he the way of patience or enduring and calling out on thee and we being in captivity our strength is weakned from or by it or from bearing it by reason of the length of it The Hundred and Third PSALM A Psalm of David Paraphrase The hundred and third Psalm is a solemn acknowledgment of the great and abundant mercies and deliverances of God especially that of pardoning of his sin and not exacting the punishments due to it which must interweave in every mercy or deliverance which is bestowed on sinfull men whose demerits have so much provoked the contrary It was composed by David as 't is thought on a recovery from sickness and is also a prophetick description of the state of Christians under the Gospel 1. Bless the Lord O my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name 2. Bless the Lord O my soul and forget not all his benefits Paraphrase 1 2. When I behold God in himself and his glorious divine attributes but especially in his works of mercy toward me I am obliged with my whole heart and all my most ardent affections of devotion to bless and praise his name for all the mercies and favours which in great bounty he hath afforded me 3. Who forgiveth all thine iniquities who healeth all thy diseases 4. Who redeemeth thy life from destruction who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies 5. Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things so that thy youth is renewed like the Eagles 6. The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed Paraphrase 3 4 5 6. Particularly that for some time having corrected me for my good to bring me to repentance he hath now returned to me in mercy pardoned my sins which most justly deserved this his wrath and withdrawn his punishments from me and not onely rescued me from the greatest dangers hanging over my life out of the bowels of his compassion to his distressed creature but restored me to a perfect health and to a most prosperous condition a confluence of all mercies to surround me and satisfie all my desires and so made my old age like that of the Eagle when she hath moulted the old and comes out furnished and adorned with new young plumes as fresh and flourishing as in youth it ever had been hereby exercising that signal property of his to vindicate the cause of all those that suffer injuries to punish the oppressor and relieve those that are not able to defend themselves 7. He made known his ways unto Moses his acts unto the children of Israel 8. The Lord is mercifull and gracious slow to anger and plenteous in mercy Paraphrase 7 8. Thus did he once proclaim his name to Moses and the Israelites Exod. 34. and therein his glorious nature and the manner of his dealing with men all exactly according to the rules of the most abundant mercy in giving and forgiving and sparing long and never sending out his thunderbolts or destructions till our provocations continued in impenitently extort and force them from him 9. He will not always chide neither will he keep his anger for ever 10. He hath not dealt with us after our sins nor rewarded us according to our iniquities Paraphrase 9 10. And this is God's constant course though he rebuke and express his just displeasure and punish us for our sins yet upon our reformation and serious return to him he takes off his punishing hand again and will not proceed with us according to that measure that our sins might justly expect from him 11. For as the heaven is high above the earth so great is his mercy toward them that fear him Paraphrase 11. On the contrary to them that love and fear and serve him faithfully his mercy is most abundantly poured out as much above the proportion of their services as heaven is above the earth nay infinitely more there being indeed no proportion between them 12. As far as the East is from the West so far hath he removed our transgressions from us Paraphrase 12. And by that mercy of his it is that at this time he hath so perfectly reconciled himself to us and freed us from the punishments due to our sins 13. Like as a father pitieth his children so the Lord pitieth them that fear him Paraphrase 13. And so he constantly will deal with all that sincerely return from their sins to new obedience having the bowels of a father to all such which will never permit him to be wrath with penitents to scourge but rather compassionate that child that reforms that for which the punishment was sent 14. For he knows our frame he remembreth that we are dust Paraphrase 14. For he knows and considers the frailness and fickleness and great infirmities of our lapsed sinfull nature our first original out of the dust of the earth an emblem of our meanness and vileness to which the corruption introduced by Adam's first sin see note on Psal 51.3 and hereditarily derived to us hath added wicked inclinations which oft betray us to actual sin if we do not strictly watch and guard our selves and such is our weakness in this lapst state that the most perfect being not able to keep always upon so diligent and strict a watch do oft slip and fall All which God is graciously pleased to weigh and not to deal in rigour with us to punish us or to cast us out of his favour or withdraw his grace from us for every sin that we commit through this weakness but in all his proceedings with us to make an allowance for such sins as are committed through infirmity sudden surreption continual incursion of temptations c. and for these to afford his mercy in Christ to all that sincerely endeavour his service and do not indulge themselves to any deliberate sin 15. As for man his days are as grass as a flour of the field so he flourisheth 16. For the wind passeth over it and it is gone and the place thereof shall know it no more 17. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him and his righteousness unto childrens children 18. To such as keep his covenant to those that remember his commandments to doe them Paraphrase 15 16 17 18. Man is a pitifull weak feeble frail creature fit to be compared with the most short-lived herb or flour which in its height of flourishing is suddenly blasted and destroyed and gone never to return again And herein is the infinite mercy of God toward his servants to be seen that it is much more durable than their lives If they adhere faithfully to him in constant loyalty to his precepts perform their part of the Covenant made with him that of uniform sincere though not of never-sinning obedience his mercies shall continue to them even after death and then what matter is it how short their present life is to their persons in eternal
forsake it cease from it pass not in it not as we reade pass not by it the Chaldee expresses the מ by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with them in their company the LXXII reade 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in whatsoever place they shall encamp enter not there by way of plain paraphrase but withall probably looking on some other notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as that of otiosum esse for that is resting setting up their station in any place so the Syriack reads 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. and in the place where they inhabit or dwell pass you not V. 16. For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if they scandalize not or cause not some body to fall they reade 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they sleep not or lie not down to sleep setting that as an usefull explication of what immediately preceded their sleep is taken away not that others take it away but that they take it from themselves they apply not themselves to sleep and thinking this of except they cause to fall sufficiently express'd before by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unless they doe some mischief V. 21. For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let them not depart from thine eyes they reade 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the fountains destitute thee not probably reading 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without the preposition פ and so taking it in another notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not for an eye but a fountain And thus the sense is very good and agrees well with the next verse for if the wise man's admonitions are life and health to them that receive them i. e. if they cause both these to them then are they fitly to be styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thy fountains from whence all good springs out to thee but the Chaldee and all other Interpreters save the Arabick that constantly follow the LXXII reade as we doe with the preposition and so it must signifie eyes After the end of this Chapter the LXXII have a large addition wherein they are followed by the Latin which generally in this book of Proverbs doth not adhere to them in their variations from the Hebrew It is this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for God knows the right paths on the right hand but those on the left hand are perverted but he shall make thy paths straight and advance thy steps in peace But neither Chaldee nor Syriack have a word of this And so it is to be looked on as a Scholion though very ancient which some reader had affixt to the Greek Copy pertinent to the business of the verses precedent and as a descant on them CHAP. V. 1. MY son attend unto my wisedom and bow thine ear to my understanding 2. That thou mayst regard discretion and that thy lips may keep knowledge Paraphrase 1 2. Among all the acts of paternal and tender charity to the souls of men there is none more precious and truly valuable than that of communicating saving wisedom and wholsome instruction to them To that end this book is designed and an humble docible heart is required to qualifie any man for the reaping the benefits and fruits of it and if that may be found infinite are the advantages of it for the regulating the affections and the actions and especially the words He that hath throughly imbibed the directions of it will have more savour and taste of good things than ever he had will think that to be the onely true wisedom and affect and regard it as such which is here recommended to him the practice of all duty toward God and man and himself and accordingly his discourse will be savoury and pious professing the joy he tasts in these exercises and desiring to recommend and propagate them to other men 3. For the lips of a strange woman drop as an hony comb and her mouth is smoother than oyl Paraphrase 3. Of this sort is that necessary advice to beware of the flattery and deceits of ill women whose beauty and discourse and conversation and the many allectives which that sex is furnished with are very winning and efficacious promising the greatest pleasures and satisfactions imaginable 4. But her end is bitter as wormwood sharp as a two-edged sword Paraphrase 4. Which if they be believed or hearkened to will in the event prove most contrary to what they promise bring all the sadness and bitterness the most painfull and noxious effects infinitely more sharp and dolorous than the so short enjoyments were apprehended pleasurable 5. Her feet go down to death her steps take hold on hell Paraphrase 5. And beyond the temporal miseries which attend this sin inseparably and indispensably the eternal destruction is most formidable which is the just reward of it and will be sure to overtake it 6. Lest thou shouldst ponder the path of life her ways are moveable that thou canst not know them Paraphrase 6. Nor can any better event be rationally hoped to the temptations which are tendred from such an hand A whore being the most vile and miserable creature in the world engaging her self in a course most diametrically contrary as to all vertue so to all felicity the joys and comforts of this or a better life and prostituting her self to all the dismal uncertainties and ill consequences of an endless insatiate lust which carry her headlong none knows whither into a gulph of endless woe 7. Hear ye me therefore O ye children and depart not from the words of my mouth 8. Remove thy way far from her and come not nigh the door of her house Paraphrase 7 8. This makes it a seasonable and necessary advice to all that fear God or expect good from him in this or another life to all the children of wisedom professours of piety that they be most exactly cautious in this matter that they yield not themselves the least liberty or indulge to the beginnings of this sin that they keep as circumspectly as is possible from entring into the confines of this temptation and on the contrary remove to the greatest distance from all occasions and opportunities thereof 9. Lest thou give thy honour unto others and thy years unto the cruel 10. Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth thy labours be in the house of a stranger Paraphrase 9 10. If this advice be not timely obeyed it will be hard if not impossible to keep out of the snare and in that not onely thy soul but all that is precious to any man is sure to be most ruinously engaged thy reputation utterly destroyed by so base and scandalous and sottish a sin thy body and life it self the one as sure to be decayed the other shortened by this course as it could by falling into the power of the most implacable enemy And for thy wealth and fruit of thy labours and industry and the divine blessing this sin is the certain blasting and consuming of all she that enticeth thee to her unlawfull bed will be sure to lay hold on
Melchizedeck who brought forth bread and wine unto Abraham and blessed him but the mystical interpretation and importance thereof the offering up his body on the cross for us the onely sacrifice that under the New Testament was to succeed all those of the Old and supersede them and thereby obteining for us grace and pardon strength and refreshment which are exhibited by this Sacrament and so secured to us on condition we utterly forsake our sins and folly and be docible and patient of being made wise by him i. e. in an honest heart receive and observe his instructions sincerely and so live and persevere in the ways of vertue and piety that true and divine wisedom which alone tends to render this life of ours a life indeed or worthy any man's enjoying the course of sin being but a continual death and to qualifie us for eternal never fading life and bliss to all eternity 7. He that reproveth a scorner getteth himself shame and he that rebuketh a wicked man getteth himself a blot 8. Reprove not a scorner lest he hate thee rebuke a wise man and he will love thee 9. Give instruction to a wise man and he will be yet wiser teach a just man and he will encrease in learning Paraphrase 7 8 9. And when this eternal wisedom should come on this errand of sovereign mercy 't is sad to think what use of it should be made by the proud and obdurate sinners of the world the obstinate impersuasible Jews They should be so far from reforming on his advice that they should despise and reproach and put him to a contumelious death set themselves in most hostile terms of opposition and mortal hatred against him Onely the meek and humble the onely temper for true wisedom to be rooted in such as are convinced of their sins and sincerely obey his call to repentance lay it up in an honest heart they should come in to him enter in his discipleship and there improve in all spiritual solid wisedom to the greatest height of sanctity and purity mortifying all their earthy and sensual affections contemning the world and even life it self so they may approve themselves unto him So that though by his coming some men should become much worse adding their pride and self-conceit the greatest impiety and sacrilege yet many others even a multitude both of Jews and Gentile Idolaters should eminently reform by the coming and revealing his Gospel to them 10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisedom and the knowledge of the Holy is understanding 11. For by me thy days shall be multiplied and the years of thy life shall be encreased 12. If thou be wise thou shalt be wise for thy self but if thou scornest thou alone shalt bear it Paraphrase 10 11 12. And to receive this benefit from the Gospel to be of the number of those who are thereby made truly wise unto salvation there is no so proper preparative as humility and docibleness a readiness to receive and lay up the dictates of this eternal wisedom of God in a lowly and honest and obedient heart see ch 1.3 and Note d. there being no true knowledge or which deserves that title but the practical which as it hath the promises of another life an eternal reward attending it so hath it also the promises of this life all manner of felicity in this world length of days and that in a Canaan So that the pious man shall himself have the fruit of his piety and the wicked be punish'd in his very sin if there were no other arere of punishment behind for him in another world The end of Christ's coming into the world being on no design of advantage to himself but onely to shew us the way of true wisedom and durable happiness that if we will be his disciples and doe what he directs us it may be well with us here and to all eternity If we will not we shall have the smart of it our selves as being the onely authours and obstinate contrivers of our own misery 13. A foolish woman is clamorous she is simple and knoweth nothing 14. For she sitteth at the door of her house on a seat in the high places of the city 15. To call passengers who go right on their ways 16. Whoso is simple let him turn in hither and as for him that wanteth understanding she saith to him 17. Stoln waters are sweet and bread eaten in secret is pleasant 18. But he knoweth not that the dead are there and that her guests are in the depths of hell Paraphrase 13 14 15 16 17 18. But now as Christ this wisedom hath his calls and invitations on one side so hath folly sin and carnality on the other you may discern it by an ordinary emblem an unchaste woman earnest and importunate to call in as many passengers as she can promises them great advantages but if she prevail ensnaring them to their ruine Just so many allurements and temptations there are to circumvent seducible persons but all directly contrary to true wisedom and the care but of our own safety and well-being and such as betray both the seducer and seduced to utter ruine The whore indeed that is set upon this sin so frequently styled folly being so eminently such is very bold and busie never quiet at home but still running abroad see ch 7.11 12. incited by her own impatient lust Her whole behaviour is most extremely sensless and impudent she is folly in the abstract most scandalously removed from all that is sober or decent She setteth herself like a shameless prostitute person in some place of greatest advantage to seduce and invite passengers even those that are otherwise imploy'd and come not with any evil design and by her cunning and flatteries and especially by that enhancement of the unlawfull pleasure which the phancies of wicked men set upon it because it is gotten by stealth and deceit and so gratifies their pride as well as their lust by the cunning and subtlety of compassing it by these I say and other the like means she gains on fools such as have not the laws of true wisedom inscribed on their hearts for those would competently avert them from the least beginning of this sin and infuse into them the utmost aversion to it and so leads them blindfold into utter perdition and irreversible destruction And thus is it in all other sinfull courses to which men are seduced by some fallacious bait which hath some kind of gratefulness to the phancy but really carries a barbed hook under it the smart and danger of which is soon felt by them that swallow it but then 't is too late to prevent it This shews the infinite mercy of God in Christ whom he sent from heaven on purpose to teach us true wisedom betimes absteining from all beginnings of sin all purity of the very heart and calling to speedy repentance all those that have need of it Annotations on Chap.
there were no Competition as it might be Chance so it might be Necessity too Thou art fain to be vertuous because thou canst be nothing else goodness must go for thy refuge but not thy choice were there no rival sin no competitor lust to pretend for thee 'T is therefore not only an act of wisdom but of goodness too observable in Gods wonderful dispensation of things under the Gospel to leave the Christian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the confines of two most distant people improveable into good and capable of evil like Erasmus's Picture at Rome or that vulgar Lie of Mahomet's Tomb at Aleppo betwixt two Load-stones 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Synesius calls it a stake between God on one side and all the Devils in Hell on t'other made up of a Canaanite and an Israelite a law in the members as well as a law in the mind or as Antoninus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perswasions in the members many Topicks of Rhetorick many strong Allectives to evil in the lower carnal part of the man as well as invitations and obligations to good in the upper and spiritual Thus did God think fit to dispose it even in Paradise it self the flesh tempted with carnal objects even before the first sin had disordered that flesh A Palate for the sweetness of the Apple to please and an eye for the beauty to invite as well as an upper Masculine faculty a Reason for commands to awe and threats to deter yea and it seems in Heaven it self and the Angels there where is no flesh and blood that officina cupidinum shop or workhouse of desires yet even there is an inlet for Ambition though not for lust a liableness to the filthiness of the spirit though not of the flesh or else Lucifer had still stood Favourite could never have forfeited that state of bliss And so 't is ever since in this inferiour Orb of ours Behold I set before thee life and death blessing and cursing on one side all the joys of Heaven to ravish and enrap thee the mercies of Christ to draw thee with the cords of a man with the bands of love to force and violence thy love by loving thee first by setting thee a copy of that heavenly passion to transcribe but then withal death in the other scale death which it seems hath something amiable in it too it would not be so courted else a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Macarius styles it a gallantry of Hell a purple garment of darkness that such sholes of men and I tremble to think and say so large a quantity of baptized Christians are so ambitious of sell all that 's comfortable and valuable in this life to purchase it And were there not both these set before us by God life on one side and death on t'other blessing on one side and cursing on t'other a double canvass for thy soul a rivalry a competition and somewhat on both sides amiable to somewhat in thee life to the immortal death to the perishing part of thee blessing to the rational divine cursing to the bedlam brutish part of thee the man of God could not go on as he doth in that place Deut. 30.19 therefore chuse life that thou and thy sons may live Were there but one in our reach 't were necessity still and not choice and that most absolutely destructive of all judgment to come Hell might be our Fate but not our Wages our Destiny but not our Reward and Heaven any thing more truly than a Crown of righteousness A Piece of the Philosopher there hath been a long while in the world that hath had a great stroke in debauching the Divine that the Understanding doth necessarily and irresistibly move the Will that whatever hath once passed the judicium practicum got not only the assent of the Judgment that 't is true but the allowance also that 't is good and fit to be chosen cannot chuse but be desired and prosecuted by the Will from whence the Divine subsumes that where Faith is once entered though that but a Speculative I wish it were not sometimes but a Phantastical Faith there Works must and will infallibly follow I confess it were admirable news if this were true if all that knew these things were sure to do them if there were no such thing possible as Sin against Light Sin against Gospel Sin against Conscience if the lives of Believers could not prove infidel the actions of those that acknowledge God that make no doubt of the truth of Christianity could not avoid or escape being Godlike and Christian if 't were but a flash of S. Augustin's wit that the wicked Infidel believes contrary to Faith the wicked Believer lives contrary to it There were then but one care left a Christian to be catechiz'd aright which the Solifidian calls Faith or to be confident of his own Election which the Fiduciary calls Faith and then Quis separabit any thing else will be wrought in me by Christ or that any thing else will be unnecessary to be wrought Instead of this Pagan Principle that ties up all in the chains of inevitable Fate if it be examin'd give me leave to mention to you one Aphorism of Christian Philosophy which is but the interpretation of the competition that now I speak of that the Will is no more necessitated to obey the suggestions of Reason than of the Sensual Appetite of the upper than the lower Soul that 't is an indifferent middle Faculty able to chuse the evil and refuse the good or to satisfie the Philosophers importunity which resolves it impossible to chuse the evil unless under the appearance of good you may take it in a clearer notion able to chuse the pleasant and refuse the honest to chuse the sensual carnal and refuse the intellectual spiritual good And that you may see the ground of this observe that the whole Man is made up of three parts Spirit Soul and Body 1. The Body or Flesh lusting against the Spirit And 2. the Spirit again lusting against the Flesh Those two Extremes perfectly contrary one to the other in their appetites and therefore called by the Ancients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one the Masculine t'other the Feminine part one the Monarch in the Soul t'other the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Commonalty one the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Master t'other the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Child one the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the voice and image of God in us t'other the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the bestial part one the Man t'other the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the four-footed creatures in us And these are contrary the one to the other so that you cannot do or as the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so that you do not this is a consequent of that Contrariety you do not the thing that you would i. e. perhaps perfectly purely without some tack or mixture however I am sure not
that piercing Sun every atoâ—e of that flaming Sword as the word is phrased shall not though it be rebated vanish the day of Vengeance shall instruct your Souls that it was sent from God and since it was once refused hath been kept in store not to upbraid but damn you Many other petty occasions the Spirit ordinarily takes to put off the Cloud and open his Face toward us nay it were not a groundless doubt whether he do not always shine and the cloud be only in our hearts which makes us think the Sun is gone down or quite extinct if at any time we feel not his rays within us Beloved there be many things amongst us that single fire can do nothing upon they are of such a stubborn frozen nature there must be some material thing for the fire to consist in a sharp iron red hot that may bore as well as burn or else there is small hopes of conquering them Many men are so hardned and congealed in sin that the ordinary beam of the Spirit cannot hope to melt them the fire must come consubstantiate with some solid instrument some sound corpulent piercing judgment or else it will be very unlikely to thrive True it is the Spirit is an omnipotent Agent which can so invisibly infuse and insinuate its virtue through the inward man that the whole most enraged adversary shall presently fall to the earth Act. ix the whole carnal man lie prostrate and the sinner be without delay converted and this is a Miracle which I desire from my heart might be presently shewed upon every Soul here present But that which is to my present purpose is only this That God hath also other manners and ways of working which are truly to be said to have descended from Heaven though they are not so successful as to bring us thither other more calm and less boysterous influences which if they were received into an honest heart might prove semen immortalitatis and in time encrease and grow up to immortality There is no such encumbrance to trash us in our Christian Progress as a phansie that some men get possessed with that if they are elected they shall be called and saved in spight of their teeth every man expecting an extraordinary call because Saul met with one and perhaps running the more fiercely because Saul was then called when he was most violent in his full speed of malice against Christians In this behalf all that I desire of you is First to consider that though our regeneration be a miracle yet there are degrees of miracles and thou hast no reason to expect that the greatest and strongest miracle in the world shall in the highest degree be shewed in thy Salvation Who art thou that Gâ—â— should take such extraordinary pains with thee Secondly To resolve that many precious rays and beams of the Spirit though when they enter they come with power yet through our neglect may prove transitory pass by that heart which is not open for them And then thirdly You will easily be convinced that no duty concerns us all so strictly as to observe as near as we can when thus the Spirit appears to us to collect and muster up the most lively quick-sighted sprightfullest of our faculties and with all the perspectives that spiritual Opticks can furnish us with to lay wait for every glance and glimpse of its fire or light We have ways in nature to apprehend the beams of the Sun be they never so weak and languishing and by uniting them into a Burning-Glass to turn them into a fire Oh that we were as witty and sagacious in our spiritual estate then it were easie for those sparks which we so often either contemn or stifle to thrive within us and at least break forth into a flame In brief Incogitancy and inobservance of Gods seasons supine numbness and negligence in spiritual affairs may on good grounds be resolved on as the main or sole cause of our final impenitence and condemnation it being just with God to take those away in a sleep who thus walked in a dream and at last to refuse them whom he hath so long sollicited He that hath scorned or wasted his inheritance cannot complain if he dies a bankrupt nor he that hath spent his candle at play count it hard usage that he is fain to go to bed darkling It were easie to multiply arguments on this theme and from every minute of our lives to discern some pawn and evidence of Gods fatherly will and desire that we should live Let it suffice that we have been large if not abundant in these three chief ones First The giving of his Son to the World Secondly Dispatching the Gospel to the Gentiles And lastly The sending of his Spirit We come now to a view of the opposite trenches which lie pitched at the Gates of Hell obstinate and peremptory to besiege and take it Mans resolvedness and wilfulness to die my second part Why will you die There is no one conceit that engages us so deep to continue in sin that keeps us from repentance and hinders any seasonable Reformation of our wicked lives as a perswasion that God's will is a cause of all events Though we are not so blasphemous as to venture to define God the Author of sin yet we are generally inclined for a phansie that because all things depend on God's decree whatsoever we have done could not be otherwise all our care could not have cut off one sin from the Catalogue And so being resolved that when we thus sinned we could not chuse we can scarce tell how to repent for such necessary fatal misdemeanors the same excuses which we have for having sinned formerly we have for continuing still and so are generally better prepared for Apologies than Reformation Beloved it will certainly much conduce to our edification instead of this speculation whose grounds or truth I will not now examine to fix this practical theorem in our hearts that the will of man is the principal cause of all our evil that death either as it is the punishment of sin eternal death or as it is the sin it self a privation of the life of grace spiritual death is wholly to be imputed to our wilful will It is a Probleme in Aristotle why some Creatures are longer in conceiving bringing forth than others and the sensiblest reason he gives for it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the hardness of the Womb which is like dry earth that will not presently give any nourishment to either seed or plant and so is it in the spiritual conception and production of Christ that is of life in us The hardness and toughness of the heart the womb where he is to be born that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that dry Earth in the Philosophers or that way-side or at best stony ground in Christ's phrase is the only stop and delay in begetting of life within us the only cause of either barrenness or hard
into a most languishing terrible condition provoked thee to withdraw thy grace and give me up to the effects of thy displeasure This is a sad disease and of the worst condition even of the soul wherewith thou art pleased also that my body or outward condition should bear consent And in all this 't is I that have thus diseased my self disturbed and miserably wasted the health of my soul which consists in an exact conformity of my desires and actions to thy will And now there is no remedy left but one that of thy pardon and gratious forgiveness pouring thy wine and oile and healing balsom into my gaping wounds and this most seasonable mercy I beseech thee to bestow upon me 3. My soul is also sore vexed but thou O Lord how long Paraphrase 3. The disquiet and torment hereof doth pierce my soul there are the sharpest arrow◠of thy displeasure 〈◊〉 and afflict me exceedingly Lord that it might be at length thy season to asswage thy wrath to speak peace to 〈◊〉 to afford me some refreshing which I cannot hope from any other hand 4. Return O Lord deliver my soul O save me for thy mercies sake Paraphrase 4. Lord be thou pacified and reconciled to me and by that means rescue me out of this sad condition wherein I am involved under the weight of my sin and thy displeasure And though there be in me no means to propitiate but only to avert and provoke thee yet let thine own mercy and free bounty of grace have the glory of it reflect on that and from thence work this deliverance for me 5. For in death there is no remembrance of thee in the grave who will ‖ give thee thanks Paraphrase 5. For shouldest thou now proceed to take away my life as it were a most direful condition for me to die before I have propitiated thee so I may well demand what increase of glory or honor will it bring unto thee will it not be infinitely more glorious for thee to spare me till by true contrition I may regain thy favour and then I may live to praise and magnifie thy mercy and thy grace thy mercy in pardoning so great a sinner and then confess thee by vital actions of all holy obedience for the future and so demonstrate the power of thy grace which hath wrought this change in me Neither of which will be done by destroying me but only thy just judgments manifested in thy vengeance on sinners 6. I am weary with my groaning All the night make I my bed to swim I water my couch with my tears Paraphrase 6. The sadness of my present condition under the weight of thy displeasure and the grievous effects thereof is such as extorts those groans from me which instead of easing do only increase my torment The night which is the appointed season of rest is to me the time of greatest disquiet my agonies extort whole rivers of tears from me and the consideration of my horrible sins the causes of them gives me not one minute of intermission 7. Mine eye is consumed because of grief it waxeth old because of all mine enemies Paraphrase 7. The tears which the thought of thy continual displeasure and punishments incessantly draws from me have corroded and even exhausted the animal spirits that maintain my sight make mine eyes very dim above what is proportionable to my age and still there remains a succession of new sorrows to mind me of my successive sins one enemy after another still riseth up against me 8. Depart from me all ye workers of iniquity for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping Paraphrase 8. Whilst I thus bemoan my self before so gracious a God I cannot but with confidence look up and expect his speedy return unto my Prayers and consequently assure my self that all the designs of my rebellious enemies shall be utterly frustrated by him 9. The Lord hath heard the voice of my supplication the Lord will receive my prayer Paraphrase 9. He that hath promised not to despise a broken heart to comfort the mourner he whose title it is to be the hearer of prayers the vindicator of the innocent will certainly make good these promises to me at this time in pardoning my sins and averting these punishments from me 10. Let all mine enemies be ashamed and ‖ sore vexed let them return and be ashamed suddenly Paraphrase 10. And therefore I am most confident that all my opposers shall be discomfited and sent back successless in their present design and how confident soever now they appear they shall very suddenly be routed and put to confusion and utterly disappointed in their enterprize Annotations on Psal VI. V. 2. My bones The chief difficulty in this verse will be removed by considering the meaning of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render my bones and so indeed it often signifies from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 robustus or fortis fuit but not only so but in a greater latitude the members of the body and then the body it self nay the substance or being and not only the body as Job 11.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his bone or body is by the Chaldee rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 himself in opposition to his goods and family which had been toucht sharply Chap. 1. And so among the Rabbines 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is oft used for ipsimet themselves see Note on Rom. 6. a. It being an ordinary figure among the Hebrews to express a thing by the names of the parts of it Thus Psal 35.10 All my bones shall say Lord who is like unto thee where certainly the bones which say and praise God are to signifie the Psalmist himself his tongue and heart and every part of him And so here being in conjunction with I am weak and my soul is sore vexed v. 3. it is but a Poetical expression my bones i. e. every part of my body Now the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render vexed from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Niphal signifies any sudden commotion or disturbance or trembling and so being joyned with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 languishing from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be sick or faint and so weak in the notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the New Testament See Note on Rom. viii m. and Gal. 4. a. it must signifie a sore affliction perhaps literally a disease a terrible shaking fit as of a Paralytick and this being founded in and so including also his sin the malady of the soul which is likewise called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 weakness see 1 Cor. 8. Note 6. the whole verse is the doleful description of him that hath committed any wasting sin and being cast down under Gods punishments for it is passionately suing out Gods pardon the only means possible to recover or heal him again V. 10. Let all my enemies All the Antient Interpreters understand this last verse of
hope that I shall never be finally forsaken by him cast down by the enemy or devested of that dignity to which my God hath invested me 9. Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoyceth my flesh also shall rest in hope Paraphrase 9. This is full matter of joy to my heart and of boasting to my tongue and of all kind of assurance to every part of me 10. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption Paraphrase 10. For thy promises to me are firm and oblige thee not to forsake me so as that I shall be either killed by Saul or opprest finally by him or any other Thou hast designed me to be King and therein favoured me exceedingly see note on Psal 4. d. and all the malice of men though they bring me never so low shall not finally prevail against me And this having a first literal but lower completion in Davids person was more fully and ultimately to be forâ—ified in the son of David the eternal Word of God the Messias of the World who in the dayes of his flesh though he were crucified by the Jews should yet by the power of his eternal God head be raised again from the dead and that within the compass of three days before his body should naturally tend to corruption See Act. 2. â—0 and xiii â—5 11. Thou wilt shew me the path of life in thy presence is fulness of joy at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore Paraphrase 11. Thou shalt protect me and keep me alive from the malicious designs and machinations of mine enemies and refresh and comfort me abundantly with thy favour and love and special care of me and by continuing me in that Throne whereto thou hast advanced me give me continual matter of rejoycing And this was most eminently completed also in Christ when by the power of his Father he was more then preserved from death rescued from it when he was â—nder it raised from death to life and exalted in great triumph to his everlasting kingdom in heaven and so applied Acts 2.28 Annotations on Psal XVI Tit. Michtam From 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signare notare insculpere to seal to note or ingrave is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any pretious thing either such as for securing of it is sealed up as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or for preserving it from forgetfulness is ingraven in Marble c. Hence it is that the Targum renders it â—here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a right Sculpture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to engrave and the LXXII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an inscription on a Pillar not reading it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as some conjecture from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 scripsit to write but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 insculpsit to ingrave to denote it a Psalm fit to be ingraven for everlasting memory 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on an eminent Pillar saith Apollinarius to be written in golden letters as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also signifies the finest gold Psalm 45.9 and preserved in our hearts for ever And this especially as containing a signal prophecy of the resurrection of Christ recited from hence Acts 2.25 26 27. three verses cited from this Psalm v. 8 9 10. and again Acts 13.35 As when Job delivers that notable speech applyed by the antients generally to the Resurrection though as this here capable of a first interpretation which was to be verified in his own person in raising him from his present calamitouâ— estate I know that my Redeemer liveth and that I shall stand in the laâ—ter day upon the earth he introduceth it in this form Oh that they were printed in a Book that they were graven with an iron pen and lead i. e. the Sculpture filled up with lead that the letters might continue the longer legible in the rock or sâ—nt or hard stone marble or other the most durable matter for ever which is just the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the inscribing on a Pillar here in order to the preservation and special observation of such speeches which had their farther completion to be expected in Christ over and above what belonged to them in relation to the present condition of the speakers V. 2. O my soul Where the Hebrew copies read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou hast said in the feminine and the Chaldee paraphrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou my soul hast said 't is evident the LXXII and Syriack and Latine and Arabick and Aethiopick read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the first person I have said for so they render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dixi Domino I have said unto the Lord. V. 2. My goodness There is difficulty in this phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The literal rendring is My goodness in no wise to or with thee which the LXXII and so the Latine Arabick and Aethiopick render paraphrastically 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou hast no need of my good things But the Chaldee read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my goodness is not given but from thee and the Syriack more simply my good is from thee In which readings either the negative particle seems to be omitted for so the Syriack reads it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. and my good from without any or else to be doubled for so 't is in the Chaldee and that is all one as if it were omitted the two negatives or non nisi being all one with the bare affirmative In this variety the safest way of reconciling the interpretations is to suppose them on all sides to be rather paraphrastical explications than literal rendrings The LXXII by reading thou hast no need of my good things whether my good works or my liberalities thought to express the sense of my goodness not to or with thee i. e. tend not to thy avail or advantage are not prized by thee and the Chaldee and Syriack by another phrase seem to have meant the same thing My good is all from thee I am so far from meriting any thing of thee by any good works of mine that indeed those good works are not mine but thine only as flowing and being given to me by thee And both these together seem to make up the full sense my goodness or as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 critically signifies my liberality is so far from meriting from thee or being any considerable return unto thee that it is thy right and so a meer mercy received from thee V. 3. But to the Saints The difficulties of this third verse may best be removed by observing the dependance of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the Saints on what preceded v. 2. That began with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I said or thou my soul hast said unto the Lord with which fairly connects 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the Saints i. e.
thy appointed place of hearing requests and then quietly attending thy time with full confidence of a seasonable audience from thee we have never been disappointed 10. According to thy Name O God so is thy praise unto the ends of the earth Thy right hand is full of righteousness Paraphrase 11. Thy Name is spoken of over all the world and where-ever the mention of it is come men admire and celebrate thy glorious works of mercy to thy people Innumerable are the acts of goodness which have been wrought by thy right hand through the special interposition of thy power for us thy unworthy servants and thereby art thou set out most holy and most renowned in the eyes of all men thy justice and thy mercy being for ever discernible in the exercise of thy power 11. Let mount Sion rejoyce let the daughters of Judah be glad because of thy judgments Paraphrase 11. Let Jerusalem the Metropolis and all the lesser cities of Judah and the people therein joyn all in a festival celebration of thy great and wondrous works of deliverance and all sorts of blessings which God hath afforded them 12. Walk about Sion and go round about her tell the towers thereof Paraphrase 12. There is nothing so deserving our solemnest meditations as this goodness of God unto his people exhibited in his Sanctuary in answer to their prayers A man may very comfortably and profitably spend all his time in contemplation of it walking about the city and seeing whether God have not exactly guarded it not any one tower of it demolisht but especialy considering this his Sanctuary on the hill of Sion surveighing the very external fabrick numbring the towers of it as emblems but very imperfect ones of the lustre and magnificence of that God that inhabits there and from thence signally answers the prayers of his people 13. Mark ye well her bulwarks consider her palaces that ye may tell it to the generations following Paraphrase 13. Spend your time in a diligent consideration of the fortifications and stately lofty buildings thereof survey them severally that ye may be able perfectly to decipher them to posterity and by that imperfect measure think what a powerful and admirable Deity it is that inhabits there and what a glorious Church he will provide himself in the days of the Messias of which this is but a dark feeble adumbration 14. For this God is our God for ever and ever he shall be our guide unto death Paraphrase 14. Let us therefore all praise and magnifie this glorious God of Israel and adhere constantly to him in despite of whatsoever temptations to withdraw us from him and he guided and ruled by him to the end of our lives Annotations on Psalm XLVIII V. 2. Beautiful for situation For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fair in situation in the notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a clime or province or tract of ground the Roman LXXII reads 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some other antient Copies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for so Apollinaris hath it and as the Latine of that S. Augustine and S. Ambrose read dilatans dilating This latter may not improbably have respect to a notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 usual in the Misneh for the boughs or top branches of a tree which some of the Jews also would have take place here as comparing Sion to a beautiful well-spreading tree But the vulgar hath fundatur which though it imperfectly expresseth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet it seems rather to respect that then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and gives us reason to read it otherwise than the ordinary copies now will have it neither 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the Roman nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with Kircher but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an adjective neuter agreeing with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the hill of Sion for which again the ordinary copies read corruptly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the hills That these two errors of the Scribe are thus to be amended appears by the Latine Fundatur mons Sion the mount Sion is founded rooting and founding being so neer in sense that there can be no doubt but they thus rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And of this rendring the account also may most probably be fetcht from the forementioned notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for boughs for though the boughs be contrary to the root and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet the well settling of the roots being the cause of the flourishing of the boughs the one may pass for a periphrasis of the other But the other notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a clime or tract of ground may well be accepted and then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will be no more then among us Bellofitum faire in situation And to this also the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may well accord the situation being not unfitly exprest by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 root and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being a denotation of the beauty But of this the Latine fundatur is not expressive Here follows in our reading of the LXXII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imitated also by the Latine exultatione But here also 't is not improbable the Copies of the LXXII are corrupt being so easily changed from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a rejoycing or a kind of rejoycing of the whole earth as the Syriack as well as the Chaldee literally render And that being admitted the LXXII which are now remote enough will be exactly answerable to the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The hill of Sion is well rooted or well seated the perfection of beauty Psal 50.2 Lam. 11.15 built very advantagiously in respect of Situation the joy of the whole land so again Jerusalem is stiled Lam. 11.15 the sides literally according to the original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the North i. e. on the north side of Jerusalem V. 7. Tarsis Of Tarsis what place it is and how variously interpreted by the Antients is set down at large by the learned Bochart whose opinion of it he hath solemnly confirmed viz. that it belonged to Spain neer to Gadir or Gades now softned into Cades and was the same that Authors call Tartessis or Tartessus a most opulent place by the Poets therefore turned into the Elysian fields and by Geographers called Hercules pillars beyond which was no Passing That in this place were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mines of Gold and Silver see Stephanus Byzant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a city of Tartessia saith he i. e. Tarshis who adds Tinn also in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Strabo both brass and iron of which sorts as also of silver 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he there is neither so much nor so good as yet discovered to be in any part of the earth Hence was i◠that the Phoenicians i. e. the old
inhabitants of Canaan ejected by Josuah and retired up to the Sea side to Tyre and Sidon and setting up for Navigation and Merchandize made their very successful Voiages thither 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Diodorus Siculus out of Posidonius buying Silver at the very cheap rate of other mean Commodities which they carried with them The one known place in Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will make all farther Testimonies unnecessary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They say the first Phoenicians which he carefully by the word first distinguishes from those which in the following words he styles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Phoenicians that inhabit Gadir or Gades i. e. Cades for this was after these first Phoenicians made these successful Voiages sailed to Tartessus and brought back their Ships fraught with so much Silver which they bought for Oil and other such mean lading that they could neither carry nor would receive any more but were forced at their departure to make all their Vtensils of Silver and even their very Anchors This which hath been said as it gives a clear account of that Character of Tarshis given Ezech. 27.12 Tarshish was thy merchant with whom thou i. e. Tyre or Phoenice tradedst by reason of the multitude of all kind of Riches with Silver Iron Tin and Lead they traded in thy Fairs so it renders us the reason of this phrase here the Ships of Tarshis viz. those that the Phoenicians or Tyrians the next borderers on Israel used in fetching in all their wealth from those remote parts and therefore were excellently well built by those great Navigators 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Homer Odys 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Dionysius the Phoenicians famous for shipping who first exercised that trade of Navigation and so of merchandise by Sea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These Ships of theirs the only tools and instruments of their wealthy trading God when he pleases splits upon a rock tosseth and breaks to pieces by a contemptible despicable means by a winde which no man knows whence or on what errand it comes which there is no preventing or appeasing or flying from but comes of a sudden and shatters the Ships doth great execution among them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the LXXII a violent blast such it seems the East wind was wont to be in those parts so we have Exod. 14.21 a strong East wind such as made the Sea go back and turned the Channel into dry land as there it follows And Job 27.21 with the tempests and storm hurling him out of his place is joyned the East wind carrieth him away and he departeth So Jer. 18.17 I will scatter them as with an East wind to note a most violent scattering as Isai 27.8 the day of the East wind is a terrible day and Hab. 1.9 they shall come all for violence they shall sup up as the East wind All evident testimonies that the LXXII their paraphrase was very reasonable whilst for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the East wind they read a violent blast the means by which God thus disappoints the greedy Phoenician merchants V. 9. Have thought The Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 belong all to the same signification of quiet rest silence patient expecting thinking considering and must be determined to any of these senses by the context And here that of expecting or patient waiting with affiance in him and without all distrust or repining at his delays seems to be most proper for it For coming to the Sanctuary to pray for mercy 't is most agreeable to say we wait for it there as in the place where he hath promised to afford it in return to prayers The Syriack renders it we hoped the LXXII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we expected What follows in their ordinary Coples 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the midst of the people and so is followed by the Arabick and Aethiopick is doubtless an errour of the Scribe for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sanctuary and so appears by the Latine and Syriack who both seem to follow the LXXII and yet render it Temple V. 10. Righteousness The acception of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 righteousness for charity and mercy and loving kindness is so ordinary that it needs only to be mentioned here for the clearing the sense of this verse which then flows currently 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 righteousness fills thy right hand or consecrates thee for so filling the hand constantly signifies in the Hebrew idiome from that ceremony in the Law at the consecration of a Priest to fill his hands with parts of the sacrifices and is oft rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to consecrate Exod. 29.9 and 35. and elsewhere V. 13. Consider The Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to exalt but in the Chaldee notion of it to divide or distinguish and so the LXXII here render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 distribute separate each from other which in things that cohere is necessary to be done or else it will be impossible to number them exactly V. 14. Vnto death There is little reason to doubt but the right reading here is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 till death Yet 't is probable the Chaldee who render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the days of our childhood did read it in one word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies childhood But the dividing it into two words which is exactly rendred to or till death is acknowledged by Kimchi among the Jews and followed by S. Jerome and best accords with the antecedent he is our God for ever and 't is possible the Chaldee being not a version but a paraphrase might from the affinity of these two 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 make choise of this expression not as a literal rendring of the word but as that which competently secured the sense from our youth signifying from the beginning to the end of our life and so likewise that the LXXII who read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 did not read either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 secula as 't is conceived or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the faeminine to that sense but indeed rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 till death by that other phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for ages or for ever the end of our life being the conclusion of our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our age or our ever Yet after all this the Jewish Arab Interpreter doth profestly take it for one word deriving it from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and renders the paraphrase he shall reduce or restore us to the state 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of childhood or youth i. e. return us to the condition from whence we are fallen But the whole Psalm being an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or song of triumph and having nothing of sadness in it cannot so fitly end with such hopes
themselves that they shall perpetuate the wealth and greatness which they have gathered but are very wide of their expectations find themselves foully deceived and frustrated And yet they that succeed them in their estates go after them in the same track imitate that folly which was so fatal to them and think themselves happy that they shall enjoy the fruits of it 14. Like sheep they are laid in the grave death shall feed on them and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling Paraphrase 14. But then death comes upon them all and defeats all their expectations As sheep or other such creatures they die remove from all their splendid possessions to those dark invisible plains where they continue as a flock in a pasture till that great morning of the resurrection when the righteous shall be assumed by God to assist in judicacature and so shall arise in their old shapes when the earth shall give up her dead and the grave wherein their beauty strength and form decayed and was consumed shall at length it self decay and lose its strength death having lost its sting and the grave its victory and so being no longer the mansion for the bodies of just men 15. But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave for he shall receive me Selah Paraphrase 15. And accordingly my comfort is that God will after my death one day restore me again to life into his hands I commend my spirit not doubting but he will hereafter receive me to glory And so for all others that constantly adhere to and wait on God whatever terrors they meet with here they have this full matter of confidence that God hath particular care of them and will either deliver them out of their dangers or convert them to their greatest good rewarding them abundantly in the resurrection 16. Be not thou afraid when one is made rich when the glory of his house is increased Paraphrase 16. It is therefore most unreasonable to be troubled at or to envy the increase of wordly riches or honour or any kind of greatness or prosperity to the worldly man 17. For when he dyeth he shall carry nothing away his glory shall not descend after him Paraphrase 17. For death will soon overtake him and then he cannot carry his wealth with him his present glory and greatness shall not then yield him the least advantage 18. Though whilst he lived he blest his soul and men will praise thee when thou dost well to thy self Paraphrase 18. Indeed might his own word be taken he were an happy man for so he flattereth himself that he hath goods laid up for many years and as long as this life lasts he entertains no other thoughts But when death comes all these flattering fallacies vanish 'T is not thine own mouth but anothers whose commendation will be worth the having and that will not be had but for the real kindnesses and good turns thou dost unto thy self in doing that which will prove thy durable good and not in saying magnificent things of thy present state applauding thy temporal felicities 19. He shall go to the generation of his fathers they shall never see light Paraphrase 19. The just shall be gathered to their fathers in peace die indeed as their fathers did before them but the wicked shall be destroyed for ever their death shall be their entrance into endless unexpressible darkness and misery and to that they shall be for ever confined 20. Man that is in honour and understandeth not is like the beasts that perish Paraphrase 20. The conclusion then is There is not a more brutish creature more fit to be pitied than envied than a worldly wicked man advanced to greatness in this world and pleasing himself in it he doth not at all understand his own condition he triumphs and thinks himself very happy and whilst he doth so death unexpectedly seises upon him and confutes him sweeps him away helpless and friendless as a beast of the field that just now took himself for one of the greatest men in the world just as they perish and leave all behind them so doth he Only the wise and virtuous the upright v. 10 14. have better hopes and shall not fail of atteining them Annotations on Psalm XLIX V. 2. Low and high The difference between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may here briefly be noted The former is taken for a great or eminent person in any respect of virtue extraction strength c. So 1 Sam. 26.15 Art thou not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man is expounded by what follows and who is like thee in Israel signifying there the military valour and reputation of Abner and many the like Whereas as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 earth signifies an earthy or frail mortal mean man And so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here sons of this mean man are the lower and ordinary sort of men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sons of the earth say the LXXII not that they read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 earth for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but because they would in their reading allude to the original of the word as oft they do And then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are the contrary to these persons of the higher quality The Chaldee express the former phrase by the sons of old Adam the latter by the sons of Jacob making this difference between the rest of mankind and the people of Israel and giving the latter the preeminence over all other and so they make them comprehensive words containing Gentiles and Jews i. e. all the men in the world and that very fitly the Psalm following being the equal concernment of them both But 't is more likely that the phrases denote only the several conditions of men of the lower and higher rank for so the consequents interpret it rich and poor the former according to the sacred style frequently observable explicative of the latter of those and the latter of the former by way of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 V. 4. Dark saying The Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a proverb or parable is of great latitude signifies primarily any similitude by which another thing is exprest thence a figurative speech either by way of fiction and fable such are riddles or significant apologues as that of Jotham Jud. 9.7 and many others in Scripture both in the old and new Testament or by way of application of some true example or similitude as when the sluggard is bid go to the ant the impenitent sinner to the swallow and crane which return at their certain seasons and so are fit to preach returning or repentance to sinners And finally it belongs to all moral doctrine either darkly or only sententiously delivered because the wise men of the world were wont to deliver that in short concise sentences
2.27 and 31. c. 13.35 and 37. to which purpose the words of Moses Hadarsan are very observable This verse saith he is spoken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the King Messiah 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who shall dye to redeem the fathers and after that shall live for ever he shall not see corruption which expresly interprets the whole passage to this matter And the gloss of Siphra and Midras Tehillim is worth taking notice of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. A man shall not say my father was righteous by his merit I shall escape or be delivered Abraham delivered not his son Ishmael and Jacob delivered not his brother Esau he saith a brother shall not c. to signifie that no meer man shall redeem any V. 10. Wise men The difference in this place betwixt wise men and foolish is to be taken from the general use of Scripture where according to Sacred idiome the nouns are used in a moral practick sense for piety and impiety And thus it is most agreeable to the aim of the Psalm designing to shew the different future state of the good and bad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the wise may dye as their redeemer did who was wisdome it self but then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the fool or wicked man he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the brute or brutish person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall more then dye even perish together and then no longer possess or receive benefit from their wealth in which they so much confided but leave it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to strangers so the LXXII render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to others which are not of their family and for whom they never desired to gather it Of which strangers it follows v. 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among them i. e. among these strangers that succeed to their possessions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their houses shall abide or continue for ever never reverting to the kindred of the former possessor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their Tabernacles the places of their transitory abode shall abide from generation to generation and then as the antient possessors are irreversibly gone so is their memory the new possessors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 call by their names over their land i. e. by an usual hypallage impose their names on their lands or call the lands after their names And so this is a very literal and obvious sense of these words which the antient Interpreters have generally mistaken reading their sepulchres for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 either from the vicinity of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sepulchre to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the middle or inner part or because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signifie the inner part or closer recess of their large and nobler sepulchres Davids being so large as to receive the bodies of many of his successors Abrahams from the name Machpelah is supposed to have been double and the Heroes being among the antient heathens buried in adytis in the recesses or vaults of the Temples from whence consequently the Responses of Oracles were delivered V. 12. Abideth not The Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall not abide is visibly mistaken by the LXXII for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall not understand which they after found v. 20. and accordingly they render it here as there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 understood not And herein the Syriack and Latine and Arabick follow them but the Chaldee accord with our Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall not lodge or stay a night for so the Chaldee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the root from which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 house signifies V. 13. Their folly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is literally folly to them i. e. though this their way the worldlings trust in his wealth seem to them a piece of special wisdome yet in the event it proves otherwise it becomes perfect folly to them the LXXII seem to have read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 scandal when they come to discern their frustrations And then it fitly follows their successors they that possess what they part with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are pleased at their mouth i. e. as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is as an expletive Exod. 12.14 with them V. 14. Grave That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is here taken for the state of the dead there can be no doubt the whole contex inforcing it which is of the perishing of men like sheep v. 10 12 20. So that this phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as sheep they are put into that state of the dead is exactly parallel to they are compared to the beasts that perish twice repeated in this Psalm for as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as sheep is directly all one with their being compared to beasts so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being put in Scheol is the paraphrase of perishing This then will be a key to the opening the next next part of the expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 death shall deal with them as a shepherd with a flock of sheep 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 death shall do with them as a pastor doth say the LXXII The Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to give the sheep pasture or look to them when they are feeding Gen. 29.7 water ye the sheep and go 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 feed them or lead them to their pastures for that purpose So Gen. 30.32 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I will return I will feed I will keep thy sheep where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 contains under it all the care and conduct in order to their feeding as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the defending and seeing that they come to no harm Now this feeding of sheep is very distant from feeding on them as much as the Kings office of preserving his people from the enemies invasive arms for the slaughtering them The same word is frequently used for ruling governing and so 't is generally when 't is applied to men the ruler of whom is ordinarily styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pastor in all dialects In this place the metaphore of sheep must needs rule the signification of it As sheep are put into a pasture there to continue together in a common place so men are put into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the state of the dead in the former words and to that regularly follows death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is as the shepherd that conducts or leads them into this pasture those Elysian fields An excellent piece of divine poesie to signifie how men like sheep like beasts go by flocks and herds out of this life or more plainly that men die as ordinarily and regularly as sheep are lead to their pasture Then for the next part of this verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the LXXII render not amiss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the just shall have dominion of them in the morning the full meaning of it will be that after this night of death shall follow a
to be cast on God being the burthen of the mind only that is most fitly rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 care or sollicitude But some of the Jews incline to take 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here for a verb and then it must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cast or commit thy self or thy affairs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who hath given to thee and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Jewish Arab Interpreter is capable of this sense being the same with the Hebrew only changed ×™ into ו V. 23. Half their days In the Jewish account threescore years was the age of a man and death at any time before that was lookt upon as untimely and deemed and styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 excision of which they made 36 degrees So that not to live out half ones days 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is in their style to die before thirty years old The Fifty Sixth PSALM TO the chief Musitian upon Joâ—ath Elem Rechokim Michtam of David when the Philistims took him in Gath. Paraphrase The fifty sixth Psalm was composed by David as Psalm 34. was at Adullam or some place of his flights in remembrance of his great deliverances out of the hands of Saul and in reflexion on the time when he was with the Philistims 1 Sam. 21. in which he resembleth himself to a Dove a great way from home sitting sadly and solitaâ—ily by it self It is called his jewel see note on Psal 16. a. in respect of the memorableness of the escapes which were the matter of it and he committed it to the Praefect of his Musick to be solemnly and publickly sung 1. Be mercifull unto me O God for man would swallow me up he fighting daily oppresseth me Paraphrase 1. Blessed Lord my enemy Saul is very earnest and diligent to devour me he is continually designing some mischief against me O be thou gratiously pleased to interpose thy hand of deliverance for me 2. Mine enemies would daily swallow me up for they be many that fight against me O thou most high Paraphrase 2. I am watched on every side by a multitude of envious persons who fain would get me into their snares but thou O Lord art able to disappoint them all 3. What time I am afraid I will trust in thee Paraphrase 3. When any the greatest cause of fear approacheth me I have my sure refuge on which I may repose my self thy over-ruling Providence O Lord. 4. In God I will praise his word in God I have put my trust I will not fear what man can do unto me Paraphrase 4. Thou hast promised me thy constant aid and the fidelity of that and all other thy promises is matter of glorifying and firm confidence to me and I cannot be brought to apprehend any danger from the malice of men be it never so great as long as I have this so impregnable a bulwark to secure me 5. Every day they wrest my words all their thoughts are against me for evil Paraphrase 5. My enemies I know are very diligent and industrious they do their utmost to deprave my words and actions to put the most odious interpretations upon them their plots and consultations are wholly spent to work me some mischief 6. They gather themselves together they hide themselves they mark my steps when they wait for my soul Paraphrase 6. Very busie they are in meeting and laying their heads together they manage it with all secresie as so many treacherous spies they have an evil eye upon every thing I do and fain would find occasion to insnare and ruine me 7. Shall they escape by their iniquity In thine anger cast down the people O God Paraphrase 7. Their whole confidence is in their falseness and wickedness certainly thou wilt not permit such acts to prosper finally thy patience will at length be provoked and then thou wilt suddenly subdue them and destroy them 8. Thou tellest my wandrings put my tears into thy bottle are they not in thy book Paraphrase 8. I have been long banished from my home wandring up and down in great distress my condition hath been very sad and lamentable And all this I am sure is particularly considered by thee thou knowest the days of my exile and vagrant condition thou reckonest and layest up all the tears that drop from me for thou hast a sure record a book of remembrance for all that befals me and wilt I doubt not in thy good time vindicate my cause and deliver me 9. When I cry unto thee then shall mine enemies turn back this I know for God is for me Paraphrase 9. I need no other weapons to discomfit my enemies but my prayers for of this I have all assurance that God doth espouse my cause and in his good time upon my humble and constant addresses to him he will certainly take my part and come in seasonably to my rescue 10. In God will I praise his word in the Lord will I praise his word 11. In God have I put my trust I will not be afraid what man can do unto me Paraphrase 10 11. He is my God and my Lord a God of all mercy and goodness and a Lord of all power and might The former of these hath inclined him to espouse my cause to make me most gracious promises of preservation and deliverance and the latter secures me of his strength and fidelity his ability and readiness to perform them And this is matter of all joy and comfort to me in my distress of confidence that having relied on him I shall not be forsaken by him nor fall under the malice and power of any of mine enemies 12. Thy vows are upon me O God I will render praises unto thee Paraphrase 12. I am under the greatest obligation to return my thanksgiving to thee and all the oblations of a grateful heart In this I shall be careful not to fail but sing praises to thee for ever who art thus graciously pleased to own and vindicate thy unworthy servant 13. For thou hast delivered my soul from death wilt not thou recover my feet from falling that I may walk before God in the light of the living Paraphrase 13. Thy preservations I have signally experimented several times when my very life hath eminently been in danger And these pledges of thy mercy give me assurance that thou wilt now rescue me from all my dangers and give me space and opportunities to live and serve thee and walk acceptably before thee Annotations on Psalm LVI Tit. Took him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies in a latitude not only to apprehend or take or hold as a prisoner but simply to have to possess to contain to have in ones power Accordingly as it is here rendred by the LXXII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they had him in their power so if we consider the story to which it refers 1 Sam. 21. we shall find
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my footsteps where the Chaldee hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my feet As for the phrase washing their feet in the blood of the ungodly it literally signifies the plentifull effusion of the blood of wicked men which the godly live to see but figuratively to refresh as washing of feet was designed to weary travailers to recreate and withal to benefit and profit them as bathing was a principal part of the antient medicine and so besides the thankful acknowledgment of Gods mercy to them in thus destroying their enemies which is some refreshment to those that are under their persecution they receive profitable document also to cleave fast to God and the practice of all virtue which hath this assurance to be secured and remunerated in this life The Fifty Ninth PSALM TO the chief Musitian Altaschith Michtam of David when Saul sent and they watcht the house to kill him Paraphrase The fifty ninth Psalm was composed on a special occasion set down 1 Sam. 19.11 when after Sauls casting his javelin at David he fled to his own house and Saul sent messengers to watch the house in the night that they might slay him in the morning but David being by Michals help let down by a window escaped v. 20. This Psalm as the former was called his jewel and was set to the tune forementioned Psal 57. a. and committed to the Praefect of his Musick 1. Deliver me from mine enemies O my God defend me from them that rise up against me 2. Deliver me from the workers of iniquity and save me from the bloody man Paraphrase 1 2. O thou my most gratious God mine only Protector and Defender be thou pleased to interpose thine hand to rescue me out of the power of my wicked and blood-thirsty enemies 3. For lo they lie in wait for my soul the mighty are gathered against me not for my transgression not for my sin O Lord. 4. They run and prepare without my fault awake to help me and behold Paraphrase 3 4. Now is a season for this thy special interposition for the aid and relief of thy all-seeing Providence for now Saul and his servants have designed my death and though I never in the least provoked him but on the other side have deserved very well of him yet are they resolved to intrap and catch me and then to take away my life 5. Thou therefore O Lord God of hosts the God of Israel awake to visit all the heathen be not merciful to any wicked transgressor Selah Paraphrase 5 Now therefore O thou most powerful God which canst with the least bâ—ck of thine discomfit the strongest forces and hast promised to watch over thy faithful servants be thou pleased to shew forth thy just judgments among men to vindicate the innocent and to dissipate all obstinate wilful sinners see v. 8. and Psalm 10.16 This thou wilt certainly do who art the upright judge of all the word and though thou wilt pardon and accept upon their repentance and amendment the lapses of thy servants yet 't is certain that even in thy covenant of mercy there is no relief for the wilful and impenitent And this abodes most sadly to Saul at this time 6. They return at evening they make a noise like a dog and go round about the City Paraphrase 6. As hungry dogs that come home at evening and are very unquiet and go about the walls of the City for Carrion dead carcasses cast out thither or any thing else that may satisfie their hunger so do the servants of Saul pursue and seek after my life with the greatest impatience and greediness that is possible 7. Behold they belch out with their mouth swords are in their lips for Who say they doth hear Paraphrase 7. All their consultations and discourse is to contrive how they may take away my life and herein they go on unanimously no man among them makes conscience of duty as if there were never a God in heaven to observe and punish such injustice and violence 8. But thou O Lord shalt laugh at them thou shalt have all the heathen in derision Paraphrase 8. But thou O Lord art a beholder of all their actions as of all things else that are done in the world whosoever hath any design contrary to thee see v. 5. though thou permit him a while yet in thy season thou shalt disappoint and punish him This is the method of thy Providence over all the people of the world and thus shalt thou now do in this case disappoint and frustrate all them that watch to take away my life 9. Because of his strength will I wait upon thee for God is my defence Paraphrase 9. The God of heaven is the only safeguard and security the only means of protection I have or can pretend to therefore on him only will I depend for relief or rescue from this danger 10. The God of my mercy shall prevent me God shall let me see my desire upon mine enemies Paraphrase 10. All the good that can ever befal me comes from the meer grace and mercy of God on that therefore I wait with confidence and implore with humility that he will now timely afford it me and disappoint and discomfit mine enemies 11. Slay them not lest my people forget scatter them by thy power and bring them down O Lord our shield Paraphrase 11. As for the manner of it that must also be referred to the wisdom of thy choice to do it in such a way as may have the deepest and most lasting impression on the beholders and that it will not so probably do if thou involve them in one speedy universal slaughter which though it may affect the beholders at the time will be soon forgotten again but by some more lingring way scattering them first and then rendring them the objects of contempt casting them severally into a very low condition in their dispersions for that will continue to mind men of this work of thy vengeance to which all these evils are naturally consequent And this is the method that thou wilt now use in discomfiting them and defending me 12. For the sin of their mouth and the words of their lips let them even be taken in their pride and for cursing and lying which they speak Paraphrase 12. This have they justly brought upon themselves by their perjurious falseness and boldness their maligning and threatening those which never deserved ill of them and their continual going on and obstinate impersuasibleness therein 13. Consume them in thy wrath consume them that they may not be and let them know that God ruleth in Jacob unto the ends of the earth Selah Paraphrase 13. And thus shall God certainly deal with them sending punishment upon punishment till they be quite destroyed and this in so signal a manner that all that behold it shall discern Gods judgment in it and his particular Providence in the government of the world 14.
spirit of Prophecy Yet it may have been Historical and so it is most probable by the stile and then it must have been composed by some of that name of after-times and if so then there is no reason to doubt but the rest which bear Asaphs name were so also V. 4. Bands What 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here signifies will be hard to define it being uncertain from what root it comes and there being but one place more of Scripture wherein 't is used Isa 58.6 There 't is by all the antient interpreters rendred knots or bonds and so 't is generally expounded by Grammarians 't is saith David de Pomis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tantamount to the word which from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to binde signifies bonds and to the same effect saith Kimchi in his Roots But this doth not secure us of the importance of the word in this place there being many possible rendrings of it to each of which this of bands will be appliable For 1. the word bands in Hebrew stile oft signifies child-bed pangs so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which seems to be the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is indifferently used for bands or pangs and so is rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pangs Acts 2.22 see note c. on that chapter and this because the child-bed pangs are caused by the breaking of those ligatures which joyn the infant to the wombe which consisting of a texture of nerves and membranes parts of a most accurate sense cannot be severed without causing intolerable pains Hence therefore the notion of bands may here fitly be ingredient in the expression of pains or agonies especially when all pain of what kind soever is some degree of solutio continui a rupture at least straining of those fibers of which the sensible parts of our bodies are composed and accordingly pain is either more or less in proportion to this breach of union the torments of abortions greater than those of regular births and those of an untimely violent death exceed the pains of a natural where age is the only sickness where there are no bands to be forced asunder but the ripe fruit drops willingly from the tree men come to their grave in a full age like as a shock of corn comes in in his season in Jobs language ch v. 26. whereby he concludes his description of a prosperous life Upon these grounds this seems to be the most probable signification of the phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there are no pangs because no ligaments in their death their death is not caused by those violent and painful assaults as other mens frequently are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they dye with ease as Kimchi speaks and to the same purpose Abu Walid who renders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 difficulties hardships molestations To this notion the Syriack seem to have particular respect rendring it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Latine interpreter translates terminus as from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 omnino prorsus from whence saith Ferrarius is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 finis terminus but then likewise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies chordae and fides strings to which most probably that translator had an eye and withal it signifies apostemata suppurationes apostems or boils according to the Oriental way of expressing all pain and torment by bands and ligatures Secondly therefore and in good agreement with this first notion by hands we may understand any kind of disease or pain or pressure or heavy burthen which is wont to be bound on them on whom 't is laid so Mat. 23.4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they bind heavy burthens and hard to be borne where the heavy and most unsupportable burthens are laid on them by way of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bands to which the Prophet refers when he mentions the yoke of his burthen Isa 9.4 a burthen tyed on as a yoke is wont to be And thus diseases are exprest in Scripture-style See the story of the woman which had a spirit of infirmity a sore disease Inflicted on her by an evil spirit eighteen years Luk. 13.11 to her Jesus saith v. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou art loosed from thine infirmity and loosing we know is proper to bands and v. 15. he compares her cure to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 loosing or untying an oxe and v. 16. in express terms this daughter of Abraham 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom Satan hath bound loe these eighteen years where her spirit of infirmity v. 11. is in other words exprest by Satans binding her and again in the end of that verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ought she not to be loosed from this band i. e. cured from this sickness In that story this violent disease with which she was so affected that she was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bowed together is styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a band and consequently 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bands here may by analogy fitly signifie violent diseases which Aquila owns in his translation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there are no diseases or hard sufferings To either of these acceptions of the word for child-bed-pangs or whatsoever other pains or pressures the use of it Isa 58.6 will well accord where to loose the bands of wickedness signifies the rescuing the oppressed from their injurious pressures that afflict them as sore as pangs or pains do those that are under them but most commodiously it will be interpreted of burthens or weights which are unjustly bound upon them and press them sore The Chaldee there have a paraphrase which will give us a third acception of the word for a bond or obligation in judicature which binds one to undergo the award of it a decree or sentence as it were for so they render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bands of wickedness by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bonds of writings of false judgments And thus among us men are said to be bound over to judgement when they are before a Tribunal to answer any thing laid to their charge and so again to be bound over to punishment when judgment is past upon them And in this sense there are no bands 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to their deaths will be there are no writs signed for their execution And to this well agrees the Paraphrase of the Chaldee in this Psalm they are not frighted nor troubled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for or because of the day of their deaths as they that are sentenced or bound over to death be it by form of law in judicatures or be it by disease or any thing else as 2 Cor. 1.9 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having the sentence of death signifies being in imminent danger of it are supposed to be And the phrase being here poetically used may reasonably be extended to all other ways of death disease slaughter in the field as well as that by judicature and any kind of danger to the life be thus exprest by bands or obligations to their
covenant to Abraham c. which could not have been in case he had at once destroyed them all 40. How oft did they provoke him in the Wilderness and grieve him in the desert Paraphrase 40. This they very often deserved by their distrusts and murmurings even ten several times Numb 14.22 in the forty years space which they spent in the wilderness 41. Yea they turned back and tempted God and limited the holy One of Israel Paraphrase 41. Sometimes expressing a desire to go back again into Egypt sometimes demanding some evidence of his power sometimes resolving their wants to be so great that God was not able to supply them 42. They remembred not his hand nor the day when he delivered them from the enemy Paraphrase 42. And so shewing themselves to have forgotten the power of his mighty works toward them when he rescued them out of the slavery and oppression of Pharaoh 43. How he had wrought his signs in Egypt and his wonders in the field of Zoan Paraphrase 43. And wrought such miraculous signal judgments on the Egyptians 44. And had turned their rivers into blood and their floods that they could not drink Paraphrase 44. Such was the turning all their rivers and springs into blood and so leaving them no water to drink Exod. 7.21 45. He sent divers sorts of flyes among them which devoured them and frogs which destroyed them Paraphrase 45. Such the mixt multitude of noxious creatures Exod. 8.21 such the frogs Exod. 8.5 46. He gave also their increase unto the Caterpillar and their labour unto the Locust Paraphrase 46. Such the Locusts Exod. 10.4 which devoured the fruit of their ground for which they had laid out their seed and labour and by this means lost all their expected harvest 47. He destroyed their vines with hail and their sycomore-trees with frost 48. He gave up their cattel also to the hail and their flocks to hot thunderbolts Paraphrase 47 48. Such the plague of hail and fire mixt together Exod. 9.22 which destroyed and burnt up their trees and whole flocks of cattel 49. He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger wrath and indignation and trouble by sending evil angels among them Paraphrase 49. Such was that great expression of his highest displeasure and that forest plague to them the sending the destroyer into every house of the Egyptians Exod. 12.23 29. a multitude of angels ministers of his wrath 50. He made a way to his anger he spared not their soul from death but gave their life over to the pestilence Paraphrase 50 51. Which executed his vengeance with great discretion on the very lives both of man and beastâ— of the Egyptians sent a sore disease among them which destroyed all the first-born both of men and cattel through all their dwellings not one mean-while of the Israelites being involved in it See note k. Thus dealt he with that people which sprang from Cham by Mizraim when they opposed his power and oppressed his chosen people 51. And smote all the first born in Aegypt the chief of their strength in the tabernacles of Ham. 52. But made his own people to go forth like sheep and guided them in the wilderness like a flock Paraphrase 52. Whereas his mercy and care and signally favourable providence attended the children of Israel both in their passage from Egypt and journeying through the wilderness went before them in a remarkable manner in a pillar of cloud and fire conducting them day and night as a shepherd going before his flock leads them into their pastures and continually waited over them and provided supplies for all their wants 53. And he led them on safely so that they feared not but the sea overwhelmed their enemies Paraphrase 53. And the same sea that gave them a safe and fearless passage as soon as they were gone returned violently and drowned all their enemies that pursued them 54. And he brought them to the border of his sanctuary even to the mountain which his right hand had purchased Paraphrase 54. And the same conduct of his special providence hath he afforded them from time to time till at the last he hath brought them to the possession of mount Sion where now his worship is set up a place of special strength taken from the Jebusites by David through that victorious over-ruling hand of Gods which obtained this conquest for him 55. He cast out the heathen also before them and divided them an inheritance by line and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents Paraphrase 55. Thus when they entred Canaan the whole work was Gods first in dispossessing the heathen inhabitants then in appointing their lands to be by Joshua divided among the tribes of Israel and then giving them a quiet and safe possession of them 56. Yet they tempted and provoked the most high God and kept not his testimonies Paraphrase 56. But all Gods wonderful mercies had no effect on them whilst he thus obliged them they still distrusted him and thereby and by their obstinate unruliness and disobedience extreamly provoked his displeasure 57. But turned back and dealt unfaithfully like their fathers they were turned aside like a deceitfull bow Paraphrase 57. As they which were brought out from Egypt did frequently apostatize from God and wisht themselves back in Egypt again and never were sincere in their affections to and their service of God so did they continue to do when they were setled in Canaan they fell off from God Deut. 22.15 18. and at every turn diverted to Idol-worship and cannot be more fitly compared than to a crooked bow which never sends the arrows to the mark to which they are directed professing the service of God and stiling themselves his people all their actions were quite contrary to what he required and expected from them 58. For they provoked him to anger with their high places and moved him to jealousie with their graven images Paraphrase 58. They foulely fell into the highest and grossest sins of idolatry and superstition worshipping false Gods i. e. devils or evil spirits and images of the heathen in high places where altars were erected and sacrifices offered to them Deut. 32.16 17. 59. When God heard this he was wroth and greatly abhorred Israel Paraphrase 59. This could not chuse but provoke Gods displeasure in a very high degree And so indeed it did And the effect of it was 60. So that he forsook the tabernacle in Shilo the tent which is placed among men Paraphrase 60. That God assisted not their armies but permitted the Philistims to rout them and carry away the Ark 1 Sam. 4.10 11. that Tabernacle which God had pitched among that people for himself to dwell in and so to conduct them and protect them 61. And delivered his strength into captivity and his glory into the enemies hand Paraphrase 61. And thus by Gods chastising hand did the greatest and most profest enemies of
up the right hand of his adversaries thou hast made all his enemies to rejoyce Paraphrase 42. And now their enemies and assailants are as continually prosperous as David himself was wont to be 43. Thou hast also turned the edge of his sword and hast not made him to stand in the battel Paraphrase 43. Their weapons that were for ever victorious by thy forsaking them have quite lost their keenness they that were never accustomed to defeats in their fights are now subdued and unable to make any farther resistance 44. Thou hast made his glory to cease and cast his throne down to the ground Paraphrase 44. The great fame and renown and power which they had among all men is now utterly lost 45. The days of his youth hast thou shortned thou hast covered him with shame Selah Paraphrase 45. Our Princes slain and their people subdued and captivated and contumeliously handled 46. How long Lord wilt thou hide thy self for ever shall thy wrath burn like fire Paraphrase 46. This is a most sad estate and if we be not speedily rescued out of it we shall all be finally destroyed and the people and d seed of David to whom those illustrious promises were made utterly consumed 47. Remember how short my time is hast thou made all men in vain 48. What man is he that liveth and shall not see death shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave Selah Paraphrase 47 48. Our age and space of life here is very transient and flitting and is soon and certainly concluded in the grave that inevitable lot of all mankind And in this state of captivity we have little joy or comfort in that life which is afforded us we are born miserable and pass through a succession of miseries here and are shortly scised with death And this is far distant from the purport of that Covenant made with David the benefits of which we it seems by our sins have as to this age of ours utterly forfeited 49. Lord where are thy former loving kindnesses which thou swarest unto David in thy truth Paraphrase 49. O blessed Lord be thou at length pleased to be propitiated to pardon these our provoking sins to remember and resume thy methods of mercy and by what wayes thine own wisdom shall best choose to perform the purport of thy Covenant so long since ratified to David In this thy fidelity is concerned and this we are sure will be made good in the eyes of all O that it might be thy good pleasure to manifest it at this time by the restoring of Davids posterity our Monarchy Temple and People to the former dignity 50. Remember Lord the reproach of thy servants how I do bear in my bosome the reproach of all the mighty people 51. Wherewith thine enemies have reproached O Lord wherewith they have reproached the foot-steps of thine anointed Paraphrase 50 51. Till thou please thus by some means to rescue us we are likely to be the reproach of all the heathen people about us who will now object the evacuation and frustration of our faith and hopes founded on thy promises to David's seed and say by way of derision that our Messias is very long a coming 52. Blessed be the Lord for evermore Amen and Amen Paraphrase 25. But whatever their contumelles or our sufferings are they shall not discourage or take us off from Blessing and Praising thee and steadily relying on thee whatsoever desertion our soul provoking sins have most justly now brought upon us yet upon our reformation thou wilt certainly return in mercy to us and whatsoever interruptions thy promised Mercies may seem to have in respect of our captive Prince and People the present posterity and Kingdom of David yet 't is most certain the Promises made for sending the Messias whose Kingdom and redemption is not of this world but spiritual and eternal the erecting of his Throne in his servants hearts and the redeeming them from Sin and Satan shall in due time be performed in Christ that most illustrious son of David to whom and none else belonged the promise under the oath of God And in this completion of Gods Covenant with David his servant of which all Gods faithful servants shall have their portions we securely and with full confidence acquiesce and all joyn in an ardent and most devout celebration of God's fidelity his constant performance of all his promises and so conclude So be it Lord and So certainly it shall be Annotations on Psalm LXXXIX V. 2. I have said That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have said belongs to God and not to the Psalmist appears v. 3. where in connexion with this is added I have made a Covenant with my chosen I have sworn unto David my servant When the LXXII therefore and Syriack and Latine c. read it in the second person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou hast said it is to be lookt on as their paraphrase to express the meaning and not that they read it otherwise than the Hebrew now hath it and this the rather because of the great affinity betwixt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the second and the first person But when it follows 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thy faithfulness shalt thou establish these again as those of v. 1. are the words of the Psalmist speaking unto God And of such permutation of persons God saying the former part and the Psalmist by way of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 answering God in the latter there are many examples One follows here in the next words the third and fourth verses being evidently spoken by God I have made a Covenant Thy seed will I establish But the fifth by way of answer by the Psalmist And the heavens shall praise thy wonders O Lord. The Jewish Arab who seems with some other Interpreters to refer it to the Psalmist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as I have known or made known though being without vowels it may be read in the second person as thou hast declared adds in the beginning of v. 3. who hast said I have made a Covenant c. V. 6. Mighty As of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath been shewed note on Psal 82.6 so of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here is to be resolved that it signifies Angels even those that are in heaven in the beginning of the verse the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is applied to God being communicated also to them there being no more difference between those two phrases 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in heaven and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the sons of God than there is betwixt compared in the former and likened in the latter part of the verse where we read can be compared the Hebrew hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is ponere disponere there to set himself in aray to enter the lists Job 6.4 and thence 't is to dispute to aray
helper of my salvation i. e. he which helps and rescues or delivers me Or else taking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rock in the notion of strength as oft 't is used it is then as the Chaldee renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 strength of my redemption i. e. he from whose strength all my deliverance proceeds The Syriack expression of it is most facile 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my most potent deliverer V. 49. Former From 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 head or beginning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here must signify primitive or primordial and so the Chaldee reads 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to begin and so the LXXII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 old or primitive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the beginning From the importance of this word St. Augustine argues that this Prophecy was to be fulfilled in the Christians in respect of whom the time when the promise was made viz. David's age might be truly called tempus antiquum the antient time But it must be considered that not at the time of the completion but at the time of writing these words by the Psalmist it was an antient time and that indeed proves that this Psalm was penned long after Davids time probably under the Captivity to which all this complaint from v. 38. doth evidently belong Meanwhile it cannot be denied what that Father conceived that the full completion of that promise to David was reserved to the days of the Messiah V. 51. Footsteps From the notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 heel many other acceptions there are of the word first for paths or ways or actions Psal 77.19 Secondly for the end of any thing Psal 119.33 Thirdly for a reward Psal 19.11 there rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 retribution and here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 commutation by the LXXII Besides these there is a notion of the verbe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Piel in Syriack and Chaldee for delaying or deteining Job 37.4 and from thence the Chaldee here rightly deduces 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and accordingly renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the slowness of the footsteps of the feet of thy Messiah or Anointed And that may most reasonably be pitcht on as the true importance of the word which by the dagesch in ק appears to be deduced from the verb in Piel and then that will be the denotation of the sort of the reproaches of their Atheistical enemies that the promises the Jews so firmly depended on had now failed them their Messias whom they expected to rescue and redeem them out of their captivity had now deceived them So saith Kimchi the delays of the Messiah the discourse saith he being of those who say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he will never come A style taken up in the times of the Gospel against the Christians by the scoffing Gnosticks Where is the promise of his coming and he is slack in coming in opposition to which the Apostles tell them that he will come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and will not tarry Heb 10.37.37 2 Pet. 3.9 the Lord is not slack concerning his promise as some men count slackness The End of the THIRD BOOK THE FOURTH BOOK OF PSALMS The Ninetieth PSALM A Prayer of Moses the Man of God Paraphrase The Ninetieth being the first of the Fourth Book of the Collection of Psalms is a complaint of the afflictions and shortness of life together with a prayer for the return of mercy composed either by Moses that eminent Prophet which in Gods stead governed the people of Israel and conducted them out of Egypt or else as in his person by some other with reflexion on those times wherein Moses lived when the children of Israel in the Wilderness were sorely afflicted and great multitudes of them untimely cut off for their provocations 1. Lord thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations Paraphrase 1. Blessed Lord we have never had any helper but thee any other to whom we might resort for aid and relief from time to time Thou hast been our only protector and defender O do not now forsake and destroy us utterly 2. Before the mountains were brought forth or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God Paraphrase 2. Before any part of this world was formed by thee thou hadst an infinite incomprehensible being a power by which this whole Orb wherein we move was at first created and thou remainest immutably the same almighty power and so shalt do to the end of the world O let us thine afflicted creatures receive at this time the benefits and auspicious effects of this thy both power and mercy 3. Thou turnest man to destruction and sayest Return ye children of men Paraphrase 3. Thou art the great Ruler and most just Disposer of all events when those whom thou of thine infinite power and goodness didst create fell off and made defection from thee 't was then just with thee to punish them for their sins and return them back to the earth that lowest and vilest condition from which man was first brought forth by thy creative power This was the sentence against Adam and thus thou art at this time justly provoked to deal with great multitudes of us 4. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past and as a watch in the night Paraphrase 4. And if in the old world such as had thus offended were permitted some of them even Adam himself to whose sin death was awarded by God to live near a thousand years after it yet alas what is that compared with thy infinity Thou art without all beginning O blessed Lord most absolutely eternal a thousand years being considered in thy duration are but as a drop spilt and lost in the Ocean no more than the shortest time among men but a day and that past and gone or but the sixth part of that the space of four hours in the night see note on Psal 130. b. which is insensibly past over in sleep 5. Thou carriest them away as with a flood they are as a sleep in the morning they are as grass which groweth up 6. In the morning it flourisheth and groweth up in the evening it is cut down and withereth Paraphrase 5 6. As for us men we are naturally frail and short-lived our whole age is instantly at an end by the course of nature But then when thy wrath also breaks forth against us death comes as a torrent and sweeps us away in the midst of our strength our life then is but as a dream when one awakes out of sleep but a phansie at first and that soon vanisht whilst we live we do but seem to live and straight death comes and that phasm vanishes Our condition here is no more stable and durable than that of the flower or grass of the field which when it flourishes most is subject
Arab which looks to the former notion and renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is a place of abode yet gives a reason of his version in a note to this purpose The meaning is Thou hast born or supported as much and held our hands or held us by the hand and been to us as a place to bear us in our reliance on thee To the same purpose Abu Walid having interpreted the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for an habitation place or place of abode makes mention afterwards of this verse and some others in which the word might seem not so exactly to bear that signification and saith that it is attributed as an Epithet to God from the notion of a place which remaining bears or sustains him that is in it Though God be the Creator both of place and time and the destroyer of them yet figuratively it is attributed to him so that according to their understanding of it it should be literally a place but in signification a support to us Kimchi mentions another interpretation of his Fathers who would have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 derived from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an eye as if it were our respect or whom we respect on whom our eyes are set but he himself puts for explication of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a place and refuge The LXXII both here and Psal 91.9 render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 refuge which being applied to a person as 't is here to God must needs signifie one from whom he that flies to him expects help and so helper will be the best rendring of it V. 2. Thou hast formed the earth The phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will best be rendred and thou earth wert in travail or taking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the third person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being most usual in the faeminine gender and the earth was in travail so the Syriack sets it more plainly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before the earth fell in travail By this phrase is poetically meant the the earths bringing forth the mountains when from the first round or globular form of it some parts were lifted up above the rest the high rising whereof became the mountains which therefore may be called the issue of the earth and then as they are said to be brought forth in the former part of the verse so by analogy the earth must be said to travail and bring them forth And this to express the very first minute that there was time to compute from and so as far as our expessions can go the infinity of God The Jewish Arab version hath respect to another notion of the word for beginning and renders it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before thou broughtest forth the mountains and begannest or first createdst the habitable with the rest of the earth or else as being without vowels it may be read before the mountains grew up or were brought forth and the habitable with the rest of the earth began V. 3. Turnest man The LXXII begin this v. 3. with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not either taking the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God from the end of v. 2. and converting it into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not and prefixing it to this v. 3. or else reading the Hebrew by way of interrogation which they therefore think fit to interpret by the negative wilt thou turn man c. by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 turn thou not Which the Latine follow in the form of a prayer Ne avertas Turn not man to humility The word which they render humilitatem from the LXXII their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is in the original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to bruise or beat to pieces By this destruction or dissolution of parts in death and the resolution of the body to dust may be fitly exprest and accordingly the Chaldee read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to death and to that the insuing part of the Psalm may seem to apply it treating of short life and speedy death and if so then to this sense we must also with the learned Schindler understand the immediate consequents 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and sayest Return ye sons of Adam i. e. return to the earth from whence Adam had his name and from whence he first came according to that of Gen. 3.19 Out of the ground wast thou â—uken for dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return So Psal 146.4 His breath goeth forth he returneth to his earth And Eccles 12.7 then shall the dust return to the earth as it was But it is possible that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signifie no more than bringing low by punishment and that in order to amendment according to the importance of Psal 51.17 and Isai 57.15 and then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 return ye sons of men must be meant of returning by repentance and thus indeed generally the Imperative 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taken by it self signifies To this those words of the Chaldee which are inserted in the beginning of the second verse but somewhat out of their place seem to refer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. When it was revealed before thee that thy people would sin thou preparedst repentance according to that tradition of the Jews that repentance was one of the seven things created before the world And thus the Arabick reads it more expresly in the LXXII their form of deprecation Bring not men back to destruction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 since thou hast said Come back ye children of men he that hath promised to forgive upon repentance defeats his own act of grace if he cut off the transgressor in his sin Thus Jarchi interprets the bringing to destruction to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 near to death and the returning to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from evil ways But still the context seems to authorize the former interpretation of destruction and speedy returning to the earth which is evidently the subject of the fifth and sixth verses And for verse the fourth it seems to be the preventing of an objection ready to offer it self from the long lives of the Patriarchs who lived near a thousand years but those saith the Psalmist are in Gods sight or in respect of his infinity but a very unconsiderable time The number saith Jarchi hath a peculiar respect to Adam to whom God had said thou shalt die in the day that thou eatest and yet he lived nine hundred and thirty years V. 5. Carriest them away To set down the shortness of mans life the comparison is here made between God and us A thousand years which is longer than Adam or Methuselah lived and since those days as long as many ages of men bears not the least proportion with Gods eternity v. 4. whereas here v. 5. mens years are presently at an end 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to overflow and sweep and carry away thou i.
that is wisedom and to depart from evil is understanding that by way of eminence the most excellent wisedom and understanding The Jewish Arab reads The first thing that wisedom gives in command is the fear of the Lord and a goodness of understanding is to all that doe that The Hundred and Twelfth PSALM Praise ye the Lord. The hundred and twelfth Psalm is a description of the present employments and felicities of the truly pious wan such as do much tend to the honour and praise of God who is so exceeding gracious unto all his servants that there cannot be a greater freedom and bliss than to be in the number of them And therefore the Psalm which describes this is by the Hebrews intituled Hallelujah though there be no other express praising of God in it It is composed like the former the several short metres beginning with the letters of the Hebrew Alphabet 1. BLessed is the man that feareth the Lord that delighteth greatly in his commandments Paraphrase 1. There is no true felicity but that which consists in a most carefull performance of all the commandments of God strictly abstaining from all that may displease him and chearfully practising all that he requires of us And indeed there is no such security of all true durable delight and pleasure as this the present gratefulness and the succeeding comforts of such practices to any truly vertuous mind are a continual feast of all others the most exceeding and all other pleasures in respect of this are nothing worth 2. His seed shall be mighty upon the earth the generation of the upright shall be blessed Paraphrase 2. And as this is the most pleasurable so is it the most thriving skilfull method to bring all greatness and flourishing upon any family to advance and inrich the posterity For as long as God hath the disposing of the good things of this world honour and wealth c. 't is unreasonable to imagine that any subtleties or policies projects or ambitions of ours which have impiety in them and thereby forfeit all title to God's benedictions shall be near so successfull toward our present worldly interests as a strict piety and constant adherence to the ways of God 3. Wealth and riches shall be in his house and his righteousness endureth for ever Paraphrase 3. The promise of the greatest abundance and confluence of earthly felicities being by God intailed on the persons and families of such men as well as the eternal rewards in another world See 1 Tim. 4.8 4. Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness he is gracious and full of compassion and righteous 5. A good man sheweth favour and lendeth he will guide his affairs with discretion 6. Surely he shall not be moved for ever the righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance Paraphrase 4 5 6. And if any affliction at any time befall such as the promises of felicities in this world are always to be taken with the exception of the cross some mixtures of afflictions for gracious and wise ends the punishing our sins here that they be not punisht hereafter the curing our spiritual maladies and exercising our graces yet are there such allays joyned with it such strengths to support and such seasonable and oft unexpected issues and deliverances out of it that this cannot be lookt on otherwise than as a special work of his mercifull providence toward them And which is oft to be observed this supply from God of allays and comforts in affliction together with timely deliverances out of it shall certainly be performed unto good men not onely because 't is promised them and therefore shall not fail them but also because 't is made over to them from God's special providence as a reward most fitly apportioned to several graces in them as 1. to their charity and bounty and compassion to others giving and lending to all that are in distress God hath promised such by way of proportionable reward that they shall receive mercy as the wages of their mercifulness and not onely in another world but in this they shall be blessed on earth Psal 37.25 So 2. to discreet moderation and temper both of their words and actions Good men if they be throughly sincerely such are meek and not apt to be impatient in words or deeds and so they contribute much to the allaying of their afflictions and softening their persecutors both which ragefull and impatient behaviour is wont to exasperate And then 't is over and above a reward of their patience and meekness and discretion which God hath allotted them to temper and sweeten and timely to remove their sufferings who bear them so well at least to afford them strength to make them very supportable By these means whatever misadventures they may for a time meet with here God will assuredly provide for them yea and for their posterity if they go on constantly in their steps he will give them stability in the prosperities of this life and because a good name after death is as great a blessing as wealth or honour in this life that proportion shall be secured to them also their memory shall be fresh and flourishing among all posterities when their bodies are rotten in their graves and by their example they shall benefit many when by their actions they can no longer oblige them 7. He shall not be afraid of evil tidings his heart is fixt trusting in the Lord. 8. His heart is established he shall not be afraid untill he see his desire upon his enemies Paraphrase 7 8. Another special privilege there is that belongs to every pious man His adherence to God and dependence on him is an amulet against all worldly fears or apprehensions when the news of danger or misery the one imminent the other already present assaults him it is not able to disquiet or disturb him The reason is he hath resigned his whole being into God's wisest disposal and is assuredly perswaded that his divine choices are to be preferred that what he sends or permits to fall is fitter for his turn than any thing else that he could chuse for himself and consequently that if God sees it not good for him he will avert it before it come or remove it speedily and by this one assurance he is compleatly fortified not onely for a patient but chearfull entertainment of all that is or shall come remains unmoved and well pleased with God's present dispensations whatsoever they are and so constantly continues till the same hand that sent them give him release and deliverance out of them which in God's good time shall be done also 9. He hath dispersed he hath given to the poor his righteousness endureth for ever his horn shall be exalted with honour Paraphrase 9. As for his charity and constant liberality to the poor which is a special piece of piety and interpreted by God as if it were done to himself it never goes unrewarded One crown is reserved
applied because as the Jewish Doctors tell us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Levites repeat not the song of the oblation but onely over the drink-offering Yet there was also the more private in their families the cup of thanksgiving or commemoration of any deliverance received This the master of the family was wont to begin and was followed by all his guests S. Paul calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the cup of blessing that which was drank as a symbol of thanksgiving and blessing and had forms of commemoration and praise joyned with it and so by the Fathers Justin Martyr c. used of the Sacrament is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the wine that hath thanksgiving said over it The use of it was either daily after each meal or more solemn at a festival In the daily use of it they had this form 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Blessed be our God the Lord of the world who hath created the fruit of the vine But on festival days there was joyned with it an hymn proper for the day as upon the Passeover for the deliverance out of Aegypt as we see Matt. 26.30 where the Paschal commemoration or postcoenium advanced by Christ into the Sacrament of his bloud was concluded after the Jewish custom with an hymn And so here with the cup of salvation is joyned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a calling upon the name of the Lord. And both the more private and the solemn performance of this with all the magnificent rites of solemnity belonging to it is called the paying of vows to the Lord that thanksgiving and acknowledgment which men in distress may be supposed to promise upon condition of deliverance or if they promise not are however bound to perform as a due return or payment for their deliverance V. 15. Precious The notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this place for rare or precious must be so taken as not to signifie that which is spoken of to be desirable to or in the presence of the Lord for it is the life not the death of his servants that is precious in that sense to God the preserver of their lives But for their death to be precious is in effect no more than that it is so considered rated at so high a price by God as that he will not easily grant it to any one that most desires it of him Absalom here hostilely pursued David and desired his death he would have been highly gratified with it taken it for the greatest boon that could have befallen him but God would not thus gratifie him nor will he grant this desire easily to the enemies of godly men especially of those that commit themselves to his keeping as David here did and therefore is called God's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 see note b. on Psal 86. for to such his most signal preservations do belong peculiarly The Jewish Arab here reads Precious with the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the putting to death his saints or giving up to death The Hundred and Seventeenth PSALM The hundred and seventeenth is a solemn acknowledgment of God's mercy and fidelity and an exhortation to all the world to praise him for it 1. O Praise the Lord all ye nations praise him all ye people 2. For his mercifull kindness is great toward us and the truth of the Lord endureth for ever Praise ye the Lord. Paraphrase 1 2. All the heathen nations of the world and all the people dispersed over the face of the earth have a singular obligation as well as the children of Israel Abraham's seed according to the flesh to praise and magnifie the name of God see Rom. 15.11 and that especially for his great and transcendent mercy toward them in the work of their redemption and the promulgation of his Gospel to them wherein his promise of mercy to Abraham and his seed for ever i. e. to his true spiritual posterity to the sons and heirs of his Faith unto the end of the world shall be most exactly performed and therein his fidelity as well as mercy manifested Annotations on Psal CXVII V. 1. Nations That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the nations here and in the next word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all people signifie in the greatest latitude all the nations and people of the Gentile world even 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole creation and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole world Mar. 16.15 appears both by Matt. 28.19 where parallel to those phrases in S. Mark is no more than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the nations here but especially by Rom. 15. where for a proof of God's purpose that the Gentiles should be received into the Church and joyn with the believing Jews in one consort of Christian love and faith and praise God together in the same congregation the proof is brought as from several other texts so from these words in this Psalm And this not onely by express citing v. 11. And again Praise the Lord all ye nations and laud him all ye people but also in the front of the testimonies by the phrases 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the truth of God v. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the mercy or pity of God v. 9. both which are here mentioned v. 2. For thus the discourse there lies Christ was a minister of the circumcision i. e. was by God appointed an instrument of the Jews greatest good preaching the Gospel first to them calling them to repentance c. and this for the truth of God i. e. to make good God's fidelity or performance of covenant to them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to confirm the promises made to the fathers i. e. to Abraham c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that the Gentiles for his mercy might glorifie God where though this preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles was a work of mercy not so much as promised to or lookt for by them and so there is nothing but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pity compassion toward them yet is this an effect of that ministery of Christ which was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the truth of God i. e. a completion of that promise made to Abraham that he should be the father of many nations which had never its perfect completion till the Gentiles came and sat down with Abraham became sons of this faith of Abraham in this kingdom of heaven the Church of Christ And exactly to this sense the second verse of this Psalm is to be understood as the reason why all the Gentile world is to praise and magnifie the name of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. because the mercy of God is strong upon us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was confirmed say the LXXII and Latin and the Syriack 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 grew strong was in full force upon us i. e. all that mercy which is promised to Abraham for his spiritual as well as carnal seed is fully made
lives are made up of receiving and celebrating mercies and deliverances from God such as his omnipotent hand worketh for them either without the assistance of humane aids or so as the success is eminently imputable to God and not to man 17. I shall not dye but live and declare the works of the Lord. Paraphrase 17. And having received this instance of his mercy at this time being now secured from my greatest dangers what remains for me but to spend my whole age in proclaiming the power and mercy and fidelity of my deliverer and call all men off from their vain and weak trusts the arm of flesh to this more skilfull and politick dependence on God 18. The Lord hath chastened me sore but he hath not given me over unto death Paraphrase 18. God hath most justly delivered me up to be severely punisht pursued and hunted by my enemies but then hath seasonably delivered me out of their hands and not permitted me to be overwhelmed by them 19. Open to me the gates of righteousness I will go into them and I will praise the Lord. 20. This gate of the Lord into which the righteous shall enter Paraphrase 19 20. The sanctuary of God the holy place whither all good men resort to petition mercies and to acknowledge them when they are received is that to which as I am most bound I will now make my most solemn address and there commemorate God's mercies to me Or I will make use of all occasions as may make way for the praiâ—â—ng God 21. I will praise thee for thou hast heard me and art become my salvation Paraphrase 21. Proclaiming to all the gracious returns I have received to my prayers the abundant and seasonable deliverances which God hath afforded me 22. The stone which the builders refused is become the head-stone of the corner 23. This is the Lord 's doing it is marvellous in our eyes Paraphrase 22 23. And now may all the assembly of Israel rejoyce and joyn in their congratulations that being now fallen out in King David's exaltation to the throne and much more eminently in the resurrection and ascension of the Messiah which is ordinarily said whether by way of History or Parable that the stone which in the laying the foundation of some eminent building was oft tried by the builders and as oft rejected by them as unfit for their use to any part of the fabrick and thereupon cast among and covered over with rubbish was at length when they wanted a stone for the most eminent use the coupling and joynting the whole fabrick together found most exactly fitted for the turn and so put in the most honourable place the chief corner of the building A thing so unexpected and strange that it was with reason judged as special an act of God's providence as if it had been sent them down immediately from heaven As strange was it and as imputable to God's special hand that David of no eminent family the son of Jesse and withall the youngest and most despised of his brethren should be in Saul's stead exalted by God to the regal throne and being for this driven by Saul from his court and pursued as a partridge on the mountains should yet continually escape his hand and be peaceably placed in his throne And so yet farther in the mystery that the Messiah the son of a Carpenter's wife with him brought up in the trade that whilst he made known the will of God had no dwelling-place that was rejected by the chief of the Jews as a drunkard and glutton and one that acted by the Devil as a blasphemous and seditious person and as such put to the vilest death the death of the Cross and was held some space under the power of the grave should be raised the third day from death taken up to heaven and there sit in his throne to rule and exercise regal power over his Church for ever This certainly was a work purely divine and so ought to be acknowledged and admired by us 24. This is the day the Lord hath made we will rejoyce and be glad in it 25. Save now I beseech thee O Lord O Lord I beseech thee send now prosperity Paraphrase 24 25. This day is the celebrating of a mercy wrought eminently signally and peculiarly by the Lord 't was he that exalted David to the throne and he that will advance the Messias to his regality in heaven and thereby peculiarly consecrated by God to his service and so for ever deserves to be solemnized by us being matter of the greatest joy imaginable to all subjects either of David's or of Christ's Kingdom and so this Psalm fit for a Paschal Psalm in the Church of Christ for ever Now it seasonable to use Hosannahs see note on Psal 20. d. and Matt. 21. a. acclamations and wishes of all manner of prosperity to this King exalted by God David the type of the Messiah Let us all joyn in doing it most solemnly crying people and priest together 26. Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord we have blessed you out of the house of the Lord. Paraphrase 26. The Lord be praised for the great mercy of this King sent us so peculiarly by God but especially for the Messias whose coming hath been so long promised and expected see Matt. 21.9 All we that belong to the house of God the Priests that wait on his sanctuary do heartily bless God for this day and beseech his blessing on him that is now crowned and so shall all the Church of the Messias for ever celebrate him bless God for his exaltation and pray to God to prosper this regal office unto him bringing in the whole world unto his service 27. God is the Lord which hath shewed us light bind the sacrifice with cords even to the horns of the altar Paraphrase 27. Thus hath God shewed forth himself as in mercy so in power for us he hath magnified himself exercised this double act of his dominion over the world 1. in raising David from so mean an estate to the regal throne 2. in raising Christ from death to life and then assuming him to an intire dominion over the world to endure to the day of judgment And in both these he hath revived us with the most chearfull beams of his divine goodness O let us in commemoration thereof keep an anniversary sacrifical feast see v. 24. to praise and magnifie his name for these and all his mercies every man giving thanks and saying 28. Thou art my God and I will praise thee thou art my God I will exalt thee Paraphrase 28. I will laud and praise thy mercies so eminently vouchsafed unto me and in so peculiar a manner inhansed to the benefit of my soul and proclaim thy goodness and superlative divine excellencies to all the world 29. O give thanks unto the Lord for he is good for his mercy endureth for ever Paraphrase 29. Calling unto all to
and planting an uniform obedience to thy commandments in the depth thereof TETH 65. Thou hast dealt well with thy servant O Lord according to thy word Paraphrase 65. O Lord I cannot but acknowledge thy great bounty toward me to the utmost that any promise of thine gave me confidence to hope 66. Teach me good judgment and knowledge for I have believed thy commandments Paraphrase 66. I am fully resolved to adhere to and obey thy precepts O be thou pleased by thy grace to rectifie my inclinations and natural bent of mind to work all corruption perverseness or contumacy out of it and then to illuminate my understanding to give me that knowledge of my duty and that resolvedness of mind that I may never swerve from it 67. Before I was afflicted I went astray but now have I kept thy word Paraphrase 67. To this end I must acknowledge the chastisements and afflictions which thou hast sent me to have been very advantageous and instrumental to me I was out of the way but thy rod hath reduced and brought me into it again 68. Thou art good and dost good teach me thy statutes Paraphrase 68. Thou art a gracious father and all that thou dost is acts of grace and goodness even the sharpest of thy administrations v. 67. see Rom. 8.28 are sent by thee as that which is absolutely best for us O lead and direct and assist me in thy obedience and then I have no farther care to exercise me 69. The proud have forged a lye against me but I will keep thy precepts with my whole heart Paraphrase 69. My malicious adversaries have contrived slanders against me But I shall not be much concerned in their practices I shall indeavour carefully to preserve my conscience upright to God and then not fear their suggestions or machinations 70. Their heart is as fat as grease but I delight in thy law Paraphrase 70. They are obstinately and imperswasibly bent upon their course and please themselves very much in it But I shall not envy their felicities but take infinitely more pleasure in a strict adherence to thy law than they in all their impieties 71. It was good for me that I have been afflicted that I might learn thy statutes Paraphrase 71. Nay the afflictions and chastisements thou hast sent me are to me much more beneficial and valuable than all their prosperity can be to them being very contributive to the reforming what was amiss and so most wholsome profitable discipline to me V. 67. 72. The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver Paraphrase 72. And all the wealth in the world is not near so considerable to me as this JOD 73. Thy hands have made me and fashioned me give me understanding that I may know thy commandments Paraphrase 73. Lord thou art the author of my life and being I am a meer creature of thy forming and therefore obliged by that title to pay thee all the obedience of my life Lord be thou pleased by thy grace to instruct and assist me to it 74. They that fear thee will be glad when they see me because I have hoped in thy word Paraphrase 74. By this means shall I be cause of joy to all pious men who know that I have depended on thy promised assistances when they see me thus answered and supported by thee 75. I know O Lord that thy judgments are right and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me Paraphrase 75. All the dispensations of thy providence O Lord be they never so sharp are I am confident made up of a perfect justice and not onely so but it is an act of thy sovereign mercy which thou hadst promis'd to make good to me to send me such afflictions as these These are but a necessary discipline and so a mercy to me and having promised not to deny me real and principal mercies thou wert obliged in fidelity thus to send them 76. Let I pray thee thy mercifull kindness be my comfort according to thy word unto thy servant Paraphrase 76. But there is one mercy more of which I am capable thy favour and loving-kindness thy sealing pardon and peace unto my soul and that thou hast promised me also and if thou affordest me this it will be an allay abundantly sufficient to all my afflictions 77. Let thy tender mercies come unto me that I may live for in thy Law is my delight Paraphrase 77. Without this favourable aspect of thine I am even a dead man thy restoring it to me will raise me as it were from death to life there being now no joy that I take in the world but in thy favour and my obedience And this I hope may render me capable of this mercy from thee 78. Let the proud be ashamed for they dealt perversely with me without a cause but I will meditate in thy precepts Paraphrase 78. My malicious enemies have without all guilt of mine accused defamed and depraved my actions this shall bring shame and mischief as well as disappointment to them but shall never disturb me in my course of obedience by that I hope I shall refute all their calumnies 79. Let those that fear thee turn unto me and those that have known thy testimonies Paraphrase 79. And as long as all that truly fear thee and have lived conscientiously in thy service continue faithfull to me I have no reason to wonder at the defection of others But if any man that is truly pious be seduced by their slanders and ingaged against me Lord in mercy to them be thou pleased to disabuse and reduce them 80. Let my heart be sound in thy statutes that I be not ashamed Paraphrase 80. As for me I desire and beg of thee that if there be any degree of unsincerity in me any spared sin still remaining it may be effectually wrought out of my heart that I may approach thee with confidence and never be in danger of being rejected by thee CAPH 81. My soul fainteth for thy salvation but I hope in thy word 82. Mine eyes fail for thy word saying When wilt thou comfort me 83. For I am become like a bottle in the smoak yet do I not forget thy statutes Paraphrase 81 82 83. It is long O Lord that I have waited and attended with great desire for deliverance from thee the expectation hath even worn me out yet have I not forsaken my hope or permitted my self to be tempted to any sin whether of impatience or applying my self to any indirect means for my relief but remain still confident that thou wilt in thy good time still send me release 84. How many are the days of thy servant When wilt thou execute judgment on them that persecute me Paraphrase 84. How long Lord wilt thou permit this weight to continue upon me and not take my part against my enemies punishing or restraining them and delivering me out of their hands
their society and remove far from them to renounce all communion with them in such black courses 16. For their feet run to evil and make haste to shed blood Paraphrase 16. If there were nothing else to deter thee from them no fear of discovery or punishment from men yet the guilt of such a crimson crying sin is enough to avert one of any tenderness and give him a perfect horrour and detestation of any fact to which that adheres there being no burthen apt to press down a conscience deeper than that of shedding innocent blood Rom. 3.16 17. Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird Paraphrase 17. Which he that considers and can by any means possible get out of the confines of it were more irrational than the silliest bird should he permit himself to be thus ensnared in so hellish a guilt For of a bird 't is manifest that be the net or toyles never so cunningly and advantageously laid yea and baited too yet if that espy the net it will not by the enticements of the bait be incited to run into it and there is no need of any quick sight to discern that the net being much more grosly visible than the bait which is but a few scattered seeds c. very unvaluable if they might be gained and hardly discernible as they lie on the ground but will make use of the wing to fly from and escape that danger And the like will every rational man doe when he is tempted to any such bloody act which must bring that or the like horrid guilt upon him which is visible enough to the bodily eye much more visible than the advantages he can hope to acquire by it and have any thing which may supply the place of a wing such is 1. prayer to God for his grace 2. meditation of divine vengeance of death and hell and judgment 3. diversion to some better at least to some other more innocent employment and none so fit again for that turn as prayer which if but as a diversion hath a moral efficacy against temptations 4. Constancy in resisting and not yielding any consent some or all of these he may certainly make use of and then whatsoever the temptation be it is frustrated and lost upon him that is thus provided with an eye and wing and seeing and considering this danger makes use of any of these means to keep out of it 18. And they lay wait for their own blood they lurk privily for their own lives Paraphrase 18. But beside this black guilt foremention'd v. 16. the present vengeance which such designs are to expect may seasonably deter all from joyning with them Their bloody enterprises generally rebound upon themselves their machinations against other mens lives will certainly cost them their own it being seldom seen that men of blood escape present vengeance or if they doe their impunity and prosperous impiety will but the more secure them of their sadder portion in another world 19. So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain which taketh away the life of the owners thereof Paraphrase 19. The same may be said of all other temptations those especially of the world all unlawfull ways of encreasing wealth which worldlings make use of they are so far from tending to the designed end of happiness here that they are generally most treacherous and ruinous to those that deal in them either they undo them utterly so doth oppression and sacrilege blast and melt all the former store or bring them to shamefull deaths so do pyracies and robberies and rebellions c. or else deprive them of all enjoyments and comforts of this life so generally the covetous miser dares not diminish his heap but consumes himself to encrease that and never receives any reward of all his drudgery the richer he is the lesse he enjoys of his plenty 20. Wisedom crieth without she uttereth her voice in the streets 21. She crieth in the chief place of concourse in the openings of the gates in the city she uttereth her words saying Paraphrase 20 21. God's law the rule of all righteousness and foundation of all religion hath many ways been proclaimed and promulgated in a most publick manner but at length most solemnly by Jesus Christ descending from heaven on this very arrant to call home sinners to repentance and the summ of its lessons is 22. How long ye simple ones will ye love simplicity and the scorners delight in their scorning and fools hate knowledge Paraphrase 22. To reprove and reproach the great madness of sinners that still go on impenitent unreformed pronouncing it the utmost silliness and atheisticalness and profest opposition and defiance to light and grace that they thus persist and therefore far from having any of the benefit or excuse of ignorance but in stead thereof all the aggravations and condemnation of loving darkness more than light Jo. 3.19 because their deeds are evil and they dread and vehemently avert being convinced or amended Did not men let loose the reins to all inordinate and irrational appetites making bruitishness and perdition their choice placing all their delight on such things as are most unsatisfactory and yet most detestable and scoffing at all others that accompany them not in all excess of riot did they not hate piety without any temptation and resolve never to taste the sweets of that gracious yoke and so stand at the utmost distance of defiance and hostility with it It were not imaginable they should thus hold out unmoved and impregnable to all sober counsels 23. Turn you at my reproof behold I will pour out my spirit unto you I will make known my words unto you Paraphrase 23. If yet after so many methods uneffectually used they shall at length relent and convert and with sincere contrition and confession forsake their evil and ruinous course upon the threats and promises which Christ brings into the world with him and proclaims to the worst of sinners to Pharisees to Publicans to Idolaters they shall not onely be accepted the worst of them upon these terms but together with pardon for all that is past he will give them the continued assistance of his spirit that fountain or seed of grace that shall flow continually to the supply of all their wants and become a principle of new life and strength unto them and then by the practice of all holy duties they shall arrive to that experimental knowledge of the divine transcendent excellency and desirableness of them that they shall prefer them infinitely before all the empty joys that before they had courted so importunately 24. Because I have called and ye refused I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded 25. But ye have set at nought all my counsels and would none of my reproof 26. I also will laugh at your calamity I will mock when your fear cometh Paraphrase 24 25 26. And for those that go on continually in
their impenitent course of sensuality and to all the most importunate calls and invitations reprehensions and denunciations of God by his Messengers his Prophets nay his own Son incarnate for this end will afford no audience or regard but reiect and frustrate all his wisest and most gracious and powerfull methods designed to work their reformation they are by law of retaliation to expect from him to be neglected and scorned reproached and frustrated in all their addresses and petitions for mercy to be delivered up a prey and laughing-stock to their enemies especially to Satan and find no relief or rescue at God's hands when calamities or dangers come upon them 27. When your fear cometh as desolation and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind when distress and anguish cometh upon you Paraphrase 27. And these they are without question to expect and the less beforehand they apprehend them the more suddenly and frightfully tumultuously and dismally they will seise them as an army falling in upon the unprepared with an amazing noise or a whirlwind that comes on a sudden and carries all before it giving them no space or possibility to prevent them 28. Then shall they call upon me but I will not answer they shall seek me early but they shall not find me Paraphrase 28. And then they that have held out against all God's importunities shall find the sad effects of it their miseries will set them a praying and importuning when 't is too late and then it shall not avail Those that have lived impenitent and obdurate till judgments surprise them the attrition the confession the sorrow or requests for pardon which the sight of their present danger extort from them cannot hope to be accepted by God their former continued obstinacy manifesting that it is not sincere contrition from which it flows 29. For that they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. 30. They would none of my counsel they despised all my reproof Paraphrase 29 30. For thus in the case set it was discernible that till these judgments surprized them they continued to avert and hate piety v. 22. rebell'd and stood out obstinately against heaven whilst God's proceedings were soft though never so powerfull whilst he called and advised and instructed them furnishing them with light and strength and all that was necessary onely leaving them the liberty of their choices if they would use them so perversely to their mischief setting life and death before them and in a most friendly manner advising them to choose life and the ways that lead to it and to avoid and forsake the contrary As long I say as God dealt thus treatably with them they would never be brought to piety but stood out unchanged against all his most powerfull impressions resisted and frustrated both the light and the grace the advices and the reprehensions that were afforded them And then what acceptation could that which was so far from voluntary or chosen these their extorted prayers and cries and importunities expect at God's hands Had they been earlier whilst the judgments were onely impendent and might then fitly have infused or occasioned sober counsels to them they might have been deem'd to have come from the heart as sincere and durable but having held out as long as they could and coming in onely when they could hold out no longer God that sees this cannot be imagined to be atoned with such a forced hypocritical change 31. Therefore they shall eat of the fruit of their own way and be filled with their own devices Paraphrase 31. And then it is most just that they should not be denied but granted their own choices that having the option of life and death of piety and impiety blessing and cursing set before them with sufficient instruction and strength to choose and attain the one and to avert and escape the other if they will still resist and deny their own mercy and whilst their time of choice lasteth obstinately persist in the ways of death 't is agreeable to all rules of the mildest tribunals with which nothing is deem'd injurious that is will'd or called upon a man by his own deliberate choice that they that doe thus should finally fall under the eternal wrath of God which they would not timely prevent and so be more than fill'd even glutted with their own choices come to that sad end to which they so eagerly posted and then though not till then find cause to retract and repent when they begin to taste the bitterer part to reap the fruits and receive the just rewards of their own ways and works 32. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them Paraphrase 32. Thus nothing but their own perverse obstinacy than which there can be no greater folly is to be accused for the ruine of those that perish God earnestly desired and endeavoured their reformation and salvation but they would not be rescued If any thing on God's part contributed toward it it was his long-suffering and mercy which occasionally encreased as in Pharaoh their obduration And this is of all others the most irrational folly and madness that the very blessings of heaven should enhance their hell and the tranquility and preservations of God afforded them should become so noxious in their hands as to be used for weapons to offend God and so mortally wound their own souls 33. But whoso hearkeneth to me shall dwell safely and shall be quiet from fear of evil Paraphrase 33. Yet thus it is with all that reject the admonitions and frustrate the methods of heaven as every obstinate impenitent sinner finally doth whereas every faithfull obedient servant of Christ shall by his spirit be furnished with sufficient strength to secure him against all danger of temptations and be either delivered from or supported under them and so hath the privilege of living cheerfully and comfortably and fiducially need never fear being forsaken by God as long as he continues carefull to keep close to him and then there is no enemy beside himself that can ever harm him As for any secular infortunities or miscarriages that can befall such a man as he hath not the privilege of exemption from them so he hath an armature that shall fortifie him against the evil of them a superiority of mind that keeps him from being concern'd in such things at least an acquiescence in the wisedom of God's choices who sees these best for him to take off his heart from any thing so gross or transitory as all worldly felicities are and so in all these he is more than conquerour by the instructions and assistance of Christ that eternal uncreated Wisedom Annotations on Chap. I. V. 2. Words of understanding The peculiar importance of the phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this place is fit to be considered it is literally enough rendred words of understanding or intelligent words as that signifies
is that as men that walk in the dark and see nothing constantly stumble and fall and bruise themselves but know not what it is they stumble at and so could not possibly prevent it so these in the roads of their sins continually stumble and fall into misery and sad ruines and discern not by what means they thus fall and so cannot possibly prevent it A secret vengeance finds them out coming they know not from whence an invisible worm bred from their sin gnaws and devours their estate good name and oft their very flesh and like the flowing roll in Zachary ch 5.14 entring into the house and remaining in the midst of it and consuming it with the stones and timber is hardly ever gotten out of the family of unjust and violent men 20. My son attend to my words encline thine ear to my sayings 21. Let them not depart from thine eyes keep them in the midst of thy heart 22. For they are life unto those that find them and health to all their flesh Paraphrase 20 21 22. All this and much more which shall be added may very reasonably engage every son of wisedom every man that is not utterly void of all even secular prudence or care of his own safety to remember and practice all the wholsome admonitions that are given him and never to indulge himself the least liberty to deviate from them in the actions of his life considering that all the ease and pleasures and comforts of life depend upon this that the life of wicked men is a continual disease and misery and a kind of death save onely that in death there is no sense of that wretched condition but in a wicked life there is torments and smart in great abundance and on the contrary the practice of piety brings joy which is the onely true life and health with it the good conscience is a continual feast ch 15.15 and doeth good as a medicine ch 17.22 and both in that and many other respects such is the exercise of all pious duties here abstracted from the endless reward in another world 23. Keep thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life Paraphrase 23. This therefore renders it a most seasonable admonition that every man be strictly mindfull to guard and fortifie his heart his will or elective faculty the principle of motion and action from all prohibited objects that he beg God's continual restreining preventing and assisting grace and make most diligent use thereof to keep that from all consent to any sin fencing himself with all the steddiest resolutions and prayers for strength to make them good and wakefulness over all temptations and courage and constancy for resistance these so many sorts of the surest ammunition and armour of proof knowing and considering that as the heart is the spring or original of life in the body so the will or consent is the fountain from whence all life springs whether that signifie vital gracious actions instead of which if it be not diligently guarded springs up all impiety or whether the joys and comforts of this life present all depending upon a right ordering of our choices or whether everlasting life and continuance in bliss The guarding of the will or elective faculty from all consent the flying from and detesting all evil and the vigorous choosing and pursuing of all good enters men upon such a life of grace here which is an inchoation of endless glory and shall be swallowed up in it hereafter 24. Put away from thee a froward mouth and perverse lips put far from thee Paraphrase 24. And as the heart must be most strictly guarded so must the mouth or tongue The next care is due to that to keep it from all malicious words lying whispering detraction contumely that sword of the tongue which when it is managed by a malicious heart doth wound most sadly commits the most intolerable fatal riots of any thing 25. Let thine eyes look right on and let thy eye-lids look straight before thee Paraphrase 25. And so in like manner must the eyes be guarded also not permitted to stray to any forbidden objects but fixed on that which is perfectly upright and commendable and made use of to direct and manage all the actions of our life seeing and considering beforehand where dangers lie that they may be avoided and what means may most happily contribute to our spiritual ends that we may make use of them 26. Ponder the path of thy feet and let all thy ways be established Paraphrase 26. Lastly for the feet by which are signified all the actions of our lives they must be kept close to the commands of God and all consideration and foresight made use of to that purpose minding always and pondering what is best and never entring on any way that is unsafe or slippery And this beyond all other things shall tend to the confirming our prosperity to the preserving us from sin first and then from all mischief attending it 27. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left remove thy foot from evil Paraphrase 27. In a word let no temptation either of hope or fear passion or interest be able to seduce or divert thee from the straight and even path of vertue but exactly and precisely preserve thy self from every thing that is evil And nothing shall so certainly tend to thy peace and happiness Annotations on Chap. IV. V. 2. Doctrine The Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies properly to receive thence to acquire or get thence by a metaphor to learn or receive doctrine From hence the noun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is by us with the authority of the Chaldee and Syriack read doctrine but the LXXII reade 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a gift and so the Latin with the Arabick donum and so the circumstances encline it the foregoing giving and good for so the instructing men not to forsake his law though it be capable of the style of giving them a good lesson or doctrine yet it is surely as if not more agreeable to call it the giving a good gift and thus indeed the teachings and descent of the Holy Ghost called God's giving gifts unto men are Psal 68.18 exprest by receiving gifts for men Thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a taking and a gift are with the Greeks all one differing onely by the relation that one hath to the receiver tother to the donor In either of these interpretations the sense is much the same for supposing it a doctrine the attribute of goodness intimates it to be a favour and so a benefaction or gift to him who is willing to be taught V. 3. In the sight It is not amiss here to note what the Jews observe that in this and one other place of the Bible the rendrings differ and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the sight is written for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the
the trouble to mortifie his own unruly appetites is soon overrun and laid waste by them All these sorts of misery though he expects them not but in confidence of safety goes on in his idle slothfull course will when he little thinks of it knock at his door as a traveller or way-goer to an host that knows nothing of his coming and when it comes it comes with a vengeance there is no way of resisting and as little of supporting it This traveller is stout and armed and will force his entrance and lay all waste where he enters 12. A naughty person a wicked man walketh with a froward mouth Paraphrase 12. Among other most noxious effects of idleness and unprofitableness one deserves to be taken notice of and most carefully avoided that of whispering and backbiting calumniating and detracting labouring nothing so much as to deprave and defame the actions of other men This is an eminent fruit of sloth and wickedness combin'd together and a most diabolical sin 13. He winketh with his eyes he speaketh with his feet and teacheth with his fingers Paraphrase 13. Such an one when he hath nothing of weight to say against a man will by significative gestures of all sorts give intimations of some grand matters and so perswade others without laying any particular to his charge that he is a most pestilent fellow 14. Frowardness is in his heart he deviseth mischief continually he soweth discord Paraphrase 14. His thoughts which have no good business to take them up are continually imployed in projecting what mischief he may doe and are never more gratefully busied than when he is a causing debate among neighbours One such person in a City is enough to embroil the whole and put it into a tumult 15. Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly suddenly shall he be broken without remedy Paraphrase 15. And as to idle persons v. 11. so to this above all a proportionable vengeance is to be expected He that is of this temper seldom fails to be met with in his kind to fall unexpectedly by some secret hand parallel to the secrecy of his detracting whispering humour and when he falls he can never be recovered again he perishes unpitied unregarded 16. These six things doth the Lord hate yea seven are an abomination to him 17. A proud look a lying tongue and hands that shed innocent blood 18. An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations feet that be swift in running to mischief 19. A false witness that speaketh lies and him that soweth discord among brethren Paraphrase 16 17 18 19. And there is all reason for this for as there be seven sins which be very hatefull to God so this is a compound of five if not of all seven of them The seven are these 1. pride or haughtiness 2. lying or fraudulence 3. guilt of blood 4. malice or projecting of evil 5. a pleasure in mischieving any 6. false witness or calumny 7. causing of discord or debates among those that live friendly together Of these the second the fourth the fifth the sixth and seventh are evidently in this of the detractour or calumniatour see v. 12 14. And that pride is the root of it and blood-guiltiness the effect of it cannot be doubted the pride and high opinion of our selves and desire to be esteemed above all constantly inciting us to defame others and the debates and discord which are caused by back-biting ending generally in feuds and the bloodiest murthers And this is a competent indication how odious this sin is and how punishable in the sight of God 20. My son keep thy father's commandment and forsake not the law of thy mother 21. Bind them continually upon thy heart and tie them about thy neck 22. When thou goest it shall lead thee when thou sleepest it shall keep thee and when thou awakest it shall talk with thee 23. For the commandment is a lamp and the law is light and reproofs of instruction are the way of life 24. To keep thee from the evil woman from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman Paraphrase 20 21 22 23 24. In the next place a principal caution there is for all young men of which they are to take an extraordinary care 'T is that which all parents timely warn their children of and it concerns them to lay it up and never forget it to carry it continually about with them as the Jews do their Phylacteries that it may be a perpetual memorative never out of their sight If they doe so they will have the comfort and benefit of it at home and abroad sleeping and waking in all the varieties of their life they will see and discern that timely which they that discern not run into all the most noxious and ruinous courses And what is this so important a caution thus pompously introduced Why onely this that thou be sure to keep thee from that horrible sin of fornication or adultery and not suffer thy self by whatsoever flatteries and deceits by soft and fair speeches the common address of whores to be seduced and ensnared in it 25. Lust not after her beauty in thine heart neither let her take thee with her eye-lids 26. For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life Paraphrase 25 26. Whatever allurement is in her beauty that may warm and attract thy love whatever invitation in her behaviour and amiableness of her looks or address thou art most nearly concerned to guard and fortifie thy self that thou beest not captivated thereby that thou permit not any unclean desire to kindle so much as in thine heart for as that is adultery in the eyes of that God that requires purity of the heart as well as actions see Matt. 5.8 28. so most sad and dismall are the effects of this passion as by many thousand examples hath been evidenced both in relation to mens estates and also their lives Many great estates have been utterly ruin'd and brought to the smallest pittance by that sin and many bodies have been exhausted and brought to noisome diseases and untimely death the very life and soul and whatsoever is most precious is the prey that this vulture gorges herself on 27. Can a man take fire in his bosome and his clothes not be burnt 28. Can one go on hot coals and his feet not be burnt 29. So he that goeth in to his neighbour's wife whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent Paraphrase 27 28 29. It is as imaginable that a man shall put fire in his bosome or walk upon live coals and receive no harm from them either to his garments or his flesh as that a man shall adventure on this sin of adultery and not exhaust and ruine himself by that course A fire in his bones and a wasting to his estate are the regular natural inevitable attendants of this sin But that is not all The wrath
made a most excellent sanctified use of these Times I confess I am glad to see such quarrels glad that any thing can allay that mad passion that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Isidor calls it that fury of love and doting on our earthern Gods glad that they that have been so long tormented in their own Gallies suo calculo damnati ad metalla by their own tyrannical covetous minds condemn'd to that old Roman punishment a digging and hewing in the Minerals for ever are by the bounty of these ill Times return'd from their thraldom their captivity before their year of Jubilee expell'd from these Gallies banish'd out of this Inquisition glad that the World 's forsaking of us can work any degree of cure on our fits of spleen our hypochondriack passions to the World 'T is possible that the man thus dispossest of his old Familiar may at length have hospitable thoughts for some nobler guests that the ill usage from the Harlot may bring the Spouse into favour again that the sense of the ill Master that we have drudg'd under so long may make us seek out some more gainful service that the unprosperousness of the arm of flesh the several failings of the Second causes which we have idolized so often the many delusions and ill successes we meet with in the world may make some forsake those Atheistical colours and bring in Proselytes to Heaven and so this contempt of the World may be a piece of prooemial piety an usher or Baptist to repentance but till it be thus improv'd and built upon till this excellent piece of Philosophy be as Clemens saith of the Pagan School 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 baptized by that Baptist christianiz'd by the addition of Repentance till the thorns that are now in the flesh enter to the pricking and wounding of the heart to the letting out all worldly trusts and aiery hopes out of it till he that is fallen out with this world and his Aegyptian Master there come with him in the Gospel unto Christ in quest after the blessed heavenly Master running and kneeling and asking Good Master what shall I do to get my portion in another World and pursue Christ's directions to the utmost in that design that contemner of the World must still know he hath not yet taken out the Baptist's Copy not made such use of the Doctrine of the Rod as is expected from him he is not yet advanced so far as to John's Baptism to that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the so much as almost a Christian which the Baptist could have made him O then let him go on to the perfection of the Text not satisfie himself with that use of it In another perhaps the complexion of the Times have had a yet nobler influence inspired him with a perfect valour an athletick habit of Soul a contempt of Life it self brought him to a dreadless approach of that supreme terrour and that not only the martial man whose calling is to heard that Lion but even the soft Courtier who had imbibed no such bold principles 't is now no news to hear Death kindly treated We can think of Death as of a Preferment of the Grave as one of the greatest Dignities in the Church and not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bless this enemy when we have not so much meekness or charity for any other count them happiest and blessedest that come earliest to it each discontented Jonah hath his Take I beseech thee my life from me the whole Kingdom is become wilderness a many prickly Juniper-trees scattered every where in that wilderness and an Eliah sate down under every one of those Juniper-trees a sighing cut his request for himself that he may die It is enough now O Lord take away my life and I see this passeth with some for a special piety and mortification which let me tell you considered aright is an act of the sullenest Atheism a fellonious intent against themselves which because like Saul they are too cowardly to execute with their own hands God must supply the Armour-bearer's place be call'd in to do it for them But I am not so uncharitable to think that all our thoughts of kindness to death are the congelation of such black melancholick vapours 't is I hope in some an obedience to Plato's precept the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the endeavouring to behave ones self comely in whatever fortune a Christian submission to God's will in either of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which way soever the oeconomy of providence disposes us even as far as to death it self no hatred or satiety of Life but an indifference to either lot the hating Life only as we are commanded to hate our Parents not with an absolute but comparative hatred the denotation of the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only chusing the rest preferring the dormitory the being asleep in Christ in Paradise with Christ rather than to be in those uneasie postures laborious marches that an Hell on earth provides for us And then I shall commend your righteous judgment but yet still not flatter you that this is a sufficient Use of this Baptist's Sermon of the present impendency of God's punishments Thou may'st not only be content but wish to die and be with Christ which is far better more desirable even to the carnal man most gladly exchange the torments of a brittle life for the joys of an Eternity and yet not have deposited the lusts and basenesses of this nauseated life the former is but an act of the Judicative faculty a conclusion that such premisses once considered cannot chuse but extort from us but the other is an act of the Will which is not so easily brought to perform its duty to mortifie the flesh with the affections and lusts the work of Repentance here required of us And I beseech you let us not be too confident that we have performed our task though we could resolve to be content nay glad to die with Christ for so you know Peter could do and deny and blaspheme him after it unless we have that second Martyrdom that Cyprian or some body in his disguise hath wrote a Book of that vital Martyrdom of our exemplary saintly penitent lives to improve and consummate t'other and so still we are not got so far as Repentance we require more storms more thunderbolts more rouzing tempests more pressing calamities yet to drive us thither A third sort may have arrived to a third and greater degree of proficiency yet in the School of Judgments to a resolution and practice of Patience under God's hand how heavy soever it prove and yet let me tell you come short of Repentance still for I beseech you observe there is a double submission unto God to his will and to his wisdom that to his will reveal'd as well as secret reveal'd for the duties secret for the sufferings of this life the first in an active the second in
a passive obedience to Heaven The submitting to God's will in suffering what he lays upon us the utmost degree of Patience that the most of us attain to and when we have done that think our selves Champions and Martyrs of the first magnitude is but a very moderate degree of Christian fortitude that which Christ needed not have ascended to the Cross to preach unto us a man must be a kind of mad Atheist to come short of that for what is it but Atheism to think it possible to resist his will and what but madness to attempt it 'T is that high Philosophy of submitting to his wisdom the acknowledging God the best chuser for us the stripes which he sends far fitter for our turns than all the boons we pray for his denying of our demands the divinest way of granting them and in a word the resolving that whatever is is best whatsoever he hath done best to be done whatsoever permitted best to be permitted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that very fury and madness of earth and hell is a piece of God's oeconomy whatsoever is revealed to be his will by its coming to pass among us is though the Actors in that Tragedy shall pay dearly for it yet better and more desirable and eligible for us than all friends and Patron-guardians in heaven and earth yea and our own Souls could have contrived and chosen for us The good Hezekiah's Good is the word of the Lord which he hath spoken when it denounced destruction to his whole family old Nahum's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even this for good to the heaviest news that ever came so oft repeated that we find him in Elias Levita surnamed Gamzo Even this the firm adherence to the truth of that Apostolical Aphorism that all things tend to good to them that love God from tribulation through seven degrees to sword or death it self and the forming all our lives by the plastick vertue of this one Article this submission I say to his wisdom superadded to that other to his will and that attended with its natural consequent a rejoycing in tribulation is the lesson God's rod must teach us yea and submission in actions as well as sufferings to his precepts as well as to his decrees doing chearfully as well as patiently enduring his will or else we are still but punies in St. Paul's Academy but triflers in the School of the Cross of Christ Once more Denunciations of God's wrath may set us a praying oftner than we were wont before make us assiduous and importunate in that duty The tempest in Jonah may cast the heathen Mariners upon their knees crying every man unto his God and yet for want of the clean hands to spread forth towards Heaven of the new Soul to exhale and breath forth those prayers the liveliest of those flames like all those which our earthy fire brings forth faint and extinguish long before they come to that Region of purity 'T was the blind man's Divinity Now we know that God heareth not sinners a principle of blind Nature and Hierocles a Philosopher descants excellently upon it The sacrifice of such unreformed fools is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but a feast for the fire to prey on their offerings to the Temple 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a prize for the sacrilegious to seize on the wise man is the only Priest the only friend of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the only man that knows how to pray offering up himself for a sacrifice hewing his lower Soul into an Image his upper into a Temple of his Deity I might shew you some more of these inferiour uses imperfect sudden motions that these judgments may have forced from us and so still like Chymicks in the pursuit of the Philosopher's Stone we meet with may handsome Experiments by the way please our selves in our journey though never attain to our journeys end These sad Times and this forced study and contemplation of God in his Judgments may have cast us upon some considerable Christian vertues and yet not advanced us within any ken of that great transcendent treasure to which all the ignis and the sulphur the fire and the brimstone of his Judgments that vast expence of thunder-bolts to the emptying of his Armory was design'd Repentance is a higher pitch than any or all of these and 't is only Repentance is the proper Use of this sad Doctrine and not all kinds that pass under that Title neither and that must be shewed you in our next stage And first the Repentance we speak of is not Sorrow whether for misery or for sin For Misery that sluce which lets out such rivers of tears which get away all the custom from godly sorrow or humiliation Such sorrow as this is admirably described by God Hos 7.14 and call'd assembling themselves for corn fasting and praying only upon the loss and for the recovering of worldly plenty and this it seems very reconcileable with all the impiety in the world for it follows and they rebel against me Nor bare sorrow for sin neither that which some men call Repentance and by so doing have fill'd Hell with none but Penitents for I am confident there is not an unhappy creature there which hath not both these parts of sorrow both for his misery and for his fall that betray'd him to it had he not Hell were not half so much hell as 't is two of the sorest tormentors would be missing the sense of the flames and the gnawing of the worm the one extorting the tears the other the gnashing of the teeth Nor secondly Humiliation alone though that were a great rarity to be found among us for though that might prevail to avert or defer secular calamities from a Kingdom as it did from Ahab and therefore our Satan that accuses this Nation day and night before God will not allow us this common grace after all our sufferings the whole Nation God knows is as unhumbled as ever yet will not a bare humiliation under God's rod be accepted for a sufficient return when Repentance and change is call'd for No nor thirdly the sudden passionate motions toward Reformation the shooting up of the seed in the stony ground many such weak false conceptions there are in the world and an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or speedy abortion the common fate of them all like the Goats in the Philosopher that give milk when they are stung but never else When he slew them they sought him and turned them early and enquired after God Every one of these is but a poor imperfect paiment of that great arrear that God's terrors and imminent Judgments are come like the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Gospel to arrest us for and if we do not presently make our peace with our adversary by rendring him that only royal tribute the sincere impartial uniform obedience of our whole age to come and counting the time past of our lives sufficient to have wrought the will
of the most defamed purity that a profane Age can scoff or rail at this certainly may be allow'd to pass for it Having therefore c. The words are an Exhortation to cleansing and in them you may please to observe these three particulars 1. The Ground 2. The Address 3. The Exhortation it self The Ground the fittest in the world for this turn when you shall consider it throughly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these Promises The Address adding somewhat of sweetness to that of rational advice Having these Promises dearly beloved And the Exhortation it self in the remainder of the words at large in the whole verse We shall content our selves with the contraction of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let us cleanse our selves I begin with the first The ground or foundation of the Apostle's exhortatory to cleansing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these promises 1. Promises 2. And particularly conditional Promises And yet 3 ly more particularly the conditional Promises of this Text the these Promises as they are set down in the end of the former Chapter are the most competent most ingaging effectual arguments or impellents to set any Christian upon the work of Christian practice that especially of impartial universal cleansing 'T will be best demonstrated if we take them asunder and view them in the several gradations 1. Promises are a very competent argument to that purpose a bait to the most generous passion about us our emulation or ambition drawing us with the cords of a Man the most rational masculine allectives I shall add to an ingenuous Christian man as that signifies neither Saint in Heaven nor Beast on Earth but that middle imperfect state of a Christian here the most agreeable proper argument imaginable to set us a cleansing Two other arguments there are both very considerable I confess 1. The Love in the Moralist of Vertue but in the Christian of God himself and that Love if it be gotten into our hearts will be very effectual toward this end the love of God constrains us saith the Apostle 2. The Fear of those threats those formidable denunciations which the Gospel thunders out against all unmortified carnal men that horrid representation of our even Christians God as he is still under the Gospel to all unreform'd obdurate sinners a consuming fire and consequently what a direful thing it is to fall into the hands of that living God and knowing these terrors of the Lord we perswade men saith the same Apostle There is some rouzing oratory some awakening rhetorick and eloquence in this also And let me tell you though it be but by the way that I am not altogether of their opinion that think these terrors of the Lord are not fit arguments to work on regenerate men that fear is too slavish a thing to remain in a Child of light a Christian I confess my self sufficiently perswaded that our Apostle made choice of no arguments but such as were fit to be made use of by Christians and those terrors are more than once his chosen arguments even to those that had received the Kingdom that cannot be moved Heb. 12.28 and are exhorted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to have grace to make use of that precious talent received which supposes a gracious person or possibly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be thankful to this munificent Donour for this inestimable gift yea and this duty raised to the highest pitch that a Christian is capable of to serving God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whether that refer to the persons and signifie serving with all chearfulness and alacrity and well-pleasedness or to God as we render it serving him acceptably with reverence and godly fear you have still in this Apostle these terrors immediately annex'd to inforce this duty for our God is a consuming fire And so again you cannot but remember the advice of working and working out salvation and emphatically our own salvation with fear and trembling not only with love and faith but peculiarly fear and trembling this trembling fit enough to accompany the Saint to Heaven gates to Salvation it self and therefore the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without fear in the 1. of Luke which we ordinarily joyn with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if we were thereby obliged to serve him without fear is in ancient Copies and Editions joyn'd with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that we being delivered without fear i. e. without danger might serve him in holiness c. And so I think 't is a little clear that the fear which is so cast out by perfect love that as the Apostle saith 1 John 4.18 there is no fear in love is not the fear of God's wrath but of temporal dangers and persecutions For so that love to Christ if it be perfect such as Christ's was to us Chap. 3.16 and is referred to again Chap. 4.17 that as he is so we should be in this world will make us content to adventure any thing for the beloved even death it self the most hugely vast formidable as 't is there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to lay down our lives for Christ but sure not the displeasing of God and torments of Hell that were too prodigal an Alms too wild a Romance valour would have too much of the modern point of honour for St. John to prescribe and so certainly is but mis-applied to this business And so still I cannot but think it wisdom and sober piety in him that said He would not leave his part in Hell the benefit which he had from these terrors for all the goods of this world knowing how useful the flesh of the Viper was to cure his poison the torments to check the temptations the apprehension of the Calenture that attended to restrain from the pleasant but forbidden fruits that were always a soliciting his senses and she that ran about the City that Novarnius tells us of with the brand of fire in one hand and a bottle of water in the other and said Her business was to set Heaven on fire with the one and quench Hell-flames with the other that there might be neither of them left only pure love to God to move or incite her piety had certainly a little of the flatus thus to drive her her spleen was somewhat swoln or distemper'd or if one may guess by her appearing in the street she was a little too wild and aereal in her piety But this by the way as a concession that there is not only Love but Fear also that may set men a cleansing as well as the Promises in the Text the denuntiation of Punishments is as considerable an act of Christ's Kingly office whereby he is to rule in our hearts by faith as that of proposing Rewards that other act of Regality Rom. 13. And the truth is all 's little enough to impress the duty and happy is he that hath this threefold cord this threefold obligation paternal and both kinds of regal each actually in force upon his Soul and
quietly stilly without some opposition of the other And then comes in in the third place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Soul the Elective Faculty i. e. the Will betwixt them courted and sollicited by both as that which hath the determining casting voice if the beast can carry it if the sensual suggestions get the consent of the Will obtain the embrace have its carnal proposals yielded to then in the Apostles phrase lust conceives and within a while proceeds from consent to act bringeth forth sin but when the Spirit prevails when the Reason the Conscience the God within the is allowed to be heard when that chaste sober matronly Spouse gets the embraces the consent of the Will then the Spirit conceives and from thence spring all the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Scripture speaks of the fruits and productions of the Spirit You see now the competition the constant importunities and sollicitations the rivalry for thy soul not an action of moment or importance in thy life but the house is divided about it the spirit for one way and the flesh for another and that that prevails i. e. gets the Will of its side denominates the action and the action frequently and indulgently reiterated denominates thee either flesh or spirit either captive to the law of sin or obedient to the commands and dictates of Christ a carnal sinner or a spiritual disciple And then my brethren by way of Use 1. You see the answer to that hard probleme what is the reason and ground of the infiniteness of those punishments that await sinners in another world Here you have the oyl that maintains that accursed Vestal fire so much beyond Tulliola's or Pallas's Lamp in Licetus burning so many Ages under ground and not consumed I mean this competition in this Text the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which of the two infinites will you and that other we mention'd of life and death blessing and cursing set before us by God the leaving to our option whether of the two infinites we will have This and nothing but this hath made it most perfectly reasonable that Despisers should perish eternally that he that will contemn immortal life that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Clemens St. Pauls contemporary calls it that eternity put into our hands by Christ and make his deliberate covenant with death that his immortal part may die eternally should be thought worthy as the Book of Wisd hath it to take his portion or part with it And then 2. O how much the more care and caution and vigilance will it require at our hands to keep guard over that one faculty that spring of life and death that fountain of sweet and poysonous water that of chusing or rejecting willing or nilling never to dispense those favours loosly or prodigally never to deny them rashly or unadvisedly but upon all the mature deliberation in the world Keep thy heart with all diligence the heart this principle of action keep it above all keeping for out of it are the issues of life Prov. 4.23 That when I would do good evil is present with me temptations of the carnal appetite to the contrary it matters little so I hold off my consent resist their importunity and that all the Devils in Hell are a whispering blasphemy within me it matters as little so I reject the suggestions Resist and he shall flie that he is loose to tempt this is my infelicity perhaps but not my guilt I and that mishap improved into a blessing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this tempter a kind of donative of Heaven to busie my patience and exercise my vigilance to set out my Christian valour to make me capable of the victory first and then the crown the nations left to prove Israel Jud. 3.1 yea and to teach them war verse 2. at least such as before knew nothing thereof Only be sure that those Nations get not the upper hand to that purpose that they be not pamper'd and fed too high till they grow petulant and unruly that this jumentum hominis as St. Jerom calls it this Ass or beast-part of the man prove not the Rider's Master this is the greatest danger first and then reproach in the world which you will more discern if you proceed from the competition to the Competitors and consider who they are in us spirit and flesh God and Devil as in the Jews Barabbas and Christ my second particular 'T is none of the least of God's mercies among his dispensations of providence that the competition falls to be betwixt such persons so acknowledgedly distant and hugely contrary a Christ and a Barabbas the one so pretious and the other so vile the Prince of Peace and the Author of an Insurrection a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Saviour and a Destroyer had it been betwixt a Christ and a Nicodemus a Carpenters Son and a Rabbi or Ruler in Israel the choice might have been more difficult or the mistake more pardonable But so God loved the world such were the riches of his goodness to an infatuated rebellious people he sets before them a beautiful Christ and an odious foyl to make him more beautiful to make it impossible for them to be so mad as to refuse and finally to reject Christ that was on such grounds and in such company a suing and importuning for their favour none but a Barabbas to pretend against him that that notion had of him might serve instead of the fishes gall to recover the blind Tobits sight help the blindest natural man to discern somewhat tolerable if not desirable in the Christ that in so poor a choice an undervalued prejudg'd scandalous Jesus might have leave to be considered and owe a preferment aliâ—nis vitiis to the faults of the other though not virtutibus suis to any thing amiable or esteemable in himself The same oeconomy you may generally observe even from the first of Paradise to this day When our first Parents were the prize the Competitors were of somewhat a distant making God and the Serpent not the King of Heaven and one of his chief Courtiers God and an Archangel of light but God and a damned Spirit a black Prince and he but in very homely disguise but of a Serpent which though he were then a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Cedrenus out of some of the Antients will have it somewhat a taller and goodlier creature than now the Serpent is that his Legs be cut off yet the Text saith a beast for all that I and that beast branded for craft infamous for the subtilest creature and so not likely to prove the most honest and solicitous of their good and this cunning Pytho had made friends to speak contrary to his kind there was sure some sorcery in that and all this one would think was enough to have added authority to God by such a prejudg'd Competitor And just so was it to the Israelites at their coming out
custom what indulgence in sin i. e. what Tophet what Hell shall be able to separate us from the love the favour the heaven of God He that hath Christ the Priest hath all he that believes in the sufferings hath Christ the Priest though not the King hath the faith though not the works i. e. the righteousness though not the Heathenish morality the Protestant Orthodox part though not the Popery the Antichristianism of a Christian and so is but the richer for that want hath the greater portion in the sufferings of Christ by the abundance of those sins he suffered for the more of the Priest is ours by how much the less of the King is discernible in us Having driven our unchristian lives to this principle this solemn conceit of ours that the Priestly office of Christ to which if rightly understood we owe all our salvation is nothing but the death of that Christ methinks 't were now possible to convince the secure Fiduciary of the error and sophistry of his former way to rob him of his beloved cheat now that we have prov'd so clear that Christ commenc'd his eternal Priesthood that on which all our blessedness depends from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not till after his resurrection For Tell me O thou whom my soul loveth and mourneth and bleedeth for in secret thou carnal confident that hast wearied thy self in the greatness of thy way thy profane wild-goose chase of sin and yet hast not said there is no hope thou that wilt profane and be saved too riot and be saved too reconcile faction rebellion sacrilege oppression oaths carnality all the unchristian practices in the world the confutation of the whole Gospel with salvation Tell me I say what Christ it is thou wilt be tried or saved by by Christ the King I am confident thou wert never so impudent to venture thy rebellions to that cognizance Well it is Christ the Priest thou so dependest on and â—y Christ the Priest Why because he hath sacrificed himself for thee Now let me tell thee 1. That some have guest shrewdly that though Christ died for all the sinners and sins in the world yet his sufferings being but finite in duration though infinite in respect of the person of the sufferer will not prove a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a proportionable ransom for thy sins I mean the impenitent sinners sins in duration infinite being as they are undetermin'd uncut off by repentance Thou must return reform confess and forsake or else thou hast out-sinn'd the very sufferings of Christ out-spent that vast ransom out damn'd salvation it self that may be a conviction ad hominem perhaps and therefore I mention'd it in the first place But then 2. Thou art it seems all this while mistaken in thy Priest thou art it seems all for the Aaronical and hast not yet thought of the Melchisedech-Priest thou art all for the sacrificer and never dream'st of the blesser Thou layest all thy weight on the Cross of Christ and art ready to press it down to hell with thee with leaning onely but not crucifying one lust on it never thinkest of being risen with Christ the condition so indispensably necessary to give us claim to the benefit of his death and so in effect thou leavest Christ in the grave and thy self in that mournful case of the despairing Disciples speraveramus we had hoped but never look'st after a resurrection 'T was Saint Pauls saying If in this life only we have hope in Christ we were of all men most miserable I suppose it is in this life only not of us but of Christ on this earth for it is brought to prove Christs resurrection there and it follows immediately but now is Christ raised 1 Cor. 15.20 and if that be the sense of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there the this life of Christ contains also his death under it for both those together it is that must make up the opposite to the resurrection And then I shall enlarge the Apostles words though not sense If in the earthly life and death of Christ we had hope only a sad life and a contumelious death if there were no such thing as a resurrection to help bless us we were of all men the most miserable hadst thou no other Priest but the Sacrificer the mortal finite Aaronical-Priest nothing but the ransom of Christs death which though it be never so high a price is yet finally unavailable to many for whom it was paid he bought them that are damn'd for denying him 2 Pet. 2.1 the wilful sinner treads under foot the Son of God profanes the blood of the covenant by which he is sanctified Heb. 10.29 and so there 's destruction enough still behind for the impenitent wretch after all that Christ hath suffer'd for thee what forms of ejulation and lamentation were enough for thee Alas my Brother ah Lord or ah his glory what mourning or wailing were thy portion Tell me wilt thou be content to leave thy Father before he hath blessed thee Jacob would not do so with the Angel but would wrestle his thigh out of joynt rather than thus part with him and even the profane Esau will run and weep bitterly for it and then art thou more nice and tender than that smooth Jacob wretchless than that profane Esau if thou content'st thy self only to have brought Christ to the grave that state of curse and never look'st out for the blessing provided for thee in the resurrection Mistake me not I would not drive you from this Cross of Christ discourage you from that most necessary act of faith the apprehending the crucified Saviour No if my lot had fallen on a Good-friday I would have spent my whole hour on that one theme and known nothing among you but Jesus Christ and him crucified Only my desire is that you will not allow one act of faith to turn Projector to get all the custom from the rest that you will permit Christ to live in you as well as to die for you to bless as well as to satisfie to rise again for your justification as well as to be delivered up for your offences that you will attend him at Galilee as well as at Golgotha think of the triumphant as well as the crucified Saviour the Melchisedech as well as the mortal Aaron-Priest And not only to think of his rising I must tell you but count of a work a mighty important necessary work that of turning in this Text to be wrought on us and in us by that resurrection now after the pardon impetrated by his passion I say not only to think of and believe him risen the Devil hath as much of that thought as frequent repeated acts of that belief as you and there is not such magick in that faith or phansie as to bear you to Heaven by meditating on his journey thither to elevate you by gazing on his ascension No that faith must be in our hearts too that
a pitiful addition in the scales so many pounds less than nothing is the utmost that can be affirmed of it and when you have fetcht out your last reserve all the painted air the only commodity behind that you have to throw into that scale the reputation and honour of a gallant vain-glorious sinner that some one fool or madman may seem to look on with some reverence you have then the utmost of the weight that that scale is capable of and the difference so vast betwixt them such an inconsiderable proportion of straw stubble to such whole Mines and Rocks of Gold and Silver and precious Stones that no man that is but able to deal in plain numbers no need of Logarithms or Algebra can mistake in the judgment or think that there is any profit any advantage in gaining the whole world if accompanied with the least hazard or possibility of losing his own soul and therefore the running that adventure is the greatest idiotism the most deplorable woful simplicity in the World The same proportion would certainly be acknowledged in the second place betwixt the command of Christ on one side high rational venerable commands that he that thinks not himself so strictly obliged to observe cannot yet but revere him that brought them into the World and deem them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Royal and a gallant Law whilst all the whole Volume or Code of the Law of the Members hath not one ingenuous dictate one tolerable rational proposal in it only a deal of savage drudgery to be performed to an impure tyrant sin and pain being of the same date in the world and the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying both and the more such burthens undergone the more mean submissions still behind no end of the tale of Brick to one that is once ingaged under such Egyptian Kiln and Task-masters And for the terrors in the last place there are none but those of the Lord that are fit to move or to perswade any the utmost secular fear is so much more impendent over Satan's than God's Clients the killing of the body the far more frequent effect of that which had first the honour to bring death into the world the Devil owning the title of destroyer Abaddon and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and inflicting diseases generally on those whom he possest and Christ that other of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Physician and the Saviour that hath promises of long life annexed to some specials of his service that if it were reasonable to fear those that can kill the body and afterwards have no more that they can do i. e. are able by the utmost of their malice and Gods permission but to land thee safe at thy fair Haven to give thee Heaven and bliss before thy time instead of the many lingring deaths that this life of ours is subject to yet there were little reason to fear or suspect the fate in Gods service far less than in those steep precipitous paths which the Devil leads us thorow And therefore to be thus low-bell'd with panick frights to be thus tremblingly dismayed where there is no place of fear and to ride on intrepid on the truest dangers as the Barbarians in America do on Guns is a mighty disproportion of mens faculties a strange superiority of phansie over judgment that may well be described by a defect in the power of numbering that discerns no difference between Ciphers and Millions but only that the noughts are a little the blacker and the more formidable And so much for the third branch of this character There is yet a fourth notion of simplicity as it is contrary to common ordinary prudence that by which the politician and thriving man of this world expects to be valued the great dexterity and managery of affairs and the business of this world wherein let me not be thought to speak Paradoxes if I tell you with some confidence that the wicked man is this only impolitick fool and the Christian generally the most dextrous prudent practical person in the world and the safest Motto that of the Virtutem violenter retine the keeping vertue with the same violence that Heaven is to be taken with not that the Spirit of Christ infuses into him the subtleties and crafts of the wicked gives him any principles or any excuse for that greater portion of the Serpentine wisdom but because honesty is the most gainful policy the most thriving thorow prudence that will carry a man farther than any thing else That old principle in the Mathematicks That the right line comes speediliest to the journeys end being in spight of Machiavel a Maxim in Politicks also and so will prove till Christ shall resign and give up to Satan the oeconomy of the World Some examples it is possible there may be of the Prosperum Scelus the thriving of villainy for a time and so of the present advantages that may come in to us by our secular contrivances but sure this is not the lasting course but only an anomaly or irregularity that cannot be thought fit to be reckoned of in comparison of the more constant promises the long life in a Canaan of Milk and Honey that the Old and New Testament both have ensured upon the meek disciple And I think a man might venture the experiment to the testimony and trial of these times that have been deemed most unkind and unfavourable to such innocent Christian qualities that those that have been most constant to the strict stable honest principles have thrived far better by the equable figure than those that have been most dextrous in changing shapes and so are not the most unwise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if there were never another state of retributions but this Whereas it is most scandalously frequent and observable that the great Politicians of this world are baffled and outwitted by the Providence of Heaven sell their most pretious souls for nought and have not the luck to get any money for them the most unthrifty improvident Merchandise that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 folly Psal xlix 13 which the lxxii render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 scandal the most piteous offensive folly the wretchedst simplicity in the World You would easily believe it should not stand in need of a farther aggravation and yet now you are to be presented with one in my Text by way of heightning of the Character and that was my second particular that at first I promised you made up of two farther considerations first the loving of that which is so unlovely secondly the continuing in the passion so long How long you simple ones will you love c. First The degree and improvement of the Atheists folly consists in the loving of it that he can take a delight and complacency in his way to be patient of such a course gainless service such scandalous mean submissions had been reproach enough to any that had not divested
himself of ingenuity and innocence together and become one of Aristotles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Natural slaves which if it signifie any thing denotes the fools and simple ones in this Text whom nature hath marked in the head for no very honourable imployments But from this passivity in the Mines and Gallies to attain to a joy and voluptuousness in the imployment to dread nothing but Sabbatick years and Jubiles and with the crest-faln slave to disclaim nothing but liberty and manumission i. e. in effect Innocence and Paradise and Bliss to court and woo Satan for the Mansions in Hell and the several types and praeludiums of them the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the initial pangs in this life which he hath in his disposing to be such a Platonick lover of stripes and chains without intuition of any kind of reward any present or future wages for all his patience and as it follows to hate knowledge and piety hate it as the most treacherous enemy that means to undermine their Hell to force them out of their beloved Satan's embraces this is certainly a very competent aggravation of the simplicity And yet to see how perfect a character this is of the most of us that have nothing to commend or even excuse in the most of those ways on which we make no scruple to exhaust our souls but only our kindness irrational passionate kindness and love toward them and then that love shall cover a multitude of sins supersede all the exceptions and quarrels that otherwise we should not chuse but have to them Could a man see any thing valuable or attractive in Oaths and Curses in Drunkenness and Bestiality the sin that when a Turk resolves to be guilty of he makes a fearful noise unto his Soul to retire all into his feet or as far off as it is possible that it may not be within ken of that bestial prospect as Busbequius tells us Could any man endure the covetous man's sad galling Mules burthens of Gold his Achans Wedge that cleaves and rends in sunder Nations so that in the Hebrew that sin signifies wounding and incision Joel ii 8 and is alluded to by his piercing himself thorow with divers sorrows 1 Tim. vi 10 his very Purgatories and Limbo's nay Hell as devouring and perpetual as it and the no kind of satisfaction so much as to his eye from the vastest heaps or treasures were he not in love with folly and ruine had he not been drenched with philtres and charms had not the Necromancer plaid some of his prizes on him and as St. Paul saith of his Galatians even bewitched him to be a fool Would we but make a rational choice of our sins discern somewhat that were amiable before we let loose our passion on them and not deal so blindly in absolute elections of the driest unsavory sin that may but be called a sin that hath but the honour of affronting God and damning one of Christ's redeemed most of our wasting sweeping sins would have no manner of pretensions to us and that you will allow to be one special accumulation of the folly and madness of these simple ones that they thus love simplicity The second aggravation is the continuance and duration of this fury a lasting chronical passion quite contrary to the nature of passions a flash of lightning lengthned out a whole day together that they should love simplicity so long It is the nature of acute diseases either to have intervals and intermissions or else to come to speedy crises and though these prove mortal sometimes yet the state is not generally so desperate and so it is with sins many the sharpest and vehementest indispositions of the Soul pure Feavers of rage and lust prove happily but flashing short furies are attended with an instant smiting of the heart a hating and detesting our follies a striking on the thigh in Jeremy and in David's penitential stile a So foolish was I and ignorant even as a beast before thee And it were happy if our Feavers had such cool seasons such favorable ingenuous intermissions as these But for the hectick continual Feavers that like some weapons the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 barbed shafts in use among the Franks in Agathias being not mortal at the entrance do all their slaughter by the hardness of getting out the Vultures that so tyre and gnaw upon the Soul the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that never suffer the sinner fool to make any approach toward his wits toward sobriety again this passionate love of folly improved into an habitual steddy course of Atheisticallness a deliberate peremptory final reprobating of Heaven the purity at once and the bliss of it the stanch demure covenanting with death and resolvedness to have their part to run their fortune with Satan through all adventures this is that monstrous brat that as for the birth of the Champion in the Poet three nights of darkness more than Egyptian were to be crowded into one all the simplicity and folly in a Kingdom to help to a being in the World and at the birth of it you will pardon Wisdom if she break out into a passion and exclamation of pity first and then of indignation How long ye simple ones c. My last particular The first debt that Wisdom that Christ that every Christian Brother ows and pays to every unchristian liver is that of pity and compassion which is to him of all others the properest dole Look upon all the sad moneful objects in the world betwixt whom all our compassion is wont to be divided first the Bankrupt rotting in a Gaol secondly the direful bloody spectacle of the Soldier wounded by the Sword of War thirdly the Malefactor howling under the Stone or gasping upon the Rack or Wheel and fourthly the gallant person on the Scaffold or Gallows ready for execution and the secure â—enseless sinner is the brachygraphy of all these You have in him 1. A rich patrimony and treasure of grace purchased dear and setled on him by Christ most prodigally and contumeliously misspent and exhausted 2. A Soul streaming out whole Rivers of blood and spirits through every wound even every sin it hath been guilty of and not enduring the Water to cleanse much less the Wine or Oyl to be poured into any one of them the whole Soul transfigured into one wound one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 congelation and clod of blood Then thirdly beyond this all the racks and pangs of a tormenting conscience his only present exercise and lastly all the torments in Hell the Officer ready hurrying him to the Judge and the Judge delivering him to the Executioner his minutely dread and expectation the dream that so haunts and hounds him And what would a man give in bowels of compassion to Christianity or but to humane kind to be able to reprieve or rescue such an unhappy creature to be but the Lazarus with one drop of water to cool the tip of the scalding Tongue that
respect to this Incarnation of Christ that the hopes the belief the expectation of Salvation which the Father 's lived and breathed by under the types of the Law was only grounded upon and referred unto these Promises of the future Incarnation that they which were not in some measure enlightned in this mystery were not also partakers of this Covenant of Salvation that all the means besides that Heaven and Earth and which goes beyond them both the brain of Man or Angel could afford or invent could not excuse much less save any child of Adam That every Soul which was to spring from these loins had been without those transcendent mercies which were exhibited by this Incarnation of Christs plung'd in necessary desperate damnation Your patience shall be more profitably imployed in a brief Application of the point First That you perswade and drive your selves to a sense and feeling of your Sins those sins which thus pluckt God out of Heaven and for a while depriv'd him of his Majesty which laid an engagement upon God either to leave his infinite Justice unsatisfied or else to subject his infinite Deity to the servile mortality of Flesh or else to leave an infinite World in a common damnation Secondly To strain all the expressions of our hearts tongues and lives to the highest note of gratitude which is possible in answer to this Mystery and Treasure of this God with us to reckon all the Miracles of either common or private preservations as foils to this incomparable Mercy infinitely below the least circumstance of it without which thine Estate thy Understanding thy Body thy Soul thy Being thy very Creation were each of them as exquisite Curses as Hell or Malice could invent for thee Thirdly To observe with an ecstasie of joy and thanks the precious priviledges of us Christians beyond all that ever God profest love to in that we have obtained a full revelation of this God with us which all the Fathers did but see in a cloud the Angels peep'd at the Heathen world gap'd after but we behold as in a plain at mid-day For since the veil of the Temple was rent every man that hath eyes may see Sanctum Sanctorum the Holy of Holies God with us Fourthly To make a real use of this Doctrine to the profit of our Souls that if God have designed to be Emmanuel and Jesus an Incarnate God and Saviour to us that then we will fit and prepare and make our selves capable of this Mercy and by the help of our religious devout humble endeavours not frustrate but further and promote in our selves this end of Christs Incarnation the saving of our Souls and this use is effectually made to our hands in the twelfth to the Hebrews at the last Wherefore we receiving a Kingdom that cannot be moved i. e. being partakers of the Presence the Reign the Salvation of the Incarnate God Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear And do thou O powerful God improve the truth of this Doctrine to the best advantage of our Souls that thy Son may not be born to us unprofitably but that he may be God not only with us but in us in us to sanctifie and adorn us here with his effectual grace and with us to sustain us here as our Emmanuel and as our Jesus to crown and perfect us hereafter with glory And so much for this point That Jesus and Emmanuel import the same thing and there was no Salvation till this presence of God with us We now come to the substance it self i. e. Christs Incarnation noted by Emmanuel which is by interpretation c. Where first we must explain the word then drive forward to the matter The Word in Isaiah in the Hebrew is not so much a name as a sentence describing unto us the mystery of the Conception of the Virgin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with us God where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God is taken in Scripture either absolutely for the nature of God as for the most part in the Old Testament or personally and so either for the Person of the Father in many places or else distinctly for the Person of the Son so Hos i. 7 And will save them by the Lord their God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their God i. e. Christ and so also most evidently in this place out of Isaiah where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the Son Incarnate God-man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and many the like especially those where the Targum paraphrases Jehovah or Jehovah Elohim by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word of the Lord i. e. Christ Jesus Joh. i. 1 As for instance Gen. iii. 22 that Word of the Lord said and Gen. ii 6 the Word created Secondly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies in its extent near at with or amongst Thirdly the Particle signifying us though it expresses not yet it must note our humane nature our abode our being in this our great World wherein we travel and this our little World wherein we dwell not as a mansion place to remain in but either as an Inn to lodg or a Tabernacle to be covered or a Prison to suffer in So that the words in their latitude run thus Emmanuel i. e. The second Person in Trinity is come down into this lower world amongst us for a while to travel to lodg to sojourn to be fetter'd in this Inn this Tabernacle this Prison of mans flesh or briefly at this time is conceived and born God-man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same both God and Man the Man Christ Jesus And this is the cause and business the ground and theme of our present rejoycing in this were limited and fulfilled the expectation of the Fathers and in this begins and is accomplished the hope and joy of us Christians That which was old Simeons warning to death the sight and embraces of the Lord Christ Luk. ii 28 as the greatest happiness which an especial favour could bestow on him and therefore made him in a contempt of any further life sing his own funeral Nunc Dimittis Lord now lettest thou c. This is to us the Prologue and first part of a Christians life either the life of the World that that may be worthy to be call'd life or that of Grace that we be not dead whilst we live For were it not for this assumption of flesh you may justly curse that ever you carried flesh about you that ever your Soul was committed to such a Prison as your Body is nay such a Dungeon such a Grave But through this Incarnation of Christ our flesh is or shall be cleansed into a Temple for the Soul to worship in and in Heaven for a robe for it to triumph in For our body shall be purified by his Body If ye will be sufficiently instructed into a just valuation of the weight of this Mystery you must resolve
Martyr and directed to the Philippians 't is observed that whilst he was at a pretty distance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Devil hastned the structure of Christs Cross as much as he could set Judas and all the Artificers of Hell about the work 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but when all was even ready Christ for the Cross and the Cross for Christ then he began to put i◠demurs shews Judas an Halter frights Pilar's Wife in a dream she could not sleep in 〈…〉 and in summ uses all means possible to prevent Christs Crucifixion Yet this saith Ignatius not out of any repentance or regret of Conscience but only being started with the foresight of his own ruine by this means Christ's suffering being in effect the destruction of his Kingdom his death ou◠Triumph over Hell and his Cross our Trophy By this you may discern what a miracle of God's love was this giving of his Son the conceiving of which was above the Devil's reach and wherein he was providentially ingaged and if we may so speak 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 carried blindfold by God to be an Instrument of his own ruine and in a kind be a Co-worker of our Salvation Not to inlarge or expatiate upon Circumstances Man being thus involved in a necessity of damnation and no remedy within the sphere either of his power or conceit left to rescue him nay as some have been so hold to say that God himself had no other means besides this in his Store-house of miracles to save us without intrenching on some one of his Attributes for God then to find out a course that we could never prompt him to being solicited to it by nothing in us but our sins and misery and without any interposition any further consultation or demur to part with a piece of himself to redeem us Brachium Domini The Arm of the Lord as Isaiah calls our Saviour Isa liii Nay to send down his very Bowels amongst us to witness his compassion to satisfie for us by his own death and attach himself for our liberty to undergo such hard conditions rather than be forced to a cheap severity and that he might appear to love his Enemies to hate his Son In brief to fulfil the work without any aid required from us and make Salvation ready to our hands as Manna is called in the sixth of Wisdom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bread baked and sent down ready from Heaven Wisd xvi 20 to drop it in our mouths and exact nothing of us but to accept of it this is an act of love and singleness that all the malice we carry about us knows not how to suspect so far from possibility of a treacherous intent or double dealing that if I were an Heathen nay a Devil I would bestow no other appellation on the Christians God than what the Author of the Book of Wisdom doth so often 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the friend or the lover of Souls But this is a vulgar though precious subject and therefore I shall no longer insist on it Only before I leave it would I could see the effect of it exprest in our Souls as well as acknowledged in our looks your hearts ravished as thorowly as your brains convinc'd your breasts as open to value and receive this superlative mercy as your tongues to confess it then could I triumph over Hell and death and scoff them out of countenance then should the Devil be reduced to his old pittance confined to an empty corner of the World and suffer as much by the solitariness as darkness of his abode all his engines and arts of torment should be busied upon himself and his whole exercise to curse Christ for ever that hath thus deprived him of Associates But alas we are too sollicitous in the Devil's behalf careful to furnish him with Companions to keep him warm in the midst of fire 't is to be feared we shall at last thrust him out of his Inheritance 'T is a probable argument that God desires our Salvation because that Hell wheresoever it is whether at the Center of the Earth or Concave of the Moon must needs be far less than Heaven and that makes us so besiege the gate as if we feared we should find no room there We begin our journey betimes lest we should be forestall'd and had rather venture a throng or crowd in Hell than to expect that glorious liberty of the Sons of God 'T is to be feared that at the day of Judgment when each Body comes to accompany its Soul in torment Hell must be let out and inlarge its territories to receive its Guests Beloved there is not a Creature here that hath reason to doubt but Christ was sent to die for him and by that death hath purchased his right to life Only do but come in do but suffer your selves to live and Christ to have died do not uncrucifie Christ by crucifying him again by your unbelief do not disclaim the Salvation that even claims right and title to you and then the Angels shall be as full of joy to see you in Heaven as God is willing nay desirous to bring you thither and Christ as ready to bestow that Inheritance upon you at his second coming as at his first to purchase it Nothing but Infidelity restrains Christs sufferings and confines them to a few Were but this one Devil cast out of the World I should be straight of Origens Religion and preach unto you Universal Catholick Salvation A second Argument of God's good meaning towards us of his willingness that we should live is the calling of the Gentiles the dispatching of Posts and Heralds over the whole ignorant Heathen World and giving them notice of this treasure of Christ's blood Do but observe what a degree of prophaneness and unnatural abominations the Gentile World was then arrived to as you may read in all their stories and in the first to the Romans how well grown and ripe for the Devil Christ found them all of them damnably Superstitious and Idolatrous in their Worship damnably unclean in their lives nay ingaged for ever in this rode of damnation by a Law they had made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never to entertain any new Laws or Religion not to innovate though it were to get Salvation as besides their own Histories may be gathered out of Act. xvii 18 And lastly consider how they were hook'd in by the Devil to joyn in crucifying of Christ that they might be guilty of that bloud which might otherwise have saved them and then you will find no argument to perswade you 't was possible that God should have any design of mercy on them Peter was so resolv'd of the point that the whole succession of the Gentiles should be damned that God could scarce perswade him to go and Preach to one of them Act. x. He was fain to be cast into a Trance and see a Vision about it and for all that he is much
thy self to God might recover you to Heaven O then what power and energy what force and strong efficacy would there be in this voice from God Why will you die I am resolved that heart that were truly sensible of it that were prepared seasonably by all these circumstances to receive it would find such inward vigor and spirit from it that it would strike death dead in that one minute this ultimus conatus this last spring and plunge would do more than a thousand heartless heaves in a lingring sickness and perhaps overcome and quit the danger And therefore let me beseech you to represent this condition to your selves and not any longer be flattered or couzened in a slow security To day if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts If you let it alone till this day come in earnest you may then perhaps heave in vain labour and struggle and not have breath enough to send up one sigh toward Heaven The hour of our death we are wont to call Tempus improbabilitatis a very improbable inch of time to build our Heaven in as after death is impossibilitatis a time wherein it is impossible to recover us from Hell If nothing were required to make us Saints but outward performances if true repentance were but to groan and Faith but to cry Lord Lord we could not promise our selves that at our last hour we should be sufficient for that perhaps a Lethargy may be our fate and then what life or spirits even for that perhaps a Fever may send us away raving in no case to name God but only in oaths and curses and then it were hideous to tell you what a Bethlehem we should be carried to But when that which must save us must be a work of the Soul and a gift of God how can we promise our selves that God will be so merciful whom we have till then contemned or our souls then capable of any holy impression having been so long frozen in sin and petrified even into Adamant Beloved as a man may come to such an estate of grace here that he may be most sure he shall not fall as St. Paul in likelihood was when he resolved that nothing could separate him So may a man be engaged so far in sin that there is no rescuing from the Devil There is an irreversible estate in evil as well as good and perhaps I may have arrived to that before my hour of death for I believe Pharaoh was come to it Exod. ix 34 after the seventh Plague hardning his heart and then I say it is possible that thou that hitherto hast gone on in habituate stupid customary rebellions mayst be now at this minute arrived to this pitch That if thou run on one pace farther thou art engaged for ever past recovery And therefore at this minute in the strength of your age and lusts this speech may be as seasonable as if death were seizing on you Why will you die At what time soever thou repentest God will have mercy but this may be the last instant wherein thou canst repent the next sin may benumb or fear thy heart that even the pangs of death shall come on thee insensibly that the rest of thy life shall be a sleep or lethargy and thou lie stupid in it till thou findest thy self awake in flames Oh if thou shouldst pass away in such a sleep Again I cannot tell you whether a death-bed repentance shall save you or no. The Spouse sought Christ on her bed but found him not Cant. iii. 1 The last of Ecclesiastes would make a man suspect that remembring God when our feeble impotent age comes on us would stand us in little stead Read it for it is a most learned powerful Chapter This I am sure of God hath chosen to himself a people zealous of good works Tit. ii 14 And they that find not some of this holy fire alive within them till their Souls are going out have little cause to think themselves of God's election So that perhaps there is something in it that Matth. iii. 8 the Exhortation Bring forth fruits worthy of repentance is exprest by a sense that ordinarily signifies time past 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have brought forth fruits It will not be enough upon an exigence when there is no way but one with me to be inclinable to any good works to resolve to live well when I expect to die I must have done this and more too in my life if I expect any true comfort at my death There is not any point we err more familiarly in and easily than our spiritual condition what is likely to become of us after death Any slight phansie that Christ died for us in particular we take for a Faith that will be sure to save us Now there is no way to preserve our selves from this Error but to measure our Faith and Hopes by our Obedience that if we sincerely obey God then are we true believers And this cannot well be done by any that begins not till he is on his Death-bed be his inclinations to good then never so strong his faith in Christ never so lusty yet how knows he whether it is only fear of death and a conviction that in spight of his teeth he must now sin no longer that hath wrought these inclinations produced this faith in him Many a sick man resolves strongly to take the Physicians dose in hope that it will cure him yet when he comes to taste its bitterness will rather die than take it If he that on his Death-bed hath made his solemnest severest Vows should but recover to a possibility of enjoying those delights which now have given him over I much fear his fiercest resolutions would be soon out-dated Such inclinations that either hover in the Brain only or float on the Surface of the Heart are but like those wavering temporary thoughts Jam. i. 6 Like a wave of the Sea driven by the wind and tost they have no firmness or stable consistence in the Soul it will be hard to build Heaven on so slight a foundation All this I have said not to discourage any tender languishing Soul but by representing the horrors of death to you now in health to instruct you in the doctrine of Mortality betimes so to speed and hasten your Repentance Now as if to morrow would be too late as if there were but a small Isthmus or inch of ground between your present mirth and jollity and your everlasting earnest To gather up all on the Clue Christ is now offered to you as a Jesus The times and sins of your Heathenism and unbelief God winked at Acts xvii 30 The Spirit proclaims all this by the Word to your hearts and now God knows if ever again commands all men every where to repent Oh that there were such a Spirit in our hearts such a zeal to our eternal bliss and indignation at Hell that we would give one heave and
the world but out of the Gospel and he that hath refus'd them is past any farther treaty He that believeth not is condemned already John iii. 18 his damnation is sealed to him and the entail past cutting off 't is his purchace and now wants nothing but livery and seizin nay 't is his patrimony 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ecclus. xx 25 he is as sure of it as of any peny worth of his inheritance And the reason is implyed 1 Cor. xv 17 If Christ be not risen you are yet in your sins there is no way to get out of our sins but Christs resurrection and he that believeth not Christ is not risen to him 't were all one to him if there had never been a Saviour and therefore he remains in his old thraldom he was taken captive in Adam and hath never since had any other means to restore him the ransom that was offered all he would none of and so he sticks unredeemed he is yet in his sins and so for ever like to continue And now he is come to this state 't were superfluous farther to aggravate the sin against him his case is too wretched to be upbraided him the rest of our time shall be imployed in providing a remedy for him if it be possible and that must be from consideration of the disease in a word and close of application The sin being thus displayed to you with its consequences O what a spirit should it raise in us O what a resolution and expression of our manhood to resist and banish out of us this evil heart of unbelief Heb. iii. 12 what an hatred should it work in our bowels what a reluctancy what an indignation what a revenge against the fruit of our bosom which hath so long grown and thrived within us only to our destruction which is provided as it were to eat our souls as an harbinger to prepare a place within us for the worm in Hell where it may ly and bite and gnaw at ease eternally 'T is an Examination that will deserve the most precious minute of our lives the solemnest work of our souls the carefullest muster of our faculties to shrift and winnow and even set our hearts upon the rack to see whether any fruit or seed of infidelity lurk in it and in a matter of this danger to prevent God inquest by our own to display every thing to our selves just as it shall be laid open before God in judgment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. iv 13 naked and discernible as the entrals of a Creature cut down the back where the very method of nature in its secrecies is betrayed to the eye I say to cut our selves up and to search into every crany of our souls every winding of either our understanding or affections and observe whether any infidel thought any infidel lust be lodged there and when we have found this execrable thing which hath brought all our plagues on us then must we purge and cleanse and lustrate the whole City for its sake and with more Ceremony than ever the heathen used even with a superstition of daily hourly prayers and sacrificing our selves to God strive and struggle and offer violence to remove this unclean thing out of our Coasts use these unbelieving hearts of ours as Josiah did the Altars of Ahaz 2 King xxiii 12 break them down beat them to powder and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron that Cedron which Christ passed over when he went to suffer John xviii 1 even that brook which Christ drank of by the way Psa cx 7 And there indeed is there a remedy for infidelity if the Infidel will throw it in If he will put it off be it never so dyed in the contempt of Christs blood that very blood shall cleanse it and therefore In the next place let us labour for Faith let not his hands be stretched out any longer upon the cross to a faithless and stubborn generation 'T were a piece of ignorance that a Scholar would abhor to be guilty of not to be able to understand that inscription written by Pilate in either of 3. languages Jesus of Nazareth King John xix 19 Nay for all the Gospels and Comments written on it both by his Disciples and his works still to be non-proficients this would prove an accusation written in Marble nay an Exprobration above a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In a word Christ is still offered and the proclamation not yet outdated his sufferings in the Scripture proposed to every one of you to lay hold on and his Ministers sent as Embassadors beseeching you to be reconciled 2 Cor. v. 20 and more than that in the Sacrament of the Eucharist his body and blood set before our eyes to be felt and gazed on and then even a Didymus would believe nay to be divided amongst us and put in our mouths and then who would be so sluggish as to refuse to feed on him in his heart For your Election from the beginning to this gift of Faith let that never raise any doubt or scruple in you and foreslow that coming to him this is a jealousie that hath undone many in a resolvedness that if they are not elected all their Faith shall prove unprofitable Christ that bids thee repent believe and come unto him is not so frivolous to command impossibilities nor so cruel to mock our impotence Thou mayest believe because he bids Believe and then thou mayest be sure thou wert predestinated to believe and then all the decrees in the World cannot deny thee Christ if thou art thus resolved to have him If thou wilt not believe thou hast reprobated thy self and who is to be accused that thou art not saved But if thou wilt come in there is sure entertainment for thee He that begins in Gods Counsels and never thinks fit to go about any Evangelical duty till he can see his name writ in the book of life must not begin to believe till he be in Heaven for there only is that to be read radio recto The surer course is to follow the Scripture to hope comfortably every one of our selves to use the means apprehend the mercies and then to be confident of the benefis of Christs suffering and this is the way to make our Election sure to read it in our selves radio reflexo by knowing that we believe to resolve that we are elected thereby we know that we are past from death to life if we love the brethren 1 John iii. 14 And so is it also of Faith for these are inseparable graces So Psal xxv 14 Prov. iii. 32 Gods secret and his Covenant being taken for his decree is said to be with them that fear him and to be shewed to them i. e. their very fearing of God is an evidence to them that they are his elect with whom he hath entred Covenant Our Faith is the best argument or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
by which to make a judgment of Gods decree concerning us I say if we will believe God hath elected us 't is impossible any true Faith should be refused upon pretence the person was predestined to destrustion and if it were possible yet would I hope that Gods decrees were they as absolute as some would have them should sooner be softned into mercy than that mercy purchased by his Son should ever fail to any that believes The bargain was made the Covenant struck and the immutability of the Persian Laws are nothing to it that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Joh. iii. 15 Wherefore in brief let us attend the means and let what will or can come of the End Christ is offered to every soul here present to be a Jesus only do thou accept of him and thou art past from death to life there is no more required of thee but only to take him if thou art truly possessor of him he will justify he will humble he will sanctifie thee he will work all reformation in thee and in time seâ—l thee up to the day of redemption Only be careful that thou mistakest not his Person thou must receive him as well as his promises thou must take him as a Lord and King as well as a Saviour and be content to be a subject as well as a Saint He is now proclaimed in your ears and you must not foreslow the audience or procrastinate To day if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts He holds himself out on purpose to you and by the Minister wooes you to embrace him and then it nearly concerns you not to provoke so true so hearty nay even so passionate a friend if he be not kissed he will be angry Lastly if in this business of believing so vulgarly exposed there yet appear some difficulties in the practice to be overcome before it prove a possible duty If self-denial be incompetible with flesh and blood if delights and worldly contentments if an hardned heart in sin and a world of high Imaginations refuse to submit or humble themselves to the poverty of Christ if we cannot empty our hands to lay hold or unbottom our selves to lean wholly on Christ then must we fly and pray to that spirit of power to subdue and conquer and lead us captive to it self to instruct us in the baseness the nothingness nay the dismal hideous wretchedness of our own estate that so being spiritually shaken and terrified out of our carnal pride and security we may come trembling and quaking to that Throne of Grace and with the hands of Faith though feeble ones with the eye of Faith though dimly with a hearty sincere resigning up of our selves we may see and apprehend and fasten and be united to our Saviour that we may live in Christ and Christ in us and having begun in the life of Grace here we may hope and attain to be accomplished with that of Glory hereafter Now to him which hath elected us c. SERMON XII ACTS XVII 30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at but now commandeth all men every where to repent THE words in our English Translation carry somewhat in the sound which doth not fully reach the importance of the Original and therefore it must be the task of our Preface not to connect the Text but clear it not to shew its dependence on the precedent words but to restore it to the integrity of it self that so we may perfectly conceive the words before we venture to discuss them that we may 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle phrases it first represent them to you in the bulk then describe them particularly in their several lineaments Our English setting of the words seems to make two Propositions and in them a direct opposition betwixt the condition of the ancient and present Gentiles that God had winked at i. e. either approved or pitied or pardoned the ignorance of the former Heathens but now was resolved to execute justice on all that did continue in that was heretofore pardonable in them on every one every where that did not repent Now the Original runs thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that is in a literal construction God therefore passing over the times of ignorance as if he saw them not doth now command all men every where to repent Which you may conceive thus by this kind of vulgar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sensible proceeding in God God always is essentially and perfectly every one of his Attributes Wisdom Justice Mercy c. but yet is said at one time to be peculiarly one Attribute at another time another i. e. to be at one time actually just at another time actually merciful according to his determination to the object As when God fixes his Eyes upon a rebellious people whose sins are ripe for his justice he then executes his vengeance on them as on Sodom when he fixes his Eyes upon a penitent believing people he then doth exercise his mercy as on Nineveh Now when God looks upon any part of the lapsed World on which he intends to have mercy he suffers not his Eye to be fixed or terminated on the medium betwixt his Eye and them on the sins of all their Ancestors from the beginning of the World till that day but having another account to call them to doth for the present 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 look over all them as if they were not in his way and imputing not the sins of the Fathers to the Children fixeth on the Children makes his Covenant of mercy with them and commandeth them the condition of this Covenant whereby they shall obtain mercy that is every one every where to repent So that in the first place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must not be rendred by way of opposition he winked then but now commands as if their former ignorance were justifiable and an account of knowledge should only be exacted from us And in the second place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word read but this once in all the New Testament must be rendred not winking at but looking over or not insisting upon as when we fix our Eyes upon a Hill we suffer them not to dwell on the Valley on this side of it because we look earnestly on the Hill Now if this be not the common Attical acception of it yet it will seem agreeable to the penning of the New Testament in which whosoever will observe may find words and phrases which perhaps the Attick purity perhaps Grammar will not approve of And yet I doubt not but Classick authorities may be brought where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall signifie not a winking or not taking notice of but a looking farther a not resting in this but a driving higher for so it is rendred by Stephanus Ad ulteriora oculos convertere and then the phrase shall be as proper as the sense the Greâ—k as authentical as
that we again in the Gentilism of our Fathers were all deeply plunged in a double common damnation how are we to humble our selves infinitely above measure to stretch and rack and torture every power of our souls to its extent thereby to enlarge and aggravate the measure of this guilt against our selves which hitherto perhaps we have not taken notice of There is not a better 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the world no more powerful medicine for the softning of the soul and keeping it in a Christian tenderness than this lading it with all the burdens that its common or private condition can make it capable of this tiring of it out and bringing it down into the dust in the sense of its spiritual engagements For 't is impossible for him who hath fully valued the weight of his general guilts each of which hath lead enough to sink the most corky vain fluctuating proud stubborn heart in the world 't is impossible I say for him either wilfully to run into any actual sins or insolently to hold up his head in the pride of his integrity This very one meditation that we all hear might justly have been left in heathenism and that the sins of the Heathens shall be imputed to us their children if we do not repent is enough to loosen the toughest strongest spirit to melt the flintiest heart to humble the most elevated soul to habituate it with such a sense of its common miseries that it shall never have courage or confidence to venter on the danger of particular Rebellions 2. From the view of their ignorance or impiety which was of so hainous importance to examine our selves by their indictment 1. For our learning 2. For our lives 3. For the life of grace in us 1. For our learning Whether that be not mixed with a great deal of Atheistical ignorance with a delight and aquiescence and contentation in those lower Elements which have nothing of God in them whether we have not sacrificed the liveliest and spritefullest part of our age and souls in these Philological and Physical disquisitions which if they have not a perpetual aspect and aim at Divinity if they be not set upon in that respect and made use of to that purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Clement their best friend they are very hurtful and of dangerous issue Whether out of our circle of humane heathen learning whence the Fathers produced precious antidotes we have not suckt the poyson of unhallowed vanity and been fed either to a pride and ostentation of our secular or a satiety or loathing of our Theological learning as being too coarse and homely for our quainter palates Whether our studies have not been guilty of those faults which cursed the Heathen knowledge as trusting to our selves or wit and good parts like the Philosophers in Athenagoras 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. not vouchsafing to be taught by God even in matters of religion but every man consulting and believing and relying on his own reason Again in making our study an instrument only to satisfie our curiosity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only as speculators of some unknown truths not intending or desiring thereby either to promote vertue good works or the Kingdom of God in our selves or which is the ultimate end which only commends and blesses our study or knowledge the glory of God in others 2. In our lives to examine whether there are not also many relicks of heathenism altars erected to Baalim to Ceres to Venus and the like Whether there be not many amongst us whose God is their belly their back their lust their treasure or that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that earthly unknown God whom we have no one name for and therefore is called at large the God of the world Whether we do not with as much zeal and earnestness and cost serve and worship many earthy vanities which our own phansies deifie for us as ever the Heathen did their multitude and shole of gods And in brief whether we have not found in our selves the sins as well as the blood of the Gentiles and acted over some or all the abominations set down to judge our selves by Rom. i. from the 21 verse to the end Lastly for the life of grace in us Whether many of us are not as arrant heathens as mere strangers from spiritual illumination and so from the mystical Commonwealth of Israel as any of them Clem. Strom. 2. calls the life of your unregenerate man a Heathen life and the first life we have by which we live and move and grow and see but understand nothing and 't is our regeneration by which we raise our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from being still mere Gentiles and Tatianus farther that without the spirit we differ from beasts only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the articulation of our voice So that in fine neither our reason nor Christian profession distinguisheth us either from beasts or Gentiles only the spirit in the formalis ratio by which we excel and differ from the Heathen sons of darkness Wherefore I say to conclude we must in the clearest calm and serenity of our souls make a most earnest search and inquest on our selves whether we are yet raised out of this heathenism this ignorance this unregeneracy of nature and elevated any degree in the estate of grace and if we find our selves still Gentiles and which is worse than that still senseless of that our condition we must strive and work and pray our selves out of it and not suffer the temptations of the flesh the temptations of our nature the temptations of the world nay the temptations of our secular proud learning lull us one minute longer in that carnal security lest after a careless unregenerate natural life we die the death of those bold not vigilant but stupid Philosophers And for those of us who are yet any way Heathenish either in our learning or lives which have nothing but the name of Christians to exempt us from the judgment of their ignorance O Lord make us in time sensible of this our condition and whensoever we shall humble our selves before thee and confess unto thee the sinfulness of our nature the ignorance of our Ancestors and every man the plague of his own heart and repent and turn and pray toward thy house then hear thou in Heaven thy dwelling place and when thou hearest forgive remember not our offences nor the offences of our Heathen Fathers neither take thou vengeance of our sins but spare us O Lord spare thy people whom thy Son hath redeemed and thy spirit shall sanctifie from the guilt and practice of their rebellions Now to God who hath elected us hath c. Pars Secunda SERMON XIII ACTS XVII 30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at but now commandeth all men every where to repent THey which come from either mean or dishonoured Progenitors will desire to make up their Fathers defect by
passion are exprest in Scripture by the word knowing so to know sin is to commit sin to know a Woman and the like So Peter to the Maid Math. xxvi 70 I know not what thou saist i. e. I am not guilty of the doing what thou imputest to me According to which Hebraism to know God and his Laws is to worship him and perform them and consequently to be ignorant of both is neither to worship God nor practise any thing which his Laws command and so knowledge shall contain all piety and godly obedience or love of Gods Commandments as God is said to know those whom he loves and ignorance all prophaneness and neglect yea and hatred either of God or goodness According to which Exposition are those two sayings the one of Hermes in his tenth Book called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the ignorance of God is all manner of sin the other of Pastor in Clemens 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 repentance is a great piece of knowledge or wisdom So that briefly the recovering of the Soul to the pure knowledge of God and goodness the worshipping loving and obeying of God is the thing here meant by repentance which yet we may press into a nearer room into one single duty the directing all our actions to his glory for this is in effect to worship to obey to love God to worship for obedience sake because he commands it to obey him for love's sake because we desire he should be glorifyed in our obedience And this is the excellency and perfection of a Christian infinitely above the reach of the proudest Moralists this is the repentance of a Christian whereby he makes up those defects which were most eminently notorious in the Heathen this is the impression of that humbling spirit which proud Heathen nature was never stamp't with for 't was not so much their ignorance in which they offended God though that was also full of guilt as hath been proved as their misusing of their knowledge to ungainly ends as either ambition superstition or for satisfying their curiosity as partly hath and for the present needs not farther to be demonstrated Only for us whom the command doth so nearly concern of repenting for and reforming their abuses how shall we be cast at the Bar if we still continue in the same guilt The orderly composition of the World saith Athenagoras the greatness complexion figure and harmony of it are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 engagements to us and pawns to oblige us to a pious worship of God For what Philoponus observes of the doctrine of the Soul is in like manner true of all kind of learning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they extend and have an influence over all our conversation and if they be well studied and to purpose leave their characters and impressions in our lives as well as our understandings and from thence arose the Gentiles guilt who did only enrich their intellectual part with the knowledge and contemplation of them no whit better their lives or glorify God which made them But for us whose knowledge is much elevated above their pitch who study and ordinarily attain to the understanding of those depths which they never fathom'd the reading of those Riddles which they never heard of the expounding of those mysteries which they never dream't of for us I say who have seen a marvellous light thereby only to enlighten our Brains and not our hearts to divert that precious knowledge to some poor low unworthy ends to gather nothing out of all our studies which may advance Gods Kingdom in us this is infinitely beyond the guilt of Heathenism this will call their ignorance up to judgment against our knowledge and in fine make us curse that light which we have used to guide us only to the Chambers of Death Briefly there was no one thing lay heavier upon the Gentiles than the not directing that measure of knowledge they had to Gods glory and a vertuous life and nothing more nearly concerns us Christians to amend and repent of For the most exquisite knowledge of nature and more specially the most accurate skill in Theological mysteries if it float only in the Brain and sink not down into the heart if it end not in reformation of erroneous life as well as doctrine and glorifying God in our knowledge of him it is to be reputed but a glorious specious Curse not an inriching but a burthening of the Soul Aurum Tholosanum an unlucky Merchandise that can never thrive with the Owner but commonly betrays and destroys all other good affections and graces in us Socrates was the first that brought Morality into the Schools ideoque ad hominum salutem natus est said an old Philosopher and that made the Oracle so much admire him for the wisest man in the World At any piece of speculation the Devil durst challenge the proudest Philosopher amongst them but for a vertuous life he despaired of ever reaching to it this set him at a gaze this posed and made a Dunce of him and forced him to proclaim the Moralist the greatest Scholar under Heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Hesychius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the making use of knowledge to ambition or puffing up is a dangerous desperate disease and pray God it be not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also in its other sence a Disease that attends our holiest speculations even our study of Divinity For as Arrian saith of those who read many Books and digest none so is it most true of those who do not concoct their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and turn it into spiritual nourishment of the Soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they vomit it up again and are never the better for it they are opprest with this very learning as a stomach with crudities and thereby fall many times 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into vertigoes and catarrhes the first of which disorders the Brain and disables it for all manner of action or if the more classical notion of the word take place it disaffects the bowels entangles and distorts the entrails and as St. Paul complains on this occasion leaves without natural affection and then 2. by the defluxion of the humours on the breast clogs and stifles the vital parts and in fine brings the whole man to a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or corruption of all its spiritual graces Thus have you at once the doctrine and the use of my second part the nature of that repentance which is here meant in opposition to the Gentiles fault which we have shewed to be the directing of our knowledge to a sober pious end Gods glory and our own edification together with the danger and sinfulness attending the neglect of these ends both which are sufficient motives to stir you up to awake and conjure you to the practice of this doctrine To which you may add but this one more that even some of the Heathen were raised up by the study of the creatures to an
and void Gen. i. 2 or like that at Lots Door among the Sodomites or that of Aegypt thick and palpable and this have we created to our selves a sky full of tempestuous untamed affections this cloud of vapours have we exhaled out of the lower part of our Soul our sensitive faculty and therewith have we so fill'd the air within us with sad black meteors that the Sun in its Zenith the height or pride of its splendor would scarce be able to pierce through it So that for to make a search for this light within thee before thou hast removed this throng and croud of passions which encompass it and still to complain thou canst not meet with it were to bring news that the Sun is gone out when a tempest hath only masked it or to require a Candle to give thee light through a Mud-wall Thou must provide a course to clear the Sky and then thou shalt not need to entreat the Sun to shine on thee especially if this Cloud fall down in a showre if thou canst melt so thick a viscous meteor as those corrupt affections are into a soft rain or dew of penitent tears thou mayest then be confident of a fair bright Sun-shine For I dare promise that never humble tender weeping Soul had ever this light quite darkned within it but could at all times read and see the will of God and the law of its Creation not drawn only but almost engraven and woven into its heart For these tears in our Eyes will spiritually mend our sight as what ever you see through water thought it be represented somewhat dimly yet seems bigger and larger than if there were no water in the way according to that rule in the Opticks Whatever is seen through a thicker medium seems bigger than it is And then by way of use shall we suffer so incomparable a mercy to be cast away upon us Shall we only see and admire and not make use of it Shall we fence as it were and fortify our outward man with Walls and Bulwarks that the inner man may not shine forth upon it Or shall we like silly improvident Flies make no other use of this Candle but only to singe and burn and consume our selves by its flame receive only so much light from it as will add to our hell and darkness 'T is a thing that the flintiest heart should melt at to see such precious mercies undervalued such incomparable blessings either contemned or only improved into Curses Arrian calls those in whom this light of the Soul is as I shewed you clouded and obscured 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dead trunks and carkasses of flesh and to keep such men in order were humane laws provided which he therefore calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 miserable hard laws to keep dead men in compass and again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Earth and Hell the places to which dead bodies are committed And certainly if so then by way of contrary all the life that we possess is but by obedience to this law within us and 't is no longer to be called life but either sleep or death or lethargy every minute that we move out of the circle of its directions There is not a step or moment in our lives but we have a special use and need of this law to manage us every enterprize of our thoughts or actions will yield some difficulty which we must hold up and read and judge of by this Candle nay sometimes we have need of a Glass or instrument to contract the beams and light of it or else 't would scarce be able to get through to our actions passion and folly and the Atheism of our lives hath so thickned the medium Wherefore in brief remember that counsel Mal. ii 15 Take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth the Wife of his youth i. e. saith Jeroms gloss legem naturalem scriptam in corde the law of nature written in his heart which was given him in the Womb as a Wife and help to succour him Let us set a value on this polar Star within us which hath or should have an influence at least directions on all our actions let us encrease and nourish and make much of the sparks still warm within us And if Scholars and Antiquaries prize nothing so high as a fair Manuscript or ancient Inscription let us not contemn that which Gods own Finger hath written within us lest the sin of the contempt make us more miserable and the mercy profit us only to make us unexcusable And so I come to my second part the sin of contemning or rejecting this law For this cause he gave them up i. e. because the contempt of his law thus provoked him The guilt arising from this contempt shall sufficiently be cleared to you by observing and tracing of it not through every particular but in general through all sorts of men since the fall briefly reducible to these three heads First The Heathens Secondly The Jews Thirdly Present Christians and then let every man that desires a more distinct light descend and commune with his own heart and so he shall make up the observation The Heathens sin will be much aggravated if we consider how they reckon'd of this law as the square and rule and canon of their actions and therefore they will be inexcusable who scarce be ever at leisure to call to it to direct them when they had use of it The Stoick calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the promise that every man makes the obligation that he is bound in to nature at his shaping in the Womb and upon which condition his reasonable Soul is at his conception demised to him so that whosoever puts off this obedience doth as he goes on renounce and even proclaim his forfeiture of the very Soul he lives by and by every unnatural that is sinful action 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 destroys the natural man within him and by a prodigious regeneration is in a manner transubstantiate into a Beast of the Field Which conceit many of them were so possest with that they thought in earnest that 't was ordinary for souls to walk from men into Cocks and Asses and the like and return again at natures appointment as if this one contempt of the law of nature were enough to unman them and make them without a figure comparable nay coessential to the beasts that perish 'T were too long to shew you what a sense the wisest of them had of the helps that light could afford them so that one of them cryes out confidently 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. If all other laws were taken out of the world we Philosophers would still live as we do those directions within us would keep us in as much awe as the most imperious or severest Law-giver And again how they took notice of the perversness of men in refusing to make use of it for who saith
Ezra iii. 12 or building or repairing of it with all alacrity as all Israel did through that whole Book their whole endeavour and project was even to destroy the ruins and utterly finish the work of destruction which Adam had begun as being impatient of that shelter which it would yet if they would but give it leave afford them Thus that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 two sparks of that primitive sacred flame which came from Heaven still alive and warm though weak in them intended by God to direct them in his will and for ever set either as their Funeral Pile or their Ordeal Fire their punishment or acquâ—ttal either as their Devil or their God to accuse or else excuse them were both in their practice neglected and slighted nay in a manner opprest and stifled For any natural power of doing good God knows it was utterly departed and therefore this thin measure of knowledge or judgment betwixt good and evil that was left them which my awe to Gods sincere love of his Creature makes me hope and trust he bestowed on them for some other end than only to increase their condemnation to stand them in some stead in their lives to restrain and keep them in from being extreamly sinful This I say they horribly rejected and stopt their Ears against that charmer in their own bosoms and would not hear that soft Voice which God had still placed within them to upbraid their ways and reprove their thoughts What a provocation this was of Gods justice what an incentive of his wrath may appear by that terrible promulgation of the ten Commandments at Mount Sinai They despised the law in their hearts where God and nature whisper'd it in calmly insensibly and softly and therefore now it shall be thunder'd in their Ears in words and those boisterous ones at which the whole mount quaked greatly Exod. xix 18 And in the 16. verse it must be usher'd with variety of dismal meteors upon the Mount and the Voice of a trumpet exceeding loud so that all the people that was in the camp trembled Thus upon their contempt and peevishness was this manuscript put in print this Privy Seal turned into a Proclamation and that a dreadful one bound and subscribed with a Cursed is he that continues not in every tittle of it to perform it Mean while the matter is not altered but only the dispensation of it That which till then had taught men in their hearts and had been explain'd from tradition from Father to Son Adam instructing Seth and Seth Enoch in all righteousness is now put into Tables that they may have Eyes to see that would not have hearts to understand that the perverse may be convinced and that he that would not before see himself bound may find and read himself accursed And after all this yet is not the old Law within them either cast away or cancel'd by the promulgation of the other for all the Book is Printed the old Copy is kept in archivis though perhaps as it always was neglected soil'd and moth-eaten and he shall be censured either for ambition or curiosity that shall ever be seen to enquire or look after it Still I say throughout all their wayes and arts and methods of Rebellions it twing'd and prickt within as Gods judgments attended them without and as often as sword or plague wounded them made them acknowledge the justice of God that thus rewarded their perverseness Nay you shall see it sometimes break out against them when perhaps the written Law spake too softly for them to be understood Thus did Davids heart smite him when he had numbred the people though there was no direct commandment against mustering or enrolment yet his own Conscience told him that he had done it either for distrust or for ostentation and that he had sinned against God in trusting and glorying in that arm of flesh or paid not the tribute appointed by God on that occasion To conclude this Discourse of the Jews every Rebellion and Idolatry of theirs was a double breach of a double Law the one in Tables the other in their heart and could they have been freed from the killing Letter of the one the wounding sense of the other would still have kept them bound as may appear in that business of Crucifying Christ where no humane Law-giver or Magistrate went about to deter them from shedding his blood or denying his Miracles yet many of their own hearts apprehended and violently buffetted and scourged and tormented them At one time when they are most resolved against him the whole Senate is suddenly pricked and convinced within and express it with a Surely this man doth many miracles John xi 48 At another time at the top and complement of the business Pilate is deterr'd from condemning and though the fear of the people made him valiant yet as if he contemn'd this Voice of his Conscience against his will with some reluctance he washes his hands when he would have been gladder to quench the fire in his heart which still burnt and vext him Lastly When Judas had betray'd and sold him and no man made huy and cry after him his Conscience was his pursuer Judge and Executioner persecuted him out of the World haunted him would not suffer him to live whom otherwise the Law of the Country would have reprieved till a natural death had called for him Lastly Even we Christians are not likely to clear our selves of this Bill 't is much to be feared that if our own hearts are called to witness our Judge will need no farther Indictments 'T was an Heathen Speech concerning this rule of our lives and actions that to study it hard to reform and repair all obliquities and defects in it and then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to set it up strong and firm as a pillar in our hearts was the part and office of a Philosopher and then afterwards to make use of it in our whole Conversation this was the part of a virtuous man compleat and absolute And how then will our contempt be aggravated if Christianity which Clemens calls spiritual Philosophy and is to be reckoned above all moral perfections hath yet wrought neither of these effects in us if we have continued so far from straightning or setting up or making use of this rule that we have not so much as ever enquired or mark't whether there be any such thing left within us or no Theodoret in his second 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is very passionate in the expression of this contempt of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the light of truth shining in our understandings There be a sort of Birds saith he that fly or move only in the night called from thence Night-Birds and Night-Ravens which are afraid of light as either an Enemy to spy to assault or betray them but salute and court and make love to darkness as their only Queen and
to conceive all holy graces spiritually in thee and if thou canst not suddenly receive a gracious answer that the Holy Ghost will come in unto thee and lodge with thee this Night yet learn so much patience from thy Beggarly estate as not to challenge him at thy own times but comfortably to wait his leisure There is employment enough for thee in the while to prepare the room against his coming to make use of all his common graces to cleanse and reform thy foul corruptions that when the spirit comes it may find thee swept and garnish't All the outward means which God hath afforded thee he commands thee to make use of and will require it at thy hands in the best measure even before thou art regenerate though thou sin in all thy unregenerate performances for want of inward sanctity yet 't is better to have obeyed imperfectly than not at all the first is weakness the other desperate presumption the first material partial obedience the second total disobedience Yet whilst thou art preparing give not over praying they are acts very competible thou maist do them both together Whilst thou art a fortifying these little Kingdoms within thee send these Embassadors abroad for help that thou maist be capable of it when it comes But above all things be circumspect watch and observe the spirit and be perpetually ready to receive its blasts let it never have breathed on thee in vain let thine Ear be for ever open to its whisperings if it should pass by thee either not heard or not understood 't were a loss that all the treasures upon Earth could not repair and for the most part you know it comes not in the thunder Christ seldom speaks so loud now adays as he did to Saul Acts ix 't is in a soft still voice and I will not promise you that men that dwell in a mill that are perpetually engaged in Worldly loud employments or that men asleep shall ever come to hear of it The summ of all my Exhortation is after Examination to cleanse and pray and watch carefully to cleanse thy self incessantâ—y to pray and diligently to watch for the Sun of Righteousness when he shall begin to dawn and rise and shine in thy heart by grace And do thou O Holy Lord work this whole work in us prepare us by thy outward perfect us by thy inward graces awaken us out of the darkness of death and plant a new Seed of holy light and life in us infuse into our Heathen hearts a Christian habit of sanctity that we may perform all spiritual duties of holiness that we may glorify thee here by thy Spirit and be glorifyed with thee by thy Christ hereafter Now to him that hath elected us hath c. SERMON XVI 2 PET. III. 3 Scoffers walking after their own Lusts THAT we may take our rise luckily and set out with the best advantage that we may make our Preface to clear our passage to our future Discourse and so spend no part of our precious time unprofitably we will by way of introduction examine what is here meant 1. By Scoffers 2. By walking after their own lusts And first Scoffers here do not signifie those whom confidence join'd to a good natural wit hath taught to give and play upon every man they meet with which in a moderate use is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 facetiousness in an immoderate scurrility But Scoffers here are of a more special stamp those who deal out their scoffs only on God and Religion The word in the Original signifies to mock to abuse and that either in words and then 't is rendred scoffing or in our actions when we promise any man to perform a business and then deceive his expectation and then 't is rendred deluding So Matth. ii 16 when Herod saw he was mocked 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he was deluded by the magicians So that in the first primitive sense Scoffers must signifie those who either laugh at God or else delude him in not performing what he expects and they by their profession promised In the secondary notion to scoff is by way of argument to oppose any truth contumeliously or bitterly as Solomon begins his Discourse of the Atheists scoffs Wisd ii 1 The ungodly said reasoning with themselves and these are said to set their mouth against Heaven managing disputes which have both sting and poyson in them the first to wound and overthrow the truth spoken of the other to infect the Auditors with a contrary opinion And these rational scoffs for which Socrates antiently was very famous are ordinarily in form of question as in the Psalmist often Where is now their God i. e. Certainly if they had a God he would be seen at time of need he would now shew himself in their distress In which they do not only laugh at the Israelites for being such Fools as to worship him that will not relieve them but implicitely argue that indeed there is no such God as they pretend to worship And just in this manner were the Scoffers in my Text who did not only laugh but argue saying Where is the promise of his coming Verse 4. perswading themselves and labouring to prove to others that what is spoken of Christs second coming to Judgment was but a mere Dream a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Bugbear or Fable to keep men in awe and therefore laugh at it as the Athenians did at the resurrection Acts xvii 32 and when they heard of the resurrection of the dead some mocked c. i. e. disputed sarcastically and contumeliously against it that certainly there was no such matter And thus also is the same word used of those which joined their reason and malice to disprove Christs Omnipotence Mat. xxvii 42 where they reviled and mocked him saying He saved others himself he cannot save In which speech the bitterest part of the scoff was the reason there used plausible enough amongst ignorant Jews that surely if he had any power he would make use of it for himself Thirdly To scoff is sometimes without words or actions to shew a contempt or neglect of any body So Herods mocking of Christ is set as an expression that he did not think him worthy talking with Luke xxiii 11 He set him at nought and mockt him and sent him back to Pilate he would not vouchsafe to take notice of him nor to be troubled with the Examination of so poor contemptible a fellow And so in Aristotle not to know a mans name not to have taken so much notice of him as to remember what to call him is reckoned the greatest neglect the unkindest scoff in the World and is ordinarily taken very tenderly by any one who hath deserved any thing at our hands So that in brief to gather up what we have hitherto scatter'd the Scoffers here meant are those who promising themselves to Gods service do delude him when he looks to find them amongst
accomplish't defer all our happiness to be performed to us at the Resurrection and though God kill us yet trust in him and be able to see through Death in a trust That our Redeemer lives and that with these eyes we shall behold him then may we chear up and perswade our selves on good grounds that our hearts and lives do assent to the Resurrection which our tongues brag of Take no heaviness to heart but drive it away and remember the end But if this consideration cannot digest the least oppression of this life cannot give us patience for the lightest encumbrance but for all our Creed we still fly out into all outrages of passion and ecstacies of impatience we plainly betray our selves men of this present World whose happiness or misery is only that which is temporary and before our Eyes are not able by the perspective of faith to behold that which easily we might all our wants relieved all our injuries revenged all our wounds bound up in the day of the Resurrection but all our life long we repine and grumble and are discontented as men without hope and whilst we do thus what do we but act the part of these Atheists here in my Text scoffing and saying Where is the promise â—f his coming in the next Verse to my Text. This very impatience and want of skill in bearing the brunts of this our warfare is but a piece of cowardly Atheism either a denying or mocking at the Resurrection Every sigh is a scoff every groan a gibe every fear a sly art of laughing at the stupidity of those who depend upon the fulfilling of the promise of his coming Lastly say we what we will we live as if there were no Resurrection as Sadduces if not as Atheists all our designs look no further than this life all our contrivances are defeated and frustrate in the Grave we mannage our selves with so little understanding that any Spectator would judge by our actions that 't is no injury to compare us to the beasts that perish and never return again Certainly if we had any design upon Heaven or another life we would here make some provision for it Make our selves friends of our unrighteous Mammon that when we fail they may receive us into everlasting habitations i. e. use those good things that God hath given us with some kind of providence that they may stand us in stead when we have need of them i. e. not only as instruments to sin for that is to get us more Enemies but as harbingers to be sent before us to Heaven 'T was a bitter sarcasm of the fool to the Abbot on his Death-Bed that the Abbot deserved his staff as being the verier Fool of the two that being straight to die to remove his Tent to another World he had sent none of his houshold-stuff before him The truth is we live generally as men that would be very angry much displeased if any should perswade us there were a Resurrection the very mentioning of it to us might seem to upbraid our ordinary practices which have nothing but the darkness of death and silence of the Grave to countenance them I may justly say that many ignorant Heathens which were confident there was nothing beyond this life expected certainly with death to be annihilated and turn again into a perpetual nothing yet either for the awe they bore to vertue or fear of disgrace after death kept themselves more regularly lived more carefully than many of us Christians And this is an horrid accusation that will lie very heavy upon us that against so many illuminated understandings the ignorance of the Gentiles should rise up in judgment and the learned Christian be found the most desperate Atheist I have been too large upon so rigid a Doctrine as this and I love and pray God I may always have occasion to come up to this place upon a more merciful subject but I told you even now out of Lev. xix 17 that 't was no small work of mercy 't was the most friendly office that could be performed any man to reprehend and as the Text saith Not to suffer sin upon thy neighbour especially so sly a covert lurking sin as this of Atheism which few can discern in themselves I shall now come to Application which because the whole Doctrine spoke morally to your affections and so in a manner prevented Vses shall be only a recapitulation and brief knitting up of what hitherto hath been scattered at large Seeing that the Devils policy of deluding and bewitching and distorting our Vnderstandings either with variety of false gods or Heresies raised upon the true is now almost clearly out-dated and his skill is all bent to the deforming of the Will and defacing the character of God and the expression of the sincerity of our Faith in our lives we must deal with this Enemy at his own Weapon learn to order our munition according to the assault and fortify that part most impregnably toward which the tempest binds and threatens There is not now so much danger to be feared from the inrode of Hereticks in opinion as in practice not so much Atheism to be dreaded from the infidelity of our brains as the Heathenism and Gentilism of our Lusts which even in the midst of a Christian profession deny God even to his Face And therefore our chiefest Frontiers and Fortifications must be set up before that part of the Soul our most careful Watch and Sentinel placed upon our affections lest the Devil enter there and depopulate the whole Christian and plant the Atheist in his room To this purpose we must examine what Seeds are already sown what treachery is a working within and no doubt most of us at the first cast of the Eye shall find great store unless we be partial to our selves and bring in a verdict of mercy and construe that weakness which indeed signifies Atheism When upon examination we find our lives undermining our belief our practices denying the authority of Scripture and no whit forwarder to any Christian duty upon its commands When we find God's Essence and Attributes reviled and scoffed at in our conversation his omnipresence contemned by our confidence in sinning and argued against by our banishing God out of all our thoughts his all-sufficiency doubted of by our distrusts and our scorn to depend upon it When we perceive that our carriages do fall off at this part of our belief in Christ that he shall come again to be our Judge and by our neglect of those works especially of mercy which he shall then require of us shew that indeed we expect him not or think of him as a Judge but only as a Saviour When we observe our Wills resisting the gifts and falsifying the Attribute whilst our Creed confesses the Person of the Holy Ghost and see how little how nothing of the sanctifying spirit of the earnest of our Regeneration is in our hearts and we still
Of all c. Where first the cadence or manner how Paul falls into these words is worthy to be both observed and imitated the chief and whole business of this Verse being the truth the acceptable truth of Christs Incarnation with the end of it the saving of sinners He can no sooner name this word sinners but his exceeding melting tenderness abruptly falls off and subsumes Of all sinners c. If there be any thing that concerns Sinners I am sure I have my part in that for of that number I am the chief The note by the way briefly is that a tender conscience never hears of the name of sinner but straight applies it to it self It is noted by Aristotle the Master of Humane Learning that that Rhetorick was very thin and unprofitable very poor and like to do little good upon mens affections which insisted on general matters and descended not to particulars as if one should Discourse of sin in general and Sinners without reference to this or that particular sin or Sinner and the reason of his note was because men are not moved or stirred with this Eloquence The intemperate person could hear a declamation against Vice and never be affected with it unless it stooped to take notice of his particular enormities and so it is with other Criminals This reason of his was grounded upon the obdurateness of mens hearts which would think that nothing concerned them but what was framed against the individual Offender all such being as dull and unapt to understand any thing that being applied might move or prick them as men are to take notice of a common national judgment which we never duly weigh till we smart under it in particular This senselessness may also seem to have been amongst St. Paul's Corinthians which made him use Aristotles counsel in driving his Speech home to their private persons 1 Cor. vi Where telling them that neither Fornicators nor Idolaters and the like shall inherit the Kingdom of God for fear they should not be so tender-conscienced as of their own accords to apply these sins to themselves and read themselves guilty in that glass he is fain to supply that office and plainly tell them what otherwise perhaps they would not have conceived and such were some of you ver 11. This senseless hard-heartedness or backwardness in applying the either commands or threatnings of the Law to ones self is by the Apostle called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we ordinarily translate a reprobate mind but may be brought to signify a mind without judgment that hath no faculty of discerning that cannot in a general threatning observe something that may concern the danger of his particular state or as it may be rendred a mind without sense not apprehensive of those things which are manifestly proposed to them like those walking Idols described by the Psalmist Eyes have they and see not Ears and hear not Noses and smell not only beautiful Carcasses of Christians which have nothing but their shape and motion to perswade you that they live unless we add this most unhappy symptom which indicates a state more wretched far than Death it self that there is strength and vigour to oppose recovery that amidst Death there yet survives a hatred and antipathy to Life In such a Soul as this there is a perpetual re-action an impatience of the presence of any thing which may trash incumber or oppress it a judgment or denunciation is but cast away upon it it shall be sure to return unprofitably and neither move nor mend it This hath been and much more might be observed to you of the carriage of the hard stupid heart toward either Scripture or Preacher to the plain opening of this point for you shall more clearly understand the tender heart by observing the obdurate and learn to be affected aright with Gods Law or punishments by knowing and hating the opposite stubborn senselessness Now in brief this tender heart in the discovery of a sin or denunciation of a judgment needs not a particular Thou art the man to bring it home to his person The more wide and general the proposal is the more directly and effectually is this strucken with it In a common Satyre or Declamation against sin in general it hath a sudden art of Logick to anatomize and branch this sin in general into all its parts and then to lay each of them to its own charge it hath a skill of making every passage in the Scripture a glass to espy some of her deformities in and cannot so much as mention that ordinary name of sin or Sinner without an extraordinary affection and unrequired accusation of it self Of all sinners c. The plain reason of this effect in the tender heart is first because it is tender The soft and accurate parts of a mans body do suffer without re-action i. e. do yield at the appearance of an Enemy and not any way put forward to repell him These being fixt on by a Bee or the like are easily penetrated by the sting and are so far from resisting of it that they do in a manner draw it to them and by their free reception allure it to enter so far that the owner can seldom ever recover it back again Whereas on a dead Carkase a thick or callous member of the body a Bee may fix and not forfeit her sting So doth a tender heart never resist or defend it self against a stroke but attenuates its self layes wide open its pores to facilitate its entrance seems to woo a threatning to prick and sting and wound it sharply as if it rejoyced in and did even court those torments which the sense of sin or judgment thus produced Again a tender heart ordinarily meets with more blows more oppressions than any other its very passiveness provokes every ones malice the fly and dust as if it were by a kind of natural instinct drive directly at the Eye and no member about you shall be oftener rubb'd or disorder'd than that which is raw or distempered the reason being because that which is not worthy notice to another part is an affliction to this and a mote which the hand observes not will torment the eye So is it with the Conscience whose tenderness doth tempt every piece of Scripture to afflict it and is more incumbred with the least atome of sin or threat than the more hardned sinner is with a beam or Mountain Thirdly One that hath any solemn business to do will not pass by any opportunity of means which may advantage him in it One that hath a search to make will not slip any evidence which may concur to the helping of his discovery one that hath any Treatise to write will be ready to apply any thing that ever he reads to his Theme or purpose Now the search the discourse the whole imployment of a tender heart is the enquiry after the multitude of its sins and in summ the
aggravation of each particular guilt in and against it self that so having sufficiently loaded it self and being tyred with the weight and burthen of its sins it may in some measure perform the condition which Christ requires of them which come to him and be prepared to receive that ease which Christ hath promised to the weary and heavy laden So then if the tender Conscience doth never repell or reverberate any mention of sin but doth draw out the sting of it to its length if it be much affected with the least atome of sin and therefore meets with frequent disorders if lastly it make its imployment to gather out of all the Scripture those places which may advantage her in the sight and sense of her sins then certainly doth she never hear of the name of sinner but straight she applies it to her self which was the point we undertook to shew The direct use of this Proposition is for a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or judgment of our estate 'T is observed in the body that the rest of the senses may be distempered and lost without impairing of it but only the touch cannot which therefore they call the sense of life because that part or body which is deprived of feeling is also at Deaths Door and hath no more life in it than it hath reliques of this sense So is it also in spiritual matters of all other symptomes this of senselesness is most dangerous and as the Greek Physicians are wont to say of a desperate Disease 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very very mortal This feeling tenderness is necessary to the life of grace and is an inseparable both effect and argument of it Wherefore I say for the judgment of your selves observe how every piece of Scripture works upon you If you can pass over a Catalogue of sins and judgments without any regret or reluctancy if you can read Sodom and Gomorrha Babylon and the Harlot Jerusalem and not be affected with their stories if thou canst be the Auditor of other mens faults without any sense or griping of thine own if the name of sin or Sinner be unto thee but as a Jest or Fable not worthy thy serious notice then fear thy affections want of that temper which the softning spirit is wont to bestow where it rests and accordingly as thou findest this tenderness increasing or waining in thee either give thanks or pray either give thanks for the plenty of that spirit which thou enjoyest or in the sense of thy wants importune it that God will give us softned relenting hearts that the recital of other mens sins may move us other mens judgments may strike us other mens repentance melt us with a sense with a confession with a contrition of our own But above all O Holy Spirit from hardness of heart from an undiscerning reprobate spirit from a contempt nay neglect a not observing of thy Word as from the danger of Hell Good Lord deliver us And thus much of this point of this effect of a tender heart noted to you out of the cadence of the words I now come to observe somewhat more real out of the main of the words themselves Of whom c. We find not our Apostle here complementing with himself either excâ—sing or attenuating his guilt but as it were glorying in the measure of his sins striving for preeminence above all other Sinners challenging it as his right and as eager upon the preferment as his Fellow-Labourer Peter his Successor for a Primacy as he professes of all Bishops yea the whole Church so our Apostle here Of all sinners I am the chief The note briefly is this That every one is to aggravate the measure and number of his sins against himself and as near as he can observe how his guilt exceedeth other mens This was S. Pauls practice and our pattern not to be gazed on but followed not to be discust but imitated In the Discourse whereof I shall not labour to prove you the necessity of this practice which yet I might do out of Davids Example in his penitential Psalms especially 51. out of Nehemiahs Confession and the like but taking this as supposed I shall rather mix doctrine and reason and use altogether in prescribing some forms of aggravating our selves to our selves yet not descending to a particular dissection of sin into all its parts but dealing only on general heads equally appliable to all men briefly reducible to these two 1. Original sin or the sin of our nature of which we are all equally guilty 2. Personal sin grounded in and terminated to each mans person For Original sin it is the Fathers complaint and ought more justly to be ours of these times that there is no reckoning made of it 't is seldom thought worthy to supply a serious place in our humiliation 't is mentioned only for fashions sake and as it were to stop Gods mouth and to give him satisfaction or palliate the guilt of our wilful Rebellions not on any real apprehension that its cure and remedy in Baptism is a considerable benefit or the remanent weakness after the killing venome is abated were more than a trivial disadvantage So that we have a kind of need oâ— original clearness of understanding to judge of the foulness of original sin and we cannot sufficiently conceive our loss without some recovery of those very faculties we forfeited in it But that we may not be wilfully blind in a matter that so imports us that we may understand somewhat of the nature and dangerous condition of this sin you must conceive Adam whâ— committed this first sin in a double respect either as one particular man or as containing in his Loyns the whole nature of man all mankind which should ever come from him Adams particular sin i. e. his personal disobedience is wonderfully aggravated by the Fathers 1. From his original justice which God had bestowed on him 2. From the near familiarity with God which he injoyed and then lost 3. From the perpetual blest estate which had it not been for this disobedience he might for ever have lived in 4. From the purity and integrity of his Will which was then void of all sinful desire which otherwise might have tempted to this disobedience 5. From the easiness of both remembring and observing the Commandment it being a short prohibition and only to abstain from one Tree where there was such plenty besides 6. From the nature and circumstances of the offence by which the Fathers do refer it to all manner of hainous sins making it to contain a breach of almost each moral Law all which were then written in the tables of his heart and therefore concluding it to be an aggregate or mixture of all those sins which we have since so reiterated and so many times sinn'd over So then this personal sin of Adam was of no mean size not to be reckoned of as an every dayes offence as an ordinary breach or
in the land famine c. Whatsoever plague whatsoever sickness what prayer or supplication soever be made by any man or by all thy people Israel which shall know every man the plague of his own heart and spread forth his hand to this house then hear thou in Heaven c. Where the condition of obtaining their requests from God is excellently set down if they shall know i. e. be sensible of be sorry for and confess to God every man the plague of his own heart that is in the bulk and heap of their sins shall pick the fairest loveliest sin in the pack the plague i. e. the pestilential reigning sweeping offence on which all the lower train of petty faults do wait and depend do minister and suppeditate matter to work If I say they shall take this Captain sin and anatomize and cut up and discover every branch of him without any fraud or concealment before the Lord and then Sacrifice that dear darling and with it their whole fleshy lust as an Holocaust or whole Burnt-offering before the Lord then will he hear from Heaven his dwelling place and when he heareth forgive even their other concealed sins because they have disclosed so entirely and parted so freely from that For there is in every of us one master sin that rules the rabble one fatling which is fed with the choicest of our provision one Captain of the Devils Troop one the plague in every mans heart This being sincerely confest and displaid and washed in a full stream of tears for the lower more ordinary sort for the heap or bulk we must use Davids penitential compendious art Psa xix 12 who overcome with the multitude of his sins to be repeated folds them all in this Prayer Who can tell how oft he offendeth c. And do thou O Lord work in us the sincere acknowledgment of and contrition for both them and the whole bundle of our unknown every days transgressions and having purged out of us those more forward known notorious enormities cleanse us also from our secret faults And thus much be spoken of this Proposition that and how every man is to aggravate the measure and number of his sins against himself The whole doctrine is and in our whole Discourse hath been handled for a store of uses for in setting down how you are to aggravate your sins especially your original sin against your selves I have spoken all the while to your affections and will therefore presume that you have already laid them up in your hearts to that purpose Only take one pertinent use for a close which hath not been touched in the former discourse If every one be to aggravate his own sins and to reckon himself of all sinners the chief then must no man usurp the priviledge to see or censure other mens sins through a multiplying glass i. e. double to what indeed they are as most men do now adayes What so frequent among those who are most negligent of their own wayes as to be most severe inquisitors of other mens and to spy and censure and damn a mote or atome in another mans Eye when their own is in danger to be put out by a Beam Hence is it that among lay-men the sins of clergy are weighed according to the measure of the Sanctuary which was provided for the paying of their Tithes Lev. xxvii 25 i. e. double the ordinary balance and their own if not under at most according to the common weight of the Congregation In a Minister every errour shall become an heresy every slip a crime and every crime a sacrilege whereas beloved he that means to take out St. Pauls Lesson must extenuate every mans sins but his own or else his heart will give his tongue the ly when it hears him say Of all c. And so much of this Doctrine of aggravating our sins to our selves which we are to perform in our daily audit betwixt us and our own Consciences There is another seasonable observation behind in a word to be handled this particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of whom hath a double relation either to Sinners simply and so it hath been handled already or to Sinners as they are here set down to wit those Sinners which Christ came into the World to save and so St. Paul here is changed from the chief of Sinners to the chief of Saints and then the Doctrine is become a Doctrine of comfort fit for a Conclusion that he who can follow Pauls Example and Precept can sufficiently humble himself for his sins accept that faithful saying and rightly lay hold on Christ may assure himself that he is become a chief Saint for so could Paul say Of all sinners I am the chief and therefore of all those Sinners that Christ came into the World to save 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I am the chief too I shall not discuss this point at large as being too wide to be comprehended in so poor a pittance of time but shew the condition of it briefly He that by Gods inward effectual working is come to a clear sight and accurate feeling of his sins that hath not spared any one minute of circumstance for the discovery of them not one point of aggravation for the humbling of himself he that being thus prepared for his journey to Christ with his burthen on his back shall then take his flight and keep upon the wing till he fix firmly on him may be as sure that he shall dy the Death and reign the Life of a Saint as he is resolved that God is faithful in his promises then may he live with this syllogism of confidence not presumption in his mouth 'T is a faithful saying that Christ came into the World to justify sanctify and save believing humbled sinners but I find my self an humble and believing and consequently a justified sanctified Sinner therefore 't is as certain a truth that I shall be saved And thus you see Pauls I am the chief interpreted by that assured perswasion Rom. viii 38 that neither death nor life nor any creature shall be able to separate him c. I will not discuss the nature of this assurance whether it be an act of faith or hope only thus much it seems to be derived or bestowed upon hope by Faith an expectation of the performances of the promises grounded upon a firm Faith in them and so to be either an eminent degree of Faith or a confirmed Hope The use of this point is not to be content with this bare assurance but to labour to confirm it to us by those effects which do ordinarily and naturally spring from it Such are first joy or glorying mentioned Heb. iii. 6 the confidence and rejoycing of your hope firm unto the end secondly a delight in God mentioned 1 Pet. i. 3.6 a lively hope c. wherein 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you exult you greatly rejoice and are delighted thirdly a patient adhering
immarcescible joy and bliss in another world and to their posterity in the blessings of this life which he hath promised not onely to the third and fourth but to the thousandth generation Exod. 20.6 and being thus by promise obliged will be sure to perform it to all those that are carefull to observe the condition of it 19. The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens and his kingdom ruleth over all Paraphrase 19. This is he surely able to doe being the omnipotent God of heaven and earth sitting in heaven as a great Monarch in his throne and exercising dominion over all creatures in the world who are all most ready to obey him and doe whatsoever he will have them But most eminently this will he doe by sending his Son the Messias into the world the spring of all grace and mercy who after his birth and death shall rise and ascend and enter on his regal office in heaven subduing the whole heathen world in obedience thereto See Rev. 4.2 20. Bless the Lord ye his Angels that excell in strength that doe his commandments hearkening unto the voice of his word 21. Bless ye the Lord all ye his hosts ye ministers of his that doe his pleasure Paraphrase 20 21. A natural and proper consequent to this it is that as Rev. 4.8 at the erecting of Christ's throne all the living creatures rest not day and night saying Holy holy so the Angels of heaven meant by those living creatures those Courtiers that attend his throne and are by him indued with the greatest power of any that incompass him many Myriads of them and doe whatsoever he commands them with all the readiness and speed imaginable these glorious creatures that are witnesses and ministers of his great and wonderfull acts of mercy should for ever bless and magnify his sacred name 22. Bless the Lord all his works in all places of his dominion bless the Lord O my soul Paraphrase 22. And that all the men in every corner of the world acknowledge and bless and praise his name as being all the subjects of his kingdom as well as works of his power among whom it is most just that I that have received such mercies from him should take up my part of the Anthem make one in the quire and consort of those that sing continual praises to him Annotations on Psal CIII V. 5. Thy mouth What 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here signifies is not agreed among interpreters The Chaldee renders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the days of thy old age referring it saith Schindler to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 old worn out clothes opposed to the renewing of the age which here follows But the word is used for the mouth Psal 32.9 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose mouth must be holden the LXXII there render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his jaws According to this notion it is that the Syriack here render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thy body but the LXXII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thy desire or sensitive appetite the satisfying of which is the providing for the body all the good things it standeth in need of and so is a commodious paraphrase for filling the mouth the organ of conveying nourishment to the body Aben Ezra and Kimchi that refer this Psalm to David's recovery from sickness give this farther account of the phrase because in sickness the soul refuseth meat Job 33.20 and the Physician restreins from full feeding and prescribes things that are nauseous In which respects the blessing of health is fitly described by the contrary Abu Walid recites two interpretations 1. that of our translators 2. taking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the notion of ornament that multiplieth thy adorning with good i. e. that abundantly adorneth thee with good Aben Ezra approves the notion of ornament but applies it to the soul the ornament of the body i. e. who satisfieth thy soul with good And an Hebrew Arabick Glossary renders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thy body Ibid. Thy youth is renewed like the Eagles Of the Eagle S. Augustin affirms that the beak grows out so long that it hinders her taking her food and so would endanger her life but that she breaks it off upon a stone and of this he interprets the renewing her youth here But S. Hierome on Isa 40.30 more fitly expounds it of the changing of feathers Of all birds it is known that they have yearly their moulting times when they shed their old and are afresh furnished with a new stock of feathers This is most observable of Hawks and Vultures and especially of Eagles which when they are near an hundred years old cast their feathers and become bald and like young ones and then new feathers sprout forth From this shedding their plumes they seem to have borrowed their name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Eagle from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 decidit defluxit to fall or shed To their bareness or baldness the Prophet Micah refers c. 1.16 inlarge thy baldness as the Eagle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Eagle whose feathers shed And to the coming again of their feathers Isaiah relates c. 40.30 they that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Eagles they shall send up their feathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they shall sprout out their feathers say the LXXII and so the Syriack 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they shall send out their wings but the Chaldee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and they shall be renewed to their youth just as here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thy youth shall be renewed as an Eagle which therefore in all reason must refer to the new or young feathers which the old Eagle yearly sprouts out Aquila longam aetatem ducit dum vetustis plumis fatiscentibus novâ pennarum successione juvenescit The Eagle is very long-lived whilst the old plumes falling off she grows young again with a new succession of feathers saith S. Ambrose Serm. 54. So the Jewish Arab reads So that thy youth is renewed like the feathers of Eagles V. 7. His acts From 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to machinate to design to study to attempt to doe any thing is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here annext to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his way by these to signifie the nature and ways of God or his dispensations toward men The place here evidently refers to Exod. 33. There Moses petitions God shew me thy way that I may know thee v. 13. and I beseech thee shew me thy glory v. 18. by his way and glory meaning his nature and his ways of dealing with men that they might discern what to conceive of him and expect from him And he said I will make all my goodness pass before thee and I will proclaim the name of the Lord v. 19. by which his nature is signified and what that name is is set down by enumeration of his attributes c. 34.6 The Lord the
whensoever this light shall fail that it cannot guide us or our Eyes dazle that we cannot follow let us pray to the Father of lights and God of Spirits that he will shine spiritually in our hearts and fulfil us with his light of grace here which may enable us to behold him and enjoy him and rejoice with him and be satisfied with that eternal light of his Glory hereafter Now to him that hath elected us hath created redeemed c. SERMON XV. GAL. VI. 15 But a new Creature AMongst all other encumbrances and delays in our way to Heaven there is no one that doth so clog and trash so disadvantage and backward us and in fine so cast us behind in our race as a contentedness in a formal worship of God an acquiescence and resting satisfied in outward performances when men upon a confidence that they perform all that can be required of a Christian they look no farther than the outward work observe not what heart is under this outside but resolve their estate is safe they have as much interest in Heaven as any one Such men as these the Apostle begins to character and censure in the twelfth Verse of the Chapter As many as desire to make a fair shew in the flesh c. They that stand only on a fair specious out-side and think all the sap and life of Religion lies in the bark they do this and this these will have you circumcised and constrain you to a many burthensom Ceremonies measuring out Religion to you by the weight thus much is required of you to do as Popish Confessors set their deluded Votaries their task of Ave Maries and Pater nosters by tale and thus you may be sure to be saved In brief the Apostle here shews the unprofitableness of all these and sets up the inward sanctity and renewedness of heart against them all as the only thing that will stand us in stead and appear to be of any weight in the balance of the Sanctuary If you observe all the commands and submit your selves to all the burden of both Law and Gospel and bear it upon your shoulders never so valiantly if you be content to be circumcised as Christ was or because he hath now abrogated that make use of Christian liberty and remain uncircumcised notwithstanding all inducements to the contrary In brief be you outwardly never so severe a Jew or Christian all that is nothing worth there is but one thing most peremptorily required of you and that you have omitted For neither circumcision availeth any thing neither uncircumcision but a new Creature The particle but in the front of my Text is exclusive and restrictive it excludes every thing in the World from pretending to avail any thing from being believed to do us any good For by circumcision the Church of the Jews and by uncircumcision the whole profession of Christian Religion being understood when he saith neither of these availeth any thing he forcibly implies that all other means all professions all observances that men think or hope to get Heaven by are to no purpose and that by consequence it exactly restrains to the new creature there it is to be had and no where else thus doth he slight and undervalue and even reprobate all other ways to Heaven that he may set the richer price and raise a greater estimation in us of this The substance of all the Apostles Discourse and the ground-work of mine shall be this one Aphorism Nothing is efficaciously available to salvation but a renewed regenerated heart For the opening of which we will examine by way of doctrine wherein this new Creature consists and then by way of use the necessity of that and unprofitableness of all other plausible pretending means and first of the first wherein this new creature consists 'T is observable that our state of nature and sin is in Scripture exprest ordinarily by old age the natural sinful man that is all our natural affections that are born and grow up with us are called the old man as if since Adams fall we were decrepit and feeble and aged as soon as born as a Child begotten by a man in a Consumption never comes to the strength of a man is always weak and crazy and puling hath all the imperfections and corporal infirmities of age before he is out of his infancy And according to this ground the whole Analogy of Scripture runs all that is opposite to the old decrepit state to the dotage of nature is phrased new The new Covenant Mark i. 27 The language of believers new tongues Mark xvi 17 A new Commandment John xiii 34. A new man Ephes ii 15 In summ the state of grace is exprest by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all is become new 2 Cor. v. 17 So that old and new as it divides the Bible the whole state of things the World so it doth that to which all these serve man every natural man which hath nothing but nature in him is an old man be he never so young is full of Years even before he is able to tell them Adam was a perfect man when he was but a minute old and all his Children are old even in the Cradle nay even dead with old age Eph. ii 5 And then consequently every spiritual man which hath somewhat else in him than he received from Adam he that is born from above John iii. 3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for it may be so rendred from the original as well as born again as our English read it he that is by Gods spirit quickned from the old death Ephes ii 5 he is contrary to the former a new man a new creature the old Eagle hath cast his beak and is grown young the man when old has entred the second time into his mothers Womb and is born again all the gray hairs and wrinkles fall off from him as the Scales from blind Tobits Eyes and he comes forth a refin'd glorious beauteous new Creature you would wonder to see the change So that you find in general that the Scripture presumes it that there is a renovation a casting away of the old Coat a Youth and spring again in many men from the old age and weak Bed-rid estate of nature Now that you may conceive wherein it consists how this new man is brought forth in us by whom it is conceived and in what Womb 't is carried I will require no more of you than to observe and understand with me what is meant by the ordinary phrase in our Divines a new principle or inward principle of life and that you shall do briefly thus A mans Body is naturally a sluggish unactive motionless heavy thing not able to stir or move the least animal motion without a Soul to enliven it without that 't is but a Carcass as you see at Death when the Soul is separated from it it returns to be but a stock or lump of flesh the
Soul bestows all life and motion on it and enables it to perform any work of nature Again the Body and Soul together considered in relation to somewhat above their power and activity are as impotent and motionless as before the Body without the Soul Set a man to remove a Mountain and he will heave perhaps to obey your command but in event will do no more towards the displacing of it than a stone in the street could do but now let an Omnipotent Power be annext to this man let a supernatural spirit be joined to this Soul and then will it be able to overcome the proudest stoutest difficulty in nature You have heard in the Primitive Church of a grain of Faith removing Mountains and believe me all Miracles are not yet out-dated The work of Regeneration the bestowing of a spiritual Life on one dead in trespasses and sins the making of a Carcass walk the natural old man to spring again and move spiritually is as great a miracle as that Now the Soul in that it produces life and motion the exercise of life in the body is called a principle that is a Spring or Fountain of Life because all comes from it in like manner that which moves this Soul and enables it to do that which naturally it could not that which gives it a new life which before it lived not furnisheth it with spiritual powers to quell and subdue all carnal affections which were before too hard for it this I say is called properly an inward principle and an inward because it is inwardly and secretly infused doth not only outwardly assist us as an auxiliary at a dead lift but is sown and planted in our hearts as a Soul to the Soul to elevate and enable it above it self hath its seat and palace in the regenerate heart and there exercises dominion executes judgment and that is commonly either by Prison or Banishment it either fetters or else expels all insolent rebellious lusts Now the new principle by which not the man but the new man the Christian lives is in a word the spirit of God which unites it self to the regenerate heart so that now he is said to be a godly man a spiritual man from the God from the Spirit as before a living reasonable man from the Soul from the reason that inform'd and ruled in him which is noted by that distinction in Scripture betwixt the regenerate and unregenerate exprest by a natural or animal and a spiritual man Those Creatures that have no Soul in them are called naturals having nothing but nature within to move them others which have a Soul animals or living Creatures by both which the unregenerate is signified indifferently because the Soul which he hath stands him in little stead his flesh rules all and then he is also called a carnal man for all his Soul he is but a lump of flesh and therefore whether you say he hath a Soul and so call him an animal or hath not a Soul and so call him a mere natural there is no great difference in it But now the regenerate man which hath more than a Soul Gods spirit to enliven him he is of another rank 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spiritual man nay only he properly a Christian because he lives by Christ He lives yet not he but Christ liveth 〈◊〉 him Gal. ii 20 This being premised that now you know what this new Creature is he that lives and moves by a new principle all that is behind will be clearliest presented to you by resolving these four questions first whence it comes secondly where it lodges thirdly when it enters fourthly what works it performs there To the first whence it comes the answer is clear and punctual John iii. 3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from above from whence comes every good and especially every perfect gift James i. 17 but this most peculiarly by a several and more excellent way than any thing else Since Christs Ascension the Holy Ghost of all the persons in the Trinity is most frequently employed in the work of descending from Heaven and that by way of mission from the Father and the Son according to the promise of Christ John xv 26 The comforter whom I will send from the Father Now this spirit being present every where in its essence is said to come to us by communication of his gifts and so to be peculiarly resident in us as God is in the Church from which Analogy our Bodies are called the Temples of the Holy Ghost which is in us 1 Cor. vi 19 God sends then his spirit into our hearts and this I said by a peculiar manner not by way of emission as an Arrow sent out of a Bow which loses its union which it had with the Bow and is now fastned in the Butt or White nor properly by way of infusion as the Soul is in the Body infus'd from God yet so also that it is in a manner put into our hands and is so in the man's possession that hath it that it is neither in any mans else nor yet by any extraordinary tye annext to God from whom it came but by way of irradiation as a beam sent from the Sun that is in the air indeed and that substantially yet so as it is not separated from the Sun nay consists only in this that it is united to the Sun so that if it were possible for it to be cut off from the Sun it would desist to be it would illuminate no longer So that you must conceive these beams of Gods spirit at the same time in the Christians heart and in the spirit and so uniting that spirit to the heart as you may conceive by this proportion I have a Javelin or Spear in my hand if I would mischief any thing or drive it from me I dart it out of my hand at it from which Gods judgments are compared to shooting and lightning He hath bent his bow he hath sent forth his arrows he cast forth lightnings Psalm xviii 14 But if I like any thing that I meet with if I would have it to me I reach out my Spear and fasten in it but still hold the Spear in my hand and having pierc't it draw it to me Thus doth God reach forth his graces to us and as I may so say by keeping one end in his hand and fastning the other in us plucks and unites us to himself from which regeneration is ordinarily called an union with Christ and this union by a strong able band 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Euseb his phrase which no man can cut asunder 'T is impossible to divide or cut a spirit and this Bond is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spiritual one and that made St. Paul so confident That no creature should ever separate him Rom. viii 39 And this God does by way of emanation as a Loadstone sending out its effluvia or magnetick atomes draws the Iron to