shall smart and bleed too before God will heale Secondly It is a great mourning because it is called a spirit of mourning As a spirit of slumber is a deep slumber When the poore Jewes shall be converted their great sin shall then be presented before them of cursing and crucifying the Lord of life as it was to those Acts 2.36 And by reason of this there shall be a great mourning that they shall desire to goe alone in secret every one apart and take their fill of mourning before the Lord open the fountaine of grace It is not a summer cloud or an April showre that is soone spent but a great mourning For 1. Before this spirit of sorrow come a mans heart takes great delight in his sinne t is his God his life and sweeter then Christ and all the joyes of heaven and therefore there must be great sorrow sin must be made exceeding bitter A man that is very hungry and thirsty after his lust must finde such meat and drink exceeding bitter else he will feed on it Solomon took great content in women but what saith he when the Lord humbled him I find a woman more bitter then death Heare this you harlots and you that live in your wanton lusts the Lord will make your sweet morsels more bitter then death to you if the Lord saves you 2. Because the greatest evils are the objects of this sorrow viz. Sin and death It is true a man may mourne for smaller evils sooner but when the Spirit sets on the greatest evils then they sad much more Mine iniquities are too heavy to beare Why so Many a man can bear them without sinking True but in the Elect the Spirit sets on loads the soule herewith A wounded spirit who can beare Because the greatest evils lye upon the most tender part of a tender soule pressed down by the omnipotent hand of Christs Spirit For now the multitude of sins more then the haires on the head come now to mind as also the long continuance in them cradle sins No sooner saith the soule did I begin to live but I began to sin Obstinacy also in them lyes very heavy I have had warnings checks resolutions against them and yet have gone on The power of sinne also sads it that as it is said Prov. 21.9 When the wicked reigne the people mourne so doth the soule when it feeles sin reigne I cannot subdue it nay the Lord will not that I feare the Lord hath left me over to it The increase of sin it feeles makes it mourne also I grow worse and worse saith the soul the leake comes in faster then he can cast it out the greatnesse of sinne makes it mourn Was there ever such a sinner as I And lastly the sense of condemnation for sin lyes upon him this is the fruit of your evill wayes saith the Spirit The soule doth not let sinne passe by it now as water downe the mill but being stopt by conviction and feare of the evill of it it swells very high and fills the heart full of griefe and sorrow that many times it is overwhelmed therewith 3. Because Christ wil not be very sweet unlesse this mourning under misery be very great the healing of a cut finger is sweet but of a mortall wound is exceeding sweet a little sorrow will make Christ sweet but great sorrow under sense of deadly wounds is exceeding sweet and without this Christ hath not his honour due to him if he be not onely sweet but also exceeding sweet and precious 4. Because it is such a sorrow as nothing but that that hath wounded the soule can heale it Let men have the greatest outward troubles outward things can cure them or else they will weare away As if a man be sick or in debt physick and money can cure these but this wound neither can or over shall be healed but by the hand that wounded it And hence a man can take no comfort in meat drink sleep friends mirth nor pastime while this wound this sorrow lasts for if any thing else can heal it it is not the right wound or sorrow the Lord breeds in his elect An adulterous heart indeed may be quieted with other lovers Cain can build away his sorrow Nay I le say more this wounded soule cannot comfort it selfe by any promises till the Lord come David had a promise of pardon from Nathan yet he cryes out to the Lord to make him heare the voyce of joy and gladnesse that his broken bones might rejoyce Did not the Lord make him heare the voyce of joy by Nathan Yes outwardly but the Lord that had broke his bones must make him heare inwardly Nay when the Lord comes himselfe to comfort much adoe the Lord hath to make him heare it as the Israelites that hearkned not to Moses voice because of their hard bondage that unlesse the Lord did invincibly comfort it would lye bleeding to death and never live It must needs therefore be great sorrow which all the world men nor Angels can remove 5. You may be confirmed in this if lastly you consider the many wayes the Lord takes to beget great mourning if the soule will not be sorrowfull as sometimes great afflictions Manasseh must be taken in the bushes and cast into chaines Sometimes strange temptations hellish blasphemies Is there a God Are the Scriptures his Word Why should the Lord be so cruell as to reprobate any of his creatures to torment it so long c. Sometimes long eclipsing of the light of Gods countenance no prayers answered but daily bills of indictment And sometimes it thinks it heares and feeles a secret testimony from God that he never had thought of peace toward it and that his purpose is immutable Sometimes it questions Can God forgive sinnes so great Can it stand with his honour to put up so much wrong Sometimes it feels its heart so extreamly hard and dedolent that it thinks the Lord hath sealed it up under this plague till the judgement of the great day And sometimes the Lord makes melancholy a good servant to him to further this work of sorrow But thus the Lord rebukes many a hard hearted sinner that will not beare the yoke nor feele the load and now the Lord turnes the beauty of the proudest into ashes and withers the glory of all flesh Nay sometimes you shall observe the Lord though he comes not out as a Lyon to rend yet as a moth he frets out by secret pinings and languishings the senselesse security of man that he shall mourne to purpose before he leave him I doe not meane by this as if all men had the like measure of sorrow but a great sorrow it is in all Every child is delivered by some throwes those that stick long in the birth may feele them longer and very many Nor yet doe I presse a necessity of teares or violent and
the bottome as may fit the soule for healing For 1. If the Spirit make a man feele sin truly the soule feeles it as it is it is not the name and talk of the danger of sin that troubles it but the Spirit ever making things reall loads the soule with it indeed and as it is now it is the greatest evill and therefore so it feeles sin Beleeve it you never felt sin indeed as it is if you have not felt it thus 2. Else no man will prize Christ as the greatest good without which no man shall have him 3. Else a man will live and continue in sinne If sinne had been a greater evill to Pilate then the losse of Caesars friendship hee would never have crucified Christ. If sinne had been a greater evill to Iehu then the losse of his Kingdome he had never kept up the two calves If sinne were a greater evill then poverty shame griefe in this world many a Professor would never lose Christ and a good conscience too for a little gaine profit or honour Beloved the great curse and wrath of the Lord upon all men in the world almost is this that the greatest evils should be least of all felt and the smallest evils most of all complained of What is death that onely separates thy soule from thy body to sin that separates God blessed for ever from thy soule and therefore the Lord Jesus will remove this curse from those he saves But you will say What is that evill the soule sees at this time in sinne that thus affects the heart with it as the greatest evill This is the last difficulty here There is a three-fold evill especially seen in sinne 1. The evill of torment and anguish 2. The evill of wrong and injury to God 3. The evill of separation of the soule from God The first may affect Reprobates as Saul and Iudas who were sore distressed when they felt the anguish of conscience by sin The second is onely in those that are actually justified called and sanctified who lament sinne as it is against God and a God reconciled to them and as it is against the life of God begun in them and hence they cry out of it as a body of death The third the elect feele at this first stroke and wound which the Spirit gives them the anguish of sinne indeed lyes sore upon them but this much more Christ is come to seek that which is lost The sheep is lost when First it is separated and gone from the owner Secondly when it knowes not how to returne againe unlesse the Shepherd find it and carry it home so that soule is properly and truly lost that feeles it selfe separated and gone from God knowing not how to returne to him again unlesse the Lord come and take it upon his shoulders and carry it in his armes this lyes heavy upon it viz. that it is gone from God and wholly separated from all union to him and communion with him You may observe Iohn 16.9 that the Spirit convinces of sinne how because they beleeve not in me i. Because they shall see and feele themselves quite separated from me they shall heare of my glory and riches of mercy and that happinesse which all that have me shall and doe enjoy but they shal mourne that they have no part nor portion in these things they shall mourne that they live without me and that they have lived so long without me I confesse many other considerations of the evill of sin come now in but this is the maine channell where all the other rivelets empty themselves And hence it is that the soule under this stroke is in a state of seeking onely yet finds nothing it seeks God and Christ and therefore feeles a want a losse of both by sinne for the end of all the feares terrours sorrowes c. upon the elect is to bring them back againe to God and into fellowship with God the onely blessednesse of man Now if the soule ordained and made for this end should not feele its present separation from God by sinne and the bitternes of the evil of it it would never seek to return again to him as to his greatest good nor desire ever to come into his bosome againe for look as sinne wounds the soule so the soule seeks for healing of it if onely the torment of sinne wound ease of conscience from that anguish will heale it So if separation from God wound the heart onely union and communion with God will heale it and comfort it againe The Lord Christ therefore having laid his hand upon the soule to bring it back to himselfe first and so to the Father being designed to gather in all the out-casts of Israel those he ever makes to feele themselves out-casts as cast away out of Gods blessed sight and presence that so they may desire at last to come home againe Reprobates not made for this end have not this sense of sin the means of their return And hence it is that the soules of those God saves are never quiet untill they come to God and communion with him but they mourn for their distance from him and the hiding of his face untill the Lord shine forth againe Whereas every one else though much troubled yet sit down contented with any little odde thing that serves to quiet them for the time before the Lord return to them or they enter into their rest in that ineffable communion with him Let me now make Application of this before I proceed to open the next particular of Humiliation This may shew us the great mistake of two sorts 1. Such as think there is no necessity of any sense of misery before the application of the remedy or their closing with Christ because say they where there is sense there is life all sense and feeling arising from life and where there is life there is Christ already And hence it is that they would not have the Law first preached in these dayes but the Gospell the other is to goe round about the bush I answer that for my owne part this doctrine of seeing and feeling our misery before the remedy is so universally received by all solid Divines both at home and abroad that I meet with and the contrary opinion so crosse to the holy Scriptures and generall experience of the Saints and the preaching of the other so abundantly sealed to be Gods owne way by his rich blessings on the labours of his servants faithfull to him herein that were it not for the sake of some weak and mis-led I should not dare to question it the Lord himselfe so expresly speaking that he came not to call the righteous but on the contrary onely to heale the sick who know and feele their sicknesse chiefly by the Law Rom. 3.20 Dost thou think therefore that there is spirituall life where ever there is any sense Then I say the devils and damned in
hell have much spirituall life for they feele their misery with a witnesse As for the preaching of the Gospel before the Law to shew our misery it is true that the Gospel is to be looked at as the maine end yet you must use the means before you can come to the end by the preaching of the Law or misery in despising the Gospell End Means have been ever good friends you may joyn them well together you cannot sever them without danger I doe observe that the Apostles ever used this method Paul first proves Iewes and Gentiles to be under sinne in almost the three first Chapters of the Romanes before he opens the doctrine of Justification by faith in Christ. I do not observe that ever there was so cleere and manifest opening of Mans misery as by Christ and his Apostles who brought in the clearest revelations of the Remedy I doe not read in Moses or in all the Prophets such full and plaine expressions of our misery as in the New Testament The worme that never dyes The fire that never goes out The wrath to come c. and therefore assuredly they thought this no back-doore but faith the doore to Christ and this the way to faith To say that a man must first have Christ and life before he feele any spirituall misery is to say that a Christian must first be healed that he may be sick cured that he may be wounded receive the spirit of adoption before he receive and that he may receive the spirit of bondage to feare againe If Ministers shall preach the remedy before they shew misery woe to this age that shall be deprived of those blessings which the former gloried in and blessed the Lord for Mark those men that deny the use of the Law to lead unto Christ if they doe not fall in time to oppose some maine point of the Gospel For it is a righteous thing but a heavy plague for the Lord to suffer such men to obscure the Gospel that in their judgements zealously dislike this use of the Law You must preach the remedy that is true but you must also first preach the woe and misery of men or rather so mix them together as the hearts of hearers may be deeply affected with both but first with their misery It argues a great consumption of the Spirit of grace when Christians lives are preserved onely by Alchermys and choice Cordials notions about Christ nay choyce ones too or else the old and ordinary food of the countrey will not downe I tell you the maine wound of Christians is want of deep humiliations and castings downe and if you beleeve it not now it may be pestilence sword and famine shall teach you this doctrine when the Lord shall make these things wound you to the very heart and put you to your wits end that were not that would not in season be wounded at the heart with sin Are we troubled with too many wounded consciences in these times that we are so solicitous of coyning new principles of peace what is every man by nature but a kind of an infinite evill all the sins that fill earth and hell are in every one mans heart for sinne in man is endlesse and canst not thou endure to be cast downe Nothing is so vile as Christ to a man unhumbled and can you so easily prize him and taste him without any casting downe 2. Such as think there is a necessity of sense of misery by the work of the Law before Christ can be received but they think there is no such feeling of misery as hath been mentioned but that it is common to the reprobate as to the elect and consequently that in sense of sinne there is no such speciall worke of the Spirit as separates the soule from sinne before it comes unto Christ but that this is done after the soule is in Christ by faith viz. in Sanctification being first justified by faith This is the judgement of many holy and learned and therefore so long as there is no disagreement in the substance of this doctrine it should not trouble us onely let it be considered whether what is said is not the truth of Christ and if it be let us not cast it aside The Jewish Rabbins have a speech at this day very frequent in their writings Non est in lege unica literula à qua non magni suspensi sunt montes It is much more true of every truth and if I much mistake not much depends upon the right understanding of this point That therefore 1. there must be some sense of misery before the application of the remedy 2. That this compunction or sense of misery is wrought by the Spirit of Christ not the power of man to prepare himself thereby for further grace 3. That these terrours and sorrows in the elect doe virtually differ from those in the reprobate the one driving the soul to Christ the other not these are agreed on all hands The question onely is Whether there is this farther stroke of severing the soule from sin conjoyned with the terrours and sorrowes in the elect before their closing with Christ which is not in the reprobate or in one word whether there is not a speciall work of the Spirit turning at least in order of nature the soule from sin before the soule returns by faith unto Christ. For the affirmative I leave these severall Considerations That there is gratia actualis or actuall grace as well as habitualis or habituall grace Learned Ferrius makes a vast difference between them and therefore to think that there can be no power of sin removed but by habituall or sanctifying grace is unsound for actuall grace may doe it the Spirit may take away sinne mediately by habituall grace and yet it can doe it immediately also by an omnipotent act by that which is called actuall actuating or moving grace Christ can and must first bind the strong man and cast him out by this working or actuall grace before he dwells in the house of mans heart by habituall and sanctifying grace The Gardners knife may immediately cut-off a cyen from a tree thereby taking away all its power to grow there any more before it hath a power to bring forth any fruit which is wrought only by implanting it into another stock New creation which is at first conversion may well be without habituall graces that are but creatures Whether any man since the fall is a subject immediately capable of sanctifying or habituall grace or whether any unregenerate man is in a next disposition to receive such grace as the ayre is immediately of light out of which the darknesse is expelled by light and so the habits of grace doe expell the habits and power of sinne say some I suppose the affirmative is most false and in neere affinity with some grosse points of Arminianisme Adam in his pure naturals and considered meerly as a living soule was such
of Adamant that would not melt and come in at this Oh my beloved this very call is done as really by Christ in his Ministers now though not so visibly and immediately as I now describe and therefore take heed how you refuse to heare him that speakes from heaven Heb. 12.25 Consider whom the Lord calls and that is thee in particular who ever thou art to whom the Gospell of Christ is sent for if you think Christ calls some only that are so and so deeply humbled only to come and not unto you in particular you will never come in but we have proved this that the Lord calls all in generall and consequently each man in particular the consideration of this may bring you in Men fear to commit murther and steale c. but you feare not unbeleefe but the Apostle bids you feare that for the Gospell is preached sayth he unto you as well as unto those that fell by unbeliefe Heb. 4.1 2. doe not say he calls me indeed but it is no more then what he doth to reprobates true in the outward call it is so yet upon this ground you may think the Lord commands not calls not you to sanctifie a Sabbath or to honour Gods name because this is as common to reprobates as unto you doe not say I am not able to come and therefore I am not called no more are you able to attend the rules of the morall Law yet you look upon them as appertaining to you and because you cannot doe them you intreat the Lord to enable you and so because you cannot come you should looke up to the Lord to draw you and verily many times the great reason why the Lord doth not draw you is because you doe not deeply consider that he doth really and affectionately call you doe not say I am a dry tree the Lord cannot look upon me whose condition is worse then ever I heard or read of yet remember what the Lord speaks to such Isay 56.3 4 6 7. Look not thou to thy barren dead heart but give glory unto God as Abraham did Rom. 4.19 20. and receive his grace with more thankfulnesse then any else because none ever so miserable as thy selfe you young men heare this though you have spent the flower of your yeares in vanity madnesse and filthy lusts yet the Lord calls you in to him you old men grown gray-headed in wickednesse though it be the last houre in the day of your life yet behold the Lord would hire you and calls you to come in before the â—orest wrath of a long provoked God break out upon you you that have despised Gods messengers crucified the Lord Jesus afresh embrued your hands in his blood scorned and hated the Saints and the word of Gods grace hear what wisdom saith Prov. 1.22 23. Return yee scorners oh consider you that are ignorant of Christ that never sought after Christ many a yeare together that have continually provoked him to his face how the Lord calls you Isay 65.1 2 3. you even you are those the Lord calls and will you not come Consider why the Lord calls thee is it because hee hath any need of you to honour him I tell you he could have gone to others that would have given his Gospell better welcom thâ—n it hath had from you he could have gone to many Kings and Princâ—s and out of that golden mettle have made himselfe vessels of honour rather then out of such base mould as thou art made of hee could have honoured himselfe in thy ruine as in many millions of other men and lose nothing by thee neither he could have been blessed without you in the bosome of his Father or is it because thou hast done any thing for him alas thou hast not returned him thy nutshells thou hast not had so much as a forme of Religion thou hast done as much mischiefe to him as thou couldst Ier. 3.5 thou hast wearied him with thine iniquities and made him serve with thy sins and hast sadded his heart exceedingly by strange impenitency Isay 43.24 The only reason that hath moved him to call to thee hath been pity to thee seeing thee running to the fire that never can be quencht without stop or stay 2 Chron. 36.15 16. and because thou art fallen by thine iniquities Hos. 14.1 And shall not this bring you home Consider for what end the Lord calls thee is it not to come and take possession of all the grace of Christ Gal. 1.6 nay of all the glory of Christ 1 Thess. 2.12 nay to a most neare sweet and everlasting fellowship with Christ himselfe 1 Cor. 1.9 and can I say any more can you desire any more then this if the Lord should say unto any of us Come into the garden and there watch and pray with me sorrow and suffer with me who of us would not account our selves unworthy of such honour but for the Lord to say Come and enter into your rest the land the kingdome of grace and glory is before you goe up and possesse it oh where are our hearts if this call will not draw if the Lord should say at the day of judgement when the heavens and earth shall be on a light fire and the Lord Jesus set upon the throne of his glory admired of all his Saints and Angels Come you blessed and take the kingdome prepared for you would you not gladly come at that call oh beloved the Lord Jesus now in the throne of his glory in heaven behold he calls you unto a better good then that kingdome he calls you to come and take himselfe and all his precious benefits prepared for you though in thy selfe accursed and would he have you take possession of all this is it not the praise of the riches of his grace Eph. 1. If this be his end then if thou wilt not come for thy own good yet for his sake his grace sake come in How long the Lord hath called thee how oft he would have gathered thee he hath stood so long untill his locks are wet with dew of the night Cant. 5.1 2. It may bee you are afraid it hath been so long that now time is past oh no for whiles the Lord calls by his word and spirit now is the acceptable time 2 Cor. 6.2 I confesse there is a time wherein the Lord will not be found but whiles the Lord is neare unto thee by his Ministery by his Spirit convincing affecting stirring knocking at thy heart the time is not yet past the Sun is not yet set so long as those beames appeare Isay 55.6 those thoughts which discourage thee from coming to Christ whiles the voyce of his call is heard cannot be of Christ but Satan whose principall work is to lay such stumbling blocks in our way to him Consider the greatnesse of your sinne in not coming to him 1. This is the condemning sin for no sin should condemne thee if thou didst come to him Iohn 3.17
vanish and perish from under the sunne and the good Lord reduce all such who in simplicity are mis-led from this blessed truth of God I will not now enter into that depth concerning the means of our sanctification in mortification by Christs death and vivification by the resurrection of Christ this may suffice for explication of the nature of it Onely see and for ever prize this priviledge all you blessed soules whom the Lord hath justified thou hast many sad complaints what is it to me if I be justified in Christ and be saved at last by Christ and my heart remaine all this while unholy and unsubdued unto the will of Christ that hee should comfort me and my holy heart be alway grieving of him what though the Lord save me from misery but saves me not from my sinne oh consider this benefit It is true thou findest a wofull sinfull nature within thee crosse and contrary unto holinesse and leading thee daily in captivity yet remember the Lord hath given thee another nature a new nature there is something else within thee which makes thee wrastle against sinne and shall in time prevaile over all sinne Mat. 12.20 this is the Lords grace sanctifying of thee Oh be thankfull that the Lord hath not left thee wholly corrupt but hath begun to glorifie himselfe in thee and to blesse thee in turning thee from thine iniquities 1. By this thou hast a most sweet and comfortable evidence of thy justification favour with God he that denyes this must what ever distinctions he hath abolish many places of Scripture especially the epistles of Iames and Iohn who had to doe with some spirits that pretended faith and union to Christ and communion with him and so long as it was thus this was evidence sufficient to them of their justified estates What faith Iames Thou sayst thou hast faith shew it me then prove it for my part saith he I le prove by the blessed fruits and works which flow from it as Abraham manifested his Iam. 2.18 22. What saith Iohn You talk saith he of fellowship and communion with Christ and yet what holinesse is there in your hearts or lives If you say you have fellowship with him and walk in darknesse we lye and doe not the truth but if you walk in the light then although your holinesse and confession and daily repentance for sinne doth not wash away sinne yet the blood of Christ doth wash us 1 Iohn 1.6 7. Againe you say you know Christ and the love and good will of Christ toward you and that he is the propitiation for your sinnes how doe you know this saith he He that saith I know him and keeps not his commandements is a lyar 1 Iohn 2.4 True might some reply he that keeps not the commands of Christ hath hereby a sure evidence that he knowes him not and that he is not united unto him but is this any evidence that we doe know him and that we are united to him if we doe keep his commandements yes verily saith the Apostle hereby we doe know that we know him if we keep his commandements verse 3. and againe verse 5. Hereby know we that we are in him What can be more plain What a vanity is this to say that this is running upon a covenant of workes Is not sanctification the writing of the Law in our hearts a speciall benefit of the covenant of grace as well as justification Heb. 8.10.12 and can the evidencing then of one benefit of such a covenant by another be a running upon the covenant of workes is it a truth contained in the couenant of grace viz. that he that is justified is also sanctified and he that is sanctified is also justified And is an errour against grace to see this truth that he that is sanctified is certainly justified and that therefore he that knowes himselfe sanctified may also know thereby that he is justified Tell me how will you know that you are justified You will say by the testimony of the spirit and cannot the same spirit shine upon your graces and witnesse that you are sanctified as well 1 Ioh 4.13 24. 1 Cor. 2.12 Can the Spirit make the one cleare to you and not the other Oh beloved its a sad thing to heare such questions and such cold answers also that sanctification possibly may be an evidence may be is it not certaine Assuredly to deny it is as bad as to affirme that Gods owne promises of favour are true evidences thereof and consequently that they are lyes and untruths for search the Scripture and consider sadly how many Evangelicall promises are made unto severall graces i. e. unto such persons as are invested with them you may only take a taste from Mat. 5.3 4 c. where our Saviour who was no legall Preacher pronounceth and consequently evidenceth blessednesse by eight or nine promises expresly made to such persons as had inherent graces of poverty mourning meeknesse c. there mentioned the Lord Jesus leaving those precious Legacies of his promises unto his children that are called by those names of Mourners poore in spirit pure in heart c. that so every one may take and bee assured of his portion manifested particularly therein That I many times wonder how it comes to passe that this so plaine and ancient principle of Catechisme for so it was among the Waldenses many 100 yeeres since grounded on so many pregnant Scriptures should come to be so much as questioned in our dayes sometimes I thinke it ariseth from some wretched lusts men have a minde to live quietly in desirous to keepe their peace and yet unwilling to forsake their lusts and hence they exclude this witnesse of water the witnesse of sanctification to testifie in the Court of conscience whether they are beloved of God and sincere hearted or no because this is a full witnesse against them and tells them to their faces that there is no peace to the wicked Isa. 57. ult Deut. 29.19 20. and that they have nothing to doe to take Gods name into their lips that secretly hate to bee reformed Psal. 50.16 In others I think it doth not arise from want of grace but because the Spirit of grace and sanctification runs very low in them t is so little that they can scarce see it by the help of spectacles or if they doe they doubt continually of the truth of it and hence because it can speake little and that little very darkly and obscurely for them they have no great mind that it should bee brought in as any witnesse for them Others I thinke may have much grace and holinesse yet for a time cast it by as an evidence unto them because they have experience how difficult and troublesome it is to finde this evidence and when t is found how troublesome to read it and keep it fair and thereby have constant peace and quietnesse and hence arise those speeches why doe you looke to your sanctification