fruit of the womb as a blessing and blesseth him that hath his quiver full of these shafts but now the poor man knoweth not how to understand this and it is hard for him not to repine at the multiplying of it a great error doubtless but such as for ought I know good people may fall into we cannot trust God to provide for those which he giveth us if this hath been thy error God but pays thee in thy own kind by shortning thy number and maketh thy own secret sinful wish now to be thy Plague and Torment but this ordinarily is the sin of the poorer and meaner sort of Christians 2. Didst thou not let thy heart run out too much upon thy Children God is jealous and it is the nature of jealousy not to suffer a rival in the object beloved be it a person or a thing God is the object and he will be the prime object of his peoples love desire and delight It is his Law Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy Soul and with all thy strength it may be thy Child had more of thy heart more of thy love and and delight than God had no wonder if he hath taken it from thee this is now usually the sin of those whose circumstances in the world are better they have a fair estate in the world and Children few enough to leave it to and in such cases it is a very hard thing to keep our hearts within due bounds but our affections are ready to overflow especially if there be nothing in the temper or behaviour of the Child that takes off the edge of our affections to it 3. Doth not thy heart smite thee for the neglect of thy duty to thy Child especially if it were of any years Thy duty in instructing it or thy duty in reproving and admonishing it Elie's Sons were indeed men grown but God cut off his Children though their personal guilt justified God in his severity against them yet Eli smarted in their punishments for honouring his Sons more than God for dealing too gently with them for their most enormous wickednesses Thou mayest also neglect thy duty towards them in instructing them in making them acquainted with the holy Scriptures in admonishing them to keep the Lords Sabbaths and seeing to their external Sanctification of them This is undoubtedly a second piece of thy duty upon such a dispensation and to be humbled before God for those sins which thy conscience smiteth thee for and suggesteth to thee as probable causes of this rod of God upon thee 3. It is doubtless thy duty whatsoever thou findest to be satisfied with Gods good pleasure Rachel mourned sinfully while she so mourned as that she refused to be comforted If thou findest that probably God hath punished thy sin in the sickness pain and death of thy Child it is indeed matter of humiliation to thee it offers thee a just opportunity to resolve for the time to come to amend thy errors as to any survivors which God shall lend thee but yesterday cannot be called back again God hath done what pleased him It may be in mercy to thy Child though it be in judgment unto thee thou hast no reason to quarrel or murmure at God for any of his dispensations If it be for thy Child 's Original sin still thou hast no reason to blame God he is just and righteous in what he hath done But if God hath done it to give thy Child a quicker passage to Heaven to bring it sooner to a state of perfection to deliver it from an evil to come here thou hast reason to admire and adore the Divine goodness rather than to quarrel at Divine Justice There are a great many things that may conduce to the relief of a godly man or woman disturbed at this dispensation of Divine Providence It is a very ordinary dispensation of God though therefore it may look like a digression from the principal argument of my discourse yet it may possibly be not so judged by some of you whose case it either at present is or may be to instance in some heads of arguments which occasionally you may make use of for the quieting of your Spirits 1. Consider what-ever was the moving cause on Gods part yet the will of God is revealed The will of God is such a thing to satisfy a Christian with as nothing can be more nothing greater We have our Heaven by the will of God fear not little flock it is your Fathers will to give you a Kingdom We have all our grace all our glory from the will of God and shall we not thankfully accept a cross when it is the will of our Father to lay it upon our necks We pray thy will be done and shall we murmure against it when we see it done This silenced Aaron David Heli Hezekiah it leaves no room for a good Christians reply to it it is our Fathers will that is enough It is our Fathers will revealed by an Act of his Providence The Lord hath given saith Job and the Lord hath taken blessed be the name of the Lord. 2. Consider how many sadder cases than thine there have been Thou hast lost a Child an infant Job lost all his Children when they were grown up feasting at their elder Brothers house Aarons was a sad cause he lost his two Sons grown up in an act of sinning yet he held his peace Helies case was sad to lose two such wicked Sons in a Battel Davids case was sad God had expresly told him the Child should dye because of his sin and that by it he had made the enemies of God to blaspheme What doth David do He fasteth he prayeth he humbleth himself before God so long as the Child lived and while he had any hope but when the will of God was revealed when the Child was dead he ariseth and eateth bread as he was wont to do he saith that he should go to it it should not return to him 3. Consider Let the case be as sad as it will yet if thou lookest round about it there is mercy in it either mercy to thy Child or mercy to thee or mercy to both if thy Child be gone to Heaven there is mercy in that if it be delivered from evil to come upon the World or that part of the world where it should have had its portion there is mercy in that David's case was as sad as one can well think of any of this nature yet there was this mercy in it the living monument and remembrance of David's sin and shame was taken away 4. Suppose that God hath for thy sin taken it away and thou canst not satisfie thy self but it is so yet consider God eternally punisheth none for the sins of their correlates God may punish persons with bodily and temporal punishments for the sins of their Parents but not eternally as to those punishments every soul shall bear no
the people of God be good and for good and the products both of infinite wisdom and of infinite goodness It is our unhappiness that we judg of events to us in this world by sense and not according to faith This maketh us call many things evil indeed there is nothing can happen to a good man truly evil for the hand of his Father must be in it Providence must have the ordering of it and never did the hand of a good Father knowingly mix a potion of poison to his child and with his own hand give it him to drink We do not ask evil of God and he that heareth our prayers will not when we ask him bread give us a stone nor when we ask him a fish give us a Scorpion If we that are evil know how to give good things to those that ask them of us much more doth our heavenly Father know how to give good things to his children asking them of him In this we may be secure If the Providence of God influenceth all the events of the world he so regulates them that although they may prove sensible joyless and afflictive evils yet they shall never prove real evils to those that fear God but in the issue appear the products as of infinite wisdom so also of infinite goodness Thus far this Doctrine of Divine Providence is a great fountain of consolation to the people of God But lastly Let us enquire what duty we may conclude from hence and that is very much I shall instance in some few particulars 1. Is there a Divine Providence and doth this influence all beings motions actions events c Let us learn then the duty of faith to commit all our ways unto God to trust in him and depend upon him It is a duty we are often in Scripture called to and that with respect to our persons and with respect to our affairs and ways 1 Pet. 4.19 Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls unto him in well-doing as unto a faithful Creator Our Saviour presseth it in opposition to two things 1. In opposition to the fear of man Matt. 10.28 29 30 And fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father But the very hairs of your head are numbred Fear you not therefore for you are of more value than many sparrows 2. Again He presseth it in opposition to too great sollicitude Matth. 6.25 Therefore I say unto you Take no thought for your life what you shall eat or what you shall drink nor yet for your body what you shall put on This he presseth from Gods Providence for the Lillies the Birds c. vers 26 27 28 29 30 31. 2. With respect to our affairs and the events of things in the world so far as they concern us 1. Pet. 5.7 Casting all your care upon him for he careth for you Psal 55.22 Cast thy burden upon the Lord for he shall sustain you Psal 37.3 Trust in the Lord and do good Vers 5. Commit thy way unto the Lord trust also in him and he shall bring it to pass Prov. 16.3 Commit thy works unto the Lord and thy thoughts shall be established Man troubleth himself in vain both with care and fear the Child of God especially We cannot let God alone to rule and govern the world But surely if there be a God in the world an immense and infinite Being that filleth all places and infinitely active seeing and hearing all things and this God is not idle but influenceth all beings all motions and actions of beings all suspensions omissions and cessations of action in the creature all events and if he hath any Children people or servants in the world whom he loveth delighteth in careth for these people may trust him and commit themselves and their ways to him and it is their duty so to do Who may trust God who may commit their ways unto him if these should not Let me therefore say with the Psalmist Psal 115.9 10 11. O Israel trust thou in the Lord O house of Aaron trust in the Lord you that fear the Lord trust in the Lord. Be not over-solicitous be not sinfully afraid as to any events There is a God that ruleth in the earth that overseeth the world But this trusting in God must be 1. In doing good Trust in the Lord and do good Psal 37.3 Our souls must be committed to the Lord in well-doing 1 Pet. 4.19 There is no trusting in the Lord without walking in his way The unholy walking man hath no ground to trust God for any good he hath no promise to bottom his trust upon We must trust God in an holy walking 2. We must notwithstanding the Providence of God trust God in the use of proper means The reason for this is because the Precept commandeth the use of lawful means Trusting of God is indeed exclusive of the use of unlawful means but it always includeth the use of means that are proper and lawful To refuse proper and lawful means and talk of trusting God is to tempt him not to trust him 3. It includeth also the use of Religious means such as the waiting upon God in the use of his Ordinances The word Sacraments and Prayer For these things saith God I will be enquired of by the house of Israel Prayer is a general means instituted by God for the obtaining of any mercy But I say supposing these three things That a Child of God keepeth in the Lords way and hath used all proper means for an event which he hath desired and sought the Lord for by Prayer This Doctrine of Divine Providence sheweth him the highest reason imaginable for his committing both his person and his ways unto the Lord without any anxious sollicitude or distracting fears Because he is the Lord who careth for us therefore we should cast our care on him 2. A second thing which I shall press upon you as your duty and consequent to this Doctrine of Providence is a pious security in all conditions and with respect to all events There is a sinful security which all good men ought to avoid and to take heed of Security is the freedom of the mind from care as to this or that thing Now this is sinful two ways 1. When the ground of it is some carnal confidence a relying on some arm of flesh Cursed be he saith the Prophet that trusteth in man and makes flesh his arm Thus the Jews were often secure upon the view of their great allies and confederates Assyria and Egypt In like manner people may be secure upon the account of their relations and interests or the power and favour of men We are commanded to cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils and the Psalmist tells us It is better to trust in the
Vse 1. In the first place let then all men that live upon the Earth praise the Lord but especially such as are superiors and rulers over others and more especially such as are his Church The Psalmist Psal 135.1 calls to all saying Praise the Lord praise ye the name of the Lord and ver 19 20 21. He calleth in particular Bless the Lord O house of Israel Bless the Lord O house of Aaron Bless the Lord O house of Levi you that fear the Lord bless the Lord Blessed be the Lord out of Zion which dwelleth at Hierusalem 1. This observation calleth to all the sons and daughters of men to bless the Lord. We are all sociable creatures and much of the comfort of our lives lyeth in our societies and fellowships one with another either in our family-societies or in our civil-societies or in our Church-societies We should think it a life worse than death to be condemned to live like a wild Ass alone in the wilderness Now there are some lusts of men that would spoil us of all this comfort God peculiarly sets himself against them and makes these the marks for his arrows of vengeance The Jews said of the Centurion He hath loved our nation and hath built us a synagogue We may say of our good God he hath loved mankind for he hath taken care to preserve order in humane societies and severely to chasten the invaders upon the rights of others What an ingagement doth this lay upon all men to praise the Lord Certainly sirs there is a great deal of praise and glory and homage due to God from all men as they are concerned in their several societies There is a great deal of glory due to God from families for his testimony against those lusts of men such as are murtherers and adulterers which in a short time would spoil all the comfort of those societies Certainly every family is bound to worship God and to walk with God But particularly 1. Let Rulers praise the Lord. Let all the Princes of the Earth give homage to him that ought to be served they are more especial marks for furious and ambitious mens lusts Gods Providence as you have heard is eminently seen in preventing their dangers in revenging their harms 2 Sam. 23.3 4 5. Surely then as David saith those that rule over men should be just ruling them in the fear of the Lord their light should be like the light of the morning without clouds God hath not only set them up as lights upon an hill but he hath made his special Providence to be a lanthorn about them that 't is rarely that the wind of sedition and treason prevails to blow them out and then 't is ordinarily for some eminent Provocation of God But I am not speaking to persons in that capacity You that are parents praise the Lord Gods special Providence you see reacheth you and in a great measure secureth you from that great heart-ach of rebellious and disobedient children I know you will say How then cometh this to be the great affliction of many good parents To which I answer 1. There is many a good parent may have been but like good old Ely too indulgent and cockering to their children ordinarily God keepeth up the authority of parents over their children until themselves have prostituted it and in the rebellion and disobedience of their children they may read their own sin and see as much cause to be humbled for that as any thing else as David in the case of Adonijah 1 King 1.5 6. And herein the goodness of God towards parents will be seen that if he doth not upon their endeavours secure to them the duty of their children yet he will not fail to revenge their quarrels against them 2. Let the poor and weak of the earth praise the Lord he hath declared himself the father of the fatherless and the judg of the widows a refuge for the oppressed Psal 68.5 Exod. 22.5 Psal 10.11 How are all the widows and fatherless children all the poor and oppressed people of the world bound to praise and to serve this God who hath taken upon himself the special patronage and protection of them This indeed would be the best use we could possibly make of this Observation relating to the special Providence of God if it might lay a special obligation upon all those who are thus especially concerned to magnifie God as their great patron and defender And how can they praise God more effectually than in doing those particular duties which concern them all in their respective relations or with reference to those peculiar circumstances of Providence under which they are acted I shall add but one branch of Application more and indeed it is not a new Use for it is a part of our praise and homage which we owe unto God upon this Reflexion viz. Vse 2. To all to take heed of those sins which God in his word declares himself more eminently to abhor and in the execution of Providence doth most severely punish All sin is in it self a filthy and abominable thing and the just object of every good mans hatred for should not we hate what God hateth and what hath of all things the greatest opposition to God yes we ought to hate it with a perfect hatred But such is the naughtiness of our heart that we are not so led to an hatred and abhorrence of sin from the intrinsecal evil and obliquity of it as from the dangerous and pernicious consequence of it Death eternal death is the wages of every sin but this being only matter of faith to bold sinners none having ever come from the dead to give them an account of those flames the punishments of sin in this life are those things which most deter carnal sensual men But if men will look no further nor believe any more yet let this lay some law upon us and make us afraid of those sins which I have instanced in being such whose judgment the Providence of God seldom letteth sleep so long as to another life Let this mind us not to meddle with them that are given to change that curse Kings and Rulers in their bed-chambers and are of turbulent and unquiet spirits always plotting and contriving seditions and treasons and disturbances to civil governours it is very rarely that God suffereth their designs to come to issue or their persons to come to the grave in peace 2. What a law should it lay upon the rich and great men of the earth to take heed of violent perverting justice and judgment of turning away the causes of the widows and the fatherless in judgment To consider that he who is the highest doth consider the matter and there is one higher than the highest of them who abuse their power to trample the poor under foot If men be not turned Atheists and have banished all the fear of God from their eyes and hearts it must a little give them law and lay
of sin the hearts of sinners are set in them to do evil because judgement is not executed speedily I indeavoured to discourage and check this presumption in my former observation where I confirmed to you that by how much the more slowly vindicative justice proceedeth to the punishment of sin by so much severer the punishment is when it cometh This Observation addeth further to that check for as that which men call slackness is but the long suffering and patience of God not willing that any should perish but that all should be saved by a seasonable repentance So as you have now heard at large discoursed to you neither is God thus long-suffering and patient with all and although God generally be more quick with those sorts of sinners which I have specified to you yet I desire you to observe what I first enlarged upon that there is hardly any kind or sort of sinners but God at some time or other hath picked out some or other of them to make them examples of his severity Thou maist be struck dead while the lye is in thy mouth It was the case you know of Ananias and Saphira Thou maist be cut off in the very Act of Adultery It was the case you know of Zimri and Cosbi Tremble therefore and do not sin God may grant thee many years of patience he may give thee leave to treasure up wrath to thy self against the day of wrath but thou canst not promise thy self an hours patience But above all fear those sins which God usually is so quick in punishing Fear blaspheming God or the King we live in a blaspheming age wherein have been more bold darings of God than in former times God hath revenged his glory upon some of them they have been cut off in their youth before they have lived out half their dayes If another generation riseth up and approveth their sayings wait but a while and you will see vengeance overtaking them also Fear doing any thing against the life of others who by the law of God ought not to dye Blood-thirsty men shall not live out half their days you fee Gods vengeance against this sin is very quick 2. This Observation affords a great encouragement to the service of God especially to eminent actings and sufferings for God There is a reward for righteous men if they go without it to their dying day yet they shall be recompensed in the generation of the just Heaven will pay for all but God doth not always take so long a day to recompence them Many have a reward in this life and that which is to come The Scripture is full of promises even of the good things of this life to godliness in the general and to the several parts and acts of godliness These promises indeed are not made good to every child of God in specie but only in equivalent yea transcendent mercies But even these promises are made good to many and they may be thy portion however thou shalt not miss of the greater things Particularly this layeth an engagement upon all that fear God as God calleth them to it and giveth them advantage for it to signalize themselves by eminent actings or by some eminent sufferings such you have heard God ordinarily payeth presently and besides that eternal recompence which they have in glory they are in more outward and sensible things or in more inward influences of grace recompensed in this life Those that eminently honour God he will honour and many of them have a double mess sent them from the Lord. SERMON XXXI Psalm CVII 43. Whoso is wise and will observe these things even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. I Am proceeding yet in my Observations upon the motions of Divine Providence that which we call Actual Providence in its administration of distributive Justice both in the punishment of sinners and the rewarding of the righteous Divers Observations I have already made I am come to the Observat 18. Which you may please to take thus That the Providence of God doth very ordinarily with the punishments of this life chastise the past and pardoned sins of people In the handling of which I shall 1. Justifie the Observation 2. I shall shew you the reasonableness of this motion of Providence and reconcile it both to the justice and goodness of God 3. Lastly I shall make some practical application of it That it is so I shall prove by two famous instances the first of David the second Job David you know had fallen into two grievous sins Adultery with Bathsheba and the murther of her Husband Vriah God sendeth the Prophet Nathan 2 Sam. 12. to David to convince him of his sin who doth it by a Parable Davids heart melteth v. 13. and he saith unto Nathan I have sinned against the Lord. Nathan tells him the Lord hath also put away thy sin The sin you see was both past and pardoned but mark what follows v. 14. Howbeit because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme the Child also that is born unto thee shall surely dye He had told him before v. 10. That the sword should not depart from his house and v. 11. That he would take his wives before his face and give them to his neighbour and he should ly with them in the sight of the Sun All this was afterward justified by the Actual Providence of God The Child died 2 Sam. 12.18 Amnon defloureth his Sister Thamar and is slain by her Brother Absolon 2 Sam. 13.14 29. Absalom Davids own Son lieth with his Fathers Concubines in the sight of all Israel 2 Sam. 16.22 Absolom is slain in a rebellion against his Father c. Nay not only thus but God punisheth David with horrors and terrors in his mind with diseases in his body as you may gather from Psal 6. Psal 51. and the rest of those Psalms in which he expresseth his repentance David prayeth Psal 25.7 Remember not the sins of my youth nor my transgressions Job complaineth unto God Job 7.2 3. As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow and as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work so am I made to possess months of vanity I know the words are capable of another sense as vanity may be understood for affliction and misery or the frustration of his expectations but I should rather interpret it by the words of the same Job 13.26 27 28. For thou writest bitter things against me and makest me to possess the sins of my youth c. Moses and Aaron sinned against the Lord at the waters of Meribah I do not think that any of you doubt but that God pardoned their sin yet it is certain that God punished them and that for that sin God himself tells them so Deut. 32.50 51. That the Providence of God doth this is evident The second thing may seem to have more difficulty in it viz. How this is reconcileable either to
The infinite variety with the different qualities of created Beings yet all conspiring together for the good and order of the whole the order we see amongst them their subserviencies and subordinations each to other they all speak that there is a God that by his Providence ruleth the world Whoso lifteth up his eyes to the Heavens and considereth the constant unwearied motions of those great celestial bodies with the evenness of them so as they are reducible to a science of all other most certain liable to little more exceptions than an extraordinary command to the Sun to stand still in Gibeon and the Moon in the valley of Ajalon or to go backward some few degrees as in Hezekiah's time or considereth the vast bodies of water sometime in the Heavens coming upon us not as water from a pail but through a water-pot must needs conclude a Superiour hand directing and guiding the motions and holding the thin Cloud that it is not rent while the rain makes its orderly passage by drops through the thin and subtil parts of it Whoso standeth by the Sea-side and observeth that vast body of water driven by fierce winds sometimes and constantly by its natural motion invading the Earth as if it would presently swallow it up and observeth it after the ceasing of the wind or a six hours progressive motion gradually retreating and leaving it out of fear yea and further leaving a water-mark for the following flow unless at some certain times before and after the full of the Moon must needs acknowledg a Supreme Being setting bounds unto it which it hath no reason to prescribe to it self nor is it subject to the Command of the greatest Potentate on Earth Finally he that standeth upon the Earth and considers its annual productions the variety of Creatures of all orders in it their Sympathies and Antipathies their Successions the varieties of their Beings Motions and Qualities and yet their mutual subserviencies to one another and subjection to each other must be no less than a most absurd and bruitish Atheist if he will not acknowledg that no less than the daily and mighty influence of an Almighty God could compound their living together upon the same soil in any harmonious agreement each with other That every thing should know its seasons and keep its bounds and be in subjection to man weaker than many of them and not transgress its order or end but when armed by God as a part of his Host to revenge his quarrels upon sinners must be from a knowledg which God gives them and a Law he daily puts upon them but as the Psalmist saith Psal 107.23 They that go down to the Sea in Ships that do business in great waters these see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep For he commandeth and raiseth the stormy winds which lift up the waves thereof they mount up to the heavens they go down to the depths their soul is melted because of trouble the breaking of a wave would swallow them up Who is he that maintaineth the continuity of the parts of the water that the waves break not nor the water divideth under the mighty weight that is upon it who but the mighty God could do it In short he seemeth to have taken a very cursory slight and overly view of the Works of Creation that doth not see a plain necessity of a Divine Providence to uphold the various Beings within the compass of it and their various Qualities to compound the disagreements of their natures into an harmony proportioned to the preservation of the Universe Whoso is wise and hath observed these things he must understand both the Power and Wisdom of God in all these things and consequently the loving-kindness of the Lord. I shall shut up this with that Pious foot of the Psalmists Song of Providence Psal 107. O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness for his wonderful works to the children of men 2. If we consider the Nature of God we shall find that he who acknowledgeth a Divine Being and denieth a providential care of all created Beings hath but set up an idol in his heart and rather owneth a God with his tongue than in any truth and sincerity For what do we mean by that term God but an immense Being filling all places a first cause of all things Almighty in power of infinite activity wisdom and goodness We can hardly so much as fancy such a Being but by the same conception we must establish a Divine Providence 1. If we allow not God to be the first Cause we must grant a former cause of things and this were to deny God while we pretend to own him It is as much nonsense to assert one before the first as one higher than the highest But how is God the first cause if he hath no influence upon second causes nor they any dependance upon him If they say that second causes have a dependance on him and he an influence on them they establish what we contend for viz. a Divine Providence 2. If we allow God to be an immense and infinite being filling all places we must either allow him to fill all places as an oculate active being or as a sensless inanimate being A bulk of lead or stone filleth a place but takes no notice of any thing in it A man filleth a place which circumscribeth him but seeth and observeth all things It were an high blasphemy against God to affirm that he filleth all places only as a Log or a bulk of Lead filleth a particular place if he filleth all places as an animate being that hath eyes and ears he must needs see and hear and observe all things in all places which his Being filleth Whoso granteth this doth in a great measure own and acknowledg a Divine Providence 3. But this Doctrine is fully confirmed to us if we will but recognize God a being of infinite mercy and goodness God is not like the Ostrich of which Job saith 39.14 She leaves her eggs in the earth and warmeth them in the dust and forgetteth that the foot may crush them or the wild beast may break them she is hardned against her young ones It is our great vanity that labouring under a difficulty to conceive of any being above our own pitiful perfection and capacity we fancy to our selves strange Idea's of God We can hardly apprehend an immense being that should fill all places if we could we should easily conclude a Divine Omniscience If we can fancy any thing of that yet we are ready to conceive of him according to the lazy imperfections of our natures and think of God as of some great and mighty Prince that hath either through inactivity or for greater state mewed up himself in his Court and gives up himself instead of his business of Government to divertisements of pleasure leaving the care of Government upon his Counsellors or some principal Ministers of State Hence the mistake of
his Book of the Trueness of Christian Religion Chap. 13. where he sheweth Providence a bundantly owned by Plato Plotinus Hierocles Aristotle Cicero Seneca and others I shall therefore only add one passage of Seneca not I think particularly by him mentioned it is in his Book of Natural Questions Chap. 45. where he calleth God The keeper and governour of the whole world Custodem rectoremque universi animum spiritum mundani hujus operis Dominum artificem cui nomen omne convenit Vis illum fatum vocare non errabis Hic est ex quo suspensa sunt omnia causa causarum Vis illum Providentiam dicere rectè dices Est enim cujus consilio huic mundo providetur ut inconcussus eat actus suos explicet Seneca Nat. Qu. l. 2. cap. 45. a Mind a Spirit the Lord and Artificer or Creator of all the world he to whom every name agreeth Will you call him Fate you will not be out For he it is on whom all things depend Will you call him Providence you will say right for by his Counsel the world is provided and taken care for that it remains steady and performeth its operations Salvian upon this Argument tells us that the Heathens acknowledged God to be in the world as the Master of a great Ship is in that abiding always in it and stirring up and down Whence he cryeth out Quid potuerunt de affectu diligentiâ Dei religiosius sentire Salvian l. 1. What could they more religiously judg and speak of God than to compare him to the Governour of a Ship who is never in the Ship idle but continually at work either in one kind or another The Pythagoreans compared God to the Soul in the body filling each part and actuating each part of the body The Platonists call him the moderator of all things The Heathen Poets speak as well and fully Virgil telleth us God is continually moving throughout all the Earth Tractusque maris coelumque profundum and the Waters and the Heavens In short none but some of the most sensual and brutish Epicureans ever so much as called this in question 5. But hitherto I have been arguing this point with you as men to convince you of it if you were Heathens and had no knowledg of the Holy Scripture When I consider you in that notion I must say to you as the Apostle speaks in another case We have a more sure word of prophecy As we by faith understand that the worlds were at first made by God so by faith also we plentifully understand that the created worlds are upheld preserved protected and governed by God I shall hereafter more distinctly prove this in my following discourse when I shall come to speak of the distinct and particular acts and objects of this Divine Providence I shall only here make use of a few instead of very many Scriptures which might be produced Heb. 1.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vpholding all things by the word of his power He at first made all things by the word of his Power and he upholdeth all things by the word of his Power My Text saith He preserveth both man and beast Our Lord telleth us that he cloatheth the grass of the field and feedeth the Ravens Matth. 6. The Psalmist tells us that his kingdom ruleth over all And again Matth. 10.29 30. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing yet not one of them falls to the ground without the will of your heavenly father Acts 17.28 In him we live move and have our being Prov. 15.13 The eyes of the Lord are in all places beholding the evil and the good John 5.17 My father worketh hitherto and I work In short the places of Scripture confirming this Doctrine of Divine Providence are very many and will most of them fall under some part or other of my ensuing discourse referring to the particular objects and acts of Divine Providence And I therefore shall not in this place further enlarge upon them but come next to consider the extent or particular objects of Divine Providence I proceed therefore to a second Question Quest 2. What are the objects of Divine Providence or how far doth the Divine care extend Though the Epicureans of old would acknowledg no Providence and many of the Stoicks asserting a Fate destroyed it yet the wiser Peripateticks would grant it though but a limited one extended to some particular Beings and things and too many amongst those who are called Christians seem to inherit something of their spirit I remember that when Pharaoh saw Egypt almost destroyed he calls for Moses and Aaron and bids them go and serve the Lord but adds Exod. 10.8 But who are they that shall go When Moses replyed We will go with our young and with our old with our sons and with our daughters with our flocks and with our herds will we go He replyeth vers 10. Let the Lord so deal with me as I let you go and your little ones Thus many deal with God When they consider the vast bodies of the Creatures the great varieties of their beings and qualities their motions c. they are forced to acknowledg a Divine Providence That the world could not stand nor the parts of it hold together unless a Superior hand ruled upheld and governed them They therefore will acknowledg a Providence as to the great bodies of the Heavens c. But say they How far will you extend it When they hear us assert it as to all things the sound of the little ones in nature troubles them yea and as to the wills of men they are wonderfully disturbed We must therefore enquire what the Scripture saith which certainly cannot err as to the bounds and extent of Gods Providential care The Scripture tells us Heb. 4.13 That all things are naked and open before him with whom we have to do That the eyes of the Lord are in every place beholding the evil and the good Prov. 15.3 My Text saith He preserveth both man and beast The Apostle to the Hebrews saith He upholdeth all things by the word of his power But to speak more distinctly we extend the Divine Providence 1. To all Beings 2. To all motions and actions of Beings 3. To all omissions suspensions or cessations of action 4. To all events of things 1. First I say to all Beings Beings are usually distinguished into such as have no life or such as have life Or if you please we may make use of that plain division of Beings into 1. Such as have no more than a meer Being neither life nor sense nor reason Such are the Heavens the Earth the Waters Or 2. Such as have Being and life but no sense Such are herbs and plants Or 3. Such as have Being and life and sense Such are Beasts Birds Fishes Insects c. Or Lastly Such as have not only Being life sense but Reason also Such are Angels and Men. I shall shew you that
Scripture was written since which time Prophecy and unwritten Revelations are much ceased not further to be expected God may yet reveal himself to some particular servants of his but we are not to expect such Revelations nor are they the object of faith Now herein hath the stupendous Providence of God been eminently seen that when so many thousand books wrote since the Scriptures were written are lost and there is no memorial almost of them and the Scriptures have had more enemies than any of them more that have endeavoured to corrupt them and to destroy them yet God hath preserved this store-house of spiritual food and kept it from corruption by the extraordinary care of the Jewish Church the multiplying of translations guiding and governing of those who have been employed in them Nor hath the Providence of God been less seen in maintaining Ministers and Teachers of his word In the Jewish Church when the ordinary officers failed and were corrupted God from time to time raised them up Prophets who were his extraordinary Embassadors to teach his people In Christs time he calls Fishermen to the Apostleship and in all succeeding Ages though there have been sometimes more sometimes fewer able and faithful Ministers yet God hath so ordered that there never have wanted some and a competent number to break the bread of life and to feed his people with wisdom and with spiritual understanding No sort of men have been more maligned hated persecuted yet God hath upheld the order and taken care for the souls of his people that they have continually had faithful stewards of the mysteries of God 4. The Providence of God is admirable in preserving man in his spiritual capacity in the daily influence of his spirit attending his word and sanctifying his institutions The word is in it self but a dead letter the Preaching of the word is far from a mean adequate to so great an effect as is the conversion and edification of souls God is therefore pleased to join his quickening spirit to the word where he pleaseth blessing and sanctifying it I am not of their judgment who think that there is such a constant concurrence and influence of the Spirit with the preaching of the Gospel that if men will do what in them lies they may repent believe c. I know no Scripture which will justifie that notion but certain it is that the holy Spirit doth ordinarily join it self with the preaching of the word like the wind blowing where it pleaseth and none knoweth the motion of it convincing men of sin of righteousness and of judgment 5. Lastly The Providence of God preserveth men in their spiritual capacities by supplying them with strength and succour against their spiritual enemies their own flesh the world the Devil all which with a variety of temptations strike at our spiritual welfare But this is much of kin to what I said before I shall add no more to this discourse concerning Gods Act of Providence as in the preservation of beasts so of men and that in their single natural capacities In their Social and Political capacities and finally in their Spiritual capacities I shall only add some few words of application This in the first place may inform us Vse 1 How great that God must necessarily be whom we serve he is the Creator of the ends of the Earth of the Heavens of the Seas of all things and it is he who preserveth both man and beast he preserveth all men in their single and natural capacities this I opened before He preserveth all men in their Political capacities all his people in their Spiritual capacities It is an ordinary observation in the Kingdoms and Empires of the world that when they have grown to a great bigness they have perished with their own bulk and weight No Monarch hath been found sufficient to preserve them by his wisdom and Counsels And I remember the Historian speaks of it to the great honour and as a wonderful thing in one of the first Roman Kings that he put the Roman Kingdom it was no more then into such an order that it was governed as if it had been but one Family But how much doth it speak the Glory and Majesty the Immensity and Omnipresence the Efficiency and Activity of God who at the same time is working over all the Earth in all the Empires and Kingdoms in all the Cities and Towns in it defeating Ahitophels discovering Plots and Conspiracies ruling the spirits of unruly men so as the whole Universe is kept in order and the thousands and ten thousands of men in it that know not the yoke of Reason and Religion are yet bridled by his Providence and kept in some just order and decorum and made in stead of running one upon another and destroying one another mutually to be subservient one to another I say how great how wise how infinite how glorious in power must this God be Secondly Observe how much mercy passeth over our heads Vse 2 which we do take little or no notice of We are fearfully and wonderfully preserved and that in every capacity I shewed you it before as to our natural capacity few think of that what a strange working of Providence there must be to keep our souls in life but one day It is as much remarkable in our Political capacity I remember when Christ sent out his Disciples to Preach he told them That he sent them out as lambs amongst wolves It is true indeed not only of Gospel-Preachers but of all sober and vertuous men that would live in the world but according to the Laws of Reason and Moral vertue They are in the world as lambs amongst wolves Let but any one consider how many lewd unrighteous debauched men are in all places such whose only rule is their lusts how full the world is of men that make no conscience of murthers rapes thefts oppression and other enormities and then stand and wonder at the Providence of God that in any part of the world there is any thing of order and decorum observed that men have any thing which they can call their own that the lives of Princes or sober people are secured What can it be attributed to but the mighty power of Divine Providence that we have no more murthers rapes thefts c. we see laws punishments will not restrain all nor the same men at all times how or whence is it that they restrain any or at any time I will conclude this with what the Psalmist so often maketh the foot in that his admirable song of Providence Psal 107 Oh! that men would praise the Lord for his goodness for his wonderful works to the children of men Oh that Princes would praise the Lord for his goodness It is by him that they reign that they have a days liberty to decree justice by him that the Counsels of Ahitophel are defeated the conspiracies of ungodly men are discovered that the spirits of unruly and unreasonable
apparent tendency to the ruin of the whole interest of God in the World if possibly not to leave Christ a Name in the Earth nor Religion pure and undefiled Religion a footing in any place he that runs may read this day that the malice of some is against no form in Religion but the life and power and practice of Holiness The Devil their Master hath given them a command like that of Benhadads Fight neither against small nor great Neither against Conformists nor Non-conformists but against the life and practice of Religion only Who seeth not that although a man hath a further latitude than others of his brethren as to matters of Conformity yet if he liveth an holy life if he presseth Holiness in his Pulpit and practiseth it in his Conversation he maketh himself a prey to the common Enemies both of Gospel Faith and conversation But trouble not your selves Christians The Lord reigneth the Frogs out of the bottomless pit may through Gods permission get out and croak a while but to the pit they must return again A sad time it was when the Enemy said to the Soul of the man according to Gods own heart Flee as a bird to the mountains when the wicked bent their bows and made their arrows ready upon the string that they might privily shoot at the upright in heart Psalm 11.2 When the foundations were destroyed and the godly knew not what to do what comfort at such a time Observe the same Psalmist v. 4 The Lord is in his holy temple the Lords throne is in heaven his eyes behold his ey-lids try the children of men I shall conclude this branch of Application with that Psalm 99. v. 1 The Lord reigneth let the people tremble he sitteth between the Cherubims let the Earth be moved the Lord is great in Zion and he is high above all people Let them praise the Lords great and terrible Name for it is holy Lastly Vse 3 This Doctrine is a foundation for a great deal of Exhortation Every good Christian upon hearing this Doctrine concerning Gods providential Kingdom should be saying What now is my Duty what ought I to do if the Lord reigneth I will tell you in five or six particulars and so shut up this Discourse concerning the main and principal acts of Divine Providence 1. An exercise of Faith seems a very reasonable piece of duty to be concluded from these premises By Faith here I understand not an assent to the Proposition of the word nor yet a resting upon the person of the Mediator which is the justifying-act of faith but committing of our selves unto God and casting our care upon him in all estates and conditions a thing often called for in Scripture Cast thy burthen on the Lord Psal 55.22 Casting all your care upon him for he careth for you 1 Pet. 5.7 Commit thy way unto the Lord Psal 37.5 So Job 5.8 Prov. 16.3 Sometimes it is called a Trusting in God Psalm 4.5 and 7.1 Pro. 28.25 and 29.5 Isa 57.13 c. Power and Love are the things that support and justifie one in trusting and putting confidence in another This Doctrine concerning the general Providence of God in governing all justifies him as to his Power to be the true and sole Object of our confidence We can trust in none else but may be controuled The greatest Princes of the Earth are but men under the authority of one who is higher than they and a mans trust in them oft-times is but like the Jews trusting in Egypt which the Prophet compareth to a leaning to a bruised reed and upon a broken staff which are not able to bear the weight of a mans body but if he leaneth upon them they will run into his hand If God be against us man cannot protect from him nor deliver out of his hand therefore saith the Psalmist Psalm 118.8 9. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in Princes but he whose Kingdom is over all must needs be a proper Object of our confidence and as our confidence in God is warranted from general Providence as to the power of God so as to his love it is secured from special Providence but of that I hope to speak distinctly only a word here lest any should say But although the Kingdom of God be over all so that upon the account of his Power I may trust in him yet how doth it appear his Power shall be put forth for me I shall but offer four Meditations to you 1. That the glory of God is the great end that he aimeth at in all his actions He made all things for himself he preserveth he governeth the World for himself 2. That whereas God hath a twofold glory from his Creation Passive and Active One wherein the creature doth nothing from an inward principle thus the Heavens declare the glory of God and every creature speaks of his glory The other wherein the creature is Active acting out of intention and design and from the principle of its own will This latter is that which is most pleasing to God and acceptable 3. That God is capable of receiving no further glory from his creatures than what floweth from the predication of his praise and the doing of his Will 4. Lastly That from hence it must needs follow That God is more glorified by his Church and by his Saints than by all the Creation besides God is mutely and passively glorified by other creatures but in his Temple men speak of his glory The children of men and amongst them only those who are born of God do voluntarily and out of choice bring glory to God God if I may so speak wrests his glory from others as from Pharaoh c. God indeed in some sense may be said to be actively and voluntarily glorified by all Professors but only by that little flock whom he hath chosen to himself with a full intention voluntarily and sincerely They are the favourites of him whose Kingdom is over all Supposing then God to have a Dominion and Government over all and to be continually in the exercise of it surely if Haman could say Whom should the King delight to honour but me They may with much better right and advantage say For whom should the great King of kings and Lord of lords exercise a Rule and a Dominion For whose advantage should the Lord govern the World if not for those who most freely chearfully voluntarily serve the greatest end and design which he hath in the World viz. his own glory and can sincerely sum up all the desires of their Souls in that one Petition Let the Lord be glorified surely therefore the children of God have all obligations imaginable upon them under all vicissitudes of Providence to trust in God and to commit their ways unto the Lord. But this is but the first Duty 2. A Second Duty which this Doctrine of
in the second place This discourse concerning the unsearchable things of Divine Providence may serve to direct us as to much spiritual duty I will shew you this in four or five particulars 1. The first is that of the Apostle Rom. 12.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be wise to sobriety We translate it Not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think but to think soberly It may as well be translated Not to be wise above what we ought to be wise but to be wise soberly The Apostle Col. 2.18 makes an intruding into things which we have not seen but a sign of ones being puft up with a fleshly mind Augustine saith when a thing is obscure Et aperte divina Scriptura non subvenit temere aliquid definire humana conjectura praesumit Aug. And the Scripture doth not plainly help humane Wisdom doth but presume rashly to define any thing about it 'T is an excellent thing for a Christian to know his measures not to reach at further degrees of knowledg about the secret things of God than it hath pleased God in his Word to communicate unto us that is the true boundary of spiritual knowledg But I shall not inlarge upon this This is now opposite to that curiosity which I largely reflected upon under the first head of Application 2. This in the second place calleth to us for a deep adoration and veneration of God This is one reason why the Lord hath made his judgments so unsearchable his ways past finding out An holy and humble admiration of God is one piece of that homage which our souls owe to God He is to be admired of all them that believe 2 Thes 1.10 All admiration is the daughter of some ignorance we seldom or very little admire what we fully and perfectly understand The unsearchableness of God in his ways makes him the true and proper object of our admiration and admiration giveth God the honour of his unsearchableness Take heed of denying or disputing what the Scriptures reveal of God because you cannot comprehend and fathom it Where you cannot comprehend him there it is your duty to adore and to admire him 3. This Proposition calleth aloud to all To take heed of making the motions and issues of Providence the rule and guide of their actions We are to follow the rule of the word not the windings of Providence I told you before that Providence is like a man of business that carrieth a great many designs in his head at once and seldom keepeth his road he that will bear such a man company to London or any other place which is the ultimate end of his journy may go a great deal out of his way and where he hath nothing to do and be a great while longer than he need before he cometh there neither must the opportunities which Providence offereth be always taken nor conclusions be made from the successes or frowns of it 4. Learn hence to take heed of raising either too sweet or too bitter conclusions for or against your selves from the Providences of God The indications reasons tendencies of Providence are all unsearchable things Love or hatred cannot be concluded from what is before you in this life Providence carrieth many to hell by a gale of prosperity and others into heaven by a whirlwind of adversity the way to heaven is by much tribulation some are scourged into heaven others go leaping and dancing into the lake which burns with fire and brimstone 5. Lastly Though it be our duty to be wise unto sobriety and not to search curiously into what God hideth from us though we cannot make either the motions or issues of Providence the rule of our duty or action because in our appearance it sometimes pointeth one way when the rule of the word directeth us another yet it is our duty to observe the motions and passages of Divine Providence to behold observe ponder them and to lay them up in our hearts Now what observation of Providence is our duty or what observable things there are in the workings and motions of Divine Providence must be the subject of a far larger discourse SERMON XIV Psal CVII 43. Who so is wise and will observe these things even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. WHoso wistly casteth his eyes upon this Psalm will find it from first to last a Song of Providence intermixed with frequent exhortations or wishes That men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men My Text is the conclusion of this excellent Song Whoso is wise observeth these things The Prophet Hosea hath much such a conclusion of his Prophecy Hos 14.6 Who is wise and he shall understand these things prudent and he shall know them The Proposition of the Text is plainly this Prop. It is an argument of spiritual wisdom in men to observe the motions of Divine Providence and those that do it shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. The Proposition you see hath two Branches 1. That it is an argument of spiritual wisdom to observe the motions of Divine Providence 2. That he who doth observe them shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. The work commended to us is the observation of Providence The honour and reward of the work is expressed in two things 1. It speaketh a man wise truly spiritually wise 2. He shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. The word which we translate observeth is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word that signifies to keep and to observe it is often used in Scripture to signifie a keeping safely and translated by the LXX by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He shall keep me in the way wherein I shall walk and he that keepeth Israel neither slumbereth nor sleepeth Psal 121.4 And he shall give his angels charge over thee and they shall keep thee Psal 91.11 In all those Texts the same word is used sometimes it is used to signifie such a keeping of Gods Commandments as sheweth it self in practice as in Deut. 6.17 and chap. 8.2 sometimes a keeping of them in our mind as in that Text Gen. 37.10 Jacob kept the saying the LXX interpret it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pagnine saith of it Curam sollicitudinem diligentiam denotat ne quid emittatur elabatur aut excutiatur It denotes care sollicitude and diligence that nothing slip out or be let go or shaken out In short I conceive this duty of observing the works of the Lord his great and various works of Providence may be dispatched in three things 1. In a considerate beholding and looking upon them Works of Providence pass before our eyes every day but the truth is for the most part we see and do not see them that is we do not considerately and deliberately fix our eyes upon them and see them as the Lords works we see them as events in the world but consider not the operation of Gods hands in
them This is no observing of them Observing them argues a fixing of the eye of the mind as well as the body upon them without which a transient view of them is of very little significancy and import unto men 2. In a diligent reposing them in our minds this is that which we call a remembring of them The Lord doth his great work to be had in remembrance This is a consequent of the other we remember little of those things we only cursorily view as they come before us but when we six our eyes upon them and apply our minds to the knowledg of them then we remember them 3. In a continued and repeated view of them and reflexion upon them That man that suffereth not the great and daily workings of Divine Providence to pass by his eyes as a tale passeth through his ears which he heedeth not nor applieth his mind unto but fixeth his eye and mind upon them lodgeth them in his memory frequently reflecteth upon them repeateth and re-considereth them in his thoughts that is a wise man and he shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord And that brings me to the second Question in the Explication of the Proposition Quest 2. How is he wise how is it an argument of wisdom and doth he appear to be a wise man who observeth these workings of Providence Wisdom is sometimes taken in a larger sense so a knowing understanding man is a wise man sometimes in a stricter sense as it signifieth a practical habit directing the life and conversation sometimes as comprehending both and so I shall take it in the Proposition He is a wise man he will have more knowledg and understanding than another man and will know better how to order and direct himself in the several parts of his Conversation 1. He will be a more knowing and understanding man We use to say Experience is the mistris of fools Experience maketh a fool wise and indeed without it notions give little wisdom we speak in the commendation of the ablest persons in any art or profession such a one is an experienced man and the more experienced any one is in his art or course the better you account him in it Nothing is so well learned by rule and precept as by example and president Hence it is a common maxim of these times That the study of books accomplisheth none so much as the study of men doth Knowledg is much increased by experimental observation By this Much of the knowledg of God will be let into the soul We cannot see God as he is in his own light we must behold him in his word and in his works From the Word of God we get a great knowledg of God what he is as to his Divine Being and in his glorious Attributes but the knowledg which we have of God from his Word is both confirmed in us and increased by his works of Providence and our observation of them as well as of his great work of Creation And that 1. As they establish the Proposition of the word and confirm our faith in it Psal 48.8 As we have heard so haeve we seen in the city of our God God will establish it for ever Demonstration confirms us in our notions The Church had before learned it that God would establish his Church but now they were confirmed in it when they had seen it in the Works of Providence what they had before heard from the mouth of Gods Prophets and Messengers indeed a notion is but a probationer in our souls until we come to have it established by Faith and Demonstration 2. An observation of Providence doth also increase knowledg as it expounds to us the word of God and giveth us a more certain clear and distinct knowledg of the revelations of it We do not know how to expound some words of God but as we are taught the meaning of them by his Providential Dispensations in the fulfilling of it Gods dispensations in the world both toward his Church and the enemies and persecutors help us to understand both his promises and his threatnings 2. He who observeth the motions of Divine Providence will also know better how to order and direct his life I told you that Wisdom strictly taken is a practical habit directing this He that thus observeth will best know how to order his Conversation But will some say Is not this to make Providence our rule I answer It is one thing to make the Providence of God an argument to justifie our actions which the word condemneth Another thing to take occasions from Providence for the performance of our duty Providence alone is no rule of our actions but the word which is the rule of our actions is more sealed and confirmed to us by Providence Though Providences give no rule yet they wonderfully confirm and establish a rule when what we have read and heard in the word we see in the dealings of God it giveth a new life and makes a new impression of the rule upon our hearts God hath said Blood-thirsty and deceitful men shall not live out half their days and honour thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God give thee Now when we see God cutting off cruel and bloody men in the strength of their years or cutting off a stubborn and rebellious Child in his youth it wonderfully confirmeth the word to us and helpeth us to guide our Conversation so as we may not tread in their steps and be partakers of their Judgments 2. Again Though Providence be no rule as to particular actions yet it is a great help to us as to the three great principles of all our spiritual actions which are Faith Fear Love It is true the Proposition of the word is the object of our Faith when a soul giveth assent to the Proposition of the word because of the Authority of God who hath revealed it and this is the reason why wicked men though they have the Scriptures as well as others yet walk not in the light of them because they believe them not they assent not to the Propositions of Truth that are revealed in them but either say in their heart That it is but the fancy and invention of men or else flatter themselves with the hopes of impunity saying with those in Deuteronomy That they shall have peace although they walk according to the imaginations of their own hearts But now when a man observeth the Providence of God exemplifying and verifying the Word of God it much helps his faith in the word especially as to those in whose heart God hath wrought a previous habit of Faith It is true in this case the Providences of God will do little alone we have the words of Christ They have Moses and the Prophets if they will not believe they will not believe if one should rise from the dead But where a soul is first taught of God to give
God thus speaking to you under its darkest Dispensations Think you that I am about to destroy the Promise or by my motions to make it of no effect No I am come not to destroy a tittle of a promise Heaven and Earth shall pass away but not a tittle of the promise shall fail I am not by these motions destroying the promise whatever your sense may dictate to you or whatsoever your reason may prompt to you I am but fulfilling the promise Therefore I say at such a time look to your hearts that they abide by the promise Let it be the case of the Church in which we live or the case of any particular Soul still keep to the Word the promise to the Church is sure the promise to the particular Soul is sure Providence is not moved out of its way it is only got a little out of thy sight if thou canst but wait for it it will come into thy road again and go with thy expectation most certainly to the fulfilling of the Promise Take that one word Eccles 8.12 13 Though a sinner do evil an hundred times and his days be prolonged yet surely it shall be well with them that fear God which fear before him But it shall not be well with the wicked neither shall he prolong his days which are as a shadow because he feareth not before God Consonant to which is that Isa 3.10 11 Say ye to the righteous it shall be well with them for they shall eat the fruit of their doings Wo unto the wicked it shall be ill with him for the reward of his hands shall be given him Now these words both of Promise and of Threatning are sure words yet such as to which the Providence of God makes our faith stagger more than as to any other It often goes out of what we take to be its road in order to the accomplishment of these words we see wicked men prospering growing great in power honour riches yet their ways are such as he that runneth may read that the fear of God is not before their eyes Well be it so yet let not your hearts fail as to the promise keep close to it you will see Providence return to what you call its Road again If a Sinner do evil an hundred times if he liveth an hundred years yet the Word of the Lord shall be justified upon him So if a child of God be chastened an hundred times if Religion and Reformation and the interest of God in the World be brought under the hatches an hundred times yet Magna est Veritas praevalebit Truth shall prevail at last and Gods people shall have the day at last Consider O Christian thou canst not give God a greater honour than to believe when thou doest not seee This is a faith like Abraham's who believed in hope above hope or contrary to hope Rom. 4 who believed when he had nothing else to trust to but that God was able to raise up and save from the dead Say in the prosperity of Sinners I will have nothing to do with them For I know it shall be ill with them though they thrive and prosper some months and years yet I know the reward of their hands shall be given them In the adversity and afflicted estate of Gods people say with those will I cast in my lot for I know it shall be well with them Take heed that the Providence of God draw you not from the Promise Lastly will some say What is our duty with reference to Providence at such a time I will open this in four or five particulars with which I will shut up my Discourse upon this Observation 1. Search and see whether some miscarriages of thy own hath not carried Providence out of thy sight and turned it out of its right line I told you before that Providence is never out of its way it is always moving upon Gods Errand but it is often out of our sight and our sins are the cause of that its motion You know under what a multitude of Promises the Jews were as the seed of Abraham Isaac and Jacob as the posterity of David c. Promises for great measures of outward prosperity notwithstanding which they were carried captives into Babylon and there endured an hard bondage of seventy years Isaiah tells them the Reason Your iniquities have separated betwixt God and you and your sins have made him to hide his face from you What do the godly amongst the Jews under this Dispensation Lam. 3.39 40 Let us say they search and try our ways and return again to the Lord this is undoubtedly the duty of the Church the duty of every particular Soul When thou seest God turned out of his way as thou thinkest and not doing by thee as thou didst expect search and see whether thy miscarriages have not caused that withdrawing or turning aside It is true Gods punishments of his people are not always for sin he may sometimes do it to try their faith their patience their adherence to him but this is a secret to us Two things are certain in this case 1. That God doth most ordinarily punish them for their sins 2. That he never punisheth them but they have sin'd enough to warrant it an act of justice and to give them cause of suspicion and of Soul-humiliation so as a searching and trying of their ways in the day of divine chastenings can never be improper or out of season 2. Look to your faith in the Promise It is the Promise is the object of Faith and Providence no further than it relateth to the Promise A time of dark Providences is usually a time of great temptations It is so oftentimes on Gods part that is God designs his peoples trial It is so often from Satan who takes the advantage of those hours to suggest to the Soul It is so as to the World they pierced Davids heart in such an hour as with a sword when in it they said unto him Where is thy God become Psalm 42. It is so in it self considering that we are but flesh and how ready the language of that is Surely I have cleansed my hands in vain I have washed mine hands in innocency for nothing Or that of Saul This evil is of the Lord why should I wait for him any longer Therefore I say Look to your Anchor-hold in such a day Thus doth David Why art thou cast down O my Soul why art thou disquieted within me trust thou in God for I shall yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God Psalm 42. So doth the Church Micab 7.8 Rejoyce not over me O mine Enemy when I fall I shall rise when I sit in darkness the Lord shall be a light unto me The Heathen Poets have a story that Vlysses in his sailing home being to pass the Syrens who were wont to allure Mariners with their melodious tunes towards them while their ships were dashed in
The Egyptians the Philistines the vilest Enemies cry out God fighteth against them or This is the Lords work Secondly As the Power so the Wisdom of God is seen in these methods and operations of Providence Indeed sometimes God so worketh that the Power of God appeareth uppermost and is most conspicuous in the destruction of the Enemies and in the salvation of the Lords people as in the case of Sennacherib's Army destroyed by an Angel of Pharaoh destroyed by the return of the waters c. But oft-times there 's a wonderful wisdom of God in ordering contingencies and seeming casual things to his own ends in these cases as in the case of Joseph and Haman the reflexion of the Sun upon the waters which caused the Moabites mistake and confusion But the wisdom of God is further seen in this That a mercy seldom comes but though we could see nothing of Wisdom relating to it before it came yet when it is come to pass there 's no understanding Christian but is forced to say It could never have come in a more seasonable time the wisdom of which we could see nothing of in the prospect is evident upon the event It would have been a great question whether the Israelites would have been so willing to have come out of Egypt under the conduct of Joseph when they were pinch'd with no oppressions as they were under Moses and Aaron when they had been serving in the Brick-kilns and their lives so many years together had been made bitter to them through the hard bondage which they had so long endured Thirdly The Lord doth thus more eminently magnifie his justice and righteousness Justice lieth in the distribution of rewards and punishments the first we call Remunerative the second Vindicative Justice Both are much magnified by this method of Providence Persons in the greatest heighths of prosperity or depths of 〈◊〉 are ordinarily the most remarkable objects of the worlds eyes and more regarded than those that are in a more middle-state When God lifts up a Joseph out of the dungeon and a Daniel out of the Lions den and advanceth a Mordecai for whom a gallows was set up and the three Children are taken out of a fiery Furnace He proclaimeth to all the World and they are forced to confess it that verily there is a reward for the righteous and so on the other side when a Pharaoh a Sennecharib an Haman a Nebuchadnezzar are pull'd down in the midst of all their pride and jollity from their very pinacles of honour the Justice and Righteousness of God in punishing proud and imperious Sinners is proclaimed and made more evident to all the World Lastly 4. The Lords goodness is thus more magnified and taken notice of Common and ordinary Dispensations of gracious Providence are little remarked by us what mercy do we receive every night every day from God yet how little notice do we take of it how little is our heart affected with it but now when we are brought to the pits-brink to a very low estate and then are pluck'd from it when we are in a very low estate and then delivered Gods goodness is both more proclaimed to the World and more conspicuous unto us But this will in part fall in under the second head for I told you that God is glorified by this method of his Providence not only as his glorious Attributes divers of them are by it more exalted but also as the pious and religious Acts of his people are more by this method of Providence elicited I have often hinted to you that God hath a twofold glory from his Creatures and the works of his hands The first is a meer passive glory Thus the heavens declare the glory of God the Heavens shew forth the greatness glory and power of God The second is Active wherein the creature doth some actions from which a glory doth result unto God Now by this Method of Providence God is not only glorified in the first sense as this kind of working speaketh more of his Power Wisdom Justice Goodness c. but in the second also ◠Thus God sometimes forceth an acknowledgment of his Power even from the worst of men Julian himself shall confess that Christ is too hard for him throwing up his Dagger to Heaven and crying Vicisti Galilaee The Egyptians shall cry out Exod. 14.25 Let us flee from the face of Israel for the Lord fighteth for the Israelites against the Egyptians Nebuchadnezzar shall make a Decree Dan. 3.29 That every Nation People and Language which speak any thing against the God of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego shall be cut in pieces and their houses shall be made a dunghil because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort Dan. 6.25 Darius shall write to all people Nations and Languages that dwell upon the Earth and make a Decree That in every Dominion of his Kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel for he is the living God and stedfast for ever and his Kingdom that which shall not be destroyed and his Dominion shall be even to the end he delivereth and he rescueth and he worketh signs and wonders in the Heavens and in the Earth who hath delivered Daniel from the power of the Lions The King of Babylon that set up the Golden-image and so rigorously commanded all should bow down to it or be thrown into the fiery Furnace heated seven times hotter than ordinary Dan. 3.26 shall bless the God of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego who hath sent his Angel and delivered his servants that trusted in him and have changed the Kings word and yielded their bodies that they might not serve or worship any god but their own God What a wonderful glory here had God given him from a wicked Pagan Prince he confesseth his Command wicked he blesseth God that put into these three hearts 〈◊〉 to disobey it and make him change his word he acknowledgeth God the true God and that he delivereth them that trust in him All this accreweth from Gods delivering these three men when they were at the lowest when all gave them over for dead men But secondly How much more glory hath God from his own people upon any such deliverance Surprizals affect us most An unthought-of evil most startleth and dejecteth us An unthought-of good most elevates and affects us Good things lessen in our opinion and estimate by a long expectation They are greatest and most affect us when we are past hopes of them Sudden and unlook'd for good raiseth our hearts to great admiration great praise and thanksgiving Now he that offereth praise saith God glorifieth me The more God is admired the more his goodness is predicated and proclaimed the more men upon any occasion speak of his honour and power and greatness the more glory God hath from them Thirdly God is more honoured by this method of Providence not only as the suddenness of it doth more affect and elevate his peoples
is a divine stamp too though of a different nature what means are proper must be used how mean soever they appear in our eyes What proportion was there betwixt Jonathan and his Armour-bearer and the whole Garrison of the Philistines between Jeroboams Army and Abijahs This but four hundred the other eight hundred thousand between the Army of Asia and that of the Ethiopians and Lubims 2 Chron. 14. God often works yea he ordinarily worketh by small means and Providence brings forth its great work in the day of mans small things If we be sure that we are in Gods way and about his work let the means be what they will if lawful and rational it is our duty to use them God must be honoured in his own Institutions and sought in his own way though the means be small and our humane hopes small yet if we expect Gods blessing this mercy must be sought in the use of those means which the Providence of God layeth before us 2. But secondly The duty of a Christian will lye much in the exercise of his Faith in God beyond the probability of the means This is the great duty of a Christian and the very end which God aimeth at in cutting us short of means many times I think we may say Vbi media deficiunt ibi fides incipit where means begin to fail there faith begins to work Where we are out of sight as to means there 's a room for faith For it is saith the Apostle the evidence of things not seen By faith here I mean a trusting and relying upon God as a God able and faithful But to open this a little more clearly to you I will shew you 1. In what cases we may warrantably exercise a faith in God beyond the vertue and probability of means 2. What means we may use for the help of our faith in this case 3. What encouragements we may take to our selves in such a case to set our faith on work 1 Quest In what cases may a Christian exercise faith in God for the accomplishment beyond the vertue efficacy and probability of humane means to be used in order to it 1. To this I answer The object of faith must be a Promise It is ridiculous to talk of an exercise of faith in God for an accomplishment for which we have no word to warrant us in the expectation of it But now a Promise may be either particular or General of old many had particular persons and the Nation of the Jews had particular promises made to them by God immediately or mediately by his Prophets we have no such God hath left us unto his written Word There are many general promises which shall be made good still to particular Churches and persons Hence is our difficulty to conclude what it is we may exercise a faith in God for bringing to pass To direct you a little 1. Where you have a particular promise the case is plain Some such there are as for the destruction of Antichrist c. 2. In the want of a special particular Promise a general promise is a sufficient object for our faith General promises made to the Church and people of God are applicable to particular Churches and particular Saints 3. Every Precept doth imply a Promise God hath certainly promised a blessing upon the doing of that which he hath commanded us to do no man serveth God for nothing 4 Whatsoever issue certainly conduceth to the glory of God is under a Promise God hath resolved to glorifie himself and he ordereth all his actions in order to that end The substance of all this amounts to thus much We may exercise a faith in God and trust in him for accomplishing by his Providence whatsoever in his Word he hath either more particularly or generally promised or whatsoever he hath commanded us to act in tendency unto or whatsoever doth certainly tend to the glorifying of his great and holy Name Now if any thing of this nature be upon the wheel although we see the present visible means in order to the accomplishment of it be small and in all appearance disproportioned to the greatness of the event yet a Christian using what lawful means the Providence of God lays before him may warrantably trust in God for the exerting a further power for the accomplishment of it than is in the means which at present are apportioned to it But this is now an hard thing to us Let me therefore secondly direct you what you should do in a day of small things for the advantaging of your faith in this noble Exercise I shall offer but two things in the Case 1. Keep your Eye as much off the means and as much upon God as you can We have so much of sense and reason in us that we are very prone from one or other of them to take all our measures about future events If we would keep our hearts steady in a time of such exigencies as these we must shut the Eyes both of our sense and reason Faith credits a Proposition neither upon the demonstrations of the one of these nor the conclusions of the other but the meer authority of God Men count it wisdom when they are upon precipices never to look downward but upward if they look downward their weak heads are apt to be giddy Christians in such stresses of Providence as these are have nothing else to do if they look downward their sense their reason saith how can these things be If God would make windows in heaven saith that Nobleman these things could not be Our poring upon means in the day of our small things hindereth the exercise of our faith in God If the foundations be destroyed saith the Psalmist Psal 11.3 what can the righteous do Means are the foundations of our natural hopes now if these be destroyed if there be little or nothing of these what can we do Wicked men are indeed at their wits-ends they despond and despair but saith the Psalmist v. 4 The Lord is in his holy temple the Lords throne is in heaven his eyes see his eye-lids try the children of men God is still where he was and hath the same power the same knowledg of things the same rule and dominion Twice in Scripture Abraham is propounded to us as a noble Example and a father of the faithful in this thing Rom. 4. God had promised him a Son a Son of his Wife Sarah he grew to be an hundred years old his Wife many years past child bearing here was no means yet Abraham believeth for a Child and he was not weak in the faith saith the Apostle Rom. 4.18 19 20. How doth he behave himself The Apostle telleth you That he considered not his own body now dead when he was about an hundred years old nor yet the deadness of Sarahs womb he staggered not at the Promise but was strong in faith giving glory to God being fully perswaded that what he had promised
he was able to perform Abraham that he might keep up his heart fixed on the promise he considered not the nothingness or improbability of the means he considered nothing but the power and faithfulness of God God had said it there was a promise for it a promise from him who could not lye then he considereth that he who had promised was able also to perform an honest faithful man may sail in his promise because he may not be able to perform but as God was faithful so he was also able he keeps his Eye off means fixed upon God So again Heb. 11.17 18 19 By faith Abraham when he was tried offered up Isaac and he that had received the promise offered up his only begotten son of whom it was said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead Abraham had a promise that in Isaac his seed should be called God calls Abraham with his own hand to slay Isaac he could not but have such thoughts as these Lord if Isaac be gone where is thy promise what becomes of thy word how shall my seed be called in him how shall I be the father of the Jewish Nation if Isaac be he in whom my seed must be called and he be dead before he hath a child He had nothing to relieve him under these thoughts but this That God was able to raise him from the dead hither he flies and keeps up his faith in the Promise by turning his eye off from the means and meerly considering the power and faithfulness of God You shall find Asa doing thus 2 Chron. 14.9 10 11 Asa had but an Army of five hundred thousand Zerah the Ethiopian cometh out against him with an Army of a million and three hundred Chariots there was double the number he had If he had look'd upon the means he must have desponded how should five hundred thousand deal with ten hundred thousand but he looks off the means and fixeth his Eye upon God Ver. 11 He cryeth unto the Lord and saith Lord it is nothing with thee to help whether with many or with them that have no power help us O Lord our God for we rest on thee and in thy Name we go against this multitude O Lord thou art our God let not man prevail against thee Secondly In such a day consider the experiences of Gods people consider what they did and how they sped What they did that you heard in the instance both of Abraham and Asa They shut the Eyes of their sense and natural reason they took off their Eyes from all consideration of means and eyed only the certainty of the Promise the faithfulness of God and the power of God So did Abraham so did Asa Then 2. Consider how they sped Abraham had a Son at the set-time Abraham had his Son reprieved when the knife was at his throat and his seed was called in Isaac The Lord smote the Ethiopians before Asa and before Juda c. saith the Text 2 Chron. 14.12 13 14. Now it is a great encouragement to us in the exercises of our faith to consider the experiences of other of the Servants of God in their exercises of Faith Our father 's trusted in thee saith David Psalm 22 they trusted and were delivered The strength of this lieth in the stedfastness and unchangeableness of God he is the same his name is I am David as to Goliah raised up his faith upon his former experiences in slaying the Lion and the Bear 1 Sam. 17 and upon the experience of others Psalm 22 nothing is more conducive to help and relieve a Christian weak as to his faith in the day either of small things as to the Church of God in which he is considered as a member or in the day of small things as to his own personal concerns God chuseth the day of small things to be seen in it is the day which Providence chuseth to shew it self great in And you may thus advantage your faith in God in such a day Now for your further encouragement in this exercise of faith in God beyond the visibility or apparent probability of means I shall offer these things to your consideration 1. That it is Gods ordinary time and method of working This is that which I discoursed to you in justification of the Observation and proved it to you from a plenty of instances and therefore shall not enlarge here 2. That God never worketh with so much advantage to his own glory as in such a time when he fulfilleth his Word in the day of mans small things We never need doubt Gods pursuing of the great ends of his glory He doth all things for himself his glory is the end of all his great works Now I say God never worketh more for the advantage of his glory than in such exigents then is his power and the greatness thereof most eminently made known Then shall his people more see and confess the Arm of the Lord. 3. Consider thirdly this is the proper work of faith It is true we ought to exercise Faith in the use of means let them be never so great never so probable for the accomplishment of the the End but the proper place for faith is where means are weak or wanting to put the Soul in hope against hope It is the evidence of things not seen as patience is an habit of grace given the Soul for a day of adversity so faith is made for an hour of sensible darkness 4. Lastly Nothing so pleaseth and engageth God as such an exercise of faith Asa 2 Chron. 14.11 useth it as an argument with God Help us O Lord for we rest on thee and in thy Name we go against this great multitude The next Verse saith God smote the Ethiopians 2 Chron. 13.18 You will find that Jeroboam's Army was full double to the number of Abijah's and could not have been conquered without some extraordinary influence of God upon Abijah's side Now would you know what engaged the Lord of Hosts ver 18 Thus the children of Israel were brought under at that time and the men of Judah prevailed because they relied upon the Lord God of their fathers See the contrary 2 Chron. 16.7 Hanani the Seer cometh to Asa and telleth him Because thou hast relied on the King of Syria and not relied on the Lord thy God therefore the Host of the King of Syria is escaped out of thy hands Thus I have shewed you a second thing in which I conceive the duty of a Christian lies in the day of small things viz. The exercise of a faith in God beyond the vertue and probability of the means 3. A third piece of his duty is To beware of the use of sinful means in order to the accomplishment of what he desireth It is a great vanity to which through our misapprehension of means we are very subject if we want lawful means to make use of
sheddeth mans blood by man shall his blood be shed for in the image of God made he him Afterwards it was one of his Ten Commandments given to his people on Mount Sinai Thou shalt do no murther And although in the case of casual homicide he appointed Cities of refuge to which the manslayer might fly and be free from the avenger of blood yet for the wilful murtherer Numb 35.31 he saith you shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murtherer which is guilty of death but he shall surely be put to death and verse 33. So shall you not pollute the land wherein you are for blood it defileth the land and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein but by the blood of him that shed it And accordingly the Providence of God hath generally ordered the government of the several parts of the world that unless it hath been in a very debauch't nation scarce any place hath been found where the Rulers have not been zealous even from the light of nature against wilful murtherers and the Providence of God is in nothing more eminently seen than in the discovery of such transgression and bringing them to justice It is a common observation therefore I shall need the less to insist upon the Justification of it Sometimes God makes use of the fear and passion and shy-looks of the guilty conscience of the murtherer to discover himself sometimes the birds of the air shall pursue him as I remember I have somewhere read of a famous story of murtherers pursued by Crows and Ravens sometimes a Dog shall do it sometimes a Spirit shall do it in short the stories are very many and strange of the Providence of God in discovering of murther Murthers make great gaps and disorders in humane societies 4. Adultery is another sin which maketh great confusion in humane society though not like those beforementioned but in a more secret way yet great disorder it begets By Gods old Law the adulterer was to be put to death it was an extraordinary act and one of those we call heroick acts not to be defended but by an immediate impetus by a command from God that of Phinehas I mean taking a javelin and at once running through Zimri and Cosbi God justified it and promised Phinehas a reward for it The vengeance of God upon those that have given up themselves to this sin is eminent he hath prepared a dart to strike through their livers which he useth in no other case a peculiar defiling tormenting disease The persons that are guilty are often sent to hell in the act by the jealousie of Husbands and by the Laws of most Nations such manslayers are justified It is a sin indeed that doth not make that havock in humane society which some of those beforementioned do and therefore the Providence of God is not so remarkably seen in preventing it and discovering preparations to it but it is eminently seen in the punishment of it both as to punishments in this life and in his threatnings as to depriving them of a life to come 5. I will instance in one more and that is Rebellion and disobedience to the lawful commands of parents It is the fifth of of the Ten Commandments Honour thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee Upon which account the Apostle calleth it the first commandment with promise Indeed this sin is the root of most disorder that is in political society The rebellious child seldom proveth a dutiful wife or good husband nor good servant nor good subject unless grace first maketh a change in their hearts and bringeth them from under the government of their passions the Providence of God is therefore eminently to be seen in the punishment of such children By the Law of God the Son that obeyed not his father was to be stoned to death Read Deut. 21.18 19 20. He that curseth his father or mother shall dye the death Exod. 21.17 Levit. 20.9 Mal. 15.4 Mar. 7.20 And if you observe the Providence of God it strangely pursueth rebellious children with vengeance they seldom prosper 6. I will instance but in one sin more That is persecution or eminent disturbance of others for their conscience towards God This is a sin which doth not only disturb humane society but the best of humane societies the society of the Church it disturbeth humane society ingageth husband against wife and children against parents and brother against brother it spoileth that commerce and traffique by which political societies are maintained and upheld As to that it cannot be without a great connexion and twisting of mens interests of divers perswasions one with another so as the interrupting the free course of one is the interruption of another and while persons are rifled in their houses haled to prisons there must needs be an interruption in their commerce But this sin hath this further aggravation That it makes disturbance in the best societies the Assemblies of Gods People for his worship are the best of humane societies God is in the midst of them more present with them than with any societies in the world besides them Those that rudely break in upon such Assemblies break in upon the great God of Heaven and Earth who hath said Wheresoever two or three are gathered together in my name I will be in the midst amongst them and may justly expect some such extraordinary judgment as the Sodomites met with when they would have broken open Lots house to have pull'd the Angels out but God doth not always work miraculously but seldom fails even in this life to set his mark upon this sort of sinners It is an observation that I have formerly made to you You shall in story read of persecutions which sometimes have lasted long very long but seldom of a persecutor that hath lasted long he is an odious abominable wretch whom vengeance will neither suffer to live nor often to dye after the ordinary death of men He that will but read over the story of the ten Primitive persecutions will see this abundantly confirmed or if any thinks those stories too old let him read what became of Gardiner and Bonner those two bloody wretches in Queen Maries days and of divers others that were their instruments and willingly followed their Commandments and possibly he may confirm himself in this Observation by later examples than those also But I have instanced in those sins which do most eminently disturb humane societies and spoken enough to the doctrinal part of this Observation I shall reduce all I shall say by way of Application to two heads 1. Shewing you what advantage this observation giveth me to call upon all men but especially those in higher orbs to praise the Lord. 2. To perswade all men to take heed as of all sin so especially of such sins as these are against which the wrath of God is so eminently revealed
them under some restraints as to those horrible sins of murther persecution defiling their neighbours wives c. To consider that these are some of the sins which go ordinarily before-hand to judgment and which God usually revengeth by some special remarkable Providences in this life But it is time to finish this discourse Let us beg Gods blessing upon it SERMON XXIII Psal CVII 43. Whoso is wise and will observe these things even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. I Am in a discourse about the observable things of Divine Providence When do you think shall I have finished it Day unto day uttereth speech night unto night declareth knowledg When I have said all that I can I must conclude with Job Lo these are parts of his ways but how little a portion of him do we understand However it is wonderfully sweet to know the least of God If a learned man could think it worth his while to write a book of the admiranda Nili the admirable and observable things of the famous River of Nile What a book might be written and how much worth a pen-mans hand would it be to write a book and call it Admiranda or Observanda Providentiae Divinae the admirable and observable things of Divine Providence But leaving Prefaces I proceed to a ninth Observation which is this Observ 9. The Providence of God often repayeth both good and evil and especially charity and cruelty in this life in its own kind 1 Cor. 3.8 2 Cor. 5.10 That God will reward every man according to his works is most certain and is a piece of Divine Justice he cannot condemn the innocent nor clear the guilty there will be a now when God will visit for all sin and though sinners do evil an hundred years yet the day of vengeance will come And to let us know the certainty of it oftentimes the Prophets of God in the denouncing of judgments yet a far off cryed out It is come It is come and gave the alarum as if the enemy had already entred the gates But God doth not recompence all sinners in this life Judgment comes afterward But for those whom God doth chastise in this life he doth not punish them all the same way some are punished with temporal judgments and those some of them of one sort some of another others he punisheth with spiritual judgments blindness of mind hardness of heart And it is the same case for rewards of grace some have little reward for all their service for God until they come in Heaven others are rewarded in this life but in different manners The Observation which I am making concerneth charity and mercy and the vices opposite to it such as are cruelty hardheartedness to those in want and misery In these cases I observe Gods Providence often retaliates I say 1. The Providence of God doth often recompence other sins in this manner but especially sins against charity and brotherly love God many times repayeth other sins in their kind our Saviour by this argument dissuades from rash censuring and censorious judging of others Matth. 7.1 2. For with what judgment you judg you shall be judged and with what measure you mete it shall be meted to you again A text which if well thought upon should deter Christians from the too common practice of censuring and judging one another especially in doubtful things where they are not of a mind as if sincerity and uprightness were the Prerogative of a party in Religion or annexed to some particular forms You know God threatned David for his adultery with Bathsheba That he would take his wives before his eyes and give them to his neighbour and he should lye with his wives in the sight of the Sun 2 Sam. 12.11 and it was fulfilled by the permission though not by the instigation of Divine Providence in 2 Sam. 16.22 Spoiling and plundering of others taking away their goods without a just warrant from God is another sin we find thus threatned Isa 33.1 Wo to thee that spoilest and thou wert not spoiled those that thou so rifledst never did thee any wrong and dealest treacherously and they dealt not treacherously with thee when thou shalt cease to spoil thou shalt be spoiled and when thou shalt make an end to deal treacherously they shall deal treacherously with thee But that indeed referreth to the more special observation as to sins opposite to that Charity we should exercise to our brethren to which I now come I say it is very observable that God punisheth sins against charity and rewardeth deeds and acts of charity in their kind secundum legem Talionis ordinarily giving the Authors of both like for like I will first shew it you in the motions of Providence as to the execution of Vindicative Justice in the punishment of sins against Charity Against which men may sin either by omissions hardening their hearts from their brother in distress not relieving him when it is in their power according to their ability or by commissions murders oppressions cruelty are all sins against Charity 1. For omissions It is a dreadful text Prov. 21.13 He that stoppeth his ear against the cry of the poor he also shall cry himself and shall not be heard A text worth deliberating upon by those who find their hearts so shut up in cafes of Charity not that we are bound to hear the cry of all that are poor There are some poor that the greatest act of Charity we can shew them is not to relieve them that they may learn not to be idle and wander up and down begging refusing to work The poor we are concerned in are Gods poor I hope we favour none that are lazy idle or leud and by that means bring themselves to and continue themselves at a morsel of bread far be it from me or any Minister of Jesus Christ to plead for such You from us hear the cries of the Lords poor take heed of stopping your ears at their cry remember Solomons word Gods word by Solomon He that doth so he also shall cry and not be heard you may also come into such a condition or you may have a child may come to it through age through Gods hand upon him You remember the story of Naomi she went out full she returned empty the story of Job and others in Scripture I could tell you the stories of Belisarius of divers persons of far greater estates some of them than any that hear me this day yet brought to live upon the baskets of others who knows what you or yours may come to Do you think the great fire at London 1666 that at Northampton but the last year That at a Town in this County two or three years ago at Cottenham in Cambridg-shire the other day hath not given many instances of this nature for God of late hath very remarkably contended with England as by such a plague as our forefathers never knew so by a multitude of such
will observe these things even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. I Am still communicating to you some Observations which I have made concerning the motions of Divine Providence not only for your instruction but to quicken you also to make Observations your selves upon the motion of it that you may increase in spiritual Wisdom I proceed to a Tenth Observation Observ 10. That the Providence of God is eminently seen in the preservation and protection of his faithful Ministers and such both amongst them and other orders of men who keeping themselves within the latitude of their duty have been great adventurers for God in their generations 1. The Providence of God preserveth both man and beast it is God that upholdeth our souls in life and there is no man but in him lives moves and hath his being 2. Nor is there any man that liveth any considerable time in the world and keepeth any ordinary record of his life but will see reason as to say with David O Lord I am fearfully and wonderfully made so also Lord I have been fearfully and wonderfully preserved But yet as I have shewed you there are specialties of Divine Providence some persons that the Lord seemeth to carry upon eagles wings and to preserve in a more eminent and special manner sometimes in a way of miraculous Providence sometimes in a way of extraordinary Providence in a way beyond other men Now I have long since hinted you three sorts of men whom God thus preserveth 1. Such as are Gods Vicegerents Magistrates and Rulers of others This I have abundantly shewed you when I shewed you how eminently the Providence of God is seen both in discovering and bringing to light and also in punishing such sins as tend to the eminent disturbance of humane Societies 2. Such as God useth for the Ministers of his Word 3. Such as make the boldest adventures for God and in his service keeping themselves within the latitude of their duty I am to justifie now this Observation to you I will open it and prove it then shew you the reasonableness of Divine Providence in these extraordinary motions And lastly I shall make some Applications First let me open it to you 1. It is to be understood of godly faithful and painful Ministers and mostly of such of whom God hath made or doth make or intend to make an eminent use in his Church As there are no persons more justly a hatred in the house of God abominable to all men of any sobriety then leud or lazy Ministers so there is nothing of any special Providence promised to them and it is more than I have observed if God as to their issues in the concerns of this world hath not left them to a common share with others and if there hath been any difference made by his Providence it hath been to their disadvantage they are more vile than others and dishonour God more than others and God often makes them and their families to smart more than others It is that which God hath said in the case Them that honour me I will honour and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed 1 Sam. 2.30 We have had a great deal of enquiry in the times wherein we live into the causes of the contempt of the Clergy Lev. 10.2 3 4 one hath guest this thing another that for my own part I have been young and am growing old I never yet knew a painful able preacher living an holy and exemplary life be his perswasion what it would under a greater contempt than other men there are some Sons of Belial will contemn all that are not as much Atheists as themselves If Ministers will regard nothing but striking their flesh-hook with three teeth into the Lords pot to feed themselves if they will heap up parsonage upon parsonage till there be no room left in the Earth and grasp more souls than they can manage putting out some to pitiful nurses where they are starved and affording the other but dry beasts if they will make themselves vile like Hophni and Phineas it is no wonder if they be contemned by men of any sobriety The Psalmist Psal 15.4 makes it the mark of one that shall dwell in Gods holy hill in whose eyes a vile person is contemned but he honoureth them that fear the Lord for others God secureth their honour eminently 2. Nor is it to be extended to every godly Minister and at all times The best of Ministers have their personal sin for which God may punish them by the common fate of others God eminently shewed himself for Moses and Aaron in the case of Corah Dathan and Abiram he made the Earth to open its mouth and to swallow up their opposers but when they had provoked the Lord at the waters of Meribah they took their common fate with the rest of the Israelites and dyed in the wilderness when they had had no more than a prospect of the promised land Several instances might be given of eminent Prophets of old and Ministers of the Gospel that have perished in common judgments more especially when it hath pleased God to pick out some of them for Martyrs and to make them witnesses with their blood to seal the Truths they have preached And indeed this special Providence of God hath been most remarkable in times when God hath been beginning some great work which was the case of the Apostles in the first Plantation of the Gospel and of those eminent servants of God which since that time he hath made use of in the reformation of the Church or upholding the interest of pure and true Religion in a time of great Apostacy and defection 3. The special Providence of God hath not been seen uniformly in those cases but several ways 1. Sometimes in providing food for them and theirs whereas otherwise they must have starved or at least been so employed as they could not have attended the work of God upon their hands 2. Sometimes in keeping them from such dangers which have been very near to them plucking them as brands out of the fire 3. Sometimes in the delivering of them out of their Enemies hands rescuing them from the Lyon when they have been in his paws sometimes one way sometimes another accordingly as it hath pleased the infinite wisdom of God to work for them 1. The Providence of God hath been eminently seen in the providing of necessaries for his Ministers I need not tell you what special Laws God made in the case of his Ministry among the Jews his Priests and Levites were particularly taken care of but this being the setled maintenance for those that were employed about the Tabernacle and the Temple when the Priests were generally corrupted and God to uphold a faithful Ministry amongst his people raised up some extraordinary Prophets that should faithfully reveal his will unto people they had little or no advantage but the Lord never failed to provide for them He provideth a
taken them off from that pursuit of the world by which others procure themselves a livelihood he hath told them they should live upon his Altar he hath told us 1 Cor. 9.7 That no man goeth to a warfare at his own charge none planteth a vineyard and eateth not the fruit thereof nor feedeth a flock and eateth not the milk thereof he seeth them out of obedience and conscience to him refusing the bread they might have men will not provide for them he will Ravens shall bring them meat every day but they shall be fed This is but a reasonable motion of Divine Providence I shall make a short Application of this discourse Vse 1. This in the first place lets you see the fountain of that bounty which the many painful and faithful servants of Christ have experienced in all times and even in the days wherein we live It hath pleased God in all times to raise up friends to his faithful Ministers I remember when Abigail came to meet David coming against her husband and had stopt his journey David saith unto her 1 Sam. 25.32 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel which sent thee to meet me this day and blessed be thy advice and blessed be thou c. First he blesseth God then he blesseth her the faithful servants of God yea the Churches of God who by this means enjoy any thing of the labours of their shepherds have reason to bless those whom God hath made his instruments to support those upon whom others had no pity Yea verily and what our Saviour said of the woman that spent her box of Oyntment upon him I think I may apply here Wherever the Gospel is preached what they have done shall be told for a memorial of them If a cup of cold-water for a thirsty Prophet shall obtain a Prophets reward the greater kindnesses of many shall certainly be rewarded they have but put a little money into the bank which God keeps in Heaven But we have more reason to look upward to him who hath the hearts of all men in his hand and openeth them as he pleaseth God hath in it shewed his special Providence for his faithful Ministers let us therefore say Blessed be the Lord God of Israel who hath stirred them up It was the grace of God bestowed upon the Churches in Macedonia 2 Cor. 8.1 2 3. which taught them in a great tryal of affliction and deep poverty to abound in riches of liberality and willingly of themselves to give to their power yea and above their power Let it be written to posterity for a memorial of the people in England that for so many years together in the midst of a devouring pestilence many consuming fires expensive wars and a deadness of trade they have refreshed the bowels of so many hundreds if not thousands of Gods messengers but let God have all the glory who hath given the heart though their hands distributed the money Vse 2. In the second place Let me cry out O house of Aaron trust in the Lord O house of Levi trust in the Lord Trust in the Lord and do good saith David so shalt thou dwell in the land and verily thou shalt be fed Psal 37.3 Let us be faithful to our masters service and do the work which he hath given us to do and verily we shall be fed I cannot say God will provide Coaches and delicate things for us but necessaries we shall not want Herein let us exercise our selves to keep a conscience void of offence both towards God and towards men and as to other things we may trust a Providebit Deus God will provide for us and ours The experience of these times if wistly attended to certainly is enough to keep any from being tempted through fear of want to debauch their consciences by doing any thing which is apparently sinful or but so judged and suspected by them We see some fed with great provisions faring deliciously every day whiles others like Daniel and his partners have been fed with little more than pulse and water and at the end of some years it appeareth they look fairer as to worldly circumstances than those who have had far better commons Vse 3. Lastly This observation commendeth confidence and courage to all in the Lords work in opposition to fear and cowardise I would not be mistaken be sure in the first place you be in Gods work that which by his word appeareth to be the duty of one in thy circumstances nothing but the conscience of having been surprised in the way of our duty will bear us up under sufferings be therefore in that point well satisfied having done that observe those rules of Prudence which reason directs thee in such cases this done fear nothing Remember the Providence of God most eminently watcheth over the boldest adventurers in the way of their duty They are the words of our blessed Lord Mar. 8.35 Whosoever will save his life shall lose it but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the Gospel shall save it They observe in war that the soldier that turns his back and flyes is in much more danger than he who stands to it and that nothing makes a conqueror so much as resolution and bold adventuring it is so in our spiritual fight with the world be then of good courage in it and quit your selves like men remember God is with you and if so there 's more with you than can be against you God indeed in our combats with the world doth not always keep us shot-free and bring us off without a scratch but those whom he doth bring off are ordinarily those who are most valiant and adventurous however it is better to fall valiantly than cowardly and our Lord hath told us That if a man will save his life he shall lose it if he hath such a mind to sleep in a whole skin that he will neglect his duty and do that which his heart condemneth him for doing he shall lose what he hoped to save by it be it life reputation estate c. It speaketh great unbelief and distrust in God to be cowards in plain and certain duties Be prudent but take heed of forbearing necessary duty out of prudence or being faint in the performance of it That can be no prudence If a man fainteth in the day of adversity Solomon saith that his strength is but small his faith is but small and his observation of Gods Providence in such cases hath been very small too But I shall add no more upon this Argument SERMON XXV Psal CVII 43. Whoso is wise and will observe these things even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. I Have done with the Tenth thing in the motions of Divine Providence which I commended to your observation I proceed now to another Observ 11. The Providence of God maketh a very frequent and remarkable use of the sins of people though it be always spotless in making such use of
mens sins That the Providence of God in bringing about the eternal purposes and counsels of God doth very ordinarily make use of peoples sins I have in a great measure already proved to you under my seventh Observation where I shewed you how God accomplished his purposes upon Mount Zion by persons that meant not so and over-ruled the several lusts of sinners hearts to his own praise making the wrath of men to praise him But yet I shall take it again in my way and the rather because I will shew you more especially what use God makes of the sins of his own people Then I shall give you a reasonable account of this great work of God And thirdly I shall endeavour to shew you that it is a spotless use which God maketh and open it to you how it may be so and our reason may conceive of it well enough And lastly I shall make some Application That it is so is so obvious to those that are meanliest exercised in the Scriptures that it can hardly be overlooked by any considerate person One of the most glorious products of Actual Providence was the Revelation of the Covenant of Grace and Redemption I say the Revelation of it for the paction or making of that Covenant I take that to be eternal and antecedent to the Creation but as I take it those who would distinctly understand the Covenant of Grace must distinguish betwixt the Paction the Exhibition and the Revelation of it and the Application of it to individual souls The Paction was an act of Counsel an eternal act a transaction between the Father and the Son the Son as the head of the elect standing as a surety for believers and undertaking something for himself on their behalf that in the fulness of time he would come into the world assume our natures and in that nature dye and give satisfaction to Divine Justice for the sins of the elect which some call the Covenant of Redemption also undertaking for them that they in his strength and through the assistance of his spirit should do whatsoever his Father should require personally of them in order to their obtaining salvation through him But now the Exhibition and Revelation of this eternal contrivement to the world that was the work of Actual Providence done in time subsequent to the Creation and done gradually as to the more full and perfect Revelation of it according to the good pleasure and infinite wisdom of God The first Revelation of it was to Adam after he had fallen Gen. 3.15 And I will put enmity betwixt thee that is the serpent and the woman and betwixt thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thine head and thou shalt bruise its heel Now for this God made use of the first sin that was committed in the world the fall of Adam had not Adam fallen there had been no need of the Revelation of a Covenant of Grace he and his posterity had been saved upon the Covenant of Works he had perfectly done the Will of God and lived Rom. 9.11 12. The Apostle tells us that before Esau or Jacob were born before they had done good or evil God loved Jacob and hated Esau and it was foretold That the elder should serve the younger Gen. 25.3 for the law of God and Nature had made the younger a servant to the elder First Esau sells his birthright for a mess of pottage then Jacob by the counsel of Rebeccah comes and tells his Father a lye and obtaineth the blessing of the first-born both sinful acts the first on Esau's part the second on Jacob's but Gods Providence makes use of both to bring about his counsels There was a promise made to Abraham that God would multiply his seed and that they should inherit the land of Canaan Pharaoh strongly sets himself against it useth all arts to destroy the seed of Jacob the King commandeth the midwives to kill all the male children Exod. 1. they save them alive the King questioneth them for it Exod. 1.17 19. they tell a lye to excuse themselves God makes use of their lye for the accomplishment of his counsels and the fulfilling of his promise unto Abraham Who can excuse Rahab in the lye she told to the Kings messengers sent to apprehend the spies It is true the Apostle saith she did it by faith and God rewarded her as he did the Egyptian midwives Rahab did it by faith believing what at that time she did not see that God would give that land to the Israelites and God rewarded her good intention in the general not her particular sinful act but yet the Providence of God made a great use of her lye for the design he had in hand Who can excuse David in many particular actions which he did Which yet God made use of in order to the bringing about his counsels and promise concerning David in settling him upon the Throne of Israel and Judah The setting up of Solomon upon the Throne of his Father David was an eminent product of Actual Providence but Bathsheba you know was his mother and David in order to the having her for his wife murthered Vriah her husband yet she was the mother of Solomon No man can excuse Jeroboam in his revolt from the house of David he did what he did from a very turbulent and ill spirit and in a very irregular and rebellious manner but God yet made use of what he had done to fulfil his own counsels and the threatning he had denounced against Solomon In short innumerable instances of this nature might be given and it is an easie thing to observe God doing the same thing every day I will instance but in three great products of Actual Providence more which the Scripture maketh mention of and three greater have not been nor can be 1. The incarnation of our blessed Lord. In the genealogy of Christ recorded by Matthew chap. 1. ver 3. you read Judas begat Pharez and Zarah of Thamar You have the story Gen. 38.29 Pharez was an incestuous child which Judah had by his own Daughter-in-law he was one of Christs Progenitors so was Bathsheba who came with much sin to be David's wife yet God made use you see both of the sin of Judas and the sin of David for the bringing forth his son into the world Next to his Incarnation let us consider the sacrifice of Christ for the expectation of our sins the noblest and greatest act of Providence which was ever brought forth in the world it was produced by wicked hands Judas Pilate Herod the Jews all have their hand in it The Devil put the malice into the heart of Judas but God had his end in the action and accomplished the great design of his glory The sending of the Gospel amongst the Gentiles was a great product of Providence in the fulfilling of the Lords counsels and many promises but it was the fall of the Jews that proved the riches of the world as the
and ungodly There is a time when the vilest are exalted and the wicked walk on every side This is their hour and the power of darkness as our Saviour saith Luk. 22.53 And there is a time again When ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew saying We will go with you for we have heard that God is with you Zech. 8.23 There was a time when the seed of Jacob prospered in Egypt Joseph was advanced and he was a protection to them A while after the wheel turns and there arose a King that knew not Joseph and then the Israelitish spoke in the wheel of Providence was at the ground but in a little while up it gets again The Children of Israel go out of Egypt with colours flying and drums beating and Pharaoh and his Host were drowned in the red Sea This was now their hour But soon after the wheels turn again and they are almost devoured in the wilderness But as soon as they were on the other side of Jordan they were again in a prosperous state Soon after they were oppressed first by one Pagan Adversary and then by another but in Davids and Solomons time it was again an halcion-time with them And when they were in Canaan that party of them after Solomons time which adhered to God had their vicissitudes as they had good or bad Princes so it fared with them In the seventy years of the Babilonish Captivity they had a very sad time but when that was out they had again a kind hour and in the very time of the Babilonish Captivity they doubtless had great vicissitudes and the case was much different with them when the three Children were thrown into the fiery fornace from what it was when they were advanced to great honours or when Daniel was thrown into the den of Lyons from what it was when he was made the first president When they were come again into their own land it was not above fifty years before Ahasuerosh disturbeth their settlement Ezra 4.6 After a few years more they perfect the building both of the Temple and City Soon after they were oppressed first by the Grecians when it was a very sad time with them then by the Romans under whom they enjoyed more liberty till after the crucifying of Christ soon after which God said to them Lo ammi you are not my people The like observation might be made of the Christian Church-Catholick and the several parts of it God will not always chide nor keep his anger for ever Psal 103.9 The needy shall not always be forgotten Psal 9.18 he hath said He will not contend for ever neither will he be always wroth The same observation might be made of particular persons and parties fearing God Jacob had his time of hard service and his time of liberty Joseph one while is a prisoner another time the second man in the Kingdom David had a time when he was hunted like a partridg on the mountains and his time when he ruled happily and peaceably over all Israel and Judah 2. The second part of my Observation was that as to these good things the Actual Proridence of God ordinarily moveth to the seeming advantage of wicked men I say seeming advantage upon a double account 1. For first Wicked men have no real advantage from any good things they have their morsels are all dipt in wrath and they turn to their real loss and disadvantage as they draw out their lusts and aggravate their eternal condemnation 2. I much question whether they have that seeming advantage which they appear to have If we consider the disproportion in the numbers of such as fear the Lord and such as fear him not I believe we shall find God as to the things of this life do as much for his people as for wicked men It is true we see more wicked men than good men in places of honour and power we see more of them than of these prosper in the world and grow great and rich but therefore what disproportion is there betwixt the number of the one and of the other But however certain it is that the servants of God have many of them found this a rock of offence to them and have stumbled upon this temptation so did Job chap. 21. David Psal 73. Jeremiah Jer. 12.1 Habbakuk c. And this appearance hath been a temptation to others to deny or at least to dispute the Providence of God I shall therefore give you a more particular account of this when I come to open the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or hard Chapters of Divine Providence In the mean time I take notice of it only as matter for our observation and supposing that it is so I shall hereafter shew you that it is but a reasonable motion of Providence But truly upon a stricter observation I believe we shall find Divine Providence as to these things more circular in its motions and equal in its distributions than we usually judg it being deceived by not wistly observing the disproportion of each party in its numbers and that of Solomon Eccles 9.1 2. will hold that the love or hatred of God is not to be judged from what doth in this life happen unto men 3. But thirdly which I should have added to the observation and crave your leave yet to add it in the dispensations of special grace and those good things which are truly spiritual the Providence of God is inaccountable here the way of Providence is like the way of an Eagle in the air a Ship upon the Sâ—â— or a serpent upon a rock it cannot be tracked It is true our Saviour saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the poor receive the Gospel so I should rather translate it as in the passive voice then as our translation doth as if it were the middle voice The poor preach the Gospel and the Apostle telleth us That God hath chosen the poor of this world to be rich in grace and heirs of the kingdom And again you know your calling brethren not many rich not many wise not many noble c. yet the Providence of God doth deal out special grace to the rich as well as to the poor Abraham and Lot and Isaac and Job and David and Solomon Joseph and Daniel and Joseph of Arimathea were all rich men though as the number of the poor far exceedeth the number of them who are possessors of great Estates so the number of holy persons of mean estates bears the like disproportion to the number of such persons that are great and abound in this worlds goods neither doth the Providence of God deal out these riches of special grace as if they were inheritances Was not Jacob and Esau brethren yet the Lord loved Jacob and hated Esau You often in Scripture read of good men that had very bad children and of bad men that had very good children Jeroboam
1. Sometimes some of his people shall be blessed with outward blessings Abraham shall be a rich man and have many flocks and herds Joseph shall be the second man in Egypt David and Solomon shall be great Princes Mordecay shall be the man whom the King of Persia shall delight to honour Daniel shall be the first president This is necessary that God may justifie his Promises of this nature you have such Psal 128.1 2 3. and in many other Texts of holy Writ They may be necessary to uphold the interest of God in the world The world must sometimes say Verily there is a reward for the righteous Gods own people shall sometimes have healthy bodies numerous families plentiful comfort in their relations many left hand-mercies added to those spiritual blessings with which God hath blessed them all in Jesus Christ 2. Others now God doth not reward this way but he rewardeth them in their souls and inward man and indeed this is the constant reward of them that fear the Lord and there is a variety in these too God doth not measure out the same kinds nor the same proportions unto all Some are blessed with a quiet conscience possibly they have not extasies of joy as others but their hearts do not condemn them and this is indeed the usual reward of the man that worketh righteousness The work of righteousness shall be peace saith the Prophet Isa 32.17 If God brings them to a sick-bed or into any other strait they can say with Hezekiah 2 King 20.3 I beseech thee O Lord remember me now how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart that is an upright sincere heart or with Nehemiah 13 14. Remember me O Lord concerning this and wipe not out my good deeds which I have done for the house of my God And give me leave to tell you this is a great reward but to be delivered from the sowre reflexions of a condemning conscience for as there is nothing more nauseous and troublesom to us than the sower recoilings of our stomack so there is no greater torment to a mans life than the recoilings of a guilty conscience Nothing is oft-times so great a torture to a sinner as this when he saith unto his conscience Is it peace and his conscience tells him What peace so long as thy drunkenness thy whoredoms thy lyes and oaths and blasphemies thy cheating and cozening thy oppression and violence remain There is no peace to the wicked saith my God On the other side there is nothing so refreshing unto a spirit tired with the crosness of the world than to find a peace within himself Now this is the general reward of the righteous man if he misseth raptures and extasies of joy yet he cometh not short ordinarily of a quiet and serenity of a waky and awakened conscience I know there are hours of melancholy and darkness and desertion to which the best of Gods People are exposed but these are but rare examples in comparison of those multitudes of godly ones that walk in some blessed view of their own sincerity and uprightness Some he rewardeth in their inward man with raptures and extasies of God They know and are perswaded that nothing shall separate them from the love of God in Jesus Christ they defie death and hell and challenge the fatal strokes which others tremble at the thoughts of They complain of time and were it not for the Law of God in the case would dismiss their souls of their prison and lye like men waiting for a wind longing for that happy gale that should carry their souls into the wide Sea of Eternity But this is but the portion of a few and scarce the abiding temper of them neither but such hours the People of God have had Some again he rewardeth inwardly with strength confirmed habits of grace and contentment with their portion c. Their outward man decreaseth but their inward man increaseth day by day they are poor in purse but rich in grace they have but little but they are content with what they have and tell all the world they have enough And let me tell you that as punishments in the inward man are the greatest punishments so these spiritual rewards are of all other the greatest rewards which is matter of easie demonstration if we will but allow our souls to be our nobler parts and the Jewel to be better than the Cabinet Whatsoever tends to the debasing and ruining the soul must be the greatest evil and whatsoever conduceth to its ennobling or felicity must be the greatest reward and good Besides this spiritual judgments are the continual forerunners of such as are temporal and spiritual mercies draw after them at least a proportion and sufficiency of the good things of this life All these things shall be added unto you saith our Saviour 2 Chron. 25.16 God sent a Prophet unto Amaziah the King would not hear him see what the Prophet saith I know saith the Prophet that God hath determined to destroy thee why because thou hast done this and hast not hearkned unto my counsel Spiritual judgments forerun temporal you have it Isa 6.10 When the Prophet asked how long how long in seeing they should see and not perceive and hearing they should hear and not understand God answereth Vntil the cities be wasted without an inhabitant and the houses should be left without men and the land should be utterly desolate In like manner spiritual rewards and mercies never go without something of this life if not a plenty yet a sufficiency food convenient for Gods People Finally as spiritual judgments are the forerunners of eternal ruin so spiritual rewards are the more certain forerunners of eternal salvation they are the things which as the Apostle speaks accompany salvation and make men meet for the Kingdom of God 3. But God sometimes rewards his people with sufferings This you may think a strange reward But yet a reward it is Christ promiseth to the losers for him that they should receive children houses lands with persecutions and the Apostles Act. 5.41 rejoyced they were thought worthy to suffer shame for his name-sake God honoureth that man whom he calleth out to be a witness for him and to carry his cross after him Job speaketh of other afflictions and cryeth out Job 7.17 Lord what is man that thou shouldst magnifie him that thou shouldst set thine heart upon him that thou shouldst visit him every morning and try him every moment What need we more than what the Apostle assureth us Heb. 12. That whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every child whom he receiveth Our light and momentany afflictions saith the Apostle shall work for us a far more eternal and exceeding weight of glory and if we suffer with him we shall also be glorified together with him Rom. 1.17 This variety of rewards our heavenly Father hath The rewards of the righteous from God are not uniform but always certain
and constant one way or other Gods Providence is always doing them good and rewarding their righteous deeds and this must necessarily be true upon the Apostles Hypothesis That all things shall work together for the good of them that love God But I hasten to the Application Vse 1. In the first place let me recommend this to your observation Though there be such a vast difference between good and evil in their own intrinsick natures as might justly allure us into the embraces of the former and scare every man from the pursuit of the latter yet such is our nature that we stand in need of encouragements to the former by rewards and by the terrors of the Lord to be scared from the latter and there cannot be any thing more effectual with us to discourage sin and incourage goodness than if we can effectually perswade our selves that the punishment of sin is both certain and constant and the reward of righteousness is so also This is the point I have endeavoured to demonstrate and you have heard that the reason of any ones presumption of the contrary is their looking at nothing as a punishment or a reward but what is sensible than which we cannot be guilty of a greater mistake nor any of worser consequence as to the malign influence it will have upon our lives and consequently upon our eternal state But consider what hath been said and judg whether a man can do any thing to the greater ruin of himself than to go on in an impenitent and resolved course of sinning against God Possibly you do observe that as to outward things it is much one with a profane swearer and blasphemer as with the man that reverenceth the glorious God and feareth an oath Eccles 9.2 with the drunkard as with him that is sober with the chast as with the unclean with the Sabbath-breaker as with him that remembers to keep holy Gods day nay the profane lawless sinner is in greater honour and power than the other richer than the other and this incourageth thee to joyn with them But poor creature hath he that hath many blessings but one curse think'st thou Observe well that same prosperous sinner and tell me if every day he doth not grow worse if according to his pastures he be not filled with all the fruits of unrighteousness if he be not given up to a blind mind an hard heart vile affections if thou doest not observe that his conscience is seared and branded with an hot iron as it were that he grows past feeling If thou seest this say not he is not punished he is punished with a witness Is a sealing up to damnation no punishment According to our law you know malefactors are first seared with an hot-iron upon their next miscarriage they are hanged It is Gods method when once a soul is seared with an hot-iron given up to be past feeling to damn him next without mercy Look well upon the sinner and thou wilt discern God is angry every day with him he is every day fitting for Hell flames Is this no punishment On the other side thou seest the man according to Gods heart walking sadly he is plagued every night chastned every morning he is poor and needy hungry and thirsty in prisons in deaths often pursued by the falcons of the world as a partridg upon the mountains persecuted on all hands Thou concludest contrary to the Scripture That he hath washed his hands in vain and cleansed his soul to no purpose verily there is no reward for the righteous But harken poor creature Had Esau's Father many blessings and hath Jacob's God but one sort Thou seest his poverty and want but doest thou see how he hath learned in all estates to be content and hath changed his name into a quod vult Deus And certainly godliness with contentment is great gain A poor contented Lazarus is an happier and richer man than a discontented covetous Dives Thou seest how he is afflicted every day how full of troubles his life is but thou doest not see the serenity of his spirit the peace of his conscience his joy in the Holy Ghost his glorying and rejoycing in tribulations as his tribulations work patience his patience experience and his experience hope Mark sirs the upright men consider the just men you will see their ends to be peace yea in this life you will see them more indisturbed by troubles and inconcerned in the ruffles of the world than other men The more you observe the more you will be confirmed in this truth that the Providence of God will certainly reward yea is constantly rewarding him that worketh righteousness Vse 2. But secondly what a trembling and terror should this Observation strike into the loins of every sinner what an engagement should it lay upon them to repent and turn from the wickedness of their way Each part of this Observation ought to be improved for this purpose Impunity in sinning is a great encouragement to the sinner the heart of man stands bent to his lusts and if he fancieth that he may escape the hands of Divine Justice or that he doth escape and thrive and prosper in his wicked courses it wonderfully imboldneth him to go on but if the vengeance against him be certain if his iniquity will certainly find him out that he may as well hope not to dye as not to be thrown into Hell when he dyes and if the wrath of God be already kindled against him and God be already punishing him What hope what incouragement can he then have Now this you have heard is the sinners case I remember when that great plague was began amongst the Israelites upon their murmuring against Moses and Aaron after the death of Corah Dathan and Abiram Numb 16.46 Moses biddeth Aaron take a censer and put fire therein from the Altar and put incense thereon and go quickly to the congregation saith he and make an atonement for them for there is wrath gone out from the Lord the plague is begun Is here an impenitent sinner before the Lord one that hath been a drunkard a swearer a profane person or that hath lived without God in the world that blesseth himself with vain hopes or presumptions that he shall escape the Judgment of God or may escape it that his soul is at present free from fears he thriveth he prospereth in the world and his prosperity blindeth his eyes that he cannot see the hell into which he is dropping and so maketh no haste to deliver himself from the wrath that is to come To such a one let me speak oh that my counsel might be acceptable take thy censer put fire thereon from the Altar and put on incense and go quickly and make an atonement for thy soul These are indeed things not in thy power but my meaning is Betake thy self quickly to the great work of repentance which lyes not so much in tears and humiliation as in the change of thy heart in thy
nothing till he had advised with the Prophet Nathan Nathan bids him to go and to do all that was in his heart for saith he the Lord is with thee The good man was but a man and was mistaken God did not allow of the action 1. Because he had not directed as yet any such thing ver 7. In all the places wherein I have walked saith he with the children of Israel spake I a word with any of the tribes of Israel or Judges of Israel whom I commanded to feed my people Israel saying Why build you not me an house of Cedar he repeateth the same reason again 1 Chron. 17.6 Indeed there is another reason given 1 Chron. 22.8 Thou hast shed blood abundantly and hast made great wars thou shalt not build an house to my name because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in my sight So 1 Chron. 28.3 For those two reasons God disapproved the action and reserved it for Solomon his son then it became an institution Solomon might lawfully undertake it and did do it But yet you shall find that God eminently rewarded this good intention and purpose of Davids heart as you shall read at large 2 Sam. 7.10 11 12 13 14 15 16. and to that degree that David ver 18. thought himself obliged to offer up unto God a particular sacrifice of thanksgiving and to offer up those praises to God which you shall read at large in that Chapter from the 18th verse to the end of the Chapter It is plain that God only rewarded his general purpose and good intention for the act or issue of that intention and purpose the Lord accepted not but accepted his good will for the deed which he rejected For an instance on the other side take Jehu Jehu did a good act that is the thing which God commanded him he indeed did it possibly in an ill manner with ill circumstances which caused God to threaten that he would avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu 2 King 9.7 When the Prophet anointed him that was his Commission Thou shalt smite the house of Ahab thy master that I may avenge the blood of my servants the Prophets and the blood of all the righteous servants of the Lord at the hand of Jezebel when it was done God rewarded him for it 2 King 10.30 Because saith God thou hast done well in my eyes in executing that which is right in mine eyes and hast done unto the house of Ahab according to all that was in mine heart thy children to the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel But yet Jehu's design and intention in all this was naught he intended no more than to make himself King he pretended indeed a zeal for the Lord but intended nothing but the advancement of himself and his family for the Scripture saith ver 31. of that 10th Chapter That Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart for he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam which made Israel to sin God here rewarded the action done at his command and in the execution of his will but abhorred the intentions and designs that were in Jehu's heart upon the undertaking and performance of it Take another instance it is that which I have formerly insisted upon in the 10th of Isaiah v. 5 6 7 8 9. It is plain that God approved of the Assyrian's actions against Israel he calls them the rod of his anger ver 5. he saith ver 6. That he would send him against an hypocritical nation and against the people of his wrath he would give him a charge to take the spoil and take the prey and to tread them down like mire in the streets Howbeit saith God he meaneth not so neither doth his heart think so but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few The Assyrian had nothing but sinful intentions he aimed at nothing but spoil and plunder and accordingly executed Gods Will upon which ver 12. God threatneth That when he had performed his whole work upon Mount Zion and upon Hierusalem he would punish the fruit of the stout heart of the King of Assyria and the glory of all his looks and ver 16. That he would send amongst his strong ones leanness and under his glory kindle a burning the burning of a fire More instances might be given of either sort but these are enough Let me proceed in shewing you the reasonableness of Divine Providence in these motions 1. On the part of wicked men it is but reasonable Because in such actions they do God service and it is not reasonable they should serve God for nothing You have a remarkable text for this Ezek. 29.18 19. Son of man saith God to Ezekiel Nebuchadnezzar King of Babilon caused his army to serve a great service against Tyrus every head was made bald and every shoulder was peeled yet had he no wages nor his army for Tyrus for the service that he served against it Therefore thus saith the Lord God behold I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadnezzar King of Babilon and he shall take her multitude and take her spoil and take her prey and it shall be the wages for his army I have given him the land of Egypt for the labour wherewith he served against it because they wrought for me saith the Lord. The King of Babilon never intentionally wrought for God undoubtedly what the Lord said of Assyria was applicable to Nebuchadnezzar King of Babilon spoil and plunder and dominion was all which he aimed at he never intended to work for God but yet the work was what was Gods Will should be done and what God had incited him to do he wrought for me saith God he did service and a great service he hath had no wages for it none shall work for me and be unpaid I will give him the land of Egypt for his pay So Jehu he wrought for God and did a great service against the house of Ahab I will pay him saith God Jehu shall never say he wrought for nothing his sons shall sit upon the Throne to the fourth generation Nay upon this account oft-times God rewardeth wicked men for some actions and afterwards punisheth them for the manner of their doing of those actions it is possible men may do what God commandeth them and yet not obey God God may reward men for their action as it is a service to him and yet punish them for their ill-doing of the action 2. On the part of good men where God rewardeth the good design intention and purpose whiles yet he disalloweth the action the motion of Providence seemeth yet more reasonable if we but consider that it is the heart which God principally requires looketh at and accepteth And where the heart is right the mistake in the action can be but a lapse of humane frailty and weakness Now where the sincere purpose and design
of it I think is that to David which we have Psal 89. from the 20 to the 35. v. Vers 28. he tells him That he will keep his mercy with him for evermore and his covenant should stand fast with him but yet he reserveth himself a liberty to punish him and his seed for sins vers 30. If his children for sake my law and walk not in my judgments if they break my statutes and keep not my commandments then will I visit their transgressions with the rod and their iniquity with stripes nevertheless my loving-kindness I will not utterly take from him nor suffer my faithfulness to fail my Covenant will I not break nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips So that notwithstanding the Covenant of Grace for eternal life and pardon of sin and all grace in order to the obtaining of this life and notwithstanding the blood of Christ which was the blood of this Covenant God hath yet a liberty to visit the transgressions of his people even their past as well as renewing transgressions with rods and their iniquity with stripes yet he doth not break his Covenant nor alter any thing that is gone out of his lips 3. Nor is it reasonable that any should fancy that God by the establishment of the Covenant of Grace or by acceptance of the satisfaction of his Son as the blood of this Covenant to make an atonement and reconciliation for iniquity should have barred himself of his liberty to punish the sins of his people or that any who hath accepted this Covenant upon the exhibition of it in the Gospel should be excused from such chastisements if we consider 1. That some of these chastenings are made the matters of a promise Mark 10.30 Persecutions are reckoned amongst Christs rewards in this life Heb. 12.6 7 8. Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every child whom he receiveth c. Thence the ancients were wont to call Martyrdom a Crown and Luther was wont to complain That God would not honour him to wear that Crown Saint Paul prayeth to be made conformable to the death of Christ if the Saints did not fight how could they triumph how should they conquer yea be more than conquerers 2. That afflictions are the path-way to death and death the door into eternal life Every affliction is a blow at the root of our tree preparing it for its fall and if we did not dye how should we live in Heaven We must all dye or be changed or our corruptible could never put on incorruption nor our mortal put on immortality It is reported of Zaleucus a lawgiver amongst the Indians that he should say If God had not appointed that all should dye it had been reasonable for men to have made a law in the case and we read of some Indians who being asked why they worshipped the Sun gave this reason Because it was the Author of death Give me leave to say That death is so necessary and afflictions are so wholesom for Christians that they deserve rather to be reckoned amongst those things which Christ hath purchased for them than such things as he hath purchased them a liberty from 1. All sorts of afflictions of this life are means of grace not so much means of begetting as reviving and increasing grace for as the fire softneth the wax and hardneth the clay so I have usually observed That afflictions make the wicked man worse but godly men better they revive repentance they are times when usually men call sin to remembrance they draw out the exercises of faith and both work and exercise patience Tribulation saith the Apostle worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope David before that he was afflicted went astray after he learned to keep Gods Statutes God while he punisheth his people for their sins doth not barely chasten them but he also teacheth them out of his Law 2. They secondly prepare the Saints for glory and this not only as they restrain sin and tend to perfect grace but as it pleaseth God of his grace to reward the sufferings of his people and the faith and patience of his people shewed in and under their sufferings with the greater glory Thus the Apostle saith 2 Cor. 4.17 That our light and momentany afflictions work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory And thus much may serve to have cleared this Objection that I may hasten to the practical Application of this Observation This motion of Divine Providence in punishing with temporal punishments past and pardoned sins even in the best of Gods People appears exceeding reasonable 1. In regard of the Justice of God The Justice of God having taken a satisfaction in the blood of his Son and been paid a price for the sins of his people will not allow him to punish them with an eternal punishment yet it is reasonable they should not go altogether unpunished that the world may see that he is a God of purer eyes than to behold iniquity in any I remember what God said by the Prophet Jeremiah to the Jews Jer. 30.11 I will not make a full end of thee but I will correct thee in measure and will not leave thee altogether unpunished You have the same again Jer. 46.28 2. It is reasonable secondly in order to the eternal salvation of their souls 1 Cor. 11.32 When we are judged we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world It is P. Martyrs note upon that Text that the Apostle in that passage particularly respecteth such as fear God for the case is otherwise with wicked men whose punishment but begun in this life shall be perfected in the world that is to come But I have spoken enough to the Doctrinal part of this Observation Let me now come to some practical Observation shewing you what use we may and ought to make of it Vse 1. This in the first place serves to justifie God in those sore afflictions which we often see him bringing upon his own people When we look upon the holiness of a Job and see him a man fearing God and eschewing evil and see such a person under sharp tryals of affliction we are ready to startle at it and cannot understand Divine Justice in it But God is many ways to be justified 1. Who liveth and sinneth not enough against God to justifie the severest dispensations under which God exerciseth him 2. If he did not yet it is an ordinary thing and very righteous for God to write bitter things against his people for the sins of their youth though past and pardoned Now who hath so passed his youth that he hath not been guilty of sin enough to justifie God in his punishments yea and to make him acknowledg that he hath been punished seven times less than he hath deserved And if neither of these could be seen as a meritorious cause yet God hath a liberty by afflictions to try the faith
and patience of his people but that is not the subject of my present discourse I remember when they asked our Saviour concerning him that was born blind whether it were for his own sin or for his parents Our Saviour replys for neither but that the glory of God might appear So I doubt not but Gods end in afflicting his people is neither at all times the punishment of the persons late sins nor former sins but that both the grace and glory of God might appear in strengthning supporting and upholding of his poor creatures and that he might be glorified by them in the fires by the exercise of their faith and patience c. Vse 2. This speaketh loud to all especially to young men to take heed of presumptuous sinnings against God Presumption of mercy is that which much enticeth out the lusts of our hearts there are some that will fancy God an Idol of mercy and will say Let them do what they list yet it shall be well with them they will not believe any such thing as Hell or a Revelation of the wrath of God against sinners God did not make them to damn them c. God of old foresaw there would be a generation that when they heard the words of his curse would bless themselves in their hearts saying They should have peace although they walked after the imaginations of their own hearts adding drunkenness to thirst Deut. 29.19 Observe v. 20. what God saith as to such The Lord will not spare him but the anger of the Lord and his jealousie shall smoke against that man and all the curses that are written in this book shall lye upon him and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven c. But blessed be God there are not many of these in the age wherein we live not many but will acknowledg an Heaven and an Hell and profess to believe that there is a reward for the righteous and for the unrighteous for the Saint and for the sinner So that what incourageth the most of men in sinful courses is not any hope of a total and final impunity but a presumption of pardon and obtaining mercy with God before they dye They are taught by some wild teachers that it is in the power of man to repent to believe to turn to God when he pleaseth and this imboldneth them to out-stare all the terrors of the Lord and to put off all the tenders of the Gospel to indulge their lusts and to say It is not yet time to turn unto God if they obtain pardon at last they shall be well enough if they turn to God and they are told they can do it when they please it is but taking up a resolution in their old age when they have had the fill of their lusts in their youth Now if this Doctrine had any truth in it it would quite destroy an old argument we had to press men to a speedy repentance because that God who always giveth pardon to them who truly repent will not always give unto sinners an heart to repent No need of that say our new Teachers man hath a freedom in his own will he may repent whensoever he can but get himself of the mind he labours under no more than a moral impotency his lusts are so strong that he cannot obtain leave of himself that is all But friend admit this were true that thou hadst repentance in thy own hand and that thou shouldest upon thy repentance obtain pardon of thy sins from God yet God may as to the punishments of this life make thee go mourning to thy grave for the sins of thy youth he may plague thee in thy own person and plague thee in thy posterity God had pardoned Davids sin Nathan told him The Lord had put away his iniquity yet the child dyed the sword never departed from his house Absolom requited him by going into his Concubines in the sight of the Sun he was weary with his groaning all the night long he made his bed to swim and watered his couch with his tears his eyes were consumed with grief Psal 6. His bones waxed old through his roaring all the day-long Gods hand was heavy upon him night and day so as his moisture was turned into the drought of summer Psal 32. Who would not fear such kind of dispensations Alas there is no such thing as mans having a power in himself to repent and turn to God Can the Blackamore change his skin or the Leopard his spots Everywhit as soon as he who is accustomed to do evil can do well but admit you could I say it is a thousand to one but God in the punishments of this life will visit your youth-sins upon you young men that are wise will take heed of wounds and strains in their youth or surfeits which though they feel little of in the heat of their youth they will be sure enough to feel in their bones when old age overtaketh them and certainly if sensual sinners would give but their reason leave to guide them it would guide them also to take heed of those sins in their youth for which they may so severely smart by wounds and terrors of Conscience by doubts and horrors and fears by diseases and other kind of punishments there is a great deal of difference betwixt being saved smoothly and a being saved but through fire O let me plead with you who have little else to say for the cares and pains of your youth but that by it you are but providing quiet and rest for your selves when you come to be old that you would admit the force of that Argument also to perswade you to remember your Creator in the days of your youth and to take heed of the sins of youth which God often so severely punisheth upon gray-hairs yea and that to his own people whose iniquities yet he hath pardoned so as they shall not eternally condemn him Vse 3. But that I may shut up this discourse what you have heard upon this Observation may offer the best of us some matter which possibly we have not thought of both of daily humiliation and particular humiliation when the rod of God is upon us I say 1. Of daily repentance and humiliation We are ready to speak after the language of Agag whom Saul had spared upon the slaughter of the Amalekites surely the bitterness of death is past If we find that God hath changed our hearts that we are not what we were we are very prone to think that all the follies and vanities of our youth are forgotten But let us not mistake God sealeth up the sins of impenitent sinners in a bag for to be brought forth to their eternal ruine in the day of the revelation of Gods wrath he sealeth up the sins of his redeemed ones in a bag to chasten them oft-times in this life with the rods and stripes of men God wrought bitter things against Job for the sins of his
for nothing or to allude to the Apostles phrase We have been fishing all day and caught nothing The error lyeth in your misapprehensions thinking you have no reward unless it be made to you personally yea and sensibly too 1. Is it nothing that he who feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of him And that you have as to this the continual feast of a good conscience no recoilings of your own breast no sowre reflections from thence surely this is something you have Christs peace when-as to the wicked there is no peace This is a reward unspeakable passing all understanding 2. If your sufferings be any testimony for Christ are they not rewards in themselves doth not the Lord honour that person whom he calleth out to be a witness for his name few are called to suffer for Christ Luther was troubled that God did not think him worthy of such a Crown The Apostles rejoyced that the Lord thought them worthy to suffer for the Name of Jesus Christ 3. But satisfie thy self It may be God hath laid up the reward for thy posterity and thy children and childrens children shall possibly reap what thou hast sown be assured good actions shall not be without their reward but rewards are not all of a kind no man shall ever say he hath waited upon the Lord in vain or sought his face for nothing Vse 3. This calleth upon us all to take heed of sinning against the living God especially such sins as I have before instanced in there are many arguments to be used to defame sin and to disswade from it To them all let this be added the curse which sin entails upon our posterity our sins are sometimes hid with God and sealed up in a bag and the vengeance of God for them falls not upon our selves but upon those that come after us Now the force of this argument lyes in that natural affection which every man hath for his posterity he must be a very debauched person that hath no regard to his posterity every one almost is careful to lay up something for his children take heed of laying up a treasure of Divine wrath for them If you will not regard your own bodies the peace of your own breasts nor your eternal welfare yet fear sinning against God because of the vengeance which may for your sin come upon your posterity It is a terrible Meditation to consider how many the threatnings of God against children are for the parents sins Job 5.3 4. Eliphaz saith I have seen the foolish taking root but suddenly I cursed his habitation His children are far from safety and they are crushed in the gate neither is there any to deliver them And again Job 17.5 He that speaketh flattery to his friends even the eyes of his children shall fail the triumphing of the wicked is but short and the joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment Job 5.20 vers 10. His children shall seek to please the poor and his hands shall restore their goods And Job 21.19 speaking of the wicked he saith God layeth up iniquity for his children And Job 27.13 14. This is the portion of a wicked man with God and the heritage of oppressors which they shall receive from the Almighty If his children be multiplied it is for the sword and his off-spring shall not be satisfied with bread David who was a Prophet and by the spirit of Prophecy did but see and foretel what should come to pass having to do with wicked and deceitful men who Psal 109.2 3 4 5. opened their mouths against him and spake against him with a lying tongue compassed him about with words of hatred and fought against him without a cause for his love were his adversaries rewarding him evil for good and hatred for his love prayeth vers 9 10. Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow let his children be continually vagabonds and beg let them seek their bread also out of desolate places Isa 14.21 In the threatning against Babel you find these words Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquities of their fathers that they do not rise nor possess the land nor fill the face of the world with cities and Psal 137.8 9. O daughter of Babylon who art to be destroyed happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones The Scripture is full of such prophecies and threatnings especially in the case of some eminent oppressions or cruelties used by any parents or some eminent corruptions in worship c. Now should not this lay a law upon parents who are so sollicitous for the good and prosperity of their children when they shall not be God layeth up the iniquities of parents many times for their children In short as there is no man that can provide better for his children than he that worketh righteousness and eminently serveth God in his generation I never saw the righteous forsaken saith David nor their seed begging their bread so none can provide worse for their children than by laying up a stock of sin to be revenged upon them Children are bound by law to pay their Fathers debts to man that often proves heavy but this is more dreadful they often as to temporal punishments pay their Fathers debts also to the Justice of God and this by the way sheweth us the high advantage of godly parents as the disadvantage of those who have had wicked and profane parents the former inherit blessing the latter cursing and judgment very ordinarily upon the account of their parents Vse 4. This observation calleth aloud to those that are children descended from wicked and ungodly parents it may be the case of some that are before me to be humbled for the sins of their parents and predecessors And 2. To take heed of continuing in the sins of their predecessors Josia was thus humbled and the Lord turned away his wrath that it came not upon him though it came upon his posterity when he was gone to his grave in peace Daniel in his humiliation chap 9. vers 16. forgets not this Because for our sins and the iniquity of our fathers Hierusalem hath been made a reproach The Church complaineth Lam. 5.7 Our fathers have sinned and are not and we have born their iniquity Is there any here whose heart it may be is otherwise but they have had a Father or Predecessor who hath been a cruel bloody man a persecutor of the People of God an hater and enemy of Religion and Godliness I would have such a one think that although his heart be otherwise yet it is possible his fathers iniquity may be laid up for him The only way to prevent it and to turn it off is to get a tender broken heart for thy forefathers sins to confess them and to be humbled before the Lord for them 2. But let all men take heed that they continue not in them
You shall observe it often repeated in Scripture Such a one did evil and walked in the steps of his Father in all the sins of his Fathers c. you shall constantly observe that it is set as a mark of dishonour upon those that did so and they perished in their transgressions God according to what he threatned the Jews Isa 65.7 punished upon them their iniquities and the iniquities of their fathers together We are very prone to walk in the steps of our Fathers especially if they have trodden awry and turned aside from the Commandments of God and usually in matters of Religion though we have nothing to say for the superstition and vanity of former generations yet we think it a sufficient plea that our fathers did thus or thus and indeed this was the old plea of the woman of Samaria Joh. 4. Our father 's worshipped in this mountain Thus the Heretick said in one of the Councils but was well answered Immo errantes ab errantibus yes erring children from erring parents The wickedness of a preceding generation especially in the matters of Divine Worship is so far from being a plea for us or excusing us that it doth but increase and aggravate guilt upon us The most righteous persons may without due and seasonable humiliation smart for the sins of their Fathers but if they go on in the same sins they have nothing to expect but that God should punish their sins and the sins of their Fathers together Vse 5. In the last place This observation layeth upon us all a new engagement to holiness and serviceableness to God in the stations in which the Lord hath set us As sin entaileth a curse so holiness and eminent service for God entaileth a blessing to our posterity Godliness hath not only the promise of this life and of that which is to come to our own persons but it hath promises of blessing to those that shall come after us God sheweth mercy to thousands of those who love him and keep his Commandments Jehu was no godly man yet his service he did for God procured him a reward to the fourth generation Abraham was a godly man David a perfect man a man according to Gods own heart Blessings for their sakes came upon their posterity to many generations But I shall add no more to this Observation SERMON XXXIII Psal CVII 43. Whoso is wise and will observe these things even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. I Proceed yet to offer you some further Observations concerning the motions of Actual Providence I have already made many Last of all some with reference to its distributions of rewards and punishments Let me now go on to a Observ 20. When God calleth any to any new work or relation he ordinarily giveth them a spirit suited to it Every work and relation requires some particular dispositions fitting the persons for it Now I say you shall observe in the motions of Actual Providence that it fitteth those persons for work whom God calleth to it you shall see it in several instances God called Moses to go in to Pharaoh to require him to let the children of Israel go and so to conduct the children of Israel out of Egypt Moses saith to God Exod. 3.11 Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt God saith vers 12. I will be with thee Again chap. 4.10 Moses excuseth himself that he was not eloquent but slow of speech and of a slow tongue see what God saith to him ver 11. Who hath made mans mouth or who maketh the dumb or deaf or seeing or blind Now therefore ver 12. go and I will be with thy mouth and teach thee what thou shalt say When God called Saul to be King over Israel the text 1 Sam. 10.9 saith That God gave him another heart When God called David to the Kingdom what a spirit of government did God give him What courage and valour that coming from keeping of sheep he durst adventure to encounter Goliah Concerning Solomon the case is plain 1 King 3.8 9. he begged of God a wise and understanding heart to judg his people The text telleth you that God gave it him Lo saith God ver 12. I have given thee a wise and understanding heart As to the Ministry the case is plain as to Jeremiah God ordained him to be a prophet to the nations Jer. 1.5 Jeremiah excused himself he was a child and could not speak vers 6. But the Lord said to him Say not I am a child for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak Be not afraid of their faces for I am with thee to deliver thee saith the Lord then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth and the Lord said to me Behold I have put my words into thy mouth vers 7 8. The like you have concerning Ezekiel Ezek. 2. The like you find upon Christs sending out the seventy and the twelve It is true God doth this several ways and by several rites and ceremonies but God never yet call'd any to any new relation or new work but he gave them a spirit fit for it But let us a little understand what the meaning of that is Quest Wherein lyeth the sutableness of a persons spirit to his work or relation I answer It lyes in two things 1. An inclination or willingness to it 2. A fittedness or preparedness for it 1. An inclination or willingness to it Indeed Gods first call of a person to a work doth not always meet with a willing mind it did not in Moses in Jeremy in Saul but God always makes those willing whom he calls to any service Whom shall I send here am I send me saith the Prophet Isaiah God made Moses and Jeremy willing before he sent them The gravity and burthen of the work to which God calleth may discourage flesh and blood at first but God makes them willing before they take their Commission Hence that in Timothy He that desireth the office of a Bishop c. 2. But this is not all God never sendeth any to any work but he fitteth and prepareth them for it giving them a frame of spirit and abilities of mind capacitating them for the parts of their work or duties of that relation several callings require several gifts and endowments For the magistracy courage and wisdom is necessary for the ministry is necessary not only courage and wisdom but knowledg utterance c. a sound understanding in the holy Scriptures which he is to open to the people and apply to their consciences and so in inferiour relations even Bezaliel the son of Vri whom the Lord called by name to the building of the Tabernacle Exod. 35.31 Was filled with the spirit of God in wisdom and in understanding and in knowledg and in all manner of workmanship and to devise curious works to work
that are to be my hearers Let me therefore go on Doth therefore any of you say unto me Seer What seest thou I answer yet once more I observe in the motions of Actual Providence Observ 21. That God commandeth his sensible blessings most upon those individual persons and those societies of the children of men that live in the most exact conformity to the Divine Rule Here are two terms in this Observation upon the Explication of which I will a little insist Quest 1. What is meant by sensible blessings Quest 2. What I mean by the most exact conformity to the Divine Rule Good things are distributed several ways in order to our comprehension of them by our understandings amongst others this is one distribution of them they are either sensible or insensible By sensible good things I understand such as are obvious to our senses and perceptible by them By insensible such as have a reality of good in them but yet not such as our senses discern Thus David saith It is good for me that I have been afflicted but yet afflictions are not sensible good things all such are the objects of our joy and delight Now saith the Apostle no affliction at the present is joyous but grievous but it bringeth forth the quiet fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised therewith But I say God commandeth sensible blessings mostly upon persons and societies living in the best square and most exact conformity unto the Divine Rule 2. Further yet Sensible blessings are capable of a double notion they are either such as are obvious only to the inward senses of those that are made partakers of them such are peace of conscience joy in the holy God that serenity and tranquillity of mind which is the effect of righteousness the new-name which none knoweth but he that hath it but there are other good things which are the objects of our more exteriour senses such are health prosperity success in trade c. blessings in relations c. Now my Obsersation is That the Actual Providence of God doth usually distribute good things of this nature to such persons and such societies of persons as live to the truest square and exactest conformity to the Divine Rule That is a general and must be opened also The Divine Rule as to families and persons is of a great compass but the whole of it is reducible to three heads viz. Piety Justice and Charity under each of these are several particulars but none which fall not under one of these generals 1. Piety consists in the internal and external acts of homage which we owe unto God Our internal acts are Fear Faith Love Our external acts are principally Prayer and Praise reading the word c. 2. Justice is an habit disposing us to give every one their due 3. By Charity I mean here mutual brotherly love Now look where these things best prosper there God commandeth most sensible blessings in the ordinary motions of his Provilence Particular instances may be exceptions from a general rule but ordinarily it is so What the Psalmist saith of one of these is true of all There God commandeth the blessing Psal 133.3 There where it may be interpreted with reference to the words which immediately precedes the mountain of Zion but I take it to be far more proper to refer it to the first verse which contains the argument of the whole Psalm O saith the Psalmist how good and how pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity This he illustrateth by two similitudes the one is the oyl which was poured upon the head of Aaron and ran down to the skirts of his garment Vers 2. The other is the dew of Hermon that descended on the mountain of Zion for saith the Psalmist there the Lord commandeth the blessing even life for evermore There where where brethren together dwell in unity it is as true there where Religion is exercised where all relations give their due one to another there God commandeth the blessing Now for the proof of this I shall but appeal to your experience and what you see every day 1. Look into the world there you shall see nations of various complexions some in which the true God is worshipped in a true manner others wherein Devils are worshipped or stocks or stones or if the true God be indeed worshipped yet it is not as he hath directed but by images and superstitious rites and observances some nations that are nothing else but rapine and violence and oppression full of strife and hatred and malice and wars and dissensions You on the other side will see other Nations amongst whom the true God is worshipped and that in a true manner where are good laws against oppression and injustice and for distributive and commutative Justice where men are not hunted and persecuted for their consciences towards God Mark if God doth not command the blessing of riches trade c. more upon the latter than the former It is true some of those Countreys where these iniquities are found are naturally richer than others in minerals and the Native Commodities of the Countrey but for adventitious riches which come from Trade and Commerce and for other sensible blessings observe if they be not poured out in a greater plenty upon Nations that in matters of Religion civil Justice and Unity have been regulated by laws conformable to the Word of God than upon other Nations where none of these things have been regarded 2. If you will straiten your prospect look upon any Cities or Towns or any kind of political societies you will see some of these places such as Egypt was of which Abraham said The fear of God was not in that place where all their Religion is to persecute those that have any thing of Religion in them No rules of justice and brotherly love are observed but they are full of violence and oppression and fraud there is nothing in them but the inhabitants biting and devouring one another the cry of the oppressed is in their street Other places you will find where Religion is cherished and countenanced where the word of God is livelily and powerfully preached and men live in some seeming awe of it where rules of civil Justice are observed and men can have Justice in Courts of Judicature and the people live in peace and amity one with another observe again which of these God most commandeth his blessing upon I might appeal to your like observation concerning families and particular persons But it is no more than every one may observe Consider what an Hell upon Earth some Cities some Families are in comparison of others and see what makes the difference both in the beauty and in the prosperity of them And it needs must be so if you please to consider 1. The natural tendency of these things to so happy products 2. That God in pursuance of his many promises doth there command the blessing First In
never Gods purpose and intendment that any of them should fulfil it or that way obtain everlasting life Vse 3. In the last place my discourse upon this argument may let you see how uniformly the Providence of God in the conversion and bringing home to God of a particular sinner moveth to its motions and workings in order to the general publication of the Covenant of Grace and the way of salvation through him unto the world The way of God in making known of Jesus Christ to a particular soul is ordinarily first by the law to humble the soul and to conclude it under wrath and then to open to it a door of hope and indeed this is but a reasonable working of Providence and exceedingly suitable to the principles of reason and humane nature What signifies the news of a Redeemer unto him who either is no captive or is not sensible that he is the news of a Saviour to him that apprehendeth not himself lost or to stand in need of any salvation God therefore ordinarily in the conversion of a sinner layeth the Law to him sheweth him what God hath required of him how much he is a debtor to God how much he lyes open to wrath and is subject to the curse this letteth him see what need he hath of salvation by a Redeemer and induceth him to be willing to go unto Christ for life Now this motion and working of Providence as to particular souls bears a just proportion to Gods first Revelation of Christ unto the world God first gave unto Adam a Law of Works and made a Covenant with him and then permitted him to violate this Law to break this Covenant and then discovers the Covenant of Grace and Redemption which to this time lay hidden with God although as to the paction of it it was eternal And hence also appears an easie answer to that question whether men and women unregenerated be under the Covenant of Works or under the Covenant of Grace that all men since the fall of Adam are not under the dispensation of the Covenant of Works but under the dispensation of the Covenant of Grace is out of doubt for the Covenant of Works expired with Adams fall But thus far they are under the Covenant of Works viz. That there is no salvation for them but by keeping the whole Law in thought word and deed which is a state sad and miserable enough it being that which no man in his lapsed estate is able to do Adam indeed might have done it none since the fall can do it and from hence followeth the impossibility of salvation for any soul that is out of the Lord Jesus Christ The law they cannot keep so as from the fulfilling of that to expect salvation and whereas as the Apostle telleth us what the law could not do because it was made weak through our flesh that God himself hath done sending his son in the likeness of sinful flesh and condemning sin in the flesh that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us they have no part nor portion in this matter no state nor interest in Christ but are without Christ and consequently during their present state incapable of any lively hope But this is enough to have spoken to this first difficulty and the inferences by way of Application to be made from it SERMON XXXVI Acts XVII 30. But now God commandeth all men every-where to Repent I Am endeavouring to expound to you some of the hard Chapters of Divine Providence These times justifying that to be true of the book of Providence which the Apostle Peter saith of St. Pauls Epistles 2 Pet. 3.16 There are in it some things hard to be understood which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest unto their own destruction It is truly said of Tertullian Deus omnium conditor nihil non ratione providet disposuit ordinavit nihil non tractari intelligique voluit that God the maker of all things hath rationally disposed and ordered all things and would have us to understand all his works It is most certain that all the Lords ways are equal and it is a noble employ to study the equality and reasonableness of them it may be sometimes we shall wade beyond our stature and be forced to cry out O the depth but I think that grave Ancient said true that told us That the Counsels of God do so exceed our capacity that in some particulars they yet wonderfully accommodate themselves to our intellectuals and men might understand more of the reasonableness of the motions of Divine Providence if they would bring to their observation not so much discutiendi acumen as discendi pietatem acuteness of wit to quarrel as an humble desire to learn of God and to understand his will We are prone for the directing of our conceptions of God to make to our selves images graven with the tools of philosophy and humane reason and then to bow to them Whereas could we be content to regulate our Philosophy so far as it relateth to God by the rules of his word and not to think to crook the word of God to our Philosophy many rough ways would be made plain and matters of question quickly rendred out of question I am speaking to such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of difficulty as arise to considerate souls from the consideration of the motions of Providence relating both to the Covenant of works and that of Grace I spake to one in my last exercise I now proceed to a second which I shall state thus Quest Supposing the Covenant of Redemption and Grace made betwixt the eternal Father and the Lord Jesus Christ not to have been general for all men nor incertain for persons that should be so and so qualified and that the blood of this Covenant was intentionally shed in proportion to the nature of the Covenant How it could consist with the truth of God to offer salvation to all in the ministry of his word upon the Gospel-terms of faith and repentance or to what end it should be done Here are two or three things here supposed which by a great many will not be granted 1. We suppose here first A Covenant made from eternity betwixt God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ relating to the salvation of the children of men This I know some will not understand but the Scripture speaketh plainly Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made he saith not to seeds as many but as of one and to thy seed which was Christ Gal. 3.16 Isa 42.6 and I will give thee for a Covenant to the people hence Christ was called a surety of a better Covenant he was both the party Covenanting and the surety of the Covenant God the Father taking the word of his Son for the fulfilling of the matter of the Covenant both what was to be done by himself upon which account it was called a Covenant of Redemption and by us with respect to
for destruction there is a great deal in that verse 1. The Apostle hinteth us in that text that we are Clay and God is our Potter it was what God had said of old by his Prophet Jeremiah chap. 18. vers 6. and Isaiah chap. 45. vers 9. and what the Apostle himself had said in the two verses immediately preceding upon this account it is that he here calls such as perish vessels of wrath Earthen-vessels with relation to the Potter before-mentioned 2. Being such Potters vessels God had undoubtedly a jus absolutum an absolute right and dominion over the Sons of men vers 21. Hath not the Potter power over the Clay of the same lump to make one a vessel of honour another a vessel of dishonour 3. He sheweth that God doth destinate some to dishonour not using his absolute right and prerogative meerly but for just and righteous causes and he instanceth in three things 1. Gods will to shew his wrath The wrath of God is nothing else but his just will to punish Violaters of his Law God is willing to shew his hatred of sin in the just punishment of it 2. Gods will to make his power known that is in breaking the stubbornness of sinners thus ver 17. it is said of Pharaoh For this same purpose have I raised thee up that I might shew my power in thee and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth and this God calleth a getting himself glory upon Pharaoh Exod. 14.17 18. 3. The third reason he gives is That they are fitted for destruction Divines start a question from these words How or from whom they are fitted for destruction Some say of God as their Potter others will have it to be from Satan others from themselves the different notions may be reconciled Paraeus telleth us there are three things to be considered in these vessels of wrath their nature their sin the end as to their nature they are not from themselves nor from Satan but from God he is the Maker of all As to their pravity and natural corruption that is not from God but from themselves and from the Devil the end is either preximate that is their own dishonour and destruction or remote and ultimate that is the shewing forth the Justice and Power of God Neither of these saith that learned Author is from themselves for they do not ordain themselves to destruction nor design the manifestation of the Lords Power and Justice Thus therefore saith he are the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction according to nature they are created and made by no other than by God as to their sin and corruption by which they are made children of wrath guilty of sin and subject unto wrath they are made so by Satan by their own spontaneous fall and that sin which followed it as to the ends they are from God and according to his eternal Counsel of predestination And this is the reason as is not only observed by Paraeus but by P. Martyr probably why the Apostle only saith fitted and not by whom fitted for destruction that fittedness referring partly to God partly to themselves as they are by sin fitted it is their own act Now when he speaks of the vessels of mercy he speaks in the active voice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 23. Which he had before prepared unto glory So that it being the work of the sinner to fit himself for destruction by the multiplyings and aboundings of sin and God glorifying his Justice and Power in breaking and destroying sinners it is easie to understand how Gods suffering the aboundings of sin tendeth to the glorifying of his Power and Vindicative Justice And thus I have shewed how the various Attributes of God are glorified by his permission of sin But this is but one way by which God hath glory from the permission of sin 2. He hath glory from it from those exercises of grace which are occasioned by it from his own people and these are more internal or more external for such as are more internal repentance faith humility several other graces have either their Original motions from this Providence or are greatly advantaged in their exercise by it 1. For repentance that is considerable either in the inward affection or more external act As to the former if no sin were permitted how could there be any humiliation for sin any godly shame or sorrow any bleeding or brokenness of heart in the sense of sin Were no sin permitted there could be no repentance no godly sorrow for sin c. 2. God hath a great deal of glory by mens believing on the Lord Jesus Christ It is a great piece of the Will of God that men should believe on him whom God hath sent and God is glorified by our doing his Will It were a large Theme to discourse to you how variously God is glorified by mens receiving of the Lord Jesus Christ and believing in him But God had had none of this glory if there had been no permission of sin in the world what is it to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ but to accept of him as our Saviour to expect Salvation from free grace through the merits of Christ and to depend upon him for it Now should God permit no sin there would be no need of a Saviour no occasion for a redeemer no need of going out of our selves relinquishing all confidences in the flesh and in our selves Believing in Christ as our redeemer and Saviour supposeth sin making us lost undone Creatures to stand in need of such a Salvation 3. Again Humility is another habit of grace in the exercise of which God is glorified it is one of those things which God by his Prophet telleth us that he requires of man to walk humbly with his God nothing more contributes to this than a Child of Gods continual walking in a view of his own past and renewing Sins Thus far even the best of Gods people are beholden to their sins they make them walk more softly and to have more humble and mean opinions of themselves and to be more low in their own eyes neither exalting themselves against God nor censoriously and rashly judging their brethren and the more or less that any Christian looks at home and considereth himself and his own ways the more or less he walks humbly towards God and charitably towards his brethren 4. Finally in the 2 Cor. 7.11 You shall find a whole quire of graces all singing forth the praises of God and all occasioned by sin The Corinthians had offended in the business of the incestuous person the Apostle in his former Epistle had brought them to a sense of their sin and to a godly sorrow for it Now saith he this self-same thing that you sorrowed after a godly sort what carefulness it wrought in you Yea what clearing of your selves Yea what indignation what fear what vehement desire yea what zeal what revenge these now are all exercises of
would pose the thoughts of any intelligent person I think I do indeed know that some tell us that Christ as to all men expiated the guilt of Adams sin some add also original sin others tell us that is all washed off in Baptism I want one clear Scripture for any thing of this but yet Arminius never denied so far as I have read him that infants have not upon them the guilt of original sin which God may punish certainly if not with eternal yet with temporal punishments for even past and pardoned sins may be thus punished as I have before shewed you in my Observations upon the motions of Actual Providence Every infant cometh into the world under the guilt of the first mans transgression reckoned to him as he was in the loyns of Adam and under the want of original righteousness with an innate pravity and corruption of nature averse naturally to all that is good prone and inclined unto that which is evil Supposing now what Arminius would have and can never be proved that God will eternally condemn none meerly for this sin yet surely he may justly scourge and correct with the utmost punishments short of eternal punishment even this guilt in children which have not actually finned It was Gods threatning annexed to his Covenant with Adam In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye Some question how God justified it when Adam lived to nine hundred and thirty years before he dyed Divines therefore expound it by eris mortalis thou shalt be subject and liable unto death in the day in which he did eat he became mortal from that day he began to dye and was made liable to that change Every child assoon it cometh into the world eateth of this forbidden fruit I mean becomes liable to the guilt of its proparents eating and so is liable unto death It is true the Lord doth not cut off all children how then should the world be replenished and stand but yet he cutteth off some for the declaration of his justice as a Prince when a whole City or Province is in a rebellion he will not cut them off all because he will not waste and depopulate a Country but he will cut off some for the declaration of his justice Thus you see this motion of Providence is easily reconcileable to the justice of God upon this hypothesis that children are sinners and under an original guilt and if we could be so confident as some are that none shall be damned for that sin only or that it is expiated on the behalf of all or washed away in Baptism as to all born within the pale of the Church Yet nothing hinders but by the same justice by which God punisheth past and pardoned sins which I have formerly at large opened to you God might yet justly trouble and afflict little ones they might be sick and they might dye as Jeroboams child mentioned in the Text did though vers 13. saith of him expresly That there was some good thing found in him towards the Lord God of Israel Let this be a second consideration to satisfie you as to the righteousness of God in these dispensations But I proceed yet further 3. This motion of Providence seemeth very reasonable and competent to the wisdom of God That he might declare to the world that he is that God in whom all breath he in whom they live they move and have their being If we should see none dye but in an old age we should be ready to think that our candle never went out but for want of oyl and should not understand how much we were beholden to God for every hour of life how much we depended upon him for our daily breath as well as for daily bread Now it is but reasonable that the world should understand God to be the fountain of life that sickness and death do not meerly depend upon second causes but there is a first cause that is the efficient the principal efficient cause of these changes though he useth a variety of second causes he will therefore suffer irregular motions of humours in children which shall in them cause sicknesses and death though they never were surfeited with meats nor Inflamed with drinks He bloweth out Candles newly lighted to let us know that the issues of life and death are in his hand and that the breath of man is not meerly in his own nostrils and it is but reasonable that God should make himself thus known to us as the God of our lives 4. Again this dispensation of Providence is reconcileable to the goodness of God God by this means doth deliver little ones from the evil to come This is the very case in the Text God was bringing evil upon the house of Jeroboam as he threatneth vers 10 11 12. he intended to take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam as a man taketh away dung from the earth Abijah falls sick and dies and this out of mercy to him that his eyes might not see nor he have any share in the evil which God was about to bring upon his Fathers house God gathereth up the Lambs before the storm cometh It is said of Babilon Psal 137. That he should be happy that should take their little ones and dash them against the stones and we read in Scripture of such famines as inforced women to eat their own children Now God often cuts off little ones in his mercy to them I might here further add that God by this dispensation preventeth much sin in those that are thus taken away But I pass on yet to some further considerations clearing Gods justice 5. It is but reasonable that God should do this to punish the sins of the Parents and to do them good It was one of my observations concerning the motions of Actual Providence That God doth very ordinarily punish Relations in their Correlates Parents in their Children and I shewed you the reasonableness of Divine Providence in this motion It was for the punishment of Davids sin that his child by Bathsheba died and the death of it was threatned by Nathan as a part of Davids punishment 2 Sam. 12.14 Possibly God may sometimes do it to abate our affections to our children and that he might have more of our heart and affections as the Gardiner cutteth off the suckers which draw too much from the root and the country Housewife takes away the Calf when it sucketh so much as it leaveth no milk for the pail 6. Finally Why may not this motion of Providence seem reasonable That room might be left in the world The world is a great Theatre in which he hath many to act their parts God at first lengthned out the lives of the Patriarchs to seven eight nine hundred years that the world might be replenished with Inhabitants He now shortneth the lives of those that are born into the world that the world might not be overburdened with Inhabitants More might be added By the death
and sicknesses of little ones all are warned to be continually upon their watch not knowing when the Lord will call for them every little Bell that telleth us a child is gone soundeth to us would we but understand it Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth before the evil days come Further yet God by this dispensation in which as you have heard he is just doth mind all of the duty they owe unto their children to bring them up in the knowledge of the Scriptures in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and particularly not to defer the ordinance of Baptism beyond a reasonable time It is doubtless Gods ordinance as to children not only a sign of Gods Covenant but a medium in order to salvation though efficacious only when God is pleased to make it so not ex opere operato upon the work done I have now shewed you the equity of God in this particular way of his Providence Vse It is a dispensation under which there are few Parents that are not brought Let me therefore enlarge a little upon some practical Application of this Discourse shewing you what may be our duty reasonably concluded from this dispensation I shall open to you something of it in three or four particulars 1. It is doubtless our duty yea the duty of all flesh To be silent before the Lord under such Providences The loss of a child especially if it be a first-born or an only child sometimes goeth very near us But oh let us not be tempted from it to open our mouths against the God of Heaven nor to entertain a thought in our souls derogatory to the justice and goodness of God Our children are sinners and obnoxious to the justice of God God may in justice punish them for their own sins or for our sins I hinted to you before that it was a beam of Arminius his new light that none should be condemned for original sin only and he is followed in it by all the Remonstrants in their Confessions Apologies as also by others of that tribe Socinus also and his followers shake hands with them in that notion Yet Arminins answering Mr. Perkins who to disprove Arminius his doctrine of Gods rejection of any because he foresaw they would reject the grace of the Gospel had pinched him telling him this could be no cause of the rejection of infants out of the pale of the Church God could not foresee they would reject the Gospel who he foresaw should never have the Gospel preached or tendred to them answereth him thus At inquam ego in parentibus abavis avis atavis tritavis evangelii gratiam repudiarunt quo actu meruerunt ut a Deo deserantur That is But I say saith he they rejected the Gospel in their Parents their Grandfathers their great Grandfathers or former Progenitors Now how this is consistent with his other doctrine I cannot understand for certainly if God may be justified in rejecting the souls of some infants from eternity because he foresaw that their Great-Grandfathers would reject and refuse the Gospel when-as they by no personal act should do any such thing he may be justified even in the eternal condemnation of children for the sin of Adam or the personal obliquity and corruption of their natures and so it is not unrighteous with God eternally to condemn a child for its original corruption only But we are not now speaking of eternal condemnation but of bodily and temporal yea and temporary punishments which may very well consist with the eternal salvation of the soul and it is very absurd for us to think that for such punishments the infant may not be punished without the impeaching of the justice of God though it hath been guilty of no actual sin deserving so early a chastisement of it Oh therefore suffer not in such cases your hearts or lips to transgress God may do it in righteousness He may thus justly punish original sin in the child he may justly punish our sins upon the backs of our children Speak not a word against God in this Providence 2. Do what in thee lyeth secondly to find out the cause When the Jews queried our Saviour concerning the man that was born blind for whose sin it was whether his or his parents Our Saviour answereth them that it was neither for his sin nor yet for his Parents but that the glory of God might appear in that famous miracle which our Saviour wrought in restoring him to his sight It is an hard thing to find out Gods ends in his dispensations of punitive Providence God may sometimes afflict and take away little ones for their own sins for the sin of Adam for the iniquity in which they were conceived and the sin in which they were brought forth God may sometimes do it for the Parents sins Sometimes he may do it principally neither for the one nor for the other of these ends but for the good of the Parents or for the good of the Children you have heard that this motion of Divine Providence is highly reasonable upon more then one account But yet when we feel the smart of such a dispensation we know not how to look upon it otherwise than as a punishment but now our business under such providences is to enquire what sin in us God doth in that manner revenge The Scripture will guide us a little in the finding out of this and we may possibly find out some other helps to make us understand these dispensations It was threatned to David 2 Sam. 12. For his sins in the matter of Vriah and his wife and for that by them he had given occasion to the enemies of God to blaspheme It is one of those common scourges with which God chastiseth some Parents for their sinful lives and whoso is conscious to himself of a sinful course of life need not enquire much for what cause God brings him under such dispensations It is matter of more narrow enquiry why God thus chasteneth his own people Possibly if they will search narrowly under such a Providence they may find if not the very sin for which God contendeth with them yet some laps of their lives of that nature as may give them a just ground of jealousy and suspicion that that is the sin for which God so troubleth them I shall not be positive in this determination lest I seem too boldly to inquire into the secret counsels of God men should do well under these Providences to listen to their own consciences which oft times tell them the truth in such cases But let me ask of thee or rather desire thee to ask thy self these two or three following Questions 1. Didst thou never sinfully distrust the Providence of God concerning thy Children And secretly repine at Gods bounty to thee in them this is now a temptation incident to such as are of meaner condition in the world and not so able as others to maintain their Families God promiseth the
sayest thou O Christian that the Lords ways are not equal or that the Lord dealeth hardly with thee God dealeth with thee but as every wise and prudent father dealeth with the Child of his dearest love and thus I have spoken to two of the Questions which fall under this head But there is yet a third would be spoken to and the rather because it may be a temptation that seized the hearts of many of Gods people in former times that is How it consisteth with the justice wisdom and goodness of God in the motions of his Providence to make the vilest and worst of men his Instruments to chasten the best and dearest of his own people it was Habbakuks complaint Hab. 1.13 why holdest thou thy peace when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he and maketh men as fishes of the Sea as the creeping things which have no ruler over them But that will be my next Text where I shall speak something relating to that dispensation of God and afterwards shall more largely apply both what I have spoken and what I shall further speak on this Argument SERMON XLIV Habbakuk I. 13. Thou art of purer Eyes than to behold evil and canst not look on iniquity wherefore lookest thou on them that deal treacherously and holdest thy Tongue when the wicked man devoureth the man that is more righteous than he And makest men as the Fish of the Sea as the creeping things that have no ruler over them I Begin as you see where I left in my last exercise I left with a quotation out of the prophecy of Habbakuk which is now my Text nor could any thing be more proper for you see it containeth in terms the Question I am this day speaking to In the beginning of this Chapter and Prophecy the Prophet had been complaining unto God of the exceeding wickedness and incorrigibleness of the Jews God replying to him had told him what possibly he did not expect desiring not the ruin but reformation of his people that he was about to put an end to their wickedness v. 6. Raising up the Caldeans a bitter and hasty nation which should march through the breadth of the land to possess the dwellings which were not theirs terrible and dreadful c. An enemy every way qualified to execute Gods utmost vengeance upon this people This quite surpriseth and astonisheth the good prophet and sends him in hast unto God again v. 13. saith he Art not thou from everlasting O Lord my God mine holy one we shall not dye O Lord thou hast ordained them for Judgment and O mighty God thou hast established them for correction then follow the words of my Text Thou art of purer Eyes than to behold evil and canst not look on iniquity wherefore lookest thou on them that deal treacherously and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous then he Habbakuk lookt upon this as a very sad dispensation and what stumbled him as to the righteousness of God therefore he puts it in that phrase the man that is more righteous than he and addeth and makest men as the fishes of the Sea as creeping things of the Earth which have no ruler over them Those brute sensitive creatures are not ruled by any rules of justice or righteousness those of them that have most natural strength and power devour those who have less but now men are reasonable creatures and should be acted by principles of reason and justice amongst them might should not overcome right But O Lord in this dispensation of thy Providence thou seemest to govern the reasonable part of the world like the brutish and sensitive part of it The Jews though they be a sinful people yet they are more righteous than the Caldeans they are a brutish people and have no right against the Jews shall thy Providence so order the affaires of the world that those who have most power in their hand though they have no right shall trample down thy people and eat them up like bread Lord this were to make men like the fish of the Sea like the creeping things of the Earth which have none over them to govern them by any rules of justice or righteousness Lord why doth thy Providence thus govern humane affaires This I conceive the sense of the words The question which remains to be spoken to is this Quest How it can consist with the Justice of God in the motions of his Actual Providence to suffer wicked men to devour those who are more righteous than themselves I am the more willing to speak to this because it is a dispensation under which many of those that fear the Lord in this nation have suffered we have seen good men rifled their goods taken from them we cannot say but they have deserved this and far more than this from the hand of Divine Justice but though they have deserved this yet we are ready to think it is hard that they should suffer this from such miscreants as take the Spoil and God will certainly one day fetch the blood of his people and their abominations out of their mouths We are prone to think that God should not suffer his people to be devoured by those who are more unrighteous then they are The Text gives you an account 1. Of a great disorder in the world at least a dispensation of Providence which Habakkuk thought so Men dealt treacherously the wicked devoured the men who were more righteous than themselves 2. It gives you an account of Gods carriage under this disorder God looked upon men that is he seemed to look upon the men that dealt treacherously and to hold his peace while Sinners devoured the more righteous persons God by the motions of his Providence seemed rather to favour than frown upon these disorders Hence might be observed these two propositions 1. Prop. That it is no unusual dispensation of Providence for God to suffer the wicked to devour those that are more righteous than themselves 2. Prop. That this dispensation hath been matter of stumbling and a very sore temptation even to the servants of God For the first as to matter of fact there is nothing more demonstrable look over the whole History of Scripture the History of all times you will find it true the world began with Cains killing Abel it went on with the Egyptians the Amalekites the Philistines the Babilonians devouring of the only people which God had in the world Now I say this hath been heretofore and doubtless is at this time a great temptation to Gods people Habakkuk complains of it in the Text. Job complained Job 30.1 That those who were younger than he had him in derision even those whose Fathers he would have disdained to have set with the dogs of his table Shemei a dead dog as he called him cursed David and Doeg the Informer prevails against all the Lords Priests Judas another Informer devoureth him who is the
hypocrite and hast a temptation to think God is not just to thee in suffering it knowest or remembrest thou not what contradiction of sinners Christ endured how they said of him that he did cast out Devils by Beelzebub the Prince of Devils When thy spirit riseth against thy adversaries oh think of Christ who was the Captain of all our Salvation But further yet 2. Before thou in thy thoughts passest sentence against God and his righteousness consider with thy self by whom wouldest thou have God to chastise his people It is written That all who will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution Now supposing persecution one of those species or kinds of affliction which God hath a liberty to Scourge and chasten his people by Who should be the persecutors couldest thou expect that the seed of the woman should break the womans head That such who have tasted of the love of God should bite and devour one another Indeed sometimes through the prevalence of lusts and passions it proves so through mistakes and such misapprehensions as the best are subject to and this but in particular rare cases 1. But it suteth not the ingenuous nature of Gods people to do injury to others Indeed it suteth not any persons though of little acquaintance with God if they be persons of any goodness and ingenuity of nature you see amongst us none but one saved from the Gallows for that purpose will be a common hangman we see how ordinary persons they must be that will be perswaded to be Bayliffs but now to fall upon the Lords Priests is a work only fit for an accursed Edomite The Child of God is yet under a further Law than that of a good nature he is here taught of God to do good to all to love his enemies to do good to them that hate him to love and pray for those who hate him and despightfully use him he is so far from requiting evil for evil that he taketh himself obliged to return good for evil Now it is not reasonable to think that God should make use of his own people who are by himself taught the clean contrary and are obliged by a contrary law which they have so far imbibed that it is written on their hearts and ingraven in their souls to punish and chasten his own children Who ever set a Sheep to worry a Sheep The work of informing against accusing chastening scourging the people of God is a work fit for none but profane wretches drunkards swearers the debauchees of the world who have in them such a radicated hatred of God and such an antipathy to that holiness which is fountain'd in him that like as the Basilisk they say will fly upon the picture of a man out of its antipathy to humane nature they will fly upon every person that hath the image and superscription of God upon his soul and is called by the holy name of God it is a work that only fitteth those whose hearts are possessed with the poyson of unrighteousness and all superfluity of wickedness To do injury to others suteth not an ingenious nature in any person but it much less suteth the Sanctified nature of a Child of God few creatures will prey upon their own kind If a Child of God be to be rent and torn in pieces to be chastened and scourged by men that he may not be condemned in the world there are none so fit to do it as the Dogs and Swine in the world I would ask of thee saith an excellent Author who art under such a temptation as this Wouldst thou have the Saints of God persecute imprison plunder destroy one another Surely they would then lose their Majesty of vertue their title of Saints Supposing then the work must be done it is as reasonable to conclude that it must be done by those who are less righteous then they are and not that God should first possess his people with principles and habits of grace diametrically opposite to such courses and then set them on work to practice such things 2. Give the Lord I beseech you leave to make some use of the very worst of men It is the saying of an acute Author Cur non ex perditis hominibus hoc lucraretur Deus c. Why should not God make this profit of the vilest men It is true it is not all the service which God makes wicked men do but give me leave to tell you it is one of the greatest pieces of service God hath from them they are left in the Land as the Canaanites were left in Canaan Judg. 2.3 to be Thorns in the sides of Gods Israelites to keep the Lords Gaols and Bridewell his houses of correction for his people Take a profane vile wretch he hath his being from God and his well-being he hath from God he eateth Gods bread and is clothed with Gods wool and flax What hath God for all this He swears profanely he blasphemeth God prodigiously he breaks the Lords Sabbaths God is dishonoured by him every day This service he hath from them when he hath a Child to be whipped he turns him over to him God makes the same use of wicked men he doth of the Devils they are his peoples tempters and tormentors Wicked men are to God as the Dog to the Shepherd as the Hawk or Bird of prey to the Faulkener God useth them to let them fly at his own people sometimes and to pick out the eyes of them who are as dear to him as the Apples of his eye The Assyrian in the world signifieth little to the service of God but as as he serveth well enough to make a Rod for his anger and a staff for his indignation to be sent against an hypocritical Nation which God can no longer bear with but is at last resolved to make the people of his wrath 3. The worst of men must be suffered to fill up the measures of their iniquities you know God told Abraham that the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full God will have sinners fill up their measures Now there is no such way for wicked men to fill up the measures of their sins and make themselves ripe full ripe for Divine vengeance as for them to fall upon this work of devouring the Servants of God who are more righteous than themselves are I have a good authority for it Matt. 23.34 Wherefore behold I send unto you Prophets and wise men and scribes and some of them you shall kill and crucifie and some you shall scourge in your synagogues and persecute them from city to city that upon you may come all the righteous blood that hath been shed upon the Earth from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah c. Mark what went before vers 32. Fill you up then the measure of your Fathers you Serpents you generation of Vipers how can you escape the damnation of Hell As the Child of God must finish his work which God hath
shall not fall Mat. 16.18 The gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Psal 94.14 For the Lord will not cast off his people neither will he forsake his inheritance Mica 4.4 11 12. So quite through this Psalm there are many promises of the same import Now the work of faith is to perswade the soul of the certainty and undoubted verity of these words of God to settle the soul in this perswasion That sooner shall Heaven and earth pass away than any of these things shall fail which God hath spoken Then the work of faith is further to carry out the soul without any carping trouble or disputing to rest wholly upon these words A Christian seeth the word of God what he hath said for its relief now faith teacheth the soul to agree this as the word of him who cannot lye or repent and calleth upon the soul to trust in God for the fulfilling of it to roll it self upon the promise and to commit it self its cause its way unto the Lord the soul of a Christian is very solicitous and careful for the concern and interest of God in the world faith teacheth the soul to cast its care the burthen of its spirit upon the Lord assuring it that God careth for it Faith speaketh to the soul in the language of Solomon Eccles 5.8 If thou seest the oppression of the poor and violent perverting of Justice and Judgment in a Province marvel not at the matter for he that is higher than the highest regardeth and there be higher than they I say this is a great piece of the Child of Gods duty in such a time when the vilest men are exalted and the wicked walk on every side and the people of God are troden under foot as the mire in the streets It is the Will of God concerning them The just shall live by faith This is the proper time for the exercise of Faith when the eye of sense faileth Faith is the evidence of things not seen the substance of things hoped for The proper operation of Faith is where sense faileth where God is trusted and not seen Blessed are they saith our Saviour who have not seen and yet believe This is Opus diei in die suo Though the people of God ought to be careful of all duty at all times yet they ought to have a special regard to the duty of their day the seasonableness of a duty addeth much to the weight and importance of it The foundations are shaken saith the Psalmist Psal 11.3 4 What shall what can the righteous do Mark what follows The Lords Throne is in Heaven his eyes see his eye-lids try the children of men This is that life which the Saints have lived yea and they have lived well upon it When David had lost all the Amalekites had taken Ziglag and in it all that he had 1 Sam. 30.6 the Text saith David encouraged himself in God the Truth Power and Goodness of God nor did he hope in God in vain as you shall read in that story What had Hezekiah to live upon but Faith when Sennacherib had besieged him with his mighty Army and ranted against him and the God of Heaven too after that rate you read What had all the Patriarchs all the Saints and Servants of God to live upon but Faith of whom you read Heb. 11. Nor is there any life which so glorifieth God as this it eminently glorifieth three Attributes of his his Power Goodness and Truth No man will trust in a bruised Reed or lean upon a broken Staff therefore the Apostle speaking of Abrahams faith Heb. 11. saith He believed that God was able to raise him from the dead and again Rom. 3 He believed that he who promised was able to perform It giveth God the glory of his goodness for the expectation of his soul is the Mercy and Goodness of God and it also giveth God the glory of his truth for the proximate object of Faith is the Word and Promise of God O therefore let this be your care when you cannot live by sense live by Faith It is the happiness of a Child of God he hath something to live on in the worst of times Psal 34.10 The young Lions shall be hunger-bit but there is no want to them that fear the Lord. One would think that of all creatures the Lion should be most out of danger of being hunger bit The Lion the King of the Forest all other Beasts are subject to this Beast yet if an old Lion that cannot run for its prey that hath lost much of its strength may be hunger-bitten one would think a young-Lion that is in its full strength should not Yes saith the Psalmist a young Lion may be hunger-bitten those that have most of the world wicked men that have greatest honours greatest power great advantages to provide for themselves they may be hunger bitten they may come to want but there shall be no want to them who fear the Lord there shall be no time so ill but they shall live if they cannot live upon bread they shall feed upon truth How much better is the estate of a godly man than that of his neighbour It is a great point this a great piece of duty Let me therefore a little further enlarge upon it three ways 1. Shewing you how a Christian may know if he liveth this life 2. Directing you in order to it 3. Perswading it by Arguments 1. Will some Christian say how shall I know if I live this life Suffer me to give you five or Six Characters of it 1. It is a Spiritual life Our life saith the Apostle is hid with Christ in God What Christ sometimes said to his Disciples when they would have had him to have eaten something that a Child of God may say to all the world I have meat to eat you know not of His life is a spiritual life such is the life of Faith both with respect to the subject and to the object of it As to the subject of it it is the soul that lives the body lives by bread the soul lives by truth by the promise There are many that in evil days their bodies have enough to feed upon but their souls have nothing hence their hearts become like Nabals dead as a stone yea and as to the object it is spiritual too he that feedeth upon truth feedeth upon Jehovah It is the truth of God in the word which the soul liveth upon the soul of a Believer can no more live upon Words and Syllables than another soul No but it is the truth of God in these words his power and ability to perform what he hath said his inclination and good-will to the performance and his truth and faithfulness Every life in an evil day is not a life of faith some may live upon fancy and foolish hope some may live upon means with which their eye feedeth them another may live upon a Roman spirit of his own Tu
hath of his own There 's none in the world lives so free a life as he who lives by faith upon the promise his life is independent upon the whole Creation it is hidden with Christ in God But this is enough to have spoken to this piece of a Christians duty in an evil time SERMON XLVIII Psal XXXVII 1 3 4 5 7 8. Verse 1. Fret not thy self because of evil-doers neither be thou envious at the workers of iniquity Ver. 3. Trust in the Lord and do good Ver. 4. Delight thy self also in the Lord. Ver. 5. Commit thy way unto the Lord Trust also in him Ver. 7. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him fret not thy self because of him that prospereth in his way Ver. 8. Cease from anger and forsake wrath fret not thy self in any wise to do evil HAving shewed the equity and wisdom of Divine Providence in governing the affairs of the world so as that oftentimes the vilest men are exalted and the wicked walk on every side The rod of the wicked lyeth upon the lot of the righteous and they are chastned every morning and plagued every moment whiles the eyes of the wicked stand out with fatness and they have what their hearts can wish and are often suffered to devour those who are more righteous than themselves I am inquiring what the duty of a Child of God is under such a dispensation of Divine Providence and for this purpose I have chosen this text perhaps more fully expressive of it than any other single portion of Scripture Part of it I have opened I have shewed you Negatively they ought not to fret to be angry or to be envious Positively I have shewed you it in their duty to live the life of faith I now proceed 3. Thirdly It is their duty to delight themselves in the Lord. You have it here v. 4. Delight thy self also in the Lord. Such a time as this is usually a time when the Child of God cannot delight himself in the Creature it may be he hath a dear a loving Wife dutiful and pleasant Children and would delight in them but a Prison must separate him from them or an Exile or Banishment must make their Company very unpleasant to him It may be he hath a full and plentiful estate and could take a pleasure in that but he seeth that is by Peecemeal pul'd from him every day and because he will enjoy his conscience and keep peace there he shall not enjoy that property which the Laws of the Nation and his honest Labour or the gifts of his Friends have invested him with now at such a time and under such a dispensation of Providence as this is what shall a righteous man doe what is his duty in such a day my Text telleth you he shall delight himself in the Lord Delight thy self in the Lord. Delight is nothing else but the Soules Complacency Rest and Triumph in an object So that to make a thing or person the object of Delight there must be an apprehended goodness in the object and the Soul delighting it self in it pleaseth it self with it and resteth and Triumpheth and even leapeth for joy in the Enjoyment of it There is in delight more than a content pleasure and rest of the Soul in its object the Soul Triumpheth Leapeth and even Shouteth for joy God is to be considered in himself so his name is Jehovah Elshaddai a Fountain of Sufficiency Power and Goodness There are three things which must concur to make a reasonable Soul to delight in any object how good and excellent soever it be in it self 1 Propriety 2 Possession and Application 1 Propriety Let a thing or Person be in it self never so good never so excellent and let it be so apprehended by me this may render it the object indeed of my love but not of my delight For saith the Soul what is all this to me here it is impossible that a wicked man should have any Delight in God because he hath no propriety or interest in him He may possibly from Reason conclude that in God there is an infinite Power Sufficiency Goodness he can have no true notion of God but he must conclude this The first beeing must necessarily have an infiniteness of Power and consequently of Sufficiency and the Fountain of Good from whom all good floweth must necessarily have all good in him but let him be never so apprehensive of this yet so long as his Soul saith what portion have I in God God is a stranger an enemy to me he can never delight himself in God will the Hypocrete delight himself in the Almighty Job 27.10 If thou wilt return to the Almighty then shalt thou delight thy self in the Almighty None but the Child of God can delight himself in God because he alone hath an interest and propriety in him he alone can say my Lord or my God 2. Possession also is necessary to delight Suppose a man to have a right and title to an Estate and consequently a propriety in it yet if he be kept out of the Possession of it he can take no delight in it Hence it is that a Soul that hath a true right and title to Christ and a real interest in him yet if it lieth under dark apprehensions of this title and interest he cannot delight himself in the Lord for delight requires not only propriety but some degrees of the apprehension of that propriety Now while he apprehendeth that his Sins have separated betwixt God and him he wanteth such a possession as is necessary to delight 3. A third thing is Application Let a Soul have never so true a propriety in God never so true a possession of the promises of God yet if he doth not make application to his Soul of that knowledg of God which he hath and of the promises in which he hath an interest his Soul will have no delight in God or in the promises now this application is made two wayes 1. By Meditation often thinking of God Psal 104.34 and upon the promises My meditation of him saith David shall be sweet David speaks of a great delight he had in Gods Commandements they were his Meditation night and day 2. Secondly by Faith assuring the Soul and giving it certain Evidence of the truth of the Promises Now from this discourse both appeareth 1. What there is in God for a Soul to delight in in such an evil day as I have been discoursing of when his People are very low and his Enemies are very high It is that power and sufficiency which is in him by which he is able to Relieve them and that goodness which is in him and rendereth him always ready to help and willing to save so as nothing can stand betwixt us and our desired Salvation help and deliverance but only his wisdom by which he better knoweth times and seasons and what is good or bad for us than we doe The Soul knowing and
apprehending these things and likewise it s own propriety and interest in God and being put into some possession of this Propriety in a day of evil makes its application to such promises and portions of his word as he hath revealed his will in proper to such a State as the Soul is in hence it comes to be well-pleased with God in his dispensations it is brought to a sweet and pleasing rest and triumpheth in its portion in the day of greatest Evils and singeth with David Psal 73.25 Whom have I in Heaven hut thee and there is none upon the Earth that I desire besides thee My flesh and my heart faileth but God is the strength of my heart and my Portion for ever v. 26. Now this is both the duty and priviledge of every Child of God and indeed these are both great arguments to perswade it It is their priviledge for though there be a Power a Sufficiency an infinite goodness in God which is inseparable from his Divine beeing yet this not being enough to bring the Soul to a pleasure delight and complacency in an object without a Propriety Possession and Application of it it is manifest that only those Souls who have such a propriety interest and possession and are in capacity to make such an Application can delight themselves in the Lord and as this is their Priviledge so it is also their duty which will appear to you if you please to consider 1. That there is enough in God for the Soul of a Child of God to please it self with under all dispensations Shall I shew you what that is 1. Whatsoever is done in the World is done by him It is the Lord who lifteth up one and throweth down another there is no Evil in the City which he hath not done 2. In all God doth pursue the noble good and wise ends of his own glory Whatsoever the intentions of men are whether Assyria mean so or so God pursueth still the same design of his own glory being his own end in all his Efficiencies and in all his permissions and to this end he ordereth all things 3. That he is a God infinitely wise and it must be said of all his works of Providence as well as creation In wisdom he hath made them all His Judgments are indeed a great deep but they are a deep of Divine wisdome and all that God doth or suffereth to be done in the World he doth he suffereth all to be done according to his infinite wisdome and counsel 4. That he is the same in power that ever he was Once have I spoken yea twice have I heard it saith the Psalmist that power belongeth unto God so as if he pleased he could when he pleased alter the state and complexion of things and turn the wheel that now runs upon the lot of his people upon the neck of his Enemies and put wicked men in the stead of his afflicted people 5. That his love is the same that ever it was toward his people and is working towards and for them under the darkest and most gloomy dispensations of Divine Providence God loveth his children in Prisons as well as in Palaces in a poor and low as well as in a more high and prosperous condition upon dunghils as well as upon Thrones now lay all this together and Judg if a child of God hath not ground enough to delight himself in the Lord under all dispensations of Divine Providence It is not enough to please his Soul and to bring it to a rest for him to think what is now done in the World or in that part of the World where my Lot is cast my heavenly Father doth it all and he ordereth all things for his own Glory he is infinitely wise and knoweth how to fetch out his honour from all he hath all power in his hand and can turn his hand upon the little ones upon the poor and afflicted of his flock whensoever he pleaseth and he loveth me as well in this low afflicted poor despised estate as he did when the world went better with me and I had more credit and repute in it more of the riches honours power and enjoyments of it than I now have Is not here ground enough for a Soul under such dispensations to delight himself in the Lord especially considering the promise in the Text Delight thy self in the Lord and he shall give thee the desires of thy heart But besides this how often doth God call to us for this duty Psal 33. v. 1. Rejoyce in the Lord O you righteous Joel 2.23 Fear not O land be glad and rejoyce for the Lord will do great things v. 21. Be glad then you children of Sion and rejoyce in the Lord your God Phil. 3.1 ch 4.4 Rejoyce in the Lord. Rejoyce in the Lord and again I say rejoyce We shall find this hath been the constant refuge and practice of the people of God David his third Psalm was composed when he fled from Absolom his 7th Psalm when he was afflicted with the words of Cush the Benjamite his 34. Psalm when he changed his behaviour before Abimelech the Philistim King his 52. Psalm upon occasion of the villany of Doeg the Edomite his 54. when the Ziphites made a discovery of them to Saul his 56. Psalm when the Philistines took him in Gath. The former part of his life until the Lord setled him upon the Throne of Israel and Judah was indeed nothing else but a time of trouble and great afflictions when his enemies were very high and he was very low he had little or nothing in the creature to delight in now at this time the Psalmes tell you his relief and practice which was to delight himself in God Thus Habbackkuk ch 3. v. 17. Although the fig-tree shall not blossome neither shall be fruit in the Vine the labour of the Olive shall faile and the fields shall yield no meat the flocks shall be cut off from the fold and there shall be no herd in the stall that is though all sensible relief and comfort shall fail yet I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my Salvation To press you to this duty I shall only mind you of what I have already told you 1. That there can be no such providences befal any Child of God but he may find enough under them still to delight in God when he can see nothing for a Sensual eye to delight in he may yet find enough for his Spiritual eye to delight in Is it not matter of pleasure to thee to think Well let times goe how they will I have a God to go to though saith Job Wormes shall eat this body yet in my flesh I shall see God To think that now God is but doing his own work and though men oppress yet he that is higher then the highest considereth the matter To think that God is able to turn the ball when he pleaseth that in the
mean time he is in the love and favour of God he may have communion with God and God will provide for him These and an hundred such things as these afford matter enough for the child of God to delight himself in the Lord at all times 2. Consider again how equitable it is that Children should at all times delight themselves in him because he at all times delighteth himself in them whom the Lord loveth he chastneth as a Father his Son in whom he delighteth his chastening is not a dispensation of wrath but of wisdome Observe how he speaketh to his afflicted Church Isa 54.11 O thou afflicted tossed with tempests and not comforted behold I will lay thy stones with fair colours and lay thy foundations with saphires Christ was anointed to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion to give unto them beauty for ashes the oyl of joy for mourning and the garment of gladness for the spirit of heaviness Isa 64.1 3. Though his people have lien amongst the Pots as the Psalmist expresseth it yet he hath a pleasure in them 3. Let me Thirdly offer to your consideration the advantage of this delighting your selves in the Lord in a day of Evil. It would arme the Soul against all the temptations of an evil time 1. It would abstract the mind from the world we see if the Husband delights in his Wife or a Father on his Child how it draweth off their hearts from all other objects that all are nothing to them in comparison of that object in which the great delight of their heart is 2. It would fill the mind of a man so as it should say to all the world as Esay I have enough I have enough keep what thou hast unto thy self or as Jacob whose delight was in Joseph It is enough is Joseph yet alive It is enough 3. It would give the Soul a rest The mind of a man resteth in the object of its delight 4. Finally it would wonderfully quiet the mind as to the Will of God we are usually satisfied with what is done by those persons whom we principally love and delight in Let this therefore be our study our great labour and business to bring up our hearts to a delight in the Lord. Study his attributes that you may know what he is in his Power Goodness Truth Wisdom c. Study his promises which concern this life or that which is to come particularly those which more specially sute thy circumstances Consider the examples of the Saints and Servants of God in thy circumstances meditate upon these things whet them upon thy heart say often to thy self This God is in himself Thus and thus he hath revealed himself and he who hath said it is Power Goodness Truth c. But this is enough to have spoken to this other piece of a Christians duty under such dispensations of Divine Providence I proceed to another piece of Duty 4. Depart from evil and do good You have it vers 8. Fret not thy self in any wise to do Evil. And vers 3. Trust in the Lord and do good you have them both together Psal 34.12 and 1 Pet. 3.12 Now this doing of good is a very large term according to the intent of all that duty which is required of us by the precepts of the first and second table There is a duty which we owe unto God all which is comprehended under the first and great commandement Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy Soul and all thy Strength Thus that man doth good that loveth and feareth God that prayeth unto him and performeth all those acts of homage and worship which God hath in his word required as much and as zealously and warmly in the worst as in the best of times this is properly a doing of good it is honest and just and what God requireth of us it bringeth profit and advantage to our selves it will bring comfort sweetness and peace to the Soul So that take good in what notion you will this is a true doing good Again there is a good which may be done to our selves or to others the Apostle commandeth us to do good to all Gal. 6.10 thus our Saviour commandeth us to do good to them that hate us and the Apostle Heb. 13.16 commands us not to forget to do good and to distribute and it is one piece of our doing good Isa 1.17 to judge the fatherless and relieve the oppressed Further yet there is a good of our general calling This is comprehensive of the whole duty of a man considered in no further capacity than that of a creature towards God or that of a Christian relating to the Lord Jesus Christ and owning him There is a good of our particular calling respecting us with reference to our Relations as Magistrates or Subjects Husbands or Wives Ministers or flock Parents or children Masters or Servants Finally there is a good of a particular season the works and business of our day relating to the particular circumstances and dispensations of Providence under which it pleaseth God to bring us Having thus far discoursed of good and distinguished of that it is easie to understand what Evil is It is either the omission of some of these duties or the commission or doing some things which are opposite to them I take the precepts of the text in the large sence A Christian ought to do all manner of good and to abstain from all omissions of any duty or commissions of any thing which is contrary to that duty which God expecteth from him either in his general calling or in his particular Relation he is at all times to eschew evil and to do good The precepts of God Psal 37.26 Isa 1.16 17. 1 Pet. 3.12 concern him and oblige him at all times but it is their more especial duty with reference to evil times and indeed this is the readiest way to make times better Evil times are so called upon a double account either with respect to sin or to punishment These times are evil times wherein sin aboundeth and the love of many groweth cold now our sins contribute to the aboundings of sin in the time wherein we live we use to say that if every man would sweep his own door the streets would be clean Times are also called evil with respect to punishment to some judgments of God that are abroad in the world now for us to do good to depart from evil and do good is the way to have the judgments of God averted from us Wash you saith God Isa 1.16 17. make you clean put away the evil of your doings from you come let us reason together though your sins be as scarlet you shall be as snow though they were as crimson you shall be as white as wooll You have it vers 6. Do good and thou shall dwell in the land and as we Translate it verily thou shalt be fed Zeph. 2.3 Seek you the Lord all you
1. A silence from passion mourning within our selves fretting vexing c. a man breaketh this silence when he is overborn with fear or grief or anger These three ways the Soul is disturb'd and maketh a noise under the dispensations of God which breaketh this Religious silence 1. By Anger fretting fuming and vexing himself at Gods dispensations This was Moses and Aarons failing at the waters of Meribah and Jonas his error when the Gourd failed him as to its shelter But of this I have spoken fully already when I handled the Negative part of a Christians duty under Gods dispensations of nature 2. Fear Immoderate fear is another passion that spoileth this silence of the Soul fear maketh an Earthquake within us and causeth great unquietness in our Spirits The Soul that is overborn with fears never keepeth silence 3. A third passion is immoderate grief this also breaketh the Souls silence and quiet Psal 42. Why art thou cast down O my soul why art thou disquieted within me So as that Soul that under Gods dispensations of this nature either fumeth vexeth or fretteth at God because of them or is overwhelmed with immoderate or unreasonable fears or is overwhelmed or drowned in immoderate grief that Soul doth not keep silence but that Soul only keepeth a due silence to God which under such Providences abideth in a calm and quiet temper neither shaken with fear nor overcome with immoderate grief or sorrow This is now silentium animae the silence of the Soul before and unto God 2. But there is also a silence of the Tongue this is a piece of this Religious silence this is opposed to murmuring cursing and blaspheming of God to speaking hardly of God as if he were an hard Master and did not deal justly or equally with us to any speaking which is derogatory to the honour and glory of God all this now falleth under the first general duty by which I open a silent waiting for God which I call a free and voluntary submission to the good will and pleasure of God without any disturbance of passion or any sinful expressions of our Tongues 2. A Second thing wherein this duty lyeth is A steady dependance upon God for the fulfilling of his Promises made to his people in such a condition he that hath nothing to depend upon or trust to will not wait so as there can be no patient waiting where there is no secret trust and dependance This is indeed the proper exercise of Faith I have spoken fully to it when I opened the life of Faith in such a time 3. A Third thing in which this duty lies is in the Souls expectation and looking out for God Early in the morning saith David Psal 5.3 I will direct my prayer unto thee and will look up Thus when Habakkuk in the first Chapter of his Prophecy had put up his Prayer to God he saith Chap. 2. that he would go up to his watch-Tower A man goeth up to a Tower or to some high place to see whether a friend or an enemy be coming yea or no It is a piece of our duty in our waiting upon God under his dark dispensations of Providence while we are waiting to be also looking up and living in the expectation of the fulfilling of those promises which we have discerned and fixed our souls by Faith upon and which we have been praying for Our hearts should not be dead we must take heed of saying I look for no good the heart is dead when it comes to that The Soul that waits upon God under dark Providences must be looking for good and confident in its expectations of it from God 4. Lastly This waiting must be in the use of such means as God hath appointed us for the obtaining of the mercy design'd and promised and therefore Psal 37. v. 34. they are put together wait upon the Lord and keep his way Now you have this duty of silent waiting upon God opened to you The Sum of it is this It is the duty of a child of God under these Providences to keep his Soul from being overmuch shaken and overcome with fears or drowned in grief from fretting fuming and vexing at Gods dealings to keep his tongue from all murmuring all foolish and unadvised speaking with his lips to keep his Soul in a quiet dependance upon God for the fulfilling of his word daily looking up for him after the use of such means as he by the Law of Nature or in his revealed will hath appointed for the obtaining of the mercy or good thing which is the matter of our desires and he hath made the Subject of his Promise and consequently the Object of our Faith You have heard your duty Now give me leave to plead with all you that hear me this day for the Practice of it I have in this Discourse been exhorting to several duties of a child of God under dark dispensations of Providence when wicked men have been set up high increased in riches honour every way prospered and the people of God are kept in low despised afflicted states and conditions I remember the Apostle calls to us to add to our faith knowledg to both vertue to vertue temperance c. Do you also add to your not fretting not being angry and envious a steady exercise of Faith and dependance on God to your dependance on God and trusting in him an universal departing from evil and doing that which is good and to that a patient quiet waiting for God I shall in order to your better performance of this offer some counsel and then press it with some arguments and so shut up this Discourse 1. In the first place There are three things which in order to your fulfilling this point of duty I shall commend to you to get a through acquaintance with 1. Be acquainted with Gods name It is David's expression Psal 52.9 I will wait upon thy name for it is good before thy Saints It is the Name of God which we wait upon now it is reasonable in order to our waiting upon his name that we should know his name for as the Psalmist saith They that know thy name will put their trust in thee and truly they that do not know the Lords name will never wait upon him Well you will say What is his name I answer whatsoever he hath revealed and made himself known by or to be that is his name I might instance in many particulars His name is God allsufficient Gen. 17.1 I am the Almighty God His name is I am the unchangeable God His name is Jehovah the soveraign Lord God and therefore we ought to wait upon him His name is The Lord the Lord Gracious Merciful c. they that know the Lords name that are throughly acquainted with the nature of God as he hath in his word made himself known to us they will wait upon God they will see it a reasonable thing that they should wait upon God 2. In the
God made us any promise that he will convert and Eternally save all our Children on whose behalf we labour and wrestle with God but as Hannah obtained her Child by Prayer upon which account it was that she named him Samuel Beg'd of God so I doubt not but that there are many good Parents that by Prayer have from God obtained the Conversion and Regeneration of their Children and that early that the Lord might as it were shew them that he gave in the Souls of their Children to their prayers and their godly instructions exhortations reproofs catechizing c. If we should never see grace appearing in tender years we should conclude it in vain during those years to use any means with them tending to such an end The Apostle telleth Timothy 2 Tim. 3.15 That from a Child he had known the Scriptures and 2 Tim. 1.5 He mentioneth an unfained faith that was both in his Grandmother Lois and in his Mother Eunice and he was perswaded in him also in him doubtless in great measure by their means God honouring their labours with the conversion of Timothy 2. Secondly Possibly God doth intend some elect vessels of his no long time in the World God intended Abijam the Son Jeroboam but a short time in the World and therefore there was early found in him some good thing I observed that amongst all the Patriarchs which are reckoned up Gen. 5. He of them who before Enos lived the shortest time lived 895 years the rest lived longer only Enoch lived but 365 about a third part of the time of the other It is said He walked with God and was not for God took-him and we see this of times in our experience God taketh away those in their youth whom he calleth in their Childhood and youth You have an observation that beautiful Children or Children of composed serious countenances when very young or such as being very young are very toward and fond of their Books seldome live long how true that is I cannot say but you shall I believe more certainly observe it of such who earlily have their hearts changed and are converted unto God God setteth those to work young to whom he hath not appointed long time to work of all whom God hath given unto Christ he must lose none and though Infants elect are saved upon the Covenant of grace before it appeareth to the World that they have laid hold upon it or are in a capacity in order to it to exercise their reason yet that is not Gods usual way where he alloweth to any a longer life till they come to exercise their reason he expecteth they should keep the ordinary road to Heaven by repentance and faith and in order to this he worketh upon their hearts betimes giving them repentance unto life and faith to lay hold upon the Lord Jesus Christ 3. Thirdly Possibly God doth intend some a longer time in the World but hath designed them for some great and eminent service in it such the Lord useth to call betimes I will shew it you in two or three eminent instances The first is that of Samuel Samuel was to be a great Prophet yea and a Judge in Israel God accordingly betimes took him unto his more special tutorage he was designed by his Mother and from the very time of his weaning by her dedicated unto the Lord and the Lord while he was yet a Child eminently communicated his mind to him as you read in the story 1 Sam. 2.3 chap. Josiah was a Second God had designed him for a great and eminent service he was Prophesied of many years before he was born and that by name as who should work a great and eminent Reformation and he did do that God earlily prepares him for it he was but 8 years old when he began to reign and he began to seek the Lord God of his Fathers and when was but 16 years of age he began a work of Reformation of a long and most grosly corrupted state Timothy is a third God had designed him for an Evangelist to have a great hand in settling the Gospel-Church God called him very young from a Child he knew the Holy Scriptures which are able to make the man of God wise unto Salvation To these I may add an instance of an eminent Prince in our own Nation King Edward the Sixth who laid the first Principles of our reformation King Henry the 8th did little and what he did seemed rather to be out of interest so biassing him than otherwise God was pleased in his very young and tender years to seize upon his heart He had intended him as the event proved but a short life and he had laid out for him a very great work to purge such an Augean Stable as the Popish rabble had left Two observations I have made upon reading the Scripture 1. That when God had long kept some women his servants barren they ordinarily proved the Mothers of very eminent Children Rachel Manoahs wife Hanna and Elizabeth are instances of that 2. That God very often when he designed Persons for some eminent work prepared them for it by an early seizing upon their hearts and sanctifying them from the Womb unto himself And this will appear to you very reasonable upon a double account 1. Those which do a great deal of work for God must have a great deal of time to do it in All humane actions you know require time and a proportion of time according to the work 2. Those who are to excel in work must not be much blotted in their previous conversation Jacob in his blessing of Reuben Gen. 49. v. 4. hath this expression Reuben shall not excel because he went up unto his Fathers bed he went up unto my Couch God seldome alloweth any one eminently to excel whose youth hath been stained with many eminent and notorious blots they may come to Heaven upon their conversion but they shall not excel in the world I can think but of one instance in Scripture to the contrary which is that of Saul he was a persecutor himself telleth us and a blasphemer yet received to mercy but he saith it was because he did it ignorantly St. Paul's persecution was not rooted in a malice against godliness and holiness but in an error of judgment he saith of himself that he verily thought that he ought to do many things against Jesus of Nazareth There is a great deal of difference betwixt scandalous sinners one man is prophane and a persecutor only by a mistake another man is so by principle St. Paul was of the former sort 't is true he was a prophane and mischievous persecutor a prophane blasphemer but it was by a mistake not that he had any prejudice or ill Opinion of the ways of holiness which Christs Doctrine led to for he was never that we read of scandalous in those things which the light of Nature Reason or the Law of Moses required or forbad but only as
that it may live and not dye God calleth into his Vineyard at several hours some he calleth at the Sixth some at the Nineth some at the Eleventh hour Happy thrice happy are they whom God findeth at the Sixth hour in their youth and persuadeth to go into his Vineyard they ordinarily find not so hard a labour of the new-birth they have the priviledg of a longer familiarity and acquaintance with God they have more opportunities of doing God service God often honoreth them to do him some more eminent service but if you have slipped that hour if it be the Ninth hour nay if it be in the wane of your life if it be towards Evening with you that you have nothing to do but to repent and dye singing the Song of old Simeon Now Lord let thy servant depart in peace for mine eyes have seen thy Salvation yet thou hast no cause to discourage thy self God doth not work upon all Souls at one and the same period of time Great sinners have no reason to discourage themselves the gate to Heaven may appear something straiter to you than unto others you may have an harder work of it it is an hard thing for those that are accustomed to do evil to do well but yet if God will give you an heart to repent if the Lord shall change your hearts and incline you to turn unto him there is mercy with God even for you God can men make to bring forth fruit in their old age Vse 3. Lastly and with that I shall shut up this discourse This speaketh aloud unto all such as have the charge of others as Parents Masters Tutors and Governours to be daily labouring with them for the good of their Souls using all possible means to bring them unto God It is Solomons advice Ecc. 11.6 In the morning sow thy seed and in the evening let not thy hand be slack for thou knowest not which shall prosper this or that or whether both shall be alike good you that are Parents of Children Masters of Servants in any relation Governours of youth see what an ingagement lyeth upon you to bring up your Children to Reading the word Catechizing to bring them to hear faithful Preachers sow the seeds of Spiritual learning and instruction in them in the Morning of their lives hearken not to those who would perswade you that Catechizing in your families is useless and that a Notional knowledg signifieth nothing until God come to work in their hearts that is true but ill applyed when used as a discouragement to the use of the means of knowledg God doth his work by the use of means on our parts and Preaching is not the only means God sometimes in the conversion of sinners maketh his way to their hearts by their heads sanctifying notions of truth dropt into Souls of persons in their tender years and reflecting them many years after upon the conscience you know not which shall prosper this or that use them to read the Scriptures to be examined questioned and catechised out of the Scriptures to hear lively and powerful preaching you know not which shall prosper in order to the conversion of their Souls and turning them to God this or that whether reading or preaching or Family-instruction God that can work without means useth as you have heard a variety of means and doth not limit himself to this or that Or whether both may not prove alike good God may use one means to begin another to perfect one to plant another to water one for laying the foundation another for building thereon and laying the corner-stone and yet when the building is finished you shall see reason enough to cry Not unto us O Lord not unto us but to thy name be given the glory to cry Grace Grace unto it The Knowing person when converted hath usually if not guilty of notorious sins against his light the easiest new-birth and the most quiet and peaceable life Many more doubts and fears trouble those that are more imperfect in their knowledg of the things of God than trouble others O let it not be said of you as it was said of Herod upon occasion of the killing of his own Child amongst the rest of the Infants That it was better to be Herods Hog than his Child Let it not be said of any of you that it is better to be your Horse or Swine or other Beast than your Child or Servant or Scholar For your Beasts you provide all things sutable to their Natures and capacities O remember your Children have Spiritual beings and are born into the World with a capacity of Eternity nay under a certain ordination to a miserable or blessed Eternity SERMON LIII Isaiah 28.29 This also cometh from the Lord who is wonderful in Counsel and excellent in working THE Particle This in the front of my Text is relative to what went before where the Prophet had been speaking of some works of Divine Providence and those but of an inferiour Nature if compared with others the discretion by which men having divers sorts of Grain and Seeds are taught to get them out of their husks and ears by instruments not always the same but suted to the respective Grain or Seed they intend to get out Of this it is that the Text speaks This discretion and saith it cometh from the Lord who is wonderful in Counsel So that I desire you to observe that my following discourses which I shall bottom on this Text are not founded on the first words and the relative Particle This but upon the latter where Gods wonderfulness in Counsel and excellency in working are join'd together Gods excellency in the workings of Providence floweth from his wonderful Counsel and if such little instincts as the foregoing verses speak of be from the Lord the Lords workings and from a wonderful Counsel an easie argumentation will conclude that Gods dispensations of special grace by the hand of his Providence must needs be the effects of infinite wisdom and proceed from the Lord who is wonderful in Councel which is the point I have in hand and to vindicate Divine wisdom from our exceptions against it because of the variety which God useth in his dispensations of it and the inequal distributions of it to the Children of men I have spoken already to the varieties of Providence in the dispensations of the first grace by which a Soul is converted and turned from sin unto God in which work the Soul is meerly passive I come now to speak to those dispensations of Spiritual grace wherein the Soul is not meerly passive but active as to these also we shall observe a great variety in the motions of Divine Providence and a great inequality in the distributions of it of which I shall give you some account and then shut up the discourse To this inequality of distribution good Christians often find it an hard thing to reconcile their thoughts and although God must be allowed to have
est Organon according to the subject it worketh in and by our own Spiritual actions we are prepared for the receptions of these Spiritual habits which are not the influxes of the first grace but of further grace and distributed to Souls which have their senses exercised to discern good and evil should God grant out equal measures of this grace unto all there could be no such thing as groweth in grace no such persons as Babes in grace the Kingdom of grace would be like that of glory in which there is no Infant of days nor old men of years and indeed this were enough to have spoken to this case if God did equally dispense out Spiritual strength to those who are of equal standing in the ways of God for though God will give Heaven at last which answereth the Penny in the Parable to him who comes into the Lords Vineyard at the Eleventh hour yet he doth not give equal degrees of peace and strength to those that come in to his Vineyard and work there but one hour with those who have wrought all the heat of the day Grace strengthens by exercise as habits are strengthened and confirmed by frequent acts But yet this is not enough to say in this case for all those that be of equal years and standing in the ways of God are not of an equal faith nor have an equal zeal fervency and intension of affections Nay often Christians of a much younger standing find more Spiritual strength to mortifie their corruptions and perform Spiritual duties than those who have been of many years standing in the ways of God 3. Thirdly Therefore God doubtless doth it many times to punish sin and guilt in his own People either in the neglect of ordinances and duty or some other moral miscarriages Sin doubly infeebleth a Christians Soul 1. As it Naturally deadneth the heart towards God and discourageth its exercises upon him 2. As it provoketh God to withdraw himself Sin is the aversion of the Soul from God and its Conversion and turning to the imbraces of the Creature hence it is impossible that the Soul that delighteth in sin should equally breath after and delight in God as that Soul that hateth sin and is more perfectly turned from it Sin quencheth the Holy fire in the Soul it also discourageth the Soul from its confidence in God and in its addresses to God it makes the conscience fly in a mans face and repeat to him the words of the Psalmist Psal 50. What hast thou to do to declare my Statutes or that thou shouldest take my Covenant in thy mouth seeing thou hatest instruction and castest my law behind thee Or in the Words of the Apostle What fellowship hath light with darkness God with Belial Righteousness with unrighteousness Sin enfeebleth the Soul in all its addresses to God and discourageth it in all it exercises And 2. It provoketh God your iniquities have separated betwixt God and you saith the Prophet and your sins have made him to hide his face from you It was said by a great Commander of Souldiers That he was never afraid to dye but when his conscience smote him for some guilt of sin when the conscience of a Christian reflecteth guilt upon him he is discouraged from exercising any faith and confidence in God and ashamed in the duty of prayer to go unto God There is no Christian but findeth this in his own experience that the conscience of sin doth wonderfully prejudice his Holy boldness in his approaches to the Throne of Grace How weak is thine heart saith the Lord God seeing thou doest all these things the work of an imperious whorish Woman Ezek. 16.30 It is indeed a weakness to sin and weakness to any Spiritual acting is the first fruit of sin in the Soul for what are the Souls exercises upon God but Holy Meditation Faith Hope Spiritual desires delight a fervency zeal or heat of the whole Soul in Gods service Now sin rendring the Soul guilty and defiled how is it possible it should delight in or desire communion with an Holy God exercise any strong Faith and Hope in that God who hath declared his wrath against sinners or care to draw near to God when it apprehendeth God looking upon it afar off with an angry countenance This is another thing which maketh this motion of Divine Providence reasonable that God by it may punish the failings errors and miscarriages of People 4. Fourthly It appeareth reasonable upon the Consideration of the great differences of Christians in their practise of Godliness The promises of strength are made to those that wait upon the Lord for it Psal 27.14 wait on the Lord be of good courage and he shall strengthen thine heart wait I say on the Lord. Isa 40.31 They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength they shall mount up with wings like the Eagles they shall run and not be weary and they shall walk and not faint Now it is true every Child of God waiteth upon the Lord but every one waiteth not alike nor walketh with God to the same degree Experience will tell every Christian that the more strictly and closely and constantly he walketh with God the stronger he groweth in all Duty Infused habits are advantaged by exercise as the fire that kindled the wood for sacrifices upon the Altar first came down from Heaven but then was to be kept alive by the care and labour of the Priests so habits of Spiritual Grace are indeed infused from God yea and must also be mantained by daily influences from God yet with a concurrence also of our own labour in waiting upon God and exercising our selves unto Godliness and the more a Christian doth so exercise himself the more strong he shall grow Job 17.9 The righteous shall hold on in his way and he that hath clean hands shall add strength or as our translation reads it grow stronger and stronger The more a man excelleth in acts of Righteousness the more he groweth in Spiritual strength ordinarily therefore men and women which have most communion with God and walk more closely with him have most strength to Spiritual Duties 5. Christians differences in Knowledge and Experiences of God is one great reason of their differences as to Spiritual strength 1. Their difference in Knowledge our external acts of Piety such as Prayer as to the true and excellent performance of them do depend upon our internal motions towards God as is our Faith our Love our Hope so will our fervency in Spirit in Prayer and the exercises of our Faith or hope or any other grace be for those inward habits are the principles from which our actions flow the powers which in action we exert and put forth Now these inward workings of our Souls do very much depend upon our knowledge It is true they are not the Natural and necessary fruits or consequents of knowledge Knowledge must be sanctified before it will produce any such effects many a