together Many whom Gods mercy hath separate to the right hand Episcopacy and Independency flow both from one fountain How do they still provoke the Lord continuing without grief for their old ways And sundry of them who professemost Piety advancing the old unhappie way of this Land an affectation of singularity and difference from all the Reformed The bitter Potions of Gods Judgements have not yet purged out this very evil humour of many stomacks The vain spirits of this Land made that the peculiar glory of England which was truely her peculiar infamy and proper unhappinesse and the speciall grief of the most godly in the Land The gloriation of these light spirits was That England did excell all other Reformed Churches in their Episcopacy and Service-book also That the moderation of their King and Prelats was such that Romane Catholikes might enjoy a sober liberty
among them without all hazard of persecution Is this humour diminished to this day Or with a little change doth it not predomine yet in many We must still excell all other Churches in our Government In place of Episcopacie we will have a new Popularity Just the old Brownism of the rigid Separatists covered with the new name of Independency For after triall it will be found that this new and Middle way as it is called is really the extremity of the most rigid Separation That it is not a semi but a sesqui-Separation Independency is not a seâ—i but a sesqui-separation That for the smaller crotchets of the Brownists which they lay aside they adde more errors of a worse stamp which the old Separatists were wont much to detest But to sweâ—ten our new eminency above other Protestants it must be mixed with a Liberty of Conscience not that for which the King Court and Bishops were lately so much cryed out upon The toleration onely of Papists or any one false Religion but a full and Catholike Liberty for all imagiuable kindes of false Religion much more then to this day was ever required either in Amsterdam or Pall or Transilvania or any where else where the licentiousnesse of erring in the great wrath of God hath been permitted to dwell Upon these things the godly would look not as upon a subject of talking or an incentive of wrath and indignation against the persons of any but to be matter of heart-grief and mourning to the Lord in our secret places In the end of this Catalogue of publike sins thou wouldst have annexed a Register of thy personall provocations When thou hast brought the Candle of Gods Word and Spirit within thy own house and within the Cabinet of thy own brest doubtlesse thou wilt behold so many abominations both fleshly and spirituall that will be just cause of watering thy Couch with thy tears and pouring out thy heart before the face of the Lord if thou wer able in tears of blood A third help to softnesse of heart A third Cure of hardnesse is Motives to fear is Motives to fear for this hardnesse of heart proceedeth as from misbelief and impenitency so also from security wherefore in our Text it is opposite to fear Why hast thou hardned our hearts from thy fear And Josiah so soon as tendernesse of heart came upon him began to fear and tremble So Motives to fear are helps to softnesse and cures for hardnesse of heart Of these I point shortly but at three The Judgements of God on others His Mercies to us And if these affect not The Wrath yet to come on us For the first 1 Judgements on others we would oft remember the examples given us by God Who ever thou art thou hast thy patern from God Be thou a Church-man a Citizen a Knight an Earl a Duke a Prince how hath the Lord scourged divers of thy Coat lately before thy eyes wounded killed impoveriffied disgraced many and put others to stand this day on the brink of ruine and worldly misery Were they the greatest sinners on whom the Tower of Siloam fell Or they whose blood Pilate mingled with their Sacrifice The Lords remark on these Judgements was That except we repent we shall all likewise perish The late Judgements which God hath inflicted on many of thy quality are loud words to thee that thou mayest fear and tremble that thy heart may melt within thee for thy sins lest the Lord make thee a spectacle of Judgement to others who by the miseries of others wouldst not be taught to repent Again Remember the great mercies of the Lord 2 Mercies on us For there is mercy with God that he may be feared The speciall means whereby Nathan softned the heart of David after it had been long hardned in sin with Bathsheba was a Catalogue of Gods mercies towards him 2 Sam. 2. I dâ—livered thee out of the hand of Saul I made thee King over Israel I gave thee thy masters house and if that had been too little I would have given thee more Why hast thou despised my Commandment The ointment of mercy is most softning of it gracious heart when it groweth into hardnesse It s good to have a Register of Gods favours both to the publike and thy person Consider all that the Lord hath done lately for the Church and Kingdom If the Malignant party had prevailed as once they were too like to have done if their Tyranny in Church and State had been established by the overthrow of the gracious party in the whole Isle what wofull days should have come upon us and the posterity That the Lord hath heard our Prayers and from the heaven hath done so many and so great things for us That we are in so fair a way to have both Church and State setled according to Truth and Justice That for our persons we have been guided aright in the common Cause that when so many greater wiser better then we have been given over to the counsels of their own hearts to joyn with the enemy for their own disgrace and wrack That the Lord should have kept thy heart strait and hold â—â— thee on thee side wherein was Justice Truth and the blessing of God That in that party the Lord hath taken any service at thy hand when many more able and as willing have been unserviceable That thy life thy limbs thy estate are preserved when this service hath cost many their life some their limbs some their estates These and the like favours would be remembred for the softning of our heart In the third place 3 Greater Judgements yet coming if neither Judgements on others nor mercies on thy self will move consider what remedilesse evils may shortly be the reward of so great a contempt When Nabals heart grew like a stone within him the hand of God did in a little time cut him off by death When neither Judgements nor mercies bring a heart to fear the Lord usually pours out the full Vials of his heaviest wrath It is a fearfull thing to fall into the hand of that consuming fire We would do well to be lifting up our eyes to that invisible Spirit whom the world cannot see To behold his hand guiding all the wheels of publike and private affairs Were our State much better setled then yet for a long time it can be if he be miskent he can cast down in a moment more then men can build in many yeers If he be not feared and sought to he will so crosse and confound the guides of Church and State that when they are at the end of the Wildernesse on the very borders of Canaan he can bring them back to toil in the Wildernesse till they die without so much as a sight of that Canaan though once they had come very neer unto it Albeit the publike did prosper yet the fearfull wrath of God for thy hardnesse of heart may light on thy
days of Humiliation and when else their hearts are loosed to mourn do deplore Yet here is our Comfort That in answer to our Supplications the Lord hath stirred up the hearts of those who have power effectually to minde that which we are confident will prove the Remedy of these and many more of our present Evils I mean The setting up without further Delay of the Lords Government in his own House over all the Land The whole Government being transmitted from the Assembly and looked upon by both Houses with a gracious Aspect and sundry Votes already past upon the chief parts thereof it is certainly expected that in a very short time the whole Frame shall be erected and not onely be accompanied with the joyfull Acclamations of this Land and of all the Churches abroad but also filled with so much Grace and Power from the presence of the Lord as shall prove an heavenly Attractive without any need of humane violence to draw the spirits of those who for the time do most dissent and oppose to its admiration and love Waiting and praying for the sight of that happie day I rest Thy Servant in the Lord R. B. A Sermon preached before the Right Honourable the House of Lords July 30. 1645. ISAI 63.17 Lord why hast thou made us to erre from thy ways and hardned our hearts from thy fear Return for thy servants sake the Tribes of thine Inheritance IN this and the two next Chapters The Division of the Chapter we have a heavenly Conference and Dialogue betwixt Christ and the Church of Israel in the time of her affliction in Babel The Dialogue hath Three or Six parts Three Questions of the Church and Three Answers of Christ In the first verse of this Chapter The first Pars. we have the first Question and Answer The Church about that time of the Captivity to which this part of the Prophecie relateth was much oppressed with many Enemies God after all his wrath begins to arise and take order with them who long had deyoured her especially with Edom the neerest and most bitter Enemy of Jacob. When she sees the sudden and unexpected Vengeance on Edom admiring who could be the author and worker of it she proposes the Question Who he was that had destroyed Bozra the principall City of the Edomites and was marching in his great and glorious strength from the Land of Edom the service there being ended to other of the Enemies Countreys Unto the Churches Interrogation Christ answers That it was he himself who now by his works was demonstrating the truth of his ancient promises and shewing the might of his power to save his people from the Enemies oppression Observe The Doctâ—ine When the Church hath wrestled long with her enemies and is ready to faint and give over on a sudden Christ the King and Captain of the Host of Israel comes down and breaks the strength of the prevailing enemy to the Church her great admiration The second part of the Dialogue is in the next five verses The second part of the Chapter The Church finding it was her Lord and God who was begun to take vengeance on her enemies before he go she is desirous of more conference with him and proposes a second Question Wherefore his Garments were red as if he had been treading a Presse of red wine The Lords Answer is That the set time of his Vengeance upon her Enemies was come That though her strength was gone and among all her friends there was none able to stand against her foes yet he alone would do it and by his own Arm had destroyed already some of them with so great a slaughter that all his glorious Raiment was stained with the blood of the slain Hence observe The first Doctrine first When the condition of the Church is most desperate upon earth then is the day and hour of her certain redresse from heaven The Church The second deserted of her self and all men else hath one fast friend who alone is worth many Ten thousands able to draw her out of all deeps In the day of the Lords anger The third wo to all the enemies of the Church When the Lord begins to trample them in the Wine-presse of his Indignation if there were no more but the dashing of their bodies in pieces the watering of the ground with their blood and the staining of the garments of their killers therewith if no more followed it were well to them But they must drink after death in the Cup of the everlasting fury of the Almighty as John comments it Rev. 14.10 They shall be tormented with fire and brimstone for ever and ever In the third part of the Dialogue from the seventh verse The Subdivision of the third part the Church finding her Deliverance sensibly begun but not accomplished for though Edom was destroyed yet Babel was sitting like a Queen over the Nations and most over the rubbish of desclate Jerusalem she turns her self to her present Redeemer and most humbly supplicates him to perfect what he had begun To deliver her fully from the great burdens both of sin and misery that yet lay upon her This Prayer is set down in the remnant of this Chapter and all the next whereunto a large and gracious Answer is returned by Christ in the 65 Chapter thorow the whole The first part of the Prayer is Thanksgiving Its first member from the seventh to the fifteenth To prepare their hearts for petitioning they lay out before the Lord the great goodnesse which he of old had bestowed on the house of Israel his wonders in Egypt his glorious works at the Red Sea and in the Wildernesse the constancy of his kindnesse notwithstanding their Rebellion and vexing of his Spirit Though sometime he punished them for their sins yet he never left them for the glory of his Name and the Multitude of his mercies Not onely Moses his Shepherd but the Angel of his Presence went before them He was afflicted in all their afflictions he bare them and carried them in his arms all these days of old thorow that howling Wildernesse This is the Churches Preface to her subsequent Prayer Hence observe first The first Doctrine Thanksgiving is the meetest usher which a Petitioner can have to the Throne of Grace Praise perfumes the lips of a Supplicant it sweetens it softens it opens the heart of a Seeker and fits it singularly to receive all its desires from God The kindnesse of God in the days of Moses The second and the most ancient times is the Churches Inheritance to the worlds end All the favours of God registred in Scripture all the gracious experiments of the Saints in any time in any place are our Patrimony serving as ruled Cases to strengthen our Faith Hope and Patience in the days of our adversity The sins of many persons The third remove not the favour of God from an elect Nation
There is no interruption of the course of mercy towards a People by the destruction of many particular persons Great Vengeance may be upon Thousands the carcases of Ten Thousands may fall in the Wildernesse even of Moses himself and many of the Shepherds both of Church and State and yet the Lord may graciously march on before his People till he have setled them and his Ark in peace on his holy mountain The Prayer consists of Petitions The second member Complaints Confessions of sin Professions of faith intertexed one with another as the holy passions of the Supplicants hearts do mix them In the fifteenth verse The matter of the 15 verse there is a Petition backed with a Complaint The Lord for a long time had left his People to the outrages of their Enemies he had as it were left the earth gone up to the heaven and miskent all that the Enemy had done to his People Now therefore they petition that he might be pleased to look down upon them from his holy and glorious Throne in the heaven For this is the strange faith of the Church That she is perswaded so far of the power and goodnesse of her God at that very time when he hath left her to sink in misery for her offences that even then if he would but look back to her in never so far a distance if from the very heaven the place of his retiring he would behold her on the earth overwhelmed with misery she is hopefull if she come but in the sight of her gracious Lord he would not fail to take pity upon her and deliver her To this Petition a Complaint is subjoyned of the restraint and withdrawing of Gods ancient favours Sometimes his zeal and strength had been employed in her defence his mercies the tender bowels of his compassions had been extended towards her but now all sense of such favours were away This complaint lest it should irritate The matter of the sixteenth is presently corrected in the sixteenth Verse with a fair profession of Faith â—bove and against all present sense however the beams of Gods loving countenance did not then shine upon them as at some other time yet they professe their certain perswasion that God was their Father Though Abraham and Israel and all their bodily Progenitors should cast them away as unworthy to be counted their children yet they did beleeve that their everlasting and unchangeable God would not cast them off but deal with them as children notwithstanding of all their misdeservings As for the words in hand in the seventeenth Verse The division of the Text. the Church goes on to powre out her spirit before him whom she beleeves to be her Father in the midst of all her afflictions in a new complaint and petition The complaint hath two parts and the petition is backed with a twofold Reason The first part of the complaint is in these words O Lord why hast thou made us erre from thy wayes the second part in these Why hast thou hardned our hearts from thy fear The petition is that he would return after his long absence The first reason They were his servants the second They were his inheritance Let us consider severally the minde and use of every part As for the first part of the complaint The Exposition of the first pars four things in it would be exponed First What are the wayes of the Lord. Secondly What it is to erre from his wayes Thirdly How God makes men erre from his way Fourthly How the Church complains of this divine action Three of these particulars are easie and may be dispatched in a word but in the fourth there is no little difficulty For the first What are the wayes of God Gods wayes here are his Commandments full of holinesse and righteousnesse they are called Gods wayes because of their similitude with his nature that is holy righteous and true All his Commandments and conversation are according to the strait rule of his eternall and essentiall holinesse righteousnesse and truth Secondly Because they are his Law and Prescription his will prescribes them as a way to his creatures to walk in Thirdly Because of his presence therein in that way he is to be found He is graciously present and doth conntenance all that walk into it Fourthly Because of their end they lead to God they are the strait way wherein the godly walk till they come to the glorious palace above The second point What it is to erre from these wayes To erre from these wayes is to sin as it is expressed Psal 119.8 10. To wander from Gods Commandments When we leave Gods way and run out on the right hand or the left to the wayes of our own blinde minde and corrupted heart our false opinions against Gods truth our wicked inclinations and actions against his holy nature and revealed will all of this kinde is our erring from his wayes But the great difficulty is in the third How God makes men to erre How the Lord causes us to erre from his way This would seem to make God the cause and author of sin which is a horrid blasphemy against many Scriptures and all reason To eschew this huge great and intolerable inconvenience sundry famous interpreters do translate the originall otherwayes then we read it Not Why hast thou made or caused us to erre but Why hast thou suffered or permitted us to erre So Junius an excellent translator And many hundred yeers before him the Chaldee Paraphrast did render it Why hast thou cast us away to erre from thy wayes This interpretation is approved by very Learned and Orthodox Divines who bring this reason for it That the Hebrew word here is not simply in the active form not in Kal but as they speak in Hiphil whose signification oftentimes is not to make or cause but to permit Indeed this translation does eschew fully the difficulty The Grammaticall solution of some great men is not selid yet we dare not venture upon it for as it seems it were to make too bold with the Scripture The Septuagens the ancient Latin the French the Dutch the Italian and many more reads it just as our English Why hast thou made us to erre from thy wayes The Grammaticall reason alleaged hath no strength in this place for be it so that Hebrew Verbs in Hiphil sometime have a permissive and not an active sense though this in any word is very rare and the examples alleaged are very questionable yet for the Hiphil of the word in hand we deny that ever it can be so exponed A number of places of Scripture may be produced where Hithah must be actively exponed as here our translators read it but not one if it be not this in question can be brought where it may be exponed of a meer permission without some agency and operation upon the erring and seduced person We dare not trust the solving of so
person Achan may be stoned to death in the valley of Achor in the midst of Israels triumph The misbelieving Prince in Samaria may see the Plenty but be crushed before he taste thereof Thy hardnesse of heart if it remain will ruine thee What the fury and curse of an angry God hath ever brought on a miserable sinner in this life think upon it for shortly it may be thy portion and which is infinitely worse the whole treasures of the wrath to come a greater then ordinary condemnation for thy impenitency hardnes of heart if thou remain as thou art cannot but fall upon thee The last help I propone is Earnest Prayer A fourth Cure of hardnesse is Prayer Sometimes all the former helps will not do it for the heart is desperately wicked and incredibly hard like that of Leviathan Job 41.24 His heart is firm as a stone as hard as the nether milstone When we finde it thus shall we give over in dâ—spair Not so For there is yet mercy and power in God to make the rocks flow down to melt the mountains to dissolve the Adamant-stones There is a Warrant Neh. 9. once and again proponed for the people of God to lay hold on Gods mercy and power in the midst of their greatest Rebellion and Induration verse 16. Our father 's dealt proudly and hardned their necks and heackned not to thy Commandments But thon art a God ready to pardon gracious and mercifull thou forsakest them not Also in the 29 verse They dealt proudly and withdrew the shoulder and hardned their necks and would not hear Yet in the 31 verse Neverthelesse thou didst not forsake them for thou art a gracious and mercifull God What heart can be more hard and blinde then Pauls when he made havock of the Church yet the Lord made the scales to fall from his eyes and put in his brest in place of the stone a most gracious soft and spirituall piece of flesh The spectacle of the greatest induration the Jews when the Spirit comes on them their most obdured hearts fall to the greatest mourning Zech. 12. Let it therefore be our care in our greatest hardnesse to lie at the Throne of Grace to cry on still for this mercy of a soft heart who knoweth how soon the Lord may hear and answer When nothing else can help us if he himself come down all will yeeld to his power When the King of Glory comes to assault the most stiff and best closed heart all doors are cast open to him Psal 24.9 He breaketh the gates of brasse and smiteth the bars of iron in sunder Psal 107.16 When he puts his finger in the hole of the door the bowels of the secure Spouse will shortly be moved for him Cant. 5.4 It must be our continuall prayer that the Lord would come to put away the hardnesse of our heart to enlighten it with faith to melt it with repentance to break it with fear that so it may be a fitted Sanctuary for his perpetuall inhabitation If time were not past The last part of the verse exponed there are in the second part of the Text the Churches petition for the Lords return sundry things usefull for the present occasion Look in a little upon the meaning of the words The returning of the Lord is a metaphor taken from finite creatures that go and come But properly the Lord cannot move from place to place for his Essence is infinite he is essentially omni-present God is every where in the heaven in the earth in the Sea Psal 139. If I ascend up unto heaven thou art there if I make my bed in hell thou art there neither so onely but he fills the heaven and the earth Jer. 23.24 Do not I fill the heaven and the earth saith the Lord But not so as if when he filled all things he could be within the circle of the highest heavens 1 Kings 8.27 Behold the heavens and the heaven of heavens could not contain thee We have the reason in Job 11.8 The perfection of God is such that it is as high as heaven deeper then hell longer then the earth and broader then the Sea But beware to conceive of this infinite and immense Essence of God which is in all places and without all places as of a bodily substance for God is a Spirit and that of an infinite simplicity take heed of all grosse imaginations of him left thou turn him to an idol of thine own making Not long ago The zeal of the Court of England against Vorstius heresies Verstius and some of the Arminians in Holland began first to brangle with their Problems and thereafter to deny with their positive assertions these ground-stones of Religion At that time the zeal of England brake out to the joy of all the Churches Then the care of the King and the very Prelats was great not onely to keep Heresies as hellish vapours out of England but to have them suppressed among their neighbours in Holland with all speed We hope it shall never be told to posterity that the zeal of this Parliament was lesse against Errours at home then the Courts wont to be against that evil abroad And however for the present there be nothing so sacred in the Divine Nature and Persons which the boldnesse of Heretikes among us arising onely from impunity dare not wickedly profane yet ere long we expect a remedy to this and many more evils The Returning whereof our Text speaketh is not to be understood of the Divine Effence Nature Substance nor of the Lords common Operations but of his gracious Works of his Mercy and Compassion as we have it expresly Zech. 1.16 I am returned to Jerusalem with mercy And Jer. 12.55 I will return and have compassion on them As a man in his anger turns his back and goeth his way but when reconciled he cometh back So the Lord when grievously provoked with the sins of his people for a time departeth to his place hideth his face withdraweth the signes of his favour but thereafter when appeased he maketh his face to shine and by his Spirit works graciously in the seduced and obdured heart For this the Church here petitions That the Lord would return and make himself sensibly present to her and by the gracious work of his Spirit reclaim her from these errours and that hardnesse of heart whereinto by his absence she had fallen The Ground whereupon the Petition is builded is Gods Relation to them and their Interest in God They were his servants he their Lord and Master as it is in the last verse We are thine thou never barest rule over them they were never called by thy Name Since the Lord had taken them to be his people to serve him this was a ground to them That he would not fully nor finally cast them off but for his interest in them would return This is cleared in the last words his returning to them was not for any good was in